Can gelatin change color of butterfly pea tea?

From the Gelatin Manufacturer's Institute of America "Gelatin Handbook": https://nitta-gelatin.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/GMIA_Gelatin-Handbook.pdf

Gelatin in solution is amphoteric, capable of acting either as an acid or as a base. In acidic solutions gelatin is positively charged and migrates as a cation in an electric field.  In alkaline solutions gelatin is negatively charged and migrates as an anion.  The pH of the intermediate point, where the net charge is zero and no movement occurs, is known as the Isoelectric Point (IEP) (28).  Type A gelatin has a broad isoelectric range between pH 7 and 9. Type B has a narrower isoelectric range between pH 4.7 and 5.4 (29-32)

Emphasis mine.
So it does not seem impossible that your various brands of gelatin were produced by different processes and that one would be more acidic than the other. If you had a Type A gelatin and your friend a low-pH Type B, that would explain what you were seeing.
I do not think your method of heating had any effect.


I usually assume that if the bottle doesn't specify (and you bought it off a shelf, not out of a refrigerated area), then it's safe to store in the cupboard.  You can also ask at the store if you want to be sure, though I suspect unless it's a small, specialty store with knowledgeable personnel, they will err on the side of caution and just tell you to refrigerate it.

For your specific examples: Soy sauce is definitely fine to store in the cupboard, though some brands will recommend refrigeration for "best quality".  Fish sauce I'd usually store in the fridge once opened.


According to the nutella nutritional fact label, 1 tbsp = 19g.

There are 16 tbsp in a cup so 16 * 19g = 304g


can i put hot soup in mason jar for travel

I have had mason jars break when filling with hot items.  It is best to warm the jar first, just by running hot water into it.  A someone else pointed out, a mason jar is, of course, not insulated.  You mention this is to take to work, I assume for lunch or dinner.  I also want to point out that you need to consider food safety, as your soup will soon be in the "danger zone."  You should read this.  It is much safer to chill the soup to refrigeration temperature, pack it in a cooler, or refrigerate at work, then reheat at meal time.


Hmmm...

You can try baking powder. Personally, I am not used to puffy arepas, they are usually dense, and different totally from tortillas; but if you want to try, it would go better with baking powder than with yeast.

Try to precook them in the oven (low - mid) before putting them in the 'budare' / griddle.

Sumito Estevez is a well-known venezuelan chef, I would suggest you to check this one.

http://elgourmet.com/receta/tres-desayunos-arepa-granola-y-omelette


please help fixing my portugese sauce (a kind of korma-like non-spicy curry sauce served in hk and macau)

At a guess, though you need to clarify - not 'rich' enough & probably thin in both flavour & texture, with a grainy edge.

Yoghurt adds acid, rehydrated coconut is absolutely no substitute for coconut cream.

Rehydrated coconut won't provide either the flavour or the texture of coconut cream. It will leave the sauce thin yet slightly 'gritty'.

Yoghurt is going to add an acid edge that this sauce doesn't need.

Pressure-cooking rather than frying off in an open pan then allowing to simmer will keep too much liquid level in the sauce, exacerbating both the above points.

Once you've corrected those, if you want 'more curry but no more heat' then try adding some garam masala.
I'd also add garlic & a little light soy sauce.

If you're not having this with the traditional chicken, then you're also missing the ingredients the chicken would have been marinated in - soy, shaoxing, ginger - so maybe some of those too.

You're also missing the oil that the frying would have added, but if you don't want to add that, the coconut cream will have to be the only fatty mouth-feel ingredient. Lose all the fat, lose the mouth-feel of the sauce, I'm afraid.
You could cut the coconut cream to coconut milk, but I think that would still come out too 'skinny' in taste & texture.

Personally, I'd double the curry roux, but I just like more kick than traditional in this type of sauce ;) It will help the texture, though.


Is pork ok if seared and left in crockpot 1hr before turning on?

It should be fine. There are no absolutes in food safety, only probabilities, and the probability of pathogens growing to dangerous levels should be well under any safety thresholds. Searing first should make the surface of the meat an instant kill environment. It's not ideal that you sat at room temperature for an hour before starting the cooker, but your cooking environment should heat up sufficiently within a tolerable time frame to prevent new bacterial growth.


Freeze before sous vide or sous vide, defrost then sous vide

This could work either way, and in part, depends on how you like to prepare them.  Since you would likely cook them low temp for a long time to take advantage of the cooking technique, I would marinate or brine (your preferred preparation),sous vide, then freeze.  That way, you would only have to thaw (or re-therm in bath) and finish (sear of some sort) to have a meal ready in less time than the original preparation


What am I doing wrong soft boiling my eggs?

If the yolk is settling to one side (typically the wide, bottom end) try placing the carton on its side in the fridge the day before you use them. This will move the yolk back towards the centre.

Also, ensure your eggs are cold before and start them in boiling water. This will allow the whites to set much quicker than the yolks, preventing the yolks from migrating while they cook. Cook in a covered saucepan with about 1/2 inch of water for about 6 1/2 minutes. As you have been doing, immediately cool in an ice bath or under cold running water.

Finally, depending on your location, equipment, and how set you want your eggs, you may have to adjust your cooking time. Try taking the eggs out 30 seconds apart and see what provides the best time for the results you want (a digital timer will help here), then stick with that in the future.


Just look out for artificial flavorings; a lot of bacon comes with artificial "hickory" or "maple" flavors, which are disgusting and often taste like chemicals.  The better bacon won't include such things.  Nitrate-free bacon is important if you're sensitive to nitrates.  The fat content is more of a matter of taste than a hard-and-fast rule; personally, I like a fair amount of fat because I like to cook other things in the rendered fat!  Same for the thickness.  If you like very crispy bacon, you may want your bacon slightly thinner than the "thick-cut" styles that command a price premium.


Different ovens and air-fryers perform differently, hence I don't think there is a one- size-fits-all kind of a conversion factor. In my case, I roast a kilo of peanuts in one go and it takes 22-24 minutes and another 9 minutes of the free heat from the cooling down. I have another air-fryer that stops operating at the set time and does not offer free cooling down heat and so I air-fry for perhaps 29-30 minutes.

I suggest you invest in a kilograms of peanuts and experiment with the duration. Be prepared to write off losses. Also, do not to expose the air-fryer to the sun. You fryer will suffer for it.

Cashew nuts and hazel nuts brown faster, about half the time of peanuts. You absolutely do not want to roast as long as for peanuts.

Using drum is undoubtedly superior to tray. With a tray, you probably need to stir at least once to get a more even roasting and yet still can't beat drum-roasting.

You can also roast green coffee beans with drums.


Every Kitchen needs a meat thermometer. Little too late in this case but it would have saved you here. I never used one at home until after I started working in a restaurant that only had a flat top and a convection oven with burgers on the menu. I got a relatively cheap one for $5-10 at Wal-mart and it does the job.  Another option for next time is to check your meat often and poke it with a spoon, once it feels firm throughout, like the skin on the back of your hand when you make a fist, it's done.


Can I make my dough for dinner rolls ahead in bread maker and refrigerate overnight?

Yes, you can refrigerate after the machine has kneaded the dough. Cover the bowl tightly. In the morning, take the dough out of the fridge and let it 'wake up' in a warm place for an hour, cut and shape, then either prove them again or bake straight away (a second prove will give you a lighter texture).


There are a couple of things in that recipe that appear to be used as an egg replacement:

Pumpkin puree - usual rule (as far as I'm aware) is to use 1/4 cup per egg. This is particularly good for adding moisture, so reducing this would be a good start. Baking powder can also be used in conjunction with this to leaven the mixture.
Coconut oil can also used as an egg substitute in the right context. Honey (or, as this is a vegan recipe, maple syrup) can also be used in conjunction with this, as can baking powder. However, baking powder and to a lesser extent, honey/maple syrup could still appear in a recipe before the egg has been substituted.

All in all, my suggestion would be to first reduce the amount of pumpkin puree (or possibly even remove the pumpkin puree entirely).

An alternative (although possibly a less effective one) to this, or if removing the pumpkin puree doesn't manage the job, would be to cut down on the amount of coconut oil. As you've mentioned that you like maple syrup, cutting down on that would be the last resort.

There is a question of whether the baking powder is also used to help with the lack of eggs, but baking powder often appears in recipes with eggs as well, so qualifying whether or not to get rid of baking powder is more likely to be dependent on the flour (self raising or not) used.


Is it bad to eat cheese after its expiry date?

Speaking in general about expiry dates, because I haven't seen them posted in other answers to this or other questions...

Expiry dates are (in some jurisdictions) entirely optional for most goods, and determined by the manufacturer (one example, anecdotally).

Another recent-ish article, which I found enlightening, from National Geographic that suggests that strict adherence to these "dates" results in wasted food that's perfectly safe. There's no doubt a balance between economics... and helpful suggestions for general health/safety.

There's clearly also examples and counterexamples: food that's spoiled before the expiry date because of poor storage, contamination, etc.; unopened shelf-stable food that might be safe indefinitely.

Plenty more questions about this topic, in general, also by searching SA for "expiry" and/or "expiration" in addition to the other suggested search topics.

Be safe out there! :)


How do I achieve a light and even 'dusting' of paprika?

I use a 3 inch Tea Infuser Ball and hold it at a good distance above my cookies when dusting powdered sugar so that it will spread out even further. It will most likely work for paprika as well.


What is the difference between French and British cuts of beef?

The simplest way to see the difference is to compare the cut diagrams:

British

French

Images courtesy of Wikipedia - Cut of Beef

The main difference is in how certain areas are sub-divided. We can see that faux-filet is part of the British sirloin, and entrecote is partly forerib and partly sirloin.


Why my croissant dough are always having butter going out during folding

Having some butter squidge out is par for the course.
However, if this is more than can be folded back in (I've seen beautiful croissants from mis-shapen dough) then the question is: was your butter pliable or brittle? Brittle so that chunks fall out like ice sheets?

More pliable butter is achieved by adding 10% it's weight in flour (lower gluten variety).

