Mircowave does not work after I used vinegar without water to clean it

Assuming that you were using the vinegar/water mix to clean the microwave...

No, it is unlikely that you have damaged the microwave with vinegar - unless you have pure or glacial acetic acid, you are using vinegar with between 4% and 8% acetic acid, the rest is mostly water. This is not typically very damaging to metallic surfaces unless left on for extended periods. Microwaves usually are coated in plastics or paints that are not susceptible to acidic degradation.

The pop you heard could be a couple of things - either an internal fuse has blown, or it could be the magnetron. Fuses, if present, would be found on the rear of the microwave near the power cord, and would likely be replaceable fairly easily by yourself. Magnetrons are replaceable but are usually more expensive than a new microwave when you include the labor costs of replacement.


My parents stored them for months.  Sort them removing any damaged or bruised ones and eat those so that you are only storing ones that are not likely to rot quickly.  Get a large box - even a cardboard box.  Put a layer of fine sand, place the sweet potatoes then cover with sand and put in another layer.  Do it gently so you don't bruise any.  Exclude light, allow to breath, keep in a cool area and remove only those you want to eat.  I am trying to find the source of this method of storage - my grandfather was from Ireland and he used it.  My father says it was English when they had walled gardens.  We used it in Africa and I remember the sweetpotatoes storing for months.


Stopping water from bubbling over when cooking rice

You've stated that you're not washing the rice.  That's the reason this is happening.

Water boils over because of starch.  Many types of rice (brown rice included) can be very starchy, and this could conceivably cause the water to boil over depending on the amount of rice/water and the size of the pan (or rice cooker).

Washing the rice also helps to prevent the grains from sticking together, so you would want to do this anyway (unless you are actually trying to make sticky rice).

It's very simple to wash the rice; just keep adding and straining out cold water until the water runs clear.  You'll probably be surprised at how much starch actually washes off.  If you do this, your water should stop boiling over - regardless of temperature.


Does milk matter to achieve the perfect latte?

Barista here, and yes you are 100% correct milk does matter when making the perfect latte.  When you look at the latte, the milk makes up at least half of the beverage. Not only does it enhance and add to taste, it is a very visual medium through latte art.

The key to great milk in a latte lies primarily in preparation, you need to heat and handle your milk correctly.

Now to answer your question about specific milk options. First rule - BUY ORGANIC. Fresh milk from healthy cows is always going to be the superior choice. If you live in a rich agricultural area where fresh milk is available, it is a compulsory choice when making a great latte.

Second rule - more fat less heat. A simple rule, if you are dealing with thick and delicious fresh cream milk, you will need baseline heat. 150 Farenheit. Once you use the low fat milk options, you will need to increase the heat ever so slightly. Never over 175. You want silky and glossy, and adjusting heat to milk fat is an important part of the process.

At the end of the day, a latte will be delicious with any type of milk if prepared correctly. Just treat the milk with care, and buy organic where available, and you will enjoy a delicious cafe latte.


Can I make puff pastry with half the butter?

The secret lies in the folding of the dough...You may uses half the butter but you would ultimately have to fold it more before cooking it. The more you fold the dough the more puffy it gets, of course your results will get better with more butter, but in that particular situation, go with the extra folding, you'll get a decent pastry this way.


Roasted duck carcass - what is this dish called?

I found this recipe on
supertoinette .

The name of the dish is "Carcasses de canards grillées" which translates to roasted duck carcasses. It states below the name that "These carcasses of roasted ducks are a specialty of the Southwest!"

If you use Google, you can translate the page and get the recipe and instructions. This particular recipe uses ingredients in addition to the salt but, as with most recipes, I would expect that there are many variations.


Laminated or "roll-in" doughs don't rise in the traditional sense. Between folds rising is very minimal. You won't see a true rise until you proof your croissants.


How to do it - practical advice

You need a machine for carbonation. There are different brands. You buy cartridges with gas for them, put the bottle with the drink in the machine with the loaded cartridge, and press a button a few times. The drink is then carbonated.

I there are also combined whippers/carbonators which can alternatively take a nitrous oxide cartridge to make foams. This is too complicated and unnecessary if all you need are carbonated drinks. If you are like most people out there, you want the simple system which just carbonates.

Update: Some more words on what forms of carbonation are available

Carbonation is a process in which you get CO2 bubbles dissolved in a liquid. The gas doesn't stay dissolved for a long time, it starts "seeping out" of the liquid, forming tiny bubbles, which rise through the liquid, giving a prickly feeling on your tongue when they reach it.

You can get the gas into the liquid by three general classes of
   methods: add an organism which produces CO2 (biological method), add
   a compound which reacts to produce CO2 (chemical method), or add the
   gas directly (physical method).

Adding yeast is a biological method. Yeast metabolizes parts of
the drink, and releases CO2 as a byproduct. This needs time for the
yeast to live enough to produce enough waste gases, and it indeed
changes the taste, as the yeast eats up some nutrients itself, and
releases other byproducts beside CO2. These disadvantages are common
to all biological methods, no matter which kind of microorganism you
choose.

You could also use a chemical method. It also changes the taste,
as compounds within the drink are used up in chemical reactions, and
there are also products beside the CO2, which have a taste of their
own. A further problem is that you can't get much gas produced that
way, and what you produce dissipates very quickly. So, it is not
advisable to carbonate drinks using chemical methods.

The third way is the physical method. You don't produce CO2, but
add existing CO2 into the drink. Normally, if you just bring a drink
and CO2 gas together, the gas won't dissolve. What you need to make
this work is to release CO2 into the liquid under pressure. The
instrument which does this is a soda-making machine; it gets a
cartridge of CO2 under pressure. When you push the button, the
cartridge is opened, and the pressurized gas escapes from the
cartridge into the drink, where it gets dissolved. This is the
easiest method of the three, and has no disadvantages beyond the
investment in a machine and cartridges. There are inexpensive
machines for home use, so it is what I advise you to use.

Manufacturers sometimes combine machines which can expel CO2 from cartridges with machines which can expel NO from cartridges. Expelling NO is used for whipping foams, e.g. creating whipped cream. The whipped cream spray bottles in the supermarket are a simplified version of such machines, which cannot be reloaded.

While the construction of CO2 expelling machines and NO expelling machines is similar enough that it makes sense to combine them in a single body, the use cases for CO2 use and NO use are very different. If you only want to carbonate, a CO2 machine is sufficient.


Nothing else is going to taste like extra-virgin olive oil, but extra-virgin isn't necessary for cooking at all. As a matter of fact, the smoke point of extra-virgin olive oil is so low that it's not often used for cooking. For cooking with olive oil, usually the choice would be "refined" or "pure" olive oil. Honestly, those don't taste like much. So whatever neutral oil you usually use (soybean, canola, peanut and vegetable are a few options) will work just fine.


Can I add cocoa butter to white chocolate chips to promote a smoother melt?

White chocolate melts smoothly if there's nothing wrong with it. While I'd sometimes melt milk or dark chocolate in a microwave, for white chocolate I always use a bain marie, heated gently and stirred very gently.

If you try to heat it too fast it will catch and never melt. This can also happen if it's old, or has been stored in fluctuating temperatures.

There's a lot of cocoa butter in white chocolate anyway so adding more wouldn't do much to the melting. It might however be desirable to make the chocolate less sweet.


It is not toast if it gets flat afterwards. It is just too large for the burner on which you are using it.

The general rule is: if a skillet wraps with the center bending up, re-bend it (if possible - coated ones can crack the coating) and use on a larger burner. If it wraps center-down, rebend and use on a smaller burner.


Why didn't guava ripen after being stored in the fridge?

From epicurious (I love their YouTube channel):

You can buy hard, green guavas and allow them to ripen at room temperature. Placing them in a paper bag with a banana or apple will allow them to ripen faster. Guavas may be treated with edible wax to delay the ripening process, so you may want to rinse them off to speed ripening.


Can I use chicken brine as a base to make a broth?

Tasty and quite salty, YES, (the taste will be salt!) with need to water down are probably GROSS understatements. You gain nothing trying to save/reuse it. Discard it! It will have very little flavor besides salt and very few, if any nutrients.


How can I reduce the fat in a white wine and parsley sauce?

Thickening with starch or flour instead of roux can be quite acceptable if some other rich flavors are added. Here is where the calories can be traded in:

Good low-fat broth for part of the liquid. celery root or coriander root are particularly good ing. for veggie broth

Puree, in small amounts add body and flavor. soft cooked onion is particularly silky and surprisingly mild

Flavorsome oils, few drops instead of copious butter. Macadamia punches above its weight. Sesame toasted (tiny amount) or if feeling adventurous, pricklyash from Asian market.

lower-fat 'milks' can add luscious body instead of cream or 3% dairy milk. Unsweetened Almond or coconut doesn't overwhelm most sauces.


Do I need a specific pan for baking sourdough bread?

Bread can generally be baked in any pan, sourdough is no exception to this. Baking it in a covered dutch oven seals in moisture and keeps the crust from hardening, allowing maximum oven spring. You can achieve a similar effect by putting a pan of boiling water in the bottom of your oven for the first half of baking.

There's no reason you can't use a loaf tin, my main concern would be it sticking to the sides. To prevent this I would coat the sides of the dough that will touch with a generous layer of coarse wheat flour while it proves.

You can use other things as well, I don't have a casserole with a lid, but I do have some enameled cast iron pots. There are too deep to but the bread into without mangling the shape, so I invert it over a cookie sheet instead, then I remove it halfway through cooking.


How can I make a vegan turkey-skin substitute?

You can either get fresh or dried yuba, the dried one has to be soaked.

When I made a tofu turkey I soaked the yuba sheat for about 10 minutes in warm water before wrapping it around the "meat". The tofu turkey had already been baking in the oven for around 1 hour when I added the skin. After applying the yuba I rosted the whole thing in the oven until the skin was brown (maybe 30 minutes), brushing occationally with marinade. Skin came out perfect and had a nice crispyness without coming apart from the tofu or being too brittle.

Oh, yeah, I brushed the tofu alternatively with marinade and with melted vegan butter every 15 minutes or so before adding the yuba. It might have made a difference but I really think soaking the sheats is key.
Good luck!

