Marjoram is botanically an oregano subspecies, but it does taste entirely different (a situation very common in herbs, think spearmint and peppermint). The description "smells almost like tea and is almost tasteless" indicates that you got mass-produced stuff where the good aromas have long left the dried plant matter. Fresh marjoram is a rather mild herb, but it still has a distinct aroma, and not a generally "grassy" one.

The aroma of majoran isn't very intrusive, so it can easily be combined with many flavors. It is very often used with potato dishes of any kind, but a big herb producer recommends it for practically everything:

  Potato soup and salad, potato dumplings and fried potatoes, meat and sausage salad, all salty cheese dishes, meat loaf, chicken fillings, and especially to homemade lard, duck and goose, rabbit and pork fat. Marjoram is good also for dark mushrooms, cucumbers, all bean dishes and feed legumes, stuffed tomatoes and tomato soup, carrots, peas, sour cream sauce, herb mayonnaise and herb cheese, all heart, liver, kidney, lung dishes, tripe, fish soups and fish stews, fish baked in fat, pie fillings, soups and wild game stew.

It would have been perfect if you had the fresh stuff, but even the dried herb is better than nothing. Just add it to some dish (you can use big amounts, because it is already weak) and decide if you like it.


How to get sprinkles to stick to the side of a cake?

This is a little hard to do without making an epic mess.

First, lay out a big piece of parchment or wax paper to catch the sprinkles that you are about to throw everywhere.

Place your cake on it's platter over the parchment paper and tilt it so that you can apply sprinkles to the uppermost side. Don't tilt it so far that it slides off! Apply the sprinkles with your free hand, pressing them gently into the frosting (some suggest wearing a glove, I don't). Turn, and repeat. Periodically collect all your sprinkles from the parchment paper.


The thickening in Bearnaise, as in mayonnaise, is not so much in the ingredients as in the technique. These sauces get their thickness by being emulsified.

An emulsion is formed by rapidly mixing, whisking or blending two ingredients that shouldn't mix (oil and liquid). The emulsifier (egg yolk and often mustard in the case of mayo) stabilizes the emulsion (tiny oil droplets suspended in liquid) in much the same way detergents break up grease.

This wiki article goes into far more detail.


What should I check when buying a pineapple?

you can test if a pineapple is ripe by trying to pluck out one of the leaves near the centre.  If it comes out fairly easily then the pineapple is good to go.  if its hard to get out its not ripe yet.


Understanding 2 unit yield from 1lb ready to cook chicken

It's referring to the weight of each piece after cooking. 1 lb of uncooked chicken is 453.59 grams. Some use 450g as a quick rule as 4 grams is really not much in most applications. 450g divided by 2 would make each piece 225g raw. Cooked chicken generally loses 30% of its weight, so cooked is 70%, or .7 of the raw weight. 225g X .7 = 157.5g , which when rounded up is 158g.

Keep in mind this is the approximate cooked weight of each piece, your milage will vary depending on the quality of the chicken, whether white or dark meat, and how much fat is on it.


What are these small salty peppers from The Cheesecake Factory?

So I found this camera in my pocket and it turns out it makes phone calls, too. Technology! I called the local Cheesecake Factory and the guy on the phone said:

  Nothing fancy, they're roasted red peppers.

He sounded pretty agitated, it's 7PM here so I probably caught him in the middle of dinner service.

You can buy them canned or roast them yourself. Much of the taste may have come from the sauce, or perhaps some special prep when they are roasted.

That said as pointed out in comments I am also now convinced that they look a bit on the small side. Tomorrow,  during off hours, I'll call them back for a confirmation with more detail. We may have to try a corporate phone call and a tweet, too.

PS I've actually had that same dish and I also enjoyed it.


What does it mean when adding a little water causes oil to loose its falvour?

I imagine this means the spice in question is both fat and water soluble however it is more water soluble causing it to loose its flavor?

Without knowing the exact spice / herb / compound in question, I can't give you a definitive answer, but your hypothesis is right on the money.

I'll try not to go completely "chemistry teacher" on you, but water is often referred to as "the universal solvent" for good reason.  Given enough water, it can dissolve just about anything. (There's gold dissolved in seawater.  Not enough to be profitable to harvest, but enough to be measured.)  Just as an example: rosmarinic acid (one of the compounds - perhaps not surprisingly - found in rosemary) is classified as "slightly soluble" in water.

If you look at the diagram of the chemical structure (that I've brought in from wiki), all those lines are shorthand for carbon-carbon bonds - which typically mean a chemical dissolves easily in oils.

The OH groups are alcohols (but not the getting drunk kinds), which typically make it easier for a chemical to dissolve in water.  The alcohol group, the carbon between, and the double bonded oxygen combined make something called a "carboxylic acid" (hence the acid in the name).*  Carboxylic acids are also water soluble.  So we have a chemical that can dissolve in both oils and water.

When we talk about infusing oils, the amount of the essential oils, etc that go in is usually pretty small, compared to the overall volume of the oil.  So, if you add just a little water, a chemical that is even "slightly soluble" can make the jump into the water and leave your oil sadly lacking.

* Vinegar is acetic acid dissolved into water; acetic acid is another carboxylic acid.


Can I substitute red onion for green onion

Red onion, or any other onion for that matter, is a pretty reasonable substitution for the white portion (on the right in the picture below) of the green onion/scallion.  They're all alliums, after all, and have a reasonably comparable flavor.  As @Stephie notes in the comments, you may want to use a slightly smaller portion; red onion tends to be a little more pungent.  Another way that you can deal with this pungency is to soak your diced red onion in water for a few minutes, which will dilute the heat. (Which works for white onions too, by the way.)

The green portion of the scallion (on the left) is a bit grassier in flavor and much less pungent; red onion isn't quite as good a match for this part.  If you have access to them, chives would be a better replacement, unless you're cooking the dish, in which case chives would lose a lot of their delicate flavor.

Given the other strong flavors you've listed, red onion will probably do just fine. I'm guessing that the onion is a relatively small amount at any rate, and just there to add a bit of textural contrast and a little extra sharpness.


Cayenne pepper.

I'm actually serious. I haven't tried it in carrot cake but a little capsaicin actually works well with a little sweet to offset it. Chile powder also works well in sweet things.

Cardamom is my wife's favorite and so it goes into many baked goods I make. It would work and be interesting but not spicy.

You can always put in a good extra dose of cinnamon if you want it to punch you in the face.


Substituting instant imitation flavored pudding mix and cake mix in Bundt Cake recipe

Yes, you certainly can start from a similar recipe and adjust from there. I would not try to replicate instant pudding mix, though. If you don't want to use a store-bought pudding mix, I would suggest you replace that with a different filling entirely.

My preference is usually to go with a "scratch" recipe that I already like and adjust from there. For a dark chocolate cake with a white chocolate and raspberry filling, you have a lot of options, really.

Most bundt cake recipes make about 12 cups of batter. I think you want only 1 to 1 1/2 cups of white chocolate batter at the most. If you end up with more than 12c total, you will overflow a standard bundt pan, so you can either reduce the dark chocolate cake recipe or you can plan to make some cup cakes with the extra. :-) You'll want to fill your bundt pan to about 2/3-3/4 of the height of the pan depending on how much you expect the cake to rise. I'd expect a light and fluffy cake recipe to rise a lot, a pound cake to rise less. (if in doubt, 2/3 and/or put the bundt pan on a cookie sheet -- I usually put a cookie sheet under mine anyway to avoid a mess in the oven.)

Some filling options

Raspberry -

If you put jam as a filling directly in a cake or brownies, I find that it can tend to be soggy. I think sauce is going to be even runnier than jam. I'd recommend cooking that down (maybe with some cornstarch) to get it to a thicker consistency before using it as a filling.
Alternatively, take a 1-2 cups of fresh or frozen raspberries and toss them in 1-2 T cornstarch and 1/4 - 1/2 c sugar and cook them on the stove until everything turns into a bubbly, thick sauce. (I don't know how much raspberry you want, but about 1 c berries : 1 T cornstarch : 1/4 c sugar)

You can also add a little bit of extra flour to the white-chocolate part of the filling to counteract some of the extra moisture from the jam/sauce, but if it seems really runny, I think you're going to end up with a soggy cake.

White chocolate -

white-chocolate flavored cream cheese filling (8 oz cream cheese, ~ 1/4 c flour, 1 egg, white chocolate chips or whatever you want to use for white chocolate flavoring -- I'm assuming there's enough sugar in the chips)
about 1 - 1 1/2c of batter from your your favorite white chocolate cake recipe + ~1 Tbs extra flour to counteract extra moisture in the raspberry sauce
play funny games with your favorite dark chocolate cake recipe to reserve out about 1/8th of the ingredients and add your white chocolate flavoring/chips to that portion (and about 1 Tbs extra flour)

When you assemble it, put about 1/2 - 2/3 of the dark batter in, then half the white chocolate batter, then the raspberry, then the rest of the white then the rest of the dark.

This is sort of similar to what I'm picturing:
http://famkitchen.blogspot.com/2015/06/chocolate-amaretto-cake.html


How can give expirey date using scientific way?

First, when developing (R'n'D) your product, you must decide how long you want your product to last, a few days? couple of weeks, months ?

You then engineer your recipes to make it so; different recipe variations, different packaging methods ...

Then you need to find a food testing laboratory to help you test your product at different times to se how well your product lasts at different times.

At those different times, the product will be tested for any kind of degradation and/or microbacterial growth, mold, texture and taste/smell defects

Then with all the data, you can decide the expiry dates taking into account all of that.

https://haccpmentor.com/labelling/how-to-set-your-food-expiry-date/

https://lifehacker.com/how-food-manufacturers-pick-expiration-dates-and-what-t-1782752993

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/food-labeling/food-product-dating/food-product-dating


Why does dough break when kneading, and how to prevent/ameliorate it?

It sounds like it didn't have enough liquid in it. Assuming we are talking about a normal wheat-flour bread dough, I can't think of anything else that would lead to cracking and breaking. Properly hydrated bread dough should be quite moist and elastic, and the only way you can "break" it is to stretch it hard and fast with a pulling motion.

