What is an alternative to chicken broth for Mexican rice?

Some recipes might be pickier, but Mexican rice is almost certainly the kind of thing where the broth is just there to add a bit of background flavor, and it doesn't have to be specifically chicken. So you can be pretty flexible. Your primary options are:

Use a different kind of pre-made broth. They'll all work for something like that, just provide slightly different flavors.
Use bouillon cubes/paste. These are likely to be less expensive since they don't have all that water weight/volume that costs money to ship. You can even buy them online, depending where you live. They do tend to be saltier, so be careful - if the recipe calls for any other salt, you can probably just leave it out.
Make your own. If broth is expensive but you can get a whole chicken you'll be in fine shape. And again, not-chicken is fine too; you can use any other kind of meat with plenty of bone in it. If you go to a little trouble, you can get something way, way better than you'd ever buy. (Just search online for recipes; there's no shortage.) But even just boiling a whole chicken in water will get you something usable.

And if somehow none of that works... water, a little seasoning (something with some umami in it) and salt if necessary? Water plus some kind of instant seasoning packet, even ramen seasoning? It's hard to say, since I don't live where you do and know what's easy to find.


Graham Crust Cheesecake is so hard to cut?

It sounds to me that you are simply pressing too hard and compressing the crust too much. Use the bottom of a glass or measuring cup to press just hard enough to keep the crust in place. Very little pressure is necessary.


Yes, they will take up some of the flavor of the stock.  However:

1) the flavor will be subtle and hard to detect, especially if you are spicing the dal heavily (as you usually do with Indian food)

2) it's not that authentic, since Indian food is often vegetarian.

Personally, I'd freeze the chicken stock and use it for something else.  Or make Turkish lentil soup, which does call for a stock base.


In England, can I buy fresh fish directly off the boat?

People don't become fishermen in the UK to get rich. We simply don't eat enough variety of fish for them to sell it in person. The way they make the most money is wholesaling it for export to the rest of the EU.

That said, apart from possibly Yarmouth you are in one of the best areas in the country where you might get this service. Here's one based around Cornwall:

http://www.mouseholefish.com

They put posters up when they will be heading out.

For more suggestions you might consider a Facebook group or similar for your town?


What is the relationship between starchy vegetables/fruits and root vegetables?

There is a mid-strong correlation between starchy vegetables and root vegetables, but not a perfect one.

Plants have many types of roots. Some of them are thin and fine, others are large. Their primary purpose is to extract nutrients and water from the soil and pass it up to the rest of the plant, but some plant families have started using their roots (and underground parts of the stem, which non-botanists mistakenly call "roots") for storage purposes. This is why some plants have rhizomes, tubers and bulbs.

Starch is a very efficient way to store energy in a small volume and without much risk of spoilage, so many plants employ it for that purpose. (The other efficient carbohydrate-based storage molecule class is the sugars). So underground storage organs frequently contain high levels of starch, for example potatoes and yams.

Over the centuries, humans have selected food based on mainly calorie density, taste, and obtainability. Starchy roots are better than many other roots for both calorie density (explained above) and obtainability (it is easier to pull 100 clean gram of potato out of the earth than 100 g of dainty clover roots, for example). So many of the roots humans eat are, in fact, starchy. But we also eat other roots. Onion bulbs contain stored energy primarily as sugars, not as starch. Other roots like radishes are much less calorie dense (their main macronutrient is still starch, but they have little macronutrients per unit of weight when compared to e.g. potatoes), but they are eaten for their strong, pleasant taste, and still easy obtainability.

But a root is not the only place where a plant can store energy, and different plants employ other places. The fruit is a very common place. And while some plants store mainly sugars there, other store mainly starches. Botanical fruits (some of which are called "vegetables" in the kitchen) are eaten frequently, and are a major source of starch in the diet. Peas, pumpkins, chestnuts and plantains are all examples for high-starch fruit vegetables. Other fruit vegetables are like the radish - there is not much starch stored in them, but even less of everything else, so they are still considered high in starch. An example would be tomatoes. So, there are many non-root vegetables which are high in starch.

You may want to note that starch needs to be cooked, while sugars don't. So, if you have a dish of cooked root vegetables, most of them will be high in starch. Assuming that the waiter wasn't bringing you a salad, it was probably a good decision to take out all root vegetables.

But it isn't a good decision to stop at the root vegetables, because there are non-root vegetables high in starch. It could be that the waiter didn't know that, or that he knew it, but also knew that this specific dish doesn't contain any non-root starchy vegetables. Whatever it was, you are better off by memorizing a list of the vegetables you can't eat, than by trying to follow generalizations of the kind "don't eat root vegetables".


Should I be suspicious of meat/seafood on sale?

In the case of quickly perishable items like meat, when it's not an advertised sale, shops will sharply discount prices if they anticipate that they will be otherwise left with product beyond the sell-by date. So the answer to your question is both yes and no.

There is nothing wrong with buying something just before the sell-by date, but you do need to use or freeze it sooner rather than later. For everything but seafood, I jump all over those sales. I can barely tell the difference between super-fresh and right-at-the-sell-by-date for most items. Seafood is an exception for me, but that is just me. I will pay extra to get super-fresh seafood, even though I'll buy milk and meat right at the sell-by date if it saves me a few pennies.

So in this case, like many others, the key to making an informed choice lies in reading the label. No reputable grocery will alter the sell-by date. At least in the US, getting caught doing that will close a shop down and land people in jail. So read the label (or the tag on the meat-case window), and be informed about what you are buying.


Is there a way to freeze herbs without losing freshness?

I am not aware of any method of freezing herbs that will maintain their freshness, in the general case, especially for delicate herbs such as basil.

The best method I know of to freeze herbs, which I personally would not do and have never tried, is to mince or puree the herbs, then freeze them with water.  You might do the freezing in an ice cube tray to have small quantities available.  The water is to help prevent the volatile flavors from evaporating, which will happen slowly even at freezer temperatures.  Of course, this is still very different than fresh.

I will try to answer the alternate question which is probably what you really want to know:  what is the best way to hold fresh herbs to maintain their quality?

The best way to hold fresh herbs is to treat them like a bouquet of flowers.  Trim the bottom of the stem ends, so there is a fresh, clean cut.  Then put them in a small drinking glass, measuring cup, or other container with water, much like you would put flowers in a vase.  The entire thing can then be put in the refrigerator (florist storage rooms are refrigerated, too!).  With this technique, you will often be able to get a week or more.  (BTW, it also works wonders with celery, which is essentially a giant big herb.)

Probably the second best way is to layer the herbs in a single layer in paper towels, then roll or fold that up so you can put it in a zip lock bag that is not completely sealed (you don't want the moisture from their respiration--herbs are still alive on the stem--to be stuck inside).  This too would go into the fridge.  You should get at least a few days with this method.

With either method, you can wash the herbs before storage, but with the paper towel method, they should be thoroughly dried after being washed.


The grains are really just a symbiotic colony of microscopic yeasts and bacteria that grow in and ferment milk into kefir, similar to the "SCOBY" that ferments kombucha, or the "mother" that ferments vinegar. The individual organisms are far too small to be harmed even by the intense action of a professional blender; if you managed to rescue some, then given sufficient food (i.e. milk) they should grow and develop new grains.

The one caveat here is that the specific strains of the organism can differ, potentially even within a colony; it's possible that the grains which survived blending won't contain exactly the same mix of bacteria and yeast that you had originally, though they should be pretty close.

You should be able to resume your normal daily production and the grains will get back to their former size eventually. Just check the next few batches before consuming to make sure the kefir hasn't been thrown off.


How do I iron-fortify homemade baby cereal?

Whole grain contains more iron than the more processed grain. So that might help. Seeds and nuts also contain a lot of iron. While nuts in themselves are a choking hazard for babies, ground nuts mixed with the rest of the stuff you grind should be no problem.


How to make ice cream base using evaporated milk easier to work with?

From the clarification in your comments, it sounds like the amount of solids that you are introducing to your recipe is effectively absorbing almost all of the liquid ingredients that are typically added.
If you want the mixture to be easier to manipulate for the churn, I think your best options are to either introduce more liquid (and thus dilute the other solid ingredients) or to reduce the quantity of solid ingredients that you are using in the first place.
Note that as far as I can tell, for the purposes of this recipe with regards to ease of churning, I consider the cocoa powder, dark chocolate, and to a lesser extent egg yolk and evaporated milk as "solids". These are all things that will cause the liquid in your recipe to solidify faster when chilled vs. the usual liquid ingredients.
Hope this is helpful. Good luck!


Edible, yes. The best banana bread you've ever had? Probably not.

Over-leavened quick breads tend to just get uneven in texture - you may get an uneven loaf with one section that's a little too dense and other sections that are a little too airy, or the whole thing may end up coarse and a little flatter than you'd prefer. But these breads are often rich enough that they're still perfectly tasty.

There's a little risk of the extra baking soda introducing an off flavor, but in practice, I've found that most people won't notice it until you're WAY over-leavened. Taste buds vary but I don't think it'll be an issue for you.

It's been an hour since you've posted the question so I'm assuming that we will have the actual answer pretty shortly.


How can I Saute Liver & Onions and keep the liver moist?

Liver is very sensitive to over cooking, Fry the onions first and then throw in the liver for just long enough to cook it through


Baking at a lower temperature than the recipe calls for

Convert 350°F to 175°C - I don't think there's any lower temperature issue here.

If your oven goes up to 260 degrees, I'm guessing that's 260°C, not 260°F. (260°C is 500°F, so that's not a surprising maximum temperature to see, whereas a max of 260°F would be a pretty useless oven.)

A cake recipe that calls for 350 degrees is most likely 350°F, especially if you happen to know it's an American recipe. 350°F is an extremely common temperature in American recipes, possibly the most common. (A baking temperature of 350°C is really high and pretty unlikely - pretty much just for things like pizza, and certainly not cake.)


Can/should I use rapid rise yeast for longer proofing?

