Pork butt roast: slicing temp vs pulling temp

It really isn't that simple.  It turns out this question is like "how long does it take to drive 100 miles?"  Well, part of the answer is dependent on how fast the car goes!

The pork will be fully cooked, and almost certainly palatable to your taste (in terms of doneness which is always well done at these temperatures), if it reaches 165 - 170 F in any case.

The key question is how long has it been at temperatures that convert collagen to gelatin?  Collagen converts to gelatin at a temperature dependent rate, faster at warmer temperatures (within limits).   It is not an instantaneous process.

The key difference between the slicable roast and the pullable roast is the relative amount of converted gelatin.  That is the 100 miles you want to go... having enough converted to be sumptuous and delicious.

Unfortunately, that is a tricky question to answer, since the conversion reaction starts (at a glacially slow pacing) as low as 140 F if you are willing to wait literally days, and proceeds relatively rapidly at 200 F, with varying speeds in between.  This is the speed of the car.

On the other hand, the internal temperature of the roast cannot really exceed the external temperature, since heat moves to the center from outside (I know, it sounds trivial, and it is).  But the key thing is, the outside is cooled by the evaporation of water (technically the term is enthalpy of vaporization is, but that sounds complicated):  it takes a relatively large amount of energy to convert liquid water at 100 C to steam at 100 C.

Because of this, every time a water molecule evaporates from the surface of the roast, it actually cools the roast compared to the instant before.   Overall, the temperature of the outside cannot climb substantially above a certain level until it is fairly dry (and your bark is formed).   This implies the center cannot get too hot until then either.

However, the entire time the surface temperature of your meat is stalled as it dries out (and more water migrates from the center, to certain extent), the inside is hot and collagen to gelatin conversion is ongoing.

Saying your roast is done at 170 F or pullable at 190 F (a common recommendation) is an over simplification of a complicated, non-linear process.  Sometimes it is better to just recognize when you reach your destination.

The final target temperature required to allow sufficient conversion time is dependent on the size of the roast, the temperature of the oven or barbecue, the rate at which the temperature rises in the specific roast, and so on.  This is very hard to predict.

Fortunately, pork butts and other cuts used for this type of cooking are remarkably forgiving.

So as much as it pains me to say this, in this case, put aside the thermometer, guestimate based on time, and learn to test your meat by poking at it (literally, the tenderness is the goal and the test) until you have enough experience to just know.

If you take the roast out early, and find some is not pullablle, you can always wrap the un-pullable part in foil (to inhibit additional moisture loss), and stick it right back in.  Or just slice that part!

Even the failures will be delicious.

See also:

Huffington Post article on The Stall
What makes a moist steak (or roast)? (The answer is more general...)


How many whetstones, and what different grits, do I need?

Several companies sell two-sided whetstones or waterstones are 1000/3000 grit or 1000/6000 grit (this King waterstone is the one I have), or similar medium/high grit combos. You want one of these two-siders; it's a nice compact way to get the sharpening you really need. These are what I recommend for a home use stone.

However, if your grandparents aren't used to sharpening knives at all, please reconsider giving them a whetstone/waterstone. Sharpening properly using a stone takes a bit of technique and self-education (I took a 2-hour lesson), and someone who isn't into knives is liable to either damage their blades, injure themselves, or both. Some kind of sharpener that guides the blade would probably be better for that kind of a cook.


Non-melting processed cheese: what's it made of?

I've never found smoked cheeses (including hickory farms' smoked cheddar) to be meltable.  they make really good, flexible slices for sandwiches, or on crackers, but they don't melt well.

Smoked cheese, including hickory farm's brand, is a drier, firmer cheese - and the moisture levels of cheese are really important to the melting properties.  If you really want to try to melt it, you would have to up the moisture level... shred finely and soak for a while and then use gentle heat with plenty of available moisture when trying to melt it.  Same as with any firm, dry cheese.  I've done this sucessfully with smoked cheeses, but I usually dfon't bother.

Processed cheeses usually have quite a bit more moisture added, with butter and cream and milk, to make the texture smooth and flexible and meltable.  This one, whatever moisture might've been added to the original cheese probably at most offset some of the moisture lost while smoking.  I think even "cold" smoking is warm(er than fridge) with moving air to get the smoke distributed - conditions which dry the cheese right out.

And smoking really is a kind of cooking, if you're used to thinking about cooked cheeses being non-melty.  I think that's the rest of why even a pretty soft and flexible smoked cheese doesn't melt well, I think it undergoes (some of?) the same chemical changes that make a once-melted cheese more brittle, more oily, brighter color, squishy and floppy instead of smooth and firm, and in general less happy about remelting.  That can happen just a few degrees above room temp, so it doesn't take much.


Storage of chocolates/candies in process (i.e. prior to cutting, dipping, etc)?

The best storage depends on the particular confection:

Refrigerate (in a sealed container to not pick up orders or absorb water):

Ganache
Soft caramel

Cool dry storage, again in an air-tight container to minimize changes in moisture level:

Candied citrus peal
Nuts - Dry storage
Marzipan
Raisins and other dry fruits
Fondant
Hard caramel or toffee

Ovens without pilot lights probably qualify as cool dry storage, and will keep the pets out if you have any, but accidents happen.  I would use a cabinet or pantry if you have room.


When making pizza dough ahead, at what point in the process should I let it rise?

It should be safe to skip the punch down step.
In fact, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François, who literally wrote the book (or at least a book: Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day) on making pizza dough ahead of time, strongly encourage us to never punch down.  Actually, if you search their website for the words "punch down," you will find that it only occurs in the following phrase (emphasis theirs):

  DO NOT PUNCH DOWN THE DOUGH!

Having said that, it is worth noting that most of the doughs they make are relatively wet, and they usually suggest just mixing and storing everything in a bucket without bothering to oil the dough.
However, in my own experimentation, which has mostly involved doughs that are not quite as wet, I haven't been able to detect a difference in the end product whether I punch the dough down or not, as long as the dough is fully kneeded, regardless of whether or not I portion/oil the dough out for individual pizzas before storing it in the fridge (though portioning it out in advance or not does make a difference for me).

You can also see that our dear friend Alton Brown, who prefers proofing the dough in the fridge (see "Flat is Beautiful," Good Eats Season 3 Ep. 11), also does not suggest punching the dough down before stowing it.

Finally, when in doubt, try it out.  Homemade pizza dough is great stuff (and inexpensive); now you have an excuse to make it twice and see what happens.


Temp and time for using half the recipe of cake

As @joe said, it does not scale linearly.

There are various factors that effects cooking time:

Thickness: the heat transfers mainly from the top and bottom for a round on a not too thick to thin dish, so for half a cake with the same thickness the time will stay about the same. Think of a pizza for example, whether it's 5 or 15 inches in diameter the cooking time is nearly exactly the same. For a very thick cake, though (sponge cake for a wedding cake for example), the lateral heat transfer will matter far more.

Chemical reactions: Some chemical reactions (egg coagulation, Maillard, unfolding of proteins etc.) happens at a very specific temp under which they don't happen at all or takes forever. For example  the  coagulation an egg at ambient temperature will take several years, where it would happen in a few minutes at 65 centigrades. Try browning a toast at 90 c (half of the temp needed), it'll never happens. It takes 180c to start burning bread, anything under will stop the expected result from happening .

Most chemical or physical reactions (water boiling) that gives the expected taste or texture to something you bake happens between 60 to 180 c so do not change the temp when changing the amount in a recipe if the temp indicated is within that range.

If you cook a bigger item a higher temperature it won't have a chance to cook internally before being burnt on the outside, on the opposite, a smaller item with the same shape will be crisp and nice at the same temp.

As for the time needed, only on very compact items, nearly spherical, such as scones, choux pastry, or poultry (think of the time needed to roast a breast of chicken vs a whole chicken vs a turkey) the amount of time will be more closely proportional to the size or weight. You cook the smaller item less longer.

In brief: don't change the temp if it's equal or less than 180c. If your cake is compact (like a banana bread cooked in a tin) drop maybe  around a quarter  of the time for a halving of the recipe, and maybe a sixth of the time for a thinner cake.


Was curious myself, so I did some more searching. I found a few sites that suggested honey as a alternative, but note that honey is sweeter, so you'll need to cut back. The majority of resources I found agree that corn syrup is your best and closest western substitute.

Traditionally the Malt Syrup (or Mul Yut? Mulyeot?) was apparently made from barley, but these days apparently mostly made from corn, hence corn syrup being a good substitute. Some resources/products even translate and sell Mulyeot directly as "Corn Syrup".


Curing salts contain sodium nitrite or sodium nitrate. When these curative agents are combined with the amines in meat and exposed to high heat they form carcinogenic compounds called nitrosamines.  As the linked article states, commercial producers often add Vit. C to counteract some of the nitrosamine formation, but the curing mix you have might not include it for economic reasons.


Sodium chloride along with sugar is something that most manufacturers add to their products.

Yes, rinsing will reduce the sodium content.


Why are holes punched into rice packages?

The bags are less likely to burst when the air can move in and out of them. Last thing you want is a bunch of bags to pop during shipping.


How do I keep leftover tomato sauce from spoiling?

Put leftover sauce in a zip-style freezer bag.  Seal most of the way.  Lay on counter and gently remove air, sealing the rest of the way at the last moment.  Freeze flat.  Freezing will extend the shelf life.  Freezing flat will allow for easier storage, and faster thawing.


Difference between cooking vegetable curries in a pressure cooker and a wok?

I am not sure if you are asking about pressure cooking vegetables or just using the pressure cooker to cook. If you are talking about pressure cooking the vegetables, I think a kadai is more suitable because it preserves the texture of the vegetable you are cooking. If you cook the same vegetable in the pressure cooker, it is difficult to control the 'doneness' of the vegetable.

For example, I have cooked aloo mattar (potatoes and peas) in a kadai and in a pressure cooker. The peas come out much more mushier when cooked in a pressure cooker versus a kadai. If I want a pressure-cooked texture in a kadai, I cook longer.