Also 30min chilling is optimistic. Doable with a blast chiller and very cold tray. The whole 'tourieren' of 4X was done over several hours at my apprenticeship bakery. The later folds rested longer and longer.

Th final roll out for cutting too benefits from being relaxed enough to get a larger triangle cut that doesn't immediately shrink back.


My gravy for my mash potatoes tastes bland

The recipe says "Salt and pepper to taste" maybe you did not add enough ?

In any cases, the recipe looks really bland; there's not much flavor in there.

You need to build the flavors from the start.

This is what I would do.

I'd cook the onions first to golden brown and put aside.
I'd cook the meat until brown and crispy (add some salt and pepper)
Add the onions back to the meat.
(my addition) Add some tomato purée; add some herbs, add some spices; continue cooking until "dry"
Continue with the recipe, adjust seasoning.


The vinegar smell is an indicator that your sourdough is growing up in a too cold environment. Without diving into the details of the various lactobacillae found in the average sourdough cultures, the simple rule is that a cooler environment favors the strains that produce more acetic acid while warmer temperatures are better for the production of lactic acid - the former being the acid in vinegar and the latter the much milder acid known from fermented milk products.

As immediate measure, find a warmer place for you starter. Caveat: warmer temperatures will also mean more yeast activity, i.e. more bubbles and in the worst case, a tendency to creep out of the container, so leave enough room just to be sure.

The separation of layers is a sign that the microorganisms in your sourdough are starving - which can coincidally favour the slightly more robust acetic acid producing strains. Once your starter has been somewhat established, meaning you get a reliable activity after each feed, it’s better to learn from your dough which feeding cycle works best. Remember that feeding simply means supplying a certain number of microorganisms with food so that they can multiply. Warmer temperatures will also increase their growth rates, so you should take that into account.

Depending on the ratio of (starter) : (flour and water), feeding time can be every few hours or once every day and a half. Ideally you start with a chosen ratio and measure the time until it just starts to collapse again. This is the ideal feeding time. (measuring means you don’t have to rely on visual clues alone, but get an idea when to plan the next feeding.) If you have a very active starter, you’ll probably want to reduce the amount of starter for a given amount of flour and thus extend times between feedings. Do not go below 10% of starter or you risk spoiling: There won’t be enough sourdough microorganisms to keep the nasty kinds in check for sure.


When I've had to peel a bunch, I work in stages:

Top and tail every banana
Slit peel on every banana from one end to the other
Use thumbs to split open peel and invert over a bowl

You can rip through a whole case of bananas rather quickly that way.


I believe the image you are showing is of fresh-caught salmon which is on racks being air dryed or smoked. The pattern you see are cuts made in the flesh to aid in the process. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has an information sheet on smoking and drying fish.

Cutting is done so that the fish will dry quickly by exposing as much surface area as possible to the air. In Alaska, a traditional method is to cut the flesh away from the backbone, scoring it so that folds of flesh hang exposed to the air.

This method of fish drying has a strong tradition among the peoples in the Pacific Northwest within Canada's First Nation and Alaska's Native Communities, with each group having its own unique cutting technique. This University of Alaska at Anchorage publication has an excellent overview of the process of cutting and drying fish.


Why skim "scum" from the surface of a simmering stock?

Skimming is for aesthetic purposes.

The scum is denatured protein, mostly comprising the same proteins that make up egg whites.  It is harmless and flavorless, but visually unappealing.  Eventually, the foam will break up into microscopic particles and disperse into your stock, leaving it grayish and cloudy.  The more vigorously your stock bubbles, the faster this process will occur.

If the grayness or cloudiness bothers you but skimming is not an option for some reason, you can always remove the micro-particulates later through the clarification process used to make consomme.


How do I save my curry with too much of a raw onion smell?

Don't grind the onion too fine. Just chop it fine.

Now if it is done add some oil and put it on low heat till it starts to taste better.


Yes, I've heard this suggested, using wet/dry sandpaper and a mousepad. It is a very inexpensive way to match a whetstone, and you can use sandpaper with the same grit to produce an excellent edge.

You duct-tape the sand-paper together so it wraps around the mouse pad, and then pull the knife along the sandpaper with the edge trailing. This is to say, you use sandpaper in the opposite direction as a whetstone.  Once you work up to the finest-grit papers, you can use jeweler's polish and a leather strop for a truly razor-sharp edge.

Because the mouse pad's rubber/foam has some give, this method produces a convex edge which remains sharp for longer that an V-cut, because it has more metal behind the edge.  It also still presents a very sharp point for cutting, moreso than an equivalent V-cut front bevel.

Using sandpaper will also cost a small fraction of what you spend on a good sharpening stone, which will run you $50 or more PER STONE.

Wondering what grit to use?  There are comprehensive tables here and here.  However, here is a quick-reference mini-table for you:

Name / US Grit Rating / Use

Coarse / 100-400 / Remove lots of metal.  At the low-end of the range, used for reshaping blades, taking out large chips, or restoring snapped points.  At the higher end of grit range, used to establish a bevel angle and restore very dull edges.
Medium / 400-700 / Remove moderate amounts of metal. For refining an edge established with coarse grits, and for restoring moderately dull blades.  Can be used to establish a bevel angle, but it will take considerably longer.  600 grit is a common point to start at for standard sharpening.
Fine / 800-1200 / For finishing a blade or touching-up a slightly dull blade.  At about 1000 grit, you will get something equivalent to a factory edge, assuming you use the same bevel angle. Ceramic steels have grits in this range.
Extra-Fine / 2000+ / For polishing.  Higher grits create a shinier and sharper edge, until at 8000+ grit you get mirror finishes and sharpness equivalent to a straight razor.  If you're going to bother using grits this high, a leather strop and polishing paste may serve you better than even a ceramic steel; the steel would actually be reducing the edge sharpness with use.

Source: Sandpaper-mousepad sharpening

Source2: Sharpening techniques and explanation

Edit: Another way to use sandpaper in sharpening -- expanding the grit range for a Spyderco Sharpmaker

I'm currently using sandpaper to make a very coarse stone for sharpening extremely dull edges on my Spyderco Sharpmaker.  I wrap both of the normal triangular stones with a strip of emery cloth or 220-grit wet/dry sandpaper, and then hold it in place with medium binder clips.  Since the lowest stone the Sharpmaker comes with is 800-grit ceramic, this saves HOURS versus using the normal stones. It is also considerably cheaper than the diamond stones they sell; for a big tub of clips and a package of sandpaper, I paid $7, versus about  $37 for the diamond rods.


What does kansui do to dough in noodle making?

Kansui is a mixture of sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate, both alkaline. Since lye is also alkaline, it could serve a similar function in the dough but it would depend on the relative strengths of their alkalinity.

Specifically, alkaline water interfere with enzymes in the flour and thus inhibit the development of gluten, allowing for the dough to be stretched more readily. That being said, you need some gluten development or else the dough won't form.

Alkaline water also will change the color yellow and make the noodles slippery on your tongue. This reaction is the same one that would take when you combine soap with water.

Harold McGee wrote an article in The New York Times about the effects of alkalines.

All this being said, I've only made ramen style noodles, not the hand pulled ones. Your best bet would be to try both and see whether there truly is a difference or not... but I imagine the most traditional method would be to use kansui or jian.


This has basically already been answered, but: cornmeal on your cooking surface, cornmeal underneath when you spin out (don't roll; a quick look through all the recent pizza questions will find you my answer on how to shape your dough) your base.


What is "Zest" - In particular: lime/lemon zest?

The very thin outside layer of the Lime, Lemon, Orange, and other citrus. It contains aromatic and flavorful oils that will enhance your meals.

When you zest your citrus fruit (usually with a fine grater) you need make sure that you only pull off the zest and not the white pith that lies underneath. The pith is bitter and generally not something you want in your dish.


Do cooled-down/chilled toasted black sesame seeds taste nearly raw again?

Toasting a grain causes the color to change due to Maillard reactions. These are chemical reactions between sugars and amino acids that occur in high heat. When the grain cools down, those newly formed chemicals are still present so the flavor will still be different. However, when something is warm, aroma molecules are more volatile, and it is easier to smell them. This is why cold toast still tastes "toasty" but not as good as warm toast.


In a tomato sauce recipe, how can I cut the acidity?

My secret weapon is onion. Caramelize the onions first.  This creates a natural sweetness.  Always use ripe tomatoes; if you cannot then use canned.  The canned are made from ripe tomatoes and tend to be a very good substitute.

Also, the celery and carrot suggestions are very much a good addition - you are making a classic tomato sauce when you include the celery and carrots, 1 part each celery and carrot to 2 parts onion.  Add the onions first to get the caramelization.

I don't get too fancy with herbs, usually one good fresh herb does it for me, basil or sage are two favorites of mine.

There is a suggestion to add cream, why not use the parmesan end you may have in your fridge, it is dairy and allowed to slowly simmer in the sauce will lend a very nice flavor note.

Acidic sauces are usually reserved for nights when I make a puttanesca sauce - it goes with the capers and calamata olives I add to it.

Don't forget to season with salt and pepper.


What is the difference between Microwave, Microwave Oven, and Oven?

First off, the terminology issue.

  So, can someone please clear up this fog? What's the difference between Microwave and Oven and Microwave Oven?

"Microwave" is just short for "microwave oven". Both terms mean the same thing: an appliance that uses microwave radiation to heat food. Cooking food in this way is called "microwaving". An oven, on the other hand, has a heating element which heats the air inside, which then heats the food. Cooking food in this way is generally called "baking", though there are a lot of other things (e.g. roasting) you can also reasonably do in an oven.

So if all you have is a microwave, then all you can do is microwave (not bake). And if you have an oven, then you can bake (but of course you can't microwave).

There also exist combinations, which are capable of both microwaving and baking, i.e. they have a microwave emitter and a heating element. However, remember that in the US - and thus on much of the internet - something talking about a "microwave oven" likely does not mean this combination, but simply microwave heating. Names like "convection microwave oven with grill", "combination microwave/oven" do refer to these combinations, though. I've also seen "speed oven". You may sometimes have seen people referring to these combination microwave/ovens as a "microwave oven" (I think this may be common in Indian English), but that's really just imprecise language.