Rapid rise yeast has enhancers added to make the yeast more active and lower the amount of time needed to proof the dough.

I wouldn't use it if I wanted a longer proofing time because I think the dough would rise too far wouldn't result in a good crumb or flavor.  That being said I think you could use rapid rise yeast with a longer proofing time.  Maybe you would want the larger volume of dough and other effects.


How to prevent carrot juice from turning brown?

This is classic enzymatic-oxidation browning. Two main culprits - oxygen and a group of enzymes (polyphenoloxidases) that promotes a reaction between oxygen and polyphenolic compounds in the juice.

The juicing action will inevitably end up stirring into the liquid a lot of air which will end up dissolved in it. Air has 21% oxygen in it. Solubility of gases improves with lower temperatures. So, cold juice will hold more oxygen, and warm juice less. Unless you do your juicing inside a sealed cupboard filled with nitrogen, you will not be able to exclude oxygen from getting inside your juice. At lower temperatures, the enzymes become less active which will slow down the browning and counter the higher concentration of oxygen in your juice, but given enough hours, browning will still happen. You can try putting a barrier on the surface of the juice (a sheet of parchment or plastic for example) as soon as you finish juicing and before you put it in the fridge to prevent more oxygen from dissolving into the juice as it chills. It is unlikely to stop the browning.

You can restrain the enzymes by making the juice more acidic, with lemon juice for example, or vitamin C as suggested above (the key is pH not how much Vitamin C it naturally has) or citric acid. That would only slow down the browning and you might not like the altered taste.

You can deactivate the enzyme permanently by heat which means heating the juice to at least 65C, or better still, heating the carrots before juicing to well beyond 65C briefly. I suggest cutting the carrots into smaller pieces and putting them into a very hot water with any of the above acidic additives. I am sure heating will inevitably affect the taste, but it will stop the browning. It works with apples and pears. You can play with timing so that you destroy a certain amount of the enzymes, enough to have a good compromise between less browning and less taste change.

There are suggestions you find online such as freezing. You can freeze your juice, but again it would only slow down the browning a bit more, it will still happen given enough hours.

Other more extreme (and normally impractical) ideas include vacuuming the juice to extract dissolved gases from it, or using UHT and high pressure methods to break the enzyme.

I typically use 65C acidic water to blanche whatever fruit or vegetable, and I use a barrier on the juice surface before storing/chilling.


When you wet or dry cure fish does all of the fat come out with the water?

It should be mostly just water, very little fat. Water is released pretty easily, fat not so much, especially without grinding things up. Most fish isn't that fatty to begin with, anyway.

In any case, fat and water don't mix without help, so just look at the liquid. If there's fat there you'll see it floating on top. I'm guessing with fatty fish there might be enough for a thin shimmery layer on top, but I doubt you'll ever see very much.


Is there an inexpensive substitute for truffles?

They're so expensive because there really isn't anything else with the same flavor, and they can't be cultivated.

However, they do take some of the smaller ones to make truffle oil, which is much more reasonably priced, and more easily available.


It sounds to me like you've already diagnosed the problem. Just to cover the basics, though, here's some of the reasons why bagels are unsightly, based on my personal experience making bagels and a few internet resources (links below):

Failure to knead the dough adequately, leading to inadequate gluten development.
Overhandling of the dough while shaping the bagels.
Inadequate proofing after shaping.
Putting them into a roiling boil instead of simmering water.
Leaving them to get cold after boiling before baking -- they need to go into the oven still warm from the pot.
Making them during Passover*.

Per your description, inadequate proofing was certainly one of the reasons your bagels were lumpy.  You may have been affected by the other reasons as well.
Resources:

Smooth bagel recipe
Bagel Troubleshooting
Reddit Q on wrinkly bagels

(* the bit about Passover is a joke.  However, I did once make the mistake of making bagels during Passover, a Jewish holiday during with you don't make or eat leavened bread, and they were lumpy and flat, so maybe check the calendar just in case)


Why do my teriyaki steaks come out hard and dry?

Any number of things can go wrong.

Is your flesh cut correctly, that is, against the grain? Hint: if you see a string, it's cut with the grain and will affect tenderness.
Has your flesh properly aged? Enzymes in the meat dissolve the tissue, making it naturally tender. 21 Days is recommended.
You marinade too long. 15-30 minutes is recommended here for your cuts.
You cook the meat too long. A thin slice should be fried on high heat for a short time.
Restaurants get better meat. Fact of life.

Edit: Basic sauté method.

Heat the pan. The pan is hot when a drop of water becomes steam instantly.
Add some oil and heat it. It should become very hot very quick. Look for wrinkles on the surface.
Add the meat.
When you see a drop of 'blood' (that's plasma) flip the meat.
Retire the meat.

[Optional]

Add cold liquid to pan (could be the marinade), clean the bottom of the pan.
Lower the heat and make a pan sauce.
Add the meat to the sauce for a minute and serve.


The salt treatment in sausage can cause it to retain a pinker color for a given temperature than would normal ground meat.   The fact that you used a trusted thermometer, and that the sausages were well in the safe zone (even conservatively 165 F is more than enough) indicates that the sausage was perfectly safe.


Ok, this is going to be long. And you just wanted to fire up your oven and slap the sauce on the dough...but bear with me.

Gluten
The Holy Grail of elastic dough that can trap all these nice bubbles: CO2 from the yeast and steam from evaporating water. Fact is, gluten is basically a protein (ok, scientifically speaking not exactly, but close enough). If you use a low-protein flour, there simply isn't much gluten that could develop. So American cake flour isn't a good choice, but German 405 not necessarily either. Unlike the mineral content, protein content is not fixed for 405, it largely depends on the used wheat. Some mills have a higher content, some a lower. Apart from explicitly asking the manufacturer or simply trying out brands, there is no surefire way to tell. The reason the Italian tipo 00 contains more protein (and it does) is that most Italian wheats are high-protein breeds. So yes, using Italian flour can help. But so can changing the flour brand, switching to a slightly higher type (550 or adding a few spoons of 1050) or simply adding some gluten. The latter is available over the Internet or at your trusted local mill. No need to go "super-high" though. Patience and good technique are essential.
Humidity
Gluten needs water to develop. (Apart from the kneading etc., but more on that later.) A higher hydration dough1  means more water is available and the gluten strands form more easily. The math: with 500g flour and 250g water, you have a hydration of only 50%. Another 50g bump it up to 60%, 100g to 80%. As a ballpark figure, that's a good range for 405 or 550 flour. The second secret of the Italian tipo 00 comes into play here: it's milled somewhat finer than 405; due to the smaller particle size the dough can absorb even more water, following the old adage of "wetter is better" (not set in stone, but still...). You might want to check out the "stretch and fold" technique, which makes softer doughs easier to handle.
Time
Gluten develops over time. So a good, long kneading helps. But there is a another factor: resting (or proofing) time. Even with very little kneading gluten will develop over time, given sufficient humidity. You can do some light kneading, then let the dough rest for a long time at a rather low temperature with the occasional "fold".

So what can you do? Looking at your dough, yes, it is a tad dry and flaky and it tears a bit. But while you perhaps won't get an award-winning pizza crust, you'll probably be ok this time. But even while your recipe is pretty mainstream, a few tweaks might be advisable:

Ensure sufficient protein content. (See 1.)
Aim for a hydration of 65% or higher (way higher, if you dare), especially if using tipo 00. (See 2.)
Significantly lower your yeast content. This reduces the "yeasty" taste your recipe should have. Yes, this means that your dough won't mature in half an hour, but the dough for the pizza you had today at your favourite pizza place probably was made yesterday, too. Simply let it rest and rise in your fridge. A handy side effect is that the enzymes in your flour get activated and the gluten develops, too. Good for texture and flavour. Bad for an impromptu pizza party, though. (See 3.)

1 Water-to-flour-ratio. See baker's percentage. In Germany "Teigausbeute"/"TA" (all-ingredients-to-flour-ratio) is more common.


Why do marshmallows poof up so huge when put in the microwave?

Marshmallows expand so much because the water in them becomes steam, and gas takes up a LOT more volume than liquid. Specifically, 1 mL of water becomes ~1.36 LITERS of vapor, before it gets heated further.  That's 1000-fold expansion, before you add additional expansion as the gas is heated.

Marshmallows don't have all that much water content, but when it's trapped in a stretchy gelatin matrix that holds gas readily, it only takes a bit to blow the whole thing up like a balloon.

You are correct that the gas expansion on its own is insufficient; unless I've badly muddled my calculations, gas expansion from 20C to ~150C (caramelization temperature) will increase the gas volume by under 50%.


Should I scrape out portobello gills to avoid sogginess?

From my online research, I don't think that the gills themselves have an impact on the texture of cooked portobello mushrooms.  It appears folks scrape them to avoid the discoloring issue that you mention, and also to remove any potential grit that might be captured within. Why not try an experiment and report back to answer your own question?


Mold is growing on my cheese, what is common practice?

I cut it off also. Don't tell your friends you do it. I have heard you can freeze some cheeses, but I think it looses flavor with freezing. flavor is after all why you buy and eat cheese. have more cheese tasting parties.


Well, first things first... as I mentioned in my comment, tapioca flour gets gummy when heated. That's expected.
In Brazil we do have something called just tapioca, and otherwise known as tapioca crepe that's made with hydrated tapioca flour spread on a pan and heated until all it sticks together and forms a "crepe" of sorts Picture here, so you can see the gummy inside

One more thing about expectations: your recipe is for a crispy crust, it will not get to the same texture as "regular" pizza crust (elastic and fluffy).

A few ways for you to lessen the gummy texture

Add a leavening agent like baking powder or baking soda. This will aerate the mixture and prevent the tapioca flour from gelatinizing;
Flip the dough and add the toppings on the side that was in contact with the pan. You know how the cake usually crusts on the bottom and the sides? That will protect your dough from moisture a little bit more.


Does stainless steel affect garlic flavors in food?