If you are talking about cooking in a pressure cooker without the lid on, it makes no difference whether you are using a kadai or a pressure cooker.


Naturally, asofoetida  is obtained as a hard gummy resin from trees. In order to make it easier to measure and add to your cooking, it is powdered and sold. But, asofoetida being a resin in nature gets clumped in the package if not coated with some agent. In India, it is usually coated with flour. Flour when put in oil gets fried. So what you see clumping isn't asofoetida, it's the flour in it.


Have you tried making Swedish Pancakes? They are between a "regular" fluffy pancake and a crepe. To make a proper crepe, you need either a crepe pan or a crepe griddle. With Swedish Pancakes, you can use a regular pan. You will find that Swedish Pancakes have a higher amount of eggs and milk. For example:

4 eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 cup flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 pinch salt
2 tbsp melted butter


im doing kimchi but no rice wine available

You should use patience. The sour taste comes from lactic and acetic acid (more lactic than acetic) produced by the fermentation process. Kimchi is essentially "spicy sauerkraut" and both get their acidity from bacteria which are naturally present on the vegetables, aided (over other bacteria) by the right amount of salt (typically 2% by weight or slightly less), and lack of air.

The lack of air part means you should not be opening the jar to check on it for at least 6 weeks or so (and hopes that you are using a proper jar that keeps the air out with a water seal or the like.) A plain canning jar with the lid correctly tightened but not overtightened can work, but you should keep it in the dark. The bacteria eat sugars present in the vegetables and produce the acids.

Ideal temperature is a subject of debate - for speed, 70F or even 75 (which is dangerously close to too warm in my opinion) (can cut your time down to 3 weeks), for quality (but there is debate) at lower speed, 60-65 F for 6-8 weeks or more.

Per someone's mother in law from Korea, bury the jar in the garden in early winter and dig it up in spring (not one I've tried.)


How to select a drain rack for pots and pans?

Go to a restaurant supply store and get a dish machine rack. They're ugly, but they're built to take a beating.


How to Bake Cookies Without a Convection Oven?

Lots of people bake very good cookies without convection ovens, so it's certainly possible. :)

If the bottoms of your cookies are burning/overbaking, the first thing to try is a lighter-colored cookie sheet. Sometimes, even just using some white parchment paper on a dark cookie sheet can help, but the best is to invest in a shiny, light-colored metal cookie sheet, perhaps even an insulated one (i.e. one with two layers of aluminum with an air core in between).

Also, get a good oven thermometer, and make sure your oven is actually at the temperature suggested by the recipe.

If your oven has the heating element in the bottom (which is most of them), try putting the cookies higher up in the oven - not necessarily way up at the top, but just above the middle rather than just below.


(How) can I prevent pasta water from boiling over with the lid closed?

You can use a larger pot. I always use my 12 qt stock pot to boil pasta in. I fill it anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 full and have no problems with boil over. I too always use it with the lid on. Granted, you're going to use more energy to heat a larger quantity of water, but meh. I'd bet that your refrigerator and A/C use gobs more energy than your range.

As to why it happens? I'm speculating here, but maybe it's the back pressure on the foam bubbles when the lid is on. With the lid off the bubbles can expand rapidly, and break. With the lid on, there is slight back pressure which could restrict the bubbles ability to expand as quickly.


Faulty recipes: omitted ingredient or unused ingredient

To enhance the quality of your recipes, you need to have someone proof read them and execute the recipe; the second part, you should be there and record everything the testers do or not with your recipe.

To pick up errors and typos in existing recipe, you just need to proof read the recipe and apply whatever experience you have to fix them (for example if a cake recipe seems off with 25 cups of sugar, maybe by looking at the other ingredients it is actually 2.5 cups.

Same kind of analysis for either missing or wrong ingredients; if a cake recipe  lists lemon zests but is not in the recipe steps, you need to decide with your own experience one way or the other it it should be used or not.

Anecdotal, there was a TV show (usa or canadian)  a while back where they tested recipes from recipe books just by "executing" the recipes literally (no adjustment, no "maybe if we changed that")

There were tons of typos in quantities or missing ingredients or even oven settings (for example recipe forgot to say to turn on the oven) that a novice cook would not see, but a seasoned cook would pick up and adjust automatically.


Scratched coating in old ice-cream maker: is it safe?

I would not use it given the fact that you will be using it to make a mixture for ice cream, pieces might end up in the mix. You can try it out a couple of times and if no parts fall out then should be good to go. Would not recommend to use it at a business but for personal use only.


I saw no degradation in image quality (custom printed ones) in a few days. If the icing is hard then you moisten it just enough for the rice paper to stick before letting it dry again you should be fine as there's no source of moisture to make the ink suffer. But of course check the instructions - I think mine used alcohol-based inks.

But why not ice the cake in advance then add the topper the day before serving?


Is there such a thing as pumpernickel flour?

Pumpernickel is made from rye flour.  If a recipe refers to "pumpernickel flour", they are probably referring to coarse-ground rye flour, which is coarser than you'd use for regular rye bread.  Coarse ground rye flour allows you to make the superdense pumpernickel breads you may be familiar with from Germany and Skandinavia.  This style of pumpernickel, which is the traditional variety, is dark colored not from molasses or other additives, but from very long cooking (as in 8 to 16 hours).

If you want a lighter pumpernickel, more like the pumpernickel sandwich bread sold in the USA, use regular fine-ground rye flour combined with wheat flour, plus coloring agents.  This is also the mix used for pumpernickel bagels.

As a personal recommendation, I suggest using dark malt syrup as your sugar and coloring agent for American-style pumpernickel rather than molasses.  Dark malt syrup can be obtained from brewing supply stores, and some food stores with large "natural foods" sections.


Tomatoes freeze well in terms of taste, but not in terms of texture.
After thawing them, you should use them in soup, stews, etc. rather than eating them raw.

It could be useful to remove their skins and dicing them up prior to freezing.


How does the glue of bamboo cutting boards get in the food and how to prevent this?

While it is impossible to prove a negative, I am unable to locate any credible evidence that there is actual danger from glue in bamboo cutting boards.

Consider that even if (and this seems unlikely) there were formaldehyde in the glue in a cutting board that in order to pose a danger it would have to:

Not be bound permanently or chemically modified as the glue cures,
somehow diffuse through the bamboo to the surface,
transfer into the food in the brief time the food is in contact with the board, and
do so in sufficient quantities as to cause harm.

I would not worry about this in the slightest.


This is just my experience, but sometimes you can't get a decent pour through the built-in strainer in the top of a Cobbler Shaker, so taking off the top two parts (the little lid and the piece that has the strainer) and using the Hawthorne strainer is just easier. This is especially the case when you have things inside along with your ice and booze like muddled mint leaves, etc.


How to avoid elephant skin on no-knead bread?

I have been baking no-knead bread in a heavy porcelain 2-qt.soufflé dish with a glass lid with great success and consistent crust on all sides. My recipe is based on Jim Lahey's magical recipe  at http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread but I use only 1 1/2 cups water, 1 cup white whole wheat flour, 2 cups of bread flour,1 1/4 tsp. non-iodized table salt, and 1/4 tsp. instant yeast.  SAF red label yeast provides consistent results.  Once, I forgot to turn and shape it before baking so now I usually fold the dough a few turns in the bowl once earlier in the day and allow it to continue fermenting until baking time. (If I do turn it out to shape it as described by Lahey, I prefer rice flour to wheat bran to prevent sticking.)

I preheat the oven, pot, and lid at 550°F for half an hour and then pour the bubbly, risen dough into the pot. The nearly-liquid dough has visible gluten 'legs' as it is poured and sizzles as it hits the pot.

I reduce the oven temperature to 475°F and bake the dough for 30-35 minutes covered and another 15 or so minutes uncovered or until the internal temperature is 210°F. It can be baked directly on the rack for the last 5-10 minutes for a drier crust. I allow it to cool to 80-85 degrees before slicing to be certain that the final phase of bread baking, gelatinization, is completed and this very hydrated bread's interior isn't gummy when cut.

Heavy porcelain, ironstone, glass, cast iron all work well - slow cooker inserts or all manner of heavy vessels as described on baking blogs can be used. This dough is so wet that the bread takes the shape of the vessel in which it is baked.

The thermal mass of the vessel is important for storing and radiating heat energy to the bread dough. A vessel that is thick and dense such as cast iron, dense ceramic, or glass will more closely replicate the heated mass of the brick ovens traditionally used for artisan breads than will a thin vessel with less mass.


Baking chicken while respecting maximum olive oil temperature

I think I got my answer. Thanks to GdD to put me into the right track. I was using an olive oil not suitable for cooking. I got now one now capable of handling up to 210C. I think I need to do a lot of salads to make use of the previous 1 liter olive oil bottle though :P

BTW, i tried the chicken, not problems so far by eating it. Likely was still enough well cooked.


What's the secret to pan-searing a steak with regard to oil's smoking point?

If your oil catches fire, it is indeed too hot. But still, you cannot make a good steak without reaching the smoking point.

"the temperature definitely isn't anything to write home about" - here you are wrong. Whether the tempreature is too much, too little, or just right, that's something you recognize by the behavior of your food. If your oil billows large smoke clouds and your steak chars on the outside, that's way too much, no matter now easy it was to reach it or how little you have turned the dial.

Just keep adjusting the temperature until your steak cooks well. From what you are writing, the first adjustment should be down, but before you learn, you will probably at some time start undershooting it and will have to regulate it back up. Just repeat the exercise until you get a good feeling for how to make the steak. You can speed up the learning process if you start using an infrared thermometer.


You can try slicing it thinner (about 1mm or less, like a normal potato crisp), to further increase surface ratio in your crisps and make them dehydrate quicker and fully in the oven, so there is no moisture to migrate.

The difference between frying and baking is how your food is exposed to heat - frying is sudden exposure to high heat that leads to dehydration of the surface of your food and makes it crispy. This doesn't last long because then the moisture at the core of the food migrates to the surface and makes it soggy (like french fries and chicken nuggets). Unless your food lost completely all the remaining moisture and it doesn't migrate to the surface (like happens with potato crisps).

