What happens to raw honey after the expiry date? Will it be edible?

It is probably a best-before date (possibly regarding crystallization of the honey or other cosmetic changes), and should still be edible afterwards.

Most honey has historically been stored raw, it is still sold in the comb in places, and has still been known for having a long shelf life if left in a closed container.  Honey has mild antiseptic qualities, and too little water, for most anything nasty to grow in - usually the heating and other processing has more to do with appearance and texture (crystallization and cloudiness, and also batch consistency and efficiency), rather than specific safety concerns.  And if it does go bad, from exceedingly poor storage, too much moisture, or something of the sort - it should be very apparent, and on the surface only.

That being said, if you have concerns about your honey specifically or believe that its raw nature poses more risk - you should act as it seems safe for you.  Putting the honey in the fridge should double the shelf life, at least, though it will also encourage crystallization.


What is the orange coloured cream inside McAloo Tikki called and what are its ingredients?

I cannot speak to its accuracy as I have no experience with this item or McDonald's at all outside the US, but Time In Kitchen in their recipe for a homemade version indicates:

  For sauce, beat hung curd in bowl and add pinch of salt and tomato
  ketchup and mix well to smoothen it in order to avoid any lumps and
  keep it aside

Then again, according to SipputySup, it is "basically Thousand Island dressing)".

This question itself now appears on the 2nd page of google results when searching for "Aloo Tikki sauce" :-)


Soup freezes great in my experience.  To freeze it for long term storage, you'll probably want it to be vacuum sealed.  In order to do this I freeze individual sized portions in Tupperware-style containers (make sure to leave enough room for expansion), and as soon as they're solid, vacuum seal those large "cubes".  They generally stack pretty nicely in our garage freezer.

In general soups should thaw and taste very good, some flavors even seem become stronger or seem to enhance and meld better with the freezing.  If you vacuum seal them as above you can throw them (still sealed) into a pot of boiling water for hot soup relatively fast!

As an aside, another great option with a leftover turkey frame would be to save it with previous odds and ends (carrot/celery ends, onion pieces, etc) in the freezer, and when you have enough make a simple stock.  You can then freeze the stock into cubes (in ice cube trays) for soup-making later, sauteeing veggies, in place of water for more flavorful rice, and a ton of other things.


How do tempura chefs touch 350 degree oil without being burned?

Because his fingers are covered in the tempura batter, which forms a very thin protective shell. Also note that he's in and out very quickly - he doesn't let his fingers just sit in the oil.


How do you safely bottle or "can" bbq meat drippings?

Because meat stock is low-acid you're going to need to use a pressure canner. Follow the pressure and times indicated in a reliable guide such as this one from the Montana State Extension

You won't need to add acid to make it safe.(edit)


It's been a long time since I made lemon meringue pie as I like pies too much and don't need the extra sugar and fat calories. What always worked for me was to partially blind bake the crust first and then after removing the beans, brush the bottom with egg white before baking another 5-10 minutes.

Blind baking a crust is done by getting the crust ready in the  pie plate, then covering it with aluminum foil or parchment paper before filling it with small beans. The beans weigh the crust down so none of it forms bubbles while baking. (Easy to lift the corners of the paper up with beans in it.) I'd take the beans and paper out, brush the inside of the crust with beaten egg white and finish browning it in the oven.

The very thinly coated egg white wash further seals the crust forming a water-resistant barrier to the moisture of the filling. I know most recipes say to add hot filling to the crust but I found that waiting til the filling had cooled to warm instead helped prevent soggy crust. My reasoning is flour products soak up moisture faster with hot liquids than those that are merely warm.

One further tip. Cornstarch (called cornflour in the UK) isn't as effective in acidic foods so a cornstarch thickened lemon pie filling tends to separate somewhat the next day, releasing some of the water. Arrowroot flour (powder) is best for thickening  acidic food but not always avaiable and more pricey. Tapioca flour works almost as well and is much cheaper. I won't use cornstarch to thicken acidic food - it's best for milk-based foods.


Dairy-free substitute for milk when marinating chicken

Milk has been used in marinades for a long time, and it does work. It is thought that it is the calcium in the milk that activates enzymes in the chicken rather than enzymes in the milk tenderizing the chicken, see this article for the science. This means you can use soy, rice, or any milk substitute, but you'll get the best result from the one with the most calcium. This article lists the mg of calcium per 1 US cup (235ml) of cow's milk and substitutes:

Cow's milk: 300mg
Rice milk: 283mg
Coconut milk: 41mg
Soy milk: 19mg

So it looks like Rice milk is the best substitute from a tenderizing perspective.

There are other ways of tenderizing chicken, pineapple for example does a great job, however if you want authentic middle eastern milk substitutes are the way to go.


How much smoke to expect from making a roux?

Creating a roux is all about cooking the flour to the desired color.  It can take from 3 to 15 minutes.  Do this over medium heat.  Stir constantly.  You should not experience any smoking when making a roux.  If you are experiencing smoke, turn the heat down.


Smen - Moroccan fermented butter.. best clarified or not?

Clarified butter has had most of the water removed and so has a much longer shelf life than fresh butter. I assume this is why it is often found in the cuisines of warmer climates.

Water is required for fermentation so if the butter was truly clarified it would not ferment. That's kind of the point of clarified butter.

The second recipe only partially clarified the butter. The milk solids are strained but the water isn't separated out.

I suspect this is done for flavor and appearance. The browned solids would add complexity to the flavor even after they were strained out. The color would be more vibrant when it is used without the browned solids.

I can't speak to the authenticity of either method but I suspect the clarified butter would be more authentic because it would be more common in Morocco. Kind of like how all Indian recipes call for ghee even when butter works fine. It's what they had on hand.


Use boiling hot water to gelatinize the  starch in the rice.

Instead of a cup of room-temperature water, use boiling water to mix with the rice flour. It will make the dough stretchable. You might need some more rice flour to use as coating to prevent sticking. This link of a recipe describes it best : http://kitchentigress.blogspot.sg/2011/09/how-to-make-soon-kueh.html

Note:

I added more information as requested by Doug.


Hey I know this is an old post but just in case anyone else is stuck with the same problem, I found this worked for me.

Roll out the dough so it's roughly 3x diameter, place the camembert in the middle. Fold two opposite sides over the top of the camembert. Then with the remaining unfolded sides, fold one on top and one underneath.

You're still left with a little more on top than underneath, but it worked well for me.


How do I convert stove top pressure cooker recipes into electric pressure cooker recipes?

The biggest difference I know between stovetop and electric pressure cookers is that the electric ones take much longer to release pressure after cooking. The ones I've seen/compared take roughly twice as long (10-15 minutes for stovetop, 20-25 for electric). Biggest reason I can think of is that you can move the normal pressure cooker away from the hot stove, but you can't move the electric one away from its heating element.

As a result, I would adjust the cooking times down by 10 minutes or so to compensate.

In regards to the high/low heat, the main advantage of electric pressure cookers is that they are more energy efficient, and are designed to distribute heat well. You shouldn't need to worry about heat variance--get it up to the pressure you need and start the timer.


Egg bread recipe calls for 2 eggs and 2 yolks, can I use 4 whole eggs?

Let's put it this way - you can, but there will be consequences, so you probably shouldn't.
Bread dough that behaves like you expect it to depends on a given amount of liquid for a given amount of flour. Using whole eggs instead of just the yolks called for increases the liquid, so you'll have a runnier dough while its raw, making it harder to knead, so then you're tempted to add more flour and everything gets out of whack.
.................
In bread making, an egg is a liquid. One egg yolk is about 20 grams of liquid. One egg white is about 40 grams.
So four eggs are 460=240 grams or milliliters (a bit more than a cup of liquid), while two eggs and two yolks are 260=120 grams plus 2*20=40 grams for 160 grams of liquid (a bit less than 3/4 of a cup).
So what to do with the leftover egg white? There were good suggestions here already, but I like to either freeze it for later use, or stir it with something flavorful (anchovy, parmesan, garlic, and then fry it up and eat it now or chopped in a salad later :)


Is it possible to avoid smoking when seasoning a cast iron pan after using it for deep-frying?

You never want to get all the oil off, which is why a bath in Fairy Liquid is not considered a good idea.
You can, however, get most of it off with hot water & salt & a scrub round with your dish-washing brush. This has for centuries been considered 'good enough'.
After which, a quick heat up back on the stove top until you're sure it's completely dry & you can put it back in the rack (once cooled if your storage demands it).
Smoking out your partner is not conducive to good relationships, nor really a 'better' non-stick surface. Normal usage should be enough to preserve both ;)


Why don't I have to refrigerate store-bought baby food but have to refrigerate home-made purees?

Shelf-stable wet foods in cans, jars, plastic pouches, and the like are generally sterilized by heating them under pressure, to the point where literally every microorganism that might be inside dies. The containers need to remain sealed to maintain the sterility -- verifying the seal is the purpose of the little "pops up" button on the top of jars which are processed this way (the processing leads to low pressure inside the jar, so a popped-up button indicates that the seal has been broken.)

If you have a pressure canner, it's entirely possible to make and can (well, jar) your own baby food. There's a variety of online resources describing how to do this. (I advise ignoring any which aren't on a domain ending in .edu or .gov; this is not something you want to follow amateur youtube advice on.) Note in particular that it is not possible to safely can baby food using just boiling water; you need special equipment.


The term rouhe in Finnish means "something coarsely ground" [1], [2]. (Google translates it as "groats", but that's a bit too simple.)

Double-checking with the English, German and Italian version of the shop, they always use a version of "grain or granule" in the specific language:  Note that "granello" in Italian, for example, which is about the shape, not a cereal.

As the product sites for the various "rouhe" claim that they use the whole berry, it means whole dried berries (aronia in your case), coarsely ground. The weight and volume data given is "250ml / 85g". I confirmed "dried" (as opposed to compote-style fruit preparations) by weighing a cup of fruit tea: 76 g, but of course a much coarser texture.

Edit:

Another website writes (according to google translate):

  Berry powders and grits, prepared by grinding whole dried berries, without adding or removing anything.

Edit 2:

The manufacturer suggests adding the granules into dairy products or porridge or using them in baked goods.


