Usually cake batter does spoil or become unmixed if allowed to sit for long periods of time. After all, most of it is physically, not chemically combined. That being said, if you need to walk away, you definitely want to refrigerate the batter, esp. if there are raw eggs in the batter.  Best to mix a cake batter and bake immediately.


The little 1/2 & 1/2 containers are ultra-pasteurized, so that they can be stable at room temperature.  Ultra-pasteurized milk products will not curdle.  This is why you cannot make cheese with them.

It is also possible that the Keurig coffee, being better roasted and sealed, is more acidic, but it is far more likely the UP milk.  You can test this by finding UP 1/2 & 1/2 at your supermarket in a carton, and comparing.

As a side note, I do find it pretty horrifying that you are making coffee, putting cream in it, and reheating it several days later.  Maybe you could consider making a fresh pot?


I grew up fishing and preserving the fish. We would only freeze and brine if we intended to smoke it later, we would would then re-brine it after it thawed (great way to make Northern Pike Jerky btw).

For smaller species like crappie, yellow perch and bream I wouldn't bother, as they freeze fast enough and consistent enough on their own. Key things to look out for would be ensure it's sealed tight, frozen flat (for easy storage and thawing), and descaled (if it's your preference) for some reason I am not sure why but descaling a previously frozen fish isn't terribly effective.

Good luck and tight lines.


Eggless Belgian Waffles become unbreakably hard

Flour, water, butter, and baking powder does not sound like a great egg substitute to me.

Your best option is to just go find a vegan belgian waffle recipe. There are tons of them, and they should be much more reliable than trying to modify an existing recipe.

If you're really set on modifying that one recipe, look for a better egg substitute. There are products specifically designed to act as one, as well as a fair number of other things that will likely work better than what you tried. The problem is, different ones work better in different contexts, and it can take some tweaking to get recipes to work right.


Can quinoa be used instead of flour for cookies?

I have used quinoa flour in various recipe and it would have a similar effect as the brown rice flour, though its taste would differ. I would recommend against substituting it (at least not 1:1) for the tapioca flour as that is likely working as a kind of binding agent to some extent. Experimentation may yield different results based on the ratio, but also tapioca has less flavor (which may be ideal as a balance).


Why are my homemade Manicotti Shells doughy?

I would guess that they were too thick. They need to be so thin they're almost translucent, especially if you roll them with overlap. Fresh pasta feels doughy easily if it's too thick.


As long as the rind is still encasing the cheese, it should be just fine, as Gouda is aged for weeks anyway, and its salt content preserves it.


Which ingredient in Italian bread gives it that great taste?

I'm assuming this is not a speciality Italian bread such as Panettone or Pan d'oro.  It's a regular bread loaf.

Hard to know for sure, but in all likelihood, the missing taste is due to short rise times and yeast type.  Most of the taste in bread is developed, not put in.

As suggested in the comments, the ingredients are bread flour (usually tipo 00 or 0), water, yeast, and salt.  Tuscan bread has no salt. and sometimes, there is olive oil to prevent the dough from developing a skin.  The notes below might be useful:

A French baker I work with, always keeps some of yesterday's dough and mixes it with today's dough.  This means an exponentially small amount of the dough can be years old.  He also performs three rises (two punch-downs).
Let your biga rest in colder temperatures for a couple of days so the enzymes can do their work and develop taste.
Get yeast from a baker.  The instant yeast at the grocery store is ok but the commercial yeast can work better with the longer ferments.  A famous natural bread baker in our area uses 2500 year old yeast from Egypt.  (the head baker has a heck of story on how he got his hands on this yeast).  Strict Neapolitan Pizza makers use Ischia starter for their dough.

Peter Reinhart explains Italian breads really well in The Bread Baker's Apprentice


How to fix the protein content of my minestrone?

I noticed you didn't mention beans, which are fairly common in minestrone.

Cannellini beans are most typical, but you could experiment with others (garbanzo, fava beans, etc.)


sugar. With all the effects it has in a marinade.
caramel coloring. Well, it colors and caramels.
acid. Both the (volatile) carbonation and the phosphoric acid (not that much of it - undiluted phosphoric acid is a potent corrosive!). Possible tenderizing effect, taste enhancer, and will influence browning reactions on the surface (probably balancing the quick browning of all the sugar). Some cola brands are as acidic as plain vinegar!
various spices/spice extracts, some of which would also be well suited to savory cooking: Cinnamon and nutmeg, citrus oils (and also vanilla, which is of debatable merit in a savory recipe).


How can I prevent pear juice from soaking into pastry dough?

Whenever you're worried about something crisp being made soggy by something moist, the answer is usually fat. Brush the crust with butter or oil before you add the pears, and the oil will slow the absorption of water.

Alternately, dry out your pears. Cook them a bit. Roll them in sugar to dry them out some.

I'm surprised the pear juice is making it through the cheesecake batter. Usually that stuff keeps the liquids locked up tight. Maybe try a drier cheesecake, or one with a bit more egg?


at what temperature should apple-choco pie be prepared?

The pre-baking of the pastry is missing a "how to tell when it's done" instruction. My guess is there's a good chance you didn't bake it long enough. In general, when pre-baking plain pie crusts, you're aiming for golden brown. It's a bit harder to tell when it's got the brown from the chocolate in it, but if you look closely you should still be able to see the change in color. It should also just look cooked - a bit of texture develops on the surface and it appears to have dried out. As SAJ14SAJ suggests, you also normally pre-bake crusts with weights in them to keep them from bubbling too much. (This is also why you poke holes.) A common method is to cover with a piece of foil, then fill with dry beans.

As for temperature, in my experience, pie crusts are generally pre-baked at 350°F. But the important thing is to check and know when it's done.

Now, baking the filled pie. This is the weird thing - usually apple pies don't use pre-baked crusts, because it takes more like an hour to fully cook the apples til they're soft. Maybe you didn't like the apples because they were still crunchy and a bit raw, and the flavor hadn't smoothed out with the nuts and sugar? If that's the case, you may want to skip pre-baking the crust, and instead fill and cover the pie and bake it all together, for 45 minutes to an hour. If the crust browns too much, you can loosely cover it with foil.

If on the other hand, you like the apples like that, or the quantity of apples is sufficiently small that they're actually cooking fully, then sure, stick to the recipe. (You could increase the temperature to 350°F here too, but that'll mean the crust is done when the apples are even less done.) If you've properly pre-baked the crust, you shouldn't have problems with the bottom of the pie being undercooked.


How do I fix grainy and chewy caramel corn?

Splitting your problem down to the two issues.  Though they could be entirely related

1: Grainy
2: Chewy

Let's deal with the first - grainy.  How are you melting your sugar (I am assuming you are using brown), are you adding corn syrup?  Perhaps you have some granules of sugar that are 'un-melted'.  It could be that your corn syrup (if used) is reacting in some way.

Now to the second - chewy.  Try heating your sugar syrup for a little longer.

I hope that this helps.  Below is a great recipe which might help.

Classic Caramel Corn


does washing vegetables and fruit with baking soda make sense?

From what I can tell it seems like you are asking whether a baking soda solution is a good solution for cleaning fruits and vegetables. The answer to that would be not really, you're wasting good baking soda. Research shows that even purpose made commercial vegetable cleaners were no better than plain water for cleaning vegetables, it's the soaking time and technique used that makes the difference.

The only chemical tested that seems to make and difference is chlorine, which demonstrably reduced contamination on the outside of melons. However, you don't eat melon rinds, I wouldn't wash vegetables or fruit that I was going to eat in a chlorine solution because chlorine is unpleasant stuff and will probably ruin your flavors.

So washing your vegetables in baking soda, vinegar, or baking soda and vinegar is no better than washing them in plain old tap-water. It's better for your flavors that you do not as well. The only use I know of for baking soda in the preparation and cooking of green vegetables is that adding a bit when boiling green vegetables helps preserve their vibrant green flavor by neutralizing the acids that break down the chlorophyll. The trouble is it also turns them to mush, so I never use that method.


To clarify: forced-air (a/k/a "convection", a/k/a "fan bake") ovens rely on a fan to circulate the air in the oven.  The fast-moving air substantially enhances the rate at which heat is transferred to the food.  It is particularly good where you want the surface to brown, such as roasts and breads; it is not as good for more delicate items, such as custards and cakes, which can set too quickly or get dried out.  For cookies, it depends on what effect you want, but many standard types do well in forced-air ovens because the fan helps ensure that the whole oven stays at a uniform temperature despite the presence of several trays.  (Of course, the tray closest to the heating element will still cook faster than the one farthest away, so you will still have to swap them partway through.)

The general rule for using the fan is to set the oven temperature 25 degrees F (15 C) lower than what the recipe calls for using in a regular oven.  Even then, don't go strictly by cooking time, as ovens vary; rather, be sure to check on your food regularly to see how fast it is cooking.  You may need to cover your food to prevent over-browning, or perhaps adjust the oven temperature.


Uncooked meatballs out in crockpot all day?

They were in the danger zone of 40 to 140 degrees for more than 4 hours.

If you were in restaurant, you would have to discard them.

Sadly, I recommend the same at home.


Are there any general rules which can be used when determining tasty food combinations?

While hitchhiking from Portland to San Diego I shared the back of a pickup truck with two men who loved to cook. Their recommendation: Smell the food, smell the spice, if your mouth waters. add the spice. Same goes for combinations of foods. Just as simple as that.


How to make Black Glutinous Rice sticky?

I don't know what is done traditionally but have you seen this recipe? They use part white sticky rice as the black rice alone did not seem sticky enough.
Mango with Black Sticky Rice | Khao Niew Dam Mamuang

If you are interested there is also a way to make it more like a porridge that is uses more water and is cooked longer like congee in a pot and becomes somewhat glutinous. Thai Black Sticky Rice Pudding I'm not sure the eggs are necessary, I've never heard of that in the Indonesian version.


Beer batter fish, keeping the breading from peeling right off while eating?

I usually dredge the fish in plain flour first and then the beer batter. I actually made beer battered fish tacos for dinner last night and the batter stuck perfectly.

It probably also depends on your batter consistency. The recipe I use says the batter should be slightly more liquid than pancake batter.