I made a video guide to making a vegan "tofurkey" from tofu.
Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKIrgls-WCw


It might be worth trying coldbrew matcha for what you're trying to do. If you have a thermos already, try it at home over a weekend and see if it keeps well enough for your tastes. Matcha may settle if you leave it long enough, and many people enjoy the froth the most, so it really benefits from being made and drunk fresh.


Did 150 °C (300 °F) ruin my cream sauce, or is it just overcooked, or fine?

I think it would have been better to have kept the sauce separate and make it after the casserole has cooked.  White sauce needs the temperature reducing as soon as it starts to crack; indeed, lift it off the heat as soon as you feel this taking place. It is possible almost to thicken it completely from the heat already in the pan.


How does the number of eggs affect a cookie recipe?

Eggs contribute to better texture, leavening and they extend shelf life. More eggs = moister (sp!) cookie. Eggs are also crucial in building structure. They are about 75% moisture, 12% protein, 10% fat and 2ish % sugar.

The white provides strength, stability and moisture.

Yolks, where all of the fat is in an egg, increase richness, tenderness and flavor.

Therefore, if you put an extra egg, you will get a chewier cookie. I do it all the time. If you put less, you will get a more crumbly cookie.


Shredded steak for south east asian dish

I agree that there is a translation issue. For recipes I've used, I will cross-cut the meat into thin slices, then thinly slice the meat WITH the grain. The result will have a stringy texture - not 'bad' stringy, but stringy like good braised meat that can be shredded or 'pulled.'

This has worked for me for Korean dishes like Bulgogi and a few others.


The classic "long-lasting bread" is rather like a very hard cracker - ship's bread or pilot bread. Otherwise flour and yeast (add water and bake after it arrives) would be more suitable.

At some point when I had been reading too much old sailing tales I made some ship's bread - it's about as awful as the tales tell, once aged a bit (it was fairly edible, though fairly dense, when fresh, actually.) The commercially produced "pilot bread" is a bit more friendly for eating.


The short answer appears to be: îles flottantes and oeufs à la neige are two different names for one dish.

First of all, you can find some recipes, in English and in French, using the names interchangeably:
"Floating Islands (Oeufs a la Neige)", Saveur
"Recette de Ile flottante, le classique...POUR LES OEUFS EN NEIGE", L'Atelier des Chef

So clearly, to some people, they are the same thing.

However, in reading through recipes I noticed something that may suggest some difference: in recipes for oeufs à la neige, the meringues always seem to be poached in hot milk (BBC, New York Times, Le Journal des Femmes, L'atelier des Chefs), while îles flottantes meringues are sometimes poached (Saveur, BBC, New York Times), and sometimes baked (Food Network, L'atelier des Chefs). Those poached meringues are supposed to be made into an egg shape (thus, "oeufs") - although more often the egg-shape is only hinted at (e.g. "oval-shaped" rather than "ovum-shaped"), but the baked meringues are generally not formed into any particular shape (unless a dollop is a shape).

I don't think this difference is that significant. Mostly because it's only occasionally a difference. It's possible that one dish was originally poached and one baked, but it seems to me that these baked meringues could probably be classified as "not totally traditional."


What's the size of the plastic cup that came with my rice cooker?

Assuming you bought a rice cooker designed by a Japanese company (and apparently even other brands tend to meet that market's expectations), the measurement is 1-gou, slightly more than 180ml, which, by no coincidence, is also the typical measure of a wooden sake, cup, and is closely associated with a historical sake bottle size (approximately 1.8l)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masu_(Japanese)

It turns out that this amount, 1 gou of dried rice, neatly corresponded to a typical serving of rice. In practice, most contemporary Japanese eat about 1.5-2 gou per day; 1 gou of dried rice cooks up enough for 2 Japanese adults for one meal if you have several side dishes. There are other measurements that derive from the gou (or perhaps the other way around), such as the koku, which was considered the amount of rice that a single person would consume over the course of a year.

This is one of the human-centric forms of measurement that has survived the metric push; you can find various examples of this in many otherwise metric-converted countries. It turns out some studies show that those metrics often make certain categories of estimation easier for people.

Edited to cover the concern about matching the right amount of water:

It's worth noting that you don't need perfect precision for the amount of water, as long as you cook with the full cycle and not one of the express cooking modes. I can't remember the exact scientific principle behind it, but perhaps something to do with osmotic pressure. Some people use the remarkably effective method of measuring a certain amount of space between the dried rice and the water based on the size of their forefinger segment or thumbnail. It apparently works well for almost any imaginable size of pan (though you can have other problems with a pan too wide to have the rice cover the bottom). (Some types of rice do prefer more water than others, but within a single type, you have a fairly flexible range for the water ratio)


The ingredients of Whoppers are:

  SUGAR; CORN SYRUP; PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED PALM KERNEL OIL; WHEY (MILK); MALTED MILK (BARLEY MALT; WHEAT FLOUR; MILK; SALT; SODIUM BICARBONATE); COCOA; CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: RESINOUS GLAZE; SORBITAN TRISTEARATE; SOY LECITHIN; SALT; NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR; CALCIUM CARBONATE; TAPIOCA DEXTRIN

I'm guessing that the sugar, corn syrup, palm kernel oil, cocoa, glaze, and lecithin are in the chocolate coating. This leaves you with a few things to play with for the filling. The wheat flour could be adding some bulk and helping to hold the filling together. However!

Tapioca dextrin... the plot thickens! Tapioca dextrin is a filler made from cassava that has almost no flavor. It is used as a bulking agent in things like sauces and dressings, but it is also used as a binding agent. One of it's main functions is to hold medication together in pills, so that could easily also be holding malted milk powder together in the filling.


Update: After reading a bit on this, (and also fully reading the question) I found that there have been papers written on the effects of acid baths on meat tenderness as well as enzyme treatment:
Acid: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=animalscidiss
Enzyme: http://www.brainromania.ro/uploads/papers/effect-of-marination-with-proteolytic-enzymes-on-quality-of-beef-muscle-2012-409.pdf

It seems that food grade citric acid doesn't affect tenderness that much, where as a solution of Bromalain does, and at a greater effect than that found mixed in with the citric acid of Pineapple. There's no study comparing pineapples to oranges (Eh? See what I did there?) but this seems to say that the citric acid in food may have less of an effect than that of the digestive enzymes in them.

Please see below for previous answer if you'd like to point and laugh at those who skim questions and don't read fully.

So, I think I found the answer: http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/pineapple-enzyme-tenderize-steak.htm

Apparently, acidity aside, the enzymes found in the stem of the Pineapple: Bromelain can divide the proteins found in muscular fiber. I'm going to copy and paste the next part from the article that goes a bit deeper into how Bromelain works (and I'm lazy):

  Bromelain works in these capacities due to it's ability to separate amino acids. Amino acids are organic compounds within living cells. Amino acids join by forming peptide bonds, a link that connects one amino acid's amino group with the carboxyl group of another amino acid. When amino acids join through peptide bonds, they form proteins. These proteins can carry out numerous functions in the structure and operation of cells, tissues and organs.

This breaks down the peptide bonds that hold together proteins in collagen, which is what makes meat tough. The enzymes stop around 158 degrees Fahrenheit, so once they start cooking, their work is done. That's why it's important to marinate.

TLDR: Pineapple stems have Bromelain, which aside from a fun nickname breaks down Amino acids and dissolve the peptide bonds in collagen, which causes the firmness in meat.


Assuming the can was canned properly and has not been damaged, the contents are effectively sterile, because the food is boiled in the can after it's sealed. There might be some degradation in texture and taste, but in terms of food safety, they are effectively safe.

Note that the date on your tin is given as Best Before, not Use By. That generally means it's safe to eat after the given date, but it won't be at its... best. Given that you're only 12 days out of August, and with the proviso of exercising due caution (don't eat them if they're green), you should be just fine.


What's the trick to wrapping tightly in plastic wrap?

The wrap used in most grocery stores isn't the same as your household wrap.

Most of the consumer brands of plastic "cling" wrap are now formulated from low-density polyethylene. It's rolled very thin to give you the best price per unit of length, and has reasonable stickyness.

Most stores use a product called "meat film" which is most commonly made from PVC. It's a little thicker, more wrinkle-resistant to give the product contained inside a better appearance, and it's stickier.

The other thing that grocery stores do to make the seal better is they use a heat sealer on the plastic. These are heated pads where they'll place a wrapped piece of plastic for a few seconds. It's not enough heat to melt the plastic, so in most cases you can still pull it apart, but it is just enough to shrink the joint together, and pull it taut across the front of the packaging.


Keeping steaks hot after cooking in a cast-iron pan

If you cook rarer you don't need as long a rest period, for rare and medium-rare you only need a minute or two. Put the steak onto a row of chopsticks or a cooling grate if you aren't using a warmed plate so the plate doesn't cool them, then put a bit curved pot lid over the top. You can use a tent of foil if you need, it's just that there's less waste if you use a lid.

If you are cooking many steaks and can't serve right away then put the cooked steak into an oven just a bit lower than the temperature you want at the center of the steak, this will keep it warm without overcooking it. Don't do it for too long though, you'll dry the steaks out.


Breadmaker bread not remaining fresh long enough

I assume you're trying to extend shelf life for a couple of days, not weeks. One possibility is dough enhancers, many of which improve shelf life. Most can be very easily incorporated into an existing bread machine recipe.

There are a variety of possibilities, and you can also buy commercially available dough enhancers that combine various helpful additives for you. I'd personally buy a dough enhancer formulation first, see if it made a difference in how my spouse liked the results, and then start experimenting with other (less expensive!) additives such as lecithin, gluten, powdered ginger, potato flakes, buttermilk, or more.

Searching for "dough enhancer recipe" brings up lot of suggestions which I can't personally vouch for, so I won't include one here :)

Changing the storage method can also help improve the longevity of a loaf. This is covered in another question; suggestions include covering the cut end (moisture escapes more easily there than from the crust), and pre-slicing and freezing the portion you know you won't get to.


How do you remove the stickiness from reusable plastic container or lid?