What oils are "required" for a decent home kitchen?

At a bare minimum, you'll want at least one "flavoured" and one "unflavoured" oil.

Olive oil is definitely the most common choice for a flavoured oil, and sunflower/peanut/canola oil all have pretty neutral flavours (not to mention similar smoke points).

Note that for good flavour you'll want extra virgin olive oil, which also makes it unsuitable for frying/sautéing at high temperatures.

So I would say that you already have the minimum requirement.  That said, even the "unflavoured" oils have subtly different flavour characteristics due to their different fat contents, and you'll want to take this into consideration if you like to cook in ethnic cuisines.  A short list (and keep in mind that this is partially subjective):

Peanut oil: Asian cuisine, Mexican cuisine (high-temperature frying)
Sesame oil: Asian cuisine (stir-fry or deep-fry [refined only])
Olive oil: Italian cuisine, French cuisine (low-temp)
Sunflower or Canola oil: American cuisine, esp. deep-frying
Grape seed oil: Decent substitute for any of the other oils
Walnut/almond oil: Great for fried desserts (watch the smoke point though).


Banana adds structure & moisture to baked goods, so you'd actually have to replace some egg, some butter, and some flour. When doing complex substitutions like this, it's usually best to find a recipe that's actually for the kind of cookie you want, in this case banana. Otherwise, you could just add some banana to the recipe as it is and go from there.

Of course, an easier method would be to use banana extract, which would replace the vanilla or other flavoring in your cookie.


How can you tell if a freezer rose above freezing?

The University of Ohio extension publishes a clever tip:

  Place two or three ice cubes in a plastic freezer bag and seal. Keep this in the freezer at all times. In an upright freezer, you can have a test bag on each shelf. If there is a power outage you will know if the interior temperature was above 32°F if the cubes melt. If the cubes are melted, quickly determine the temperature of the water in the bag and you will know the temperature inside the freezer.

Of course, they also recommend having a proper freezer thermometer.


Can I saute in one pan and bake in another?

You certainly can. To make cleaning up easier I would line it with parchment paper rather than add oil, although a little bit of oil would work too. There shouldn't be any reason to preheat the baking pan before putting it in the oven.


Is there any potential harm to using warm water in my sourdough starter?

I would limit the temperature of the water to around 110F.

140F is widely cited as the "Death Temperature".
At 120F the yeast is at it's "injury point" meaning you are harming the yeast, but may not kill it.
Some claims can be found stating water temperature as high as 95 can produce off flavors from the yeast when making bread. However, this really won't apply to your starter since it will make up such a small percentage of the loaf.

Here is a relevant, although not duplicate, SA post asking when eyast is killed: What temperature of water will kill yeast?

Some sources to skim through on the topic:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=67272
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC232826/
https://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/bread/yeast_temp.html
https://www.reference.com/science/temperature-kills-yeast-6cd7b72a3ed2d24b


How to best keep a bunch of coriander fresh?

For almost all delicate green herbs, the best thing to do is

Hold them by the bottom of the bunch and gently swirl in plenty of
cool water to remove all the dirt
Gently shake to remove excess water
Wrap loosely in a damp paper towel
Place in a plastic bag and store in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator

This will keep most herbs fresh for many days.


With the full recipe, it does not seem to me that the egg ratio is particularly high.  Most recipes I have seen and use tend to be around 2 eggs per cup (US), and yours is 6 for about 2 1/2, so slightly higher than what I have seen as about average, but well within range.

To me, egg custards always have some amount of egg taste, which is pleasant or offensive according to taste.  When skimming the video given (had no audio available, so I am just going by visuals) I felt they were adding cream mixture too quickly to temper the eggs without cooking, but that is opinion only.  If the hot is add to quickly though, it will scramble the eggs and give a much stronger egg taste.  One technique is to sieve the custard after tempering to remove any solidified egg, and some are happy with this result.  To me, it removes the solids, but not the flavor.

I will give a personal critique of the video, I frankly have never heard of breaking a custard and expecting it to come back together in a reasonable tasting form, but the video maker obviously disagreed.  I can only say that I assume they are happy with a stronger egg taste than many of would be.

If you wanted to experiment, I would think dropping 1, maybe 2 eggs might still give you adequate setting power, but going all the way to 3 would seem too big a cut.  Try experimenting, reducing 1 yolk at a time and see if you like the results.  Also try slowing you introduction of the hot cream mix to the egg and see if this helps.


Bumps on carbon steel seasoning, can I repair it

I think you are fine.  I personally feel the best way to continue to season a pan is to actually just to cook in it.  The first things I like after the oven or range top seasoning is to use onions, green onions and other inexpensive ingredients.  Perhaps also to deep fry some onion rings or french fries as well.  This will have the correct heat and also plenty of oil to seep into the pan.  Hope this helps.


Yes, that sounds like a great way to do it!

Prepare all of the components ahead of time, assemble the quesadillas, and stash them in the refrigerator.

When you return home with your guests, all you need to do it warm and serve.

The only real consideration is the moisture content of your veggies. You may not want to include them inside the tortilla during the fridge testing period of they are in danger of making the tortilla soggy. It probably won't be an issue, but it's something to consider. You can always cook up the veg and keep them in the fridge separately from the quesadillas until you are ready to heat.


You can store béchamel for 4-5 days safely in the refrigerator.  Cool the unused portion as quickly as possible after the sauce is finished and make sure to place a piece of cling film directly in contact with the surface of the sauce prior to refrigerating it so that it doesn't form a skin and slows down oxidation.  Do not freeze the sauce as it will likely break the emulsion.

Another way to make it easier to make your nightly béchamel would be to pre-make a larger batch of roux and freeze it in portions for later use in sauce.


Based on my experience rescuing overdone oatcakes, I suggest crumbling up the shortbread, maybe cutting off any obviously burnt edges, adding some sugar and then using it as the topping for a fruit crumble. You could add another complex taste by adding crumbled nuts to the topping. (Mix them in, else they will burn during the baking.) There will probably be some bitterness remaining, but I'd expect this to mask it and make something palatable for most people.


How to tell if fish is subjected to Ciguatera?

Not without a lab to test the fish.  Most outbreaks go unreported, or are spread too far apart. If it's local they would quit selling the fish for a week or two at a local market. That does not stop them from being shipped to a different location in 3rd world countries, or mixed in the fishing boats to be shipped wherever.


If you don't have any turkey, chicken, or vegetable stock or bouillon on hand, I would recommend using all water. That said, without stock or dissolved bouillon, your vegetables will not get the added extra flavor.

I would recommend adding a small amount of salt and/or other seasonings to the water so the vegetables won't be bland. E.g. of others, white or black pepper, poultry seasoning, garlic powder, or a spice blend like Mrs. Dash. Go light, as you can always add more later.

As others have commented, one cup is a huge amount of vinegar. And even a small amount of vinegar is likely to give the turkey an off taste and definitely will hurt the taste of the vegetables.


Is there any way to tell beforehand if you will get food poisoning from a meal?

While our senses can warn us of some potential problems, there are many pathogens that we can't detect by smelling, tasting, or feeling.  So, no, you generally can't tell from a bite or two of food.  Alternately, if you know how an establishment stores, processes, and prepares the food you are about to consume, you could probably make some meaningful assumptions about the safety of the food your are going to eat.  You are always taking a risk when you don't know how food was prepared and handled.  The risk may be very small most of the time, but sometimes even the finest restaurants in the world serve food that has been compromised.


Could Someone Please Help me to Identify What Type of Squash This One Is?

It appears to be a Cocozelle Green Striped Summer Squash, a type of zucchini.


Are sea bass fillets meant to be crisp on the flesh side when fried?

If you want to avoid getting the flesh side crispy start pre-heating the oven and a frying pan, then fry it skin side down for a few minutes, turn it and fry it just briefly on the flesh side, then transfer to a baking dish and finish it for a few minutes in the oven. Keep the skin side up and place it high in the oven to ensure the skin stays crispy.


Making pie or crisp out of thawed fruit that is mostly juice

You should include the liquid and account for it in measuring your thickener.
Remember: fruit is mostly water. Take a look at a chart listing fruits by water content. Berries, stone fruit, and your other likely pie candidates all hover around 85% water; most of it escapes while the pie cooks. So to get a thick pie filling, you need quite a bit of sugar and starch.
When fruit is frozen, ice crystals break up some of the structure of the constituent cells. When it thaws, the fruit will be quite soft and juices may escape. However, no new water is introduced. Thus you need to retain the juices to get the same overall water content as fresh fruit.
I would caution against thickening without any measurements though. To get consistent results, you should really be thickening by weight. I follow these instructions from Stella Parks: she thickens fruit with 5.5% of its weight in tapioca starch and 25% of its weight in sugar. Cornstarch is a slightly stronger thickener; consistent with this chart from King Arthur Flour, you should reduce the amount of thickener by a third.
Thus my final advise is:

Weigh out the berries and any escaped juices.
Multiply the weight by 0.25 and add that much sugar.
Multiply the weight by 0.037 and add that much cornstarch.

Cornstarch sets at 203°F (95°C) so make sure your pie filling is bubbling before removing it from the oven.


In my experience, they're best at concentrating mold spores, and hiding away unsightly loaves.

While chic, and quite popular in the days before plastic bags, they're not much use now. Pretty much the same as the "pie safe"


I have a French Coconut pie recipe that calls for 1/2 cup butter. Could I replace it with condensed milk instead?

Butter is about 80% fat, maybe a bit lower if you're getting it direct from the farmer; condensed milk is about 10% fat, so you'd need to use a lot of condensed milk and you'd probably have too much excess water to compensate by reducing extra liquids.

The best substitute would be another fat which is solid at room temperature. There aren't many (at least, not if you restrict to vegetable fats), but one which does meet the criterion is coconut oil, and since you're making a coconut pie that seems like an excellent substitute.


Same recipe but sometimes white chocolate cookies come out strange

White chocolate has a higher fat content than milk chocolate.  That's very likely throwing off the balance in your dough.  Even though you're using the same batch, more fat is being added to the white chocolate cookies as the chips break down.