Queso fresco / queso latino is raw food?

In order to separate the curd from the whey, the milk is heated to a boil, so no, I would not consider this a raw food based on the definition you have in parenthesis.

Edit: In response to the clarified definition of raw food cheese, I would still say queso fresco does not qualify since the milk is heated well above the 40 degrees Celsius in the process of making it. I believe you can use either pasteurized or unpasteurized milk to make it. It's very similar (almost identical) to Indian paneer.


Removing the onion layers in an intact way without cooking them

I once made onion bowls by slicing the onion at the point where it just starts to curve back in and soaking in water while I seperated the layers.  It worked for my purposes but I did destroy a few in the process.  I think I might have added some salt to the water they were soaking in to boost the water content of the onion, which could have affected how easily they seperated.


It might be a grease-fire

Take a good look under the heating element - there might be some pooled drippings or other food-gunk. You might need to clean it or just replace the whole unit - as some of the electrical insulation might have burned-off.

Either way, I wouldn't use ANY of the burners on that stove again until you're SURE what caused it.

You should be worried anytime there's a fire you didn't intend to make.

Friendly safety reminder: You do have a working fire-extinguisher in your kitchen right? And your smoke-alarm has fresh batteries\is tested regularly?


In what way is kosher chicken different from brined chicken in terms of salt absorbtion?

I explained several of the differences in my answer to Brining a kosher bird and also discussed some issues relating to salt consistency in a much earlier answer to Chicken comes out salty... occasionally.

To make a long story short, kashering is a long process with many steps, but the part you're concerned with is similar to the "dry brining" technique some people are fond of using for Thanksgiving turkeys. The meat is salted directly - no water is used - and it is left to rest for a much shorter period, about 1 hour, before finally being rinsed and packed.

Kosher meat isn't "juicy" like brined meat at all; in fact, all other things being equal, it will come out much drier and tougher than unkosher meat, because in the process of drawing out blood (the reason for salting in kashering), a good deal of moisture is drawn out as well. Brining adds moisture to the tune of about 10%; kashering takes moisture away by a similar amount.

Aside from drying out, the only culinary differences you'll find with kosher birds (or other meat) are (a) less blood, uric acid, and other "undesirable" components, and (b) they are naturally saltier than unkosher birds. However, because the kashering process has nothing to do with flavouring, you can't expect any kind of consistency, and it's not uncommon to find that some parts are much saltier than other parts coming from the same bird.

Kosher birds are going to absorb roughly the same amount of salt and water from a brine. The difference is that because they've already been salted, you run the risk of over-brining to the point of being inedibly salty. That's the whole story.

If you want flavourful and moist then get a regular bird and brine it. If you care more about flavour and want to save some time (at a significant cost premium) then go ahead and use a kosher bird, no brine. You can brine a kosher bird (see first link in this answer) but you're going to have to do a little experimenting to get it right - and if you're going to brine anyway, then why bother spending the extra money on kosher meat?

Don't pay any mind to the oft-repeated claims that kosher birds are "pre-brined" or similar nonsense. The inherent saltiness of a kosher bird is significant but also incidental and thus inherently unreliable.

(Please also note: Assuming this is a follow-up to your previous question, none of this is going to make the slightest bit of difference if you're just going to plop the chicken parts into a pot of boiling or poaching water. If you're making broth, then you flavour the broth, not the meat.)


Substitute for bell peppers in meat dishes

Others are saying that bell peppers have no taste -- but I'd disagree.  The green ones have a kind of grassy quality to them.

Obviously, there's wheat grass, but I never have that around.  There might be some herbs that could pull it off (eg, flat leaf parsley; maybe taragon, but also gives a licorice note)

You might try some dark greens ... spinich, kale, swiss chard.  They've got a touch of other stronger flavors to 'em, but if you cook them down first, you might be able to tone them down some.  (I guess you might describe it as a 'spiciness' ... it can be a sharp flavor.

... for the texture, though, my first thought was bok-choy.  It's actually a cabage, and it has some dark green leaves, but the thicker white parts have that watery/crunchy quality that other people have mentioned about bell peppers, but there's that sharp cabbage note that might keep it from fitting your requirements.

update : okay, as the issue is specifically fried peppers, you're going to be bringing out the sweeter notes of the peppers, which you're not going to get from a cabbage.  Sweet onions might give some similar qualities (once fried well), as the cooking will mellow the oniony qualities, but the sugars will caramelize.

You can also try looking for jarred peppers -- they're usually packed in oil or a vinegar solution after being roasted.  There are 'hot' and 'sweet' varieties, where the hot ones also have some hot peppers in there.  The non-vinegared ones sweet ones might work for you.

Also, remember that bell peppers, like most vegetables are a seasonal item -- if you're in the north, it's the end of winter, so any peppers are being being grown in hot houses, or brought in from the southern hemisphere, which jacks the prices up.


Can I pasteurize milk using a microwave?

The process of pasteurizing milk is to treat it with heat to kill microorganisms such as Brucella, Campylobacter, E. coli O157:H7, Listeria, Mycobacterium bovis, Salmonella, and Yersinia that may or may not be in the milk. This is a precautionary step that is taken when you are not 100% sure whether your source of milk is disease free.

Pasteurization can occur at different temperature for a different amount of time but the easiest temperature to pasteurize milk in the microwave is to bring it to 161 F for at least 15 seconds.

Pasteurizing the milk in the microwave is a bit tricky because overheating it make cause it to boil over and it also heats the milk very unevenly. In the worse case scenario it can curdle if you overheat it. You will need to buy a thermometer for this method.

You first want to microwave the milk for a minute.
Then you want to stir the milk and take a temperature reading from the stirred milk.
Now you want to continue to put the milk in the microwave in short 15-30 second intervals(decreasing as it gets closer to 161 F) and stirring and taking the temperature reading each time.
When it has finally reach 161 F, you want to heat it for 15 extra seconds in the microwave and at that point it should be pasteurized.

Another thing you can do is to just pasteurize it at home using your usual stove method and store the milk for later use. Once it has been pasteurized, as long as you refrigerate the milk, it will be good for a while. Just remember to quickly chill the milk(using a ice water bath) after you pasteurize it before you put it into the refrigerator.


Help making Montgomery Pie layer properly

It may be that there is an unwritten/lost step of putting the pie in the oven for long enough to just set the liquid, before the topping is spread. That's certainly how I do lemon or lime custard pies with a topping.


What is the cocoa solids percentage of Hershey's semi-sweet chips?

I don't believe any chocolate chips are going to have that high a percentage of cacao solids. According to Cook's Illustrated the percentage of cacao solids in Hershey's semi-sweet chips is 42%. Hershey's Special Dark chips came in at 45%. Of all the bitter-sweet and semi-sweet chips they tested 60% was the highest amount listed (in Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips).


In reference to baking bread, what is a "mother culture"?

A mother culture is sometimes known as a starter dough and is a fermenting dough that is used to 'start' the fermentation process in the bread you are going to make by adding a bit of the starter dough to the dough you are making.  Mainly sourdough I think, but I believe you can use different mothers for different breads.

The starter dough is 'fed' flour and water to keep it alive and going, and then used everyday to make the days bread.  The mother can then be kept going for many years and gives the bread made using it a distinctive flavour.

At least that's my understanding, I'm hoping to get a more detailed picture from this and the answer to my question...

Some information here and also on wikipedia


I thought that crepes (and tasty pancakes) were traditionally made with buckwheat flour. Crepes in particular because buckwheat makes a finer flour. So, traditionally made crepes would be gluten free.


Why does cinnamon in the grounds make older coffee taste better?

I would say that the cinnamon restores some of those floral top-notes that have likely evaporated from older ground coffee, and hides some of the mustier, oxidized flavors.


If by “OK” you mean whether there are food safety issues the answer is no, pressure cookers are safe places to cook chicken.

If by “OK” you mean “will it have the exact same texture and flavor and so forth,” the answer is that pressure cooking is more intimately related to boiling and stewing, and is a fast method of doing those sorts of high-moisture approaches. In the presence of heat and water, a central structural protein in skin and muscle called collagen becomes gelatin; this is why a pot roast left for long enough becomes “fork-tender”, it falls apart without need for a knife. In your pressure cooker, that effect is happening to your meat and chicken skin, and it is irreversible. It is not necessarily a bad effect, maybe you prefer the texture that way—but the texture will very likely be more floppy than your roasted chicken recipe used to be.

There may be some other options; for example one of the reasons you should never cook a steak in the microwave is that it causes these waters to evaporate and these muscle proteins to  contract without that slow conversion to gelatin which makes a pot roast bearable. But ironically this may better suit the texture that you are going for; you may get something resembling the right consistency you had by pressure-cooking or parboiling your chicken in stock, par-microwaving it for a little longer, and then finishing it in the oven—maybe. It is also possible that this completely wrecks the delicate balances that made your product what it was; for example oven fries that are parboiled before roasted can have a more chewy texture than the oven-fries you get without parboiling, it's not necessarily a bad effect but it is different. On the extreme other side you could also just sous vide the chicken maybe and then broil it with the potatoes—this takes significantly longer but you haven’t told us why you think an hour is too long to cook the chicken, and it is possible that it frees up some critical resources (such as manpower or the oven) by moving them elsewhere. It may also be possible to simply tightly wrap the pans of chicken in foil to trap the moisture which would have otherwise evaporated from them, and maybe then they cook a little faster in that gentle steam.

All of this is worth a test run; your taste is the best judge. Science is nothing if not the repeated doing of crazy experiments until you figure out something better that works consistently.

Also keep in mind that these slick approaches could maybe halve your cooking time and hence double your throughput, but you can double your throughput in a different way by simply having a second oven. Where I grew up in upstate New York, several firehouses had very long fire pits which they used to mass-produce a local variety of barbecued chicken to raise extra funds, so these sorts of approaches can be scaled way way up, with some imagination.


How to add lemon flavor to scallops with fresh lemons?

Add the lemon juice at service, either in the serving dish or on the plate.

Your first 2 methods will probably end up with most of the juice in the steamer water underneath.

For 3: meat doesn't really soak up flavours quite as much as you'd expect when marinating - plus whatever is on the surface will again mainly end up back in the steamer water.