When I get this, it's almost always old grease that didn't get washed off properly in the first place. We have some newer storage containers that are, for some reason, really strongly attractive to grease and have to be washed very carefully with lots of detergent or they're sticky next time we go to use them.

My usual solution is to rub the whole thing with undiluted dishwashing liquid and let it sit a minute or two. Then I rub/rinse with the hottest water I can stand until it's all squeaky clean. This usually works.

If your grease is several layers deep or really old, you might have to resort to a grease cutter like Formula 409 or one of the citrus-based degreasers, followed up with plenty of detergent. I would not use solvent any stronger than a commercial cleaning spray because of the risk of damaging the plastic. I also would not scour the plastic. The scratching will make it exponentially harder to get all the way clean, and the deepest scratches can harbor bacteria (ask any home brewer who scoured his brew bucket how much it increases the risk of infection).


What cuts are "stir fry beef" and "stewing beef"?

They are not equivalent cuts and 'should not' be used interchangeably.

Stir Fry meat is cut from the more tender cuts of beef (tri-tip, sirloin, rib-eye) and don't require much time cooking to be 'ready to eat'.
Stew Beef is from less tender cuts (the Chuck or Eye of Round) which will become tender after a 'significant' time braising (cooking in liquid).

That said...the food police won't show up at your door if decide to interchange these, and using stir fry beef for stew isn't a terrible thing to do...but you will likely not be happy if you try to switch the other way.


These are two related, but different products.

Gluten is protein that is formed from two pre-cursor proteins, glutanin and gliaden, found in wheat flour in the presence of water and under enzymatic activity.

It forms resilient stretchable networks which give yeast raised bread its structure.

Whole wheat flour is... well... whole wheat berries, ground up.  It is mostly starch, but contains all glutenin, gliaden, and the necessary enzyme to create gluten, which forms naturally when the flour is moistened, if given long enough or kneaded to accelerate the process.  However, even a very "strong" flour (bread flour) will have no more than about 10%-15% percent protein by weight, so it cannot form more than that amount of gluten.

Vital wheat gluten is essentially concentrated, powdered gluten, without the rest of the parts of the wheat berry.

They are not freely interchangeable, as the gluten does not bring the starch, bran, and other components that flour does.   You may, in specific recipes, be able to use just gluten, but not in the general case.  And even if substitution is possible, you would have to determine the correct ratio to achieve the desired outcome.

Using vital wheat gluten in lieu of whole wheat flour, in most applications, will either fail completely (no thickening from starch, as in a gravy), or be dense and rubbery, and practically unpalatable (as in a bread).


Are there any substitutes for honey when trying to activate yeast?

Yes you can use 3/4 cup (180 ml) of light/dark corn syrup:

You can use any of the following substitutions:

1 cup of honey
3/4 cup (180 ml) maple syrup plus 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated white sugar
3/4 cup (180 ml) light or dark corn syrup plus 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated white sugar
3/4 cup (180 ml) light molasses plus 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated white sugar
1 1/4 cups (250 grams - 265 grams) granulated white or brown sugar plus 1/4 cup (60 ml) additional liquid in recipe plus 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Courtesy of Joy Of Baking


It might be called a 'picnic roast' (which is a front leg).  If you can't find that, it depends on the recipe (and what's available) for what I'd replace it with.

If it's a slow cooked recipe, I'd use 'boston butt' (which is actually the shoulder; butt means 'widest part'), but if it's fast-cooked, I'd go for  sirloin roast.

And if they don't have any of those, then a loin roast, but it'll be more prone to drying out.


Can I start to cook on a cast iron pan while it's smoking?

Yes, you can - for foods that are cooked at high temperatures, like steak, the oil is commonly heated until smoking anyways.
I suspect that the reason your pan is still smoking is due to the fact that you put too much oil when seasoning it - "I'm reluctant to use the oven because the drips from the upside-down pan were far too messy". When seasoning your pan, all you need is the thinnest of coats, and if there is so much extra oil that it drips out, you should wipe most of it out. Having too much oil results in a sticky or tacky surface rather than a smooth patina, and even if you manage to polymerise such a thick layer of oil, it tends to chip off more easily.


Pickling is in itself a preservation method, based on the acidity of the pickle.

There are two ways to achieve this:

Packing the vegetables with acid, such as vinegar
Fermenting the vegetables such that the culture produces acid

If you want to keep pickled vegetables without refrigeration, you should use only trusted recipes and methods which are from highly respectable sources, as improperly pickled and preserved foods can be dangerous.

Note that there are many recipes for "refrigerator pickles" which have a shelf life of several weeks, but are not intended for long term preservation.  Make sure that the recipe you choose is intended for long term storage. These almost always involve either true fermentation, or boiling water or pressure canning.

See also:  Pickling page from National Center for Home Food Preservation


Well this is ... disturbing. Switching to a different brand of soy milk let me succeed on the first try. I have no idea what the manufacturer of my usual brand does to it, but after more testing, even water+lecithine works better than that brand of soy milk.

I hope it's okay to answer my own question. For anyone who comes across this via Google in the future: I tried two different brands of organic soy milk with the same official ingredient list and no visible differences, and one consistently produces mayonnaise while the other consistently produces soup.

Thanks to all the nice people who took the time to try and help me!


Can I use any sort of pumpkin for pumpkin pie?

You may use all sorts of pumpkins and squashes (a Cucurbita moschata or Cucurbita pepo may be called either, depending on variety) to make a pie.  The Halloween types may not be the best choice: they tend to be stringy, not very sweet, and sometimes over treated with pesticides. Instead look for the small varieties (around 5 lbs.) called Sugar, Long Pie, or Trickster.

When making the pumpkin purée for a pie from scratch it is important to deal with the water content of the pumpkin.  After you bake, cool, and purée the pumpkin, you may need to use a cheesecloth to wring the purée.


Shelf life and preservation of Bánh chưng

How long can I safely store Bánh chưng in the fridge?

It depends on how good the bánh chưng was wrapped (before cooking) and if the bánh chưng is put into the fridge right after cooking and if the bánh chưng is already cut open.
i assume that you have a halfway eaten bánh chưng. I would treat this case like regular cooked rice. A post on cooking.SE says that cooked dishes last 3-4 days in the fridge. StillTasty says 4-6 days. I just asked my mother. She said it will be fine for one week in the fridge if cut. You may have a look at the comments on the question "How long can I store cooked rice in the refrigerator?"

  Can I preserve it somehow? I've heard that some people boil or freeze it.

Boiling would kill some pathogens. But since the toxins produced by the previously existing pathogens won't be destroyed, the bánh chưng would be still unsafe.

Freezing: I'm a student and hoard such stuff in my freezer :D Regarding food safety freezing is not problem. If you store the bánh for too long and/or don't wrap the pieces tightly enough the bánh will have freezer burn. I ate frozen bánh chưng which has been for more than a half year in the freezer. It tasted fine after steaming.
After defrosting you should either recook the bánh or steam it. I think you already knew this ;)

  After unwrapping, bánh chưng can stay good for several days while a
  wrapped one can be kept for two weeks.

I think this statement sound quite plausible if the bánh chưng was wrapped very tightly and was wrapped in many layers statement and is stored in a fridge right after cooking. Bonus: The bánh was cooked in a pressure cooker. I guess, it's even sterile for some time o.o

  some posts on
  online forums, where people said it can last even several months!

I doubt it, too. Did they really said "fridge", not "freezer"? o.o
(Oh, or their bánh chưng drowned in lard. Lard lasts for a very long time x))


When meat and poultry are tough it is because because of connective tissue which transfers the muscle's work to bone. The harder a muscle in an animal works the more connective tissue it will have and the tougher (but generally more flavorful) the result will be. Connective tissue (collagen mostly in muscles) breaks down slowly in the presence of moisture and heat.

Frying is too short a cooking process to break down collagens, you need a low and slow method. If it were me I'd braise it instead of roasting it, so I'd coat it in flour and fry it off in a pan, then bake low (maybe 225f or 100c) it in a covered pan with a 500ml (about a pint) of chicken stock and a bit of rubbed sage for about 3 hours. If that doesn't make a tender rooster nothing on earth will.


I've done option 3 for a christmas dinner party, even with the egg-yolk trick. In one night I learned both that it can be done, and also that it can be a complete disaster.

I made three large pieces of ravioli per person, each with a different filling. I was most worried about the yolks breaking during transport, so I those in a separate tupperware box, very carefully with lots of flour. The rest I put in another box more haphazardly with less flour.

The egg ones were fine: out of 15, only 2 failed, which allowed me to serve everybody one piece at least. The others had completely stuck together and could only be turned into a weird mash in a frying pan.

So the trick is to package them properly: Give them a liberal dusting, do not let them rest on top of each other, and keep them from touching in general. Non-airtight containers may be better, since it stops the pasta from sweating. You might even consider creating a small cardboard partition inside the box to keep them from touching.

Plan to lose 10% to 20%, and do a small test ahead of time, and you should be fine.


Are these small yellow things on my lettuce worms?

These are probably insect eggs.
Being unmoving, tightly clustered together, and uniform in size, these are most likely insect eggs.
A number of common insects lay oblong yellow eggs similar to those in your image, including ladybugs and cabbage white butterflies. Yours look more like ladybug eggs to me, or perhaps some other kind of beetle egg.


Does cooking reset the expiry date of ingredients?

The expiring date of the cooked food has nothing to do with the expiring date of the ingredients. They are considered separately. A cooked food has a shelf life of 3-5 days, and this assumes that you followed a safe cooking process, which includes using ingredients which were not expired at the time of cooking.

Cooking does not sterilize food, but it reduces the bacteria currently alive in it. It doesn't kill them all, and it doesn't remove toxins, so it is not a "reset" and you cannot make unsafe food safe by cooking it. But the expiry date is calculated with such a margin that the bacteria which are left after cooking cannot get to dangerous levels too fast, so you still have the regular 3-5 days.

On the other hand, if you have two different ingredients with a long expiry date and cook them together, the new expiry date is not determined by the date of the ingredients, not even by the date of the shortest lived ingredient. It is still 3-5 days.