Cutting your squash as thinly as possible might be the solution to have crisps, so your oven can fully dehydrate them and you don't have the leathery texture.


How can I make this cool chocolate shape?

I think it is more likely that the pastry chef employed a piece of food grade acetate (the link is a sample vendor).

They would have piped the pattern of tempered white chocolate onto the acetate sheet, then rolled it into a cylinder (chocolate on the inside) taping or clamping it shut to set.  Once thoroughly chilled, they would have very, very carefully peeled the sheet from the chocolate.

This is a very advanced technique, especially with white chocolate, which is persnickety and tough to temper, and often not as solid as dark chocolate.  Good luck.


Six eight ounce sticks is enough butter for four regular crusts.
I'd add 3X all the other ingredients, mix, press into shape, divide into 4 pieces, freeze 3 of them, and make a pie with the remaining crust. After sitting at least a day, and perhaps freeze/thawing, you probably won't get the best crusts, but they should be usable.


How do you minimise hand washing between every step to keep tools clean?

Bad news first:
Frequent washing is part of clean cooking. And while the TV chefs might seemingly ignore this step and simply wipe their hands on a towel, note that they a) typically don't serve these meals and don't do the cleanup after the show and b) the shows are heavily edited - no viewer wants to watch the chef wash their hands again.

But the good news is that you don't have to wash all the time. With a bit of practise, you can use the fact that you have two hands - keep one hand clean and dry, actually touch the meat only with the other one.
I did a longer explanation for a very similar question about seasoning steak.

This might need a bit more conscious planning and a mise en place for the first time, e.g. opening spice jars or chopping herbs before unwrapping the meat, but unless you are dealing with very large and heavy pieces of meat, the "dedicated hands" method works pretty well.


White efflorescence on home-dried prunes

I recently got a box of dried fruits (including plums) from a friend. There was a note on the box: 'never mind the white crust, that's just sugar'.

I'm quite sure your plums have sugar on their skin. Or maybe some dried potassium sorbate but nothing harmful.


changing single loaf bread into two smaller

When you divide your recipe into two loaves, compared to the single loaf, they will:

Bake through more quickly
Get less crust development

all other things being equal.   Still, bread is relatively tolerant of varying conditions, so I would start with the original baking temperature, and monitor closely.  The baking time will probably be reduced by a few minutes

It is always important to know how to test that the loaves are done, not just rely on a time.  Depending on the recipe, it will be done when the internal temperature reaches something on the order of 190 to 200 F (depending on your recipe, and how enriched it is).   See Fresh Baked Loaves for other tips on how to determine if a loaf is done.

If you find the loaves are baking through and you have insufficient crust development, you may try increasing the temperature slightly (in increments of about 25 F).


Marinate sundried tomatoes with ethanol overnight?

There are certain flavor components of foods that are more or less soluble in various liquids.  It turns out that some of the flavor components of tomatoes are, indeed, soluble in alcohol.  That is the genesis of recipes that add a small amount of vodka to tomato sauce.  Vodka is flavorless, the alcohol evaporates, and you are left with a more intense sauce.  I suspect that is what you are experiencing, though you may enjoy the added flavor that the scotch contributes.  I don't think that soaking the tomatoes will increase the intensity.  In fact, you might lose these soluble flavor components to the alcohol. In other words, you will make tomato flavored scotch.  Perhaps not what you want, and these tomato flavors may get lost in the already strong flavors present in scotch. But, I could see value in tomato flavored vodka, for example.  For your recipe, I would maintain your current practice of adding the alcohol to the dish as you prepare it.


How can I prevent the cocoa in my hot chocolate from solidifying over time?

Apply heat.

It's not quite what you were looking for, but it's probably the only solution that won't involve adding chemicals.

Basically, a set amount of milk can hold a specific amount of chocolate in suspension. The hotter it is (below boiling), the more it can hold. That's why as the milk cools, the chocolate it can no longer hold falls to the bottom of the cup.

The three options are:

Keep it warm, by using a mug warmer (like Catija suggested). If it doesn't cool, it won't lose the ability to hold the chocolate.
Start with less chocolate, that way, it won't be too much for the milk when it's cooling. Obviously, this will affect the flavour.
Add chemical additives, like emulsifiers, which will allow the milk to hold more chocolate.

As I said at the beginning, I think the best option is the first one. Apply heat.


Yes, you can freeze stew. You may find that the vegetables are a bit softer or broken into smaller pieces after thawing. If you used a thickening agent (flour, cornstarch), it may separate as it thaws in the refrigerator overnight. To remedy that, remove a bit of the liquid, simmer with a bit more thickener and whisk so that it stabilizes. Then, gently stir into the stew as you reheat it.

And, you're correct, 'don't refreeze' applies to the raw meat, not to when it has been cooked.


Does the foam head affect the taste of cola?

More head = less carbonation, which will change the mouth-feel of the drink, albeit largely imperceptibly for most people (myself included). Less carbonation will also change the actual perception of flavour; it will taste sweeter, mostly.


What is the procedure for Pillsbury cookies?

You should let the dough get to room temperature (IMO, no more than  20c)

And the dough contains enough fat that you should not need extra flour for the rolling pins.

This video shows how to make pillsbury cookies : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzyD_0ySatE


Should flax seeds be crushed to be a good egg substitute?

Yes, for all practical intents and purposes, for flax eggs to congeal they need to be milled or ground to a powder and slurried with water, then introduced to the dish. After stirring and then letting set you should have a nice gloopy mess if you let it stand for a few minutes.

I typically use a 1 part milled seed to 2.5 parts water, but typically ranges go from 2-3 parts water. You can use a mortar and pestle or coffee grinder for fast, thorough results.

The exception to this is that you can boil them(this link will teach you how to use them to make hair gel, if you're so inclined). This will cause the soluble fiber (the congealing agent) to dissolve, leaving behind the seed husks. Milled flax seeds don't seem to be any less effective and no more distracting in terms of taste so, unless you're doing up your hair, I just don't see the payoff on boiling them.
Another exceptional means to an exception to this is letting the seeds soak for approximately 6-8 hours. As I recall the person who tried this said it didn't congeal much, and was less sticky than a milled flax egg.


Spanish Chorizo comes in two forms both of which to the best of my knowledge are fully cured (cooked):  one which is more for eating on its own (like salami) and the other which tends to have a higher ratio of fat in it and is used primarily for cooking.  The latter one being what the recipe is referring to as "cooking chorizo".  Oftentimes the cooking chorizo is in a paper casing that must be removed (unless you need some extra fiber in your diet).  Either one of these would work, however you might need to add a little oil to the pan if you need to cook other things in the fat that would normally be rendered out.

Mexican chorizo is always a raw product which must be cooked and is usually in a plastic casing.


How do I trap lateral bones that run down outside edge?

The instructions are specifically for flatfish, which generally have boney fins which run around the sides of the fish.
I think the instructions are telling you to use the blade of your knife to snag these and literally drag them away from the body.
A cooked flatfish is a very soft thing and you want to work delicately. There will be very little resistance when you drag the bones away so trapping them between your knife and the board beneath gives you enough grip to pull them gently away without messing with the fillet that you are trying to keep whole.


What is the traditional way to layer a lasagna?

Traditionally, you start with a layer of pasta at the bottom, then go ragu-bechamel-lasagne-ragu-bechamel-lasagne, and finish with a layer of bechamel directly on top of the last pasta layer, followed by a liberal covering of grated parmesan.

It is also common to add a sprinkling of parmesan on top of the bechamel in each layer.

Ratios are subjective but I would say it is normal to have roughly twice as much ragu as bechamel


Is it possible to turn Rice Krispies back into rice?

Rice Krispies are made from a sweetened, malted and cooked and partially dried rice that is then "popped" similar to popcorn.

The manufacturer writes:

  Each piece is made from a single, toasted grain of rice (...)

The physical/chemical process is basically the same as for popcorn.
Unlike corn, rice grains contain very little water so the initial boiling step introduces enough humidity inside the kernel. The partial re-drying to harden the shell allows it to hold it inside while the water turns into steam and pressure builds. When the grain can't contain the steam any longer, it will expand and the gelatinized starch forms a sponge-like texture. Note that a careful balance of humidity and drying is required to get the best results.

As you are changing the structure of the starch, consider this a one-way process. Neither popcorn nor puffed rice can be transformed back to their original "kernel / grain state":

  All the king's horses and all the king's men
  Couldn't put Humpty together again.

The "modern" puffed rice method using pressure / sudden release is attributed to Alexander P. Anderson, who stumbeled about it when testing the humidity of grains in the early 1900s. The process was taken over by Quaker Oats and used for other grains as well.


This is based on what I was taught by a Chinese cook when I worked in his restaurant at age seventeen. Any compliments should be directed at old Tommy Wu.  Any complaints may be due to my imperfect memory. His process was both similar and different in some respects from yours.