"Prepared" pizza base - does that mean cooked?

I would imagine, if the book is of reasonable quality, by prepared, they mean one that you have prepared earlier. If there's a recipe for pizza base in the book, that's probably what they'd like you to use.

Personally, if you're going to the trouble of making home-made pizza, make your own base. Invariably, the pre-made bases you can buy from stores taste like chalk.

There's a few topics here that may be useful:

What is the best flour to use for pizza dough?

How to make pizza crust thin and elastic at the same time?

For Pizza cooking at home. What is the best alternative to the pizza stone?


There are two main factors here:

As captured in comments, a handheld stick blender just isn't powerful enough.  It has nowhere near the same power as the sort of larger commercial blender used by big chains like Starbucks.  Not only that, but it can't create the same sort of turbulence as an enclosed blender, because you're immersing it into an open container - if it did, everything would just slop over the sides.  Makes a sad frappuccino.  That turbulence and power makes for very, very fine ice crystals which stay suspended in the mix.
There are indeed additives.  Starbucks' commercial syrup bases include a number of emulsifiers (notably xanthan gum and potassium sorbate: see this similar answer) which thicken the mixture and keep everything nicely integrated for a smooth texture.  A banana also contributes thickening power and its own natural emulsifiers.  If you want the same effect without the banana flavor, you could try adding egg (bananas can actually serve as an egg substitute, and eggs and are frequently used as an emulsifier in other drinks) or your own xanthan gum, etc.  Such emulsifiers aren't common at groceries but can be easily found from modernist cooking suppliers.  I believe there are quite a few resources and related questions on this very site.

If you have access to a full-fledged blender, and have just been using the handheld model for convenience, then that's the easiest swap to make.  Otherwise, aim for emulsifiers - they'll probably be a substantial improvement even without an equipment change, although you'll likely have to blend for longer than you have been otherwise.


All of the answers you are looking for have been touched on in various parts of this question: How long can I keep eggs in the refrigerator?

Summary:

Expiration dates are for best quality only. Nothing magical happens on that date.
Truly fresh eggs (i.e. from the chicken) will hardly degrade at all even after a year in storage.
Supermarket eggs are washed, removing the protective layer and lowering the shelf life.
Some supermarket eggs are already contaminated with salmonella, and there's no test you can do to find out for sure (other than eating them raw). This will cause serious problems if you leave them in storage for several months, unless you freeze them.
Lastly, damaged eggs will simply go rotten.  You won't always see the damage, but you'll definitely smell it by the time you hit that best-before date.

As with just about every other food, you're better off interpreting the sell-by or best-before dates as a conservative guideline; any food can go off before the date if it's been damaged or mis-handled, and many foods will still be fine long after they "expire".  StillTasty.com is a good resource for finding out how long various foods actually last in storage.


I'm going to assume you're talking about the "whole fruit" style and not the "halved" style.
It depends on the producer and variety of cherry, but the cherries that I've seen are pitted in two different ways: in a similar way to olives and simply "brute force" pitted.
Like an olive:
The cherry is centered over a round(circular or elliptical) cutter and then a blade(you've seen the cute "X" shape at the bottom of an olive) pushes the cherry onto and the pit through the cutter.
Brute Force:
Since most cherry pits are "free"(they don't cling very hard to the pit) it is possible to simply center the cherry over a hole and press out the pit with a dowel or rod.  The pit simply "squirts" out and the skin is split a little and the flesh on the opposite side is bruised a bit.  This results in a cherry that looks more "whole" and retains more flesh and sometimes you can barely tell where the pit left the fruit.
However, like all industrial processes this can be done many different ways up to and including by hand depending on the producer and/or target cost/quality of the final product.


The instructions should read to throw away half the starter if you haven't used it to make bread (i.e. the starter needs to be refreshed in order to continue living). If it doesn't get new flour and water, it has nothing to keep it alive. So it tells you to get rid of half (by baking or, at worst, chucking it out). You could keep it, but you would end up with a hell of a lot of starter (exponentially!).

As for food safety, I don't think you have much to worry about... However I'm sure some of the other food scientists on this site will regurgitate a bunch of stats for you soon...


Why are dark roast beans usually used for espresso?

Bitter taste is not from the degree of roast. It is from the oils produced when you pass second crack.

There is a way to enjoy a dark roast espresso without the bitter taste: On your machine allow ½ a second of liquid to come out before placing the cup. Done, simple.

The oils are the first thing that comes out of the machine and for only about half a second.


I'm not sure if there's a specific name for this particular combination, but as you mention it's specifically from a French restaurant, I'd call it a tartine, which is can refer to most anything served on a piece of bread or toast, cold or hot.   If it were small enough to eaten in one bite, it'd be a canapé.

Growing up, we'd call a similar dish made with tuna salad (a mix of cooked tuna, mayo, onions, pickles) on bread and broiled 'til it developed a similar crust as a 'tuna boat' (to differentiate between a 'tuna melt' which had cheese on top), but I don't know that 'boat' in this context is generic enough to really convey any meaning to the typical person.

Because you mention cabbage, the topping in its uncooked form might be considered to be a cole slaw, which translates to cold salad but in the US generally means a cabbage salad dressed with vinaigrette or mayonnaise.  Because of the ham and mayo, you might also call it a ham salad.

I'm not familiar with mayo-based cold salad recipes that use bread in them, but it's frequently used as a binder in crab cakes, which has some similarities as it's mayo-based and then broiled.


Normal lifetime of non-stick teflon pans

America's Test Kitchen says that good quality nonstick pans last them about six months.

They're presumably cooking with them several times a day, so if you use it once every couple days, and are as good as they are about not doing things that'll damage the coating, you might get a few years. So your experience sounds roughly normal.

As another data point, they also quote the Cookware Manufacturers Association: "'If you get a year to a year and a half of life out of [a new nonstick pan], we think you got a pretty good deal.'" That's coming from people interested in selling pans, possibly not talking about the best quality, and with experience based on typical less-careful usage, so I'm not surprised they gave a lower number.


Is it possible to substitute butter with egg yolks in cookie dough?

Butter and egg yolks have very different profiles in terms of their uses in recipes and constituent parts.

Butter usually has 80-85% fat by weight, while egg yolks are only about 25-30% fat.  Butter has only a trace amount of milk proteins, while egg yolks typically have 15% or more protein by weight.  Butter has only a small amount (about 15%) of water, while egg yolks are about 50% water.  And then there are all sorts of differences in trace chemicals, which also have big effects when cooked (e.g., eggs coagulate, while butter melts).

I've never tried such a strict substitution myself.  But extra egg yolks are common in many baked goods, and I've seen people substitute a single egg yolk for a small amount of fat or the reverse.  As for the effect of additional egg yolks in cookies, Serious Eats summarizes:

  Egg yolks also provide some moisture and protein, but more importantly
  they provide a well-emulsified source of fat. When cooked, egg yolk
  forms a tender protein coagulum that can keep cookies tender and
  fudge-like. A high proportion of egg yolk leads to a more brownie-like
  texture in a finished cookie.

Meanwhile, if you lose butter, you'll be eliminating significant amounts of fat and flavor.  The texture will also be altered significantly: since butter melts during baking, it contributes significantly to cookie "spread" rate.  (The extra moisture from egg yolks may help the cookie dough to spread, but it may make it harder to work with.)  If your recipe involves creaming butter and sugar together, the texture may also be affected, because creaming introduces air bubbles that can lighten the cookies.  Eggs too contribute to leavening, but that effect is mostly from whites.

In general, egg yolks are going to provide much more moisture than butter but lower (though still important) amounts of fat.  You may need to play with the other liquid proportions to get a useful batter.  And the protein and tendency to coagulate will alter the structure of the cookies considerably.

My guess is that most cookies with such a substitution will come out fairly dense with an odd fudge-like texture and "eggy" flavor.  If you're substituting a single egg yolk for a small amount of butter, it might work with a little tweaking.  But if your recipe has large amounts of butter, the final cookies will be very different and perhaps unpalatable.  In that case, you'll probably have to substitute a few different things for the butter to produce acceptable results (specifically something else to add sufficient fat and to balance the flavor of the cookies).

Or, an easier solution would be to find a recipe or type of cookie that doesn't require butter.  Producing good results when removing one of the major components of a recipe will often require significant amounts of experimentation.


Yes, is possible, and not uncommon.  You may wish to dock it to prevent excessive rising.

Some pastries are made with puff pastry that is already baked separately, such as the famous Napolean or Mille-Feuille .  For example, in this recipe (which uses commercial puff pastry), the instructions are:

  Preheat oven to 425°F/220°C. Line 2 baking sheets
  with parchment paper or plain brown paper; set aside.

  Unfold puff pastry sheet and trim edges to a 9-inch square. Cut pastry
  into nine 3-inch squares. Transfer pastry squares to the prepared
  baking sheets; prick pastry. Bake in a preheated oven for 18-23
  minutes, or until golden. (Or bake according to package directions.)
  Carefully remove pastries from baking sheet. Cool on a rack.

I cannot endorse the plain brown paper idea, but the method is fairly standard.

Here is another example, from King Arthur flour, of croissants du patisserie, which is essentially puff pastry baked as a croissant (as opposed to croissants du boulanger, the baker's croissants, which are yeast raised as well as a laminated pastry).


My experience has been that the freshest chestnuts can be peeled pretty easily if I do it while they're still hot (I usually roast them). This does mean that one's fingers can get burned, though! I wonder whether some of the recommended techniques for peeling garlic cloves would help with "sticky" chestnut-skins? [Choosing fresh chestnuts over moldy ones is a problem in itself; off to see if there's a question about that!]


How do I adjust a baking recipe for fruits of different PH?

It would be nearly impossible to gauge the effect of a different fruit on a quick bread without knowing the types and amounts of other acidic things in the recipe. Milk or buttermilk are also acidic, as are some other things you're likely to find in a quick bread batter.

Your recipe is going to be calculated to have enough leavening action for the bread, using whatever acids are initially required. Most likely this is partly the fruit and partly things like milk or buttermilk (both of which are acidic, buttermilk being more so).

