With such tiny details, wood will give you trouble - even with very careful seasoning and greasing you will probably not be able to get the cake to release properly and without ripping the details apart.

My first suggestion would be stoneware / clay:
You can easily shape it including details and after being glazed and burned it will be ready to use. Either find a potter do do it for you (even modeling it off a positive shape you supply) or do it yourself, you just have to find a kiln you can use.

Shaped stoneware molds have been in use for centuries, here are two random examples showing rather fine details:

Or find someone who can make it in metal, but your sheets must be a) thick enough to allow for thinning at the imprints and b) made to resist warping - that's definetively a job for a professional.


pickled cucumbers seemingly lasting "forever"

I have to admit I am speculating a bit here. Your pickles are fermented, which itself is a form of preservation. The type of fermentation taking place is likely acetic, since the added vinegar could work as a starter, but it's also possible that you have a lacto component. It depends on the proportions of salt and vinegar used.
That said, as whatever bacteria and natural yeast get to work, they convert sugars naturally present in your vegetables to various acids, alcohol, and carbon dioxide. The production of carbon dioxide will indeed cause an increase in pressure and make a sealed jar leak.
As the fermentation settles down what will often happen is the lid will glue itself shut with a combination of partially digested sugars and salt that dry out. This doesn't really indicate negative pressure, but can make a jar a major pain to open.
As for how it works - the short version is comprised of two parts. Part one is that the good bacteria and yeast go through and eat everything, making it harder for bad bacteria to get a foothold. Part 2 is that as a result of the fermentation, the brine in the pickle jar is very acidic (not to mention salted) and therefore very unfriendly to most bacteria even if there was sugar to be had.
That's an extremely simplified version, obviously. But fermentation has a long, long history as food preservation. It's an absolute classic from a cultural perspective, and is biologically complex. I would make sure that grandma's recipe is written down (if you can), since it can be dangerous to fool around with an untested fermentation procedure. (I personally consider 50+ years to be "tested" enough...)


Why is there cow cheese but no pig cheese?

There are several main reasons, historically:

Cows, sheep and goats have udders, and can be milked by hand into a bucket. Pigs (or cats, or humans for that matter) have nipples, where you need to suck the milk out. Consider that most of the cheese in the world was invented before machinery was able to create a vacuum, this means that the only option would have been to suck milk from the pig and spit it into the bucket.
For making cheese, the fat/protein ratio in the milk is important. It changes, obviously, from species to species, which is why there aren't many hard yellow cheeses made of goat's milk.

Lastly, I have actually had camel's milk ice-cream, which goes to show that it's just a cultural thing mostly.


Cut food with fork and sharp knife - metal in food?

This shouldn't be an issue.

From a practical perspective you need a fork to hold food in place, without one the food would slide around. You aren't going to get metal in your food if the knife contacts the fork when cutting, no matter how sharp it is, unless your fork is made of a soft metal of some kind. If your fork is that soft it may be leaching into your food anyway whether you use a knife or not, in which case you should replace it with something like stainless steel.


The pigments in raspberries can turn grey in an alkaline environment, and egg whites are one of the very few foods which are alkaline, although I am surprised the effect would be strong enough to notice.

You might wish to whip your egg whites with a bit of cream of tartar or lemon juice to help them be less basic, and therefore not react with the raspberry pigments.


What is the standard ratio of sugar to cream in Crème Chantilly?

You can be quite free with your sugar amount, depending on what you want to achieve. I would say that as a rule of thumb, you don't want to create too great a contrast between your sauce and your other components. So, if you are using it for dipping fruit, you can use less sugar than usual, else the fruit will be perceived as too sour. For a rich torte, you can go up with the sugar.

As for the normal range, it can start at zero, but this is very unusual for sweet applications. The upper bound is given by foaming: you can't whip cream well if it has less than 30% fat. (This number is for pure raw cream, and varies even there, depending on factors like cow breed. It can be slightly higher or lower depending on cream treatment - pasteurization etc. - and the amount of stabilizers usually added to whipping cream). So, if you start with a cream which has 35% fat, you shouldn't add more than 16.7 g sugar per 100 g cream (40 g sugar per 250 ml). Else your texture will suffer.

You also ask for a standard amount. This will vary regionally. The Professional Chef recommends 57 g of sugar per 454 g (a pound) of cream, which translates to 12.5 g per 100 g, or 30 g per 250 ml. This is an American book, and I have found that using 2/3 to 1/2 of the recommended amount in most American recipes results in good-tasting sweets, whereas the original amount often produces oversweetened dishes. This would be my guideline for a standard amount too. You can adjust it to your own taste.

On a side note, The Professional Chef insists that it whips best if the sugar is sprinkled in after you have achieved soft peaks. I haven't done it this way, but it is worth a try.


Why does Alton Brown call for three types of milks in a recipe?

The main purpose of the one part of Half-and-Half is to aid in homogenization of the one part of milk and one part heavy cream.

Per this article (toward the end):

  Half and half is also a good solution for desserts that call for equal parts milk and cream, but have a tendency to separate. The fat has been homogenized in the half-and-half, so using it in desserts like panna cotta will deliver a smoother, more consistent result.

The half-and-half also enhances desired texture/mouth feel properties.


Are there any general principles of ingredient substitutions?

Yes, there are a number of things to think about, although in the end experience, intuition, and a deep understanding of the science of ingredients will be your best guide.