Oil or butter are dough enrichments, and they will change the quality of your loaf.  This may be a positive change in flavor and texture, as well as making it stale more slowly, but it is a change.   They will also slow the action of the yeast slightly.

Instead, if the cause of your failure to get a second proofing is that the outside of the loaf is drying out (which from the edited in picture appears to be the case), coat just the outside very lightly with oil or butter, then cover loosely with cling wrap.  I like to spray cling wrap with spray oil, then lay it over the surface of the loaf.

You may also want to improvise a proofing box with your microwave, by boiling some water in the chamber for a few minutes, then using the cavity as the proof box. You still want to oil and cover the loaf while it rises.

This will keep the outside from drying out and losing its elasticity, so that the proofing can continue.

A second possible cause is that the yeast are running out of readily available sugars to digest, and so their action is just slowing down considerably.  You might try adding a teaspoon of sugar to the liquid when you are first making the dough to provide some extra food for the yeast.


What function would tartaric acid play in the making of gummy candy?

My mother always put some ( 1/2 teaspoon) in fudge to prevent or reduce crystallization of the sugar ( she said).


Is a top heat gas grill, capable of 800°C / 1500°F perfect for pizza and sous vide steak?

No, at least for pizza.

Pizza needs to be cooked as fast as possible from all sides so that the crust is cooked and the topping are not over-cooked/burned.

In the case of a top-heat oven, you will over-cook/burn the topping before the crust is cooked.

i think it would be OK for broiling the steaks after vacuum cooking them.


How do I keep rice based noodles from sticking together?

I have only experience with pho noodles. I don't know if the pasta you are referring to behaves fundamentally different to the noodles that I'm familiar with. The ingredients seem to be almost the same: rice flour. Some kinds of rice pasta are made with brown rice flour but this is basically white rice flour with the bran layer and the germ. I guess rice starch in pasta and pho noodles should behave quite similar.

Regarding the pho noodles which are also very prone to sticking to a noodley blob you have two options:

Soak the rice noodles for about one hour (I don't know the exact time) in (luke)warm water until the noodles are soft. They will not be as soft / chewy as cooked but rather can be bent to a certain extent until they break. When soft, remove the noodles from the water (optional: and store them in a closed container in a cool place until you need the noodles). Reheat your sauce and put the desired amount of noodles in the same pan. The noodles will cook very quickly. Instead of this you can sautée the noodles first and then add the sauce (very tricky, I always end with a ball of noodles; my parents do better). It is almost rather reheating the noodles than cooking.
Cook the noodles and rinse them thoroughly (!) to remove the starch. (Sometimes the noodles did stick after rinsing. Then oiling helps.)


The crumbling is caused by the muscle fibers tightening up to the point where they've become brittle, which can happen when they've been exposed to too much heat and/or acid. I'm guessing that your tenderloin is either being overcooked, over-marinated, or both.

Tenderloin differs from tough cuts like pork shoulder, because they don't contain a much collagen which provides structure when less cooked (think: a tough cheap piece of steak,) or turn into rich gelatin when cooked for a long time (think pulled pork or pot roast.) Since tenderloins have little connective tissue, it will be nice and tender if the muscle fibers are treated gently, (think: medium-rare steak) but won't have all of that nice collagen and connective tissue in there to mitigate over-marination or overcooking (think: dry, crumbly meat.)

Switch to a flavorful wet or dry brine, or cut down on the acid in
your marinade and only marinate them for a couple of hours.
For doneness, I prefer my tenderloins cooked to about 140F, but
you should be able to get closer to well-done without them falling apart, especially if they're brined. Once you start getting into the 165F+ zone, you're going to be looking at a pretty dry piece of meat.


Juice from meat extinguishing charcoals when grilling?

As a fellow Webber'er and long time griller, I'm going to wager one of three things going on here:

Your coals aren't hot enough.  One of the biggest problems I see with folks and charcoal grills isn't waiting long enough for the coals.  There's should be no visible flame and slightly more than half of the coals should be white.  In a chimney starter - this is around 25 minutes for me.  If you're using another method, YMMV.
You don't have enough coals.  If you've just got enough coals to spread a thin layer across your grill, then they won't keep heat well and they'll cool down fast. If the liquid hits them too much here, they won't heat back up well. They should be grouped together somewhat and generally a couple layers thick for best heat.
There is waaaaay too much marinade still on your meat when it hits the grill.  If its been soaked properly in the marinade, you don't need to have it still be gushing fluid when it hits the grill.


When adding vital wheat gluten to a bread recipe, should one reduce the amount of flour equal to it?

I wouldn't replace milk powder with vital wheat gluten.  Vital wheat gluten changes the gluten content of your recipe.  It's good for, say, turning whole wheat flour with a lower gluten content or AP flour into flour suitable for bread.

When I add vital wheat gluten, I subtract flour as your friend does.  I only use it when I am not using a high protein flour.

The dried nonfat milk powder is likely in the recipe for flavor.  I would instead use milk in place of water and either up the flour as needed or replace with flour as needed (you can tell this during kneading).  I've done this just fine in bread recipes before.


How does double-bagging sous vide food affect cook time?

Plastics have a very low heat capacity. On top of that, the plastic in a bag is very thin. While you are doubling up on the imperfect vacuum in your bags, the effects should still be negligible.


How important is humidity when smoking a brisket?

According to Big Green Eggic, the main effect of the water pan is help keep the heat even and low in the cooker by:

Providing a buffer mass
Not heating above the boiling point (212 F / 100 C)

This makes it easier to hold even, low temperatures (like 225 F) for long, low and slow cooking.

They claim the humidity change is not really terribly important, as water evaporates from the surface of the foods relatively quickly in any case.

The article Physicist Cracks BBQ Mystery in the Huffington Post blog (which is very interesting in its own right) mentions that many successful competition barbequers are choosing to barbecue at slightly higher temperatures, which would make the entire point of the water pan moot.


If I use a diffuser will I be able to use a pressure cooker to can food on my glass top stove?

Glass stove top manufacturers sometimes recommend not using pressure canners because the weight and heat distribution can be too much for them and the glass surface can crack.

A diffuser would probably not help with that problem. The diffuser is not likely to be so much bigger than the canner that it would distribute the weight. If it was that large then it would diffuse the heat too much.

Sometimes stove or canner manuals will place restrictions on the size of the canner vs the burner size. If the canner is too large it can transfer heat out of the burner area and damage the surface.

Another common problem mentioned is that some canners have concave bottoms. Obviously, only flat bottomed canners should be used otherwise the weight distribution will be bad for the burner and the canner might not heat properly.

You should check with the manufacturer of your range and see if your range can be used with a pressure canner. If they say it can can then you can can without the diffuser. If they say it can't then you may just be out of luck.

We use a camp stove and do a lot of our pressure canning outside- especially in the summer to save AC bills.

Anecdotally- My mother once, 20 years ago, had a glass surface crack while canning. I have been canning on a glass surface for two years without incident.


Ricotta Impestata is apparently ricotta that has been drained and pressed through a fine mesh.  So, while you can order it online, you can also make it yourself by first draining or blotting the ricotta using paper towels or cheesecloth, and then by pressing it through a tight-mesh strainer.  Personally, I would do the draining but not the pressing, as the latter would be a lot of work and probably not make that much of a difference.

Also, having just made proper whey ricotta not 2 hours ago, I suspect that what the "impestata" process duplicates is the texture of fine whey ricotta, which is quite smooth and creamy compared with whole milk ricotta.  So if you make cheese anyway, try making whey ricotta and draining it thouroughly, and that may give you the texture you're looking for.


The difference is the time until the starter matures. Without going into the maths behind, just remember that growth is exponential, not linear.

My favorite source (in German, sorry), uses 10-20 % of the flour weight. That means that the starter will need feeding about once a day, as opposed to the equal weights approach, where you feed twice a day (or even thrice, if you have an exceptionally active starter). I wouldn’t go below the 10%, just to make sure nothing unwanted can get a chance.

So “correct” is what fits your feeding and baking schedule, as long as the starter ratio is somewhere between 10 and 100% of the flour weight and you give it the correct time to mature.

Remember - the principles of sourdough have been used by humans since way before the invention of scales. So while weighing is something we often recommend (at least as in “use a scale, not a measuring cup”) for bakers who aim to get reliable and reproducible results, learning about the characteristics of your specific sourdough, its demands and behavior, and how to tweak it to match your needs, is in the end way more important than the ratio of starter to flour.


Possible to get Sugar Syrup and Coconut Oil to solidify together (Emulsifier needed?)

Coconut oil isn't ever a 1-1 swap with dairy butter, which has a small amount of water in as well as compounds that allow it to emulsify.
If you're avoiding butter, try using a good quality margarine instead of coconut oil.
Lecithin granules work well. Add half a teaspoon at a time, whisking it or using a hand-blender. Agar and xanthan gum are both good emulsifiers but might cause it to thicken up a bit too much as a lot goes a long way.


Storing oil coated and unrefrigerated egg

Conceivably, as the oil would block the pores in the egg shell and prevent evaporation/contamination. However, the oil would also eventually absorb in through the shell, so I would certainly avoid using mineral oil as some sites suggest, as it's toxic.

Having said that, I'm not sure of the logic behind storing them upside down.


Depends on the rice, of course - here are the most common types:

White rice: 2:1
Brown rice: 1.5:1
Jasmine rice: 1.1:1
Wild rice: 4:1, but immediately wash with cold water and drain when done.


What should I look out for when creating my own beef jerky marinades?

I have to admit that I haven't tried a lot of free-form jerky experiments so take what I say with a grain of salt. (see what I did there?)

Jerky is a double action meat preservation method. You soak the meat with way too much salt and then dehydrate it. Bacteria don't stand a chance. As Alton says in that episode "Club med becomes club dead". Not one of his best puns but it gets the point across.

Salt (or soy sauce, same thing) isn't required for the drying process but it is important for long term preservation. I have seen recipes that try to reduce it but I would never leave it out altogether. I would expect a reduced salt recipe to not have the longevity that most jerky has- If stored in an air tight container it will last nearly forever.