Using more acidic ingredients than intended will just leave your final bread slightly more acid--probably not enough to bother you, particularly if the fruit was to your liking to start with. You may find that a more acidic batter causes the baking soda to rise faster than you want, so you should watch for that. You will not be able to make the baking soda release too much carbon dioxide by acidifying more--it'll do as much as it can then stop.

If you use less-acidic ingredients, you risk making the baking soda underperform. What I would resist doing in that instance is adding more baking soda, however. You won't increase the leavening action and you may find you introduce an unpleasant metallic taste. Better in those cases to let the batter sit just a little longer to give it more time to leaven, or add more of another acidic ingredient.

Ultimately, I'd be more concerned about the varying moisture levels in the fruits used than the acidity. Apples are relatively dry compared to, say, strawberries or blueberries, so you may find that your batter is too wet to cook properly at the time and temperature prescribed.


Measurement of ingredients for baking 400g of brown bread

2T instant yeast is ~17g, 2T of sugar and oil are both around 25g, 1t salt ~6g. ½t bread improver is going to be a gram or two.

So you've added together 300g flour + 100g water + ≈75g other stuff. By a pretty fundamental law of physics, mixed together that weighs 475g. Since you got 600g instead, there are two possibilities:

You've measured wrong (e.g., you added an ingredient twice, your scale is broken, you made a mistake when taring the scale, you accidentally included the bread pan weight, etc.)
You've got a Nobel prize coming.

As exciting as ② would be, I'm afraid ① is far more likely.

The bread rising probably has some effect on the weight—the yeast is performing a number of chemical reactions, using oxygen from the air and carbohydrates, water, etc. from the dough, and releasing CO₂—I'd guess it loses a little weight here, but I'm not sure—either way, pretty sure it's not a significant change.

When you bake the dough, of course, some of the dough (mainly the water) is going to evaporate. Not entirely sure how much. But of course you can find out by weighing the dough before it goes into the oven (remember to subtract the bread pan weight) and then after it comes out and cools. Then you can use that to scale your recipe to get reasonably close to 400g.

Personally, I'd make my first stab at it with a dough weighing about 450g. Scale down everything proportionally—and if you convert everything to weight, and use an accurate scale, that's much easier than taking 6% out of 2T (which is about ⅜t).


Can I make baccala (Italian salted cod) at home relatively easily?

Yes, you can.  Instructions from the book The Cuisines of Spain:

Get several cod filets, preferably skin-on
Cover the bottom of a large non-reactive pan or dish with coarse salt (such as kosher salt)
Put the filets side-by-side on the salt.
Cover them with coarse salt.  They should be completely covered, with no fish showing.
Place the pan, uncovered, in the refrigerator for 48 hours.
Every 12 hours, pour off any accumulated liquids.  This will wash away some of the salt, so add salt as needed to re-cover the fish.
Lift the fish out of the salt and wipe it down with damp towels to remove the outer salt.
Use or freeze within a couple of weeks.


How much magnesium is in Hinode Calrose rice?

This shows that 1 cup of cooked brown rice contains 80mg of magnesium. and white rice contains 50mg.
The wikipedia for brown rice show that for 100g of raw rice it contains 143mg of magnesium, and for white rice it's about 127mg.
The wikipedia page for calrose rice does not display nutritional information.
I would imagine it is similar to regular white rice or it would be stated, especially if it was 3000% of the base value (or about 3810mg) which would be very high.


It doesn't seem like you can get a soft, elastic gel using agar, Modernist Cuisine lists an elastic one but classifies it as firm(4-140):

Texture     Firmness    Gelling Agents       Scaling
----------------------------------------------------
Elastic     Firm        Locust Bean Gum      0.15%
                        Agar                 0.10%
                        Xanthan Gum          0.20%

Although, they do have an elastic gel in the coating gels section that is classified as tender (4-151):

Texture     Firmness    Gelling Agents       Scaling
----------------------------------------------------
Elastic     Tender      Sorbitol             3.00%
                        Agar                 0.60%
                        Xanthan Gum          0.25%


How much sugar should I put with the fruit in a pie or crumble?

All the fruit that's currently in-season is bursting with sugars already, which means I usually go a bit easier when adding sugar.

When it's mid-winter though, and you get the out-of-season/glasshouse variety fruit, adding a bit more sugar usually works well.


Any methods to make prawns more "crunchy" (bite/tear off easily)

Chewy or rubbery prawns are a good sign that you've overcooked them. As with other seafood, they don't take kindly to being overcooked. You should probably cook them separately, just enough, and then mix them into whatever you're eating them with.

You can use whatever cooking method you like; common ones include boiling, steaming, and stir-frying. Whatever you do, just make sure you don't do too much of it. Any cooking beyond done makes them worse.

Since you seem to prefer boiling: as soon as they're done, you should dump them into a colander and run cold water over them immediately afterward to stop them from cooking further. Cooking times vary depending on size; small shrimp take only a few minutes, while very large ones might take 5-10. They'll probably be pink and some will be starting to float; to tell for sure whether they're cooked you can cut one in half and make sure it's opaque all the way through.


How can I use up a large quantity of egg?

Perhaps some breakfast strata would do the trick.  I don't know how many ingredients you're looking for, but the basic recipes would (in addition to eggs) include bread, butter, cheese, milk or half-and-half, and a few meats, vegetables, and/or herbs.  I've seen variations that use potatoes and rosemary, some that use bacon and scallions, some that use spinach or asparagus.  Quite a variety.

My favorite ones are behind a paywall, but if you subscribe:
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipes/506-breakfast-strata-with-sausage-mushrooms-and-monterey-jack
(Cooks Country also has a strata-inspired recipe called Featherbed Eggs that I love.)

Otherwise, you can find strata recipes anywhere:
http://www.food.com/recipe/ham-asparagus-strata-85885

Another one I quite enjoy is called Eggs Piperade, which is essentially scrambled eggs with a stir-fry of peppers, onions, and tomatoes.


Likely Polyethylene / Polyethylene terephthalate

Despite internet rumors, freezing should be safe.

Your string cheese will likely be far more 'brittle and crumbly' than 'stringy' after thawing.


Metal dust/shavings in food from knife wear?

At a microscopic level metal is malleable, and so the edge tends to bend rather than spall or break off.  Still, it is probably technically true to a certain extent, and based on many many years of metal knife usage by millions or billions of people through history, completely irrelevant.  Whatever effect it may have is vanishingly small.


Spray oil with hydrocarbon propellants on non-stick pan surfaces

I don't know about the propellants, but you're probably doing yourself a disfavor if you are using an oil spray on nonstick.

The problem is that you're using way too little oil with them. It won't matter if you're making stir fry, but people tend to plop a single piece of meat or fish on the pan. Then what you have is vast ares of pan bottom, hot, covered by nothing by oil. What happens is that the oil polymerizes, just like in seasoning a cast iron pan. You end up with a tacky gunk which is sticky enough to have a grip on the teflon. As you cannot heat the pan enough to actually make a good seasoning out of the stuff (and it won't work well on top of nonstick anyway), you end up with mini droplets of sticky substance on top of the teflon, which reduce the non stickiness.

The oil is also too little to prevent the pan from overheating, which means that your pan can get destroyed by the heat itself. Use an infrared thermometer to see which knob setting is low enough for your pan and only use a naked or sprayed pan under that setting.

I don't have any studies about that, I've just made a similar mistake to my own pans and have seen enough of my friends' and relatives' pans covered in that oil residue to know it's a common problem.

Of course, this problem is not inherent in the spray. You could spray until you have enough oil to not get that effect, a depth of at least 3 mm of a continuous oil puddle seems to be sufficient. But if you are going to use that amount of oil, it's easier and cheaper to get it from the bottle, not out of a spray can.

It is possible that there is an additional problem caused by the propellants. Or it could be a wrong theory by the people who notice the negative effects of frying on a sprayed non stick pan and don't know enough about pan seasoning to recognize the process I described before. My guess is the second, as the whole point of teflon is that it's as close to chemically inert as they could get. I'd like to see another, better sourced answer clarifying this point. But for me, the above problem is reason enough to keep the spray for other purposes, no matter what the propellants do or don't do.


How do I prevent crust formation when proofing pizza dough?

If you insist on using a damp cloth, you have to make it wet again and again, so this is quite cumbersome especially with long proofing times.

Much easier is plastic wrap, which doesn't prevent the dough from rising if you use it to cover a sufficiently large bowl. Tightly wrapping the dough itself obviously won't work.

My prefered method for these very long raises is a large food-safe plastic container with a lid. It doesn't have to be super-airtight and as I usually do a round of "stretch and fold" or quick punchdown every 12-24 hours I never had a problem with dried or overflowing dough.


You can use cow's milk with some grated coconut or coconut extract. Or because I just saw your allergy you can use equal parts of milk, sesame oil and molasses.


Unsweetened or fruit sweetened ice cream - Replacement for sugar in ice cream?

From a bulk perspective you don't have to replace sugar with anything, you certainly don't need want to add starch to compensate as that will not do favors for your consistency and mouth feel. Sugar helps the consistency of ice cream by reducing ice crystal formation,  protein does not, and starch does a bit but makes your ice cream, well, starchy rather than creamy if you add much. Vanilla extract doesn't inhibit ice crystal formation much as it's not enough alcohol unless you add way too much, straight alcohol like vodka is a better choice.

For me the solution isn't bulk, but to make up for the lack of sugar using a stabilizer like guar gum and/or carageenan. Locust bean gum is good for presenting ice crystal formation as well.

Regarding sweetness, fruit isn't a good source of sweetness because of concentration. Most of fruit is water, and to add enough sweetness and fruit flavor you have to add a lot, adding a lot of starch, cellulose and water to your ice cream which isn't good for consistency. When I add fruit for flavor I cook it down into a jam to reduce its water content, this works well for berries, but wouldn't work for starchy fruits like bananas, you might try banana chips instead. I think what without some sort of sweetener it's going to end up pretty bland though.


Are there any yeast-less breads that can be used as sandwich bread?

There are roughly four types of bread by leavening: yeast breads, chemically leavened breads, sourdough breads and unleavened breads.