What does the ingredient do in the dish?

The first question to ask yourself, is what role does the ingredient play in the dish?

There are three main roles, although some ingredients can play more than one of these roles in some dishes:

Structure or backbone.  The ingredients that form the main structure or contribute to the chemistry of the dish.

Examples would be flour in a cake, or chocolate in a ganache.

In savory cooking, the flour used to thicken a sauce would be contributing to the chemistry.
Signature. A signature ingredient is key to the identity of a dish—it is why the dish is what it is.

Examples would include basil in a pesto recipe.
Accents and garnish. These are ingredients that compliment the flavor or texture of the dish, but aren't the core identity, or essential to its chemistry or structure.

Examples include chili flakes sprinkled on pizza, or potatoes in a stew.

Signature ingredients

If a dish is defined by a certain ingredient (such as the rum in rum balls), then substituting for the signature ingredient really isn't practical.  You would be creating a new dish, or changing what its core is.

If for dietary, religious or other reasons, you simply cannot use the signature ingredient in a dish, you would often be better served by looking to make another dish whose main ingredients you can enjoy.

On the other hand, this can be a jumping off point to invent new dish.  For example, instead of making rum balls, you might make bourbon balls—but they wouldn't be rum balls.

Structure ingredients

Substituting structure ingredients can be very simple or very tricky, depending on the application or restrictions involved.

First, ask yourself what role the ingredient plays in the recipe, and what the ingredient is principally composed of.

Some common roles are:

Fats.  Most fats can be substituted for one another fairly freely, although the flavor or texture may change slightly.

In very sensitive recipes, the water content of butter or margarine (about 20%) may be a favor.

In other recipes, the saturation of the fat, which controls whether it is solid (saturated fats) or liquid (unsaturated fats) at room temperature is important.  If the fat is used mechanically, as in biscuits or laminated pastry, you need another solid fat.  This also applies to the creaming method—the fat must be solid in order for air to be incorporated.

When used as a frying medium, for very hot frying like searing or deep frying, the smoke point of the oil may matter.  For routine sauteing it is not terribly significant as the food itself will cool the pan.
Sugars  Most sweet ingredients can be substituted for one another fairly freely, with a couple of considerations.

Liquid sweeteners like honey or syrup add water, and tend to be even more hydrophyllic than plain sugar.  Additionally, in candies and other applications where controlling sugar crystallization is important, the fact that they may inhibit crystallization can be either an advantage or a disadvantage.

One case where liquid sweeteners cannot be used is cakes or baked goods made with the creaming method, which rely on the sharp edges of the sugar crystals to cut air into the fat medium.

Finally, some brown sugars or unrefined sugars bring a small amount of acid, which may change the acid balance of a recipe.  This is mostly important in baking, where the acid from the sweetener is used to activate chemical leavening.

Otherwise, the major issue is what flavors in addition to sweetness the ingredients carry.
Pure Starches.   Many starches have the same role in recipes, and perform similarly.

The issue to look at is if they are stable under heat or acid ingredients, and whether they gel transparently or cloudy.
Flours.   Flours are an exceptionally difficult category, especially when the flour to be substituted is wheat flour, which has special charactaristics due to gluten.   This is one area where looking at the entire recipe, and multiple ingredients is appropriate.
Acids   Many acids are used in cooking to brighten flavor.  In this case, many of them including citrus juice, various vinegars, and so on can be freely substituted to taste.

However, in baking, if the acid is meant to work with the chemical leavening, or in any curing type application, the absolute amount of acid or the pH of the recipe must be considered.
Bulk ingredients.  Bulk ingredients--often starchy vegetables or grains like potatoes, rice, barley, carrots, noodles, and so on form the body of some dishes.

The main issue here is usually flavor balance, or texture and consistency, and how it participates in the entire dish.  For example, a stew or sauce could be served over mashed potatoes, pureed turnips, noodles, rice, or barley without changing the stew, but the overall experience would be changed.

Accent ingredients

Finally, there are accent ingredients, which do not fall into the previous categories.

These are the easiest to substitute or play with, as they don't change how the recipe works.

For example, using parsnips instead of potatoes in a stew, or garnishing cookies with chocolate sprinkles instead of coconut.

In these cases, you are looking for comparability of flavor and texture, as well as avoiding changes that would affect chemistry or structure of the dish.

So you would not substitute potatoes with tomatoes in many applications, because the tomatoes can be much more watery and more acidic, which may have an effect.

Conclusion

When deciding how to substitute, the main issue is understanding the role of an ingredient in a a dish, and finding another ingredient that can help play the same role.


Help with finding pod-based Coffee and Espresso maker

The manufacturers of the machines and the coffee partner to make use of brand recognition. So I could buy Costa brand (2nd biggest coffee shop chain in the UK) for my Tassimo, but if I wanted Starbucks I'd need a different machine. Nespresso is part of Nestle so they're not going to licence rivals to make pods for their machines. The choice you can easily buy is as important as the overall range - while you can get the pods delivered it works out expensive. Pods from different manufacturers are completely incompatible, and these machines don't take normal ground coffee without hacking the packaging.

I've used a Nespresso and a Senseo and have a Tassimo (that I no longer use because the coffee is expensive and wasteful on non-recyclable packaging). Neither makes espresso, despite labelling. They make a reasonable imitation of a weak espresso. The nespresso is slightly better in that regard, or a Tassimo that allows you to adjust the amount of water (so not the most basic). But a moka pot is closer to espresso than either. Some also do you chocolate (though not very well); I'm only keeping my Tassimo to use that up.