Drawing from some of the linked resources, it seems that one of the main theories about how those stainless steel "soaps" work is by interacting with sulfur compounds present in onions and garlic (together part of the genus allium) which are responsible for their strong pungency and odor.  There appears to be little actual evidence for these claims, and I wasn't able to find much better either.

That said, I'm going to surmise that this effect really wouldn't apply with stainless steel cookware, precisely because you're cooking.  Those sulfur compounds are volatile, and they tend to break down pretty quickly as you cook.  This is why the flavor profile of alliums changes so drastically even after a very brief sweat - they become much sweeter and much less sharp - because those sulfur compounds are being broken down and driven off.  Heck, onions will lose a lot of their harsh pungency just after being chopped.  Dice an onion and you'll likely tear up (due to the action of syn-propanethial-S-oxide gas) but come back to that same onion 3-4 minutes later and you'll experience much less irritation.  The compounds are generally unstable, especially when exposed to enzymes present in the onion.

So, cooking alliums in general removes or destroys the same pungency that causes the unpleasant odors.  Even if stainless steel interacts with the compounds responsible for that pungency in some special way, it's only doing what heat does anyway, and using stainless cookware is unlikely to cause any sort of perceivable difference.

The only time this might be a factor in the flavor of a finished dish is if you want to retain a very strong, pungent flavor, for example with raw spring onions in a salad or something.  In that case, it may be possible (though again, evidence is mixed) that a stainless steel bowl attracts some of those sulfur compounds in a way that a plastic or wood bowl does not.  But that's only a concern where you have contact between the alliums and the bowl, and many people find that pungent "bite" a bit overwhelming in any more than tiny concentrations, so you may actually be doing yourself a favor and providing some minute safeguard against over-pungency by using stainless.  In my opinion, this isn't likely to be a major concern for anyone.


Can I substitute just yolks in a recipe that calls for a whole egg?

From Cook's Thesaurus Eggs:

Substitute 2 egg yolks for each whole egg. This is higher in fat, but works wonders in sauces, custards, and cream fillings.

I suggest you use two egg yolks, and perhaps slightly, almost unnoticeably, lower the amount of fat you put in the dough.


Where can I find this exact spatula, with a short handle and asymmetric head?

I couldn't find an exact match but the short, squat shape with a straight top edge suggests that it's for stirring and/or scraping. The flat shape (ie. that although the head is angled at the top, the whole head isn't angled) and thick, inflexible design suggest that it isn't supposed to be used for flipping; this would be very difficult as rim of the pan would get in the way -  even if it weren't a problem, you would still have the problem of your knuckles being too close to the pan to avoid burning.

The nearest equivalents I could find are:

A Saute paddle:

This is probably the best match. The tool that OP pictures seems good for scraping a pan and will take some force being applied. The angle at the top will also make this easier on the wrist. Slots are also common.

Or, failing that

A Rice spoon/spatula:

The overall size and shape are close to a traditional rice spatula/spoon. The angled head is a common design, though less common than round heads. Slots however, are unusual.


This seems to be answered directly on the Yorkshire Tea page.

  Before we get cracking, here’s some background about Yorkshire Tea and hard water to bear in mind. When deciding which teas our buyers will select to put in the Yorkshire Tea blend, they taste every single one in both soft and hard water. This enables them to create not only Yorkshire Tea, but also Yorkshire Tea for Hard Water, a blend that’s perfectly suited to… you guessed it.

Seems to imply that there are different blends of tea that taste better in hard water and soft water that they are accommodating for.

To answer the question "Why does tea with hard water (lime) taste different?", it has to do with the higher concentrations of calcium and magnesium that your taste buds will pick up on.  From the Yorkshire Tea page, it seems they make two different blends of tea with the blend for hard water stating:

  The tap water in hard water areas contains lots of minerals, which can make tea taste darker and thicker. With a few clever tweaks, we’ve made a blend to balance that out – so you can enjoy a proper brew, wherever you live.

Source:
https://www.yorkshiretea.co.uk/brew-news/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-hard-water


How could I keep one-ingredient "ice cream" soft?

Thinking about this from first principles, a banana is about:

75% water
20% carbohydrates (mostly sugar and a small amount of starch)
Less than 5% combined fiber and protein
Trace amount of fat (generally considered to be zero).

The anti-crystallization effect of guar gum works on the water component, so adding a small amount of guar gum actually should be of some benefit.  The hard part is getting it all dispersed; you don't want to over-process the banana (you'd lose the creaminess) but you also need to hydrate the guar gum in order for it to work its magic.  You also need to avoid over-thickening, which might be difficult even with the very small starch content in a typical banana.

Bananas convert more starch to sugar as they ripen, so I suspect you'd have more success trying this on very ripe bananas that are, essentially, little more than sugar and water to begin with.

Incorporating and maintaining air is something that I just don't think you're going to be able to do.  Proteins and fats can both participate in foaming (egg whites being an example of the former, and heavy cream being the canonical example of the latter), but bananas have neither of those.  There's simply nothing to whip, and thus nothing to stabilize, so neither xanthan gum nor any other emulsifier/stabilizer is going to do you much good here.

If you really want to incorporate air then you're going to need more than one ingredient.  My instinct would be to say coconut milk, which has relatively high fat and pairs well with banana (and obviously is also vegan / non-dairy), but I can say from experience now that coconut milk just doesn't have enough fat.  You could try cooking it down first to get the fat ratio up, or using coconut oil, but I'm not sure how it would taste.

Traditional ice cream is about 60% water, which means the amount of guar gum that most people seem to get the best results with (about 1 tsp/qt) is about 0.87% of the total water.  For a small (100 g) banana, that's about 75 mL of water corresponding to very close to 1/8 tsp of guar gum.

So, I'd give this a try with 1/8 tsp of guar gum, forget the xanthan gum.  Try adding it after you've frozen the banana for the first time, when you first pop it into the blender.

No guarantees, but, you can probably afford to waste one banana in the attempt.

Update:

I thought I'd give this a try myself since (a) it seemed pretty easy and (b) I can always use more non-dairy dessert recipes.  Here's how it came out with 1/4 tsp of guar gum for 2 bananas, after being frozen for two days:

You can see that ice crystal formation is pretty minimal, and although some parts did harden a bit (much like ordinary homemade ice cream with low overrun), they returned to normal consistency within just a few minutes.

Of course it still tastes like frozen bananas, so if I were to do this again I think I'd probably try adding a few other flavours.  Also note that even though the texture is decent, the colour is getting dark, and I have no doubt that this would eventually turn black after enough time in the freezer - and the lemon juice trick doesn't really work so well when the whole thing has been blended up.


Basically you boil them or roast them until tender, then let them cool and peel them. It is better not to cut or peel them before cooking, they will bleed lots of color and flavor. Some classic things to do with them: puree into a soup called borscht, slice them in a salad (particularly nice with goat cheese), serve as a roasted vegetable like you would a potato or turnip. They especially love dairy products with a little tang such as sour cream, feta cheese, yogurt and so forth.


Is it possible to make oat milk ice cream?

Evidently, there are some recipes for frozen confections based on oat milk.

For example, Dia Designs provides "5 vegan ice creams", most of which are based on oat milk.  They read more like sorbet recipes, due to the lack of fat in the mix.

If you were to try to create your own oat milk based frozen dessert recipes, I would suggest modifying a base sorbet recipe, as they are not as dependent on fat as ice cream recipes.  The additional starches in oat milk compared to water should add slightly more body and mouth feel, and make the product more opaque than a traditional sorbet.

If you are not opposed to egg whites, you might also consider using sherbert recipes as your base.

Note:  the lactose in dairy products does not have a huge effect on the chemistry of ice cream (it is a small part of the total sugar in the mix), although it could potentially help inhibit sugar crystal formation somewhat (this is not usually an issue in frozen desserts).  If you want to replace its effect, a small amount of honey, maple syrup, or even corn syrup would be very similar.


Why are the corks of some of my Muscat wines popping out?

This is generally an indication that the wine is not stable - that is, it is still fermenting, which is a defect in wines not intended to be sparkling (carbonated) wines.

If you made the wine, and the winery bottled it, this is your problem. If the winery made and bottled the wine, I would bring it up with them, as it's their problem, and hopefully they will replace the bulging bottles.

In making wines one either has to aim for a dry wine where all the sugars have been consumed and there is nothing more for the yeast to eat, or one "stabilizes" the wine by either filtering out all the yeast or chemically "stunning" them to prevent further fermentation when bottled. Whatever method was supposed to be applied to your wine was evidently not done properly or completely, and now fermentation is continuing in the bottles and causing gas pressure, which is pushing the corks out.

If you can't get the winery to replace the bulging bottles of wine, your best bet is to refrigerate it as cold as possible without freezing it, and drink as soon as possible.


How to soft and hard boil eggs in the same pot so they are ready at the same time?

You can do that by using a different method which puts eggs in boiling water.

Bring water to a boil in a large enough pot for all eggs.
Add those eggs that are to be hard-boiled, start timer.
Add the eggs that should be soft when the remaining time fits.
Remove all eggs together.
(Hope that you can tell soft and hardboiled eggs apart because you marked them prior to cooking. Else you have an egg lottery at the table.)

I personally cook them in two pots or keep hard boiled eggs warm until a second batch of soft boiled eggs is done for the reasons stated in the last bullet point. Or those prefering hard boiled eggs have to wait a few minutes longer.


Is it possible to can lemons in a simple syrup as opposed to using salt?

You can bottle (can) citrus fruit including lemons, but they tend to end up like marmalade

If you want to preserve their current flavour, I would suggest freezing thin slices on a metal tray, and when frozen transfer them to small airtight containers or strong 'zipped' freezer bags

Alternatively you can freeze strips of zest (use a potato peeler) and the juice as ice blocks (small size). Again, store in small airtight containers or strong 'zipped' freezer bags


What do you look for to make sure that Conch is fresh?