  Some sites say that a "microwave" is only for heating or re-heating cooked food. Whereas, in "microwave ovens", you can microwave and bake. Is that true?

It sounds like in this statement, "microwave oven" is careless language, referring to a combination microwave and oven. (It doesn't make any sense at all otherwise; the two things are the same thing, so of course you can do the same things in them.)

So the question is really, what can you do in a microwave vs an oven, or a combination microwave/oven?

It's true that microwaves are mainly used for reheating cooked food, and it's true that they can't actually bake. However, they can do a lot more than reheat food; there are a lot of kinds of cooking besides baking. For example, microwaves are great at simmering/boiling and steaming, and it doesn't matter if the food was cooked already or not. The recipes you're talking about are probably mostly in those kinds of categories, but if you're interested, How do I know if a food or recipe can be made in a microwave oven? discusses in a bit more detail what works in microwaves.

The big things that you can do with ovens but not microwaves are the things that actually need the steady dry heat of baking. You can't bake bread or cookies or roast a chicken in a microwave. Microwaves hold in a lot of steam and don't get terribly hot, so you can't generally get things to brown or crisp up. They also don't really hold a temperature like you need for baking, they just pump more and more heat into the food.


Why boil and cool jam before using it in a cake?

This step is not about food safety, it's about consistency and in fact about three properties of your jam: Jam comes in a wide variation of consistencies, one parameter is "stiffness", another "water content" and a third "smoothness".

In baking, you want smooth (no lumps) jam that is speadable enough to form a thin layer (especially if used as a "glue"), yet thick enough not to "bleed" into your baked layers.

What you basically do is play with the pectin in your jam - a warm pectin solution (aka jam) is soft, cold pectin solution is solid, softening goes quickly, re-solidification takes some time. But enough "kitchen chemistry", here's the practical approach:

Warming your jam makes it liquid enough to be easily spreadable and, if necessary, to strain out any lumps of fruit. Sometimes a good stir can give similar results, but stirred jam won't solidify again afterwards.
Boiling the jam lets water evaporate, thus thickening or "hardening" the jam (once it solidifies again). This can be advisable if you have a rather thin or soft ("watery") jam in the beginning. Especially under marzipan you want no excess liquid in the jam to avoid softening the marzipan layer or cause it to slip. The boiling is optional, it needs some experience to determine whether it's really necessary for the specific brand of jam and the specific use.
Cooling down the jam again has two reasons: Not all baked goods take well to being drenched with hot liquid and the possible thickness of a layer is partly determined by the consistency of the jam. Especially sponges etc. tend to soak up liquid jam, resulting in a coloured stripe of dough instead of a distinct layer of jam. (Note that there is also the technique of brushing hot baked goods like danishes with hot apricot jam for a glossy sheen, but that's not what we are talking about here) But you also don't want to wait until the pectin has solidified the jam again, because then you would be back to square one. Depending on the intended use, you let the jam cool until it has reached the desired consistency - still rather liquid under marzipan (as it will solidify on the cake quickly) or almost solid but easily spreadable for a distinct layer in your sponge that still can hold the cake layers together. Note that most recipes say "cool" but not "cool completely".


How can I save sweet from ants without refrigerator?

You need to place them in something ants can't get into. A box, jar, or sealed plastic bag should to the trick. Note that as @joe points out in the comments, whatever you use has to seal tightly, and the plastic bags have to be thick.


Can you use wine for cooking even after it's past it's drinking date?

There's no rule that you have to drink your wine 24 hours after un-corking it, in fact some wines can taste better after 24 hours. 3 or 4 days is fine in many cases, and some wines are still drinkable a week after opening. This can be extended by refrigerating your wine after opening, white or red, you can get 2 weeks out of a bottle of wine if it's stored in the fridge. With reds let the glass stand for 10 minutes or so after pouring to get the optimal temperature.

2 weeks out of the fridge and it's probably vinegar, but if it still takes ok you can cook with it no problem.


Can a convection microwave be used to dry fruit

I would guess that you will get a the same limited success for a couple of reasons.

You might not have the correct heat required.  Food dehydrators usually have an operating temperature around 140 degrees Fahrenheit.  If you can get your convection oven to go that low, I don't think you would have a problem with accidentally cooking the food.

Heat however is only the first step.  Dehydrators only use heat to coax the moisture out of the foodstuff.  The key ingredients you are going to be missing is the air-flow and ventilation.  A crucial component to de-hydrating is quickly removing the moisture (released by the heat) from the air surrounding it.  The air flow allows for a higher evaporation rate since the moisture inside the food will be in a disequilibrium with with air surrounding it. The ventilation supplies the surrounding space with a constant supply or dryer air effectively maintaining disequilibrium. The greater the disequilibrium, the faster the food be de-hydrated.

If I were you, I'd make her happy and go get a good dehydrator with adjustable fan-speeds.


What compound can make crunchy biscuits?

Your comment update suggests that you might be melting the butter ... don't.  Melted butter will make for a softer, chewy cookie..
I don't know if there are episodes of Good Eats available legally online, but there are transcripts of them ... you want episode 'Three Chips for Sister Martha' in which he discusses how some slight changes to a cookie recipe will make for dramatically different cookies:

Back to butter. But this time we're going to melt it.
...
The water from the melted butter will combine during agitation with the higher protein of the bread flour therefore producing gluten ... which is chewy.

You likely want to look at what he did for 'The Thin' variant, which is the only crispy variant in the episode ... but that's not to say that you can't make thick crunchy cookies.  (one of my favorites is LU's Bastogne cookies;  speculaas also comes out crunchy even when fairly thick)  Unfortunately, the recipe from that episode focused on thin (with the side-effect of crispy/crunchy), rather than mentioning what could be done to make it crunchy without making it thin.


How should I store bolognese sauce prep?

Short version: If it's only overnight, and you seal the containers reasonably well, you'll be okay prepping any of those ingredients ahead of time and storing them in the refrigerator overnight.

I often leave onions in the fridge when preparing a recipe that calls for only half an onion, or if I've decided to use less than I prepped, or if I'm making a salsa and I chop the onions before realizing I don't have as many tomatoes as I thought, etc. If you don't cover them they will dry out a bit, but overnight doesn't do much harm; I find if they're tightly covered, whether in a glass bowl with plastic wrap or a sealed plastic storage container, they're just as good the next day.

The same goes for carrots and celery. I'm sure there's been a time when I prepped too much mirepoix; but generally speaking, if you have a cut carrot or stalk of celery in the fridge, it doesn't suffer too much overnight. More than a day and it starts to dry out; the cut surface of the carrot will start to look like the end near the tops, and possibly split. The celery dries out more quickly, as it's got higher water content and more fragile structure to begin with; more than a day and it'll lose its color, eventually turning limp and yellow, starting from the cut end.

For the veggies, the way to keep them freshest is with a tight seal and as little air as possible. You could put them in a zipper bag and squeeze out any extra air but I think a reasonably-sized glass bowl, covered tightly with plastic wrap and placed in the fridge, is good enough for 12-24 hours. If you don't have room in the fridge, you'll probably still be okay, and they may even be less prone to drying out (the air in your fridge is very low-humidity; sometimes you have a special compartment for which the humidity can be adjusted, for fruits and vegetables).

I have less experience prepping meat ahead of time, unless I'm brining or marinading it; in those situations, the meat's covered by a liquid that contains preservatives (salt, acid) that help prevent it from spoiling, and it's always refrigerated. Keeping it cool and minimizing the contact with air or contaminants is the main thing. If you only have enough room in the fridge to store some of your prepped ingredients, use it for the meat. In this case I'd say a zipper bag with the air squeezed out is the clear way to go; meat is malleable and you'll be able to get nearly all of the air out, which means it'll store almost as well as it did before you chopped it into pieces.

The thing to remember about ground, chopped or cubed meat is that anything that contaminated the outside surface of the original cut is now mixed evenly throughout. This is why it's generally safer to order a steak rare than it is to order a hamburger rare; the center of the steak hasn't been exposed to as much of its environment as the center of the burger, during handling and storage. So even if you refrigerate your prepped meat in a sealed container with the air evacuated, effectively storing it just as well as when it was in the original packaging and in one piece, I wouldn't expect it to keep the same effective "use by" date because it's been disturbed and mixed and exposed to the environment of your prep area. You're better off doing this with a cut that you purchased recently, which hasn't been refrozen and isn't nearing expiration.


How to recover vegetables that get "refrigerator crisper chill"?

I'm sorry to say this, but I think prevention is the best answer. Once you're vegetables freeze things happen at the cellular level that changes the nature of the vegetables. For example, ice crystals pierce cell walls which destroys some of the structure, which is responsible for the crispness and crunch of the vegetable. I don't think there is really a way to "fix" this, once it happens.

That said, cooking does something similar to vegetables. Cooking destroys cell walls, which is why cooked carrots are so much softer than raw carrots. I would think that vegetables that stand up to cooking would survive freezing the best (such as your mushrooms). On the other hand, somthing like lettuce is a lost cause, once frozen.


Can a few bad (dead) mussels harm a larger batch?

If a third of a batch of anything is dead, I would expect the other 2/3 to be near death and taste accordingly.


I want to make normal sandwich bread. What's the yeast called in an Italian supermarket?

Apparently you're a foreigner living in Italy¹ and what you got was sour dough but if you want something that you're used to already you should get:

"Lievito di birra2 secco" if you want dry yeast
"Lievito di birra" if you want the real stuff that you have to keep in the fridge.

Note¹: If you fill in a bit more about yourself in your user profile, we'll have to assume less.
Note²: Yes,  "Beer yeast"...  don't worry: It's a cultural thing...


I'd personally go with a standard carving set: Very sharp non serrated long carving knife and a carving fork to help hold the meat steady without getting in-there with your hands.

Assuming you're right handed I'd start on the right with the with the ribs running up away from you, maybe slightly pointing to the left. Then cut along the bone, close to the bone so all the meat is on one side the finished cut. You should be able to get your fork one rib along the rack from where you're cutting but work out what feels best


That is the kind of knife you would use to slice gravlax (salt and sugar cured salmon) or possibly smoked salmon into thin, large slices. You need a long, narrow, flexible blade to cut the salmon nicely. I have never seen them referred to as a "Swedish knife" anywhere else though. In Swedish stores they would be sold as filleting knives.