Pretty much any pod machine that says it can do espresso can also do plain coffee. Overall you need to pick one for which the biggest range of suitable pods is available easily. Suitable depends on the user.


Rice attracts quite a lot of moisture and may develop a moss-like smell in the longer run. Most of the rice that is used in India doesn't require airtight storage but shouldn't be exposed to moisture.

Some of the aromatic rice varieties such as Basmati are sealed and aged for perfection. These types of rice may lose their aroma if kept in the open air.

So if you are storing rice for long term use, keep in an airtight container.


Dangerous pathogens capable of growing in acidic environments

Most bacteria in homes grow in biofilms. Like the whitish stuff that accumulates on your teeth during the day or slimy dirt on plugholes. A biofilm is a three-dimentional structure, usually made of polysaccharides, which protects the bacteria that are inside. It can even form quasi-differentiated structures, similar to fungi organs. Biofilms are extremely resistant (a nice picture), even if you boil, dip in chlorine or any other way sterilise a slimy plug, you will not kill all the bacteria. On the other hand, deep inside the biofilm bacteria have little oxygen and die or form spores, which, inside the biofilm, are even more difficult to neutralize. Additionally, even if the bacteria themselves are hamless, the chemicals released after their death might be bad for humans.

Bacterial biofilms always grow on the border between two substances - solid and liquid, solid and gas (air), liquid and gas. Maybe you have seen a film on top of an old broth? This is exactly a biofilm. Look closely, and you will see, that the broth is still clear, not murky, but on the bottom of the container is a layer of dead bacteria. Biofilms don't care about the acidity of the medium below, because the polysaccharide cover shields the bacteria from direct contact. Biofilms may form on any surface, that gives them some water and nutrients.

Not every kind of bacteria can form a biofilm, but certainly any bacteria that can form a biofilm can make it on your refrigerated veggies. Pathogenic bacteria that form biofilms include (but are not limited to): Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus and subtilis, E. Coli. Any liquid or solid under a biofilm should be considered piosonous.

A friend of mine who studies bacterial biofilms needs about a week to grow a thick biofilm on a petri dish or in a test tube, but eating that biofilm will be bad for one's health much sooner. On the other hand, we don't inoculate food on purpose, it just happens. Also, people's resistance to such bacteria may vary even between otherwise healthy humans. There is no single answer when your veggies pose a health hazard, so you need to go with tips from good receipes - leaving veggies submerged in vinegar is usually safe for a month, but if you see some film forming on the surface earlier than that, just throw it away.


Is sugar a necessary ingredient to feed yeast?

The answer is that there are a range of (natural) sugars in the flour and a range of sugars that can be generated by the yeast by breaking down the starches and other carbohydrates in flour. Yeast are a hardy organism and can metabolize many different carbohydrates to produce sugars for successful growth.

Carbohydrates are chemical compounds composed of Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. Usually carbohydrates come in a monomer (single molecule) form such as glucose or they come in dimer (2 molecules joined together) such as sucrose (sugar; made up of a glucose molecule and a fructose molecule), after this they form short chains known as oligomers and then polymers. The polymers come in a huge variety, many of which we consume on a regular basis and know as "starch". Yeasts and many other organisms (including ourselves) can break down starches into their individual monomers - and derive energy from these monomers, just as they would from the monomers themselves.

There are also alternate sources of sugars in many recipes: Some recipes ask for milk - it contains some sugars too - you have probably heard of lactose; it's a type of sugar that yeast will happily metabolize - it turns out this isn't the case - lactose is a sugar, but, you need specially modified yeast for them to able to metabolize lactose. The milk provides some fat and protein in bread making. Many grains contain sugars in forms other than starch too - whole wheat grains contain things like raffinose, which the yeast can use for growth.

There's a nice relatively simple explanation of yeast metabolism here that is mostly targeted at production of alcoholic products - but the same mechanisms apply to bread making, which is often carried out with the same organisms.

Note that sour-dough loaves use a range of bacteria and yeasts that ferment sugars to produce the distinctive lactic acid sour taste. The mechanisms by which they do this are quite diverse, but they are equally adept at breaking down sources of sugar into simple, metabolisable sugars.


Induction cookers utilize electromagnetic induction to heat the pots on them rather than the plate itself.

Induction cooking works by creating a magnetic field that is constantly oscillated (north and south pole are switched). This causes an electric current to run in the bottom of the pot and heat it up via resistive heating. Since the current literally runs in circles (around the bottom of the pot) it's safe to touch and you won't get electrocuted.

The magnetic field spreads out like an invisible ball around the cooker's plate, therefore it can interact with the table the cooker stands on. That's why you shouldn't put it on a metal table, the table could heat up like the pot (in reality this is very unlikely but not impossible).

Wood, on the other hand, doesn't interact with a magnetic field and doesn't conduct electricity. Therefore it's safe to place an induction cooker on a wooden table.

Wikipedia has additional information:

  Persons with implanted cardiac pacemakers or other electronic medical implants are usually instructed to avoid sources of magnetic fields; the medical literature seems to suggest that proximity to induction cooking surfaces is safe, but individuals with such implants should always check first with their cardiologists. Radio receivers near the induction-cooking unit may pick up some electromagnetic interference.