The non-salt ingredients don't really matter as long as they won't oxidize or pick up bad flavors during dehydration. The type of sugar also doesn't matter- although the recipes I prefer don't include any.

I honestly don't know about viscosity- I would expect it to need enough liquid to carry the salt into the meat. That would take some experimenting.

It is very important that there be as little fat as possible. The leaner the meat the better and don't add any to the marinade. Fats will go rancid quite quickly when exposed to so much air.

Lastly- I think I've posted this recipe before as the answer to some other question but it bears repeating. This family recipe is my favorite by far and I use it as a starting point for any experimenting:

Auntie Fern's Beef Jerky

3 lbs. deer meat or beef, sliced thin
1 T salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 T pepper (I like coarse ground)
1/4 c. soy sauce
1/3 c. Worcestershire sauce
1/3 c. liquid smoke (hickory flavor)

Combine and marinade 12 hours. Drain. Dry.


What temperature(s) should sweetbreads be cooked to?

While not perhaps a definitive answer, according to Serious Eats:

  Besides its amazing flavor and texture, sweetbread is nearly impossible to overcook. [...] you can sear the exterior of sweetbread to your heart's content, without worrying about the interior turning chewy and tough. Your cooking timeframe, in other words, is extremely forgiving and long—minutes long, rather than tens of seconds.

This implies that sous-vide is perhaps not as helpful for sweetbreads as it might be for some other foods that are more temperature sensitive.

The only recipe I could find that mentioned a temperature was a sous-vide based recipe that suggested 60 C (140 F) for one hour.  Note that this is one of the time and temperature combinations that essentially kills all pathogens that may be present.

From these facts, I infer that you want them cooked though (which the traditional blanching method will ensure), and hot for service, but a specific temperature as is used for beef is not important.


Using Chakki Atta instead of whole wheat flour?

In theory chakki is a flour mill, and chakki atta is flour fresh from that mill.  Realistically of course nothing you find on your grocery store shelves is fresh from a mill.

Atta flour is made from hard wheat, which has a high gluten content.  This means that your flour is probably better for bread than typical all-purpose whole wheat flour from the baking aisle.  If it is hard white wheat this might explain the color, as ground white wheat doesn't look that much darker than all-purpose flour.

Like typical grocery store whole wheat flour, atta flour is coarsely ground.  This may give your bread a more grainy texture (not a bad thing), and makes atta unideal for cakes, biscuits, and quick breads unless you like them with a coarse texture in the crumb.  If you would like to use whole wheat for baking other than bread, whole wheat pastry flour is the usual suggestion (or grind wheat yourself to a very find grind).


Re-heating beurre blanc without splitting

I'm quite sure being able to reheat beurre blanc is a superpower without a superhero. Your efforts are commendable but I think inevitably futile, I'm sorry to say.
The problem is not that it splits while heating up. The problem is that the sauce splits while cooling down. This is caused by the butter solidifying. When heating it back up again, it will simply become visible that the sauce has split.
It's unfortunate, but you're probably best off not making too much beurre blanc. If you still have some left over, it's a great component to use in a cream-based sauce. Also, if you really want to make a beurre blanc that you can cool down, you could experiment with adding cream. But even though it might turn out to be a nice sauce, it's not the real thing.


What kind of homemade sandwich bread or wrap lasts longest?

Firstly - shop-bought "packet" bread will keep for several days because it contains a lot of preservatives.

In his excellent book Bread Matters, Andrew Whitley claims that home-made sourdough breads with very long rises have better keeping properties than home-made bread made with baker's yeast and short rises. This, he claims, is because the sourdough yeast cultivates a culture of friendly bacteria and an acid environment, all of which become natural preservatives. My experience seems to confirm this.

Bread recipes containing egg, oil or milk tend to keep for longer than those without.

As @SAJ14SAJ says, bread freezes very well. Loss of flavour in the freezer is not a commonly recognised phenomenon.

One option is to slice a loaf of bread, bag it and freeze it. Take as many slices as you need at a time. It will defrost very quickly at room temperature, due to its low mass and high surface area.

Another option is to make rolls, part-bake, and freeze. When you need them, take as many rolls as you need from the freezer, and place in the oven, to both defrost and complete the baking. You will get fresh baking smells and flavours from this.

I suspect that home-made unleavened breads (pita, chapati, tortilla), without added preservatives, will not last long out of the freezer. Their advantage is that with no rise, they are so quick to make that they can be made fresh on-demand.


Why do some plant based milks require more emulsifiers than others?

Some plant products carry a good amount of lecithin, which is itself a potent emulsifier, so there is less need to add an extra emulsifier. Soy beans and sunflowers are both commercially exploited sources of lecithin isolates, so one can assume they have a lot.

Lecithin is also contained in eggs in a high concentration, and the reason eggs are often helpful in mayonnaise making - BTW, eggless mayonnaises can be homemade from soymilk, though not as easily as traditional mayonnaise.


Preserve peppers before smoking -- freeze or dehydrate?

Freezing is definitely the way to go. It’ll soften the peppers, but smoking softens them anyway. Dehydrating them will allow them to burn before they’re smoked through, since the water in the peppers’ flesh is needed to keep the interior temperature under control during long smoking.


Is there a way to bring a loaf of bread that's gone dry, back to life?

Yes. Throw it in the oven on about 200 F for 20 minutes or so. The staling process is called retrogradation, and reheating can reverse it to some degree.


How should glasses/cups be oriented in storage?

If the glasses are at all damp, it may make sense to store them up-side-down. In bars and restaurants, you often see plastic mesh like this:

That webbing lines trays, shelves and the area beside the sink for drying dishes. The mesh keeps the dishes or glasses, which may still be damp, from actually touching the surface they're sitting on. In the case of glasses, it also keeps the glasses from forming a seal to the surface beneath. That mesh often gets cleaned, as does the surface under them. In that case, it makes sense to store glasses up-side-down.

Do you have mesh lining your cabinet? Are the cabinet shelves wiped down regularly?

If not, it is far more sanitary to store your glasses right-side-up, and to be sure that they are dry before they are put away.


Making (or substitute for) ricotta cheese?

Joe mentioned tofu as a ricotta substitute when making cannoli; I recommend it for lasagna as well.

I love my mom's lasagna, and I only found out as an adult that she uses soft tofu instead of ricotta. Now, I do the same.


How interchangeable are fats in yeast bread recipes?

If you're the type of person who measures all your ingredients on a gram scale, theoretically you do.

However, unless the fat in the recipe is on the order of 1/2 cup, the amount of omitted water is going to be less than the amount of variance in water you get from uncontrollable sources, such as the ambient humidity.  There's also that you never know exactly how much water is in that generic unsalted butter to begin with.  American butter varies between 11% and 18% for water content, not just between brands, but also by season and year as the price and quality of cream fluctuates.  Not only do you not actually know how much water content is in your butter, you don't know how much was in the cookbook author's butter (also, some cheaper brands of ghee, such as the one sold at Trader Joe's, are not actually water-free).

If we were to assume that a recipe called for 200g of unsalted American butter, then you'd theoretically want assume an average water content of 15%, and swap that for, say, 170g of oil and 30g (roughly 2 Tbs) of water.

But my practical advice is "add a couple extra teaspoons of water and see how it comes together".


Basil - to wash or not to wash? Best practices?

People generally wash fruit and vegetables (organic or not) to remove surface contamination ,and the bacteria it may host, from the farm and supply chain

This includes soil (ground based animal faeces), compost (rotted vegetable matter), airborne dropped bird faeces, road dust (often high in animal faeces), and other surface contamination that can host bacteria

A short and simple wash by hand in a bowl or sink of cold tap water will remove large amounts of these surface contamination from most fruit and vegetables. Some may require light brushing or scrubbing. And for best results rinse in running cold tap water after washing. Shaking water off usually works better than trying to blot it off with a tea towel

Gentle washing will NOT remove any significant flavour or aromas. Think about what happens when it rains :-)


They look like they have been blanched. Or dipped in boiling water. The red.This is some times done if they have parisites on them. But froze? & shipped?  I am talking about prawn fresh of the boat at home. Then blanched & froze at home for later use.  I would avoid these if store bought. If I did not know they were boat fresh. How handled. Many prawn & shrimp are black in color. But not like that.


If I were to guess, it would be that the ones that call for a lively simmer are sauces, soups, or other thicker liquids. The lively simmer in that case would refer something close to a light boil. For instance, tomato sauce simmers even when you have it on low, but if you were to cut the temperature up to a medium low, it would bubble much more actively and to me would be considered a lively simmer.


What can I do to " fresh cream" to substitute "double cream"?

In NZ normal pure cream is close enough to "double cream" in performance, it's around 35% to 40% fat. By general global definition it should be called "heavy cream"

NZ cream is pure skimmed cream from fresh milk, and does not need thickening or other processing to produce excellent results as a whipped product, or for a thick cream additive in sauces or fillings

Cream can get a little seasonal just after calving time (Aug), but in general it's just perfect

The export variety is often labelled "Culinary Cream" and is 38% fat or higher. This is what many people around the world would consider NZ cream (other than NZ butter or AMF)

If you want closer to 50% fat cream, ask your local farmers for some raw milk and skim out the lumps of fat from that. Let the milk settle overnight and skim the cream from that. Then gently heat the fat lumps to melt and carefully mix into the skimmed cream. Not for the faint of heart!

NZ "Thickened cream" or "Mascarpone cream" is standard pure cream with a thickener like E1442 added, you can make your own too


Can you cook bone stock in two hours, if not what are the problems?

Refrigerated stock is supposed to gel. Its caused by the gelatin you're (intentionally!) extracting from the bones.

To determine if its a success, you'd taste it. Assuming it tastes right, then its a success. If you had you cooked it longer, you may have extracted a little more flavor & gelatin (so it'd be an even thicker gel).

You can also make chicken stock in a slow cooker (if you want an easy way to let it simmer all day), or in a pressure cooker (if you want to make stock in a hour). The taste of these methods will be slightly different, and for best taste pressure-cooker stock requires a non-venting pressure cooker running at 15 psi.