You may need to reduce the butter or margarine that you use for the white chocolate cookie dough by a bit.  It's probably a very fine difference, perhaps 10-25% less butter.  That's a bit of a guess but please let us know your results if you give this a try.


Your oat bread is a quick bread recipe. Keep in mind that advice for quick breads is going to be very different than advice for yeast risen / glutinous breads.

In quick breads, the structure of the loaf is provided by egg protein and the moisture is mostly provided by fat.

Your recipe uses only egg whites which, as J K commented, have a drying effect on baked goods. The yolks in whole eggs have fat that help keep things moist.

Besides the water in your whites there is no other liquid and no fat in this recipe. I'm surprised that you were able to swallow it at all. This is a problem that plagues low calorie baked goods. You can make it a bit better than this recipe but don't expect it to ever be as good as recipes that have fat in them.

This recipe is so dry that I would have a hard time making suggestions on how to improve it without turning it into a new recipe that would have to be tested.

Some things to look for in recipes that will make them better:

Some added fat
It doesn't have to be a lot. Some quick breads have a lot of fat. Even a little bit will help. Some recipes will use part fat and part applesauce. The pectin in the applesauce helps make things tender and the extra liquid helps keep things moist.
As I said above, whole eggs are also nice for some good fats.
Less of the unswallowable ingredients
Those psyllium husks are going to be bone dry no matter what you do. If there is a lot of that in there have a glass of milk handy when you try and swallow it.
Added liquid
Not all recipes use added liquid but some like buttermilk can be very tasty additions.

My personal opinion is that I would rather eat less of something that tastes good than a lot of something gross. Low-calorie can be taken too far.

Another alternative is to abandon the bread idea altogether. This recipe would be very similar to low-calorie granola recipes if rolled out thinly.


This site has a recipe for the mix and recipes for using it.
http://kitchensimplicity.com/homemade-bisquick-mix/
Or google homemade bisquick


How to polish wine glasses if my hand cannot reach in?

Wine Enthusiast (and probably many other places) sells a couple of sizes of very soft brush for cleaning wine glasses.

I'd say your best bet is a soft brush or maybe just a piece of soft foam glued to a stick. Nothing very abrasive, and squishy enough that you can reach any small nooks inside if there are any.


Can I roast nuts in a convection microwave oven?

just toast them in a saute pan on low to medium heat youl achieve the same effect.

if you must use your microwave convection, you shouldn't use the "microwave" aspect of it and simply the convection.  Any use of the convection will increase your electricity substantially.


A sauteuse pan is a very versatile pan. If you have no lid, it's a great pan for sautéing and browning. With a thin layer of oil you can cook vegetables, scallops, latkes, etc. If you have lids that fit you can braise in these. You can also use to cook pasta, stews, etc. Copper is good conductor, so these should heat evenly. I also sometimes use a pan like this for pâte à choux. They sound like really nice pans.


That looks like Pork neck or shoulder without a bone. The best way to prepare it is to grill it or bake.


Cake flour is milled more finely than all purpose flour.  It also has a lower protein content, so less gluten is produced in the final product.  It is ideal for achieving the soft crumb of a cake.  That said, plenty of cakes are made with all purpose flour.  You would be able to perceive a difference in a side-by-side comparison.  In your own kitchen, with one cake, it is not going to matter too much.  I would suggest you sift your dry ingredients and move ahead with AP flour.  It will not be a problem.


If it's a summer squash you could maybe try freezing it? Since it's being turned into baby food anyway, preserving crisp, freshness isn't high on the list of priorities?

Disclaimer: I have no experience freezing summer squashes, but a quick google came up with this and it seems to make sense: http://www.pickyourown.org/freezing_summer_squash.htm

A further search reminded me that Alton Brown covers freezing stuff in an episode of Good Eats. He explains why the above blanching method works for many vegetables.


Why is my Green Tea Brown but then Green when I reuse the bag?

I know that with pu'er tea (not a green tea), they rinse and 'awaken' the tea with the hot water first - dumping out the first brew (seemed like a waste to me).  They say the 2nd is good, but the 3rd cup and on is much better !  I never noticed the color of my green tea changing, but I must admit i like the second pot better than the first - when re-brewing same tea leaves.  perhaps the oxidation from the leaves is brewed of in the first pot?


Why should you never re-freeze frozen vegetables?

The problem is two fold.
First is that thawing and unthawing make more and more water to penetrate to "object" breaking the cells. IMO such food (meat or veggies) become woody in texture and making it less tasty (sometimes I would even say I taste the freezer ice not the food).

Second is more serious. Bacteria. There are some bacteria, especially in your freezer, that develop once the food is thawing (or when the temp rise above certain degree). Such bacteria cannot be killed by re-freezing so each time you add more to the food. Same bacteria might not be killed by cooking.

NOTE: a food that have been once defrozen then properly prepared (cooked) can be refrozen again.


Using a starter with insufficient activity is basically the same thing as forgetting to add yeast to a non-sourdough loaf. If there's very little activity in the starter, then you don't have an established colony of wild yeast so there's nothing there that will make the dough rise. At this point, your bread is pretty much a loss. You could try to turn it into some form of flatbread by frying small rounds of it in a pan if you don't want to throw it out, but you're not getting a loaf of bread out of it.
As for your starter, the brown liquid is most likely hooch. It typically indicates that you're not feeding your starter often enough. Typically, your starter should be ready for use in 7-10 days from starting it. However, lots of factors like the temperature in your kitchen and precisely what kind of flour you use can affect the time it takes for a yeast colony to establish itself. Using it before you have a stable colony of wild yeast is a waste of time and ingredients since without the yeast it cannot replace commercial yeast in your bread. Patience will get you there faster than rushing.


Leaving any sort of sugar confection in the fridge (as it will out of the fridge also, but to a lesser extent) will soften the sugar after a prolonged period due to the moisture in the air. However, putting it in the fridge for a short period of time will simply speed up the cooling process as you put in your question.


As it stands this question is unanswerable as we don't know the specifics of your method - how long, what sort of pressure, acidity etc.

However, I would take crisp beans to mean that you probably didn't cook them for long, which means there is potential for the process to have not been heated to a high enough temperature for long enough to sterilize during the canning process. This means that you are at risk for Clostridium botulinum growth.

Is Clostridium common? - No, not very, but those cases of it are generally serious.

Now, the question remains: Is this a risk for you and your family? The answer to that is possibly! The National Center for Home Food Preservation page on green beans indicates that botulism is a risk for beans that have been incorrectly canned. They state that if you are worried and it is within 24 hours or the canning process, then you can eat immediately, store in the fridge up to 7 days (while eating), or repeat the canning process.


Sautéing vs Frying vs Caramelizing -- what's the difference?

I've never really considered there to be a real difference between sautéing and frying. They both mean to cook in a hot pan with a little bit of fat. However there isn't a lot of consistency online. It doesn't look like there's any sort of definitive answer here. Some points of view:

They're the same, although frying might involve slightly more oil. The terms are essentially interchangeable. This is the top hit on a google search "sauteing frying" (although this question is on the first page!).
As Aaronut says, sautéing involves jumping the food while frying involves a little more oil and less flipping or stiring of the food. Here's another source for this definition. This definition makes a delineation between pan frying and shallow frying.
Frying is the same as shallow frying and involves partially submerging the food in oil. Food is normally breaded first. There's no distinction between frying and shallow frying. This is Martha Stewart's definition.

As you can see, it's really all over the map, and that was just from the first page of the google results. I think we're getting in to issues with language changing beneath us. However, I think the safest bet is probably that sautéing involves a lot of stirring,  frying doesn't, and I should consider refining my own definitions.

Caramelizing (which fortunately doesn't have any of the same confusion) is a process that happens during cooking when sugar oxidizes. There are many different ways that you can achieve this effect. One of the ways is to sauté or fry (depending on your definition) something until the water sweats out and the remaining sugar heats up.

So the answer is that you are caramelizing the onions by sautéing (or maybe frying) them.


Breaking down a turkey for storage - brine before or after freezing?

According to Handbook of Food Science, Technology, and Engineering, Volume 3, edited by Yiu H. Hui,

the freezing of any meats, (particularly red meats), causes cell
walls to rupture
the rate of rupture is inversely proportionate to    the rate
freezing

Since household-grade freezers are of the slower sort, owing to an effort toward energy efficiency, when we at home freeze meats we are doing about as much damage as possible to the structural integrity of the meat at its most fundamental level, to wit, its cell walls.

The reason this is relevant to the question [of brining before or after freezing] is as follows. To brine meat is to infuse it with water or, as the wiki on Brining states here,

  ...makes cooked meat moister by hydrating the cells of its muscle
  tissue before cooking, via the process of osmosis, ...

Since water, unique among all molecules, is the only substance which actually expands when frozen rather than contracts, the absorption of additional water into the individual cells of the meat is now guaranteed to facilitate further rupturing of the cell walls, that is, if brining is performed prior to freezing.

Certainly therefore it is counterproductive to attempt to brine meat before freezing it, at least in the home setting. The greater quantity of ruptured cell walls, caused by the introduction into the cells of more water prior to freezing, ensures that the meat once thawed and undergoing preparation will have that many fewer cell walls in tact, that is, cell walls by which to keep the moisture in the cell. The result will be a product less moist than one would have obtained had brining not been performed.

Here we find a perfectly thorough blog entry on the brining of turkey where, it must be said, we find that the author does not present a brine-to-freeze option. The author does however confirm that "11% sodium" on the label represents a turkey brined by the manufacturer, (which we'll hope to find refrigerated by our grocer, not frozen). The above graphic, which applies only tangentially to the question at hand, was obtained from that blog entry. Its relevance however speaks for itself.


How to deal with overproofed pizza dough?

Over-proofed dough can be saved.  So, if your dough is truly over-proofed.  Degas it, reshape it (in a ball for pizza), and allow it to proof again.


If you're really worried about it, put some superglue over it. It actually works really well...Just don't stick your fingers together. Regular superglue can irritate your skin, so if you have time to plan ahead, buy some Dermabond, which is a cyanoacrylate surgical glue...They use it in place of stitches sometimes. Works great. Your wounds will NOT seep. Period.