What does it mean for something to be broiled?

It doesn't compare at all - broiling is the US term for what is called grilling in UK. The heat source is above the food.

In the US, a "grill" is used to mean a "gas powered barbeque", as the Brits would say.  The heat source is below the food.


Mexican cheeses on otherwise Italian pizza

The short answer is yes, you can. We keep a wide variety of cheeses on hand. Quesadilla or Chihuahua Mexican cheeses are a great substitute for Mozzarella or Provolone cheese. The have a light flavor and work well with Italian foods. We always have these on hand, but they are not always easy to find in some areas.

I often substitute simply because, while I might have the intended cheese on hand, there may be some that I need to use sooner than others depending on how long I've had them or how long they've been open. With mild cheeses, you don't have to worry about the flavor profile so much - it's more the melting. And the cheeses I mentioned melt well - just like Mozzarella or Provolone.

And to let you know, the reason I tried the other cheeses: I asked in a Mexican restaurant what kind of cheese they used and was told that it was "like American Mozzarella". So, I decided to experiment.

All said and done, all of these cheeses have a mild flavor and work in many dishes, regardless of the ethnicity. What you do want to stay away from are cheeses that don't melt well and are designed to keep their shape and texture under heat. One example would be quest fresco.


Malva pudding recipe containing too much bicarb and vinegar?

In any recipe where a chemical reaction is required, in this case the reaction of bicarbonate and vinegar as a raising agent, it is important to add all ingredients. In any chemical reaction the wrong ingredient or the lack of one can make all the difference.
The vinegar may have reacted with most of the bicarbonate but the apricot jam would have been used as a sufficient means to add both flavour and stabilise the rest of the bicarbonate.


There are good quality vegan margarines (Earth balance, Alsan) on the market nowadays, often they are of the interesterified instead of the hydrogenated variety. They are designed to behave and taste similar to butter instead of (as many cheap margarines seem to do) staying spreadable at temperatures where butter would be very firm. Unlike pure coconut or palm oil, they do not act very brittle when cold, and also they soften gradually instead of suddenly melting like eutectic solder. These should be on the top of the list of things to try...

Also, some recipes recommend using more than one type of fat in pastry, for more interesting texture (eg such margarine, and smaller flakes of a hardened coconut fat).


Where did the idea of using alcohol in pie crust come from?

In November 2007 a recipe was published in Cooks Illustrated for a Foolproof Pie dough with vodka. That recipe was created by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt who was one of the chefs on America's Test Kitchen and writer for Cooks Illustrated. He has an article about the recipe here http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2011/07/the-food-lab-the-science-of-pie-how-to-make-pie-crust-easy-recipe.html?ref=sweets-sb3. As far as I know this was not a well-known trick and Lopez-Alt came up with it originally.


What type of stone, lava, marble, granite? Bleach makes for a nice general purpose disinfectant, as it degrades on its own over time. Let the thing soak in bleach (1 part bleach 9 part water) for a few days then boil again, and you should be good to go; once you find a pestle that fits.


How do I prevent coconut milk from separating in Thai curry?

Even though it isn't really milk (in the dairy sense), coconut milk still naturally separates into a thick cream and thinner liquid like regular milk. As such, when working with coconut milk you should still follow the same procedures you would to make a milk-based cream sauce.

The number one rule when making any creamy sauce is: DON'T LET IT BOIL! Boiling will guarantee that your creamy sauce (including sauces made with coconut milk) will break in some form or fashion. At most, you should cook these at a bare simmer.

Other than that, there are some techniques you can use to keep your curry smooth.

You could use an emulsifier like honey (common in vinaigrettes, where it is used to make sure the oil and vinegar don't separate), added toward the end of cooking.

You could also use a thickening agent, like a cornstarch slurry or a quick roux. Curry paste is also a thickening agent. As a general rule of thumb, when making Thai-style curry I usually cook my vegetables in a little more oil than I think they need, then add the curry paste and sauté that until it has absorbed the oil (along with any dry spices). It will act as a roux for the coconut milk and make sure there are no lumps in the final curry.

Lastly, cooking the curry uncovered at a simmer, stirring occasionally, will thicken it up nicely and help all the ingredients stay together.


Let's look at your options...

Brisket - the gold standard of BBQ beef.  Becomes very tender when cooked low and slow.  An inexpensive cut of meat (if you know the right places)  Cons: Very small window between undercooked (to tenderness) and dried out.  Only fat is in the fat cap, meaning that you lose lots of rendered drippings every time the meat is turned.  Not very spit-friendly.

Rib Roast - Good marbling throughout.  Not much connective tissue to break down in the meat.  Cooks relatively quickly, even at lower temps.  Delicious.  Cons: If you have to cook to a more "done" temperature depending on your audience, the meat could become tough and dry.

Eye of Round - Cheap. Fits on a rotisserie stake perfectly. Cooks evenly throughout. Cons: even a good round roast has a more dry, tough texture.

Chuck - Tender and flavorful. Very forgiving. Excellent for low/slow cooking. Lots of marbling throughout the meat to keep it moist during cooking. Cons: Falls apart when cooked properly, meaning it would be difficult to keep it on a spit. Best served as pulled beef, which may not be what you're seeking.

Sirloin - Juicy, full of beefy flavor. Lean. Cons: it is easy to turn out a piece of sirloin that is like shoe leather.

Tenderloin - Tender, and tasty. Forgives cooking beyond medium if done properly. Cons: Very expensive.