How much juice can you get from an orange?

you know better than I do, it depends on the orange and type of orange. My mom, an executive chef, used to say that you'd allow 1-2 lb of oranges for 1 drinkable cup of orange juice.

I really think, that it's highly dependent on the type of orange. I know naval and blood oranges are the juiciest compared to other varieties.


Keeping consistent quality of marinated meat throughout the day in a restaurant

Your question is actually a more general topic under food quality.

The concept is either called stock rotation or just-in-time(for manufacturing).

You simply need to anticipate the need for the item and prepare it ahead of time, multiple times throughout the day.  If you need 10 portions an hour starting at 6pm, you need to begin marinating 10 portions at 3pm then 10 portions at 4pm and so on to satisfy your needs for the day.  Your work day begins when prep time must begin, not when your restaurant is open for customers.

Many restaurants do this with any product that doesn't hold well.  These items need to be prepared several times throughout service and rotation is a good way to do it.

Bakers don't go to work in the wee hours of the morning for no reason.  They do it to ensure their products are served at their peak of quality.


Ghee is butter minus the milk solids and water, but it's not the same as clarified butter because it goes through a second phase of the process which browns the solids and imparts flavour to the remaining oil.
Clarified butter, heat until solids separate and settle, strain.
Ghee, heat until solids separate and settle, the increase heat until solids brown, strain. This adds a 'nutty' flavour.
The smoke point for the two is the same, but the flavour is different.
Ghee is not fully shelf-stable. It has a life-span of weeks to months in the fridge. Commercial ghee of course will have a best before date it would be wise to adhere to.
It will not last indefinitely & will (I think) go rancid after long storage… whatever it does chemically, it will certainly ruin a meal if you use it after it's turned. You can't see it, but you can smell it's changed.
BTW, you can get vegetable 'ghee', which is considerably cheaper. Many BIR kitchens use it. It's basically vegetable oil (often palm oil) with 'butter flavour'.


I know it's for vegetables but you should be able to trim the meat into a size that you can slice with a mandolin.   I haven't tried it myself but if you get on that has no blade guard it should work great.


What is the best way to store uncooked homemade beef patties?

Store them as you would the unground beef. If it will be still be in date after a few days, store it in the fridge, otherwise, freeze them (separating the patties with a sheet of greaseproof paper).


it’s very well doable on a stove-top. You can use a non-stick pan and it would work great.

My experience with pans is, due to surface curvature, it’s better to use a small pan and fry your tuile spread all over the pan.


How much fat does "low fat" cheese have?

In Europe at least, the rules on advertising say:

  "for a product to be able to make a claim that it was low in saturated fat under EU Regulation 1924/2006 on Nutrition and Health Claims Made on Foods, it should contain no more than 1.5 g of saturated fat per 100 g of solids"

(from the ASA Adjudication on Youngs Seafood Ltd )


Can this Kitchen Art Non Fry Pan, made in South Korea, be seasoned?

Your link says “non-stick coating” and “aluminum”. When said coating is damaged or worn down, you have to discard the pan. This is just how these pans are, they aren’t made to last for generations like cast iron (which would be significantly heavier, btw).
You can’t create a polymerized oils seasoning on top of a non-stick layer and even if you sanded down the remaining coating, the bare aluminum wouldn’t be “seasonable”.


Does lime juice make jalapeños less spicy?

Lime juice isn't going to make it less spicy, if anything I've found it accentuates the spiciness a bit although I'm not sure of the mechanism. It could be that the acidity frees up more capsaicin  compounds (what makes hot food hot), or wakes up your taste buds more.

Most likely you have simply added a weak jalapeno. Peppers of the same variety can vary in heat strength quite a bit depending on the where and how it was grown, although you'll get weak and strong peppers from the same plant. You can make up for the lack of spice by adding more jalapeno or a bit of hot chili powder.


What is the difference between Grills, Barbecues, Broiling e.t.c.?

As Mien pointed out in the comments, these terms can vary based on where you are from. My answer is based on the U.S. version of the terms.

Grilling: To cook with direct exposure to heat, usually from below.

Broiling: To cook with direct exposure to heat, usually from above.

BBQing: To cook with indirect heat using wood in order to add a smoke flavor.

In many parts of the U.S. grilling and BBQing are used synonymously, in which it mostly implies grilling meat outdoors, although, as you can see by the definitions above, that isn't entirely accurate.


My early sourdough loaves looked like that. Now they are less flat and have defined hikes through the crumb rather than a great interlinked cavern.
The things that changed:

my starter became more mature and stable. It lives in the fridge and gets fed 2-3 times a week when I bake. I keep about 250g which gets 100g taken out and replaced for my standard loaf and 180 g on loaf-and-pizza days, plus another 60g at random times when my partner steals some.
I’ve learned that in my kitchen a sourdough loaf takes a long old time to rise. Sometimes I bake it underproofed because that’s better than not having bread, but really mine needs 24 hours from start to finish.
I gave up kneading. I read all the methods, watched all the videos... I slammed that dough down 300 times per loaf, kneaded for at least ten minutes, stretched and folded... and never got smooth elastic dough as advertised. Instead I got exhausted sticky dough that was a nightmare to handle and didn’t rise all that well. I’ve come to the conclusion that if dough has enough time it doesn’t require kneading. Now I mix the starter with water, mix in the flour with a rice paddle, mix a bit more about ten minutes later and leave alone for about 22 hours.  I might give it a poke if I’m bored, but that’s more for me than the bread.
Shaping: I used to do a lot of folding/rolling up of dough before I put it in a proving basket for the last hour or two. Now I just kind of punch it down and gather it back up and dump it into a well-floured basket.

I don’t have a current loaf to take a pic to prove my success (just back from Stratford, flying to Stornoway in the morning, had to actually do a discard feed for 1st time this year) but essentially my mantra would be ‘chill and give it time’.


Can large pizzas be made in a convection oven?

I cook a circular pizza on a pan as large as my consumer convection oven can accommodate and the pizza comes out great.
The biggest risk is that the pan must be kept level to prevent the sauce and cheese from sliding down as the pizza cooks.
In my oven, a pan two inches larger in diameter would nearly fit, but then the bent part of the rack makes the back just a little too high and causes the problem.


What's the functional different between a skillet and a saute pan?

Skillets are not designed to hold much liquid; as you point out, the curved sides are optimized for easy flipping and turning (i.e. with a spatula). They also normally do not come with lids; I'm sure there are some out there, but even my All-Clad skillets didn't.

You can really only use a skillet for high-heat searing or frying due to their low profile. Don't bother trying to poach or even shallow-fry in one.

Sauté pans, on the other hand, have more height, and usually do come with lids. They're a little heavier, and don't make it as easy to turn, but they can also be used for shallow-frying and moist-heat cooking methods like braising or poaching.

I've seen people make sauce or chili in sauté pans as well; sometimes they're more convenient if you're only going to make a small quantity, since the large exposed surface area (relative to a saucepan) makes it easier to reduce sauces. It's a no-brainer if your recipe starts out with sautéing garlic, onions, vegetables, etc., and then has you adding the liquid ingredients; if you have a large enough sauté pan then you don't need to bother transferring to a saucepan afterward.

I think you've got it backwards; of the two options, a sauté pan is definitely the more versatile option. I use both, but if I only had the space or budget for one, I'd choose the sauté pan, because it can do everything a skillet can do (just not quite as well) and many more things a skillet is useless for. A skillet is really only necessary for people who do a lot of pan-searing.

Note that as commenter Owen suggests, there are "French skillets" sold which have higher bases; these are not really skillets, and are not normally sold with lids, but assuming you can find or improvise one, they would make semi-decent multi-taskers. I maintain that cast-iron skillets, while taller, are not nearly as versatile due to their reactive material and weight - I only ever use mine for searing/grilling.


What is the correct way to make "Brazil style" BBQ meat?

Not sure if there is a correct way. It's basically skewered hunks of meat on a wood fired BBQ
You can do your own Churrasqueira by using a Weber "kettle" style BBQ or a B.D.S. (Big Drum Smoker). Use long steel skewers (or swords!) for your meat and BBQ away
Thick steaks of beef and lamb work well. Also try chicken drumsticks and some small Chorizo (spicy sausage)
Don't marinate the meat, but toss some coarse salt onto the meat surface before and during cooking. Don't go crazy with it, but it seems to absorb the roasting flavours and really boost the taste
Use a smoky fire, if your wood won't smoke add some fresh wood or herbs that do. Try lavender bush (wood and flower), grape vine or kiwifruit vine cuttings, or any other fresh cut aromatic wood
Watch the amount of fat dripping onto the hot coals; too much will make the meat taste bad. Shield the coals as required or trim off large chunks of fat
There is no need for motorised skewers that takes the fun out of it. Occasionally turn the meat by hand while enjoying your favourite beverage, and "chewing the fat" with a friend
Serve by taking a skewer to the diners plate, and hold skewer nearly vertically above plate. Use an extra sharp carving knife and slice onto the plate with a downwards cut so juices and other slicing splatter goes onto the plate and not onto the diners
If you are having a Churrasco party, give each diner a flippable symbol (e.g. red/green) to indicate to the server (probably you) "GIVE ME MORE!", or "I am stuffed". Serve a round of each meat as their outer layer becomes done
Coolest Churrasco cooker I could find

The rails on the top are what the skewers rest on
Following the car theme, some more cool Churrasco cookers here http://autozine.com.br/inusitados/churrasqueiras-automotivas


Once mixed, how long is cake batter good when refrigerated?

Comments are right, mixing with another box would probably not provide enough leavening for the second cake to be successful.  Just toss the leftover batter into a smaller baking  pan.  You'd be better off having a very slightly stale mini-cake the second day than a larger fresher brick.  A bit of fruit and whipped cream would disguise the not-baked-today character very effectively.  Or you could just eat it before the guests arrive :-)


How long do I pre-heat a whole chicken for on the stove before placing it in the oven to roast?