Use day-old cooked cold white rice.  Spending the night refrigerated will make it drier and easier to break up sticky clumps.
Fry your scrambled eggs first and set them aside.
Use a well-seasoned wok or pan with very little oil.  Do not add broccoli, onions, or other vegetables at this point. They will be added after the plain brown fried rice is done to turn it into a specific dish.
Dump the cold rice into a cold wok or pan and add your basic flavors on top of it.  I remember the proportions and ingredients as being roughly 3-4 gallons of rice, 2 cups of regular soy sauce, one cup of thick black soy sauce, 1/8 cup of salt. These are rough guesses on my part since we did not measure anything precisely.  The "cups" were actually big metal ladles and the salt was some amount at the bottom of the ladle. You would have to experiment to proportion it down for home quantities and to match your taste since you want to limit your sodium.
Crank up the heat and get ready for a workout.  A commercial wok makes an extraordinary amount of heat. I might use a cast iron skillet with high sides or a dutch oven at home. Either way the stove should be cranked up as high as it will go. The main thing that people do wrong when frying rice is that they are afraid of getting it too hot and burning it. You want to have your pan super hot but to keep the rice moving around to prevent it from burning.  That is one reason why you should use very little or even no oil since it would smoke in this circumstance.
Assuming you are right handed, take a metal spatula in your right hand and a metal ladle in your left. Use the spatula to scrape every inch of the pan repeatedly into the ladle which is a backstop. This is done with both arms moving in an upward "tossing" motion. If you have the heat high enough, you will have to work quickly and constantly for several minutes scraping and tossing. Don't neglect to scrape the far side of the pan or it will burn.
Every thirty seconds or so, hold the spatula vertically into the center of the upward-facing ladle and hammer them down together over a variety of spots in the pan. This gets the rice hotter and really gets the browning effect you want. Only do this stamping for ten seconds or so and immediately get back to scraping or it will start to burn.
After about five minutes, it should be steaming nicely, the browning will look cooked rather than merely dyed by soy, and your arms will feel like they want to fall off.  Get the fried rice out of the pan quickly into a large bowl and then stir in your scrambled eggs. Since you are adding them at the end, they should not break up nearly as much as they were for you.
Now you can eat it as plain fried rice or use it as a base for a fancier dish with meat or vegetables.  This can be kept and reheated for a day or two if you want, as long as it is will covered.  It is best kept warm (140 degrees?) in a steamer to keep it from drying out.  If I remember right, we would cook the meats, vegetables, and mushrooms in a brown soy-based sauce first, then add the warm brown rice to that pan when the meat and veggies were done.  That keeps you from cooking the rice twice and lets you cook those components in a way that is more suitable for them.


From your list of ingredients, I can tell you are missing at least one ingredient.

Sugar

Or any kind of sweetener. Cocao powder by itself is very bitter and acidic. Without the sugar it's not too surprising the cake taste bitter and slightly sour.


Oven temps for cooking in enameled dutch oven

I would suggest an oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit (218 degrees Celsius) and to use a meat thermometer for an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit (63 degrees Celsius). It would probably take about 20-25 minutes if you sear the meat before putting it in the oven.


The first thing you have to remember is that you're never going to make an extremely sweet liqueur with a delicate flavor, like an amaretto or melon liqueur, into something it's not. You can complement or supplement, but you'll never mix a Midori drink that loses the sugar while keeping the melon flavor in the forefront; you'll either have to live with the sweet note or you'll cover the melon if not blow it away completely.

The recipe I always use when experimenting with cocktails is "two parts strong, one part sweet, one part sour". You pick a mother liquor (your 80- to 150-proof "base"), add a sweet note, usually a sweet liqueur like a curacao or amaretto, or a syrup like grenadine, then balance it with a sour note like citrus juice, pomegranate juice, or sour liqueurs like limoncello, sour apple, sour cherry, etc). This usually, if you choose em right, gives you something close to the flavor palate you were after when you chose the three parts; then you can tweak the proportions to balance the individual ingrediants' strengths and weaknesses.

For instance, tequila, triple sec and lime juice in these proportions makes a decent "up" margarita, but many will find it too strong and a bit sour; the traditional mix is 7-4-3, which compared to the 8-4-4 (2-1-1) experimental mix brings out the sweet but also-citrusy triple sec a bit more.

Back to the case in point; Midori is your "sweet", and it definitely is so. It's also on the fruity side, so you can either complement it with herbs or cream, or supplement it with more fruit, but don't try to make Midori something it isn't with something like smoke or earth (translated; stay away from whisky unless you're willing to drink your mistakes). Lemon/lime juice is usually a winner as a strong fruity sour note. Pomegranate juice is less powerfully acid, but also less citrusy, so if you don't want it to taste like a lemon lollipop you can give it a try. The problem is that mixing red and green gives you brown, so it won't be particularly attractive. I've used vinegar-based liquids as a sour before (try vodka, vermouth and pickle juice sometime) but it's not the right note for Midori. Chambord (black raspberry; generally more tart than sweet) could be promising; never tried it. Chambord is 33 proof and Midori is 46; those are different enough in specific gravity (as a rule, higher proofs are lighter and sugar is heavier) that if you're careful, you can layer them Midori over Chambord, which makes a Christmas Shot (red and green).

Bitter can also counter sweet, but you have to be REAL careful; forget the 2-1-1 mix and just put your strong and sweet together, then add a dash of bitter at a time until it balances. Campari is an option (the "Sloppy P***y", if you dare to Google that term, has Midori battling Campari and gin among other things), but I've never cared for it as a mixer and don't keep it in my personal cabinet. Anise-flavored drinks, such as Galliano, ouzo or absynthe, have a bitter note as well as some colors and other properties that could make an interesting looking drink. Most people forget that chocolate is actually a bitter flavor, and it's only candy because chocolatiers slurry up the cocoa in a heap of sugar, cream and butter. You can try a dark chocolate liqueur like Mozart, Sabra or Godiva Dark, mixed with Midori and/or a base like white rum or vodka (again, try layering them when you see a difference more than about 10 proof; you're playing with a nice vivid green here, so let it show).

There's nothing wrong with keeping it on the sweet side, either. Cream can complement sweet nicely without adding more sweet or trying to take it away. Bailey's does add more sugar, so be careful with that one. Milk/cream, vanilla ice cream etc are all good avenues to add a cream note while keeping Midori's melon flavor and not making it sickeningly sugary. The Green Russian is a take on the White Russian (vodka, Kahlua, milk) substituting Midori for Kahlua. Bols Parfait d'Amour (they start with blue curacao and add vanilla, almond and rosehips which make it purple) is 54 proof, so it'll layer on top of Midori, making a Mardi Gras.

Sodas will add a little acid, a little bitter and a little sweet, and are good to water down the syrupy consistency of Midori. Midori and ginger ale and an M7 (Midori and 7-Up) are obvious choices; I'd stay away from cola as you'll descent back into syrupy sweet land again. Try adding Midori to a vodka spritzer (club soda or tonic water) to sweeten it a bit.

Stay away from other syrupy-sweet ingredients. Grenadine is a no-no unless you're layering a shot and need a heavy red. Midori and amaretto generally have the same place in the profile, so one is typically used instead of the other to change up a drink.

Despite anything I say to do or not do, you'll find an example of something that works if you look hard enough. For instance, there is a Scotch and Midori drink called a Wicked Sky, and a generic whiskey/Midory cocktail called a Midtown Muse, both of which mix pit whisky against Midori which I recommended against. The Quick F**k is a layered shot of Baileys, Kahlua and Midori, mixing the sweet fruit of Midori with extra sweet and cream in the Bailey's against earthy Kahlua coffee tones.


You probably don't need to remove the stalks from the leaves, especially for young plants. However, the older and stronger the stalk becomes, the less appetizing it will be, in my opinion.

To rip the leaves off easily, especially with thicker/sturdier stalks, just start at the top of the stalk and firmly pinch it. Then, run your fingers down the stalk, while pulling the stalk in the opposite direction with your other hand. The leaves should usually come off with minimal resistance. Once you have only the leaves, you can discard the stalk.


Assuming that you are going to use your convection microwave without the microwave function, your question boils down to "How do I boil or bake an egg in a (toaster) oven?".

The answer? Slowly.
In an oven, heat transfer is via air, which is a way worse conductor than water. So you put your eggs either directly on the grill rack or in a small container. Many sources recommend a metal muffin tray, because all the hot eggs han be handeled at once and in the rare case of breakage, the mess is contained. Temperature recommendations vary a bit, but for hard boiled eggs, the rule of thumb is:

  30 minutes at 160-180 C / 320-355 F

A word of warning:
Do not bake your eggs too long!
If the temperature of the egg exceeds the boiling temperature, the water in the egg turns into steam and you have created a little egg-bomb, which may go off inside your oven or while you are handling the hot egg. The effect is better known from failed attempts at boiling eggs in a microwave, but the danger is real.


How can I cook more efficiently in a campervan using a single pot over a gas-powered flame?

I've done a lot a single ring camping cooking. My camper van has a bit more kitchen than yours but I still take a similar approach when staying in it and going to work. Here's a typical example that worked for me.

I cooked a curry at home and put a portion in the fridge (freezing is also an option).
When camping I boiled water and put it in a vacuum flask.
Then I heated the curry in my larger of two pans, with a lid on but stirring frequently. Heating gently meant it didn't stick.
Cooking the rice (using the recently boiled water, and an excess of it rather than measuring) took place in the smaller pan, using the larger as a lid to keep the sauce hot.
Then I drained the rice water into a mug or similar, added the sauce to the rice, and poured the cooking water into the sauce pan with some washing up liquid so it could soak while I ate and would be easy to wash up. (I used mess things to cook in and eat from when in the tent, it's easier with a few more containers).

The same thing works with pasta. Noodles (ramen) cook much quicker than spaghetti, saving fuel, and make a perfectly acceptable substitute. The principle of keeping one thing hot over the top of the other is key, as is a vacuum flask. Washing up in starchy water doesn't work very well, but soaking and prewashing do, allowing you to wash up in a minimum of water.

If you don't want to rely on taking home made ready meals there are plenty of books and blogs devoted to one-ring recipes (recipe requests are off topic here anyway).

Pasta, rice and noodles all work quite well, needing no preparation. Frying can be a pain if you're cooking in the van - it makes things greasy and the smell lingers, but in dry weather it works outside (if you can take the stove out). A canned (jar/packet etc. ) sauce can be used with something like tinned tuna if you don't have fridge space. Defrosting in a cool bag can take 24 hours or more and it uses a lot of gas to defrost on the stove.


Toad in the hole batter, which is the same as yorkshire pudding batter, uses eggs for lift and partly as the binding agent. Lift comes from expansion of gases, including water vapor. Egg white is 90% water, yolk is somewhere around 40% water.

A large egg is usually somewhere around 60g out of the shell. With a hen's egg 2/3rd of that is white, so call it 44g of water in total (36 from the white, 8 from the yolk). A duck egg is usually about 1/3 white, so about 34g water in total (18 from the white and 16 from the yolk). So using duck's eggs you get 20g less water overall in a doubled delia recipe. Given that there's 260ml of water and milk already this isn't much of a difference, maybe about 6-7% total water content. This doesn't sound like much but it can make a big difference.