Butter and shortening behave differently in the cookie dough, so unless you are planning to do more adjustments, I recommend you stick to the given butter-to-shortening ratio. If a recipe uses both, it's often to get the best of two worlds.

This leaves the question of flavour.

If you use the butter-flavoured shortening, you will get a stronger "butter" flavour. This may or may not be what you want. So it's mostly a matter of taste (yours, to be exact) whether a trip to the store is in order or not. Without knowing more about your recipe, we can't even try an educated guess.


When you put one item in the oven, the size affects the cooking time, because the thicker it is, the longer it takes for the heat to reach the middle. But if you put two things in, that's not a concern, unless they're so close together that they're basically "acting like" one big thing.

According to this site, "The oven has a thermostat that keeps its temperature fairly constant, no matter what is placed in it (within reason). As long as the objects in the oven don't absorb so much heat that the oven can't keep up (or are so big as to prevent even circulation), it is unlikely that the number of things placed in the oven will affect the cooking time. It will take more heat to cook more mass that is placed in the oven, so the flame (or electric heating element) will be on more."

Don't forget that cooking times in recipes are always estimates, as some ovens hold temperature more tightly than than others; most aren't that accurate, and run hotter or colder than set; different sized ovens have different airflow; and food cooks differently at different altitudes. Always check the food when it's "supposed" to be done (or slightly before) and adjust accordingly!


Cutting sugar in savory butternut squash dishes

Ruth Lively at Fine Cooking has a similar problem and suggests:

  Orange or lemon juice (or zest) adds brightness and zing. A splash of    vinegar helps, too.
  Tomatoes, which are both sweet and acidic, make a bridge for    full-flavored squash dishes.
  Sharp cheeses like Asiago, Parmesan, feta, and goat cheese lend a    salty note and highlight the nutty side of squash’s flavor.
  Robust herbs, such as sage, rosemary, and thyme, work with the earthy    qualities of the squash, yet still offer an assertive
  contrast    to    its sweet side, too.
  Bold spices like cumin, coriander, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, ginger,    and curry have a natural affinity to squash, making the perfect
  bridge from earthy to intriguing.

You may also consider substituting a differing squash; Royal Oak Farm Orchardhas a nice guide (pdf) to many squashes and includes sweetness among the descriptions.


Reducing the saltiness of commercially prepared seasoning

The only way to reduce saltiness is to dilute it. This will also dilute the flavour. You can, up to a point, mask excessive saltiness with quite a lot of sugar, but that won't work here. Don't believe anyone who tells you that putting a raw potato in whatever you're making will absorb extra salt; this is an old kitchen myth and has absolutely no basis in reality.


Can I prepare and eat dried oyster mushrooms that are four year old?

Yes, certainly. Foods which have been preserved in a permanent way (such as dried mushrooms) are safe to eat in 4 years. The taste can suffer with time, it's up to you to decide if you like them.


After some confusion in the comments, I think I have an answer for you. There are three main methods for making a meringue and two main methods of cooking them.

First we have a French meringue, which is what you've made before.

Second, we have Swiss meringue. Here the egg whites and sugar are gently heated over a water bath stirring constantly until the mixture reaches a temperature of 79 degrees Celsius. At this point you transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl and whisk until cooled.

Finally, an Italian meringue is made by whisking a hot simple syrup into the eggs whites.

The different methods of preparation have slightly different outcomes. A French meringue tends to be more fragile before cooking and the end result is lighter. A Swiss or Italian meringue has more volume and tends to be more stable before cooking and have a more marshmallowy/chewy end result.

All these meringue types can be cooked either slowly in the oven as you describe, or toasted. The slow oven cook will produce a meringue that's hard on the outside and either fluffy or chewy on the inside. This is used to make for example Pavlovas or meringue cookies.

For a pie topping, you instead simply pile the meringue on top of the pie and torch it with a blowtorch or (place it in the oven on 'grill') until the top is your desired level of toasted. This takes at most a few minutes. Toasting can be done with any merigue, although Swiss and Italian are preferred, since the egg white has been heated to safe temperatures already. If you toast a French meringue, you are serving mostly raw egg white and need to take appropriate precautions to avoid salmonella.


I would like to hear any techniques involved in making Turducken for Thanksgiving

A Turducken is not for the faint of heart.  It takes a lot of work, but is a very impressive presentation.  Everything starts raw, the duck and the chicken are boned completely (which you can ask your local butcher to do for you).  The turkey is only partially boned, keeping the leg and wing bones.  Make sure to start with a large 25 lbs turkey.

First lay the turkey down and season the inside. Spread a thin layer of whatever dressing you have, and lay down the boneless duck.  Season, stuffing, place the chicken.  Again with the seasoning and the stuffing.  Last but not least, you have to close the birds up.   Use a butcher’s twine and sew the turkey up, sealing everything else inside.  You’ll need at least two people, one to hold the turkey together, one to do the sewing.

I highly suggest, as with any poultry, brining the meat first.  Because you are dealing with a very large and dense loaf of meat, you need to make sure it’s cooked all the way through.  It can dry out if you are not careful, but it is roasted uncovered just like a regular turkey.  That will help give that nice deep rich color and hide the suprise inside as it will look just like a oversized turkey.

Paula Dean has a pretty good video showing the process.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/turducken/video/index.html


What would be a good accompaniment for Ostrich fillet with Port and Blue Cheese glaze?

I've had french fries with (beef) gravy and blue cheese, and it's delicious. However, if you want to get away from potatoes and aren't comfortable with roasting, what about doing some other sort of root vegetable mash? Like mash potatoes, but using turnips, parsnips, rutabaga, or sweet potato instead. I've tried them all and I think they're great.

As for a side veg, I'd almost want a really vinegary salad. Something astringent to cut the richness of the dish. To carry the theme, you may like a green salad with apples, walnuts, and a little blue cheese, with a vinegary italian dressing. I imagine that any kind of pickled veg would be nice, too.


Any danger to leaving brown sugar exposed to air?

Since you wrote that it dried out, I would check for two things:

insects;
mold on the surface - but I consider that unlikely.


There are actually three types of poppyseeds, the “blue”, the “grey” and the “white” kind.

The “blue” is the more common one in Europe, it’s dark blueish-grey as grains and produces an almost black mass if prepared as described below. It has a robust, assertive, earthy flavor that is used both in sweet and savory dishes.
The “grey” is a local specialty of the Austrian Waldviertel, and is milder than the blue type, often used in desserts.
The nutty and mild “white” is a staple in Indian cuisine where it’s used ground and used as binder like flour or nuts.

From your comments I can conclude that you were aiming for a poppyseed pastry filling which is common on the Balkans and other European regions. For this, ground or rather crushed seeds are cooked with a little liquid, often milk, and sugar to create a more or less thick paste. With ground seeds, a short boil and steeping is sufficient. Some preparations skip boiling the poppyseeds entirely and just pour hot milk over them and let them soak up the liquid.

In any case, you need to remember that poppy seeds contain a lot of oil, so many regular mills can’t handle them properly without creating an oily mess. You can also buy the seeds pre-ground, but you shouldn’t store them too long because of the aforementioned oils, which can get rancid quickly.


Can I cook ribs by starting them one day and finishing the next?

The easy (but potentially expensive) answer is sous vide.  If you can carefully control the temperature, you can cook your ribs for 24-48 hours before finishing and serving.  See this recipe for an example.

If sous vide isn't an option, you can still chill and reheat the ribs.  There are several brands of pre-cooked refrigerated ribs in grocery stores that exemplify this.  I believe the texture would be more firm, but it could still be very delicious.  For the sake of safety, please chill them as quickly as possible.  If you stack them into a large pile, it will take a long time to chill, giving bacteria a chance to grow.


How can I keep greengage jam green rather than orangey brown?

It sounds like it is oxidizing so you need an antioxidant for the jam.  First I need to know what ingredients Greengage jam contains.  Then I can advise you on natural antioxidants to add (like lemon juice for avocados).


Well, it sounds like the answer should just be to soften your margarine first.  Either your margarine is ice cold or your machine doesn't need very long if you're ending up with little studded bits of margarine in your crust - that's very unusual.

Can you add oil? Sure.  Try adding some olive oil instead or just vegetable shortening .  There's a little water in margarine and butter, its an emulsion - about 16% of it - so if you're going to add pure fat then technically you'd need to add about 1 tsp of water as well.  Will 1 tsp of water matter overall? Probably not...but its there.

(Overall that recipes looks a bit low on water to me also - I'm not sure how that would effect the margarine mixing though.)


Sometimes the presence of insects in certain foods cannot be avoided. The FDA has regulations on this, but I couldn't find any specific references to bread per se. However, based on standards for some other foods in there, two flies probably aren't a big issue.

At the same time, flies are well known for spreading bacteria harmful to humans all over the place, and if you're feeling squeamish about this, I would just throw out the bread. This may be true especially considering that you don't know how long the flies have been present with the bread, and that the bread has been sliced and thus exposes more surface area.


I have not personally tried this with onions, but whenever I need to cook large batches of something (for example, bacon) and I don't have enough space on top of the stove, I try to find a way to work it in the oven.

Although it's not going to be a true sautée, I think you could probably achieve what you want with a few sheet pans of onions (mixed with oil) in the oven.

This recipe would probably be a good guideline for time and temperature.

If that doesn't sound like something you'd like to try, do you have a grill?  What if you laid out a large amount of foil across the grates of your grill (put a lip on the edge, basically make an impromptu baking sheet out of foil) and do them on the grill over low to medium heat until they're the texture you want?


Egg whites contain a significant amount of protein, which is an excellent binder when cooked. This protein is what makes a cooked egg white somewhat rubbery.

Egg yolks contain lecithin, which is an emulsifier. The lecithin in an egg yolk is what combines with oil to make the emulsion we know as mayonnaise.