Conch should have a nice light pink color.  If it's gray or browned, steer clear.  Like most seafood, the best indicator is smell.  If it smells salty like a walk near the beach, it's fine.  If it smells like a stagnant wharf or a warm dumpster, steer clear. To clean, run it under cold water.  Cut off any membrane, and drain it before cooking.  Conch is chewy, so don't treat it like scallops or lobster.  It can be tenderized through pounding, cooked in a pressure-cooker, food-processed and stewed, or slow-cooked.  Keep an eye on the texture.  Chewy conch is not ideal.
This is assuming you aren't buying conch in the shell.

If you decide to buy the conch in the shell, you’ll need to extract it. Wash the shell containing the conch under cold running water. Carefully drop 1 to 3 whole shells into 6 quarts of boiling water, adding in a tablespoon of salt. Boil for about 40 minutes. Using a fork or other pronged instrument, pull out the conch meat from the shells and throw away the green matter. You can save the shell for decoration if you like. Rinse the extracted meat under cold water.
Another procedure for cleaning out the shell is to whack the bulging side of the shell with a hammer to break it. Slip a knife into the shell and twist it around until you feel the muscle detach from the shell. Grab the piece of meat sticking out and pull hard, then cut away the stomach and tail.

Read more: article.cfm/how_to_buy_and_clean_a_conch


How long can you safely cure using Morton's Tender Quick?

Morton's Tender Quick is a fast cure salt meant to be mixed in with ground meats or used for curing thinner cuts (or fish). Hams must be brined for days in order for the salt solution to penetrate deeply through the flesh and prevent spoilage. It is important to follow good curing protocol and use the amount of salt as requested in the recipe.

Sodium nitrate, or pink salt #2, is not essential from a food safety perspective for whole muscle curing but is for dry-curing various salumi.


Is there any use to salmon heads and spines?

I agree that you can get some good meat from the head and could use it to flavour Bouillabaisse, i wouldn't however use it for stock as oily fish can lead to a cloudy fatty stock rather than the clearer and more flavoursome fish stock that can be derived from the off cuts and bones from white fish.


According to this study, frozen seafood has a density ranging from 972 to 1017 kg/m3.  Thawed, raw seafood at 20°C has a density ranging from 1042 to 1093 kg/m3.  Since the density of water at room temperature is about 998 kg/m3, it is certainly possible—and most likely normal—for one batch of frozen seafood to float while another sinks.  Thawed seafood that has been brought to room temperature, on the other hand, should almost always sink since its minimum density (1042 kg/m3) is higher than water's.  Therefore, I would only worry if the shrimp continue to float after they have been thawed.  If they are shell-on, there is a chance that there could be air stuck between the shell and the body, though, which would of course be perfectly fine yet affect the density/floating.

Edit: What are the ingredients listed on the bags?  Very often nowadays salt and salt-based preservatives are added to frozen shrimp in order to retard water loss.  It could be the case that one bag has preservatives while the other does not.  This could of course affect buoyancy by changing the density of the shrimp.  (In general, one should try and only buy individually quick-frozen shrimp where "shrimp" is the only ingredient.)


Is iodized salt unsuitable for baking bread?

TL;DR: yes, use it.

Many folks out there (my sweetie among them, so I hope she doesn't read this) claim to be able to detect an aftertaste of iodine in baked goods made with iodized salt.  This is the primary reason we have non-iodized salt in the kitchen.

The reason this is highly unlikely is that salt is generally only between 1-2% of the mass of baked goods, and iodine is only 0.0045% of the mass of the salt.  Which means that to taste the iodine from iodized salt, you would need to taste something that's present in only 0.05 parts per million (PPM) of the raw baked goods. For comparison, the Scoville Scale is also a dilution scale, and only pure capsaicin is detectable at that level of dilution.  So it's pretty unlikely that you could tasting the iodine in the finished baked goods.

There's also the idea that the iodine could vaporize during baking and somehow affect the other ingredients.  This is equally unlikely; even at 350C only 20% of the iodine vaporizes, and almost none at standard baking temperatures like 180C. And again, how much effect could 0.05ppm of iodine have?

You can work through similar exercises, but the simple truth is that iodine is present in such minute quantities that it's highly unlikely to have any adverse effects on baked goods.


Boiling chicken bones for an extended period of time (4+ hours) will cause bones to go squishy.  I'm assuming any long duration slow cook method will do the same.


Why/when would grapes (and other fruits) have better flavor/texture when served chilled?

It's because different taste buds are activated differently depending on temperature.

A new study reveals why our taste perception is enhanced as the temperature of food and beverage products increases, explaining why beer is more bitter and ice cream is sweeter when consumed warm.
......The study... identified microscopic channels in our tste buds - termed TRPM5 - as being responsible for different taste perception at different temperatures.
According to our researchers, the reaction of TRPM5 in our taste buds is much more intense when the temperature of food or fluid in increased, sending a stronger electrical signal tot he brain and resulting in enhanced taste.

Note, this particular article is over 10 years old.  There has been a lot of research that has both confirmed and extrapolated greater details on this.
Food temperature affects taste, reveal scientists - Food Navigator
Other, more recent articles -
The Guardian (2013): Hot or not? How serving temperature affects the way food tastes
Flavors Fluctuate with Temperature - Scientific American (2012)
In the case of your grapes, there is probably some kind of flavor profile or combination that is greatly enhanced by temperature. If the skins have a pungent bitterness that is enhanced at a greater temperature, it might overpower the flavors you like, while at a lower temperature, it gives a hint of those flavors that is more pleasing, while the grape also has enough sweetness that still carries through while cold.
That is probably a much more likely scenario than the particular food rapidly ripening or decomposing to that degree.


Given the temperature, it sounds like advice from slow cooking should apply - it's not far short of boiling. You can actually increase the (bioavailability of) phytohaemaglutinin by cooking at that sort of temperature  for long periods unless you boil properly first. Only a few varieties of beans are an issue, mainly red kidney beans.

When slow cooking mixed bean chilli (for example), I soak the kidney beans separately from the other beans, then rinse them and bring them to the boil in plenty of new water for more than 10 minutes, discarding that water as well. You should do something similar. It's not all that convenient, but it is necessary.

The chart you'd like would be difficult to produce because each bean isn't at a uniform temperature - 10 minutes becomes 30 to ensure the low of each bean gets hot enough. The amount in a particular batch of beans will be quite variable as well.


When creating a recipe, what determines whether 2 ingredients will go well together?

When it comes to pairing specific ingredients, the general thinking seems to be that ingredients that share "flavour notes" in significant quantity will go well together.

In practice it goes much deeper than that, because in addition to taste, foods have very specific and recognizable aromas which affect the perception of flavour; wine is mostly sweet and sour, but you wouldn't substitute ordinary grape juice for it; the aroma of the alcohol is unmistakable, and even between different wines you will have varying levels of "fruitiness" or "woodiness".

But let's start with tastes:

Chocolate and coffee go well together because they share characteristic bitter notes.  The roasting of the beans also makes a difference; the pairing works best when the roasting is enough to thermally degrade the bitterness without losing too much sweetness due to caramelization.  This emphasizes the sweetness and de-emphasizes the bitterness and acidity of the coffee, making it closer to the flavour profile of chocolate.
A traditional stock combines a mirepoix (onions, carrots, celery) with meat (well, bones), both very high in umami.  The end product may have varying notes of bitterness or saltiness from the vegetables but is basically one huge kick of umami.  A lot of people also enjoy peanut butter and bacon together, which combines the significant umami and saltiness in both foods.
Beets and sour cream are a traditional (or so I'm told) Polish dish, both obviously sharing strong sour notes.  Often chives are added, which are mildly pungent in nature and pungency tends to go with sour or bitter (since it is created by sulfur which is perceived as sour, bitter, and also "metallic").

This tends to work reasonably well for basic pairings, but another very strong element of this is balancing all of the different flavours in a dish.

Peanut butter and jam don't seem to have much in common, flavour-wise.  But when you combine them together in a sandwich you have the high umami and saltiness of the peanut butter, the sweet and slightly sour notes of the jam, and the hints of bitterness and/or sourness in the bread.  Together you have strong notes of all five tastes and the result is appealing to most people.
Five Spice is usually a mixture of cinnamon (sweet), star anise (mildly sweet and bitter), fennel (mildly sweet and fairly savoury), ground cloves (pungent and somewhat bitter), and Szechuan peppercorns (salty and pungent with a sour aftertaste).  The quantities are generally adjusted to balance out the tastes; for example, fennel is the only really savoury ingredient so Five Spice tends to have more of that than other ingredients.  Anyway, this is used all over Chinese cuisine as a sort of "wonder spice".
A really good roast chicken starts off high in umami and is then brined (salty), buttered (sweet), and roasted which involves the Maillard reaction (bitter).  This is missing sour, which is why a lot of cooks will throw a few lemon slices in there.

But truthfully, even though this all sounds plausible, it's really so much more complicated than that.  Even though there's some science at work here, the five tastes are a little like the four elements or humours; it's an almost archaic way of thinking about food chemistry, because our mouths and noses can detect so much more than that.

If you want to see just how little we actually really know about flavour today, check out They Go Really Well Together on Khymos, linked to from one of the related questions.  There you'll see totally nonsensical combinations like chocolate and garlic or mint and mustard that actually - with the right preparation of course - produce pretty pleasant flavours/aromas.

The truth is people are still gathering data on this and we don't really know, exactly, what makes some flavours work together.  At least we're starting to approach this scientifically and actually experiment and document this stuff, but there's not enough data to form a coherent theory yet.  Check the answers to my question about flavour pairings and the other question on pairing resources if you want detailed data on which flavour pairings can "work", although you might not get much of an explanation for why.


How to quickly soften hard, dried out brown sugar

There are a variety of tips for quickly softening hardened brown sugar here: 10 Ways to Soften Hard Brown Sugar.