Fat-wise there's about 10g more fat in 2 duck eggs than hen's eggs. A hen egg yolk has roughly 5g of fat in it, and a duck egg double that.

Protein-wise white has a higher percentage of protein (7%) than yolk (5%), but that's not much so not likely to be causing issues.

It's probably the combination of less water and more fat which is causing your problem. Less water and more fat means less expansion, less expansion will mean it takes longer to cook and has a flat texture as you describe.

As for the remedy I think you should definitely try 3 whites and one yolk, that should bring the balance back just right.

One trick recommended by a few chefs is to wait until your toad in the hold or yorkshire batter is fully expanded, then open the oven for a few seconds to let the water-saturated air out. This will help the batter to crisp up.


Defrosting anything in the microwave is dodgy. They're designed for serious heating, and don't heat completely evenly, so they tend to start cooking food before it's fully defrosted, even on low power. It might not be quite as bad as "defrosting" in a pan on the stove, but it's not great either.

That's especially bad for fish, since it cooks and overcooks quickly. You can maybe get away with a quick partial thaw in the microwave if you're careful, but it wouldn't be my first choice - it's pretty risky in terms of quality.

If you're in a hurry, I'd definitely suggest thawing with running water, as described for example in this question/answer. Of the safe methods, it's the fastest one that won't also cook your food. Especially for small/thin things like filets, it's pretty fast, and on top of that you can err on the side of not fully thawing to save time, and let it finish thawing while it cooks.


Based on comments to the original question:

It sounds like you used the wrong type of sugar.  Icing sugar is also referred to as powdered sugar or confectioner's sugar.  From your description, it sounds like you used what we call (in Canada) superfine or fruit sugar (sugar for sprinkling on fruit, not from fruit).


How do I convert volume to weight for soft cheeses like ricotta and mascarpone?

I don't have mascarpone to check, but the Internet says that there are on average 225 grams per cup. Mascarpone being mainly a mix of water (density 1 g/cm^3) and fat (density 0.9 g/cm^3), this sounds about right.

I don't think it is possible to give a reliable conversion for ricotta. First, many countries don't have normal ricotta, so people use all kinds of substitutions, frequently not being aware that they are not the same thing. So it is possible that whatever you can buy in your supermarket under the name "ricotta" is not the same thing as whatever the recipe author can buy. Second, real ricotta is made from whey, and the amount of whey left in the cheese varies, so you will have a different amount of water between brands, which will change the density.

With this difference, I guess you could just assume that ricotta has the density of 1, measure out 235 grams and call it good enough. This will usually be a different amount from what the recipe author uses - but then, so will be measuring out a cup by volume.


All kinds of potatos soften by the time they heat to around 200F. Oiling the skip helps with the heating (it heats fast and "envelopes" the potato with heat). But even without oil, what you describe doesn't make sense.

Is it possible that the over didn't really heat to 350F? Could it be ill-calibrated, unclean (layers of dry fat and whatsnot that gather with the years could make the oven walls more... insulating. Sorry for the bad english), or maybe the heat escapes in another way? Some times the oven's thermometer is totally fine, but located in an area that's hot, while other areas in the oven don't get the heat, from the above reasons or other.

Here's how I suggest you check this: Get a cooking thermometer, the one you stick in meat. Stick it in the potato and follow its heat. Not the heat of the oven but the heat of the food. If it doesn't get to 200F within the hour, your oven is probably not 350F.


The term "double" is not specific to pork - it's also used with lamb - but it means something different in each case.

A lamb double chop or loin double chop differs from a regular loin chop by including both the top loin and tenderloin, but not the flank. It hasn't actually been cut twice.
A pork butterfly chop is sometimes called a "double chop" because, as the name implies, it's been butterflied. A very thick cut is taken from the loin eye and then cut again to make the butterfly.

Of course, if you cut a butterflied pork chop in half, and served just one half, it would basically be a regular pork chop. So if you that's what you actually got, I'd call it a marketing gimmick.

I've never actually heard the term "double-cut chop" - there are some vague references to it on Google, but as far as I know, it's not a proper butchering term. Perhaps the term got relayed through several people and mutated somewhere along the way.


What does"relax on the way forward" mean in relation to knife sharpening?

This will generally mean to not apply pressure (press the blade to the stone by either leaning/twisting the edge firmly into the stone, or keeping your fingers close to the edge) while you are in any edge leading phase of the sharpening motion. Edge leading and edge trailing abrasion have slightly different effects (regarding speed, burr formation, fineness of the edge), and so does sharpening at various levels of pressure (highly dependent on the stone used.).


How much gelatine to use instead of xanthan or guar gum in ice cream

Gelatin is fine for a stabilizer it was used a lot in ice cream back in the day. Not sure the percentage to use but using a higher bloom strength could be recommend 200-250. Maybe start off using .005 of mix for a starting point and -+ after that for what you want.


I found out that by removing half a cup of water, the sauce is thick enough.


What is a substitute for mascarpone cheese?

I found a highly rated mascarpone cheese substitute recipe on food.com. I haven't personally tried it, but it's highly rated on that site, and is ridiculously simple.

1 16 oz block of cream cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
Blend until smooth

Try it and let us know? :)


Is there a substitute for aluminum foil?

The reason you put aluminum foil on something you bake is to block some of the heat. More specifically, you want to block the heat transfer by radiation. This is, you only want some kind of infrared-opaque shield between the heating elements and the food. Of course, it has to be also non-flammable at oven temperatures and either washable or environmentally friendly and cheap, making it one-use.

The best solution is to bake like generations of people did before there was freshly milled aluminum foil available in the supermarket: Get a clay bräter, or a tagine, or a dutch oven. Anything with a lid that is big enough to fit in your oven. Bake your food in it. It is slower, but gives you a much better taste due to slower, more even heating.

The second best solution would be to get some other stuff intended for baking, and use it as a cover. The problem is that baking paper as per Rikon's suggestion is probably not opaque enough in the infrared range - at least it is translucent in the visible spectrum. Maybe two layers of it will do, but it will get hard to work with, because it doesn't hold shape as well as aluminum foil. You could try it if you think it will help. I think that a silicone mat is more promising. It is preferable to use a  light colored one of the light glossy platinum silicone - I have a black matte one which is great for rolling dough, but it will probably absorb and re-radiate too much heat.

Both solutions can't beat aluminum in one application: targeted charring protection. For a cake baked in an oven which overheats one corner there is still a chance - if your mat can be cut, you can cover half the cake with the piece (some mats shouldn't be cut because they are internally reinforced with something which shouldn't come into contact with food - if in doubt, contact the manufacturer). But if you are baking a whole bird and the protruding wings are getting overcooked, I don't see a good way to pack them in silicone or baking paper and get it to stay on them while the rest of the bird cooks. There, you will probably have to pack them in bread dough and then just break off the dough when the bird is ready.

I have never made meatloaf in a slow cooker - I didn't even know that you can bake in one - so I won't comment on that part.


Is sweetened condensed milk a substitute for evaporated milk?

No.

Sweetened condensed milk has a 40% sugar content. It is very sweet, suitable for desserts and such. It is entirely too sweet to substituted into a curry.

The consistency is drastically different. Evaporated milk is about the same consistency as heavy cream. Sweetened condensed milk, because of its high sugar content, is more the consistency of a warm caramel.

Also, they are different colors, evaporated milk is white, sweetened condensed is light brown.


Baking flour and sour cream -US /UK terms

Typically referred to as "soured cream" in the UK, it is the same as "sour cream" in the US.

While there are many different types of flour, Baking flour is the same in the UK as it is in the US.


Plastic containers exposed to heat while cooking

You should be perfectly fine.  PET plastics do leach antimony, and the rate of leaching does increase with temperature, but it would take a much longer exposure time to be of any real concern.  You would be putting yourself more at risk by drinking water out of a plastic bottle that had been left in the sun.

Here's a relevant study about water bottles:
Antimony Leaching from PET

The abstract adequately addresses concerns to do with high temperatures and PET.

That said, safety is always the highest priority, and if you notice anything unusual about your soup, it's best to err on the side of caution.


Condensed milk doesn't mix well into iced coffee

It definitely works if everything is room temperature or a bit warmer, maybe 20-30C (68-86F), and it definitely won't work if it's all pretty cold.

It sounds like you may be a little too far on the cold end. You have coffee at 0C, plenty of ice to hold it at 0C, and a small amount of condensed milk at room temperature that'll rapidly cool down as soon as it's added. The upshot is that you're basically stirring at 0C, not even room temperature, and condensed milk at 0C is indeed pretty darn thick.

To keep things simple, I'd start out by just stirring the condensed milk in without ice. You could even stir it into just the milk/half-and-half, since with a smaller quantity of refrigerated liquid, the temperature won't drop as much. Stirring that into the rest of it should then be much easier. You may also want to stir continuously as you're adding the milk, rather than after adding it all.


What exactly happens during the sourdough ripening?

Here is a small piece of the answer. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33496265/
It is not just yeast strains but especially lactobacillus bacteria that develops and helps to change the ph of the starter. This change in ph is what helps the sourdough bread retain moisture and results in the creation of acetic and lactic acids which create the tanginess.


How do I replicate the taste of prepopped movie theater popcorn?

There's a different variety of popcorn used for pre-made popcorn, as it comes out more spherical and thus less prone to breakage once it dries out.  I've always seen it called 'mushroom popcorn'.

I've never made it specifically, so I don't know if the flavor is something to do with the variety of popcorn used, or if it's something added to the popcorn before storage.


The size of the veggies can be due to location only to an extent. If their seasons are longer for cultivation to harvest then the plants may experience better growth.

Other factors can also contribute. The use of fertilizer for example, or if using hormones and pesticides, etc... all effect the outcome in size, quality, taste and possibly even firmness or even color.


What's the difference between a burrito and a tortilla?

Depending on where you are, the word tortilla can mean a few different things.  In Mexico it refers to a flatbread made of either wheat or corn and a few other ingredients.  These flatbreads tend to come in standard sizes in the United States at least, one of which might be labeled the "burrito" size.