Honestly though, people get cut all the time in professional kitchens, and I've never seen someone do more than slap some glue or a piece of tape over it, and keep going. You can't just quit work for a couple of days without throwing the whole business into chaos. It's a rough trade.


You want to use a gentle heating method. For this sort of thing, I prefer steaming. It will gently bring up the heat of your food without wringing the moisture out of it. This is especially helpful if it's already cut into relatively small portions, such as slices of breast meat. Spread everything out on a single layer on the steamer basket before hand.

Warming drawer would be my second choice. Slice, add a few teaspoons of water, and cover and add to your warming drawer, set to your target temperature.


Cooking bolognese sauce in stainless steel versus dutch oven?

Yes and no.

Stainless steel is not "reactive"; generally that term refers to cast iron, aluminium, or copper cookware. So from that perspective you can swap it.

However, a recipe which expects a ceramic or enameled cast iron dutch oven probably is calibrated for cookware that has a high thermal mass and slow heating for its contents.  So if your stainless-steel pot has thin walls & bottom, you will need to adjust heat levels and cooking times, and stir more often to prevent burning.


Are recipes for Antonin Carême's original mother sauces available?

You can find a digital version of a treatise on French cuisine written by Carême (in French) at this link.
There are recipes and instructions in it; I don't know if there is any English version of it, though.


Is there a scale for measuring level of roast?

There are two factors here: surface treatment and doneness. Doneness (as mentioned above) is a factor of temperature and time. Surface treatment, browning, and crust, may be more what you're asking about.

There are simple ways to measure surface browning:

colour (pink, grey, brown, freckled brown, and black)
dryness (wet -> dry)
thickness (thin -> thick)

So a good BBQ chunk of meat may have a dark colour (lots of browning, some burning) and a fairly wet and thick crust. It's wet, in that it's not crispy or crackled, and it's thick as in it's described as "bark".

A blackened, pan-fried steak will have a thin(ish) dry black crust, but show very little grey, assuming something like rare or medium rare.

A BBQed (not grilled) steak will have a slightly thicker, wetter crust.

A good smash burger will have a thin, fairly dry, and brown crust (possibly speckled).

A round/inside roast will be in between somewhere (probably), and can side anywhere from brown to dark, but usually fairly rare inside (up to medium).

A pot roast may be dark, but will almost always be wet and basically be all "crust" (or all one colour). Sometimes you brown pot roast ahead of time, in which case the surface may have some colour too.

A prime rib will have a wetish and darkish crust, and be very rare inside (ideally).

You may also consider the seasoning (and depth of seasoning) of a roasted food. BBQ often has a thick bark that is also seasoned most of the way through. Something like corned beef is cured, so has seasoning throughout (and on the surface).


Baking bread with a firm texture that doesn't grow mold

Mold grows on bread because mold spores in the air, or on hands or other surfaces, get transferred to the bread. Bread has plenty of nutrients for these spores to grow.  Mold growth is enhanced by temperatures over 70 degrees F (21C). Humidity and moisture also favor mold growth.
There are a couple of things you can recommend or do to reduce mold growth.
Bread should be handled with clean hands.
Bread should be kept well wrapped.
Refrigeration dramatically slows mold growth.
Freezing virtually stops mold growth.
If not freezing, consume bread as soon as possible.
Margarine and milk help keep the texture soft, and reduce staling.  If you want a firmer texture, you might consider a formula without these ingredients.


Uneven baking in a convection microwave oven

Convection-baking in a "convection microwave" is a bit like conventional baking in a toaster oven; it's more or less the same principle but you really can't expect the same results as a conventional oven (or full-size convection oven).

That being said, if you're attempting the recipes in a convection microwave or even a real convection oven without any modifications, you may be using too high a temperature, or cooking for too long. The guideline for conversion (and this is just a guideline, not a rule or guarantee) is to subtract 25-30° F / 10-15° C from the temperature, and 25-30% from the cooking time.

So, for example, if a recipe calls for baking at 350° F for 60 minutes, your first attempt in a convection oven should be 325° F for 45 minutes.

Again, please keep in mind that a convection microwave is still fundamentally a microwave oven. No matter what their marketing claims say, it is not a substitute for a conventional/convection oven and you are not going to see equivalent performance.


Will storing salted steak overnight ruin the meat?

It's quite possible that meat might even be improved.  From an article at Serious Eats :

  Indeed, the absolute best steak I had was one that I had salted on both sides then allowed to rest on a rack overnight in the refrigerator uncovered. It appears to dry out slightly, but it's only superficial—the amount of drying that occurs from an overnight rest (about 5% moisture loss) is negligible compared to the amount of moisture driven off during cooking anyway (upwards of 20%, even more in the hard-seared edges). As the salt makes its way back into the meat, you'll probably also notice that it becomes a deeper color. That's because the dissolved proteins scatter light differently than they did when they were still whole.

The 'uncovered' is important in the discussion of 'dry brining', as you want the surface to dry out without needing to blot it (which would remove salt with it) ... it doesn't have to be completely uncovered, but whatever cover it has should allow sufficient air flow for it to dry out.


What is this Austrian dish? It resembles potato croquettes?

The term you are looking for is "Rösti-Taschen". Alternatives could be for example "Rösti Tascherl" (Austrian diminuitive) or "(gefüllte) Kartoffeltaschen" (denoting the ingredient).

They are sold as convenience food by various suppliers (1, 2), recipes to make them from scratch seem rather scarce (and typically in German).

The base principle is making a dough from starchy potatoes, egg, flour butter etc., wrap it round the desired filling and deep (or shallow) -fry them in fat. Breading them is optional, but can help them keep their shape. I suggest starting with a recipe for croquettes and a recipe for the desired type of filling, then combine them. Tweak as necessary.


This is difficult to describe without pictures or diagrams. However I have found a great video on YouTube courtesy of Gourmet magazine.


How to Remove Excess Water from Chicken/Other Meats Prior to Cooking?

You can salt the chicken a few hours or a day in advance of cooking it (you don't need a lot of salt, just whatever you'd normally use to properly season it), and store it uncovered in the refrigerator on a small rack over a plate. The salt will draw moisture to the surface of the meat, and leaving it open to the fridge will allow some evaporation to occur. This is sometimes called "dry-brining". That should help but I don't think it will ever get the meat to the point it would be if the water had never been added in the first place.

Another thing to consider is the type of pan you're cooking in. A frying pan with short, flared sides will allow more evaporation to occur during cooking than a pan with taller, straight sides. Also, don't crowd the pan: make sure that there is empty space around each piece of chicken to allow as much evaporation as possible.


Ideally, wood for smoking needs to be chipped, probably using a wood chipper though you could do small batches by hand using a chisel or bandsaw.  Chips allows a greater surface area and gives a more consistent behaviour compared to large blocks of wood.

Whether you need to dry of not depends on several factors such as how old the wood is (I've never used apple or fig to smoke personally) and how much sap/sapwood it contains.  While I have not tried with green wood, I suspect it would just take longer to catch as the fire you put it on will dry it naturally.  Others on BBQ/smoking forums such as http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=18832.0 say they have tried it and it works fine but obviously YMMV.

As for the bark - I would say for the smaller sticks where the bark is relatively thin then it's fine to leave on, but with larger branches I would remove it.  In some types of tree the bark contains more oil than the rest of the wood (e.g. Birch), meaning you will get a blacker, sootier type of smoke that is generally undesirable for smoking food.


How long to sous vide shoulder lamb chop?

Time will determine texture and your target texture is really up to you. Folks typically recommend the “pinch test”. Squeeze the bag and feel it out as you go. Once it’s pasteurized (id refer you to Baldwin for that data) you can shock it and throw it in the fridge and hold until whenever you are serving, so it’s best to start early.

I haven’t personally processed this particular cut SV, so I don’t have a personal recommendation for you. I recommend keeping a log of every cook you perform with notes about texture so you can refer back to it in subsequent cooks.

My gut tells me that anything in that listed range will work for you. They will just provide different textures. If you’re looking for tender, go longer.


Can I use the stovetop while a dough is leavening in the oven?

Do you have a thermometer?  Place it in your oven.  Check temp.  Turn on your burners/use stove for a bit.  Check temp.  You will then know for sure.


Why does melted asiago impart a strong numbing mouthfeel?

Perhaps you are experiencing and allergic reaction.

I got a numb palate and lips from eating sourdough with generous flour on the outside, never had that before. On googling this, it seems it's a form of intolerance. Dry flour baked on a loaf is not the usual way to ingest wheat, and there was a lot of it! Glutens and gliadins in wheat, casein in milk products as well as many other proteins can react with sensitive skin like the mouth.


Can you substitute Asian red chili paste (e.g. Thai Kitchen's Roasted Red Chili Paste) for Sambal Oelek?

The author of the linked recipe appears to be substituting in turn for gochujang, which in addition to spice has a bit of a yeasty, fermented flavor not unlike miso (no surprise, since both include fermented soybean).  Sambal oelek will be brighter, generally hotter, and looser in texture.  It's less of a paste than the chili stuff used here, so the resulting sauce will be a bit thinner once mixed and may not adhere to the pork as well.

If it's all you've got, then substitute away!  You'll probably still enjoy the end result.  However, if you'd like to get a bit closer, here are a couple things you could try, in descending order of effort:

Add about 1/2 teaspoon or so of cornstarch to the sauce to thicken and balance the texture of the sambal oelek.
Add a small dab of miso paste to the sauce (hard to measure exactly, but I'd say 1/2 to 1 teaspoon depending on your brand of miso).  This will have a similar thickening effect and get you a little closer to the flavor of the original gochujang paste.
Head to a local asian market and find yourself some gochujang, then substitute for equal quantity for the chili paste in the recipe.  Don't worry about having extra, you could use this in a huge range of asian-inspired marinades or other sauces.

As a final aside that has nothing to do with your question, I just noticed that the author of the linked recipe lists one of the last steps as sauteeing the carrots and bean sprouts together.  I'd suggest that you definitely not do this to your poor bean sprouts.  Go and cook the carrots, or you could cheat and use the coarse side of a box grater to serve them raw with a much nicer texture.  That's what I'd do with a dish like this.


How do I make large spheres using spherification?