The white (with its protein) and yolk (with its lecithin and fat) are both critical to the chemistry when baking. If you eliminate just the yolk, you may get a tough and flat result. Substitutes like silken tofu, yogurt, applesauce, or mashed banana can all be used to replace either the yolk or a whole egg.

The best substitute will depend on the exact recipe and desired result. Applesauce and banana tend to impart added flavor, which can be a consideration as well.


I'm cooking two dishes that need to cook at different temperatures in the oven, what do I do?

Neither broccoli nor corn is going to be all that picky regarding oven temperature, you'll be fine just splitting the difference. Since corn is the less picky of the two items, I'd go 400F. Expect the broccoli to take slightly longer than the recipe, and the corn to take less time. But don't make yourself nuts about it. Neither corn slightly more done than the recipe expects nor broccoli slightly underdone is going to ruin your meal. Don't overcook your broccoli though! BLECH!


What is the easiest way to grind poppy seeds?

You need to acquire a poppy seed grinder (picture #1). It's still not easy to grind a lot of poppy seed — you will need to break out your supply of elbow grease — but it's much more efficient than a coffee grinder. It also does a better job, because it actually crushes the seeds to release all their oils and other goodness, rather than haphazardly cutting apart some of the seeds and not others. (They do make electric grinders [picture #2], but they're aimed at bakeries and the like, not for home use.)

1.  2.

If you're stuck using what you have, namely the coffee grinder, try adding sugar. It helps keep the poppy seed from sticking everywhere you don't want it to. Naturally, you then need to take the sugar quantity into account when you're actually using the poppy seed.


Soppressata, prosciutto, and other meats; how is it safe?

Salting, fermenting and drying render these products safe.  Always salting (including sodium nitrite, also known as pink salt) and always drying.  This creates an inhospitable atmosphere for unsafe organisms.  That would cover dried/cured meat products like prosciutto, pancetta or bacon.  Most salumi are also fermented, which produces that pleasant, slightly sour taste...and further increases safety by creating an acidic environment.


Can apple cider vinegar be substitute when coloring eggs?

Apple cider vinegar still contains the acidity that the dye needs to activate, so it should work just fine. You may encounter a slight discoloration due to the naturally brown tint of apple cider vinegar.


How do we keep our roasted cashews from smelling bad eventually?

Presumably you are experiencing rancidity, due to oxygen.

While you have nitrogen flushed the bags at filling time, the bags are not impervious to oxygen diffusion.

A different type of bag (an "oxygen barrier" bag material) or package (glass jar, or metal can) and, in addition, (based on other packaging I have seen) oxygen absorbing packets inside the bag may be required for long shelf life. Either alone would probably extend the shelf-life somewhat.


How long does unwhipped whipped topping last in the fridge

According to the proper handling page on Rich's food service page for ready-to-whip products they state (in the last section) that the container should be thawed for 24-48 hours, then whipped. Any leftover liquid should not be re-frozen, but that it can be refrigerated for "up to 5 days."


Assuming the chestnut puree is just chestnuts, well, use 250g of it.

If it has other ingredients... I guess you'll have to try to figure out how much of them. You might be able to deduce it from the nutrition facts and the nutritional content of the chestnuts themselves, especially it's just chestnuts and water.

Edit: To be clear, I'm telling you how to replace the chestnuts. You still need the rest.

Given that it's chestnuts and water, it's trivial to figure out how much of it is chestnuts.  (It would be difficult if there were other ingredients providing nutritional content.) Just use enough paste to account for 250g of chestnuts, then remove a mL of milk for every extra gram of paste you've added. If it's a substantial amount, replace some of the remaining milk with cream to keep it as rich as the original, if you like.

For example, according to the data I linked to, chestnuts are about 10% sugar, so you want enough paste to provide the 25g of sugar your 250g of chestnuts would've provided. So if the paste contains only 8g of sugar per 100g of paste, then you'll want about 300g of paste, and you can remove 50 mL of milk to balance the extra water you'll have added as part of the paste. (At that point it probably wouldn't be worth bothering to rebalance the milk and cream, since it's such a tiny difference.)


How do i stop small bits of cabbage from floating past my weight to the surface of sauerkraut brine?

I know of four approaches to this problem:

A better-fitting weight. The wider the weight, the less will sneak up around it. This can work very well for a wide-mouthed vessel. This is what my grandma and great-grandpa used to do—use a barrel, bucket, or wide-mouthed crockery with no narrowing at the mouth, and put a same-sized plate on top with rocks to hold it down. But for smaller batches in something like a mason jar, the narrowing at the mouth prevents a wide weight, even for wide-mouthed jars.
Saline-filled ziploc. This is sort of a corollary to #1 since the ziploc can fit any space. Some people fill a ziploc bag with brine and rest that on top of the ferment. My brother does it this way. The benefit is that the bag can spread out to block any sized opening. I don't care for this approach, though: Either the top of the baggie will protrude above the surface of the fermentation brine, making it a little harder to remove any yeast and mold that develops, or else you'll need to put it so far down in the vessel under the brine that it reduces the amount you can ferment.
Use crossed "carrot planks." Sometimes I've cut a large carrot lengthwise into something that looks like small orange wooden planks. Then I place those flat on top of the fermenting vegetables, crossing two or three of them. If they're long enough to reach the whole way across the mouth of the vessel—and ideally a little longer so that you have to tuck the ends downward a little around the vegetables— they do a very good job of minimizing floating bits. Downside: I've found when I do this, the ferment is more likely to develop a layer of yeast floating on top (kahm), presumably from the sugar in the carrots. Kahm is benign and easy to remove, but I don't care for the slight yeasty flavor it imparts.
Don't worry about it. My preferred method. Unless the weight is just too narrow for the vessel, after a few days the bits that are going to float will have floated, and the rest will reach a kind of stasis. I monitor ferments daily for the first few days anyway, so it's no hardship to scoop off anything that floats. And I've found that once ferments get past the early stages of fermentation (a week or two), things become less likely to float anyway. The first stages are heavy in CO2 production, which is why you see lots of bubbles initially, and those bubbles lift things to the surface. As early-stage lactic acid bacteria die off and are replace by the later stages, you'll see much less bubbling.


What fuel (burning material) gives the best flavor to meat when barbequing?

There are two main types of charcoal, briquettes and hard lump. The first comes in preformed pieces, so they are all the same size and include a filler material. They will sometimes also have lighter fluid in them already and be "easy start" or something similar. Hard lump is just charcoal from hardwoods with no filler. These will usually be in all kinds of shapes and look like "natural" pieces of wood (albeit in charcoal form). Hard lump is easy to light, burns hotter, and leaves much less ash than briquettes. It also has a better flavor. I strongly recommend hard lump charcoal.

Wood is usually used to provide smoke as a primary function rather than heat. Smoking on your grill gives a lovely smokey flavor (d'uh). The standard way to use wood is to soak it in water for a period of time prior to cooking. Packages will often say to soak for an hour, and that's ok with wood chips which are very small (but I recommend longer), but it isn't good for anything larger. I generally soak wood for at least 18 hours.

Wood also comes in various sizes, from very small chips (slightly larger than a coin) to large chunks bigger than a fist. The smaller the chips, the less heat they provide and the faster they burn up. These are generally better for shorter smoking times. Large chunks can smoke for 12+ hours if they are properly soaked. In both cases, I put the wood on to already burning coals to get them going.

You can also use just wood to create your heat, in which case you do not soak the wood. When you hear about woodfire ovens, this is what they do. However, I think this is a hassle as it's harder to get the wood lit than charcoal and doesn't provide as much smoke since you haven't soaked the wood. So it's really sub-par in my view. The exception is if you are doing low and slow smoking on some types of charcoal grill, you can use a small bed of coals to light large chunks of soaked wood. Once they get smoldering, this becomes the only source of heat as the coals go out. They smolder hot enough to get new wood going if you find you need more. Great for 12 hour smoking at 200F for Boston Butt or Brisket.

In terms of wood, you want hard woods with low amounts of resin / sap. No glue, nails, etc. It wants to be natural. This is a decent description of types of wood and the smoke they produce. Common woods for BBQ in the SE US are hickory, mesquite, and cedar. I've used old wine barrel chunks which have a really nice flavor, and also bits of rosemary branch (thick from a large plant) which didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. You can even use the shells of nuts like pecans. This is really a question of seeing what's readily available and experimenting with your own personal taste.

You can also use wood with a gas grill by putting it in a smoking box or tin foil with holes in it, and placing directly on the heating element. Wood chips work best for this. I've never had much luck with this though. It's hard to get the chips smoking and, more importantly, gas grills don't have the airflow through them to properly move smoke over the food. I switched to charcoal pretty quickly and a Big Green Egg about two years ago, and I've never looked back.


Why does store-bought peanut butter in a jar have so much more oil than fresh ground?

Having recently made peanut butter by hand,
(Using an hand cranked food processor).

I can say after looking at the result, over the last few weeks.
My peanut butter is much more oily than store bought.
It has also separated more.

The only trick to making your own peanut butter is the process it more than you thought.
When you think you are done, keep going.
I thought it was done when it was a kinda smoothish but crumbly texture.
But I thought i would give it a extra half and hour (Hand cranked remember).
Then it really became the oily smooth peanut-butter we know and love.

Peanuts are incredibly oily.
But exactly how oily is going to depend on several factors.
Things like growing conditions (Tempurature, soil etc),
and things in preparation -- how much (if at all) were they roasted (at what tempurature), how fine was the grind, what excess oil separated off.

Commerial peanut butter can control these things by sourcing peanuts from same set of farms (or by just combining such a huge number that you have the average peanut of a nation), and by using consistent processing.


Any time you see something like "may contain" after an ingredient list, it's a warning that it might contain trace amounts of that substance and so could be harmful to anyone who's allergic to it. Basically what they're saying is that they didn't intentionally add any milk or milk products to the cocoa butter, but since they make other products at the same factory that use milk they can't guarantee that some hasn't slipped in somehow.

So assuming that cocoa butter is the only ingredient then it would be pure cocoa butter, at least by the legal definition.


Why does my banana bread have a moist top?