Fixing this situation is hard. You can try to knead more water into it, but it has a tendency to just slip off the surface. Try spreading it out as thin as possible, spraying or rubbing on a little water, folding and kneading and repeating the process.


Is using a frying pan to boil water for pasta a good or a bad idea?

If you're making a small enough quantity of pasta for it to totally fit in the pan like that, it's fine. The idea that you need several quarts of water, several times the volume of the pasta, is a bit of a myth.

All you really need is enough water so that once the pasta is cooked and fully expanded, it's still covered. So depending on your appetite and the size of the pan, this might work for one or two servings, but not a full meal for many people.

The main concerns I'd have with cooking in a frying pan are:

since it's a broader surface, you'll lose water to evaporation more quickly, and risk ending up with too little water even if you started with enough - you might need to watch it more carefully than a big pot
the sides aren't tall enough to contain it for long if it starts to foam and boil over - again, you might need to watch carefully
it won't be able to hold enough to cook a very large quantity of pasta

If you avoid all those, I don't really see the problem!


Nuke TV Dinner and then renuke it 3 hours later?

I would try pre thawing them all so they don't take so long to nuke when the time comes. So maybe defrost them in the fridge a few hours before so you aren't microwaving from frozen. And just stack them in the oven to stay warm while you nuke the rest.

The crazy part of me would disassemble the meals.
1: all veg in a pot.
2: all mash potato in a pot.
3: all meats on an oven tray
4: heat it all up on the stove and oven
5: re assemble all meals onto clean trays or clean plates.

But I'm kinda crazy. And it might not be easy if there is gravy involved.

Also if you haven't already purchased said meals why not just get a bag of frozen veg, a box of instant mash potato and a frugally priced meat option of your choice to just make dinner for all at once. (But maybe not an option for you)

That's all my ideas :) good luck!


My dad used my tea brewer with coffee and now the plastic makes my tea taste like coffee. Bleach?

Plain white vinegar is the normal way to remove coffee tastes and stains. Hot vinegar works better


I've never used a heated mixing bowl, but I do sous vide, which I believe works on the same principle as what you're trying (namely that you can't overcook it because the cooking temp is where you want the final internal temp of the food to be).

Anova has a pretty popular recipe for creme brulee which specifies 176ºF (80ºC) as the correct temp.  They also have an older, less popular recipe that specifies 180ºF (82ºC).  This recipe for traditional baked creme brulee says to bake until the internal temp is 170F-175F, but with residual heat I would expect it to continue cooking until somewhere between 176-180F once out of the oven and water bath.

If I were you I would set the mixing bowl temp to 176ºF (80ºC) and see how that sets up.  If the final consistency isn't quite where you like it, you can try it a little higher next time.


What did European/American historical cooks do with the egg whites?

There were certainly uses for egg whites that didn't involve eating them:

Clearing beer and wine (using egg white as finings).  This isn't common any more, and anyway only uses one egg white to six gallons.

As an adhesive in bookbinding and gilding, and as a size.

In makeup:

Wikipedia - ancient nail polish
Royal Museums Greeenwich - as a skin treatment
also various sources say as a base for rouge, foundation and other preparations, or to conceal wrinkles.

None of these would use a lot, of course.
I suspect that most leftover whites would have been used up in cooking. Apart from the obvious meringues of various types, they can be used:

As an egg wash on pastry.
In place of whole egg before coating something in breadcrumbs
Finings are also used in clarifying stock (link is to an alternative method proposed by Heston Blumenthal).  Consommé was probably popular around that time; certainly Mrs Beeton, writing in England in the 19th century included several recipes.  While she mentioned that clarifying may be required, her consommé recipes don't call for the use of egg. Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896) does explain this method, though without quantities.
Or simply added to many things that use beaten egg (I use up half eggs, either half, in an omelette with whole eggs).  In fancy households that could mean servants' food - after all there are many low-effort ways of preparing egg.  In a smaller household, everyday meals could use them up, though quickly without refrigeration

They can also be fed to many domestic animals, but given that most animals probably lived on scraps, this is effectively discarding them.


Substitute Quinoa Flour to All-Purpose Flour

If you want to replace 100% of gluten containing flour in a recipe, you will probably need to vary the amounts of the other ingredients, the cooking time and the cooking temperature. It doesn’t behave the same as gluten containing flours in the oven.

Every recipe is different, but some very general rules of thumb are (for which there are probably just as many exceptions – I know, it's so annoying. But look on the bright side: Grain and gluten free living will certainly keep your creative side ticking):

Reduce the cooking time
Reduce the cooking temperature
Increase the amount of moisture in the recipe
Increase or add more binding agent (such as eggs). The lack of gluten can mean the final result doesn’t hold together as well. This rule is the least likely to be true, but it’s worth keeping in mind if your results are less than amazing.


That method would clearly place your duck in the temperature danger zone for too long.  The reason for hanging the duck, particularly after salting, is to dehydrate the skin as much as possible.  This results in a crispier skin.  Fortunately, you can achieve the same results in the refrigerator. Hanging is ideal, but this can also be accomplished on a rack. A couple of days is even better.  The idea is to expose as much of the skin to air (keep it off a plate) as possible.  The technique works well for chicken too. Put a plate or container under the rack or hanging bird to collect any liquid that might drip.


How long to bake matzah, butter and sugar at a lower temperature

I found some recipes that bake the matzah at 350º or 375º:

https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/chocolate-toffee-matzo-crack.html
https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-chocolate-caramel-matzo-brittle-recipes-from-the-kitchn-47589
https://www.chowhound.com/recipes/matzo-brittle-28236
https://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Dark-Chocolate-Matzo-Brittle

They call for a baking time between 5 and 15 minutes. All those recipes are fairly similar and maybe similar enough to yours that they'll work for you.


How do I clean a moldy rice cooker heating element?

I would start with a moist rag with just dish washing soap. Then a moist rag with bleach.  Then let it air dry for a day.


can shortening be used to replace lard in baking bread?

Yep, shortening is a very standard substitution for lard. I can't swear that you're going to love the results, or that it will be every bit as soft, but there is no good reason not to try.


There is no such thing as "last a little bit longer". You either kill off all bacteria, which makes the soup shelf stable, or you don't, and then you have a 3-5 days of refrigerated lifetime.

All kinds of canning are only safe when you use recipes which have been tested for safety. I assume your soup recipe has not been tested. What is worse, it is very unlikely that it could ever pass the test, since foods with the right acidity to be hot water canned are rarely eaten as soups - they will taste more like a pickle.

Your only option seems to be pressure canning. Luckily for you, the USDA has a "make your own soup" pressure canning recipe. You are restricted in the ratio of vegetables and meat to water, but you are allowed to use any vegetable which is approved for canning on its own, and meat is also OK. Herbs and spices are allowed. You can find the actual recipe on the Internet.


Can bean-to-cup machine make quality espresso/cappuccino?

Your best bet is to buy an inexpensive Nespresso type machine. I've been looking for a good coffee machine and I bought a professional machine for nearly 900€. The other option would have been an Nespresso for about 100€. Buy one with a milk foamer. A little bit more expensive, but within your range. Why do I recommend this type of machine? Capsules! All your cups come out equal. No hassle. A little bit more expensive than grinding your own coffee.

The next best bet is consumer grade expresso machine from Krups (for instance), but then you have to grind your own coffee.


I did an online search for the first 10 sushi rice recipes with distinct ingredient proportions and came up with the following ratio (by weight):

  1:0.08:0.16:0.02 (Raw Rice:Sugar:Vinegar:Salt)

With cooked rice,

  1:0.03:0.06:0.01 (Cooked Rice:Sugar:Vinegar:Salt)

Or, if you prefer:

  For 1300g / ~6 cups Sushi Rice

  400g or 2 cups of raw sushi rice (about 1200g or 6 cups of cooked rice)
  32g or 3 tbsp white granulated
  sugar 63g or 4 tbsp vinegar 7g or 1tsp salt

I've not tried these proportions yet but I usually find that a simple average of 10 to 20 distinct recipe proportions gives me a good starting point for experimentation. At the very least averaging helps avoid nasty surprises like the saltylicious recipe of Alton Brown I linked to in my comment above.

Another answer here suggests a Salt:Sugar:Vinegar ratio of 1:2:2, whereas my figures suggest something closer to 1:5:9 if we are talking weight ratios (the other answer doesn't specify).

You asked whether salt would help give the rice a bitter sweet taste. In my experience sushi rice has no obvious bitter taste, but it does have a sweet-sour flavor that the vinegar and sugar lends. Salt helps other flavors play nicely with each other and at the same time adds a delicate flavor bass note of its own.

In my opinion you are unlikely to find a favorite recipe by adjusting the proportions alone. There are preparation techniques to play with, varieties of rice and types of vinegar. Many sushi rice recipes feature mirin, sake, kombu or dashi in the list of ingredients. Experimenting with any of these things will likely necessitate altering the ingredient proportions from what I give here.


What does the ash content of broken wheat really mean?

The "Ash" is not an ingredient in the flour

To be clear, the "Ash" is a measure of what you'd get left - if you burned the flour. It is not an ingredient in the bag of flour.

More specifically if you had 100g of flour - the "Ash" number is literally how much the Ash would weight if you burned all of it. As starch burns readily, what you'll be left with is mainly minerals.

Some people will determine various properties of the flour based on this Ash number. For one, a higher Ash number generally means more of the wheat's non-endosperm parts were included in the flour.

As milling is generally the process of separating the endosperm from the rest of the wheat; a less effective milling process will result in a higher Ash figure. So in a way, you can consider it to be a quality measure. But in other ways, it's just another indicator of "what exactly is in the bag".

Some useful sources:

Joe Pastry

Ash in the flour

NDSU


Parchment paper and baking paper are the same thing. The terms are used interchangeably. It may sometimes also be called bakery paper.
Regardless of the name used, it can be either brown or white. Uses are the same - usually to line pans when baking or to cook foods en papillote.
From  MetsaTissue , which is headquartered in Finland and sells primarily to European countries:

Grease proof papers are highly hygienic and heat resistant papers which enable a wide variety of uses.
Baking paper – also known as bakery paper or parchment paper, as it is often called especially in the US – is grease proof paper that is used in baking and cooking as it provides a heat-resistant, non-stick surface to bake on.