All you need to do is put the liquid on a spoon and slowly lower it into the bath while tipping so it falls off. It may take a few tries but it isn't difficult to master. Naturally, larger spheres are a bit more delicate so will require gentle handling to remove from bath, rinse, and plate.


You ask about coating, but it is actually not very important. There are other criteria with much higher priority when you are making caramel or other types of candy. The important thing about pan when making caramel is even heating. Especially when making your caramel dry, you cannot afford hot spots, because you cannot stir. But if you are taking the candy into the later caramel stages, even heating becomes important for syrup-started candy too.

You need a responsive pan if you are making caramel. Sadly, the most evenly heating pans are also the least responsive and vice versa. I would never make caramel on a resistive stove in iron, but I use a small enamelled Dutch oven for caramel on my induction plate. A good sandwiched steel with an aluminum core should offer a decent tradeoff between evenness and responsiveness on most stove types.

You also need the correct size pan. If your caramel is less than 1 cm deep, it is very hard to handle without burning it. If it is deeper than 5 cm, there is too much of a heat gradient in the depth. Choose the pan diameter such that your caramel depth will be between 1 and 5 cm roughly.

If you are going to add any kind of liquid to the caramel (or butter), you'll experience lots of foam. You need a deep walled vessel to catch this foam. Use a deep sauce pan or a small pot instead of a frying pan. You want 10 cm wall above the caramel level.

Aside from a seasoned cast iron pan, I haven't experienced a coating adsorbing flavors. PTFE, ceramic, enamel, anodized alu or no coating - none of them matters. Use whatever you have handy. For cleaning, follow Elendil's advice for dissolving the smears in hot water.


Tortilla is basically Mexican bread to make Quesadilla, Enchiladas or tacos. It is a fine ground flour containing either wheat or corn for wheat tortilla and corn tortilla.


It depends on your portion size.  If you figure a 6 oz portion and 45 - 50% loss on boneless pork butt (based on some internet research)...I would estimate that 26 lbs would feed around 35 people.


How do I make scrambled egg whites more like scrambled eggs?

I'm not going to claim that I know a good answer to this question, and I hope perhaps other people can contribute other ideas.

I think this is a hard thing to find information on (particularly to obtain the "richer" element of whole eggs), partly because many people deliberately eat egg whites alone to save on calories.  But, like you, I sometimes end up with an excess of egg whites after baking or cooking something with a lot of yolks.

Slow cooking -- and most importantly, not overcooking -- seems to be a bigger issue than with whole eggs.  Otherwise, they end up tough.  I haven't tried it myself, but I've read that some people poach them instead (a "poach scramble") just to keep them tender and not overcooked.

But if you want to fry them as "normal" scrambled eggs, the only thing you can really do to improve them is add something else.  Here are a few things I've tried that might help:

Mix in a whole egg per 1 to 3 egg whites.  It's not as rich or flavorful as all whole eggs, but it's more tolerable and has more of the standard "eggy" flavor.  I don't find a 1:1 mixture to be that bad at all.  Obviously the more you dilute it, the less it's like whole eggs.
Add a dash or two of heavy cream (or other relatively rich dairy).  It will add back a little tenderness and richness.
Add more butter than you'd usually use for whole scrambled eggs.  Same effect as above.
If there are any herbs, vegetables, meats, cheese, or other ingredients you like in scrambled eggs or omelets, try adding some.  That can distract from the lack of flavor in the eggs themselves.


How to prep jicama - is peeling necessary?

Jicama does have a tough thick skin that is usually always removed.  As you know from your experience there are two layers...the outer dark papery skin and then the tough dark yellow fibrous portion.

The best way I've found (with least amount of frustration) is to peel it the same as you would a pineapple:  Trim off both ends and then cutting from top to bottom following the countours of the vegetable to cut just under the skin.

I've never seen or heard of anyone using it skin-on.


Is it possible to ferment milk Kefir using water Kefir liquid?

No, you cannot do that. Unlike other cultured dairy products like yogurt, kefir needs both the right bacteria and a fungus to ferment. The liquid will have the bacteria, but the fungus "mother" - the kefir grains - will be missing. To make new kefir constantly, you really need to keep kefir grains, and specifically milk kefir grains.

If you only make kefir rarely, there is the option of buying dried kefir culture, which contains a sufficient amount of ground grains to give you fermented kefir without the need to breed a grain colony that needs to be kept alive permanently. But if you want a supply of kefir, the cost effective option is to breed the grains.


You should get a carbon steel wok with two short handles (not one long handle).

You want the steel to build up a patina of oxidized oils, which rules out stainless steel and aluminum and non-stick. You could conceivably get a cast-iron wok, but those are really heavy.

You want the two small handles so you can pick up the wok, but you don't want long handles that will dump hot oil or food everywhere if you bump them. Unlike a saute pan, you don't toss the pan, you toss the food. (Tossing the pan pulls it away from the flame, which is bad when stir-frying!)

Your best bet is to go to an Asian grocery. You'll be assured of getting a product at a good price. Shouldn't cost more than $25, I don't think.

Oh, one other question is what sort of stove you have. If you have an electric stove, (a) I'm sorry, and (b) you have to get a flat-bottomed wok. If you have a gas stove, you can either get a flat-bottomed wok or a round-bottomed wok, but the latter only if you get a wok ring that holds the pan just above the flame. You want as much heat going into that pan as you possibly can manage!


It sounds like you're making something closer to a barm. In "The Bread Baker's Apprentice", Peter Reinhart recommends making a 'Barm' using by weight, 7oz starter, 1# each water and flour. His starter is .5 cup water and 1 cup flour daily and discard half.

He uses the barm to make a firm starter ( 4oz barm, 4.5 oz flour, 1-2 oz water). Let this rise for 4 hours and refrigerate overnight. Add 20.25 oz flour, .5 oz salt, and 12-14 oz water. Kneed together and let rise for 3-4 hr, proof and bake.

You could just add more flour and you'll be fine though, or reduce the water some AND add flour. It wouldn't hurt to increase the percentage of the starter in your final dough to closer to half the weight of the flour.

One thing to know is that the ratio of water to flour in your starter will affect the ratio of acetic acid bacteria and lactic acid bacteria. Acetic acid bacteria prefer firm starters, so if you prefer that flavor, adjust the hydration of your starter.


Proportions for improvised cran-apple juice

Searching for "substitute fresh cranberry for cranberry juice" (because that's the actual substitution you need to make) gives you this nifty recipe for cranberry juice.

Proportion is 1:2 w/v ratio on fresh or frozen berries as juice equivalent (100g berries = 200mL juice).

CHECK THE LABEL of your juice to verify the ingredients just to be safe - if you have pure cranberry juice, I'd stick with 1:1 w/v ratio and then add more if necessary.


Techniques to get a nice golden-brown crust on bread

The trick is steam and high heat.

Heat your oven up to 450 F (230 C).
Bring a pot of water to boil on your stove.
Once boiling, pour the water into a deep roasting pan on the bottom shelf of your oven. If you can place it directly on the bottom of your oven (it doesn't obstruct vents) then that is ok too. 1" (2.5 cm) of water is enough.
Let the steam build up for 5 minutes
Spray your baguettes with water, they should be rather nicely wet. Don't forget to slash them as well
Put your baguettes in the oven on the top shelf. BE CAREFUL opening your oven. Don't let the steam blast you in your face or other exposed body parts. Let it dissipate a bit.
5 minutes into baking, spray the baguettes again (be careful)
10 minutes into baking, spray the baguettes again
15 minutes into baking, carefully remove the tin of water from the oven
Let bake for a final 20 minutes

Depending on how even your oven is browning the crust you may need to turn the pan at the spray intervals.


Yes, honey last "forerver".
It might crystalize overtime , but you can liquify it with a little bit of heat.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-behind-honeys-eternal-shelf-life-1218690/
As always, if you do not feel safe eating something, just throw it.


I need to know how long to cook potatoes at 350*F

Whatever your book told you about cooking time, forget it. It will only work if you use the exact same size and shape potatoes as the book author, in an oven which has the exactly same deviation from the temp on the dial as the author's (I have to yet see an oven which doesn't deviate).

If you have a baking thermometer, set the alarm to 96 celsius, stick it into a potato and bake until it peeps. If you don't, you will have to check for doneness as James McLeod suggested. Luckily, you won't have much trouble if you overbake them, they will still be good. They will start breaking down if you hold them way too long, maybe half an hour after they got ready. But this means that you have a half an hour window of error.


No-melt chocolate coating on ice cream bars

I have also dabbled in tempering chocolate, but have never been able to get something that you could hold for a while without melting in your hands.  I've also never tried coating ice cream bars.

I think you should be able to do it with a high fat(butter, cocoa butter, coconut oil) chocolate mixture.  It will probably seem like entirely too much fat, but that is going to firm up and become a shell when wrapped around something cold and creamy.  Here's a recipe for "magic shell" (I'm sure that is actually trademarked by Hersheys) that that goes something like 2:3 cocoanut oil to chocolate.  That should give you something that resists dripping down your hand.

Then again, you could always just make ice cream pops instead.  Just shove a popcicle stick in it and you have clean hands, but that's not what you asked.


Which preservatives/additives in ingredients can interfere with kimchi-style fermentation?

Chlorinated tap water.

The effect on the ferment may be negligible, but I've never bothered to test it, lest there be unwanted putrefaction.

Boil the water that you're going to use to make your brine, then add salt and let cool.  The chlorine should volatilize at the boil.


What are some good ways to Roast Peppers

If you have a gas range, just fire up a burner. Make sure to have some tongs ready if you can't rest the pepper at a good height above the flame. (You'll probably want them to turn the pepper anyways.)

Once sufficiently blackened (and not on fire mind you) toss in a paper bag and close it. Let it rest and the residual heat inside the pepper will continue to steam it from the inside out.

Once cooled, remove the skin.

Feel free to use water to cool or help remove the skin, but you may wash away some flavorful oils.

I prefer this method as it lets me keep an eye on the pepper the whole time instead of having to peek at a hidden broiler. Plus, you can make sure you get an even roast.


Is there a reason to not add salt when making a soup?