Beef back ribs - Tender, good fat content. Good for slow cooking. Cons: can be difficult to serve/eat.

I don't really know what I'd pick here.  I'd almost certainly eliminate brisket, eye of round, and sirloin, for various reasons, if I'm sticking to spit-cooking.  I'd be on the fence with chuck -- you'd have to come up with some kind of cage-type mechanism to keep the chuck roast(s) together.  So I'd lean toward rib roasts or tenderloins.  Both are pricey, but they are worth it.  Only problem is, if you have people who insist upon medium-well or greater meat, you'll have to figure out what to do.  Maybe cook to medium and sear off chunks for the people who want theirs more cooked?

Another intriguing option might be beef back ribs.  I saw an episode of Primal Grill with Steven Raichlen where he made giant beef ribs on an open fire, Argentinian style.  He put the ribs on big stakes and pounded them into the ground next to the fire, turning them around every so often.

As far as wood goes, I'd suggest oak and/or hickory.  Personally, I like those with beef.  Perhaps the best strategy would be to build a fire with charcoal, just some regular briquettes (no Match Light!!!).  Then continuously feed some wood logs to the fire during the cooking process.  The smoke flavor you impart will not be as profound as it would be in a smoker, but that may be appropriate to your audience.

I'd suggest getting small cuts of each of the meats, put them all on the same spit, and give it a test in your backyard.  Whatever you don't like, toss it into some stew or chili.  Through trial and error, you can get your fire method right, and get some good meat in the process.  Win-win!


Scotch oats to substitute Fine Oats in Rum Balls

You should be able to figure out pretty easily if you can eat your Scotch oats raw - just put some in your mouth.  Is it hard as a rock, or soft enough to comfortably chew?

Anyway, Scotch oats, which may or may not be the same thing as Scottish oats (depending on the producer) are typically fairly roughly milled uncooked oat groats. If you got yours from Bulk Barn, it may look like this:

I had not heard of fine oats before - probably because they're typically marketed more as a nutritional supplement than a cooking ingredient.

According to The Protein Works,

  Fine Oats are a low Glycaemic Index (GI) carbohydrate that are considered ideal for providing a slow sustained release of energy for an athletes...fine oats are easily added to protein shakes...many sports nutritionists use them in various recipes such as nutritious homemade bars or cakes.

Two things in that description make me think that Scotch oats won't be a perfect substitute.  First, Scotch oats could probably not be added to a protein shake without being cooked first. Second, I don't believe oats are typically considered to have a low Glycemic Index value.  The Mayo clinic lists them as a "Medium GI" food: Glycemic index diet: What's behind the claims

I don't know if something is done to fine oats to change their nutritional properties, or if this is just a disagreement about Glycemic Index labeling.

If you're not concerned about the Glycemic Index value of your rum balls (and it seems hard to imagine low GI rum balls), this doesn't matter.  The only important thing is whether the texture of the Scotch oats be suitable. My sense is that they will be too firm to chew without cooking. Some rum ball recipes call for brief cooking, which may be enough to soften the Scotch oats. But if yours is a recipe that involves no cooking, and if you have the means, you may want to grind those oats more finely.


As long as the water is actually boiling the whole time, then there is no difference whatsoever.

Boiling water can only have one temperature (around 100 C, but adjusted somewhat for altitude or impurities in the water), and it stays at that temperature as long as it's in a state of boiling. Keeping the heat up only serves to hasten the transition from water to steam.

The heat transferred into the eggs (or whatever you are cooking) depends only on the temperature of the water, not on the vigor with which it is boiling. As a result, keeping the gas on high will generally have two effects: (1) wasting more gas by heating up the room more and turning more water into steam than necessary, and (2) increasing the chances that the eggs will be tossed around enough to crack. On the other hand, if you turn the gas so low that the water is no longer truly boiling, its temperature will drop below the boiling point, slowing the cooking process (and possibly even changing the end result - cooking is a complicated chemical process that relies on the right amount of heat being applied over the proper length of time).

Of course, there are cases where a recipe may call for a particular level of boiling, but my guess is this usually has to do with keeping the food from sticking to the pot or some such thing, with vigorous boiling replacing the need for constant stirring.


How to keep a rolled cabbage leaf (stalk leaf not the outer leaf) in place?

Correct me if I'm wrong but you want to make a Spring roll but with cabbage leaf instead of rice wrapper?
If yes then what you want to make is cabbage roll.
And it's almost impossible to make with raw leaves. They are to bristle and cook too long to let what's inside cook accordingly. As in it will be overcooked before stuffing will be done. Or if you put ready stuffing it will get soggy.

What you can do is to boil the cabbage whole and peel leaves that are soft and tender. Then you cut the steam to flatten it (so you cut horizontally).
After that it should be enough to roll stuffing in it and seal it.

Edible "thread" that you could use is leek cut in length and steamed a little bit so it's softer but still springy.


Will storing a mix of vermouths alter their taste?

It would certainly be safe. Vermouth is a fortified wine, meaning that it is wine with added alcohol. The added alcohol gives the vermouth a much longer shelf life, even at room temperature after the bottle is opened. You can store open vermouth for at least several months without any discernible loss of quality. It will continue to be safe indefinitely as long as the bottle is kept closed, keeping the alcohol from evaporating.