The one that worked best for me personally, when I had to do this in a hurry, was to chip off a large chunk of the hardened sugar, put it in a (microwave-safe) Ziploc bag with a damp paper towel, and microwave it for 5-10 seconds at a time until it was soft enough to use.  Don't pierce the bag; the whole point is to allow the steam to re-hydrate the sugar.  But obviously don't leave it in the microwave for too long either, otherwise the bag will either melt from the heat or explode from the steam.  You should also let it cool for a minute or two between zaps; the sugar will continue to absorb moisture as long as the steam can't escape.

I also use the paper towel trick if I need to re-hydrate the sugar the day before.  Place a piece of wax paper on top of the sugar, then a damp paper towel on top, and seal it.  It'll be good as new the next day.  Don't leave the paper towel in there for too long though, otherwise it'll grow mold (doesn't seem like it should, but I personally witnessed it happen).  I like this method because it doesn't require me to waste any apples or bread, if I even have any around.


Benefits of boiling meatballs before frying them

There's a few reasons for utilizing this method:

You'll end up with a juicier meatball, as it is cooked in liquid.
It'll be rounder and more plump because it was cooked in a liquid.
You'll be 100% sure that it was cooked thoroughly without being burned.

The reason for the pan browning is just a reverse sear - purely for color/crunchiness and perhaps some flavor from a browned meat and the butter.


Suggestions for a substitute for almond paste in a cookie recipe?

The most common substitute is persipan - a paste made from apricot kernels. It has less taste than almond paste itself, but you can add artificial almond flavoring. I don't know where you live, but in some countries, this combination is easier to find in the supermarket than real almond paste.


How to remove quinoa bitterness (with many restrictions) doing chapatis

You are unable to do anything about it. The bitterness in commercially prepared flour is from the fact that they don't thoroughly rinse the saponin from the outside of the seeds. Once it's milled in, there really isn't anything you can do about it, doubly so when making a bread that is basically flour and water.

So you have two ways to fix it. One is grind your own quinoa flour, which is not too hard, after you make sure that it is rinsed all the way off. The second is to use a different type of flour, like tapioca.


What are the names of the breakfast spreads used in Indian cuisine?

Well chutneys are not really eaten with bread. They are eaten with breakfast dishes such as Dosa, Idli, Vada etc. But they might go really well with bread as well. Refer this link for an idea about how to prepare chutneys


I feel you pain. I spent 2 summers cleaning dishes to help pay for summer camp and that was only 100 campers (3 meals a day). 800 eggy dishes is not fun!

Getting egg off doesn't require anything special, just a soak in cold soapy water for a few minutes. Egg is a mix of protein and fat. Fat comes off better in warm or hot water but proteins come off much better in cold or cool water as heat makes the proteins stickier. If you can, set aside a container of some kind with cool soapy water and put loads of the plates into it. Soak as long as you can, then pull them out a few at a time and wash the gunk off with a sponge, then get into the dishwasher right away. If you're scrubbing you're working too hard!


What ingredients can I add to food or gum recipes to add grittiness without any carbs?

Baking soda is commonly used as a mild abrasive in toothpaste, and is a food ingredient.

Liquorice root is like a tasty chewy twig, and is chewed to clean teeth in some countries. Maybe you could chop some of that up if you can get it. Assuming the flavour is acceptable of course.

Otherwise you might be looking for seed husks of some sort, dried and ground. Cardamom perhaps? It's cooked in pilau rice and while you might choose to eat round it, accidentally biting into/swallowing a whole pod is normal. You'd have to experiment with how much of the flavour you can handle, and indeed with his much is in the husk.

Have you looked for traditional toothpaste recipes for ideas?


For cooking in with the pasta, consider red or yellow bell peppers, carrots, cauliflower or other vegetables that hold their color well when heated. Also, you can help this problem a lot with good, flavorful, beautiful garnishes. Even a simple shower of minced parsley goes a long way. Lemon or orange zest is nice too.

Check out this peppery red-wine capellini from my blog, you'll see how the quick, fresh garnish of cherry tomatoes and parsley turns a brown pasta bright (and maybe learn a new way to cook pasta too).


What to do if pan/pot is burning (with or without food)

Letting it cool slowly will minimize the chance of warping for thin or cheap cookware.

Quality cookware should stand up to being deglazed or quickly cooled under running water.

How you cool it is up to you.

Note:  the above is based on metal pots and pans.  Glass, ceramic, or earthenware pans should always be cooled slowly to prevent heat-stress breaking or crazing.


Serious buildup outside of cast iron skillet

The inside looks absolutely fine, so assuming you will protect that if you do any actual work on the outside I see a couple of routes you can take...

You can ignore it & see if it will reach a new equilibrium with your own cooking equipment & technique.
You can clean it off & quite quickly return the outside to a lesser seasoned state - as you're not cooking on the outside the seasoning is far less important, & as you've already discovered, the outsides of pans can get a lot more build-up over time than the insides*.
You could attack it with sandpaper, or a drill & wire brush attachment, though you need to beware of the mess that can make if you do it indoors... or you could take it to somewhere that could shot-blast it for you. This is an industrial cleaning process, depending on abrasive type can be extremely vicious, but it's rapid & they could clean the outside back to shiny iron in 2 minutes.

You can then re-season the outside.

*You should have seen my old wok before my partner threw it away. I eventually forgave her ;)


The exact time and temperature will depend on the size of the breasts and your oven. You should always use a meat thermometer to verify that the chicken is cooked all the way through. For breasts, you want to make sure they're around 160 F on the inside (they're actually safe to eat a bit earlier, but 160 F leaves you with a margin of error). If you don't have a meat thermometer, you'll need to cut them open to make sure they're not pink on the inside, and the juices run clear.

I'd start the oven at about 375 F, and start checking on them after about 30 mins.


When making a sponge cake how does the method of combining ingredients effect the final product?

Generally speaking, a sponge cake recipe needs to create and trap a bubble structure in a mixture of protein, sugar, and starch. Since there are a number of ways to do this, there are a number of common techniques used for accomplishing that goal. The techniques are different and interactions between ingredients can be more complicated than they seem, so the effect of each ingredient might be different with each technique. Describing the ways that each ingredient interacts with each other ingredient in a cake is far beyond the scope of an answer on this site.

Almost every cake recipe that you commonly see on the internet is based on an older, tried-and-true technique from the canon of an older culinary tradition. On a blog or in a cook book, you might see a recipe for Aunt Edna's Famous Chocolate-Fanatic Fudge Filled Cake, but in the more technical terms that a pastry chef would use, it could be a layered chocolate genoise with a Godiva liqueur soaking liquid and ganache filling. Rather than checking out individual recipes, I'd recommend researching the broader techniques they're based on to get a better understanding of the mechanics.

In my French/American oriented in culinary school, I remember learning about Genoise, Separated Sponge, Chiffon, and Angel Food techniques, which are all common in the modern western canon. There may have been more— it's been a decade since I graduated and I was never a pastry chef— but if you study those, you should get a pretty good idea of how cakes work in general.

As an aside, when you're testing/workshopping a recipe, like with any other kind of experiment, you should reduce the number of confounding variables. Use one recipe (or ideally, basic unadorned technique) and change the ratio of ingredients by increasing/reducing the amount of one ingredient at a time. This will give you MUCH better data.

A general question gets a general answer, but I think it will give you a good start. ;-)


Pickles will ferment at around 65 - 72F The temperature can go lower overnight but needs to rise during the day. Get a thermometer to test places like cupboards, kitchen for the temperature range you need. This worked for me. I keep a strip thermometer with my stash.


The chocolate has "seized". This is what happens when you add water into the melted chocolate.

  I was pretty confident I got no water in.

No, you added honey and vanilla extract. Both contain water.

The standard solution to seized chocolate is to stir in boiling water, a bit at a time, until the mixture is smooth. The result is not useful for confectionery, but can be used to make hot chocolate or chocolate sauce.


Saved-for-later then reheated potato mixture sparks and catches fire in microwave

Try putting a mug of water next to the food in the microwave.

I've had this same problem with baker's chocolate and that did the trick.   I think it's because there isn't enough water to absorb the microwaves so the excess energy causes sparking.


Fresh blueberries vs dried blueberries in a cookie recipe

No, that's not going to work. The fresh blueberries are mostly water, and all that water will definitely be enough to throw off the cookies. Other options:

use a different kind of dried fruit
dry the berries yourself, probably more work than you want (see this question)
turn them into thumbprint cookies, and use blueberry jam (if that works with your recipe)


Could you use a combination of pomegranate juice and lemon juice?

A recipe on the POM web site uses grapefruit juice with pomegranate juice.

A quick search reveals that most (all) ceviches that use pomegranate juice also use another acid (lemon, lime, grapefruit).

If it were me, I'd try using only pomegranate juice only on a small batch of fish a check how it goes.


What types of snails are made into Escargot?

For escargots, land snails are used. Most common are the species Helix pomatia, Helix aspersa and Helix lucorum*.

There are two restrictions: it should be edible (problem solved if you work with one of those three) and it should be large. Larger snails have more flesh to work with. You have to be a bit lucky for this. There's quite some variation. I think - for the dish that you mean - the snails should still have their house as well. However, I wouldn't advice you to go into the 'wild' and pick your own. Just buy them at the supermarket. It's safer, since snails can have digested toxins that take some time to leave their bodies.

The word "escargot" is French for "snail". You can find different preparations for snails, they would be called "escargots à la ..." with ... being the name of the sauce or preparation. The standard (at least here) drops the last part, since it's the basic preparation (herb butter with garlic).

There are other types of snails/slugs that are edible, for instance common whelks are also sold and eaten here, they live in the sea, not on land, but it's a whole different preparation.

*Source


How long to cook multiple food items with varying temperatures?

The turkey is far more sensitive; you don't want to overcook it.  Casseroles in general just need to be heated through, and perhaps crisped up.

Therefore, I would set the oven to temperature for the turkey, and put the casserole in with it.

If it is not brown enough when the turkey is done, use the broiler to crisp up the casserole.


How reliable is determining cooking oil temperature with a thermometer?