Because as you are cooking your soup, water in your soup is evaporating away as steam. You might salt a soup perfectly halfway through, but after evaporation, your now thicker soup is too salty.

  When adding salt, wait until the end of the cooking process, as soups will reduce and concentrate the flavors as the liquid evaporates.

[ Source: http://allrecipes.com/howto/cooking-questions-soup/ ]


You need to change out the milk for buttermilk OR the baking powder for baking soda. Either of which will improve will improve the ability of the batter to form air pockets, thus becoming more buoyant, once in contact with the oil, thereby causing the cake to rise to the surface.

You would probably also get better results by removing the baskets altogether and using a spider to scoop the finished funnel cakes out of the oil. This should stop the problem of the batter clinging to the submerged baskets.


What direction must one stir molten chocolate?

I see enough here: Rheological measurements of chocolate quality:

non-Newtonian liquid
non-ideal plastic behavior
time-dependent behavior
Thixotropic/non-thixotropic transition

To make me think that changing the direction in which you are stirring melted chocolate might easily cause changes in the properties of the melt that take a while to settle down.
However, if there were a "clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere" rule, or some such, that rule should appear in the cited tech literature. It does not, so there probably is no such rule.


Yes, they are still safe to use. You aren't going to be able to heat them to the point where the metal starts breaking down — at least, not without starting a fire.

Your only concern might be if your pots have a nonstick coating, which can be damaged above temperatures of 500 F and begin emitting noxious fumes. According to DuPont:

  The fumes that are released by overheated [Teflon coatings] can produce symptoms referred to as "polymer fume fever" — flu-like symptoms that are relatively quickly reversed in humans.

The residue you're seeing is likely just some mineral deposits that, as mentioned, can be removed with vinegar or other food-safe solvent.


Does the speed of opening of a bottle of wine influence its flavour?

This seems to be a myth based on the idea that wine can be 'bruised' by popping the cork or handling the bottle roughly.

'Dr Vinny', Wine Spectator Magazine's advice expert, has this to say on the subject:

  Someone asked whether or not making a cork "pop" when you pull it will bruise the wine. Others have also asked about bruising in relation to decanting. I've never had a wine that was fine one moment and damaged the next because of handling, and can safely say that bruising wine is a myth.

Source: http://www.winespectator.com/drvinny/show/id/5369

and also:

  A wine does not get “bruised” by moving it around. And let me address some other myths, such as that wine will bruise if you make a cork “pop” or bruise if you decant it: no and no. Outside of smashing a bottle on a concrete floor, there is nothing I know of that will take a perfectly fine wine and damage it in one movement.

Source: http://www.winespectator.com/drvinny/show/id/40542

You are more likely to have a problem with an old, crumbly cork falling into the wine than some pseudo-homeopathic magic going on when the cork pops.


The optimum amount of time depends on what you want to achieve:

If you aim for alcohol-infused fruit, you should be fine with a short time. The taste of the fruit will start to change after only a few hours (think of soaking fruit for a punch), from then the extraction of fruit flavours into the alcohol continues. For this approach, choose a liquor that complements your fruit because it will remain quite discernible.
A good middle ground is usually reached after two (soft fruit) to eight (harder fruit) weeks. The alcohol should have absorbed a good amount of fruit flavour but the fruit keep enough to be still tasty. Just sample a bit occasionally until you reach the desired state.
For flavoring alcohol you want to soak for a minimum of six weeks, but here often longer is better. The taste will change over time, usually getting "rounder" or even change significantly from the original taste of the chosen fruit + alcohol combination. The fruit may or may not be tasty after this time, but usually should have given up most aromatic compounds into the alcohol - alcohol is a solvent, after all. Because you aim to take the flavour from the fruit, you can go with a "neutral" kind of liquor here, but you may just as well use something with more character. I currently have a batch of quince liquor made with only the peels and cores (in Korn) in my storage area that has been there for four(!) years. It has developed beautiful undertones of almond, vanilla and honey and is ready to be strained whenever I have a bit of free time.

Another element to consider is the fruit-to-alcohol ratio:

The less alcohol is present, the less solvent is there to draw the aromatics from the fruit. This means, for flavoured fruit, barely covering them is enough while to "fully" extract the fruit you might go for a liquid level that is up to twice as high as the fruit in your container.

For longer soaking times, the alcohol content is crucial. I learned that everything over 40 %vol (= 80 proof) should be fine to keep the fruit from spoiling during extraction even at room temperature. Use higher proof if using a higher (soft) fruit content w/o sugar if you plan on soaking long term. But always use unblemished fruit. Not only to ensure the shelf life of your product, but also because even slight traces of an "off" taste can be amplified and and spoil your whole batch.

The addition of sugar is optional, keep in mind that your fruit bring sugar, too. Sugar may speed up the extraction process a bit because it helps breaking down the cells. This may or may not be desired. Also, sugar acts as a preservative, so it's recommended for lower-alcohol concoctions.

If you like the results of your pear experiment, you might consider setting up a "Rumtopf" as an ongoing project for summer:

Starting in June with strawberries, layer about 1/2 to 1 pound of fruit with 1/2 the weight of sugar in a large jar, cover with rum (preferably 110 proof) and weigh down with a plate. Rum should be always 1 inch above fruit level. Close the pot and store in a dark space if the pot is not opaque. During summer, top up with more fruit and sugar whenever they are ripe (cheries, peaches, raspberries, pears, plum...). Start serving 6 weeks after the addition of the last fruits.


Smoking, which imparts wonderful flavor, is also a preservation method. In fact, that is how it was started. A smoked ham hock will have a low moisture content and long shelf life. Sell by dates are estimates, so this hock is good for quite a while after the date. Remember, too, that a 'Buy before' date then has a shelf life after it.

All that being said, there are official food safety guidelines, then there are the practices that many people use all over the world. A smoked, refrigerated hock should be good for weeks, even months, unless someone is infirm or has weak immune system, or that particular piece of meat is statistically loaded with bacteria. A couple days, a week is totally fine. You can freeze it to extend the life, since it will most likely be simmered for a while when used.

Really it is a choice between going by printed shelf life guidelines and using your judgement and past experience.


I have a built in deep fryer outside. Is it safe to leave oil in it

Assuming that your fryer is protected from the elements, the safety issues for an outdoor fryer are the same as for an indoor one. Fryer oil can be used over and over again. It absolutely does not need to be to be changed every use. Restaurants that use fryers a lot will filter the oil on a daily or near daily basis, but even oil that gets used a lot doesn't get changed daily. Changing the oil is not a matter of safety. While there is some minor long-term health risk associated with eating oil that is past its peak quality, it's not an immediate food safety issue. Since you use your fryer only about once a week, it should be fine for three months perhaps filtering it two or three times. Even the filtering is for quality purposes only, pathogens cannot survive in fryer oil.

The bottom line is that oil that still tastes good is fine to use.


Options for non-stick frying pans - not using teflon

Cast iron or carbon steel. Both require seasoning with oil and neither are non-stick immediately, but rather after seasoning and some use, the pans become more non-stick over time. But once they're properly seasoned, they're as non-stick or nearly as non-stick as teflon and the like. They do, however, require the use of fats in cooking. And they can last 30 or 50 years. Or longer.


What causes tea to be bitter, and how can I avoid that bitterness?

Storing Tea

You tea should never become bitter due to your storage methods. The only thing that should happen to tea as a result of how you store it is general loss of flavor or loss of the complexity of flavor (in a green tea, you might lose any honey or fruit notes of a tea that has been improperly stored, but it'll still taste like green tea).

There are a couple of factors at play when storing tea. The first is light. Exposure to light will degrade the quality of tea, stripping it of both color and flavor. Light also sets off a chain of reactions that destroys the antioxidants found in tea. So, you should store your tea in a light-blocking container (like a typical metal tea tin).

The next factor is air. Tea needs to be stored in a place that does not have any strong-smelling other foods or chemicals because it absorbs other odors very easily. In addition, tea absorbs moisture from the air, so it needs to be stored in a dry place. Moisture can cause several different problems with your tea: it could start binding to the tannins and make your tea taste bitter when you eventually brew it, and excess moisture could provide breeding grounds for bacteria or fungus, which would make your tea unfit for brewing at all. So, store your tea in an airtight container that blocks moisture and any other nearby odors. Vacuum sealing is not necessary, unless you want to keep a batch of tea for a long time without using it at all.

I haven't found any evidence supports claims of oxidation affecting taste more than moisture or light. Different types of tea are created by oxidizing tea leaves (white teas are the least oxidized, black teas the most, and greens and oolongs are somewhere in between), so oxidation is not inherently bad for tea.

To sum it up: Protect your tea from the harmful effects of light, moisture, ambient odors, and air by storing it in an airtight container in a cool, dark place. If stored properly, most kinds of tea leaves should retain most of their flavor for about two years, though fresher is always better. (Some teas, like Japanese green teas, are traditionally only stored for about 3 months.)

Brewing Tea

In order to achieve the best taste, brew tea according to the processor's instructions (at least to start with - once you become more familiar with tea and what you like, you can adjust according to taste). The tea manufacturer's want their tea to taste good, and they are experts, so you can rely on them to provide decent instructions. I've never bought tea that didn't have instructions for brewing right on the package, but in case you find some that don't have instructions, here are some general guidelines. I've taken this from Upton Tea's Brief Guide to Tea, and it corresponds to my own experience with making tea and chatting with tea importers / shop owners, too.

Whole Leaf Teas

black teas: boiling (212°F / 100°C) water, steep for 3-4 minutes; if serving with milk or lemon, steep 4-5 minutes
green teas: slightly less than boiling (180°F / 82°C), steep 2-3 minutes
oolong teas: lighter oolongs use warm (180°F / 82°C) water, steep for 2-3 minutes
white teas: less than boiling (180°F / 82°C) water, steep for 2-3 minutes
herbal tisanes: boiling (212°F / 100°C) water, steep for 5-8 minutes

Fanning, Crushed Leaves, or Powder

This is what most pre-bagged teas are, and since they have been processed to be finer, they require a shorter brewing time. (Finer leaves means more surface area, so you get more tannins per second when brewing, compared to tea leaves in larger pieces.)
Use guidelines above, but brew for 1-1.5 minutes less than whole leaf teas

The bitter taste comes from tannins. There are two ways for tea to become unpleasantly bitter: steeping at too high a temperature, or steeping for too long. (It's also possible that if your water is heavily chlorinated or otherwise impure that it could be making your tea taste bad, but that's far less likely than improper brewing.) If you're making tea from loose tea leaves, using too many leaves could also make your tea bitter; a good rule of thumb is 1 teaspoon of tea per 8 oz of water, though this can vary depending on the type of tea you're making.