Yeast breads are obviously out of question. Chemically leavened breads are made with baking soda or baking powder, and are also often called "quickbreads". They are less common as pure breads, and mostly available as special recipes which are somewhere between cake and bread, such as banana bread or zucchini bread. I don't know if you can buy any of them easily, but they are extremely easy to make at home (about as easy as muffins).

Edit per the commenters' suggestion, this is probably your best solution. While most recipes for quickbreads in use today are indeed for banana bread and such, there are older recipes (especially from wartime) where normal, non-flavored bread is made with soda. Using them is probably the best you can do. Caveat: the more breadlike you want the texture to be, the more dense will you have to make the bread, because developing the texture takes time, and baking soda and baking powder lose their leavening properties with time.

I would advise you to stay away from sourdough breads. They don't contain commercial yeast, but during fermentation they catch wild yeasts. The wild yeasts are closely related to commercial yeast, and likely to trigger the same allergies as commercial yeast does.

The last variety, unleavened breads, are flatbreads. They are dense due to lack of leavening, so if they were made thick, the center would not bake. This means that you can't cut them into slices to make a traditional sandwich. But if you relax your definition of what a sandwich should be like, you can use unleavened breads like tortillas or matzo layered with the ingredients, or make actual wraps instead of sandwiches. Pay attention though, not every flatbread is unleavened, naan for example contains yeast. Knäckebröd is a flatbread which can be leavened or unleavened depending on brand, and it makes excellent sandwiches.

You can also try making sandwiches with non-bread substances. A jibarito is a sandwich where the filling is packed in fried plantain slices instead in bread. Other vegetable slices like zucchini or oven-dried eggplant should work too. Puffed rice wafers are also a good sandwich packaging, as well as savoury waffles (make your own or read the packaging, because there are yeast-leavened waffles).

Other types of leavening are not used in breads (such as meringue leavening which is used for cakes only), but if you like baking and want to make your son's diet more varied, you can try adapting cake recipes to savoury, breadlike results. Adapting recipes is more for advanced bakers though, because the sugar in cakes plays important roles besides giving them flavor.

It is important to note that most of my suggestions are pretty different from the everyday yeast breads most people use for sandwiches. You probably won't get anything too similar to them (quickbreads will be the closest). Don't try to imitate them as close as possible, you will be frustrated. Teach your son (and why not yourself?) to appreciate the substitutes which make for very tasty non-traditional sandwiches with their own charm.


There are several factors, but the texture of meatloaf primarily depends on the ratio of binder, filler and meat.

In this case, your binder is the egg. Specifically, the protein in the egg white helps hold the meat proteins together.

The filler is the mixture of milk and oats. I've heard that toasted panko is more effective at absorbing milk, and also that cooking it can help. I haven't tried these options though, so I can't recommend them.

One thing I've done is replacing a portion of the beef with ground veal, which contains more collagen. This breaks down into gelatin in the oven, and gives the meat a silky texture without loosening it - allowing me to use less filler.

You can simulate this effect by using a small amount of powdered gelatin in your filler directly.


Can I reduce heavy whipping cream for a sauce a day ahead of use?

The only issue with reducing cream and then cooling it, is when you then reheat it you'll likely find the sauce will split leaving a layer of fat floating on the top. This is easily fixed by adding a touch more cream during the reheating process.
It's how we deal with white wine cream sauce at work.


What is the purpose of proofing dough in several stages

There are three steps in bread making commonly referred to as "Proofing"
The first step is also called fermenting (or proofing the yeast, which, I believe, is not what you are asking about).

The first rise (also called proofing or bulk fermentation) is about increasing the volume. This is the primary breeding period for the yeasts once they are incorporated into the dry goods.

  It's during our bulk fermentation that the yeast does the majority of
  its work, helping our dough gain flavor as ethanol and other
  byproducts are produced, and gain structure as CO2 inflates our gluten
  network.

The second rise, or final proof, of the dough is maturing the flavor and texture. Having risen in volume and then being shaped much of the gas created in the first raise is released, but the gluten 'matrix' is preserved. How much (or how vigorously) we 'punch down' the dough will create a bread of more fine air pockets while a dough that is barely worked will preserve some of those original air pockets and will create a bread with a more course interior. Additionally the final proof can be used to allow the loaf to take it's final form. Sometimes this is because it is in some container (loaf pan, dutch oven, etc.). It is simply easier to allow the dough to fill the pan by expanding into it. If time permits it is often beneficial to 'retard' the final rise, slowing the rate of expansion, by placing the dough in a refrigerator. This will, obviously, take more time, but the reward in flavor is (IMHO) worth it.

  Proofing our loaves in the fridge (also called retarding) will slow
  down their final rise, giving our loaves more flavor. Also, retarding
  loaves during their final proof makes them easier to handle and score
  before baking, which will improve the crumb, crust, and appearance of
  our baked loaves.

There are a variety of more detailed explanations available online. This article from 'Serious Eats' is a good starting place.


Would a tagine be better for high altitude braising?

The benefits of using a tagine will be marginal at best. It will save some moisture loss over a dutch oven, however the cooking time will continue to be around 25% longer than conventional recipes as the tagine won't raise the temperature over your lower boiling point at all.

Your moisture loss will continue to be high due to the increased cooking time, irrespective of the tagine's shape - and especially as at 2 quarts it will be quite small, with a short 'cooling tower.'

Colorado State Uni has some information on high altitude cooking which may be useful.
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/p41.html#3k

As Ecnerwal & BrownRedHawk note, a pressure cooker is a far better option. As a rule of thumb, for every 5 degrees above 100c that you cook food, the time it takes to cook is cut roughly in half. A decent PC is able to braise at 15 PSI, which is 248f. Even at 5000ft above sea level, with a modern, non-venting PC your food will lose no moisture and braise in no time.  There is no need to try and keep the PSI lower to simulate cooking at sea level; for braising, higher is better as it will turn tough collagen into tasty gelatin much faster.

Regulating the pressure/temperature of a PC is as simple as bringing it up to full pressure on high, and then turning the gas/electric hob down low; it requires little energy to maintain as there is no loss of steam. Even if you have to adjust the temperature now and again to keep the pressure right, you're braising for a much, much shorter amount of time.

Oh yeah - and you can buy a good large PC for the cost of a 2 quart Le Creuset Tagine (about $200?)

More information on the science of pressure cookers (and a great video) can be found here:
http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pressure-cookers

Recipes, including adjusting conventional recipes for use in a PC can be found at hip pressure cooking dot com.


Energy efficiency of microwave and electric kettle for heating water

According to the folks over at treehugger.com, they did a study to measure which of the stove, the microwave or the kettle was the more efficient in terms of use of electricity to heat a standard mug of water. This doesn't directly answer your question as you are unlikely to boil 350 ml (standard cup is 250 ml) of water in your kettle or on the stove, but it gets the point across.

A summary of their findings is that it took the electric stove 0.11 kWh, the microwave (900 W) 0.07 kWh, and the kettle 0.04 kWh. This indicates that in terms of energy usage the stove is 30.5% efficient, the microwave is 47% and the kettle is 81%.

The clear winner is the kettle!


That is totally doable. Just print out an appropriately sized copy of the desired picture and put a piece of waxed paper over it. Using a piping bag, trace the picture with frosting, filling it in. Then freeze the frosting and waxed paper. Once it is frozen, peel away the waxed paper, and put the pieces on the cake.

Here is a great pictorial of the process.


How to achieve freeze dried strawberry flakes?

First off, if they're the texture of raisins, they aren't the sort of freeze-dried strawberries the recipe wants - what it wants is something totally dry, almost the texture of styrofoam. They should crunch if you bite into them, and slowly rehydrate in your mouth if you eat one without crunching. They'll look like full-sized slices of strawberry, only dry. Like this:

The right tool for pulverizing something like this without liquid is a spice grinder or small food processor. If you don't have one of those, put the berries in a plastic bag and crush them with a mallet or a rolling pin.


Halloween Special: Glow in the dark food

Use bioluminescence. Glow worms are edible and they are phosphorescent. You could make powder from organisms that have phosphorescence (glow worms). Crush them, sprinkle them on top of  lollipops or you could try crushing up GloFish:
https://www.foodprocessing-technology.com/features/featureglowing-sushi-experimenting-futuristic-food/  These will glow in a dark room, but only faintly. You can use blacklight to enhance the bioluminescent ingredients response.  Here's some nice pictures of fluorescent dye from glowing jellyfish for glow beer using a yeast that responds to "UV or blue light" according to gizmodo. No UV light needed.
 https://www.eater.com/2016/12/8/13886320/glow-in-the-dark-beer-jellyfish-genetic-engineering
Also check out the links at the bottom of that Eater article on glowing beer, glowing udon noodles, and glowing ice cream.

An alternative to food that glows on is own is to use the more commonly available neon colored dyes could look like they glow. These super-bright hues won't give off their own light for a true glow, but will reflect lots of ambient light.

Disney has done a lot of research on making glowing food and they've gone with the LEDs or light-sticks inserted into food. The effect is food safe and dependable, or else they wouldn't use it: Disney's InfinityAide  or Fairy Floss or LightSaber Churros  Perhaps bake your pie in two pieces and then drop a glowing light cube inside your lemon filling and then plop  on the pre-baked top? Or maybe make a crust that has holes in it that you can poke a few small lightsticks into.

The most common way to get a glow in the dark effect is to use UV (fluorescent dyes) because many food safe ingredients (such as tonic water and caramel) respond to UV wavelengths. The UV causes the ingredient to give off its own light (fluoresce). However, I'm not sure if the quinine from tonic water will survive baking. Lots of websites show people using tonic water on their cup/cakes after covering them with jello, like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTh4K9Jmh0g  There is research about them at Rutgers. Apparently these edible fluorescent food colors are routinely added to food or pharmaceuticals: Allura Red, Sunset Yellow, Brilliant Blue, Fast Green and Tartrazine, a yellow-colored dye. Read more about fluorescent food dyes at: https://phys.org/news/2015-02-fluorescing-food-dyes-probes-quality.html#jCp

Anyway, you could avoid UV and go for blue light. Some things that will flourescen under UV will respond to blue or purple LED light.


2 days is usually the max for chicken in the fridge that is officially recommend, 5 days is definitely on the long side.  Pending the sell by date that the chicken had originally.