Given the description, I read the question as concerning "pan frying" in very little oil, rather than deep frying.

If the layer of oil truly is so thin that you can't reliably put the thermometer in without touching the bottom of the pan, you're probably not going to get an accurate reading regardless of whether you're using a probe thermometer or a candy/oil thermometer that can be mounted on a pan.  All of those require a minimum depth to work well.  Touching the bottom of the pan may or may not create a significant error in such a case: a thin layer of oil is likely to be close to the pan surface temperature, but you could also hit a "hot spot" on the pan or affect the thermometer's response through direct metal-to-metal heat conduction.  The other problem is that pans often heat much more unevenly than we realize, and with only a shallow layer of oil, some parts of the pan may be significantly hotter than others.  Mounting a deep-frying thermometer on the side of the pan in that case may be even more inaccurate for sensing how hot the middle of the pan is than awkwardly using your probe thermometer.

Personally, in a case like this, I might consider using an infrared thermometer instead.  It's usually easier to move it around the pan a bit so you can get instant readings to sense the overall temperature of the pan/oil.

Short of that, with shallow oil, you may be better off using various visual cues in the oil to estimate temperature -- as the temperature rises, the viscosity often lessens.  (It gets noticeably thinner and will flow around the pan more quickly.)  Then at some point it will begin to "shimmer" (with little waves appearing within the oil), usually a sign you've hit an appropriate temperature for frying.  If you go much beyond this, eventually you'll get too hot and hit the smoke point, which will be obvious from the evaporation and, well, smoke.  These cues are less precise than a thermometer obviously, but they are generally enough to estimate when the oil has reached an appropriate cooking temperature if you're familiar with them and the behavior of that specific oil.

Regardless of what method or thermometer you use, what matters in most applications is learning the relative measurements that will cook the way you like.  In some ways it doesn't matter whether your thermometer says "380F" and the oil is actually 350F, as long as you know when you hit "reading X" for that pan that it's a good time to put the food in to produce good results.  From my experience with shallow frying, getting familiar with the pan's conductivity and heat retention, as well as the specific burner setting on the stove, are often more important than knowing "I drop my food in when the thermometer says exactly X."  Trial-and-error will help.

For deep frying applications, maintaining a consistent oil temperature (and using a thermometer) is more important, since you can't correct the temperature as quickly if something goes wrong -- e.g., browning too fast, or not cooking quickly enough.  But with only a thin layer of oil for pan frying, it's usually easy to make an adjustment to the burner as food is cooking.


Cheesecake is a custard, so your very best indicator of doneness is temperature.  There are a range of opinions, from about 150 F to 165 F / 65 C to 73 C, measured at the center of the pan, in the center of the layer.

If you don't have an instant read thermometer, generally, you want a thin knife to come out clean from the center; similarly, when the pan is shaken a bit, only the center should jiggle slightly.  These indicators are not as good as temperature, so you will need to gain experiene to interpret them.

Once you are measuring properly, problems with the top of the cheesecake being done, but the inside being too unset may be mitigated by:

Baking in a water bath (which you indicate you are already doing)
Baking at a lower temperature (within reason; you indicate you are already baking at a fairly low temperature)
Baking in a wider pan, so the cheesecake is more shallow
Do not use convection

Since you area already using a bath and a low baking temperature, if you are still having problems once you start checking for doneness by temperature, I would suggest checking your oven's calibration with an oven thermometer to be sure it is not running hot.


How long can I keep a dessert out of the fridge?

Since it is a custard, you should probably refrigerate it as soon as it is cool.

A very sugary or acidic custard may be able to resist bacteria for a couple days (see Bismark donuts), but unless the recipe was specifically developed to be stable at room temperature, then there is some risk of it going bad.

If you have a fridge, there's no reason not to use it.  It may make the dough a little soggy, so you will want to find a way to store it to reduce condensation.

Better yet, make just as much as you are going to eat/serve at one time, and don't worry about this problem.

Link 1 (search for custard on page)

Link 2 (about pies, see portion on Custard pies)


First of all, I suggest reading through our other questions on meringues and general egg-beating, to rule out any issues with your technique regardless of sugar content:

Beating Egg Whites with Granulated Sugar Added for Tapioca Pudding
How to minimise sugar in meringue
Why do my egg whites separate after whipping?
Making my meringues form peaks
How can I keep meringue pie-topping from falling?

There are more, but I'm going to stop here - there's already so much about the subject on this site that I'm not going to waste any more time going into details about that. Suffice it to say, make sure you're using the right eggs, the right equipment, and the right ingredients, and doing things in the right order.

More specific to this question, however, is the fact that the sugar in a meringue is not just to make it sweeter. Sugar is a stabilizer; it is a critical ingredient in a meringue, and regardless of what Splenda and its recipes may say, it's not a perfect substitute for sugar.

Most Splenda recipes I've seen still use some sugar (preferably superfine), just less of it. Every little bit helps and you don't need that much. If you're not going to use any sugar then you'd better use some other stabilizer like corn starch, otherwise it's simply not going to be stable (unless, maybe, you've done everything else absolutely perfectly).

By your description, it also sounds possible that you might be rushing through it; "soft peaks" should be fairly smooth, not foamy or bubbly, like so:

If you don't beat long enough to get soft peaks, or if you start adding the "sugar" too quickly, it will collapse. I prefer to err on the side of firm peaks, it doesn't change the end result too much and there's less risk of a collapse. On the other hand, if you massively overdo it (i.e. try to get it all the way to stiff peaks) without any stabilizer, then it almost certainly will collapse, and once it does, you cannot recover it, it's like trying to blow up a balloon that has already burst.

So, to summarize: Try to use some sugar, or at least some starch as a stabilizer once the peaks firm up. Make sure your peaks are somewhere between soft and firm before adding your sweetener/stabilizers - not earlier, not later; and add them slowly enough to properly incorporate - you don't want to see any crystals or bubbles at that point.

(From what I can tell, your meringues failed long before the piping stage, and it definitely wasn't the vanilla's fault.)


When it comes to "is it safe" questions it is difficult to give you a simple, direct, reliable answer...most often (as is the case here) you can't provide all of the information needed to 'give you a straight answer' (which is, of course, what you really want).

If the meat was 'safe' to begin with, if it was just left in the sink with cool water and ice overnight (~8 hrs) and if it is still cold to the touch...it is "probably" perfectly safe.

Then comes the question of "What is 'safe'?" Will eating this meat 'kill you'... highly unlikely.
Will you want to remain near a toilet for a day or so? 'possibly' (but still very unlikely). Will eating this contribute to a stroke in 20 years? Your mileage may vary.

It is highly unlikely that this method of thawing has introduced any significant risk to your meat.


How much does fresh pasta yield when cooked?

when making fresh pasta a classic ratio is 100g of flour + 1 egg per person; that roughly means 150g per person
When cooked fresh pasta yields roughly 1,5 times the weight of raw (while dry pasta yields between 2 and 2,5 times according to type)


Should I add flour to dough if I already weighed the amount?

Once you have learned to recognize good dough consistency by feel, you might decide to add more flour. This is because even when you weigh, your texture can be influenced by small changes in the gluten content in your brand and batch of flour (it is a natural product after all, and the difference between 11 and 11.5% is already noticeable) and by the humidity of your storage room. Before you have learned to recognize the perfect texture by feel, only use additional flour to prevent sticking to utensils, unless it feels terribly wet and flows everywhere (but then you probably measured wrong).


How do I open a brand-new (plug-top) oval canister?

As described in the comments by Jolenealaska and rumtscho, the key to opening plug-tops is leverage; it "is like opening a can of paint." Use a butter knife, screw driver or any other object that is both long, flat and sturdy to pry open the can. It is nearly impossible to open a plug top with your hands. If the can is oval pry open from the end of the can that will yield the most leverage (i.e. your rod should be parallel to the long axis and perpendicular to the short one).


How long can I refrigerate cookie dough?

Since those are drop cookies, the best approach is to portion them into individual cookie portions, and freeze them on a sheet tray.  Once solidly frozen, they can be moved into a zip back or other more convenient storage container.

They do not need to be thawed in order to bake, so they still are very convenient.  Simply lay them out frozen on a tray, and bake.

It will take a minute or two longer than the regular non-frozen time.  It might be helpful to drop the temperature by 25 F or so, but it shouldn't really be necessary.

The real issue with holding the dough is not just food safety (you should get 2-3 days given raw eggs as the most perishable ingredient); this doesn't give you a very large window.   Eat By Date suggests 3-5 days.

It is also the loss of leavening power as the baking powder may slowly react, although the dough should be thick enough that most gets retained.


Are Yukon Gold Potatoes available throughout the year

You don't say where you are located, but in most areas potatoes are sold year round at the grocery store or market. Yukon Gold potatoes tend to mature earlier than other potatoes.


I think your answer is found by responding to the question: "Why do I make my own ketchup?"  Heinz ketchup is delicious.  It is also produced in mass quantities.  You'll never compete on cost because of economies of scale. If you are purchasing ingredients, homemade ketchup is just going to cost more.  This brings me to the question I posed.  If your answers are "it's fun"...."I like the flavor"...."I prefer my ketchup over Heinz"...anything along those lines, you may just have to accept that yours will cost more to produce. Maybe find a way to buy tomatoes in bulk? You might get even closer if you grow your own tomatoes. Even then, the cost would likely be more when you take all of the production variables into account.  Any "stretching" will change your recipe, probably at more cost, possibly at risk to the flavor you have developed.  If you are trying to make ketchup to save money, there are probably more impactful home financial strategies you could employ.


Butchered meat is generally sterile except on its exterior.  (That doesn't mean parasite- or botulism-free, but it's a start.)

Get the best quality you can from a source you trust.  Keep it at as low a temperature as possible, and don't expose it to warm air for more than the few minutes it takes to prepare.

Cut with a clean knife on a clean surface. Put it right back into the fridge at a very low temp.

Salt and acid, if you use them in your sauce, will provide some anti-bacterial benefits, but this is not foolproof.