Is there a problem with defrosting meat on the counter?

A lot of bacteria grows in the range of 40-100°F (4-38°C) (i.e. room temperature). It's definitely not recommended to defrost meat at room temperature. In fact, you are not supposed to leave meat at room temperature for more than an hour.

However, defrosting in the refrigerator can take a long time and require you to plan at least one day ahead of time. I'm not so good at this, which leads to a safe and fast solution: Defrost meat in a waterproof ziploc bag in cold water. Change the water every 30 minutes until defrosted. The water is a better  conductor of heat than air, so the defrosting is quite fast and the water is cold so there's minimal safety risk.

From the USDA:

  Uh, oh! You're home and forgot to
  defrost something for dinner. You grab
  a package of meat or chicken and use
  hot water to thaw it fast. But is this
  safe? What if you remembered to take
  food out of the freezer, but forgot
  and left the package on the counter
  all day while you were at work?

  Neither of these situations are safe,
  and these methods of thawing lead to
  foodborne illness. Food must be kept
  at a safe temperature during "the big
  thaw." Foods are safe indefinitely
  while frozen. However, as soon as food
  begins to defrost and become warmer
  than 40 °F (4 °C), any bacteria that may have
  been present before freezing can begin
  to multiply.

  Foods should never be thawed or even
  stored on the counter, or defrosted in
  hot water. Food left above 40 °F
  (unrefrigerated) is not at a safe
  temperature.

  Even though the center of the package
  may still be frozen as it thaws on the
  counter, the outer layer of the food
  is in the "Danger Zone," between 40
  and 140 °F (4 °C and 60 °C) – at temperatures where
  bacteria multiply rapidly.

  When defrosting frozen foods, it's
  best to plan ahead and thaw food in
  the refrigerator where food will
  remain at a safe, constant temperature
  – 40 °F (4 °C) or below.

  There are three safe ways to defrost
  food: in the refrigerator, in cold
  water, and in the microwave.

  Refrigerator Thawing Planning ahead is
  the key to this method because of the
  lengthy time involved. A large frozen
  item like a turkey requires at least a
  day (24 hours) for every 5 pounds of
  weight. Even small amounts of frozen
  food -- such as a pound of ground meat
  or boneless chicken breasts -- require
  a full day to thaw. When thawing foods
  in the refrigerator, there are several
  variables to take into account. Some
  areas of an appliance may keep the
  food colder than other areas. Food
  placed in the coldest part will
  require longer defrosting time. Food
  takes longer to thaw in a refrigerator
  set at 35 °F (2 °C) than one set at 40 °F (4 °C).

  After thawing in the refrigerator,
  ground meat and poultry should remain
  useable for an additional day or two
  before cooking; red meat, 3 to 5 days.
  Foods defrosted in the refrigerator
  can be refrozen without cooking,
  although there may be some loss of
  quality.

  Cold Water Thawing

  This method is faster than
  refrigerator thawing but requires more
  attention. The food must be in a
  leak-proof package or plastic bag. If
  the bag leaks, bacteria from the air
  or surrounding environment could be
  introduced into the food. Also, meat
  tissue can also absorb water like a
  sponge, resulting in a watery product.

  The bag should be submerged in cold
  tap water, changing the water every 30
  minutes so it continues to thaw. Small
  packages of meat or poultry – about a
  pound – may defrost in an hour or
  less. A 3- to 4-pound package may take
  2 to 3 hours. For whole turkeys,
  estimate about 30 minutes per pound.
  If thawed completely, the food must be
  cooked immediately.

  Foods thawed by the cold water method
  should be cooked before refreezing.


Pickled/preserved lemons/limes - grams of salt per kilogram of fruit?

I have experience with Indian lemon pickle, not north African.

The recipes I use don't give exact ratios for the salt. Salt is added to taste. A couple tablespoons per quart of packed lemon is normal.
Lemon pickle is very salty which besides regulating the fermentation also helps with the bitterness from the peels.

You don't need to really worry about the exact ratio. It is so acidic and salty there is little that can grow. I've not yet had a batch spoil- even after months in the fridge.

Don't add water. The lemons need to be covered, of course, but use the juice from a couple extra fruit instead. No sense in diluting the flavor and acid.


What's the fastest way to hull a strawberry?

I don't usually hull strawberries, but when I do I use a straw. The idea is that you push the straw up through the tip of the strawberry and it comes out at the stem. For pictures you can see http://amy-newnostalgia.blogspot.com/2010/06/hulling-strawberries-with-straw.html are just Google "hull strawberries with a straw"


why (Calif.) apricot & peach jam will not set?

Pectin needs acid to work. Fruit never has the same amount of acid. Not only do blackberries have much more acid than apricots, but two different cultivars of apricots and even two apricots of the same cultivar but grown in different conditions will have a large difference in the amount of acid. Ditto for lemons.

Your fix proves that this is the reason - once you added more acid (in the form of lemon juice), the problem disappeared. So, the reason "why" is simply "you didn't have enough acid in your jam".

The question of "why would the company publish a recipe" - it publishes a recipe which works on average, but it can't make a recipe which works for all fruit grown under all conditions. I can't tell you why your fruit is lower in acid than average (although the amount of sunny days during ripening is probably involved) but it seems that it is.


Does soaking candied fruit in bourbon change the taste?

Soaking dried fruit (in alcohol) is usually to soften it and deliver some flavour.
The same should be true here: It would have that effect with some candied fruit (citrus), but others probably wouldn't take up much liquid (cherries).  The flavour may still change.
If avoiding alcohol (or the expense) orange juice is often used as a substitute in rich fruit cakes.
Note that cookie recipes, being rolled out rather thin, are prone to further drying fruit.  Soaking will counteract that. It may be a bad idea to add the fruit to the rest of the dough too wet, so if the soaking liquid hasn't all been taken up, I'd expect to spoon the fruit in with a slotted spoon rather than tipping it in.


It is to cool it down without dilluting it - ice cubes would melt.
And yes, you could simply cool the entire bottle, but it wouldn't look that fancy.

Note that some purists would wrinkle their noses and insist that whisky1 is best enjoyed at room temperature and perhaps with a small dash of spring water.

1 And I'm soooo not going into a whisky vs. whiskey debate here.


You might consider citrus or other tart fruit with citrus -- mandarin oranges segments are fairly common to pair with spinich; even if you didn't use whole fruit, consider making a vinagrette using orange juice.

I've also seen recipes for spinich salads with strawberries or cranberries;  I've also had a pineappe and avocado salad before that might work well with spinish instead of romaine.


What is the purpose of making Iskiate from Chia seeds?

I personally have not read the book, though I know someone who did and remember hearing of the drink.  Strike 2, I am also not a nutritionist.  Here's my best guess by looking at each piece:

Certainly the ingredients do bring taste to the combination, but I don't think it is just that.

Mixing the chia seeds into a drink may make it more agreeable for people.  Easier to stomach, so to say.  The chia seeds will absorb the liquid.  With this, you will feel fuller.  It will also make the drink thicker.

Lime juice is high in vitamin C.  This can help with muscle soreness.  Lemon can be used instead of lime - also high in vitamin C.

I've heard the sugar is optional, though it will sweeten the drink and add calories.


How do I get vegetarian tamales to come out fluffy?

You can use Crisco All-Vegetable Shortening: its is on PETA's (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) shopping list of baking goods, but can work just as well for frying as lard.


There is a lot of water in spinach. It's 91% water.

  Raw spinach is 91% water, 4% carbohydrates, 3% protein, and contains negligible fat (table).

In my experience, sauteeing spinach still requires a good amount of cooking time to actually cook off much of the water and usually still requires draining it or squeezing it to get rid of all of it.

Yes, high heat will evaporate some of the water but "rapidly" doesn't mean "instantly" when you have 6 oz of spinach, that's almost 5.5 ounces of water. Even on the highest heat, that'd likely take long enough that your spinach would be unappetizing to eat.

So, if you're doing a quick saute, just to wilt it, you're still going to have most of that water in the pan.


I'm not much of a pastry guy, and I haven't worked with pure glucose before, but it looks like this probably isn't an ideal substitution.  Regular table sugar (sucrose) is composed of glucose and fructose, and of the two, fructose is more than twice as sweet.  So a simple substitution will leave your end product much less sweet than it should be, and increasing the amount of glucose instead could mess up your recipe in other ways.

You could try a slightly higher amount (maybe 125g?) of a high-fructose sweetener such as high fructose corn syrup or agave nectar to attain a similar sweetness without altering the proportions too much.


(IMO)
Wet marinade need to be applied some time before cooking the meat (hours before) and works best on "difficult" meat like hangar steak or meat that needs to be cook/smoked for a long time (ribs,...)

My experience with wet rub is that my grill needs to be very hot and I need to remove as much marinade and dry the meat before putting it on the grill otherwise it will steam instead of grilling.

Dry rub is more or less simply seasoning and should be applied just before (10, 15 minutes) cooking the meat, and the meat must be cooked quickly (steak).

But if you want to do a dry rub on your ribs or a wet marinade on your steak, good for you, they will still be good (as long as the meat is cooked properly)


Is the yellow skin of a raw chicken indicating that it has been dyed?

The skin is yellow probably because the chicken was fed with maize.
Age and race of the chicken are a factor, too.

In Germany (and propably Europe) you can explicitly buy „Maishähnchen“ that is fed purely with maize.

If you compare this with the standard grain (wheat) fed chicken you can see the distinctive difference in Color


I never heard of "Winter Queen" cocktail

But if you're talking about the "SNOW QUEEN COCKTAIL", I found the recipe here:

  Snow Queen Cocktail Recipe

  Snow Queen Cocktail Ingredients

  1 part vanilla vodka
  1 part Bailey's Irish Cream
  1 part creme de menthe
  3 parts Fresh Single Cream
  3 parts milk
  1 dash chocolate syrup

  Instructions

  Mix the Vanilla Vodka, Baileys and Creme de Menthe with ice in a shaker then drain into a glass omitting the ice (or you can cheat/skip this part by chilling the Vodka and Baileys in a fridge). Then add the Cream and a dash of Chocolate Syrup, stir, add the Milk and stir again.