Color is just the marinade, it's the bacteria you need to be concerned about.  Hard to tell if chicken has gone bad in a marinade.

Good acidic or high salt marinade, you are probably safe.   Really up to you if you want to take the small risk or just throw away.


Is it necessary to only boil vegetables (or chicken) or can they be pressure cooked and later be boiled for the flavour to seep in?

This recipe confuses me in a number of ways.
First the simplest: It calls for adding the remaining spice powders in two places, steps 5 and 7.
One of my favorite food ethnicities is Indian, and in all my years of cooking and eating it there has always (with very rare exception) been one very important rule:  Cook the spices. The difference in both taste and texture is what really what makes the food.

In my opinion, this is what you should be doing:  In a small skillet heat a couple of tablespoons of oil until the oil is shimmering, the add the cumin seeds and fry until they become aromatic.  Add the remaining spices; coriander powder, turmeric powder, chili powder and the gharam masala and cook about 2 minutes, stirring constantly.  Set this pan aside.  In your cooking vessel, fry the onion and the chopped green chili until softened, then add the ginger-garlic paste, sauté just until aromatic, then add the tomato and the pan of cooked spices.

As far as your first question regarding boiling or pressure cooking the vegetables, not sure I understand why you would want to.  Have you thought about cooking everything in the pressure cooker, including the chicken?  If that sounds appealing then use the above method for the spices, onions and green chili, then add the veggies, water and, if using, the chicken (par-cooking the chicken can save time).  This is the method I use when using a slow-cooker which should work for this.

As to question 3, go ahead and add salt at the beginning when adding the veggies, and the add more to taste after the major cooking.  And yes to both of the final parts regarding the salt and the "greasy" layer (prefer the word "oily").  Adding salt early in the cooking process can make a lot of difference in both taste and texture, and the oily layer (which comes from the frying of the spices) carries a lot of flavor.

I hope this helps.  Ask more if needed.


My Shrink Wrapped Steaks are Brown when I thaw them!

I assume the steaks were frozen or packed in ice:

The freezing process, especially slow freezing damages the cellular properties of organic material. This results in discolouration, texture changes(it'll be tough) and flavour loss. Snap freezing, using the Birdseye process (The company and the process are named after Clarence Birdseye) reduces cellular damage and preserves flavour, resulting a better preserved product.

If your meat is frozen sufficiently it should keep for around one year. But the texture and flavour will never be as good as a fresh steak. It should be fine.


Is custard powder(powder mix) is same as pudding mix powder?

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Depends on what the manufacturer put inside.

The term "pudding" is somewhat broadly defined. It can include eggs, or starch, or both, or even be applied to kinds of dessert which are not made from thickened milk. "Custard" is somewhat more specific, I would insist that a custard is always egg thickened, and that the most typical custard is yolk thickened - but it can include starch sometimes.

Manufacturers of powders who write "pudding" will almost always use starch (although sometimes they use modified starch, which ends up tasting differently than homemade pudding), and sometimes also powdered egg. Manufacturers of powders with the label "custard" might use pure egg powder, or a combination of a starch and egg, but they could also just decide to label it "custard" even if it doesn't include egg.

So, I would expect that they are in principle different, because a "pudding" sachet is very likely to contain starch and no egg, and a "custard" sachet is very likely to contain an egg, and no starch, or little starch. But due to inconsistent labelling, if you just grab a package of each from a random brand, you can end up with the opposite case, or with two packages containing the same thickener.


There are multiple qualities, differently refined, on the market. Highly refined qualities that leave only the oil (various fatty acids) itself will have a very high smoke point and be suitable for high heat frying. There is a lot of saturated fats in coconut oil, which result in both the solid texture at low temperatures and the stability at high heat.

Unrefined or less-refined qualities will have other compounds left in, which can contribute to aroma (and possible nutritional benefits) but will also lower the smoking point and can actually result in an off taste and/or byproducts not considered healthy (why is off topic here).

Various smoke points are quoted, from 300°F for some unrefined varieties to 450°F for some highly refined ones. Exact smoke points likely depend on how exactly it was refined.

The exact same applies to olive oil, BTW: Highly refined varieties are known to be perfectly usable for high heat work, with the opposite being true of unrefined ones.


If you're looking for alcoholic alternatives then you could use O'Mara's or some other brand (see Wikipedia for a good list).  A light coffee liquer could also serve as a workable alternative.

On the non-alcoholic side, Irish Cream flavored coffee creamers would work well.

Coffee syrups like Monin's or Torani's also have Irish Cream flavors.  I personally like Monin syrups because they're all natural.


Can I put a layer of almond paste in my tart that will not be baked?

Almond paste is a finished product. It can be eaten without cooking.

In fact, one of my favorite tart recipes is Julia Child's "Pear and Almond Tart" from her Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  The four parts of the tart (crust, almond filling, poached pears and currant glaze) are cooked separately and it is assembled without being baked afterwards. It uses a "frangipane" that cooks the eggs rather than leaving them raw as many almond pastes do.  I don't have a copy of the book to confirm but this looks like the correct version of the recipe.

  1/2 cup almonds
  1 large egg
  1 large egg yolk
  3/4 cups sugar
  1/3 cup flour
  1 cup whole milk
  3 tbs butter
  2 tsp vanilla extract
  1/4 tsp almond extract

  Heat oven to 350 degrees. Toast almonds until brown (about 10 minutes), then pulverize in a bender, food processor, or with a mortar and pestle.

  Whisk egg and egg yolk in a large mixing bowl until combined. Gradually add sugar and beat until mixture is pale yellow – about 3 minutes. Beat in the flour.

  Heat milk on the stove over moderate heat until it reaches the boiling point. Beat a small amount of milk into the egg mixture, to temper the eggs. Then pour in the rest of the milk and whisk vigorously.

  Pour milk mixture into a sauce pan and heat over moderate heat. Stir slowly, until mixture begins to thicken and coagulate into a stiff paste. Beat vigorously over low heat for 2-3 minutes to cook the flour. Off the heat add the butter, vanilla and almond extracts, and almonds. Let cool. To prevent a skin from forming, cover custard with buttered parchment paper.

If you're making the almond paste on your own, you might consider substituting this one for it. It's really amazing and was hard to stop eating.


What is an easy-to-make dessert that goes well with Indian food?

Plain yogurt.

I had it several times in Indian dish. It refreshes the mouth and takes away the the lingering of the spices from Indian curry and clear the hotness away from a spicy Indian dish.


Don't try and keep it alive. Wrap it in plastic wrap and freeze it. It will thaw in seconds under running water. Freezing will do little harm to the flavour.


Standard prep for beef tongue seems to be: scrub it well and rinse, then soak it in cold water for 2-3 hours.  Heat water to a low simmer (about 200F) and cook slowly for at least an hour per pound.  Preferably cook as long as you can (5-6 hours) to get a more tender result.  When meat is tender and cooked, remove meat and save the broth. Cool the tongue and peel off the outer skin.  The broth may be reduced and added to vegetables and meat to create a richer, meatier taco.

I also found a tongue taco (how is that NOT slang for some sexual act?) recipe.

Personally, I'm also a big fan of cold boiled beef tongue with horseradish sauce.  You can go from the cooked tongue straight to that just by slicing it up. Now I really want to make tongue tacos.


Getting dog meat to taste as close to steak as possible?

It seems to me that steak is two things: a way of cutting meat, and a way of cooking it.

Recipes for cooking steak don't to my knowledge vary that much based on the cut of meat...the ideal temperature might vary, and the ideal cooking time certainly does (lean steaks are said to taste better rare, while fatty steaks are better medium rare), but the approach to cooking is the same: quickly brown the outside of the steak at high heat to cause a Maillard reaction, and then cook to the desired level of rareness.

So I think the question is more one of whether there exists an appropriate cut of dog meat to use as steak...the meat must start out tender, so that cooking it as a steak (leaving the inside rare or medium rare) results in something edible.

In cattle, some parts are sufficiently tender for steak, others are too tough, and are usually sold as roasts, so if dog meat is appropriate for steak, it might be important to get a cut from the right part of a dog. If you can find an against the grain cut of dog meat that seems sufficiently tender, there's a decent chance it will work well as steak.

Alternatively, a really good butcher might be able to identify for you whether (and what parts) of a dog carcass would make good steak and cut you one as a special request, but I think it would be hard to find a butcher who has experience cutting dog steak, since Europeans don't usually butcher dogs, and south-east Asians don't (at least traditionally) cook steak: Confucius taught that the use of knives at the dinner table was a form of violence ("The honorable and upright man keeps well away from both the slaughterhouse and the kitchen. And he allows no knives on his table." source), and as a result all meat dishes in the region involve cutting the meat into bite-size pieces before serving it, so that knives are not necessary at the dinner table (i.e. so that they can be eaten with chopsticks).


What features are important in a hand mixer?

What I look for in a good mixer are:

A comfortable grip (I'm sure we've all have painful wrists after whisking up eggs whites or similar)
Well made, sturdy parts. (some whisks are strong others are just thin wire.)
Variable speed control
The Watt rating.

To answer your No.2 question, watts are important. They measure how much power the machine uses. Higher watts will mean the machine does more of the work and your wrist does less of the work. The cheapest machines on the market are only good for whipping light foods like cream and mayonnaise. If you plan on mixing up heavy fruit cakes or bread doughs, you should choose a higher wattage machine.

Paying for a good quality machine, if you can afford it, will save you money in the end. My mother has had the same hand mixer for over 35 years. She paid for a good one and it lasted. I however, like you, opted for a low price machine because I was on a budget, I am now on my third and this time I bought a sturdier model and I am much more satisfied with it. If I'd bought the better machine at first, I'd have saved myself £50 or so over the time.


Cooking polenta: is stirring for 30 minutes really necessary?

It definitely does not need to be stirred continuously. Fairly frequently, yes, to avoid burning on the bottom, but not constantly. Cooking for more or less time has more impact on texture than flavor. Cooked briefly, you get more of a grain-like cream of wheat texture. Cooked long, you get a creamier, smoother result. Both can be good, but the creamy style is more traditional.


I assume you're making normal maki (nori side out) and not California rolls.

Are you leaving a 1/2 inch or so of blank nori (no rice) on the outside edge (the edge that you roll last)?