That said, I can see no reason why two vermouths couldn't be mixed in advance. As a matter of fact, you could add the bourbon too. Perhaps some kind of alcohol super-taster could tell the difference, but I sincerely doubt that any mere mortal would be able to tell the difference between a just-mixed Manhattan and one that was mixed 3 months ago (assuming, of course, an airtight container).


How can I rehydrate a dried navel orange?

Nothing I know of will make them juicy to eat on their own. Likely they were under-watered or picked late.

Can infuse with alcohol -inject or marinate- and have cocktails.

Or find a compote recipe. Peel still good.

I have tried adding a bit a water to cut halves to 'rinse out' more flavor when juicing but it was not worth the effort.


Chocolate milk is frequently made with either chocolate syrup (which has no fat) or a powdered mix of cocoa powder and sugar (which has almost no fat) for precisely this reason. You can make it with chocolate by sprinkling very finely grated chocolate into hot milk, but you still run the risk of the fat separating.


Can I substitute grapeseed oil with peanut oil?

Yes, that would be fine. They're both very neutral, high smoke point oils, so you can consider them interchangeable in baking.


One option is Pozole Rojo (Mexican Red Pork and Hominy Stew) - Here's a recipe from Rick Bayless: Pazole Rojo You won't need the trotters, and shanks are optional since you already have the gelatin. If you want you can just use shoulder. Good stuff!

It would also be great for bean or split-pea soup.


It's a double bubble shot glass designed for a shot (on top) and the chaser of your choice on the bottom.  It is just a novelty and fancy way of presenting special drinks.

Here's a video showing how it's used.


What are these dark green spots inside raw eggs?

According to http://www.eggsafety.org/consumers/consumer-faqs, black or green spots inside the egg are the result of bacterial or fungal contamination of the egg.

The use by date is only an estimate, so if your eggs are moldy, I'd bin them.


What kind of rice is used for Jamaican rice and peas?

I'm by no means an official source, but it looks like a long grain rice is used. This article shows an example made with Basmati rice, and links to this recipe, which calls for long grain rice.


The secret ingredient of all Chocolatiers: cocoa butter...

I use a different brand of chocolate (Callebaut) so I don't need to add any cocoa butter, but as I've never used your brand before, directing you to their product line.

Be careful, because too much cocoa butter will make the chocolate melt in your hands and in your mouth! ;-)

I would start off with 10% of total weight of additional cocoa butter and increase if needed (start with small batches as 7Kg is a lot of chocolate!)


What kind of tea do you boil for 45minutes?

Chai masala variants may be boiled that long or more – they do contain black tea, but also spices (where the boiling is needed, to extract the flavor from whole spices).  The tea decoction this produces does contain all of the bitter compounds, sure – but it is mixed with spices, diluted generously with milk and sugar, and becomes a palatable drink that is nevertheless very different from the coolly and weakly brewed variety you seem to be familiar with.

In fact, it is even possible that the tea was plain black tea, brewed very strongly.  Served with plenty of milk and sugar to balance the bitterness, milk tea is a cultural variation.  Think of it kinda like coffee, if you want – it is bitter, but it is expected to be – and the tea can be doctored to make it work for the drinker.

Tea can be served in lots of different variations, and none are more correct than others – just like some teas are brewed very light and almost flavorless (japanese green, and 15 seconds per brew), and others are brewed to death and sweetened to balance (southern style sweet tea), some are served with milk, sugar, or lemon, and still more are served with salt or butter (tibetan).  Boiled milk tea or chai are brewed to death, to extract all the flavor, and served sweet and milky to balance the strength and bitterness – and a weakly brewed tea would be tasteless and vanish in the expected fixings.


Are there thermo bottles to store tea, as soon as it is made (100ºC/212ºF)?

You don't need anything special for that. I have often made tea in a regular thermo bottle, with no adverse effects on the bottle. It does help that it keeps the tea hot. So the fancy one you linked is probably OK too.

If you want a lighter bottle, you can see if a glass bottle doesn't weigh less, although a thermo bottle from thin stainless steel isn't that heavy compared to glass. Glass should withstand boiling water without breaking, if the bottle isn't too thick and hasn't been held in a very cold place (room temperature is OK). It still can shatter, so you should probably take precautions (pour over the sink), although the chance is very low.

A typical softdrink bottle shouldn't be reused for tea, even if it doesn't melt outright it is likely to get very soft, etc. But some plastic bottles will be OK with hot liquids, for example Nalgenes should do the job. They have the advantage of being wide-mouthed (it is very hard to clean a glass lemonade bottle because of its narrow mouth).

You can go to the local hiking store and see what they have, and whether you like it more or less than a thermo bottle (and they will have thermo bottles too). Their bottles are optimized for easy caring, and some come optionally with a neopren sleeve to keep the temperature longer.


Have you tried baking it for a shorter amount of time? Cakes become dry if they are baked for too long. if you use a tooth pick, it should not come out clean, but with crumbles attached.
Clean = dry.
Crumbles = moist and done.
wet = not baked enough


Substitute ratio when using butter instead of shortening

1/2 cup of shortening is 110 g, while 1/2 cup of butter is 114 g. Also, butter is only 82% fat. So if you want to be precise, use 134 g of butter: (100/82)*110 = 134. You may want to reduce the liquid by 24 g in this case.

If you don't care for precision, you can also substitute 1:1 and use 1/2 cup of butter. Most recipes for quickbreads are flexible enough for that, and you are changing the texture anyway by substituting a fat with a different melting profile.