  This is based on the recipe for the popular but seasonal Snow Queen served in Revolution Vodka bars. Now you don't have to wait until Winter to get one! Note: All the ingredients should be correct but the Milk and Fresh Cream measurements are a best guess. Experiment and enjoy :)


How to put mushrooms in soup/stew without creating foam?

You cannot avoid the foam, it's going to form but you can keep it from boiling over. A foamy pot boils over because the foam traps steam, acting like a lid sitting right on top of the water. Escaping steam takes heat away from the pot, preventing it causes the water to super heat and boil over. You can prevent it by simply stirring, and floating a wooden spoon on the top (actually works).

However, I would prevent this by reducing heat. You don't need to boil your food, a simmer will work just fine and is more gentle on your ingredients, less heat means even with foam it won't boil over. So turn it down and solve your problem.

As for why the foam forms with mushrooms I don't know. With pasta and rice it's the starches on the surface which come off and expand, but mushrooms aren't starchy. I suspect it's other particles on the outside of the mushrooms, or perhaps the spores under the cap. To reduce foaming you could try rinsing the shrooms, that's usually a no-no but as you're cooking them in water it's no big deal. You could saute them separately if you have the time, you'll get a different flavor which you may prefer, although you wouldn't get it that way in  a traditional Japanese curry.

Here's an article about foaming in pasta water which may be worth a read.


Processed cheese isn't a good replacement for parmesan, it's generally too soft from added oils, and it doesn't have the right flavor. Instead, add more pine nuts, and salt to taste, leaving the cheese out entirely. If you can't find pine nuts then cashews or almonds can be used instead.
If you decide to try it use a bit less olive oil to make up for the oils in the cheese.


Can grilled steak be eaten next day if refrigerated and the heated in the oven?

You certainly can do that, but if you are going to eat the steaks within three days I don't see the point of freezing them, it would be better to leave them in the refrigerator. But heating from frozen is safe. USDA guidelines are a little weird on reheating frozen food, personally I wouldn't even go there. If they were fine when they went into the freezer (or fridge in the last 3 days), they will be fine when you take them out. Just heat to the point of tastiness.


Molasses and Honey with burned beef suggestions?

Bitter chocolate, lime juice, stock (chicken or beef doesn't matter), maybe a slosh of tequila. Cumin, a hot pepper of your favourite variety, perhaps some guava or agave? A little oregano, few cloves of garlic, a roughly chopped onion. Peppercorns--no salt, not at this stage.

Ensure enough liquid to just barely cover the meat, turn 'er on and leave 'er alone. When you get home, remove the meat from the pot, strain the liquid and set to reduce in a pot over high heat.

Shred the meat with forks while still warm--like making pulled pork. When the liquid is nicely reduced, add just enough to the shredded meat to keep it moist and luscious. Season at this stage, not before reduction. Eat in fajitas with, say, some nicely chopped avocado and buttery lettuce, maybe some pico de gallo.


Preview for "The New Best Recipe"? Suitability for vegetarians?

It is an excellent book. I pretty much learned how to cook out of it. All the recipes are wonderful. My favorite thing about it is the discussion of what else they tried in order to get to a particular recipe. Finding out what didn't work about a recipe and why you're doing things the way you are has taught me more about cooking than any other single source. There are no pictures, if that's your thing. But I don't really find them necessary. The book has tons of standard recipes and is well organized. I highly recommend this book to everyone....

...except you. Actually, that's not entirely true, but the book has a strong meat focus. I don't know what the standard is for a vegetarian to buy an omnivore cookbook, but I'd guess that at least half the stuff in this one has meat. If you're comfortable subbing out ingredients and ignoring large portions of the book, then it's great. But you will need to ignore quite a lot of it.


What is tasso made from and how is it made?

Having myself originally written most of the Wikipedia article on Tasso (which isn't really that extensive anyways), I feel justified paraphrasing it here:

Tasso ham is a specialty of Cajun cuisine. It is not a true ham, since it is made from the front shoulder, rather than the rear leg, of a pig. The front shoulder is a fatty and well-exercised (thus very flavorful but also somewhat tough) cut of meat. To prepare Tasso, the shoulder is boned out and sliced across the grain into fairly thick (1-3"/2.5-7.5cm) sections. The pieces are dredged in a salt, sugar, and nitrite mixture, then left to cure for a very short time (as little as a few hours). A spice mixture containing Cayenne pepper, garlic, and perhaps other spices or herbs is applied, and the meat is hot-smoked until cooked through.


Why would previously frozen steel cut oats separate, where just-cooked version doesn't?

Oats (like other starches) swell and absorb water when heated.  Cooling them causes the molecules to change their shape and realign to form a different sort of gel, undergoing a process known as retrogradation.  When starches are frozen, this network of molecules undergoes a lot of damage, due to the combination of ice crystals forming (and disrupting the networks) along with general thermal expansions and contractions.  As the network of starches contracts with temperature, it also tends toward syneresis, the technical term for what happens when liquid is expelled from a gel.  (Essentially the starches contract and "squeeze" the water they absorb out, kind of like a sponge that took in liquid and then is squeezed.)

Anyhow, starches are somewhat fragile when they're heated and absorb their maximum amount of water.  When they undergo wide temperature shifts combined with expanding and then melting ice crystals, the starch networks can be permanently damaged so they can't hold as much liquid as before.  Sometimes reheating can help reorient the starch molecules and allow them to absorb a bit more water again, but after freezing you will likely have some permanently damaged starches (leading to the well-known "grainy" texture that happens to many starchy sauces when they are frozen and then thawed).


I have never heard of Tofu being called "vegetable meat". There are some fake meat types based on different types of soya products (or also other plant proteins), like "fake duck". But the only product I have seen bearing the generic label "vegetable meat" is textured vegetable protein. It is made from soya beans whose fat has been extracted to be used for oil production.

As for "non artificial", I have no idea what your personal definition of "artificial" is. It doesn't grow on trees, but then neither does butter, and I have never heard people condemn butter as "artificial". It is a processed product, and it is not a traditional process, but I can't tell you if it is more or less processed than traditional heavily processed foods such as sugar. Also, the amount of chemicals involved is probably dependent on the manufacturer. I guess you have to trust the regulatory organs of your country to not allow the production of food containing something harmful. Organic? This depends on the manufacturer too. If he adhers to organic production guidelines, then it is organic. And hygienic? This is even harder to answer, it depends on not only the manufacturer's decisions about the process, but also on the day-to-day process quality measures his employees take.

There is no reason to say that "vegetarian meat" is the same as vegetarian Chinese food. A cup of rice served in a Chinese restaurant is vegetarian and Chinese, but does not include any kind of meat substitute. If I cook a French recipe and use textured soy protein as meat replacement, this makes it vegetarian, but not Chinese. There can be some overlap between the two, but I doubt that it is big. China has had social conditions leading to vegetarian lifestyles (poverty, religious restrictions) for long before production of such protein began.

I doubt that any restaurants in the world are famous for it, mainly because it is a poor meat analogue. Yes, it offers a high amount of protein. But it does not taste really like meat. World-famous restaurants are world-famous because they offer high-quality food, and no food using inferior substitutions is high-quality. Yes, there are good vegetarian restaurants, but they don't make poor imitations of meat dishes using fake meats, they offer vegetarian dishes made from good ingredients. Some of them can feature some of the more popular soy products like tofu, but they are probably not famous for their tofu, because the tofu is not the main star of all dishes.

This all assumes that what you refer to is actually the textured vegetable protein I linked, but that is far from clear from your question. Other possibilities exist, because people have long tried to find a suitable meat substitute for vegetarians and for people who can't afford real meat. Most are soy-based, like the mentioned tofu and tempeh, but there are also wheat-based ones like seitan, and I think that there was some kind of beans product used sometimes instead of meat. Without you giving us more information, we can't conclude for sure which one you mean. But the answers to the other questions is about the same, with the exception that some processing methods are older than others and so can be considered more traditional (in case this plays a role for your understanding of "artificial").


Does the quality of garlic degrades if I chopped, fried then use it after a week?

Does the quality degrade?  Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.  Garlic (like onions and other members of the allium family) begins to undergo chemical changes the moment you cut into it.  It's the same phenomenon that causes you to tear up when you cut into an onion.

Quoting liberally from Wikipedia's article here...

  The phytochemicals responsible for the sharp flavor of garlic are produced when the plant's cells are damaged [...] The resultant compounds are responsible for the sharp or hot taste and strong smell of garlic. Some of the compounds are unstable and continue to react over time.

Ever notice how garlic becomes sweeter and far less pungent with even a brief sautee?  That's due to the instability of these flavorful compounds and how they break down when cooked.

  A large number of sulfur compounds contribute to the smell and taste of garlic. Allicin has been found to be the compound most responsible for the "hot" sensation of raw garlic [...] The process of cooking garlic removes allicin, thus mellowing its spiciness.

If you're defining "quality" as how well the preserved product maintains the same characteristics and flavors as the fresh version, this is already quite degraded.  It may still have its uses but don't expect this to be even remotely substitutable for fresh garlic.

Is it safe to eat after a full week?  Possibly, but very difficult to verify at home.  @rumtscho's comment nails it: if this was sufficiently dehydrated, it might be okay (in which case it will be even further from fresh garlic in terms of flavor and usage) but that is unlikely, and this should be treated like any other cooked food.

If you want to maximize the shelf life of your garlic, just keep it whole!  Unpeeled garlic will keep for weeks if kept cool and dry, and you can break off individual cloves as you need them.  All that it takes to ready one for cooking is a heavy pot to smash the clove with and a quick pass with a knife.


How can I extract palm sugar from a container?

You could use the corkscrew in its classic role. Bore a hole, and then use the corkscrew to pull the sugar out in one piece.
You should probably lay the tub on its side for this, as the sugar weight is probably too much to stay on the corkscrew.

The other option, though rather extreme, is to cut away the plastic tub with wire cutters or shears. That way, you're peeling the tub away, and will be left with the same lump, but no tub.


Do restaurants always cook chicken to 165F throughout when frying on cast iron?