It is doubtful that the "temperature is penetrating"...whatever that even means in this case.  The temperature ultimately has to be at least 165 F (74C) in the breast.  Placing the chicken, on top of its wings, on its side, in a pan on the stove top is not going to speed that up all that much. Especially for the upside facing part.  I could see making a use of a browning step (particularly if you are going to cover (and steam) the bird in the oven), but he doesn't evenly brown the bird. He turns the bird partway through the cooking, however, to brown the other side.  I am suspicious of his process, but I would say, if you want to re-create it, I doubt it is on the stove top for more than a few minutes.  Brown the skin, then place in oven.


How is flambéing different from just adding alcohol?

What is the difference between just adding brandy to burning it with regard to taste?

Time and theatric impact (flambe is often done table side in a restaurant) are the big difference.

Flambe:

very quick, almost instant reduction of alcohol
texture/composition changes to dish are limited due to short process
visually dramatic
subtle changes in flavor

Adding alcohol, then further cooking:

longer cooking time to reduce alcohol
longer cooking will have a different effect on texture/composition
there will be changes in flavor, but in a different way from flambe

With most recipes, it comes down to time. If a long simmer to remove alcohol is undesired, you flambe. Example: Bananas Foster, if you simmered that for a long time, you'll get a hot bitter banana mush. Flambe is the better choice.

Without seeing your entire recipe: if your peppers are cooked a long time, you could simply add the alcohol and let the cooking reduce it. But if the recipe is a quick saute or similar, if you don't flambe, you may not get the flavor change the author intended. And, you may end up serving alcohol.


Could I get sick from accidentally cooking an olive can metal lid in my spaghetti sauce?

Very unlikely.

Cans are made from either steel (uncritical) or aluminum (dito), covered with a thin layer of tin (dito) or epoxy coating. These materials are explicitly choosen because they are food-safe1, even at higher temperatures than you use with home cooking: Tin cans are sterilized after filling to make the food inside shelf-stable.

So the only way where non-foodsafe components might be introduced would be any printing/laquer/paint, which is typically on the side of the can, not on the lid.

1
The epoxy in the cans may contain Bisphenol-A, which acts as endocrine disruptor (influences the hormone system) and is banned for baby bottles in some countries, e.g. all the EU. The FDA considers its use for food packaging safe.


In what stage should the temperature of meat be taken?

Foor food safety, the recommendation means that the coolest part of the meat should reach the target temperature. For something like a beef or pork roast, the coolest point will be generally in the very center of the roast. For chicken or turkey, it will often be where the leg joins the body. You may need to probe more than one more place to find the coolest reading.

Now, because the meat surrounding that coolest point is at a higher temperature, the meat will continue to cook after it is removed from the oven. How much of an increase will depend on how big the roast is. In other words, a large roast will have a greater thermal mass — more meat towards the outside will be at a higher temperature, and the heat will transfer into the coolest point, raising its ultimate temperature.

So, the practical answer to your question is that you need to anticipate when the target temperature will be attained. To err on the side of food safety, keep the meat in the oven until it reaches or is very close to the target temperature. With a little experience, you'll be able to gauge how much of a temperature increase occurs with various roasts, and remove it from the oven earlier.

The bottom line however, is that the roast needs to ultimately reach the target temperature.


A blended sauce uses starch suspended in a small amount of cold liquid. This is typically the method used for starches such as cornstarch or arrowroot. The starches blended with the cold liquid, then poured into the hot base and stirred until it thickens.


How to make my cinnamon rolls less bready?

This is borderline unclear what you're asking but I'll take a shot at it. Cinnamon rolls are made using a fortified yeast dough. Fortified means that there is butter/shortening and/or eggs added, which slow down the yeast action.

There are a few things that aren't right with what you are doing.

you are using self-rising flour in a recipe that is supposed to be leavened by yeast. Self rising flour is usually lower in gluten content and contains leavening agents. You want to use regular flour so you get the right gluten content, also you may not have the right acid balance for your self-rising flour which could lead to the leavening agents not working and adding off flavors. You don't need the leavening agents if you are doing it right
too much yeast: I think you aren't adding 25oz of yeast, but if you are then one packet is enough!
I don't think you have the right balance between moisture and flour. Your recipe has 1 cup of water and milk to 3/4 cup flour, this will make a batter, not a dough. You need to at least triple the amount of flour
too short a rising time: 30 minutes is simply not enough time for the yeast to work. You need to wait until the dough at least doubles in size, which usually takes between 1-2 hours. You need to aim for the amount of rise, not a time as there are many factors which can affect this. If it's not rising at all then you've got dead yeast - either it's gotten too old, been exposed to too much heat, or exposed to salt

I suggest you start with an entirely different recipe as the one you have put up has a lot which needs to be fixed. Given that there's not nearly enough flour and you are not proofing it anywhere near long enough I can't see you getting a decent result.


How to fix a sauce with overheated yogurt that has separated?

Did it and rescued it - important extended family meal and I took a curds and whey disaster to a great sauce! I cooked up chicken with its yoghurt base marinade, the yoghurt split. It tastes fine it's just the proteins have changed at high heat and clumped to form curds.

To solve it I:

took a small amount of water (2 tablespoons or so) in a jug and mixed in a couple of teaspoons of cornstarch. I then added this to the sauce. Don't add cornstarch directly or it will just lump.
OPTIONAL: take other sauce ingredients that are meant to be whole (tomatoes in my case) and add 1/2 to sauce
blend to a smooth sauce using stick mixer (careful of hot sauce splashes)
Reduce sauce, if necessary, to thicken sauce on a medium heat stirring frequently
Return chicken to sauce and add the rest of the ingredients.

Serve and eat, and not to self "next time you cook with yoghurt do it slowly on a low heat - DO NOT BOIL"


Freezing ... well, basically freezes the growth of bacteria inside your food. Thus, if you heat it up quick enough later, it will not have significantly more bacteria or mold (spores) and related poisons than in the moment it got to the save temperature (remember that this moment is not exacly at the point you put it in the freezer but later.)
If you would eat it tomorrow though than you can as well freeze it today, as long as you make sure you don't keep it for days after defrosting again.


Why would pumpkin pie form a clear custard layer?

I believe that your aunt is right and Grandma added cornstarch. Quite a few times in the past when I've made sauces using cornstarch in a saucepan, bubbles of clear gel have formed when I've neglected to stir constantly. It seems quite possible to me that a thin layer of this gel would form when making a pie, rather than the bubbles that I have seen.

I understand that you want to come as close to Grandma's recipe as possible and keep this layer. Bearing in mind that I've not tried this, I would mix 1 to 2 tablespoons of cornstarch with just enough milk to make a pourable, non-lumpy paste and whisk it gently into the custard  . If the recipe involves any heating of the custard before baking, be sure to incorporate the cornstarch mixture only after heating.


Why does my corn flour dough feel like wet sand?

Corn masa is what you need for this.

The process of nixtamalization makes the corn more easily ground and therefore the texture of doughs made with it will not be "gritty" in the way that a dough made with corn meal or corn flour will be.

Also, corn masa (or masa harina) is more nutritious than standard corn products due to the chemical changes that result from the nixtamalization process.


Time estimate for reaching 155F for baking 9lb Turkey breast?

325 will take 3-4 hours and please wait until it reaches 160 in the center of the thickest part of the meat before taking it out.  Let it rest for 20-30 under tin foil before cutting.


Can any liquid food be beaten into a mousse?

Chocolate is a solid at room temperature, strawberry puree is not, so I strongly doubt that the strawberry would result in a foam.
The reason chocolate would form a solid foam is that it is largely composed of a two substances - sugar and fat. Together with the air these can form a solid of fats (similar to whipped cream) with microscopic sugar crystals helping keep it in place.
The only thing a strawberry puree would have that might reach similar consistency is the sugars. If you were to heat to a high enough heat that the sugars polymerize crystallise (like in candy), and whisk, you might get a structure like a mousse, but it would be crunchy.


I do the same as you, Vivien. I find that mixing in the liquids in advance leads to too much gluten development and some outgassing from the baking powder, but that if the butter/flour mixture is kept cold enough it doesn't hurt to mix it the night before.
(Anyway, it takes longer for the oven to heat up than it takes to mix together the remaining ingredients and shape the scones.)


Making pickles or preserves from hedgehog cucumbers (cucumis africanus)

This isn’t really an answer about the cucumber you mention, but actually the idea to pickle anything from crabapples to watermelon rinds...

My great grandmother (raised in the Great Depression) made pickled watermelon rinds. I’ll never forget their unexpected crunch and sweetness. Here is a description, but basically sugar and salt them, add vinegar and spices (my grandmother used sumac among other spices) - but I am sure you know how to pickle.


Uses for leftover potatoes from a pot-roast

Turn into mashed potatoes for tomorrow night's dinner?

If you have some roast left, too, cut it down into bite-sized bits, add back in some more vegetables, and turn it into a sort of shepard's pie-type meal.  (stew-like dish covered with mashed potatoes, then baked)


Fresh bamboo shoots are available at Asian markets but the quality control of those can vary greatly by market and turnaround (if you have a "reputable" one nearby like a Ranch99 I'd check them out).  They tend to be more tender and sweet than canned bamboo shoots.  It's worth a shot, though.  Ideally you'd be able to eat them straight without cooking.

However, in most general cases, I agree with TFD's comment.


What's the name of this dish (or name of fish) in these pictures?

Bouillabaisse is a traditional fish stew originating in the French port city of Marseille.  While the sauce in your recipe might have some ingredients in common with that dish, it is not a bouillabaisse.  Pictured is a firm, white fish.  I'm not sure I can identify the exact species, but it might be halibut or cod.  Given the sauce and the plating, I would say any firm, white fish would work in the recipe.


Did I ruin my stoneware dutch oven by heating it on a gas stove?

It sounds like you had a lucky escape. It's not temperature itself that would damage stoneware as it's fired at over 1000C in manufacture (Wikipedia). Differential thermal expansion is what breaks things, e.g. heating the base much faster than the sides, or heating a thin layer quickly before the rest has time to warm through. By preheating it slowly you probably avoided that.

I would however be a little wary for one or two uses - handle it carefully and use it when you wouldn't be devastated if it broke and ruined the meal. Also inspect for cracks.

The temporary darkening is a bit odd but unlikely to mean anything.