Generally speaking, the longer you brew tea, the more tannins will be released and the bitterer the tea will be. If you use the times above as a starting point, you shouldn't get any overly bitter tea, but remember: each batch of tea is unique, and each tea drinker's taste is different. Experiment until you find what you consider to be the perfect cup of tea.

Lastly, start with good quality tea. Some tea is poorly processed and the flavor is ruined before you've even opened the package. If you start with a high-quality tea, you're much more likely to get good results. :)


All Atlantic Salmon* is farmed, so for it to be "Norwegian" it had to come from a farm off the coast of Norway (which is the world's third largest source) then shipped to Greece for further processing. The colour is added in their feed because they're pale compared to wild salmon otherwise; so Greece was potentially where it was filleted & cured. The trip to Greece would have probably been by ship, whole, frozen. Possibly on ice, by truck, but Greece is a long way from Norway by road.
It could even have been processed before shipping or en route, so Greece was left to do just the final packaging.
Some details & numbers on this page - 5 Key Differences Between Atlantic Salmon And Wild Salmon.
Shipping information from SeafoodFromNorway.com
*Atlantic Salmon is the species, there's only one in the Atlantic, whether it's called Canadian, Scottish or Norwegian.


The purpose of this liquid is to prevent the cheese or tofu from drying out. Its main use is for storage, not for consumption. If you don't consume the cheese at once after opening the original package, you are supposed to transfer the liquid into a storage container, or replace/fill up with water.

There are people who drink the whey, because they like the taste. There isn't much to be said here; they pour it into a glass and drink, without further preparation.

Otherwise, any recipe which uses water can use whey instead. The taste difference for mild wheys such as mozzarella and tofu whey will be very slight, almost unnoticeable. There is nothing special to take into account, except a small probability that you won't like the taste and would prefer to use water instead. There is no way to predict whether you will find the taste harmonious: it is a personal preference.

A known use for the whey created during cheese making is to make ricotta. It will not work with tofu whey, and I don't think it will work with the liquid in commercial mozzarella packaging either; you'd have to make your own cheese to get the necessary type of whey for ricotta.


How to stick oreo biscuits together to make a tower?

I'd recommend that unless you're just stacking oreos on top of each other, that you use something else for structure and then afix the oreos on using icing as a mastic.

Typically, you'd use one of the following:

A hollow structure made of gingerbread sheets, fastened together
A bit of dense cake (eg, pound cake), cut down to the proper size
Rice crispie treats, formed into the size you wanted

Personally, I'd go with the rice crispie treats, in part because you can just use that without any oreos.  (you can either take a handle of a spoon or similar and press in the texture you want once it's mostly but not fully set).

... but you can also deal with the texturing on the fondant ... just roll the fondant out a bit thick, apply it, and then use something appropriately sized and smooth (no sharp edges) to press in the grout lines.  If you have clay working tools, use those, but also the back edge of some table knives will work.   You have a longer working time than trying to do this on rice crispie treats, you just have to be more careful about not tearing or cutting the fondant.


Do all blenders have the problem of food sticking to the side away from the spinning blades?

In short, if you have enough liquid then a good blender shouldn't get stuck and you shouldn't have to scrape it down.  Read the answers to my question here - Blender Buying - Square vs. Round Container - that basically addresses the same thing.

Go for a square, glass container with ridges.


Disclaimer- I haven't tested either so this is guesswork. I have made ricotta with the whey of a variety of cheeses but never these particular combinations. If someone has already tried these their answer would carry more weight.

Ricotta works because some of the water soluble proteins in milk don't bind up with the cheese (of whatever type) unless they are heated almost to boiling first.
Bringing the whey to a boil forces those extra proteins to coagulate and they are strained out.

1. I imagine it might vary from product to product. If the whey was produced just from drying regular whey then rehydrating and boiling should be enough to curdle its proteins. I suspect that its processing includes heating steps that alter the proteins. I would be surprised if this was possible.

2. Many cheeses use rennet but most also rely on acidification of some sort, either bacteria or acid added directly. As with #1 it depends how the paneer was made. If it was made with warm milk and acid then there will be protein left. If it was made with boiled milk and acid then there will not.


Non-Quick Cooking Couscous - Is that a real thing anywhere?

Wikipedia implies that there is a difference between fast cooking cous-cous sold in western markets and the traditional product:

  The couscous that is sold in most Western supermarkets has been
  pre-steamed and dried, the package directions usually instruct to add
  1.5 measures of boiling water or stock and butter to each measure of couscous and to cover tightly for 5 minutes. The couscous swells and
  within a few minutes it is ready to fluff with a fork and serve.
  Pre-steamed couscous takes less time to prepare than regular couscous,
  most dried pasta, or dried grains (such as rice).

According to Fine Cooking, you can get moister and more fluffy result with the traditional steaming method, even with quick cooking cous cous.

If you want the traditional product, you could go back to basics and make your own, as described by this NY Times article and video.


Of the various things listed when looking up "dough conditioners" the only ones I'd think of using at home would be malted barley flour, lethicin and L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C.) An alternative for what the C is doing (oxidising) would be to buy your flour ahead and age it a few weeks for natural oxidising; possibly keeping it under refrigeration to reduce randicity, which can be an issue for whole wheat stored at room temperature or warmer.

That said, do I wonder if you are perhaps under-hydrating - whole wheat doughs tend to be obnoxiously sticky when "properly" hydrated - adding more flour to make them easy to work with is a common enough approach (been there, done that), with a common enough result that the end products are rock-hard...

My personal preference at this point is to have a more easily worked dough that is not 100% whole wheat. You can view "non-whole wheat flour" as a "dough conditioner" of sorts in that light, if you like.


How do I get caramels to turn out grainy?

As you mentioned it is all about how the crystals form.

Some of the factors off the top of my head:

How saturated is the solution -
The more sugar packed into the syrup the more easily it will crystallize.
How quickly it cools -
The slower the bigger the crystals
Interference -
Do you have a starch or other sugar molecules gumming up the works?

Obviously you already knew this from your question.

Not using other sugars will help.
You might also try adding more sugar to the recipe at the beginning to fully saturate your solution. The fact that you add sugar at the end and it still dissolves in makes me think your solution could take a bit more. Letting the solution cool slowly with your seed sugar at the end should help.

You would think it would be easier to get it wrong. Perhaps you simply have too much experience doing it right.

Ask an amateur to try out your recipe and see if they fail properly.


Advice on use and care of Le Creuset cast iron skillet

The above pan is not a typical Teflon coated non-stick item. It is a cast iron skillet with red exterior enamel and an interior "Satin Black" enamel. It is not identical to a Lodge cast iron pan, but for care and maintenance, it can be treated similarly. A patina can form on the interior "Satin Black" enamel, which is desirable. The brownish looking area on the surface of the pan is from caramelization, which occurs during the cooking process. Le Creuset says seasoning is not required (unlike other cast iron pans like Lodge), but seasoning the pan will form a better patina, which does improve the natural non-stick properties. As you said, the patina develops naturally, but if you don’t want to wait, then you can help it along by seasoning it. Check Le Creuset's website (someone else linked it) for other details. I usually just use hot water and paper towel to clean with periodic seasoning.


What kind of cookware can melt in a microwave? Is it safe to eat food cooked in a melted cookware?

The cause is that the dish was not intended for use in convection mode.

Plastic melts under heat, period. "Convection" as used by oven manufacturers means that the air in the oven gets heated to the temperature specified (actually, ovens are so badly calibrated that it can be considerably more - I have seen an oven overheating by 40°C - so a considerable safety margin is needed). Any solid objects heat to high temperatures in this hot air, with the surface coming close to the air temperature. You cannot put plastic in a 180°C oven.

A microwave oven operates on a different principle. It heats certain types of objects from inside. Water (and some other nutrients, e.g. fats) get hot when irradiated by microwaves. Plastic or air don't get hot. Therefore, a plastic dish does not get hot when used for cooking in a microwave oven, and the air in the oven also stays cool and does not melt the dish.

What you have is actually two ovens in one. They use the same heating container, but with two different heaters. The plastic dishes supplied with the oven, as well as any other specialized microwave cooking dishes, can only be used in microwave mode. The convection has to be turned off when you use them, else they will melt.

If you want to cook with convection, you have to use a pan from a material which doesn't melt. For a traditional oven, this would be borosilicate glass, ceramic, silicone or metal. I would not use a metal pan. I have heard of combo ovens which don't turn off the microwave part when switched to convection mode (even if the user manual claims otherwise!), and even if yours does, it is still a safety risk because you might forget it and turn on the wrong mode. Metal gets much hotter than water in a microwave, up to the point where it can explode.

Summary: use oven-safe glass, or ceramic. If your glass dish has a plastic lid, remove it before baking in convection mode.


Where can I buy American style bread flour in Europe

The canonical bread flour is France's Type 55, which should be roughly equivalent to German type 550.  Both are defined by ash content, with the German measures being 10x the French ones.  Now, the King Arthur Flour website lists 11.5% protein content for their equivalent of French Type 55 flour.  So, I'm thinking you want a higher-gluten German type 550... which should be obtainable if you can find protein information for your national brands.  If I were dead set on matching French T55, I would experiment with adding small amounts of vital wheat gluten to German Type 550 to get equivalent protein content.

American bread flour is slightly different.  It is a paler flour with 12-15% protein content.  To duplicate the strength of this, you want German flour type 812, possibly with a little type 1050 or Dinkel Mehl 630 added for extra strength.   For a less whole-wheat flavor, use type 550 or even type 405 plus vital wheat gluten.