Serious eats has a detailed explanation of chicken cooking temperatures available https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/07/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-chicken-breast.html
The short answer: if you are pan frying, grilling, or roasting a chicken  to 165F, it will be guaranteed to be pasteurized to US safety standards, no matter what else you do, and entirely over cooked in the process.
Lower temperatures for longer times also meet US safety standards without overcooking, but are not as easy to measure.
I've sous vide cooked chicken to 136F infusing flavors and making it safe, then finished on an open flame for less than 30 seconds. Besides the very surface, the great bulk of the meat was never anywhere near 165F.


How can I reduce nitrate concentration in vegetables before or during cooking?

Here is a great resource for this: Nitrates, Carrots, and Homemade Baby Food.

In a nutshell, though, there really is no way to reduce nitrate content without exhaustive preparation. We're talking grinding, pressing out the juice, then heating the juice to produce leafy veggie tofu. Yuck.


The rice/beans in this step act as a form of what are known as pie weights. They are used in order to maintain the shape of the crust as it is being baked. If you eliminate the weights during baking, you may encounter undesirable levels of puffing, curling and shrinking. If you'd rather brown the top of the bottom crust while baking, an alternative method often used is placing a second pie plate over the one containing the crust, and the metal should assist in browning the crust.
Use standard foil.


A syrup can be made shelf stable by reaching the appropriate water activity. Generally, using 2:1 sugar to water is considered sufficient to give you a safe level of water activity of around 0.86, with the only risk being molds, which are luckily visible. So you could start with 200 g of sugar and 100 g of juice and boil that until sufficiently dissolved, but before it gets too thick. A 67% syrup should have a boiling point of 104 C, you can give it a couple more degrees for a better margin of error.

For true shelf stability without molds, take it to 76% sugar solution. That would be reached at 110 C boiling point. This is the "thread stage", but because of the food safety issues involved, I would use a thermometer and not visual recognition.

Theoretically, when you add substances other than pure water, such as herbs or fruit pulp from the juice, you could calculate the exact water activity for these somewhat-wet substances. In practice, I would just calculate a lower-limit by treating everything non-sugar as "water". In this sense, you could start with 95g of juice and 5 g of dried spices, instead of 100 g juice, for the same 200 g sugar, and continue from there.

Do not prepare a simple syrup and then dilute, that's way too watery and has to be kept in the fridge from day one.

If you want to calcluate your own water activity, the formula for a pure sucrose solution is

  aw = 1/(1+0.79*n), with n = sugar in kilograms

By solving for aw, you can find out what percentage sucrose solution you need for a given water activity. As mentioned above, the most common food pathogen bacteria stop growth at 0.86, molds at 0.8, and total microbial activity ceases at around 0.6. You can use a table to look up the boiling point of the desired solution, these are available at most candy making resources, even Wikipedia has them.


Is US flour significantly different than it used to be, or than flour outside of the US?

The summary would be that there is a larger variety of flour (measured by gluten content) in the US than in Europe.

SAJ14SAJ described the gluten categories of American flour, although exact figures for the category limits are hard to pin down. Peter Reinhart says

  cake flour has 6 to 7 percent gluten, pastry flour has 7.5 to 9.5 percent gluten, all-purpose flour has 9.5 to 11.5 percent gluten, and high-gluten flour has 13.5 to (rare but possible) 16 percent gluten.

(From The bread baker's apprentice, section Types of flour). I measure exactly my gluten percentages and can confirm that these are good for recipes of the respective categories.

These flours are all made from the same flour grade, with about 50% of the grain removed and only the soft center used for fine bread. The difference comes from the grain type used, hard spring wheat (high in gluten) or soft winter wheat (low in gluten). In Europe, where only soft winter wheat is grown, all the flour is in the 9-11% range. But mills will sometimes enrich certain types of flour with added gluten, or by blending with imported flour, or by milling more of the bran (wholer flour always has more protein) in order to make some specialized high-gluten flours, e.g. Italian pizza flour. These flours are, aside from whole wheat flour, not widely available to home bakers.

I can well imagine that a European trying to bake a European recipe with American bread flour will get bad results. But if they get the AP flour, there will be no problem in the gluten.

There are many other properties of flour which differ, beyond the gluten content. But recipes are never so sensitive to them that they'd fail. If you can't tell the difference between two brands of flour in your home country, then you won't be able to tell the difference between flour with the same gluten content from the other continent either, if both are unbleached and of the same grade (= amount of bran included and particle size).

All in all, this claim sounds like an unfounded emotionally-loaded attack. It is possible that the person who made it indeed failed because of gluten content, because they didn't know that they should be buying AP and not bread flour. Or that it failed for another reason and they were looking for a scapegoat, and garbled some half-remembered knowledge (by the way, while the American wheat is genetically different, the gluten level difference was achieved centuries ago by selective breeding) to excuse their failure.


German Apple Cake also responds like this. Must say that I've come to adore the crunchy top! :) But yes, you are right, it doesn't really happen if you bake it as a large cake. It's mostly just along the outer edge of the cake, in my case anyway.

My reasoning is that cupcakes contain less batter per surface area exposed to the oven... I think the oven just caramelizes the sugar in the batter. Think of meringue where the sugar isn't properly incorporated... you see little holes in the surface of the meringue. I'm not saying you should dissolve the sugar better in this cake recipe, but if the crunchy (slightly holey top) isn't desirable for you, try using caster sugar which dissolves easier.


Safe to use non-sticky pan with scratches?

Related question here.  A few years back, I spent a lot of time researching this issue over at Chowhound.  There have probably been hundreds of scientific studies on this stuff, so you can read about some of them I found over there.

I haven't looked at this in a few years, but my understanding is that most people tend to be concerned about products from off-gassing when Teflon is heated.  The concern about "flaking" Teflon pans seems to be that you might ingest small pieces of the coating.  However, that inert solid form of Teflon seems to be the least concerning from a health perspective.  If there is a potential safety problem with Teflon (and I'm not really convinced there is), it's something that might come from gases, not from ingestion of the solid form.  (Also, this is not unique to Teflon: keep in mind that inhalation of fumes -- which takes a substance directly to the bloodstream -- often results in much more significant exposure for many substances than ingestion.)

I suppose another element of concern comes from people who have heard that overheating a Teflon pan will cause danger.  They therefore assume if the pan is damaged during overheating that consumption of the remaining Teflon bits will be hazardous.  However, again, the main concern -- if there is one -- is in the potential gases, not the solid form.

The current scientific consensus seems to be that ingestion of small quantities of Teflon is not a hazard.  When it degrades or flakes, it remains very inert -- which means it won't react with just about anything, including your body or digestive system.

Bottom line: IF you're concerned about Teflon (for whatever reason), you shouldn't cook with it at all.  The hazard posed by flaking pans is NOT greater than intact ones.  The only greater concern is that your food will tend to stick more.


Once you've boiled the carcass, most of the juices, fats, etc. have been released. Trying to do a second pass will result in a much weaker stock. There's only so much that can be released, and it's already happened on the first pass.

You should just choose one thing to make, or buy a second chicken, I'm afraid.


What material wok did I get while thrifting today?

My guess is carbon steel. It's used in a variety of cooking implements, including stuff like woks and  as bread pans. A quick search suggests that carbon steel is often magnetic as you report.

If it is indeed carbon steel, it benefits from seasoning and ongoing love and care similar to cast iron (lest it rust or deteriorate). Many articles on this, such as this one from thekitchn.

It's a fun material, and looks like a nice find! I hope you like it!

Welcome to Seasoned Advice.


How to remove most water from food when cooling them down before putting to a refrigerator?

The answer to your question is pure and simple. Condensation. Anytime you put anything into plastic that is not cold it will cause it to sweat. The best way to freeze anything is to place it in your freezer, uncovered and unwrapped immediately or within 5 to 10 minutes after removing it from the oven. Once it is frozen, and that should take anywhere from1 to 2 hours depending on what you are freezing, remove it from freezer and wrap quickly and immediately, making sure it remains well frozen, then return to freezer.This is called flash freezing and is the best way to keep the integrity of your food intact.  When defrosting your food, especially if it is something like a piece of frosted cake, unwrap the item as soon as you remove it from your freezer, then let it defrost. Hope this helps!


What kind of sweet bread? If it’s a “quick” bread, like banana-nut bread, no yeast. The leavening is done chemically by baking powder or baking soda. If you’re referring to enriched breads, like brioche or pain au lait, you won’t get a rise unless you add yeast! About a half teaspoon per cup of flour. Less if you’re using a preferment or a cold rise.


Does it take more energy to maintain a higher cooking temperature?

The limiting case would be a pot that is only emitting energy via thermal radiation, because it is (in the imagination) perfectly insulated and so not losing heat into the air via escaping vapor through the lid, or conducting heat through the pot material into the air.

In that case, the energy loss from the pot is only that of the black body radiation, which is a function strictly of temperature.   Energy radiates away at a faster rate at higher temperatures.

Even if you relax these stringent imaginary conditions, all heat engines are based on a temperature difference.  All of the heat loss mechanisms on the pot (such as losing heat to vaporization, or conduction through the surface of the pot into the air) are also driven by temperature difference between the contents of the pot and the surrounding air.  The larger the difference, the faster the transfer on an absolute basis.

So yes, maintaining a higher temperature in equilibrium requires more energy per unit time than a lower one.   But you would need someone far better at physics than me to give you the absolute mathematical models.


From the recipe and your "fudge" description, I think the problem was that you didn't get enough air in the batter. Trying a different recipe is a good idea.

The way to get more air into a flourless cake is through the eggs. Look for recipes which require you to beat the egg whites separately to soft peaks. Mix everything very carefully, in the correct order. If your try still doesn't get you enough air, try more tricks. Whip your yolks with some liquid (maybe 10 ml per yolk) over a water bath (keep it between 60° and 70°C!), practically creating zabaglione. But really watch the temp with a probe thermometer - you don't get a good emulsion below 60°C, and you don't want your proteins to coagulate while whipping, they must do it latter in the oven (they start a bit above 70°C).

The other problem is that you might get too smooth a texture. First, select a recipe with less fat. Fat makes the batter softer, but also very smooth. Your hunch is correct: Choose a recipe which calls for both cocoa powder and chocolate. The powder has much less fat, resulting in a higher percentage of starch, and that creates a more cakelike texture. Another good way to change the texture is to use recipe which includes a nut flour. A raw almond flour will give you very little change in flavor, but if you don't mind deviating from the original, roasted hazelnut pairs very well with both chocolate and raspberry.