A burrito is one use for a tortilla.  A burrito consists of a wheat flour tortilla wrapped around a filling.  Often the filling might include beans, cooked meat, rice, and perhaps vegetables.


Is it true that putting spices in something then baking it destroys the spices?

It is not true that baking destroys spices (for most spices I know; unless you put them to bake dry on top of something, which might burn them).

I made this answer a bit broader as we add flavor to food not only with spices but with herbs or flavorful vegetables, mushrooms, and fruits as well.

Baking/heat will likely change the texture and flavor of spices, vegetables, and especially fresh herbs, but it will not destroy them. Sometimes it will take away the fresh sharpness (like in garlic or onion).

Sometimes frying or roasting spices before cooking is even desired to give them a slight toasty flavor (like whole cumin and other spices in Indian cuisine). Some say that "only with roasting all flavors can be unlocked".

So it depends on what effect you want to achieve with a spice/seasoning.

And in your case putting spices into lasagna before baking will help blend the flavors together. However, putting some fresh herbs on top of the lasagna before serving will give the dish some color and freshness.


Is there any other substitute of papaya paste to tenderize the mutton or beef?

Your closest substitute will be pineapple, either juice or puree, which is much more widely available worldwide than green papaya.

Papaya contains a natural tenderizer called papain; pineapple contains a different one called bromelain.  While the actions of the two fruit-based tenderizers won't be exactly the same, they will be very similar.  Plus both will impart a tropical-fruit-flavor.

Your other alternative is to find dried paypaya powder.  While still hard to find in many places, you could order it over the internet, and it would keep for a long time.   The enzyme Papain survives drying*, and thus can still be used in powder form, although you'd have to experiment with quantities.

If none of that suits, see this answer for other ideas.

(* there are multiple references to this but they're all spammy, so no links included)


There is no chemical reaction that happens. It is mainly a garnish. You might get a tiny bit of celery flavor in the drink from the celery, but I think this is negligible given the other strong flavors in a bloody mary. If you want a celery flavor, add celery salt.


Is there a way to keep chocolate chips from melting in chocolate-chip waffles?

You can use the tips Jay gave you, or you could try to put in modelling chocolate 'chips' instead of chocolate chips. Modelling chocolate is a paste, so those chips won't be hard, but I've heard it doesn't melt, so it wouldn't be as soft as melted real chocolate chips. Since it's just (light corn) syrup and chocolate, I guess the flavour would be fine in waffles.


A few items that when added up result is a lack of bitterness:

Though bile is produced in the liver, it ends up being stored in the gall bladder for both humans and cows. I wouldn't expect the liver to be full of bile as a result.
One of the main functions of the gall bladder is to concentrate the bile by removing water and electrolytes from and making it, presumably, more bitter in the process. This also makes liver bile more soluble and thus can dissolve into water or other common cooking liquids more easily.
Typical butchering of the liver removes most of the hepatic duct, which is where a lot of the bile in the liver would be.


Differences between rice/pressure/multi/slow cooker?

There are several different categories of these devices, but they do all tend to look quite similar. Prices can vary by a very significant amount, though. So.

Rice Cooker

The simplest kind of rice cooker is the kind with just a switch on the front to turn it on. Mine is like this - when plugged in, it's in "warm" mode, press the switch and it goes to "cook" mode. Rice cookers are designed to boil their contents, then wait until the water's all absorbed/evaporated and switch back to a keep-warm mode. That's all you need in order to cook rice, so it's all a basic rice cooker will do. You can cook other things with it, if you bear this in mind.

Rice Cooker with other functions

Depends what the other functions are. I've most commonly seen rice cookers which can also be slow cookers, in which case they heat more gently and disable the automatic shutoff used when cooking rice.

Slow Cooker

A slow cooker, commonly also called a crockpot after a popular brand, is a device that looks quite a lot like a rice cooker but usually has a fairly chunky ceramic cooking pot instead of a thin metal one. Slow cookers are designed to heat up to a moderate temperature and stay there for long periods of time, allowing you to gently cook something like a stew or a shoulder of pork for hours upon hours without having to use the oven or dance attendance on a saucepan. Slow cookers often have two or more temperature settings - mine has "high", "low" and "warm", but they can come with more. A common extra feature is an even lower temperature setting designed for making yoghurt.

As mentioned above, a common combination is a rice cooker which can also be a slow cooker.

Pressure Cooker

A pressure cooker is a very different beast. Pressure cookers have a sealed chamber (typically with a big, heavy lid which you put on and twist to lock it into position) and a pressure valve. They heat up and form a high pressure environment, which raises the boiling point of water. Because the water stays liquid at higher temperatures inside the pressure cooker, food cooks a lot faster. A lot faster. This also has impacts on flavour and texture of food, sometimes positive, sometimes negative.

To answer one specific point in your question, you can cook rice in all pressure cookers, in much the same way as you can cook rice in all saucepans and all microwaves, regardless of if they have a "rice" button.

You can get stovetop pressure cookers, which require careful control of the heat from the burner to maintain the right pressure inside. People tend to be wary of these as we worry about them exploding, although modern cookers have excellent safety valves which will vent long before there's a risk to the integrity of the pot.

The easier kind to use is the electric pressure cooker, which heats itself up and takes care of maintaining pressure automatically. These come in a variety of models with more or less sophisticated features including multiple pressure levels, automatic venting/keep warm/cooling at the end of the cooking time, and various other cooking functions, which leads us to...

Multicooker

Any one of a number of devices which aims to combine one or more of the above categories, plus more, into one device. A rice cooker with a slow cooker mode is technically a multicooker. Some multicookers claim to do techniques usually done on the hob and be able to roast things and deep fry things. Whether this is successful or not is something you should really check the reviews about.

The popular multicookers these days are usually electric pressure cookers with more modes. They may have a hotter heat setting to use for frying and searing with the lid off, or a slow cooker mode which lets you put the lid on but won't build up pressure as it would in pressure cooking mode. Some have a rice cooking function, although typically they will pressure cook the rice rather than simply boil it as a standalone rice cooker does.

How to choose one

First, decide what you want.

Then, decide how much you can afford.

Then, read the feature lists. If a rice cooker can be used as a slow cooker it will tell you, because this is more expensive so they need to advertise that capability. Electric pressure cookers seldom come without some claims of being at least 6-in-1 devices. Mine's one of the most basic on the market and claims 6-in-1, in reality it's only capable of sauteing things (with the lid off) or pressure cooking them (with the lid on). So check carefully. Read reviews. There's no substitute for some research work in choosing a device for your kitchen.

You may wish to have multiple objects so you can use them all simultaneously - which means you can gradually acquire a very affordable slow cooker, rice cooker, pressure cooker, whatever, one by one. But that takes up lots of space as well, which maybe you don't have, so you might want to spend more money and get something which has many modes for different ways of cooking.


Gumbo base tastes burnt, but the final product does not

I was born and raised in the heart of Cajun country.  My entire family loves gumbo, especially my moms.  This is what I learned:  get the roux as dark as possible without burning it (that makes the best gumbo).  I think that's what happened to yours; you probably got it just right. Then you add the other ingredients so that it mellows down the bitter taste.  I, unlike my mom, have actually slightly burned my roux many times. When I do this I add half a potato for about 10-15 min and it helps remove the burned flavor (don't forget to take out the potato). Maybe there is as yet no rhyme or reason to why the slightly burned/bitter turns into deliciousness after its cooked with other ingredients for a while, but I thank heaven for such a wonderful mystery ;)


Is there a Scoville scale for "coldness" (e.g. mint)?

There are thermal sensation scales, and they are applied in food research too, although their primary use tends to be focused on clothing or environment. They tend to be categorical rather than ratio scales, and don't depend on the presence of a single compound the way scoville does. Despite checking several likely sources (a book on neurogastronomy, a thesis on measuring the perception of food - mostly focused on texture, but also discussing thermoreceptors) I didn't find a mention of a specific culinary scale that measures menthol concentration.

Instead of a specialized scale, industrial users of menthol products seem to simply use the relative menthol content, such as selling an essential oil that with "60% menthol". And the general public doesn't seem to have created a cult around menthol content the way it has done for capsaicine content - personally, I know more people who care for the scoville number of the chilli they are eating than people who can tell the difference between spearmint and apple mint.

I suspect that, while creating such a scale is possible, nobody has bothered to. And even if some food scientist did do it, it doesn't seem to have caught on, especially outside of professional circles.


Using half-eaten bones to make stock -- sanitary?

It's not sanitary, in the sense of following the health rules. Especially since it's unlikely that you're following the two-hour guidelines: the gnawed bones have been in the danger zone enough to potentially pick up an enterobacter that produced heat-stable toxins. Boiling will not fix that. And having been in somebody's mouth increases the chance that such bacteria is one that infects humans.

Consider it this way: even if you're not squicked out by the basic concept, how would you feel if the bones had been left out on the plate for a day? A week?

As for whether it's safe, the short answer is "no".

The odds it being actually dangerous are pretty low. The food safety rules are designed to keep the most at-risk people safe: small children, people with compromised immune systems, etc. Given how many other opportunities there are for food-borne infections to be picked up, I'd consider something that I picked up and simmered for many hours to be about as free from pathogens as anything I got out of the dirt, i.e. vegetables, which we often eat raw.

So I'll admit to having done it, but I wouldn't feed it to anybody except myself.


What determines the length of sous vide cooking time?

Specifically for custard, you pretty much want the known good time from your recipe, but cooking longer will be fine.

In general, there are two major things:

how long does it take to get everything up to the desired temperature?
how long does it need to stay at that temperature?

The time to reach the desired temperature is pretty much just determined by size/shape. If there's a point in the middle that's 5cm from the closest surface, whether it's a 10cm diameter sphere or a 10cm thick slab, it's going to take longer. (The two aren't exactly the same in terms of heat propagation, but it's a good rough way to think about it.) I'm guessing liquids like your custard base also cook a little faster than solids, since there can be a little bit of convection flow inside the bag, not enough to be well-mixed, but better heat transfer than a solid.