The breakdown on german flour types is:

American Cake/pastry flour = German type 405, 8-10% gluten
American All-Purpose flour = German type 550, 9-11% gluten.
American Bread flour = German type 812, 11-13% gluten.  Dinkel Mehl 630 may be in this range too (I find a note that it is commonly used in bread and has a high gluten level)
American High-gluten flour = German type 1050, 13-14.5% gluten
Whole wheat flour = type 1600
Rye flour, type 1150

Frankly, I'd find a bakery that makes a baguette like you want, and ask which brand and type of flour they use for their baguettes.  Bakers like to talk about their work, and they'll probably be more than happy to tell you.

Source: http://www.germanfoodguide.com/flours.cfm


The one piece of advice I can offer, and it is the most essential as far as I am concerned, is to buy a thermometer with a detachable, moreover replaceable, probe.

Some models have the cord and probe permanently attached. Some configure the hardware to allow for replacement of the cord and probe in the (inevitable) event of a failure. Think of it in terms of a DVD/TV combo; one of them will die, don't force the other to carry around a conjoined limb.

I recommend you look for a well rated device (shop around) that has a detachable probe. When the cord gets a short or the probe goes bad, you can swap it out for less than the cost of the whole unit. Aside from that, brand and cost and features are up to you.


What's the best way to season a cast iron skillet?

First, there is no difference between seasoning and re-seasoning, unless you need to do some extra work to remove rust (see instructions below). In fact, for new cast iron, scouring is also usually a good idea since you need to get off whatever wax or protective oil the manufacturer or seller may have put onto the cookware. (They don't use cooking oil for that sort of thing, believe me.)

If you need to remove rust: use a mixture of salt and oil and scrub that hard into the rust, then rinse thoroughly in hot water. Use steel wool if necessary.

Next, scour the pan completely under hot water. Do this for several minutes or until the water runs clean. I've heard varying things about whether soap or an SOS pad is OK at this step. My personal opinion is that it's OK, but you must wash the soap completely off before continuing with the seasoning so that your seasoning doesn't taste like soap!

Coat the cookware with grease or oil. (I do this with the whole pan, not just the cooking surface, to reduce the possibility of external rust.) Crisco, vegetable oil, and lard all work well. Don't pick something with a low smoking point, or too strong a flavor. Make sure it's a light coating... you shouldn't have pools of oil anywhere on your cookware.

Bake your skillet in a 250 - 350 °F (121 - 178 °C) oven for an hour. If you used liquid oil, you may want to put the cookware in upside down so excess oil drips off. But it's good to put a cookie sheet or something underneath the cookware to catch the drips if you do!

Let the cookware cool, and wipe off any excess oil.

For best results, do this two or three times, though a skillet can be satisfactory after a single treatment.

To keep the seasoning happy:

Don't let the cast iron sit too long without using it (you may notice a rancid smell or flavor if the seasoning turns bad; I'm not sure at what point this happens, but it's happened to me before).

Don't cook anything acidic (e.g. tomatoes) during the first or second use of your pan.

Don't use dishwashing liquid or soap on the pan (hot water and scrubbing only).

After cleaning the pan after each use, wipe it lightly with another bit of oil, using simple vegetable oil.

Another trick sometimes used to season Chinese woks: rub Chinese chives over the surface of the cookware when the oil is being heated (this works best on a stovetop, not in the oven). The juice of the chive has sulfur compounds that help remove remaining flavor from the previous coating of the cookware. Be aware that this technique really kicks up a lot of steam and smoke. I've never tried it on cast iron skillets, but I'd be curious if anyone out there has.


What is the white swirl in my bread and is it safe?

I think you're right that it wasn't mixed properly.

Many types of whole wheat bread are actually partially whole wheat flour, partially white flour. That could just be some white flour that didn't get mixed.

Alternatively, it could have been a clump of flour that either didn't get hydrated or didn't get yeast mixed in, so it didn't rise, and thus didn't bake the same.

It could also be some dough conditioners or wheat gluten that didn't mix.

Assuming there isn't some other reason to doubt it (e.g., its old, was stored improperly, tastes or smells weird, etc.) I'd guess it's safe.

Best bet is to call the manufacturer, or just return it and get another...


Can pasteurized milk turn into yogurt by itself?

What you got is more properly characterized as buttermilk (in the current usage of the term) than yogurt. Pasteurization does not sterilize milk, and it can have been any kind of bacteria which can survive in milk. The process was the same as in any other cultured dairy: bacteria started multiplying, producing lactic acid which curdled and soured the milk.

The harsher the pasteurization, the less chance that you happened to have an abundance of a benign culture. You could have gotten something dangerous, or harmless-but-gross. Traditional buttermilk making by leaving raw milk unseeded with any culture out and hoping that it harbors no baddies is also unsafe by today's standards. So, if you want to produce buttermilk or yogurt, you are much better off starting with a culture. A few spoonfulls of prepared yogurt or buttermilk should work (unless their culture was killed), but for best results, you should match culture and fermentation temperature.


Even with the same fish, sashimi and ceviche are very different dishes:

Sashimi is sliced, raw fish that is in its natural state.  Note the glossy, translucent nature of the slices:

Sashimi is also just the fish, although the plate may have additional garnishes.

Ceviche is technically uncooked, but has been marinated in citrus juice which coagulates proteins and turns the flesh opaque in a manner similar to cooking.  Ceviche is often combined with onions or other complimentary vegetables.

Note the opaque, white color of the flesh:

In terms of the fish used, sashimi is often made with oily fish like tuna, yellowtail, or snapper; ceviche is more often made from white fish, or even shrimp or squid.  However, there is considerable variation in both cases.

See also:  Food Lab article on ceviche


Is my food spoiled after a power outage?

I had a similar issue just recently, where my apartment lost power for twelve hours before being restored. With the doors closed for the entire time, the temperature raised only a few degrees, even the milk had no difference in taste, with it only being cool as opposed to cold like usual. Like yourself, it was also at the peak of summer.

Fridges are usually pretty well insulated (as they'd have to be, or else the motors would never stop running to keep cool during the peak of summer), so outside of the eggs, if it was never opened, I wouldn't be too concerned. I only put a caveat on eggs because as someone that cant' stand eggs, I never buy them, and hence have no knowledge of how susceptible to temperature changes they are.

EDIT: Personal opinion. Do not take this as a green light to start making bacon omelettes with a big heaping glass of milk today.


Are products labeled Kosher or Halal generally of a better quality than those that aren't?

This probably depends a great deal on regional and political circumstances, but where I live (Toronto), there are dozens of Kosher and Halal grocery stores (or stores with Kosher or Halal sections), and in my experience, the meat is actually generally of worse quality.

Halal, as it applies to meat, refers to which animals are allowed and the required method of slaughter (an incision across the neck, cutting the jugular vein and carotid artery in a single motion - Kashrut requires the esophagus and trachea to be cut as well).  Kosher meat also has be koshered, which means soaking and salting the meat in order to draw out the blood.

As you might expect, the method of slaughter has no tangible effect on the quality of the meat, but the koshering process does, and the effect is not positive - it dries it out and makes it salty, and most kosher meat sold in supermarkets (and even the majority of butchers) is quite tough compared to its non-kosher counterparts.

That said, some people do prefer Kosher (not Halal) meat for health reasons, because the blood may carry uric acid and other compounds that some people do not wish to eat.  I've never seen any specific scientific evidence that these compounds are harmful as far as meat consumption goes, and any reports of this leading to better flavour are anecdotal at best, but I am not an expert on the biological factors, so don't take my word for it.

Various Halal/Kosher laws also govern the facilities in which the meats (or other foods) have to be prepared, but it is important to note that these laws do not actually govern general sanitization!  In fact, a number of butchers have been closed down by municipal health inspectors at various times for unsanitary conditions and other improper food handling practices (such as adding food colouring to meat to make it look fresher).

Note that I am not trying to impugn the Kosher or Halal industries.  These practices are every bit as common in the mainstream food industry.  I am simply saying that being kosher or halal does not have any real preventative value when it comes to shady/sloppy practices.

Another factor to consider is that supermarkets and butchers are a competitive industry, but being subject to Kosher/Halal laws greatly reduces the competition and raises the processing cost by sometimes astonishing amounts.  These simple economic factors would lower the quality of any food being produced because parties collude and cut corners.  Again, I cannot speak for every single region of the world, but here, you cannot find a kosher ribeye or prime rib steak.  They simply do not exist.  Whether it's because the butchers all prefer to make cheaper cuts or because they figure that a choice cut would simply end up being too expensive for anyone to consider buying, I'm not sure.

I know that several TV chefs in recent years have recommended buying kosher meat (and possibly halal, although I haven't personally heard that), but assuming that halal/kosher is optional for you (i.e. you are not Muslim or Jewish) then always do your own research before spending a lot of money on what may often turn out to be an inferior product.


Early harvest olive oil is made from olives that are partially "enveradas", changing its colour from green to purple. You need 7 to 8 kg of olives to make one litre, instead of the 4 to 5 kg/l of full ripe olives.

As the olives mature the color of the outer part (epicarp) changes from bright green, purple-green, purple and finally black. The inner part (pericarp) changes from white-yellow to purple-black. The fat content increases and the chlorophyll decreases.

The olives of the same branch mature at different times, so at the time of harvest we have a percentage of green, green-purple or purple. In the oil of early harvest, the proportion of purple olive is smaller and therefore its lower fat content and higher in chlorophyll. That makes the flavour of the oil more fruity and the acidity somewhat higher.

Early Harvest Oil has a bright green colour because of the higher chlorophyll content, also higher polyphenols and antioxidant. It has a greater herbal and fresh fruit flavours than regular Extra Virgin Olive oil, they are stronger, more piquant (greater oleocanthal content) and more bitter (greater oleuropein content).

Historical curiosity: In ancient Rome they gave different names to the oil according to the degree of ripeness of the olives

Oleum ex albis ulivis,  coming from the green olives harvested by hand.
Oleum viride, extracted from almost ripe olives.
Oleum meturum, from ripe olives
Oleum caducum, the one that was extracted from the olives already fallen from the tree.
Oleum cibarium, finally, made with chopped or rotten olives. Given to the slaves.