And as we are speaking of fat: you must use a good chocolate! Standard chocolate bars (Hershey, Milka) are no good. To cut costs, they use vegetable fat instead of cocoa butter, which changes the texture a lot. Then there are the manufacturers who use emusifiers and include even less cocoa butter. If you can get hold of real confectioner's chocolate (Valrhona, Callebaut), use it. If not, buy a chocolate bar which contains only cocoa mass, cocoa butter and sugar and nothing else - no vegetable fat, no emusifiers, etc. Also no milk solids, you want to make this kind of recipe with bittersweet to bitter chocolate. The one big brand I use for baking is Lindt Excellence (not Lindt Lindor!), but there are also some supermarket-branded chocolates with the right contents.

I don't have a tried recipe to offer you, but I am sure that the usual suspects have published something good. I think Smitten Kitchen had a nice big post on flourless pastries ones (but don't remember if they had a choco cake there), and Lebovitz and/or Desaulniers probably have recipes for a flourless choco cake too.


'Sweet milk' substitute in an old recipe

It's normal whole milk.

'sweet' was used to distinguish it from buttermilk in older cookbooks.


Different flours (ie different brands and strains) have different rates of absorption. If I use American bread recipes, I always have to use far more flour than the recipe calls for in order to achieve the described consistency. If your dough is too wet and is not behaving as the recipe describes - add more flour, or use less water.


How to substitute peanut butter for peanut butter chips

You cannot convert it, because they are two different ingredients.

Peanut butter chips are pieces which stay whole when baked. They don't melt, just sit there so you can bite on them after the cookie is baked.

Peanut butter is a creamy substance, and if you try to put it in a blondie, it will not form a chunk, it will become part of the dough, giving it a completely different texture and maybe even hindering its baking well. Even if it bakes properly, you will get a totally different result, with dough that tastes uniformly of peanuts, without a contrast taste to bite on.

You could try putting in whole peanuts (shelled, without the papery skin, but unsalted and toasted), in which case you can use the same amount in cups. It will still be somewhat different, because they will be harder to bite on than the chips, and it can make the blondies drier as a whole.


Correct way to join two halves of sponge cake?

I've actually done some cake decorating (non-professional, but I did take a few classes), and I'll go with an option you didn't give:

Only bake one cake and split it in half (reduce the temperature of the oven, longer time, and if necessary, use cooling strips).You'll likely need taller pans for this -- you'll want light colored aluminum, 3" high for most general purposes.  (dark pans absorb heat too quickly, so the sides set before it's risen properly).  Level the cake (trim the domed-ness of the cake off), and stack the cake upside down, so you have the nice cake-pan edge on the top layer.

If the cake is too far domed, trimed it down some and save the removed bit.  Stack the cakes (again, upside down), crumb coat it, and take the removed cake, crumble it up into some icing, and then pipe that as a sort of filler around the bottom of the cake. to make up the gap.

If you're going to be filling the cake with something like a pudding or custard, stack the first layer like your answer C, pipe a ring of icing around the edge to hold it in, fill the custard in, then stack what had originally been the bottom of the cake (again, upsde down).  But make sure to make it thick enough in consistency, and thin enough in height -- I had an incident once where it formed a slip-plane, and the cake started ejecting the top layer off of slices.

To level the cake, you have two options -- they make special devices for doing it, which is basically a wire cutter on adjustable legs, that you can pull through the cake at a fixed height.  (also works for splitting the cake so you can then fill and stack it), but if you have a good long knife, a fairly steady hand, and a turn-table, you can:

put the cake on the turn table.
holding the knife steady, spin the cake and move the knife slowly in towards the center.

I find that a plastic cutting mat works pretty well to help get in there and take the layers of cake off after you've split them.

If you're going to be stacking cakes very tall, you'll want to use a pound cake recipe, or augment a boxed cake mix -- add in a box of instant pudding to firm up the resultant cake.


Can I add tomato paste afterwards, instead of during cooking, for a tomato sauce?

In general you need to consider the purpose of the ingredient, and what would happen to it during the cooking that it's missed.

For example, there's no point stirring a spoonful of flour into a sauce after cooking, since the flour needs heat in order to thicken the sauce.

In the case of the tomato paste, not much will happen to that particular ingredient during cooking. It may have caramelised a little, depending on the cooking method. It would have infused more deeply into some of the other ingredients. But these are subtle things. Taste your finished product. If you feel it would benefit from an extra boost of tomato flavour, by all means stir in some tomato paste.


What are the important traits of a good popcorn machine for home use?

There are three non-microwave ways to pop popcorn:

an air popper
a plug-in dome popper
a stovetop popper

Each of these makes different popcorn.

The air popper uses no fat, though if you're going to add melted butter you probably don't care. In fact the absence of fat means salt and other powdered flavours don't stick well. You can't burn the popcorn. My air popper also used to blow unpopped kernels all over the kitchen. We eventually repurposed it as a coffee roaster.

The plug-ins require a plug, you add a little oil, and you need to pay attention or you might burn a few kernels.  I use coconut oil in mine, and add less butter than I used to add to air-popped corn.

The stovetops are apparently terrific if you want to melt a coating (eg caramel corn) onto the popcorn. I haven't used one.

===

ETA:  Two additional options.

If one already has an electric skillet, such as:

With a bit of oil and corn it will hold a steady temperature and do the job without a separate space eating devise.  This option takes a little practice to get the temperature that works best for you, and shaking the skillet a couple times while hot is a pain, but this was always my grandparent's preferred popper.

If you do not wish to eliminate the microwave option, several makers produce these:

These dry pop for those who are concerned with oil.  Or for those of use who prefer, we dry pop it, then dump on the butter after.  This gives the option though of using spices and such after much like an air popper, but in my experience had a higher pop rate that air poppers of packaged microwave popcorn and was much less prone to burning.  They do require little concentraters that are inserted and would each hold up for 4-6 batches though.


Does it help to allow veggies to lose moisture before frying?

Yes, it helps to dry veggies before frying them.

In fact, many recipes for fried and deep-fried vegetables contain explicit instructions for drying them, including salting, blotting between paper towels, or wiping down and dusting the surface with starch.

The reason why simply leaving veggies out on the counter is not a frequently seen instruction is that (a) that's a very slow way to dry them, and (b) it may cause them to oxidize or otherwise develop undesireable flavors or colors.  But if you live in a low-humidity environment, there's no reason it wouldn't work.


Do NOT eat this. You figured out right that the stuff on top is mold. The thing that makes mold dangerous is the mycotoxins produced by it and these will likely remain in the sauce even if you scrape off the furry stuff. So eating this comes with high risk of affecting your health. Move it to the trash bin right away.
I would recommend to try again with a recipe with vinegar added and also to use containers that are more appropriate for doing fermentation. This means to minimize the amount of air in the container that could possibly contain any spores and to minimize the surface of the food exposed to the air. So using a bottle will serve your purpose much better than the only half-full glasses on your pictures.
Also be very careful to sterilize the containers and tools getting in contact with the sauce before starting the fermentation.


The reason not to use scratched glass bakeware is because the internal stresses encountered during heating can (rarely) cause the bakeware to violently fracture along the scratches. That doesn't really apply to glass tableware, which doesn't encounter the same temperatures (though cracked tableware, of multiple materials, will occasionally break from thermal stress in the dishwasher).

Incidentally, glass bakeware and tableware should be made from borosilicate glass, which cannot be scratched by steel cutlery.

EDIT: Also: Don't use glass tableware for hot food. Irrespective of safety issues, the thermal density and thermal conductivity of glass means that it will quickly wick away heat from any food which is placed on it. Glass plates are fine for salads and stuff, but they don't make good general-use dinner plates.


What should I know about storing my homemade chili powder?

From experience I'd say those 6 months don't stack. You could have 6 months in the jar, or 6 months in the freezer - very soon after defrosting the flavour would die out. If you have to freeze I would recommend using it straight from the freezer, if you can avoid it clumping.

The overall potency is degrading from the moment it's picked! But realistically from the moment of grinding, as the oils in the ingredient are slowly seeping and evaporating out of the grain.

Why not make smaller batches more regularly? That's what I do for garam masala, mixing a new batch every 3 months or so.

I would always recommend oven drying spices / peppers very low for a long time - say 2 - 3 hours at 100C (212F). Wet ingredients could be dried in the same way, else added at the time you are going to cook with them.


Do plastic cutting boards harbor more bacteria than wood boards?

For the best sanitation, you want glass, or ceramic cutting boards. (Stainless steel is also good, but hardest on knives.)
But folks tend to not like any of these because they're hard on knives. It depends on your priorities, I guess. I prefer to err on the side of avoiding food-borne infections and other grossness, and I'm willing to replace or sharpen knives.
The problem with wooden cutting boards is that they're porous, so juices (especially from meat) can seep down into the wood and provide a rich nutrient broth for bacterial growth.
The problem with plastic cutting boards is that, every time you cut on them with a knife, you make a tiny groove in the plastic, which can harbor bacteria. These bacteria growing down in a groove or fissure are difficult to wash away, even with manual scrubbing. Also, tiny bits of plastic can end up in your food.
Plastic has a slight advantage over wood in that it's easier to wash. Throwing it in the dishwasher is the easiest, but won't get it completely sanitized, especially down in all of the knife-cut grooves. Your best bet for sanitizing plastic cutting boards is soaking them in a mildly diluted bleach (sodium hypochlorite) solution. For obvious reasons, none of that is really an option with wooden cutting boards. (Small wooden cutting boards can be sanitized by heating them, e.g., in a microwave, but this doesn't work well for large "butcher block" style, which are, in my experience, the most popular kind of wooden cutting boards that are seen.)
You really never want to use a wooden cutting board for meat. For meat, use something completely non-porous that can be easily cleaned, like glass or ceramic. In a pinch, you can use plastic, but make sure to sanitize it thoroughly and regularly.
A wooden cutting board is acceptable for fruit, vegetables, cheeses, breads, etc., and many people find it easier to work with than glass or ceramic. Plastic would also be fine for these items.