People all over the world eat raw meat, but it's best to start with small amounts and see how your system handles it.  If you're a child/pregnant/old/sick, it's much less of a good idea.


How can I remove bitterness from custard after adding pineapple to it?

You can't. This is caused by an irreversible chemical reaction. The bitterness is there to stay.

If it is just a tad too much for you, you can try diluting: make more pudding and mix. But if it is the strong bitterness I know from mixing mix and fruit enzymes, that won't help either.


Does natto really need to be fermented at body temperature?

From my research, the problem with fermenting nattō at lower temperatures is that it doesn’t inhibit the growth of other bacteria which can either inhibit the growth of the target bacteria, bactilis subtilis, or potentially introduce and incubate pathogenic bacteria which can harm your health. Natto bacteria are very comfortable with high temperatures and you should aim for between 38 and 42 degrees for a full 20 hours.

Try looking at Natto Dad - he has a blog and YouTube videos which were very helpful to me. My second batch of nattō is currently fermenting.


The go-to industry standard additive to ketchup to make it "optimally clingy" is xanthan gum. It makes all water-based fluids into shear-thinning non-newtonian fluids, which means they flow just okay out of a bottle, but cling to surfaces well.

If you can't (or don't want to) use that, there's a bunch of easy natural thickeners. Potato or bean puree (blend with a small amount of your ketchup to make it easy to mix in),  gelatin or potato starch (prepare hot with water, pour/mix when lukewarm). Arrowroot.

Also, consider reducing the tomatoes some before preparing the ketchup. Less water since moment one will make it thicker.


How to cook the eggplant in trader joe's eggplant roll style?

We have used this recipe as a template for eggplant wrap type dishes.
In this recipe example they use a grill but you can also use a rack inside the oven either baking or broiling:

PREAHT a stovetop grill pan or outdoor grill over high heat.
CUT the eggplants lengthwise into 1/4-inch thick slices (about 6 slices each eggplant).
BRUSH the eggplant slices evenly with olive oil on both sides.
GRILL the eggplant slices in batches for 3 minutes each side.
ALLOW to cool slightly

http://mediterrasian.com/delicious_recipes_eggplant_rolls.htm


Sounds like you've may have two issues. Too much wood and incorrect expectations.

First it sounds like you've "oversmoked" your chicken. Depending on what kind of wood you use too won't need much for chicken (remember it's a lightly flavored meat.) try less wood next time.

Second that "ideal"temperature is great off you want pulled chicken but it will not do god things to the skin. Try either smoking at a higher temp for a shorter time, discarding the skin or finishing it on a grill.

Lastly if your meat had a bitter flavor it could be that you had live flames rather than embers as you smoked. Remember that you want to avoid flareups as much as possible.


How dangerous is it to bake food with plastic?

I posted this question in a hurry (because as you can imagine), there was a lot of anxiety concerning whether it was safe to have dinner or not.  It turns out that this ham is not safe; I will quote the USDA:

The plastic bone guard covering the exposed bone is used to keep the
bone from breaking the outer wrap. If left on the meat during cooking,
a 325 or 350 °F oven temperature may not melt the plastic but still
give off an abnormal chemical odor or taste. Cutting away the meat
around the exposed area will not necessarily solve this potential food
safety problem because the penetration of the chemical into the meat
will be unknown. If meat is cooked in a closed container, the
chemicals may penetrate the entire piece of meat. USDA advises not to
eat the ham; discard it.

Source: Hock Locks and Other Accoutrements (USDA)
Quite a disappointment unfortunately.


Is natural yoghurt & soured cream a good replacement for khatta dahi (Indian sour yoghurt/'curd')

There is quite a big difference in the process of making dahi vs yoghurt (aside from pasteurisation), as yogurt is made with bacteria (called yogurt cultures) and curd is made by curdling milk with an acidic agent (like lemon juice).

I would personally use full-fat greek yogurt and add a little fresh lemon juice to the yogurt for a quick-fix. You could, however, follow this recipe to make sour yogurt. I see the author also suggests just adding lemon juice to yogurt as a faster solution.

Let me know if this worked for your recipe!


Will it will fit is an easy one. Go here: http://www.joyofbaking.com/PanSizes.html.
All but the biggest tube pan is less volume than a 9X13X2 pan.

As for how long it will bake- I don't have the ability to compute the exact new bake time; however, the rectangular pan will produce a thinner cake so the baking time will be reduced.

I would put it in for 3/4 the recipe time and then start checking it at 10 minutes intervals.


Is there such a thing as a tabletop conche?

Stone based electrical wet grinders (not to confused with "wet/dry grinders", which are a type of blender), as are used in indian cuisine, have been used/modified by some chocolate enthusiasts as conches, and there are now some models by the same maker specially targeted for such usage, for example the Santha Spectra 11 model. Some models of unmodified stone grinders might be insufficient for that purpose due to restrictions on duty cycle (time the device can be kept running without overheating).


Are there any calories in roasted coffee beans? Why is black coffee 0 kcal?

Flatly, the calories are in the filter: in the grounds that you dump on your compost.

In the water that went through the grounds, there are mostly aromatic substances and traces of coffee oils, few enough that a cup of coffee has (rounded) 0 calories.

The caloric values given for coffee beans are valid if eaten - which is rarely done in significant amounts (except perhaps the occasional chocolate-covered bean or truffle garnish). That the values differ between sources is typical - it happens with other foods as well. Measurement methods vary and so do nutrition contents in different batches / breeds / origins of beans.

If you prepare your coffee with a method that leaves some coffee grounds in your cup (e.g. Turkish coffee) and you consume them (as opposed to leaving the dregs), your cup will have some calories. Yet probably not enough to be relevant for your daily calorie intake. My estimate would be that an amount of black coffee that would supply a significant amount of calories would have you shaking that much that you would burn them again just from the side-effects of the caffeine or from the additional trips to the bathroom.


The issue with the "danger zone" has to do with bacteria that are on the food. There are 2 issues.

fresh food may have harmful bacteria on it. This is more likely by meat, but vegetables can have them too (this is why you wash off that apple before you eat it) Getting up to 140 degrees kills off everything.
any bacteria that there is on it or lands on it post cooking. If the food is kept warm but under 140 or ie;danger zone then these bacteria have a wonderful place to live and can quickly grow. This makes no difference between animal or vegetables.


Is there an official standard vegan packaging symbol designating that a product is vegan?

There are two common symbols; the European Vegetarian Union (EVU) and Vegan Action.

In my experience, you will see the EVU on packaging and on restaurant menus. I've only ever seen the Vegan Action symbol on packaged products.

The EVU is not exclusively vegan so you'll still need to read the packaging or ask about ingredients if in a restaurant. The Vegan Action symbol is exclusively vegan and is becoming very popular in the United States.


So, there's no method to get sugar out of milk, as far as I know.  You can look for milk products where some of the sugar is used up (fermented, like Chris H mentioned), but this will significantly change taste and texture - sugar is a major part of what milk is, fats and sugars and proteins, and you're removing most of the actual substance.

You're likely to do better with an unsweetened nut milk or rice milk, especially if you make your own so you can tweak to taste.  These may have more fats, depending on your choice of recipe, but will likely have sugar closer to your desired range

One thing you might try, if you're really determined, is to dilute your milk (maybe up to half) and add artificial sweeteners.  You'll still get some of the flavor components from the added milk, and some sweetening to make up the difference in taste, but there will be less sugar because the actual amount of milk is less. Hopefully the added artificial sweetener might make it taste less watery, but maybe add just a half a pinch of salt if it still tastes too thin.  in the end, ~6g sugar per cup, I guess?

Another possibility is to use unflavored whey powder to flavor the diluting water (again, probably no more than half of your "milk"), then adding artificial sweetener to taste.  The whey should have some of the flavors from the proteins in milk, and at least from the powder I checked it doesn't have much of the sugar or fat you're objecting to.  It might help the diluted milk taste less watery. ~7g sugar, because I think the whey powder has a gram and a half per serving.

Final possibility I thought of - you can maybe grab some creamer powder and use that to flavor your diluted milk (again, not more than half and sweeten to taste).  Or even use it on its own, if the flavor works for you.  The amount of sugar isn't stated, but it has to be under 1g because that's all the carbs there are per serving - though it does add a half gram of fat back in.


If braised meat is cooked at 200 degrees in a perfectly sealed pouch in the oven, does the temperature rise above boiling?

Any increased steam pressure would raise the boiling point, not lower it. However, I doubt that you will be able to seal the pouch well enough to withstand any serious pressure.

What may cause boiling though, is the fact that ovens cycle on and off, especially at low temperatures. The amplitude of  the cycles depend on how good your oven is. At 200°F, your pouch will probably experience above-boiling ambient temperatures during the on-part of the cycles. Of course, that doesn't mean that the contents of the pouch is above-boiling, but there may be.

However, I don't think that the braising liquid boiling slightly now and again is going to be a big problem. Sometimes when I've braised meat, there's been some boiling, and the results have still both looked and tasted great.


Short answer: Potatoes oxidize.

Slightly longer answer: Potatoes contain an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase (the same enzyme responsible for browning in apples), which when exposed to oxygen in the air turns that brown/grey color.  That process is called oxidizing.  Because oxygen is required to, well, oxidize, any means of preventing the air from coming into contact will keep them from discoloring.  Submerging in water is just an easy and convenient way of doing that.  Also, polyphenol oxidase is neutralized during cooking, so cooking the potatoes immediately prevents the discoloration.


My sauerkraut has mold covering the surface, is it ok?

Per NC State's Extension's article on pickles and sauerkraut (some emphasis added):

  Pickles or sauerkraut mold during fermentation.

  Answer:

  Unsafe—microorganisms are growing  improperly.

  Possible reasons

  Fermentation temperature was above 75°F.
  Too much salt was used,
  not allowing adequate lactic acid production.
  The cloth on top of
  the kraut was not kept clean during fermentation (may need to be
  replaced after skimming).