If you slightly wet the bare edge of the nori with a little water on your finger it should help it stick together.


How to "bake" whole potatoes in slow cooker?

How frequently did  you lift the lid to 'look at them'? While water is not required convection is, and each time the lid is lifted all the hot air does exactly what hot air does...rises and escapes. The slow release of heat through the ceramic sides do not reheat the space quickly and if one peeks too often (or doesn't have a good lid), you will get the results you report, over done on the bottom, where the wrapped potatoes are in direct contact with the ceramic, and under done on top.

If not only from my experience doing so the sheer number of posts from people reporting success with 'baking potatoes in a crock pot' says that 'it is possible'. From comments above I believe you may have also managed to overcrowd the pot. I have never tried more than four 'good sized' potatoes at once and always had good luck. A quick scan of the articles offered from a quick google search (above) has mixed suggestions, from only cover the bottom (what I do) to fill the crock. Try again with few potatoes, in a single layer and keep the lid sealed.


How do I make a pot of coffee on a bbq grill?

You have two 'convenient' options:

Get a Campfire Coffee Pot, similar to what you have (almost certainly) seen in "old westerns". If you plan to do much camping, this is probably a good option. I have linked to one available at Amazon, but almost any camping supply/sporting goods store will carry something similar. (McDonald's disclaimer: Hey, this is going to be HOT, handle with care)

Army Coffee, A trick I learned from an mess sergeant when I was in the service, this is a great technique for making LOTS (5-20 gallons) of coffee. Over an open fire get a large pot of water boiling, pour in loose ground coffee directly into the boiling water. Allow to boil for 5 minutes and remove (carefully) the pot from the water. Once the boiling stops wait one more minute and "whack" the side of the pot on the outside with a large metal spoon, this will cause all (ok "almost all") the grounds to sink to the bottom. Gently ladle the coffee from the pot to your cups. This may not be "Bigbucks Coffee Approved" but it will it will get you going.


why pepitas (pumpkin seeds) taste like blue cheese?

I'm certainly not a food scientist or chemist, but could it be the umami that is being likened to, or substituting for blue cheese?  Pepitas are pretty high in glutamic acid at 13258mg per 227 grams of seeds. Glutamic acid, I believe, is a source of umami.


What is the shelf life of opened cheeses?

Yes, it differs by cheese.

As a very general and vague rule, the softer the cheese, the less time it will last.  Large chunks may last longer than small or grated pieces.

A ripe Camembert is at its peak for hours.  A nice chunk of Parmesan may last for weeks.

Dairy Googness summarizes as follows:

  Fresh cheese: a few days to 2 weeks
  Soft cheese: 1 week
  Semi-soft cheese: 2 to 3 weeks
  Firm cheese: 5 weeks
  Hard cheese: 10 months

Note:  my opinion on the above is that the firm and hard times are a little long for opened cheese.

Eat By Date is more conservative, suggesting only up to a couple of months for opened hard cheeses.

You can also freeze cheese with minimal loss of quality, which will substantially increase its shelf life.


Raw meat should not have a smell to it. When it has an odour to it it is a sure sign that it is starting to spoil. Blood will spoil quicker and some rare conditions causes the smell on the meat. Washing it off helps to reduce the odour but it is best to just toss it out to avoid being made sick by eating it.

Salmonella enterica infected chickens will release hydrogen sulfide gas, which smells like eggs. It is found largely in chicken products and eggs. It is killed by cooking at high temperature, but it is best to avoid using it if the chicken starts to smell like that. Salmonella is the second most common bacterial cause of enterocolitis.


It is almost certainly safe unless it was left out at warm temperatures to spoil, or has molded, or otherwise spoiled in a manner not directly related to being uncovered.

It may, however, be unpalatable due to:

Drying out
Picking up flavors or odors from other items in the refrigerator

Since you are eating it relatively quickly, if you are not experiencing these issues, your practice should be just fine.

My own personal preferred method is to put my cheese chunks in a zip lock type bag, which substantially cuts down on the drying, especially for moister cheeses like mozzarella or semi-firm cheddar.


What is the difference in the making of yoghurt to produce carbonated (like Kefir) vs non-carbonated yoghurt?

There are different kinds of lactic acid fermentation which are done by different kinds of bacteria and/or yeasts.

The simplistic picture is that yogurt is typically made with only two types of bacteria (lactobacillus bulgaricus and streptococcus thermophilus) that perform only homolactic fermentation converting sugar (glucose) into lactate only. In contrast, Kefir is made with a larger mix of bacterias that perform homolactic fermentation as well as heterolactic fermentation, which converts glucose into carbon dioxide (CO2), ethanol and lactate.

For this reason, kefir is carbonated and have even slightly alcoholic.


Each country has different flour, and the temperature also has a big influence. You will probably laugh but to find the right consistency of your dough take your earlobe between two fingers...this is the right consistency it is not a joke, my grandmother taught me this and now I am a grandmother


How important is fresh ground coffee vs a good coffee grinder?

Both have downsides:

Coffee that is ground more than a few hours before brewing loses aroma, which is obviously an important part of flavour.
A blade grinder doesn't produce evenly-sized particles; big particles will under-extract (losing flavour) and small particles will over-extract (introducing bitterness).

My wife and friends didn't believe me about the over-extraction potential of blade ground coffee, so we did a blind taste test between coffee beans ground with a blade and ground with a burr. I identified the blade-ground coffee every time. That's not the comparison you have, but in the absence of a burr grinder I'd go for pre-ground, for convenience.


After 6-8 hours at 225° your meat's going to be 225°, there's no value of measuring its temperature. After a couple of hours any piece of meat will reach the same temperature of the oven. When cooking tough cuts like brisket target temperature is immaterial, you're never going to serve them less than well done, the point is to cook them long enough for the connective tissue to break down into gelatin.

Measuring temperature is important when roasting tender cuts and you want a particular doneness level.


Recipe websites for bulk/restaurant quantities

I have a few cookbooks for caterers that have this sort of thing.  I've even gotten one from our library system (although not my local branch, I was at one of the larger ones)

So, using that term, I tried searching for 'catering recipe websites' had a bunch of false positives, but it did find :

http://lotsofinfo.tripod.com/ ("Over 500 Make ahead or Large Recipes and MANY Self Catering Tips Below  --- enjoy").

A search for 'catering recipes' was a bit more helpful:

http://recipehut.homestead.com/Bulk.html
http://www.party-recipes-and-ideas.com/
http://www.customcatering.net/recipes.html
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/feed-crowd  (although 'crowd' is 8-10, it looks like)
http://www.bigoven.com/recipes/catering/best (has options to set the number of people to serve ... but that's not going to tell you how to adjust cooking times for larger pan sizes, etc)
http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/recipe/catering-for-large-numbers-keyword--italian-cuisine.html ('large numbers' seems to be 4, but there are some that are 12 ... which might fall into 'entertaining', I guess)

I'm actually pretty disappointed in most of these -- I'd have expected recipes for 'catering' to talk about what parts you can do in advance vs. morning of vs. last minute.

There are also websites w/ tips for caterers, eg. https://www.webstaurantstore.com/article/26/catering-menu-ideas.html

I also found a website for 'Essentially Catering Magazine', but many of the recipes they have serve less than 8 people : https://www.essentiallycatering.co.uk/recipes.php

I suspect that cookbooks might be a safer bet -- many of these have the 'look inside' option on Amazon, so you can see if they're what you're looking for:

https://smile.amazon.com/Armed-Forces-Recipe-Service-Cookbook/dp/0615862683/
https://smile.amazon.com/Cook-like-Caterer-Entertaining-Catering/dp/1475019017
https://smile.amazon.com/Feeding-Masses-Planning-Events-Parties/dp/1462110711/
https://smile.amazon.com/Secrets-Caterers-Kitchen-Indispensable-Planning/dp/1557883521/  (I've since gotten this book ... most recipes serve 8)
https://smile.amazon.com/Cooking-Crowd-Recipes-Strategies-Entertaining/dp/1594860114/

Which also led me to Army cookbooks:

https://smile.amazon.com/G-I-Cook-Book-Authentic-Recipes/dp/147520650X
https://smile.amazon.com/Recipes-Cooking-Schools-annotated-study-ebook/dp/B009F7K7ES
https://smile.amazon.com/British-Army-Cook-Book-1914/dp/1445643421

Update: A friend mentioned a website with recipes for school cafeterias. There are some pre made sauces referenced, but it starts at 25 people and includes instructions for advance prep and just before service:  http://www.thelunchbox.org/recipes-menus/

Update 2: I've since learned that the preferred term seems to be 'quantity cooking', which helped me find:

http://recipesforacrowd.com/
https://www.foodhero.org/quantity-recipes (Oregon State University)
http://www.ellenskitchen.com/bigpots/


Does using Electric stove vs Gas stove have any difference in food taste?

The simple answer is: no, heat is heat, it should taste the same.

Reality is slightly more complicated than that. In reality, a cook learns how to cook well by instinct with his stove. When he changes to a stove with a different behavior, his instinct is suddenly wrong, but he probably does not know it. So he cooks as usual. But because the stove works differently, he should have changed the setting and time he uses. So, a stove change alone can cause food to taste worse - not because the stove is worse, but because the cook's skill is lacking.

Also, an electric stove (especially an old fashioned one with iron hobs) cannot do some things a gas stove can, such as a very quick change in temperature. If the food absolutely requires this, it can turn out worse on the electric stove. But a good cook should be able to work around that.

So, the more complete statement should be: There is no difference in taste between cooking on electric or gas stove, if the cook knows how to compensate for the difference in heating speed.


Is there any substitute for butter (or oil) on puff pastry?

No. An edible organic liquid that does not dissolve in water, almost by definition, is an oil.
That's not the important thing, though. Substances like mineral oil are edible yet non-nutritive; they pass through the body unchanged and would be compatible with any dietary condition. The problem is that, because they are not digestible and not water-soluble, they, ah... lubricate things. Down there. The amount you'd have to use for puff pastry would cause some real digestive issues.
Bottom line: there are no straightforward non-nutritive substitutes for fats and oils which do not cause diarrhea or loose stools.