If you're interested in the research, there's quite a bit of it out there, but I can't claim to have read it all. The above is a general summary, based on my background in microbiology. The classic study is by Dr. Dean Cliver of UC Davis. You can surely find links to it online.
Another study, focused on commercial kitchens and the realities of induced wear (especially with regular cleaning), was conducted by Welker et al.: "Bacterial Retention and Cleanability of Plastic and Wood Cutting Boards with Commercial Food Service Maintenance Practices", and this is freely accessible online. The conclusion (unsurprisingly) was that wood is more likely to wear out, developing "cracks […] sufficiently wide to entrap bacteria." Plastic is easier to clean than wood, and "after standard food service washing and sanitizing", wooden cutting boards promoted bacterial growth but plastic did not.
A study performed by Nese et al. ("Decontamination of Plastic and Wooden Cutting Boards for Kitchen Use"), also freely accessible online, confirms what I stated earlier about plastic being generally easier to sanitize, but the knife-cut grooves tending to interfere with cleaning. This paper also discusses the popular argument that wooden surfaces will absorb juices (bacterial inocula), thus inhibiting growth. This is true to some extent, but as other studies have shown, cannot be fully relied upon, especially as the wood ages and cracks, due to both use (knife cuts) and cleaning.
The relevant advice on the US Food and Drug Administration is, essentially, that both wood and plastic are acceptable, so long as you sanitize them frequency and replace them when they begin to become worn. (In my experience, people tend to know that plastic boards need to be replaced—not that they always do it—but they tend to assume wood lasts virtually forever, and purchase accordingly, spending lots of money on heavy, expensive wooden cutting boards.) The FDA also mentions bamboo as a possible option, since it's harder and less porous than hardwoods, meaning that it absorbs less moisture and is more resistant to scarring. I don't have experience with this, so I can't comment any further.
I leave you with a quote from Dr. Charles Gerba, a professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona, Tucson, who told Food and Wine magazine:

In most cases, it’s safer to make a salad on a toilet seat than it is to make one on a cutting board.  There’re 200 times more fecal bacteria from raw meat on the average cutting board in a home than a toilet seat. Most people just rinse their cutting board, but poultry and raw meat can leave behind salmonella and campylobacter.
People disinfect their toilet seats all the time, but they don’t realize that they really need to pay attention in the kitchen too.

Indeed. In case I haven't emphasized it enough throughout this answer, the key is thorough, regular sanitation of your chosen cutting surface, no matter what it may be.


Fudge icing is actually not made with fudge believe it or not, often it's a chocolate buttercream but there are other recipes. There are a few problems I can see with using traditional cooked fudge as a cake layer:

It is not the right texture for a cake: Imagine you're eating nice fluffy cake and then you run into hard, gummy fudge which welds your mouth shut
Fudge would be very hard to work with. You cannot spread it, you'd have to roll it out which would be messy
Traditional fudge would not keep the layers together. Part of the role of the filling is to stick one cake layer to another so that they stay put, and pieces stay together when cut and put on a plate. A cake with a hard fudge filling would would be hard to decorate as any sideways pressure on the top cake layer would make it slide, and when cut it would fall apart.


Prepare something with unopened milk that sat outside the fridge?

What is "spoiled milk"?

"spoiled" milk is not a thing, that needs to be avoided, in most cases. As long as it doesn't have any mold growing or something, it most likely just started fermenting in the warm temperatures outside the fridge. However, it is perfectly possible that your milk didn't even start to ferment after 12 hours, depending on the room temperatures where you are. In case it has started fermenting it should smell sour and contain clumps. If it smells normal and had a normal consistency you can use it as normal.

What to do with fermented/soured milk?

Milk that has started to ferment is called soured milk. It is used in many places in Europe, though most commonly in eastern Europe as far as i know, but probably in many places around the world, too.

I'm from Germany and my mom always used sour milk wherever you would use buttermilk. It has a similar tanginess and texture, but of course contains a bit more fat. You could use it in cakes and pancakes, but also in brines or marinades, as well in a base for breadcrumb coatings or similar things. Speaking as a german, there are a variety of mostly forgotten regional dishes where soured milk is the main ingredient, mostly desserts and soups.

Some people even drink it as is. I've heard, before lactose free milk was a thing, many lactose intolerant people prefered soured milk over normal milk, because of its lower lactose content due to fermentation.


What are preaseasoned cast iron pans preseasoned with?

They're pre-seasoning with some sort of fat. It varies by manufacturer, though soy is probably fairly common (its both cheap and has a high iodine value). For example, Lodge uses soy oil.


Why is the pasta often cooked in the sauce in al'arrabiata recipes?

While Italian cuisine is defined regionally, the majority of Italian pasta dishes have one cook the pasta until almost done, then finish in the condiment. While there are exceptions that include thick, long cooked sauces like Bolognese or sugos, finishing in the condiment serves several purposes: (a) the pasta and the condiment can be combined, (b) the pasta finishes cooking, (c) it absorbs the flavor of the condiment, and (d) the condiment (sauce) thickens and emulsifies from the addition of the starchy pasta cooking water (this can be controlled by adding cooking water and/or allowing it to cook off). Yes, it is more difficult than cooking separately, and it can be a little nuanced, but it is not very technical.  With a bit of practice, I think you will find this step worth it.


What is the difference between grits and polenta?

True southern grits are made with ground hominy whereas polenta is simply ground cornmeal. The proper name for them is actually hominy grits. You can make "grits" out of untreated corn, but these are corn grits and not really found in southern US cuisine. Grits are typically a much coarser grind than polenta.

Hominy is corn that has been nixtamalized, which means soaked and cooked in an alkali solution, typically lye or limewater. This process converts the niacin present in corn into a form more soluble in the human body. Early European importers of corn from the USA dismissed this process as unnecessary, and as corn became a subsequent staple a pretty nasty disease called pellagra took hold caused by niacin deficiency.


The perception of "spicy" is completely dependent on the person. And there is a "tolerance building" thing going on too: what is intolerably hot for somebody not accustomed to heat might not even register for somebody who eats hot frequently. As an anecdote, I had a friend who started eating hot. After a month, she started asking the cook to use pure tabasco instead of tomato sauce on the pizza. After another month, she complained that the pizza was made with tomato sauce and the poor cook had to let her taste her from the bottle to convince her that the pizza was indeed made with pure tabasco, it just didn't have the same "kick" for her after habituation.

From your description of your soup only feeling hot enough for you after adding six habaneros with the seeds, it seems that you have developed an extremely high heat tolerance. And this would be an explanation for what you observed.

Six habaneros will contain a certain amount X of capsaicin. When your soup is fresh, the pepper has enough capsaicin concentration that you notice it and enjoy it.

But when you leave it alone, the broth dissolves the capsaicine (unlike pure water, the fat and maybe also the solvents from the vinegar enable it to do so). So you end up with a kind of "capsaicine tea".

But remember that you have the same amount X of capsaicine, this time diluted in litres of soup, as opposed to sticking all in one bite of pepper. So, now that you bite on the pepper, you don't get the heat. But when drinking the broth, its concentration is so low that it does not register for somebody with a high heat tolerance. From your subjective point of view, the heat has "disappeared".

The original intention of the recipe author was certainly that the whole soup becomes somewhat hot. And for people with less heat tolerance, it will work well. They will be able to eat the broth and notice the heat, even with much lower quantities of hot pepper.

For you, it seems that you still haven't reached the dose which will work for you in a soup. So you can add more capsaicin - either use more peppers, or find a source for hotter ones. If the logistics are a problem, buy them dried. But note that at no point will the whole soup taste as hot as the single fresh pepper (due to the dilution), and also that you will become habituated with time, just like my friend with the tabasco pizza.


Allow me to describe what happened.  (TLDR; complete success)

I started out with

The regular lobster soup starter pack.

About 1.5 liters of water, half a bottle of white wine.

This isn't clear at all.

Eggwhites.

Really slow boil.

Siphon to test.

I'm ok with this.

The end result was fantastic

What really surprised me was that I started with well over 2 litres of broth. In the end I had about 7 dl of clear stuff. About 1/3 of the original tasty broth.


I use paneer and queso fresco interchangeably. They are produced using pretty much the same technique.

It is also really easy to make it yourself.
How do you make paneer?


Cooking pot with lid for saving gas but that doesn't overflow?

The device which "releases the pressure automatically" is a normal pot. You don't put the lid fully on, you leave a small gap on the side. It is sufficient for practically all cooking.

And yes, if it is still overflowing, you should reduce your temperature. Not only don't you win anything by cooking it at such a high flame that it boils over even with a gap, you are also wasting gas - which you said you care about.

As for the device you linked, it is a very different thing. It cooks food faster because at higher pressures, it can be heated to over 100 Celsius. Cooking with it is very different from cooking with a normal pot, and it is up to you if you want to get into it - but not having to leave the air gap is not a typical reason for it.

Trying to clear this thing up after some discussion with Jefromi:

You are pumping more energy into the system than it can hold. You have a few possible solutions:

Stop pumping that much energy into it (reduce the heat). It is wasted anyway.
Have an open system - one which can't withstand pressure and bleeds it off as soon as it starts rising. This is the "pot with a gap in the lid" method, no matter if you are using a standard lid or one with the gap and catch lip built in like suggested in the other answer.
Have a closed system which can keep in the energy (it will produce pressure higher than atmospheric pressure) and release it after you are done cooking. This is what a real pressure cooker is for. It does come with some advantages, I've also seen claims that it is more energy efficient (I don't know if it is, really), but it is really a completely different mode of cooking.

What you are proposing is a mixture of 2 and 3. Now, if you make it very close to 2, such that minute amounts of pressure are built up before venting, you are still expelling that same energy from the system, and haven't saved it in any way. You just have created a more complex (and so more expensive less failsafe) device, there is no reason to not stay with solution 2. If you make it very close to 3, in that you hold in a lot of pressure before releasing, you automatically make it almost the same as pressure cooking, only with some useless venting of energy, so there is no reason to not build a real pressure cooker. Basically, anything in between 2 and 3 is going to be worse than both 2 and 3.