You've partially answered your own question:

When wrapped in foil, the water contained naturally in the ingredients will re-moisturise the banana bread.
a. To reduce:

don't wrap it
leave it in the oven to cool down with the oven slightly open so that most of the moisture can escape

b. to enhance:

make a dome of tin foil above it before putting it in the oven
Wrap it in micro-wave resistant plastic foil the moment it comes out of the oven

P.S. Don't use Saran foil when it comes straight out of the oven.  I've tried and it's not pretty!!!  :-(
P.P.S. For perfect balance, I don't wrap it in tin foil before putting it in the oven but do leave it out for 5 minutes before wrapping it in microwave-resistant plastic foil, but my mum is not your mum, so YMMV.  ;-)
P.P.P.S. Unless you're my brother, in which case your mum is my mum and I want to know: Why didn't you call mum yesterday??? :D :D :D


Steps to put out a grease fire

Turn off source of heat (burner / element)
Do NOT pour water on it
let me say that again, Do NOT pour water on it
Attempt to remove all oxygen from the flame. You can cover with another pot, or baking pan
If you can't cover it, dump baking soda on it. (lots of it)
Secret step number 6, if all else fails, use a fire extinguisher


Does the inside of a lid used to cook rice or steam vegetables have anything besides water on it?

Starchy foods, like rice, tend to bubble and splash.  They will get starch on the inside of the lid.  If you don't let it dry out, you might decide a quick rinse is sufficient, but if it dries it will probably need a proper wash to remove the starch.
Steaming is more interesting.  There shouldn't be any splashing above the level of the food, so it should just be clean water on there.  I'd rinse it before drying and putting away.
That's a minimum; I would just put mine in the dishwasher; there's often a space when it's otherwise full that wouldn't be much use for something really dirty.


What is salsa criolla campesina of Nicaragua?

I haven't found a specific recipe so far - but I did find this:

'Criolla de Cocina' is a unique chiltoma pepper from Nicaragua. It is a sweet pepper characterized by a strong flavor, thin walls, and wrinkled appearance (like an oversized habañero). These types of peppers are used in Nicaragua for the classic sauce known as salsa criolla campesina, which combines thinly sliced onions and peppers with tomatoes, salt, sugar, and vinegar, and is served with grilled or fried fish or chicken throughout Nicaragua.

from here.
Of note is that campesina translates to peasant and criolla to creole or native in english, so you might translate the name as the sauce made by the native people (says me with no Spanish beyond a few basic words) - so it is likely a regional dish without a defined recipe - a true dish of the people if you will.
However: look what I just found here: http://www.recetasnica.com/Salsa-Criolla.php. Translated below:
Creole sauce .
Ingredients:

2 Large Tomatoes, Finely Chopped
1/4 Cup of Bitter Orange or Lemon Juice.
1/8 cup of vinegar.
1/4 of Cup of Water.
2 Fine Chopped Chiltomas.
2 finely chopped onions.
6 Fine Chopped Jalapeño Peppers
2 Tablespoons Ketchup (Tomato sauce).
1/2 cup of finely chopped coriander.`

Procedure:
Mix all these ingredients and add salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste (you can  also make it without chili). Put it in a separate container. This sauce can be added to any type of food or soup. You can keep it in the refrigerator indefinitely.


Russian roulette peppers!

Not sure if there is a good substitute you can buy already grown?

If you live near a warm coast try growing your own. Good seed suppliers (Johnnyseeds, LocalHarvest etc - Peperone Padron in NZ from italianseedspronto) should be able to help, or check Ebay or Amazon


What caused my grass-fed beef to taste & smell ‘off’ this time? Not sure if gamey or barnyard-y is the right description

Based on your explanation I can only speculate a bit. I have ordered beef and other meats including yak (which is from a bovine) online from various places.  I prefer grass fed and free range beef and also eat some game meats (venison, rabbit, ostrich, boar, etc) so am familiar with some variety of meats besides the farm raised packaged meat in most grocery stores.

Free range meat tends to be leaner, and a bit tougher and gamier, with stronger smell and flavor, than grocery store meat. The best way I'd describe "gamey" is a flavor somewhat like liver, and sometimes what seems like a slightly powdery texture or mouth feel. It can indeed smell a bit musky. The meat tends to be leaner and tougher and so depending on how you prepare it can be chewier. Not sure if this describes your experience? One person might find this appetizing while another might find it off-putting.

In my experience the fat on free-range meat often has a yellow color rather than pale white, has a stronger smell and flavor, and often a lot of the gaminess in the meat is actually in the fat. So if it is very well trimmed you can eliminate some of that.

Another possibility is that the meat wasn't handled well between slaughter and when you got it. The meat needs to be hung before it is processed, as short as 3-5 days and as long as 21, this varies based on the animal and how it is prepared, and this is where the experience and quality of your producer come into play. It is not true that fresher i.e. closer to the slaughter date is always better, the meat needs to hang for a while to become tender. A cattle is a huge animal, hundreds of pounds, and it takes a while for the meat to age before processing. It could also be that something went wrong with the shipping, maybe the steaks were allowed to thaw and refreeze or exposed to air.

I would take all of these questions to your beef producer and see if you can figure it out.


Carb, fat and protein changes in vegetable fermentation, specifically a ballpark reduction arc in carbohydrates

on the "Less important, but of keen interest" question:
let's talk carbs instead of cals here.  cals are potential chemical energy stored in carbohydrates, fats, proteins, etc.  in vegetable fermentation, the fat and protein content is not a significant contributor to potential calories, so i'll confine this to carbohydrates
microbial fermenters' (effective, not comprehensive or quantitative) ...
most who do this don't track a carb burn rate, but they definitely notice when the jars quit bubbling.  CO2 output rate is directly proportional to carb burn rate, but those are very difficult to measure without specialized equipment
there are two ways that fermenting usually stops, when fermenters

run out of food (mostly carbs)
byproducts (here, lactic acid) are concentrated enough to halt reproduction

so if the jar's quit bubbling, it's important to understand that it might not be down to near zero carbs
inputs are

carbs
minuscule amounts of protein and trace minerals

outputs are

more fermenters
carbon dioxide, which is not retained by most canners
lactic acid
compounds that lend funk to flavor and aroma

note that fermenters consist mostly of:  water, lipids (structural and energy storage), and protein (structural and information storage)
to answer the keen interest ...

net change in carbs?  yes.  down
net change in protein?  yes.  up, but not by much
net change in fat/lipids?  yes.  up, but not by much


Icing a cake with meringue: can it be done in advance?

This is a pretty tricky question to answer without knowing what the climate is like in your area.

Meringue is hygroscopic (absorbs water easily) due to the high concentration of sugars in the mixture. This means that any available source of water, including the air and the cake underneath, will donate water to the mix and make it soft fairly quickly and perhaps add a layer of liquified meringue between the cake and meringue if the cake is very moist. However, Italian meringue is fairly common as a topping on filled pies and is used as a base for buttercream icing, so it is quite stable as a mixture compared to some other types

If you can find some way to contain the cake in a sealed container, then it should last a reasonable time - overnight should be OK I think. I would make sure it is chilled if possible, for food safety purposes.

If you are somewhere where the air is dry, you will probably find that the meringue will hold fairly well outside a container for a few hours, however if the climate is humid, then the meringue will absorb moisture from the air quite rapidly and soften. How fast this happens depends on the relative humidity and airflow around the cake.


No, it is not safe to can hummus, even with a pressure canner. The problem is that it has a paste consistency, and the temperature has trouble penetrating through the middle of the jar. No safe home canning process has been established which can consistently reach the required temperatures.

You can buy canned hummus, but that's no contradiction. Home pressure canners operate at nominal 10 PSI, while industry has access to different equipment.

Some people go around the problem by canning everything that goes into the hummus whole - so a jar of chickpeas, seaseme seeds (not the ready tahini!), spices and lemon juice in liquid. They stick a blender into the can after they open it, to make their hummus. That's a safe practice, since you can can chickpeas on their own.


6 TBS (3 ounces by volume) of granulated sugar, mixed with 4 liquid ounces of water (1/2 cup US), brought to a hard boil in the microwave yielded just over 6 liquid ounces of syrup. (A drop of color added for readability)

I would suspect that it didn't reach 7 ounces because of the air included in the volumetric measurement of granulated sugar.

So 4 cups of water plus 3 cups of granulated sugar would yield just over 6 cups of syrup if not allowed to reduce on the stove.


Does "build up" on the bottom of copper-bottom stainless sauce and frying pans matter?

I think it depends on your cooking surface.

If you're using gaz, induction or coil, then it should be ok.

If you are using a glass top, then the contact between the pan and the glass will not be efficient, and you will loose some of the heat.

I would spend some time cleaning it up.


Context would make me more sure, but I expect this is referring to neutral flavor.

If you need oil in something for purposes other than flavor, and want to make sure that the other flavors in the dish aren't affected or obscured, then you'd want a neutral oil. For example, for frying and sauteeing, we rarely use strongly flavored oil. (There's the additional problem that many flavors are destroyed at high heat; many more aromatic oils have lower smoke points.)

Oils like sesame oil, chili oil, and walnut oil are decidedly not neutral. On the other end, oils like canola oil and grapeseed oil are neutral. Close to neutral, there are very mildly-flavored oils like peanut oil. Somewhere more in the middle there are things like olive oil, which has some flavor but isn't overwhelmingly strong.

Note that sometimes there's more than one type of oil from a given source, often a more refined one that's more neutral and a less refined one with more flavor. For example, refined olive oil is quite neutral, but extra-virgin olive oil has plenty of flavor; "regular" peanut oil is fairly refined and mild, but there are also flavorful roasted peanut oils.


Should I add salt when boiling vegetable? Why?

Maybe you have heard of osmosis. Putting salt into the water when boiling vegetables (which are also slightly salty) will prevent water from entering the vegetables, hence decreasing the overall flavor of the vegetables.


Avoiding over-mixing when using a stand mixer

It could be a lot of things. Cookies in a stand mixer can suffer from gluten production and there would be no really good way to reverse this effect. However, if you are not mixing the cookies for more than a couple minutes, this is not likely the issue. Other things can effect the texture of cookies that might be a byproduct and not a direct result of the stand mixer.