Rather than freezing it after baking, I would assemble the lasagna and freeze it today and then bake it on Sunday. It is rather difficult to reheat a whole baked lasagna from frozen without getting soggy noodles.


Maximum cooking time for beef joint in slow cooker?

I do think there is a maximum to the duration of stewing a cut of beef. There is in my opinion such a thing as too tender and soft. If you plan to cook the meat as one large chunk you will have to add a little to your normal stewing time, but I would not go as high as 15 hours.

Cooking and re-heating is quite an interesting option though, as quite a few dishes benefit from this in terms of flavour. Perhaps a general question on this subject, or a more directly relevant one would be of interest to you.

For me, the smaller the size of your chunks of meat, the more you should stick to your normal stewing time of 8 hours and the more you could consider making it a day early to enhance the taste.


Should beans for making flour be soaked?

https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/gram-chickpea-flour/

the answer is yes according to this article cat


There is a pathogen, Bacillus cereus, which can grow on rice left out at room temperature and cause food born illness.

I was unable to find any references to proper fermentation of horchata which is normally not fermented as far as I can tell.

You may wish to be cautious in the future.


Baking 2 dishes needing slightly different temperatures and time

On a practical basis?  40 to 45 min.  That is, bake it for 40 min and then check it to see if it's done (or otherwise check it 5 minutes earlier than you otherwise would).

The difference between 350F and 375F in actual cooking is generally dwarfed by the temperature inaccuracy of home ovens.


What's the difference between thin crust pizza and a cracker

Two factors:
Leavening: pizza crust is generally made with a leavened, yeasted dough, that has risen for a hour or more before rolling out.  Crackers are generally made with a "short" dough, which contains no leavening at all or only a tiny amount of chemical leavening.  Even crackers that are made with a yeasted dough (e.g. sourdough crackers) are not given a long time to rise.
Texture: crackers are generally supposed to, well, crack.  They should be crisp, crunchy, and/or flaky.  Whereas pizza dough is supposed to be chewy and/or bready, and certainly not crunchy.
Now, there's obviously some room for overlap here.  For example, if I roll out a sourdough pizza crust really thin and top it only with salt, and bake it until crunchy, it's not going to be particularly different from a sourdough cracker.  However, most pizza crusts are very different from most crackers.
Hope that helps!


Is apple to be grated a wet or dry ingredient?

Apple is pretty wet.

However, if you're looking at quickbread or muffin recipes (with "wet" and "dry" teams, a la Alton Brown's method), you're better off treating it as a separate addition -- stir the grated apple in after the wet and dry are combined.


I usually buy green, hard avocados to use them in a couple of weeks. When I'm looking for an almost ready avocado for my guacamole at the supermarket, I look for a not-so-hard one and pop off the stem: this is a tip I found over the internet and it really works. Pulp under the stem should be greenish and not brown or dark, otherwise it's probably rotten. You can usually find your ready-to-enjoy avocado with a couple of pop offs.

Take a look to this link for a more in-depth explanation about popping off the stem:
http://www.nwedible.com/2012/05/never-buy-a-rotten-avocado-again.html

Regarding storage, I put them in a bowl on counter top to let them ripe slowly; in a bag with apples or bananas to speed up things. Once ready, I store them in the fridge. Once opened, I put them in Tupperware: they stay perfectly green.

Keep in mind that if you place fruits near apples or bananas, which naturally produce ethylene, your fruit will generally ripen faster.


What is causing my homemade soy milk mayonnaise to have a different consistency than one made from store brought soy milk?

This kind of eggless recipe depends on the lecithine in the soy milk to emulsify the oil with the water phase (the soymilk). Emulsification is a complicated process, and it does need all the starting conditions to be right.
From your description, it looks like your homemade soymilk either doesn't have enough lecithine, or it is in a form that isn't available for emulsifying the fat (maybe it is already bound to something else). This is actually to be expected, the process for making soymilk at home is relatively crude and you don't have much control over what happens to specific compounds in the soy. The food technologists at industrial producers can finetune their process to make sure their soymilk has a lot of lecithine available, and in the proper form to uphold a good emulsion. They are likely not doing it for mayonnaise purposes, but to prolong the "best by" date of their product (prevent their soymilk from separating in the fridge) but you are now seeing the side effects - not any old soymilk will do, you need one that is optimized for making emulsions.
As a side note, when producers list the ingredients on a processed product, they are not obliged to keep the ratio of derived products the same as in the natural ingredient - in fact, that would defeat the whole purpose (can you imagine a "soy milk" with the same ratio of solids to liquids as a soy bean?). So with the ingredient list you gave us, it is entirely possible that they used some soybeans to extract soy lecithine, purify it and do whatever is necessary for it to have its best emulsification powder, then extracted some soymilk from other beans and added the purified lecithine. The ingredients on the label can still say "soy", because the added lecithine is also "part" of the soy. So the most viable solution for your case might be adding extra soy lecithine to your mayonnaise. It will be tricky to hit the right ratio and best process, but it should give you a creamy emulsion.
In support of my line of argumentation, apparently not even all industrial soymilks are equally suited for this type of recipe, see this old question and OP's answer: Vegan mayonnaise never emulsifies?.


What vegetables should I add to a japanese curry?

The most common ones simmered along with curry are onions, carrots, and potatoes. You could even add some sliced apples. Root vegetables are frequently simmered with the curry, and you could consider using variants like sweet potato or squash, kabu, daikon, etc.

As a "topping", the sky is the limit; I've seen blanched okra, cooked renkon, roasted or simmered slices of kabocha squash, green beans, sweet potatoes, and cauliflower.

As non-vegetable toppings added after simmering, I've seen cheese, katsu-style tofu, tonkatsu or menchi katsu.

Edited to add: as Japanese curry is one of the easiest ways of encouraging our children to eat vegetables, my wife and I now both add anything from blanched spinach (near the end of cooking) to (typically canned) tomatoes; the younger one loves it when there are plenty of green peas or even corn in the mix. I like to add cauliflower.


As you know, as the bread proves a matrix of bubbles is formed. And just like blowing soap bubbles, the bigger they get the more fragile the bubbles are.

When you bake in pans you can let bread rise a lot as long as you are gentle when you move them into the oven. If you are using bannetons, you can’t let it get so fragile and still survive being turned out. All that happened was that lots of your bubbles broke, and some joined up to make the bigger less structurally robust large holes.

So you got plenty of rise, you just inadvertently knocked the bread back. I’d suggest shortening the final rise.


how to cook nondescript venison in a cast iron pot so its tender?

it turns out tough and dry when I tried to braise it, and the longer I cooked the tougher it was

Then it is impossible to achieve what you want.

All "low and slow" methods overcook the muscle tissue, making it tough. At the same time, they melt the collagen in the meat, turning it into lubricating gelatine. The cooked meat then consists of muscle fibres embedded in the melted collagen, and is fall-apart-tender. You have probably had it as pulled pork or similar dishes. The requirement for this type of cooking: you need a high amount of collagen. If you don't, you will just end with the tough muscle fibres sticking to each other instead of swimming in collagen, so it will be one piece of tough meat.

How do you know that a piece of meat has enough collagen? You can use heuristics such as taking a look at it and recognizing the amount of connective tissue present, and also your knowledge about the animal and its parts (older animals and more supportive parts have more collagen). But the final test is cooking. If the longer you cook, the more tender the meat, it has enough collagen for low-and-slow. If it turns tougher, then it is not suitable for slow cooking.

The second option is hot-and-fast. It always produces AGEs. You excluded this.

The third option would be sous vide. As you 1) specified a cast iron pot, and 2) probably don't have a sous vide stick to suspend in that pot, and 3) don't know enough about the meat to look up the proper time and temperature even if you have the stick, that seems also out of question.

It seems that you need to buy some other meat. From there on, the proper procedure is to follow any recipe for low and slow cooking you choose.


Can I substitute agar-agar powder for gelatin in no-churn ice cream?

Sure, why not.
350ml of liquid with 0.5g of agar-agar powder.
Just use another 50ml of milk for this 0.5g of agar-agar powder. Before boiling it, mix 0.5g agar-agar powder with around 5 to 15ml of warm water to avoid cobble up and then only boil with the 50ml of milk.


If you 'caramelize' an onion, does an onion contain sugar?

Yes, onions contain sugar, just like most fruit and vegetables. It is not simply a common phrase, it is true caramelization.

They have 4.24 g of sugar per 100 g in total (wet weight). For dry weight 40% is sugar. See the USDA nutrient database for more details.


This is very likely Samphire, at least an image search for samphire gives a perfect visual match.


This is as hot as you can get without quickly burning any sugars or cooking fats on the surface of the food, so it is typical for enriched breads, cookies or cakes (which have plenty of sugar and fats); note that doughs containing not much sugar (bread, pizza, savoury pie crust) are sometimes baked at substantially higher temperatures.

Non-pastry/bread dishes are often kept at 180°C or below because the above is also true for vegetables and fruit naturally containing sugars, resulting in much accelerated charring if going above that temperature range.

The difference in browning in a rich dough (eg streusel) between 160°C and 180°C and 200°C is drastic.

A still oven that is truly at 180°C (by oven thermometer) can already be literal few degrees too hot for recipes calling for 180°C; an oven that is out of calibration even 10°C hotter can cause a lot of recipe failures.

There seems to be a general consensus that non-still (fan assisted/convection/..) ovens should be set 20°C lower (if the fan/convection is used) than you would set a still oven. This is commonly found in recipes and manuals.


Preventing heavy top layer of cake from crushing cream layer

To make the whipped cream firmer, you could set it with gelatine or agar (which I think would be better unless the cake is being refrigerated until just before serving). For the recipe, I refer you to http://video.about.com/southernfood/How-to-Stabilize-Whipped-Cream.htm (video).
Having looked at the video, you might even want to add a half more of the gelatine/agar so it is really set (much like a pastry cream in a fraisier).
Also, if a creamy filling is required could a pastry cream be used instead of whipped cream? It would set and cut much better (although would lose the lightness of whipped cream which you may be after - you could fold whipped egg whites or cream into it but then you have the same problem of it squeezing out).