The most practical solution, used by countless cooks over the world, is a combination of 1 and 2.


Does the definition of "cooking" imply heat?

Neither "yes" nor "no" is a suitable answer to that question.

First, there is no "the definition" of cooking. I am sure you can turn up several formal definitions, and my best guess is that some will require heat and others won't.

Second, and probably more important, humans don't think in definitions. You are asking if a given action belongs to the category "cooking methods". A definition works by ticking off features some element has to have to belong to a category. Real human categories (in everyday thinking, as opposed to formally defined ones in the sciences) depend on the closeness of an element to a prototype element. This closeness is gradual, and there is no demarcation to say where the category ends.

Keeping this in mind, all prototypical forms of cooking clearly involve heat, so the ones which don't involve it have a weaker membership in the "cooking methods" category than those which do. But it is impossible to pronounce whether they fall inside or outside of the category. Different people will answer that question differently, and I suspect that even the same person may give different answers in different contexts.

To make it even more complicated, "apply heat" is not the single thing which makes a food-related action resemble stewing (or whatever you take the prototype cooking method to be). So different things you do to food without heat will have a different grade of belonging to the "cooking" category.

People tend to not be aware of all that, and usually trust their intuition to take one side or the other. So you'll find people on both sides who insist they are right, and can rationalize it with some kind of plausibly sounding argument. Reality is more complicated than that, and if you try to prove one of the sides wrong, you will end up in a flame war going nowhere.


How can I make regular rice more sticky?

Those are all good ideas, and will work together.

For "use more water", what you really want is to use more water but not end up with wetter or softer rice. (For rice I want to be sticky I'll generally use about 1.25 volumes of water to one volume of rinsed and drained rice, but this will vary widely with cooker and amount of rice.) A good way to do that is to stop cooking after the prescribed length of time rather than when your rice cooker detects that all the water is gone, and then spread the rice out on a plate immediately after cooking, to promote evaporation. (You can also do stuff with stirring and fans - check out videos of preparing sushi rice - but it's probably not necessary.)

I've never gotten rice to be sticky if made with stock or any sort of fat.

Long grain rice won't be as sticky as short grain rice, but it won't be far off either.

Finally, if you just want to cheat, sprinkle some rice flour in with the rice. Like not rinsing, but arbitrarily moreso.


I take the term "loose" to mean spices sold from large containers, scooped into a bag, rather than a sealed and packaged off-the-shelf product.

A sealed container, produced commercially, is (presumably) inspected and regulated to avoid adulteration. When you buy from an open container at a market or store, you have no way to know if it was mixed with something.

And still, I prefer to buy fresh loose spices, from vendors I trust.


Can you make milk chocolate bars with fresh milk or cream?

I know you can't use fresh milk or cream. Any water introduced to your chocolate would cause it to start seizing. Basically the cocoa powder would start hydrating and clumping up. If you do it right, you get ganache or modelling chocolate. If you do it wrong, you get weird curdly chocolate and sadness.
As far as milk powder tasting bad... I really don't know the answer except to ask how you tasted it? It definitely tastes different (very concentrated and cooked) on it's own, but should be fine in a hot cocoa mix or chocolate bar, I'd think.
One thing you might look into it getting a full-fat milk powder, since most of what you'll find in stores (in the US at least) are skim milk powder. That might be part of the weirdness you detect.
The other thing you might look into is trying to find freeze-dried milk. My understanding is that most milk powders are made through an evaporation process, which would necessarily cook the milk and make it sweeter. Some people seem really averse to the "cooked milk taste," while some people (like me) enjoy it. Freeze-drying would perhaps do a better job of preserving the fresh taste, but I really don't know. I don't think I've ever had it.


When my husband and I were trying to make good coffee ice cream, we did just that -- steeping the coffee beans in milk. It worked quite well.

If you have a French Press, you can use that with coarsely ground coffee beans. Heat the milk to a simmer or even a very low boil, and then use it in place of water in the French Press. This was how we got the best results for our ice cream.

You can also get good results from whole beans. Heat the whole beans in milk in a pot, and then let sit in the refrigerator overnight. Strain out the beans, and you'll have strongly coffee-flavored milk.


Can I make microwave frozen ready pizza?

The secret to microwave pizzas isn't the ingredients (although that might be part of it) ... the real trick is that they have you cook the pizza on top of the box.

The box has a special 'crisping disk' in it which is susceptible to microwaves ... it absorbs microwaves, heats up and then either conducts or radiates heat to the food to be cooked.

You can buy microwaveable 'crisping trays' or 'crisping pans'.  You can also buy 'crisping paper' which is sold in rolls but only intended for a single use.  Make sure that it specifically says that it's for microwave, and for pizza.  (there are ceramic 'crisping trays' to cook bacon in the microwave, and I don't know if they're susceptors, or just to drain away the grease)


How will the taste of black tea change when I infuse it with water colder than 90-100 degrees Celsius?

TFD's answer is true: the most likely change is the reduction in some astringent flavors.

I would just add that people have been brewing black tea for iced tea for many years at or near room temperature (e.g., the traditional "sun tea" method), or even in the refrigerator ("cold-brewed" tea).  The flavor notes which come out are different, but a lot of people still find the tea produced to be acceptable or even preferable to "hot-brewed" tea.

Granted, these processes are used mostly for tea meant to be consumed at cooler temperatures.  But my point is that those who insist that black tea must be brewed as close to 100C as possible are just brewing one possible "version" of tea from those leaves.  In my own experiments, I've found that certain black teas taste good when brewed at lower temperatures for a long time, though others end up "unbalanced" in some way.  (Sometimes, they simply taste "weaker" for some reason, even when still brewed longer to take into account the lower temperature.  Sometimes this can be fixed by adding more tea leaves per cup; other times this still creates an imbalance.)

I could cite a number of studies which show the various amounts of certain chemical components in tea and how fast they dissolve at various temperatures.  But those really won't take into account the balance of individual flavor components in a particular black tea.  In this case, I think it's really a matter of personal judgment to see whether your particular tea tastes fine to you brewed at a lower temperature.


How can I avoid overpowering my food with cumin flavor?

Cumin is most often used ground, yes.

You can, if you prefer—and as in common in Indian and other cuisines—toast it first until it is fragrant (a minute or two in a dry skillet at medium heat).

Then, grind it in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.


Why must potato salad be placed in the refrigerator before serving?

Refrigerating accomplishes several things:

It is the right temperature to get the intended flavor.  Flavors change with temperature, and some dishes get the correct taste when cold.
Flavors get to blend more.  Aromatic spices sometimes take time to soak into the sauce, and liquids absorb into the potatoes more
Cold is an easy way to prevent spoilage.  Potato salad usually contains mayonnaise, which is a natural growth medium for bacteria.  By cooling the salad you can leave it out to serve for a couple hours without risking illness.

Food safety of Potato Salad:
For potato salad, you have about 2 hours of safe eating in the 40-140F temperature range. Refrigerating is an easy way to extend this, by cooling below 40F. For hot salads, you can either reheat before serving, or keep it hotter than 140F by using a chafing dish and can of Sterno.

About Mayonnaise in Potato Salad:
Commercial mayonnaise is too acidic to spoil easily, but when mixed in with potato salad it can be diluted enough to spoil.  It is better to refrigerate than take the risk, right?  If you use homemade mayonnaise, you run the risk of salmonella on top of this.


What is the meaning of the letters after the expiration date?

I have found a website that should explain this:
https://datecheckpro.com/2016/09/16/%E2%80%8Breading-food-expiration-date-codes-effectively/
This is what it says:

In coding, if letters are used to signify months, “A” will indicate January all the way to December ending with “L”. Next to these letters will typically be numbers indicating the day and the year. However, sometimes the numbered year will come before the letter. On the other hand, if numbers are used to signify the month, 1-9 will represent January to September, while the last three months will be assigned the first letter of their name, respectively (O for October, N for November, and D for December).
Codes may also be comprised exclusively of numbers typically presented in the standard order of MMDDYY or YYMMDD (e.g., September 12, 2016 would be 091216 or 160912). Some codes also abide by the Julian calendar, which assigns a number to each day of the year from 1 to 365. In this case, September 12 would be 255.


Determining cooking time for ribs in the Texas Crutch

While I do not believe it is necessary to "crutch" ribs, it can be done, and the most popular method is called the "3-2-1 Method." (see the writeup on Steven Raichlen's Barbecue Bible site here: http://barbecuebible.com/2015/01/20/3-2-1-method-ribs/ )

The prescribed method is to cook unwrapped for three hours, two hours in foil, and one additional hour unwrapped. The method and times are merely a guideline, and are based on cooking St. Louis ribs at 225F. If you cook at a higher temperature, then adjust the times at each stage downward. If you are cooking baby back ribs, then adjust those times significantly downward. Use indirect heat the entire time, and apply sauce in the last 15 minutes of the cooking process.

Again, please be aware that these are merely guidelines. The ribs are done when they pass the tests for doneness, not at prescribed times.


It is perfectly safe, however you don't want to as it won't be anywhere near as good the next day. Even if you handle it perfectly the turkey is going to lose a great deal of moisture in the fridge overnight. Moisture in the meat comes from fat in the tissues rather than water, once it's cooked out it's gone, so putting water or pan juices in the container isn't going to do a thing for you.

Turkey is usually the centerpiece of the meal, and you want your centerpiece to be perfect no matter what it is. If you cannot make it fresh, or using a method that will preserve flavor and moisture  better, then my advice would be to chose a different centerpiece, or adjust your methods. You could cut your turkey into parts and cook them separately, who is going to know? Make a Turqui au Vin the day before and re-heat it, it will visually look amazing and taste great. Or you could cook something else like a leg of lamb, beef, or pork joint.

If you are concerned that you won't have the time to make all the accompaniments and the turkey at the same time then you are in luck because much of what goes with a turkey can be made ahead of time and reheated without losing much quality. Stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, pies, and many other things can be made ahead of time and re-heated. Even some green vegetables like thick greens can be made the day before and re-heated, some would say the flavor's better the day after as well. Many of these things can be frozen as well, so you could start cooking for a big dinner party weeks ahead of time. So perhaps you need to turn the question around and think about what else could be made the night before.