One example might be that the solid fat that is used in the recipe was over mixed or out too long. Soft fat will make a denser crisper cookie. Refrigerating the cookies for a while would help fix this issue.

Another cause could be a minor substitution. See the blog link below for how different substitutions affect a cookie recipe.

http://www.handletheheat.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Along with the above make sure to check things like the expiration date on your baking powder. They lose potency pretty quickly after expiration. This could also cause dense cookies.


Wikipedia lists a few substitutes, some of which are fairly readily available. These may be based on roasted grains (like barleycup), chicory (though this is often combined with coffee), or both.

There are several processes for decaffeinating coffee. Not all rely on the organic solvents you're trying to avoid. The Swiss water process avoids then completely and is used commercially so you should be able to order some. CO2 decaffeinated coffee is rarer.


Does brewing tea for longer result in higher caffeine content?

I recently observed the effect of time of steeping on caffeine content in tea. We used High Pressure Liquid Chromatography to determine the levels of caffeine in Green Tea in samples that were steeped for 1, 2, 4, 10, 15, 30, 60, and 120 mins. The concentration of caffeine over time did not show any significant trends. Our results suggest that caffeine content does not depend on the steeping time and instead the caffeine dissolves in the hot water within a minutes of starting to steep the tea. Hope this helps.


The basic question is how to work with your dried bhut jolokia chili peppers.

First and foremost, don gloves (and, afterwards, remove them so that they're inside out).

To rehydrate the pods, put them in a bowl and pour boiling water over them, enough to cover them.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit until the chilies are softened, at least 10-15 minutes. As though you needed them to be more intense (really), you could toast the dry pods (both sides) in a hot, dry skillet, before rehydrating.

As for the dip, follow any recipe for queso, such as your Velveeta approach, with sauteed meat, onions, and tomatoes.


How do I cook a frozen hamburger in the microwave?

I don't endorse beef in the microwave, but that said, the best possible way to cook it is going to be on one of the microwave plates that raise your food off the plate. (the ones that look like the inside of a george foreman grill)  You are going to have to play with your power settings a bit to achieve a optimium patty.  In mine, it's 2:30 at 40 percent power and 1:30 at full power but depending on wattage, your particular times are going to vary.

The trick to having an edible patty come out of the microwave is use low power to achieve the desired temp and then hit it at full power to get the outside done.  It will always produce a slimy-er patty than cooking it on a stovetop or in an oven.  Make sure that you cover the patty during cooking as it is going to spatter like crazy.  You don't want to clean that mess up.

If you have access to a toaster oven, you can cook a patty in that in about 15 minutes and you will have a much closer to delicious product.


What are East Coast Chinese Chicken Wings marinated in?

The secret of the perfect Chinese chicken wing, is to barbecue it. First to marinate the wings with soy sauce, garlic glove for one night. Barbecue it when almost ready, to brush some honey onto the wings. Taste like heaven. Juicy and tender inside, sweet and crispy outside( the honey will help create a little char on the skin).


Removing turmeric stains from white plastic

The sun's UV radiation breaks up the dye (color) molecules that have stained your plastic. As the bonds in these molecules break down the color starts to fade and eventually may disappear.

This is why some plastics, paper, and other items with color fade over time when exposed to a lot of sunlight.


Scoring medium hydration dough after it's been in the oven

It looks like there may be some misunderstanding about how the cloche is supposed to work, and what scoring will/should look like. I think the bread in your photo looked like it didn't need any further scoring. I think it looked like a great result, since there aren't any visible blow outs on the bottom.  If you preheat the cloche in the oven, and put the bread in, with one or two deep scores, you should get some spring and steam from the oven as the water escapes from the bread inside the cloche. This is what causes the wide opening of your score.  The fact that it doesn't look like the "leaf" or "lip" that professional bakers get is mostly due to practice with the angle/depth of the score, and likely the amount of steam that is in the oven.  The cloche will create some steam, but not as much as is in a commercial oven with steam jets.    I don't see anything wrong with your pictured loaf.  It may be different from what you were expecting, but I think it is perfectly fine.  There was probably no need to do the second scoring.


Maintenance and safety of cast iron skillet

Great question - very well put!

Your chef advice is sound. I have been cooking with cast iron skillets for longer than I care to admit (old guy) and at first they can be intimidating but in the end, they become your go to pan especially for searing/cooking hot.

You asked the same question several times, "is the residue safe?" It's as safe as the cooking oil you use to season it and as clean as you were able to get it before storage. A clean oiled cast iron pan in your cupboard is safe. Sometimes, I will wipe the old residue off with a paper towel just before cooking just to get any dusty nasties off of the cooking surface.

Basically, this is how I use my cast iron.

1) Remove from cupboard

2) Take a look - is there any dirt, debris, dust or corrosion. If so, remove. (Corrosion being the most difficult but a little scouring and re-seasoning will do the trick.)

3) Heat pan thoroughly before cooking - again, the heat will kill anything you can't see but don't want to consume.

4) Cook your food.

5) Eat your food (grin).

6) Clean the pan (NO SOAP)

a) Remove any remaining food with a scouring brush - in the sink, use hot water and elbow grease.
b) Fill pan with hot water
c) Place on burner (on high)
d) Wait till it comes to boil
e) Turn off burner and remove from heat (careful - water is hot).
f) Pour out water and brush clean with scouring pad/brush
---If clean, let cool to touch - if not, repeat b-f
g) When cool, pour a small amount of cooking oil into pan
h) with a paper towel, spread cooking oil all over the inside of the pan
i) With the same paper towel, wipe the outside of pan and handles, bottom, everywhere
--You're looking for a nice coating of oil - no pooling - just a nice gloss. This will prevent corrosion and keep the pan seasoned.

7) Once pan in completely cool, return to cupboard.

Tip - if you were unfortunate enough to leave the braising residue in your pan for a few days and it's a sticky mess, you can try filling it with warm water and putting a couple tablespoons of dish washing crystals (Cascade works best for me) in the pan. These "crystals" contain little enzymes that will "eat" the residue and make cleaning much easier. Don't leave in too long, about an hour or so - repeat if necessary. (Works on other pans too but not recommended for Teflon or non-stick pans.)

Tip 2 - I stack my pans in storage. To prevent metal to metal contact (not good), I put a paper towel between each pan. Be careful that the cast iron is not touching your other pans. Dissimilar metals have a way of talking to each other (causes corrosion on both).

There you have my tried and true method of caring for a cast iron pans. For some reason, I find myself craving some cornbread.

Good Luck!

Gringo Dave


Adding mashed potatoes for moister/softer cinnamon rolls

Both kinds of potatoes you mention should work as a replacement to a portion of the flour required by the recipe you'd like to follow. I think replacing ~30% of the mass of flour with that mass of your choice of potato is a great start.

The sweet potato might be a better choice because of the added sweetness you'll get. You don't want to go far above 30% if you do that because it will start to dominate the flavor of the roll.

As for softness, it does seem like the end result will be a bit softer although I can't say I've tried it before. You could even consider using some high quality ricotta cheese instead of potato. If using ricotta, I'd limit to ~20% replacement for the flour as this is less starchy than the potatoes. This will help to soften the roll as well.


What are the functions of vinegar in cooking?

Vinegar is an acid. It is made from fermenting ethanol. This makes acetic acid.

Much like a kid's vinegar + baking soda = volcano science project, vinegar is sometimes used in breads to help the bread rise. My mom's banana bread is one example. And the more ripe the bananas are, the less acidic they are, so you need more vinegar in her recipe. My wife's mom's Banana bread recipe uses baking powder for the same effect using different chemicals.

Note: There is a difference between baking soda and baking powder.

Because it is acidic, it can be used in marinades to break down meats (or connective tissue). Follow the recipe for the marinade.

Vinegar (since it is an acid) also speeds up coagulation.

You can also use vinegar to preserve things like cucumbers. This is the process of pickling. The acid helps preserve the cucumbers (or other vegetables or fruits). Instead of vinegar (or other acids), you can use other, more natural methods of fermentation to pickle the vegetables. I've never done it, but I hear that they spoil quicker than the vinegar style pickling.

If you want to get into the science of cooking, I recommend "Professional Cooking" by Gisslen - it's a textbook for future chefs in culinary school


Rib Roast Rare standing up or lying down?

Use the ribs as a roasting rack. In the spirit of the day, I will share with you my favorite technique. For rare, rare, cook to 120F (49C), that will carry over to 125F (52C).


How long should I steam squid and cuttlefish?

I have always found that squid needs to be only cooked for 1 minute (2-3 minutes if battered and deep fried). Any more or any less results in very rubbery texture.

It can also be slow cooked for an hour or more in a soup so that it becomes tender.


Am sprouting beans in machine is the color normal

I can't see anything wrong with your sprouts as far as colour. If you're referring to the blush of the beans, yours are a bit pinker than most I've seen but still normal. I've spen them ranging from an almost white tan to blush. Since I don't know whether you kept yours in utter darkness, so I can't say whether it's related to light levels. It's also possible that a number of different mung bean cultivars are used for sprouting (since the majority of food we eat has countless cultivars). If so, possibly different cultivars might show different variations in colour.

I'm surprised that your sprouts are only 3 days old though. They already have developed leaves and that doesn't usually happen that quickly. Perhaps a little warmer than usual? That might even account for colour variations too.

There's no harm eating them with developing leaves but they taste milder when the leaves just start peeking out for the two halves. I gave up sprouting mung beans as I never could figure a good way to get rid of most if the loose skins.


Tool for making small balls of sticky food

In most professional kitchens, people use the ice cream-type scoop (your first picture), as they come in many different sizes.  In general, the scoop would be used to portion the product (sizing consistently).  Depending on what the final product was to look like, generally hands are quickly used for final shaping. While latex-type gloves are common, often dipping hands in water is enough to prevent sticking.


How can I make coffee syrup with caramel taste?

I would actually just make caramel. Place about 1 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup in a heavy bottom pan and dissolve over low-medium heat then crank up the heat and let cook, without stirring, until the mixture turns a golden amber colour and starts smoking. Then use the resulting caramel to sweeten your coffee :-)


Is it important to let meat sit in oil before grilling/baking?