Do you eat marmalade? If so be inspired by that and cook further.  This will give you the opportunity to adjust sugar levels as well as cooking out some of the bitterness.  You may want to use a food processor if the chunks are too big.

Chutneys  (of the keeping kind) are usually based on vinegar and some brown sugar, with plenty of onion.  I often make an apple/onion chutney, but I don't think I've ever used lemon in one, though it should be possible from a pH point of view to preserve this way.  Starting from where you are this could be hard to reach without adding a lot, as you were making a sugar-based preserve.

You don't say when you made this or how you have stored or plan to store it but a mix of cooked and raw ingredients in a preserve isn't a very good idea fom a spoilage and food safety point of view.  I won't go into detail here without knowing that, and as it's been covered many times before, just note that you need to be careful.


It's scallion sushi

And again

"Filler text to reach the 30 character limit for posts."


What is the difference between a gugelhupf pan, a bund(t) pan and a rodon pan?

Wikipedia to the rescue.

Gugelhupf is the generic german name for Bundt which is how it's known in the USA.

Rödön is a village in Sweden where they claim to have invented the 'sandwich cake' (even though this cake doesn't seem to resemble the Bundt at all).

If you read the article about Bundt, you'll see that the designer took elements of Scandinavian pan designs, so there might be a relationship with Rödön.

In Dutch, these are called 'turban pastries' for the shape of the pan.
The German word Gugel means hood.


What are the purposes of the various specialty knives?

The standard answer is that you actually need a grand total of three knives, and could conceivably make do with one.  The usual load-out recommended is 1)6"-8" chef's knife, santoku, or cleaver, 2) 3" paring knife, and 3) long serrated knife.  The chef's knife or santoku is for most work (a cleaver can be used for this if you're a mad man), the paring knife is for small work (fine vegetables and mushrooms), and the serrated blade is for crusty breads and tomatoes (which can end up crushed by straight blades).   If you are embarrassed for funds, ditch the serrated knife and paring knife, in that order.  If you're doing serious butchery, a 10"-12" carving knife and a small thin jointing knife are worth the investment.    There's a special knife for fileting fish, but to be frank I've had one for 20 years and it's never been the best tool for the job.

Watermelon can be sliced with a large straight blade (I might pull out the 12" for that), but only with a lot of gumption.  Show fear or hesitation, and you're going to make a mess.

More important than what you buy is how you use it.  Search on youtube for "introductory knife skills", or take a cooking class on it.  Well worth the investment.

(As should be obvious from the above, whatever you do don't buy a "knife set".  You'll end up paying a lot of money for knives you will probably never need.)

Except for raw tomatoes, french bread, and peeling fruit, everything on your list ends done by my 8" santoku (or 6" ceramic, which is not something for beginners, purely on price).


Why is the English word "curry" used for all these different dishes?

"Curry" is based on the Tamil word "Kari", which refers to any of various highly-spiced side dishes intended to be eaten over rice. Englishmen from the British East India Company encountered the Tamil word in their first explorations of the subcontinent, applied it more broadly to pretty much all Indian dishes, and used it in preference to words in other Indian languages.

By the early 19th century, "Curry houses" were established as restaurants in London.  As a result, when British travellers encountered highly spiced stews in Siam and Japan, they called these "curry" as well.  Many of these dishes were descended from Indian cuisine in any case.

If you're interested in this, I highly recommend getting a copy of Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors.  It'll give you a history of the last 600 years of "curry", and recipes besides.


I would suggest 4-6 weeks. I buy all natural, preservative free green curry paste all the time. The packaging suggests refrigeration once opened up to one month. Most foods without the help of preservatives don't last much longer than a month under refrigeration. The curry paste may not spoil per se, but the quality does degrade significantly. Green curry paste is naturally very strong in the odor department, so it can smell fresh long after it is. I'd bet that if you compared it to a freshly made batch you'd tell the difference.


What's this salad of gray lumps in white dressing?

This is potato salad, cubes of cooked (boiled) potato in a dressing of mayonnaise. If you are looking to replicate this, the typical cha chaan teng (茶餐廳) style potato salad might have some sweetened condensed milk, something like a 4:1 ratio of mayonnaise to condensed milk. Also, the garnish appears to be half of a cherry tomato, rather than a maraschino cherry.


Are seeds in melons and other fruits good to eat?

In Northern India, we eat Musk Melon and Water Melon seeds. In fact they are used like nuts. We make sweet dish too.
The de-kernelling process is done by hand at home, which is quite lengthy.

We deseed melon. Put the seeds to dry for approximatively 2 days; with fingers or tweezers, break the kernel and get the yummy seed. Of course, it can be stored for months, if dried properly, and for years, if kept in freezer.


Doctoring up part-skim low-moisture mozzarella for pizza

In this question, someone suggested using cream cheese to better replicate the effect of fresh mozzarella, milky and fatty.  You likely won't want it by itself, but a little mixed in with your mozzarella or a few dabs scattered on top might give a nice richness.  Or similarly adding fresh cheeses, like ricotta or cottage cheese, will also give a milky taste and add fats for a rich mouthfeel, and might complement your mozzarella nicely.  Even a good feta has something to add in creaminess, the texture and taste - though I prefer the sheep's or goat's milk fetas, rather than the common low-fat variety.

On the other hand, these will also add moisture - so if you were going out of your way to find low-moisture mozzarella for a reason, then these additions might not be to your taste.

Another option might be to go back and get the full moisture mozzarella, and mix it with the low-moisture to see if you can get decent results that way.  Overall, the results should be in between (depending on the precise mix) but it might give reasonable results.

Or you could do something with white sauce, possibly with other flavorings, garlic, herbs - maybe as your sauce base for the pizza, or else just pour a small amount in with your shredded cheese and toss well, and use the damp tangles on top of whatever other sauce yo would normally use.  This can be a way to add all sorts of other flavorings, if you want, by incorporating them into the white sauce.

Or you could look into rich toppings for your pizza, to make up some of the flavor.  I thought of oil-marinated olives, or vegetables roasted or sauteed in oil, or else something with its own fats like bacon, to get added flavor in with your fat.  Adding pesto would fit in with these options, as well.

Basically, I would suggest make it less about adding fat for the sake of "making up for" the mozzarella, and more about adding richness and flavors to make something really tasty.  You might find some recipes where this low-fat mozzarella works wonderfully, and yet the full-fat mozzarella might make the result too rich.


From this comment on a passionate homemaking article, the commenter suggests that 2 Tbsp per quart of milk is an appropriate amount of kefir grains. In my personal experience, I've found that the amount is fairly variable, and that half to twice that suggested amount will produce kefir relatively quickly (how quickly, of course, changes with the amount present).

As far as separating them goes, they should pull apart relatively easily with the use of a couple of plastic spoons. While it is possible to smash them apart, this won't actually damage their ability to ferment kefir. My recommendation is to keep a 2 Tbsp measuring cup sanitized the next time you change out your milk, and add them to the fresh milk once there are enough to fill up the cup. The remainder can be used on another batch, eaten, or put in a sealed jar in the fridge with a smaller amount of milk to serve as a backup for later. Your worst-case here is that you just throw away the excess, which I would only consider "bad" if you can't find someone to give them to.


I would be a little surprised if you could get your hands on food grade tetrasodium phyrophosphate(TSPP), but maybe you're a Sigma-Aldrich employee or something...

TSPP is commonly used in commercial food applications to inhibit bacterial growth, especially where animal proteins are present.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22934995 This phosphate is also found as an anticaking and conditioning agent in dry vanilla pudding mixes, although my personal experience tells me that the TSPP may be acting anticaking/conditioning in marshmallows, but it's more likely that it is inhibiting bacterial growth since many commercial marshmallows use gelatin(animal-derived) in their recipes.  http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/summary/summary.cgi?sid=24898899

I would also like to posit a partial reason for why your home-made marshmallows are not behaving the way you expect.

First, the industrial process(ultra precise & temp controlled equipment) is probably yielding marshmallows that have less water in them, creating a more dense and solid marshmallow.(lowering the water content/activity of the food means that bacteria will be less likely to set up colonies on your food product). Yay, technology,  Second, the marshmallows you are buying from the store have probably been sitting around for a while...like A WHILE, meaning they have lost a little bit more water from transit and storage before getting to your grocery shelves.  I believe both of those situations contribute to the textural and roasting difference.  Less bound water in marshmallow = more similar to commercial product.  More bound water in marshmallow = more melty...faster.

So your question was HOW do you use TSPP in recipes...were you to possess some...

I would incorporate  an amount into the water before you hydrate the gelatin.  There is an LD50 listed on the pubchem resource I provided, as too much can be detrimental to human health. As for how much you should add...I won't voice any advice on it.

What you might try, is using invert sugar in your recipes if you can source that (much easier to do, and doesn't require any hazard chemical shipments), or trying to get rid of more water through your heating steps in the recipe, and finally by letting your finished marshmallows dry out a bit after they have set up. If I had that kind of time, I would turn them out onto a fine-grate cooling rack and covering them with cheesecloth to accomplish drying the final product.

Good luck on your endeavors.


Fried flour tortilla from scratch cook first or just fry

According to this page... neither your first option. You should toast them in a pan without oil.

  After rest period, heat a large pan over medium-high heat. Roll each
  dough piece into a rough circle, about 6-7 inches in diameter, keep
  work surface and rolling pin lightly floured. Don’t stack uncooked
  tortillas on top of each other or they will get soggy.

  When pan is very hot, place one dough circle into pan and allow to
  cook about 1 minute or until bottom surface has a few pale brown
  spots. The uncooked surface will begin to show a few little bubbles.
  If tortilla is browning too fast, reduced heat a bit. If it’s taking
  longer than a minute to see a few pale golden brown spots on underside
  of tortillas, increase heat a bit. Flip to other side and cook for
  about 30 seconds. You want the tortilla to be soft but have a few
  small pale golden brown spots on surface. Remove from pan with tongs
  and stack in a covered container or zippered bag till all tortillas
  are cooked. This will keep them soft and pliable.

You can view the complete recipe following the above link.


What is a good way to cooldown my food and drink without a fridge?

If you're near a creek or a lake, usually just sticking your drinks in the water gets them well below the ambient air temp.