Lacto Fermented Vegetables - Off Flavors

You need the bible of lacto-fermentation 'the Art of Fermentation' by Sandor Katz.

That aside, the general rule is: if it smells and tastes appetizing then it's fine. If it has green, blue or black 'mold' on it, chuck it out. White is alright. Botulism is actually very rare with fermented vegetables. Fermenting is very safe compared to other preservation methods.

Sometimes I get a yukky whiff at the moment I open a fermenting crock, but then once I put a forkful on a plate for a minute it is fine and yummy. So don't decide in the first few seconds.

The best advice I can give on what are the prime factors for lacto going right (tasty healthy) rather than wrong (slimy inedible waste of food) is: use organic veg so you know the right bacteria is present from the start (or add a coupla organic cabbage leaves, they are foolproof). Also get your salt ratio right in the brine, it kills off the baddies. Consider the texture of your veg. If you are cutting/grating it finely, it will likely ferment hard and fast (the bacteria finds lots of surface area). Ferment theses for a shorter time than chunky or fibrous veg to get good complex flavours. Last tip- invest in a good crock with an airlock 'moat' on it and weights in it. they are pricey but really improve your strike rate a lot.

On flavour: veg that has been fermented 'right' has an unmistakable pickles tang at the start, then a lingering complex savoury musty ending. No matter what veg you use.

Oh, and cucumbers (gherkins) are widely held to be tricky to perfect, especially hard to keep crunchy. Beginners usually steer clear. Good first experiments are carrots, cabbages and cauliflower.


Can you substitute blood for the eggs in an ice cream base?

The Nordic Food Lab, founded by René Redzepi, has experimented with blood as egg substitute, full blog entry including recipes here.

Apparently texture-wise the substitution can be possible, but the typical bloody aftertaste is hard to mask, which might have to do with the physiological way the metallic taste is perceived. It seems especially women tend to recognize this ingredient quite easily.


Scary moments - what temperature for broiling?

Assuming you cannot fix the oven (which would be my first recommendation as much for safety as anything else), then for browning things on the top I'd suggest using a cook's torch, which is the same thing as a plumbing torch except it's flashier.

Of course you'll want to make burgers, steaks, fish, etc as well. Baking these will not get you nice toasted brown bits no matter how hot you set your oven, so frying is your next best option although in some cases you could use the torch there as well.

You could your too-hot broiler question on the diy forum to get ideas on fixing it.


How to make a complex novelty cake at home?

If you want a sculpted cake of this type:

then I would advise against trying it at home. This is a skill you have to learn over years. Basically, you have to be an experienced sculptor in working with cake materials, which are harder to use than the typical art materials like clay. Look up "cake sculpting" on YouTube to see what they are doing. Or search for Cake boss episodes, taking into account that this "reality" TV is heavily edited - they are showing you a very clean and quickened version of the process. Really, I think that 500 dollars is cheap for having your drawing sculpted. By the way, the airbrushing tool alone used for finishing the cake in the picture runs at around 200 dollars, although of course you don't strictly need it for making the cake in such a shape.

You seem to be good at drawing. If you can make a finished, colored drawing out of it instead of just a sketch, you can go to a bakery who has a foodgrade printer, and have it printed on the cake. They mainly advertise it as "your cake with your photo on it", but of course they can print a digitized drawing too.

If you don't want a picture, it is also doable as a 2d picture piped onto a flat cake. If the 500 dollars are for a sculpted cake, then having the picture piped can be much cheaper (I don't think that they would have required 500 dollars just for piping, but who knows, maybe you live in Manhattan). It would be this type of cake, but with your drawing on it:

If you have steady hands and some artistic experience, this kind of decoration is a skill that can be learned in maybe 20 hours. Take a piping bag, make icing, and practice on other surfaces first, even stretched plastic wrap. When you are good enough, attempt the drawing on a practice surface. Then you are ready to make the cake. Fondant or marzipan will look best as the background for the piping, but they are very hard to work with. If you have never done it before, use a cake frosted with buttercream as the background. If you have the time and inclination, you can learn how to make marzipan flowers and add them as 3-d elements on top of your drawing.

The basic skills you need are:

bake consistently good bisquit layers. You can cut off domed parts, but it is a hassle, and if you are not good at getting the leavening right, you are risking cutting into a metallic tasting cake after all this work.
Making buttercream. It is not hard, but requires a bit of exercise and a few tools. You should be accustomed to baking by weight, know the feel of butter and eggs at the right temperature and the right stage of beating, etc. If you have never done it before, again, make 2-3 batches of buttercream before you try the actual birthday cake.
Frosting cakes. Your drawing will probably require a large rectangular cake, which is harder to get evenly frosted than a small round one on a turntable.
I already covered the piping. Marzipan flowers are a further skill I mentioned, but optional.

The Internet is full of tutorials on decorating cakes, watch YouTube videos about the more visual parts. There are good articles on making icing too, and we also have one or two older questions on that.


Cranberries (and to a lesser extent, apples) have a great deal of natural pectin, which will make your chutney gel when it is cool or refrigerated.

If you want a thinner consistency, you can reheat it and add any complimentary liquid that you desire:  apple juice would be fine, but remember, you are diluting the flavor of your chutney with the additional juice, so you will want to find balance between texture and flavor that you like the best.

The other thing you can do is warm the chutney for service, which will make it more liquid.