The time at the target temperature depends greatly on what you're cooking. With many things, you just have to reach the temperature and then you're done. Holding at the target temperature after that might make no difference, or it might result in slow loss of quality. For example, you can hold steak quite a while at temperature, with not much change. On the other hand, you don't want to hold fish forever, because it'll tend to lose texture. And with something like pork shoulder or brisket, you actually need the long cooking time in order to slowly break down connective tissue and get it tender.

So, if you already have a time you know works:

Cooking shorter means underdone, either under temperature, or not tender.
Cooking longer means avoiding the risk of undercooking, and is generally fine, especially in moderation. For some things, it may overcook, like making your meat fall apart too easily.

For custard, the former is obviously bad (you want it to actually set), but the latter is not really an issue (it's not going to rapidly un-set).

As a footnote, there are some sous vide recipes designed to not actually reach equilibrium temperature. For example, you can cook eggs at a temperature high enough to set the whites, but for a shorter time to avoid firmly setting the yolks. Those are more like "normal" cooking in terms of over- and under-cooking, e.g. for the eggs, too long and you set the yolk, too short and you don't set the whites.


Why does cooked fruit seem to retain more heat than the other foods in the recipe?

The same phenomenon occurs with tomato sauce on pizza, or vegetables in a casserole: the moist filling feels much, much hotter than surrounding crust or noodles.
In short, this phenomenon is caused by differing thermal properties of the materials involved. The quoted excerpts below (from PhysLink.com) provide some explanation of the physics involved, and I've attempted to extend and simplify it a bit more.
Imagine an apple pie fresh out of the oven:

Despite the temperatures being equal, your tongue is still more likely
to get burned by the [pie] filling than the [pie] crust, though. There
are 2 principles behind this: thermal conductivity and specific
heat capacity.
Thermal conductivity is just the measure of how quickly heat energy
travels through a substance.

Pie crust has lower thermal conductivity, since it has less water in it and more pockets of air (even small ones) and the heat energy is not conducted through it as easily.
In contrast, the fruit filling (which is relatively full of water) has a higher thermal conductivity, and can more easily transfer its stored heat to your mouth.
Either hot pie crust or hot fruit filling can burn your tongue, but the hot fruit filling will burn you more quickly.

Specific heat capacity is something like energy density of a
substance, and measures how much energy must be contained in a
substance for it to have a certain temperature. For example, 100 grams
of aluminum at 100 degrees C has more heat [energy] in it than 100 grams of
copper at the same temperature. If you dropped both pieces of metal
into separate cups of water, the one with the aluminum chunk will get
warmer than the other- there's just more energy contained in it. Since
the filling is mostly made of water, and water has a very high
specific heat, the filling must give off a lot of heat for its
temperature to decrease
This has 2 effects: when the pie comes out of
the oven, the filling cools down much more slowly, and as a fragment
of filling gives up heat to your tongue, it only cools down a tiny
bit.

The specific heat capacity is a bit trickier to understand, but it essentially means that the filling (remember, full of water) absorbs more energy to reach the same temperature and therefore has to transfer more heat energy (either to the air or to your mouth) to cool down compared to the crust, with lower heat capacity.


Using I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and salt in a recipe that calls for unsalted butter

Your math and numbers look about right. I found 1/2 tsp. table salt is 3 grams, so about 1125 mg sodium. I would not add any additional salt in this recipe.


Mascarpone left outside fridge overnight - still usable?

Cheese is a cultured product, so you should follow the advice in the question:

How do you know when a cultured item is no longer safe to consume?

Since it's been acidified and (if it's store bought) probably also pasteurized, it's very unlikely that any harmful bacteria would be able to compete with the "good" bacteria. Most cheese never go bad in this way - they just go sour, rancid and/or grow mold.

Which means that if it looks fine and smells fine and tastes fine, it should still be safe to eat.

Cheese is essentially preserved milk; it was originally intended to be stored at room temperature (before refrigeration existed), it just keeps its quality longer in the fridge.


Grana padano and pecorino romano are two other very savory, hard grating cheeses that work well on pasta. They taste a bit different than Parmigiano-Reggiano, but are quite good in their own right and often less expensive. You can also look at parmesan type cheeses that are not actually Parmigiano-Reggiano. For example, Whole Foods often has one from Argentina that offers a reasonable price/performance tradeoff. All of that said, in many people's opinion, nothing is really quite as delicious as true Parmigiano-Reggiano.


How to maximize and preserve horseradish potency without vinegar?

Freshly grated horseradish is going to lose some of its potency within minutes, let alone a few hours.  Isothiocyanate, the hot chemical in horseradish, wasabi and mustard, aerosolizes extremely rapidly, which is why your eyes water just standing over it.  So you can't preserve all of its potency.

The best way to maximize potency while storing it for a day is to make sure it has as little contact with air as possible, and to refrigerate it.  Vacumm-packing will do this, as well as simply finding a very small container you can fill to the top with grated horseradish and then seal.  If you have access to argon or other neutral gas wine oxidation preventors, then it might be interesting to experiment with them.

If you were storing it for a longer period, I would recommend vacuum-packing and freezing, but not for just a day.


Kneading in a bowl is time-consuming and doesn't give as good a result as kneading on a flat surface, however I'll concentrate on cleaning.

First, don't let things dry out, it's much easier to clean when things are moist, if you do let it dry out moisten it and let it soften before you try and clean it. Use cold water as hot water makes starches and proteins stick a lot more. Next, invest in a curved dough scraper, and use it to scrape out the dough scraps from the bowl into the garbage before you clean it. A curved plastic one works best as it has a bit of flex, although in a pinch you can use a big metal spoon. I scrape by bowl pretty much clean before I put it into the sink. Use the flat of the scraper to clear most of the dough and flour from your countertop, then spray down with water, let it soak for a few minutes, then scrape again. Once you have it scraped well sponge it down.


Added sugar instead of syrup to sorbet mixture

One problem is the amount of sugar, and to adjust for that the specifics of your sugar syrup would matter (how much water to how much sugar, and is that by weight or volume?)

From there, you could add enough additional juice, vodka and water to regain the proportions, and then it's a problem of dissolving the sugar (which is not being helped by being kept in the freezer while you figure out what to do.)

Running it in a blender or putting it in a mixer with a whisk are typical ways to deal with the dissolving problem, as is warming it up, though you may not want to simmer it as that will affect the vodka and possibly the flavor.

The simplest resolution might be to admit the error and ask your boss what they would like you to do - screw-ups happen, and it might be better to toss the ingredients (or pay for them and take them home to try your salvage operation on) than to try and save them and end up serving inferior product. Generally the cost of ingredients is a small fraction of the price of the product served, and serving a bad batch might have a long-lasting negative impact on anyone who got that batch.


I recently tried to make sourdough with my starter, it didn't rise. Why is there still a crumb?

Looking at that picture you did definitely get a rise, in fact you got some big air holes. I would be happy to get that crumb, and I have baked plenty of bread. From the shape of it I suspect that what happened is that it simply spread out on you, rather than going up, which is common with dough that has a high hydration level like yours seems to be.

Bread dough is a bit like water in that it will flow the path of least resistance, if you simply plop a dough down without restricting it or shaping it you'll get a spread. Shaping will help depending on the result you are looking for, but I would recommend you use a shaping basket, also known as a proofing basket when you do your final rise.


I'm not sure I've had this exact fruit, but I've had similar fruits. They must be very soft. By the time they are ripe they will be soft and normally quite fragrant. But the best indication is that they are soft. If you push in, it will easily give and the skin will break. They usually don't sell them ripe because they would be damaged easily. You need to let them ripen at home.


Can fish stock be left simmering for a long time without damaging the flavor?

I am a European trained chef. This is a very interesting question and there are quite a few answers. In my opinion and experience, the simmer time of a good fish stock is 100% based on the type of fish bones that you are developing the stock with. I remember asking the question many times on my travels through Europe and North Africa. I will share my preferred methods for a few species of fish.

Turbot, 20 minutes after it comes to the boil, bay leaf only in the stock.
Dover Sole, a full mirapoix, simmer for 30 minutes.
Salmon, bring to boil and shut off, a full mirapoix is needed
Northern Hake, 45 minutes full mirapoix
John Dory, 45 minutes full mirapoix, white wine may be added if desired.

I hope that helps you out. Regards.

Michael


The best substitution would be a a simple tube pan.

Besides the unique appearance, bundt and tube pans are used for particularly dense and moist batters. They might be used for a cake that might dry out on the outside before the center cooks through.

If you don't have a tube pan, then there are a couple alternatives. You can use two loaf pans, this should approximate the bundt pan. Another alternative is to use a deep circular cake pan with a ceramic ramekin in the center of it to create the hole. With either method you may need to adjust your cook time a bit depending on your results. (likely 25F lower and baked for a little longer) It also might simply just work without changes.


Older beans, or beans not stored properly may remain hard. Also, even among fresher beans they won't always soften evenly. Some beans may take 15 hours or longer.


How to get flour quesadilla light and crispy?

I use a liquid oil instead of a spray oil; you're far more likely to get hot spots with a spray, which is bad for any kind of cooking. That stuff works better as a grease than an actual cooking oil.

I also tend to have pretty good success by frying the tortillas up to just a hint of golden-brown (dark brown spots is overdone) and then finishing it off (i.e. to melt the cheese) in a low-heat oven. As an added benefit, if you're making a largish batch then that makes it easy to keep them warm until they're all ready to serve.

YMMV, but I find this to be the case for a whole lot of stovetop cooking; with the direct heat, it's very easy to dry foods out before they're cooked to the stage you want. It's far easier to control the heat in an oven and just use the stove for an initial (or final) fry/sear.


Why is there such disparity between the calories in a banana and the calories in this pack of dried banana?

Most of the weight in fresh fruit is water, which has no calories.

When you dry the fruit, the remainder is concentrated, so there are more calories in a given volume or weight.

Sulfur dioxide is a preservative with anti-microbial properties.

The claim of 3.6 times the energy is specious.


What are some cheap types of meat that are suitable for a stir fry?