Per Penn State Extension's Saurkraut Guide (emphasis added):

  Do not taste it if you see mold on the surface, feel a slimy texture, or smell a bad odor.

Their PDF on Saurkraut says:

  To avoid surface mold  growth, keep the cabbage submerged at  all
  times by covering it with a plate just  small enough to ft inside the
  fermentation container or with two or three clean  quart jars filled
  with water. An acceptable alternative is to fill a large, sealed,
  food-grade plastic bag containing 4½ tablespoons of  salt and 3
  quarts of  water.

Again, no indication of acceptable types of mold.

I cannot endorse the existing answers which indicate that mold  is an acceptable part of the saurkraut making process, unless credible science based evidence is presented, from reputable sources such as University Extension Centers or, better yet, peer reviewed journal sources.


Is there cultural variations on what is consider offal?

Short summary: views on these various body parts are never constant, whether over time or even within communities.

Part of the difficulty with this question is the very definition of the word offal and what it implies.  First, a little mini-history, taken partly from the Oxford English Dictionary.

Offal is literally derived from off + fall, i.e., that which "falls off" or is discarded during some sort of process; the word entered English around the year 1400.  This sense is rare in modern English, but it still occurs in some manufacturing processes, e.g., woodchips that are discarded from milling.

In the 1400s, it was applied in the same sense to butchers, who initially included only those things which were cut off/out of the carcass and truly considered inedible or useless from a culinary perspective (e.g., the contents of the intestines, which would contain the animal's waste and would rarely be consumed because of the potential for disease, parasites, etc.).  Gradually, this definition expanded over the years to include elements that butchers might discard or separate from the primary "meat" (i.e., mostly muscle).  As the OED defines it:

  The edible parts collectively which are cut off in preparing the
  carcass of an animal for food. In early use applied mainly to the
  entrails; later extended to include the head, tail, and internal
  organs such as the heart, liver, etc.

Given that many of these "discarded" or separated items were not considered as desirable for eating, the word gradually acquired a negative connotation, which the OED first finds in 1581:

  The parts of a slaughtered or dead animal considered unfit for human
  consumption; decomposing flesh, carrion.

The OED adds that this last sense is "Sometimes used contemptuously," as in the first 1581 quotation that references "dirtie tripes and offalls."

In answering this question, there seems to be a conflict between two possible interpretations about the word offal: on the one hand, there's the "offal" that's discarded because it's truly inedible or difficult to use in a culinary sense, but then there's the "offal" that's merely separated out because some people or some cultures find it repulsive.

That latter "offal" is still generally used by somebody, whether it's

eaten by people who don't find it repulsive (and might even consider it a delicacy)
eaten by poor people who can't afford more desirable food (as referenced in the question when oxtail was given to "laborers")
ground up, processed, and disguised in processed foods
given to animals to eat

For a recent perspective, I quote from the book Offal: A Global History (2013) by Nina Edwards:

  What might the term "offal" include?  The Chambers Dictionary's
  definition sounds a little less than enthusiastic: "waste or rejected
  parts esp. entrails, heart, liver, kidney, tongue etc.: anything
  worthless or unfit for use."  Other edible innards not specified here
  include connective tissue, bone marrow, lungs, spleen, sweetbreads,
  testicles, udders, tripe, heads and the features thereof (brains,
  eyes, cheeks, snout or muzzle and ears), skin, tails, trotters, lard
  and blood.  Offal is sometimes thought of as inner organs and viscera
  alone, but I include all edible exterior parts.

Including all edible (yet undesirable by some) parts seems reasonable in the definition, given that even as early as 1660 the OED has a quotation lumping in sheep trotters with "offal."  But in some places the word carries a distinct connotation of "organ meat" specifically.

In any case, as said at the beginning, the perspectives on these various body parts are never constant, whether over time or even within communities.  Most cultures have entire classes of animals that are considered inedible or repulsive, whether pork in Jewish or Islamic traditions or almost all insects in various Western cultures.  The concept of "offal" is just an extension of communal dietary guidelines or preferences to the avoidance of specific parts of animals.

It's also important to note that there are various reasons for rejecting various foods.  Sometimes foods have unusual textures or flavors, but just as often they are rejected because of the associations of specific body parts (e.g., feet or snouts or tails being "dirty," tongues because of their associations with animal feeding, genitals or reproductive organs for puritanical reasons, etc.).  Or, in some cases the food perhaps resembles actual animal "parts" too much for our modern culture that is often divorced from butchering: in the era of the chicken "nugget" (or "boneless skinless chicken breast") and ground beef, an actual tongue or tail or ear tends to remind the eater that the food is not from some anonymous cut of "meat" but rather from an actual animal.

In some of these cases, the actual meat may not have a flavor or texture very different from the rest of the animal, but some people still reject it on the basis of its appearance or knowledge of its source within the animal.  (An oxtail isn't very different in flavor or texture from short ribs or even some parts of the chuck after long cooking.)

A final connotation to "offal" referenced in the question is that of social class, which is also often associated with cooking techniques and cuisine types.  A steak cut from a tenderloin can be cooked fast on a hot fire/grill and be tender and tasty in a matter of minutes, but the percentage of tender meat available from a cow is quite small and thus traditionally a meal for the elite.  An oxtail generally requires hours of slow simmering in a stew or braise, traditionally a meal associated with lower classes.  Also, many types of offal are more nutritious than "regular" meat (e.g., many internal organs) and/or have higher calories due to excess fat and connective tissue, which actually historically made them essential for lower classes to survive.  (In less developed cultures in various parts of the world, these types of offal are quite frequently given to children or esteemed elders because of the recognition of their nutritional value.)

As the question points out, there has been a recent shift in some Western countries to embrace certain types of "offal" among middle and upper classes.  Most cultures seem to maintain some random animal parts as delicacies ("sweetbreads" being one example in Western culture), but the recent trend seems to be a combination of adventurous eating (popular in an era of multiculturalism) and a desire not to be "wasteful."  However, despite the term "offal" with its etymological connection to waste, most "offal" has rarely been truly discarded.  It just tends to be eaten by the people who like it or who don't have other things to eat.


Ground beef meat colors seem different these days

The color of meat comes from the pigment myoglobin. Freshly cut meat shows a purple-red color. When exposed to air, myoglobin forms oxymioglobin, providing an attractive cherry-red shade. However, long exposure to air and store lighting lead to the formation of metmyoglobin, which is brownish-red.
The inside part of the meat can show a more greyish color due to the lack of contact with oxygen.

The industry uses some techniques to control / cover the oxidation of myoglobin up to metmyoglobin and keep a nice red shade for a longer time.

Modified atmosphere packaging (MAP): to avoid complete oxidation of the meat and final brownish/greyish color (that does not look appealing anymore); some gases like carbon dioxide and nitrogen are used to decrease the content of oxygen and to slow down this process. Therefore, the outside doesn't turn grey that fast. For more information please refer to: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4093050/
Color additives: in Europe, minced meat is a product category that is subject to contain color additives according to the Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008. E.g. the category "burger meat" can contain carmine or carminic acid (red color extracted from crushed bugs and stabilized with aluminium salts...), whereas other categories within the group may not be allowed to contain such color additives but natural colors or vegetable extracts. Nowadays many meat producers are switching to red beet or radish extracts to enhance the red shade of fresh minced meat in fresh sausages, meatballs, etc. while keeping "clean label".
In the US there is a list of commonly used meat additives (https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/food-labeling/additives-in-meat-and-poultry-products/additives-in-meat-and-poultry-products)

Note: nitrites and nitrates are food preservatives not used in fresh meat but in cured and/or processed meat.


How soft does a Kohlrabi get when cooked?

I spoke with the farm that sold me the kohlrabi; they have seen people make something akin to mashed rutabaga by boiling kohlrabi for ages and ages, so it gets about that soft. Note that mashed rutabaga is apparently still firmer than mashed potatoes, but obviously soft enough to mash into a pulp.

For a stir-fry, they suggested a match-stick shape rather than medallions; my second such stir-fry found them to have about the texture of halfway-cooked onions, soft enough not to crunch anymore but firm enough to hold their shape on a fork.


Yes, it is. The important part, for nearly any dish, is to heat it properly.

Meat is mainly spoiled by bacteria, worms and larvae. Proper heating solves these problems. Bacteria and mold digest proteins and might generate harmful molecules; while heating does not eliminate them, they are easy to smell, especially those in meat. You won't want to eat it way before it becomes a health risk. The other health risks are unhealthy proteins, like the mad cow disease, hormones and antibiotics. They are stable to heating - but they don't propagate, so if they are in there, then they are in there the moment you purchased them.

Note that fat oxidation/rancidity are not actually health risks, even though they will ruin the taste. But 4 hours is way too short to make any fat rancid.


Is it safe to vacuum seal shredded Parmesan?

In the past, I have found that simply grating it into a Tupperware or similar container, placing the lid on it, and placing it in the freezer will hold the flavor well of grated Parmesan. It has been how I have always stored it when I bought it. Because of the grating, and the nature of cheese it has never taken long for it to thaw out if you are using it for things like a salad. A vacuum jar placing it in the refrigerator would probably work as well, just more work between each use as compared to just placing the container back into the freezer.


Should I salt water for cooking pastas based on the volume of water or amount of food?

The water....but no need to be super precise. You should be able to taste the salt. Under or unsalted pasta water results in a flat tasting pasta.  However, it is possible to over salt the water, resulting in over-salted pasta.


White foam when cooking chickpeas, what to do with it?

The white foam is a 'scum' that is formed as protein is released from the chickpeas. Yes, that is the term that is used. Scum.

This can be skimmed for aesthetic reasons - it sticks to the pot, or overboils, etc...

You are absolutely right, though, that if the chickpeas are rinsed after, then this is washed away.

If you are draining and pureeing, it will just incorporate into the dish.

Totally an aesthetic choice in my experience.

Similar to meat protein scum, referenced (What is this in the beef stew?)