I've never put oil on my meat to prevent drying. I do sometimes cook a steak in a hot cast iron pan with a lot of butter, but that's more to develop a crust than anything.

The most important factors in preventing dryness would be cooking time and temperature.


Why do brownies made from commercial mixes form a flaky top?

If I could offer a possibility..... When you bake a loaf of bread, the surface, exposed part of the loaf has a different crust than the interior (even when baked in a pan). This is due to the carmelization of the sugars on the surface. I suspect that this is the case here as well.

I get the same effect baking a mix or a scratch recipe. I've always assumed it is due to the carmelization of the surface sugars coupled with a bit of dehydration due to direct heat exposure....


Can tempered chocolate be seeded with a different chocolate?

You cannot use sugar unless you do not mind having crunchy sugar crystals. There is no way of sweetening chocolate by adding sugar, even powdered sugar, without a conche. I think if the cacao contents are not too dissimilar, you should be fine. I have got away with 70% seeding 85%, but I cannot tell you whether you could get away with any mix. You can also sweeten your 100% by mixing sweet dark chocolate.

I would not use whole chips though, you want it grated. In fact, I would temper the Callebaut first and grate it. Keep a stash of that as seed. I have also routinely tempered dark chocolate without seeding.


How to bake cake in pressure cooker instead of microwave?

You should pre-heat the cooker for 10 to 15 minutes and not use the rubber of cooker while baking the cake. Place your cake on some sort of steel ring or on another pot so it will not be directly heat from bottom and bake your cake on low flame for 20 to 25 minutes.It will perfectly baked.

I also bake the cake using cooker for several time and it's perfectly baked.


Transforming shredded cheese into chunk cheese

Normally when you have smaller cheeses you use a cheese press to mash them together. Make 1 round of cheese. Only thing I could think of would be to see Felx. Our local blacsmith & have one made. As a specialty item. Kind of like a long handled garlic press with out the holes in it. Think along those lines. Something cube shaped you can mash the cheese together in.


How do I adapt to grilling without a lid?

While if you have the opportunity to improvise a lid I recommend you do so as per the other answers, however it isn't always possible. I have unexpectedly been thrust into the "grill master" role when I've shown up to parties and the charcoal is hot, food expensive, and nobody but me knows how. In situations like this you have to do the best you can with what you have, and sometimes you won't have a lid or anything you can use as one.

The reasons you want a lid are that it evens the heat out, and reduces the oxygen supply to the fire which cools things down a bit and reduces flare-ups. Without a lid you will get a hotter temperature at the base of the grill and much cooler temperatures above, with fat having a much greater tendency to flare. You can still get good results through making good choices of what to cook, and good technique. Bad technique will lead to food that is burnt to a crisp on the outside and raw in the middle.

There are some foods that you don't need a lid for, in fact you shouldn't use one, like thin to medium cut steaks. Other foods like burgers you can use a lid or not and still get a good result. So part of your success will come from choosing the right things to cook. Thinner is better, as is picking foods that don't necessarily have to be cooked through.

Some food you just can't grill without a lid. Avoid anything that requires long, indirect heat like legs of lamb or roasting joints.

Some food is best cooked with a lid, but you can get good results without one, like chicken and sausages. Your main problem is heat control, and flaring. Chicken and sausages need longer cooking temperatures, so the goal is to cook them through without burning the outside, you can do this by keeping them around the edge of the charcoal where they get enough heat, and dripping fat won't hit the coals and flare up. Turn them often, like once a minute to keep them from burning. If they are getting close to done and they don't have enough char then you can move them to the center of the grill for a bit. It also helps to have some sort of baste to coat them with to keep them moist like bbq sauce or a marinade. With sausages you can cheat a bit by slicing them down the long way and cooking them flat a few minutes over high heat.

If you are cooking different foods at the same time, like burgers, sausages, and chicken then separate your grill into zones. Burgers get high heat, sausages medium, and chicken low. If you want to cook mostly food that needs a medium to low heat then you will get a lot of mileage from arranging your charcoal intelligently, like in a long strip down the middle of the wide part of the grill, or in a square grill in a torus shape. This will give you much more area of your grill with the temperature you need.

Really important for lidless grilling is a spray bottle full of water to put out flare-ups, a mist sprayed on the base of the flare works magic and it won't kick up ash all over your food.


What can "modified" mean when describing an ingredient?

Modified on the label literally means... well... modified, that is changed or altered.

I am unable to find a Standard Of Identity formally for "modified starch."

Modified starches are typically modified in a number of ways (see the linked Wikipedia article for the full detail), but the most common one in instant mixes is to pre-gelatinize the starch.  This permits it to more instantly dissolve and thicken items, even without being heated.

Your description of the filling thickener makes it sound like the starch is in fact modified for low temperature thickening.

In the case of your pie glaze, reverse engineering an industrial product which consists largely entirely of chemicals that are not easily obtained for home use may be... erm... fruitless.

You would be better off describing the outcome of the glaze, and trying to create a home recipe to come close.  You are likely to get a good result, perhaps even better than the commercial product.

Fruit pie fillings are are typically starch thickened, during the baking process.  However, you want an "instant" pie which is not cooked.  No-bake fruit pies are fairly unusual.  You may get better results by making a more traditional baked fruit pie.

This remainder of this answer is educated speculation, but I have not tried it.

To recreate this affect at home, you want a stove top filling method.  Sugar, tapioca starch (which tends to give a transparent effect, and is not sensitive to acid), lemon juice (for flavor and tartness, replacing the citric acid in your mix), and salt, perhaps with some spices should come very close.

Baking911 suggests running instant tapioca in your food processor to get a finer powder, that dissolves more easily.  Note that instant tapioca is in fact modified, as it is has been gelled, and then dried—so it may be close to what you are looking for.

You can bring this mixture to a low simmer, with your fruit, and then pour it into your shell, and it should do fairly well, although you will have to find the right proportions.


It won't ruin the bowl, but be careful handling it. Plastic becomes more brittle when cold, and if you drop it, it may shatter or crack.


What does "wedge" mean, as in "wedge" a head of Cabbage?

Another way to say this is to quarter the cabbage. The goal is to make "wedges" (triangles, when viewed from above) that are smaller than an entire head of cabbage (easier to cook and fit in your slow cooker) but still relatively intact.

To wedge a cabbage, slice it in half, and then slice the halves into either 2 or 4 pieces (depending on how large a wedge you want).

Image from Green Lite Bites


What's this "pucker" style hole on my cheese grater for?

It is designed for the likes of hard cheeses, nutmeg, or zesting lemon and orange skin. As you mentioned,  a lot of what you want to grate or zest gets stuck between the puckers and it clogs easily.

I would really recommend getting a micro plane as it gives the same fine result without becoming clogged.


This looks to me like the symptoms of too much flour - probably way too much.

Measuring baking ingredients by volume instead of weight is always a crapshoot, although it shouldn't be that far off - my guess is that either the flour was heavily compacted, or perhaps the baker's mind wandered off and she accidentally added an extra cup.

Overmixing (i.e. by using an electric mixer) is a common problem with cookies but the symptom of that is a hard and gritty cookie that doesn't rise - not one that rises too much and has unbaked flour in the center.  As far as I know, that can only happen with a huge amount of flour.  Obviously, too much flour would also result in a much denser dough.

What you ended up with seems to be more like a quickbread - almost a scone - and there is indeed not an awful lot of difference between the two aside from the ratios and the creaming of butter.

Excess flour probably wouldn't result in a stickier dough, but stickiness is more due to temperature than anything else.  If you're finding the dough too sticky to mold then make sure it's thoroughly chilled - that will make it easier to work with.


What is the difference between small vs large loose leaf tea?

Smaller leaves typically  but not always would mean younger leaves and is associated with higher quality. However this is not always the case and especially by this particular tea I don't know how true this is.

This tea is supposed to be made by growing tea in Taiwan without pesticides. Having a particular bug chew on the leaves causing the plant to produce certain chemicals that give this tea its flavor.

Additionally it's supposed to only use the top two leaves.

All these things together could make this potentially a pretty expensive tea. So some manufacturers take various shortcuts life chopping the leaves so it looks like a smaller tip leaf but actually being a older leaf.
Also being grown in Taiwan which has somewhat unstable weather and being dependent on those bugs makes this a very seasonal product that may be great some years and bland the next.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_leaf_grading

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongfang_Meiren


What type of chili in Olive Garden ‘Calabrian Chicken’

Calabrians eat a lot of chile peppers, but usually the one referred to as "Calabrian chiles" to foreign audiences is a variety of diamante chile pepper, grown in Southern Italy, salted and packed in oil, and sold as "hot long chile peppers".  These are commercially available in the USA from brands like Tutto Calabria and DeLallo.

The confusion comes in because the residents of Calabria province like a lot of peppers, and various other peppers are grown there, and even packaged and exported.

Calabrian chili peppers are not pepperoncini, or at least not what is sold in the USA as "pepperoncini". Those are a variety of small chile pepper, bred from the Anaheim, grown in the USA, picked green, and sold pickled.  They would be a terrible substitute.  Where you probably got that recommendation is that the word "pepperoncini" is Italian for "hot peppers", generically.

As for growing them, I'm not sure what to recommend.  The name they go by in Italy, "Diamante" after the town where they are grown, is used by several completely unrelated pepper varieties from English-speaking seed catalogs.  So I don't know what that pepper would be named if you wanted to plant it.


Is there an alternative to condensed milk?

To make sweetened condensed milk:

  The best make-your-own version is to
  mix 1 cup of evaporated milk with
  1-1/4 cups of sugar in a saucepan,
  heat and stir until the sugar is
  completely dissolved, and let cool.

  If you don't have evaporated milk on
  hand either, you can make your own by
  slowly simmering any quantity of milk
  in a pan until it reduced by 60%, and
  then adding the sugar.

Source: http://www.ochef.com/125.htm

Another recipe that sounds like a lot more work and uses powdered milk: http://www.ehow.com/how_4903555_make-condensed-milk.html