The problem with a lot of cheap cuts is that they are not really suitable for stir frying or other short cooking methods because they are less tender, more muscular, more sinewy. Instead, cheap cuts from e.g. beef often end up in pot roast dishes, where they can soften up and become really good.

That being said, a few good options for stir fry meats are, in my opinion:

chicken thighs, i.e., dark chicken meat, which also usually stays juicier than breast. I can get them at my local supermarket, de-boned, in free-range quality, for quite a low price. Need to do a little cleanup usually, but nothing too bad.
cutlets (schnitzel in German) from beef, veal or pork: tenderize them a bit with a meat mallet, then cut in strips across the grain
ground beef: while it's not whole meat, you can cook ground beef with a little bit of oil on medium-high meat to get the water out, then brown it in it's own fat and a little oil, then finally add your veggies and other ingredients for a "fine grained" stir fry, so to speak
other cuts of beef: Kenji López-Alt covers cheap stir fry cuts from beef beautifully here


There are some varieties of Hindu cooking (especially as practiced by Hare Krishna / ISKCON folks) that don't use onion and garlic for religious reasons. They always use asafoetida powder (a spice), which has a taste similar to aged garlic, and supposedly good for the digestion. Use it in very small quantities, like 1/4 teaspoon in a curry for 4, to get started. The Indian name for this spice is hing. Don't be put off by the smell when raw, it gets milder when cooked.


Will my lasagne be ruined because I forgot to put the white sauce on the lasagne sheets

No.
Anecdotal, I rarely use white sauce in lasagna and it always rocks.


Why does cooking oatmeal starting with cold milk make it creamy?

Flour and cornmeal are well known to clump when added cold to boiling water. Such clumps arise when starch molecules unball and forming a mesh that traps other starch molecules, preventing them from hydrolysing in the same way. Hence lumpy gravy and sauces.

For oatmeal I've observed similar clumping behaviour, but not to the same extent. Anyway I suspect the same mechanism is at work. Since starch hydrolysis is the main reaction making oatmeal creamy, I'm not surprised that slow and steady heating is considered best.


How to make a pie crust out of plantains?

This seems like a fun adventure. I'll say upfront that I've never tried what I'm about to suggest.

When I read your question title the first thing that came to mind is a Puerto Rican sandwich that is very popular in Chicago, the jibarito. It's a sandwich in which the bread has been replaced by flattened and fried plantains. I think doing something similar could yield nice results for a pie crust. You just press the peeled plantains between two cutting boards to get your desired thickness.

As far as not frying, you should also be aware that fried plantains are damn good. I've never eaten a plantain that wasn't fried. That said, if you are committed to not frying I have suggestions as well.

First, the boiling and mashing is right out. I don't think the processing you'll be doing will result in a crust that holds up at all.

Roasting, or better yet, pan frying in butter I think is the way to go. I suggest just greasing a large frying pan with butter and pan-frying the plantain over medium-low heat until done.

If pan-frying is not your thing either, I'd suggest just brushing them with melted butter and tossing in a 400 F (200 C) oven for 10-15 minutes (complete SWAG - never oven roasted plantain). With either the roasting or pan-frying method you may wish to sprinkle each buttered side with a little sugar to add a little sweetness and a nice carmelization.


cake baking problem (white lumps of flour)

How it's supposed to be done

The lump problem is straightforward: your mixing technique is failing.

When you are using a well, you have to sift the flour first. Then you add a little bit of the homogenous liquid. So, you don't pour oil, eggs, etc. into the well, but first get them all into another bowl (including the water), and mix them well, preferably with an electric mixer, until they are very homogenous. Ideally, the eggs will emulsify the oil a bit.

For the actual ingredients mixing, you now pour just a little bit of your eggy mixture into the well, maybe 50 ml. Then you take a spoon or other utensil and start stirring the egg mixture without touching the flour with the spoon. A little bit of flour from the walls of the well will stick to the liquid surface and start sinking in, thickening the liquid. Once it is noticeably thicker than the pure mixture, you add some more of the egg mixture to thin it back, then continue back and forth, thickening the batter with the flour then thinning it, until you are done.

When you feel more comfortable and know well how the flour and liquid acts, you can start carefully spreading some flour from the far side of the flour "volcano hill" (not the well edge) onto the liquid, to get it a bit quicker. But in general, it is a finely tuned skill which you have to learn from experience, by doing it slowly and with concentration. If you impatiently stir too much flour into the liquid, it forms the lumps you described.

A more sensible alternative

This is how to execute the recipe correctly. It is a good, but very long method for even mixing. But frankly, there is no need to use it. Nowadays we have electric mixers, which will mix the flour for you into the liquid ingredients without creating lumps. And we have scales, so we can weigh the ingredients. So the second advantage of the well method - you stop mixing the moment the batter has the right consistency (which is necessary when you cannot measure the flour, or don't have a written recipe and are playing it by feeling) - is also moot. If you don't want to spend half an hour mixing your cake batter by your grandma's way, just emulsify the liquid ingredients with the mixer, then slowly add the sifted flour with the mixer turned on on low speed, and stop the moment it's mixed in. That's it.

Water temperature and boiling

As for the water, I see no good reason to boil it from a food science point of view. All the explanations I can think of make it seem unnecessary.

The recipe is so old, it comes from a time with bad water supply. The water was always boiled for safety and to precipitate scale, rust and other stuff present. Shouldn't be a concern today. (If your water is very hard, filter it instead).
The eggs and oil are meant to emulsify, to give you a smoother mouthfeel in the cake. It is like making mayonnaise, and works best when the eggs are warm - but fails completely when you make them so hot that they curdle. 72 Celsius would be optimal, but anything between 60 and 83 Celsius should work. If your water is warmer than that, it will curdle your eggs, doing more damage than good. So, if you are pouring the water in just after boiling, stop doing it (although it doesn't cause the lumps you described, it causes cruder texture overall). The best thing would be to warm it to 80 Celsius using a thermometer, then pour it into the eggs, beat, then add the oil. If you don't have a thermometer, take it off the heat the moment you see the first tiny bubble forming on the bottom, then let it cool for a minute before pouring.
The soda dissolves quicker in warm water. This is still not a reason to get it to a full boil - take it again to 80 Celisius, instead of boiling first and cooling it afterwards.
The whole ingredients are too cold when coming directly from the fridge, and the hot water is supposed to correct that. But in fact, this won't work well. Temperature shocks are not good for cake ingredients, especially for eggs. You should use room temperature eggs and buttermilk instead.


Well, I don't think you're doing anything wrong -- I think it's because you aren't using any preservatives in your bread (and that's a good thing, right?). I find my homemade bread has to be eaten in about a week, but I live in a dry climate. A more humid climate might result in it lasting 3-4 days.


Empirically, you could use a salinity meter-- one that is made for checking salt water fish tanks. The only other thing I can think of that would drive seasoning into the meat would be cooking in a pressure cooker. I believe some grocery stores employ such a method on chicken before finishing in a rotisserie. Certain fried chicken chains also deep-fry in a pressure vessel which could yield similar results.


Benefits of vinaigrette vs. pouring oil and vinegar separately on salad?

A vinaigrette is not a stable emulsion so it will eventually separate- however it will stay together long enough for the salad to be immediately served and eaten.
I find that pouring the oil and acid separately creates a salad with a mouthful of olive oil coating the leaves and pool of vinegar at the bottom of the plate.

It's true that the oil in a vinaigrette will eventually wilt the salad but that is why it should be added at the last minute or even after the salads have been portioned.


Is there an alternative and less toxic way to clean an oven than using oven spray?

Using a bicarbonate of Soda paste is a good way to clean the oven and does not involve any nasty chemicals.

Also, as you need to clean the base of the oven, it can help if you remove the door if it is a drop down door.  This makes reaching inside much easier.  Most doors are designed to be removed easily.  Sometimes your manual will provide instructions on how to remove the door for cleaning.

Otherwise this video on removing oven door may help as it covers four different types of hinge.


Quiche does not set up - too much, or too little, cream?

You need less cream for a firmer consistency. The eggs are the part that set during the cooking process. The cream adds moisture and fat, both of which make it softer and runnier.


Does cheese have to be made with rennet from the animal whose milk it is?

No, the article is bogus. There are many ways to coagulate proteins (although the exact method chosen will make a big difference in what the final result looks like). Heat, acid and enzymes all work for coagulation. And while you can't use heat to make milk, both acid and enzymes from various sources is OK. The enzymes suited for cheese making are called rennet.

There is some difference between proteins in the milk of different species, so not every rennet will work with every milk. But the fit is nowhere as specific as the article you linked implies. Bovine rennet works for sheep's milk too, I have personally helped in the process of making that cheese. There is, as you mentioned, rennet from non-animal sources. I hadn't heard of plant-derived one (although I'm not surprised), but bacteria-derived rennet is widespread in the industry.

I also remember reading somewhere about actual human cheese, although I must admit I don't remember it being a reliable source, and have no first hand experience with it, so I am not 100% confident about it. Still, from a chemical point of view, it should be possible to turn human milk into a solid slab No guarantee about tastiness, and you may need to try a bit around until you have found a suitable coagulation agent, but it should be possible to create one without chopping up baby stomaches.

The argument from the article wouldn't hold anyway, even if the species' rennet was required, because there is a wide variety of acid coagulated cheeses which does not use rennet at all.

Seeing that the article you linked is presented as an answer to a two-year old's question, maybe just the person who answered thought that they needn't bother fact checking for such a "simple" task. On the other hand, the strange statement, coupled with an article ostentatiously aimed at a two-year-old but mentioning protein coagulation, make me think that it may be some kind of joke rather than intended as a serious description of the problem.


Why does slightly cooked (wilted) spinach give me dry mouth but not raw or fully cooked?

Oxalates most likely.
Cooking doesn't change the oxalates but I reckon how it is chewed, more vrs less, might be the reason.
Wilted seems the chewiest to me.
"Spinach contains a high amount of oxalic acids which contain small crystals that do not dissolve in water. These oxalate crystals are released from spinach as you chew, coating the teeth, resulting in that chalky or gritty feeling"