When I make cranberry chutney, chilled, it is as stiff as a good commercial jam.  This might even be desirable.

Note:  I am assuming these are refrigerated chutneys.  If they have been home canned, you should not change the recipe, as the acid balance is essential for safety in canning.


They can be eaten both raw and cooked. When preparing raw cut, trim and clean then place in ice water to preserve crispness. Serve immediately after taking out of water. Raw Fennel has a much stronger anise flavor.
My personal favorite is to slice bulb, stems and leaves appx 1cm thick and sautee in olive oil until translucent. It will still be quite crunchy so adjust thickness according to taste. I occasionally add garlic. The anise flavor is much more mild


Preserving sweetness during baking without sugar

I hate answering my own question, but after a month I did (finally) find a pseudo-answer      that works for Stevia.  I've not yet tried it for any other sweeteners.

Melt into fat and freeze it

For example, the recipe I use for cookies needs four (4) tablespoons of melted butter.  I started by melting two tablespoons in butter (well, 1TB butter and 1TB cocoa butter but semantics aside...), and mixed half a tablespoon of stevia into the melted butter.

Then I poured the Stevia-butter mix into molds and froze until it was solid.

I proceeded with the rest of the recipe as normal, but after everything was mixed, I took the frozen Stevia-butter, chopped it into very tiny shavings/pieces, and mixed it into the batter.

Poured the cookies on the tray, and baked in the oven.  Result: nice, sweet, almost zero carb (~0.05g) cookies!!!

My working theory

I'm not confident in my theory, but I think the fats - especially saturated fats - will protect the Stevia early during the baking process. Couple that with Newton's law of cooling (ie, although the batter is at room temperature the sweetener is at sub-freezing temps, and will therefore take longer to heat up than the rest of the batter).  While the batter cooks as normal, the fats will melt into the batter, revealing and mixing the sweetener with it.  This minimizes the time the sweetener is exposed to the full-force heat of the oven, which prevents it from degrading under heat.

This may not be the best process for fluffy or flaky goods like breads, but for dense, sweet goods like cookies, muffins, brownies, etc, it works well.

Yet again, that's just a working theory....


Do breadcrumbs really act as a binder in meat preparations?

Actually it is neither filler nor binder, but moisture retainer. Breadcrumbs in your ground meat will absorb much of the natural juices during cooking and then will release that moisture back into the meat as it rests resulting in a 'juicier' burger, meatball or meatloaf.


Why are my braised pork chops inconsistent?

The resulting quality of a braise has to do with the connective tissue rather than the fat. Your recipe calls for the blade chop because it is close to the shoulder, which is tougher and contains more connective tissue. This tissue is tough to start, but braising breaks it down into a gelatin and makes the meat tender (and juicy). When you pick your chops, look for thin lines white connective tissue throughout. Or, just use a pork shoulder.

Also, remember to let the meat cool in the braising liquid. (Not to room temperature, but to an edible temperature). As the meat cools, it draws in some of the liquid and prevents it from drying out.


Baking cakes in the Microwave ovens as compared to Electric ovens

Yes, there is a difference. You shouldn't be baking a cake (or anything else) in a microwave oven.

A microwave oven excites the water within your food. When you put in dough or batter, the excited water doesn't bind with the starch the way it does under normal heat, it escapes the starch, leaving you with a stone-hard piece of dough or batter.

There is something called "five-minutes microwave cake". I haven't tried it, but in the recipes floating around the interwebs it gets eaten while still hot (so probably before it has had the chance to get too hard). It also seems that there is a very small heat frame in which it gets OK. Bake it too much, and it will get hard, or burn. Bake it too little, and you end up with a mug of warm batter. It is also supposed to be a cupcake, I suspect that if you try to bake a bigger portion at once, there will be enough temperature difference in different zones of the batter to get underbaked, baked and hard portions all at once.

Bottom line: if you want to try for the fun of it, make a cupcake in the microwave, and watch your energy input (microwave watt setting and time) very closely, then eat immediately. You can find recipes all over the Web, e. g. on Instructables. If you want a real cake, don't bake in a microwave.


Can I cook in this stainless steel balti dish?

I would say that is too thin to use on a hob. There isn't an Indian restaurant in the country that uses them to actually cook in: they cook in a proper pan and then dump it in a dish like this to serve.


Is there a term for "mildly scrambled" eggs?

To me that's a "fried egg with a broken yolk", or fried egg, flipped & broken. I make them a lot, but never thought about a name for them. They go really well in sandwiches, without turning them into a banjo*.
It doesn't qualify as 'scrambled' because it has none of the method of 'regular' scrambled, it's not broken & whisked/stirred outside the pan. It has no salt/pepper/water/milk. It's not heated gently whilst continuing to stir.
It's just a "fried egg with a broken yolk".
*For why a runny egg sandwich is called a banjo - see Forces.net - Ever Wondered Why It’s Called An ‘Egg Banjo?' [just watch the video, it's short]
For why I don't think it's "country eggs"… imnsho, anything with 'country' tagged on is because no-one knows what else to call it. Google 'country eggs' & you see a million different cheerful 'farmhousey' things you can do with eggs ;)


Kitchen Aid KSMC50S stand mixer attachments and dough hook

The reason is because it is a commercial mixer, the normal KitchenAid accessories are not NSF rated. Regular KitchenAid accessories should work just fine, but there are stainless steel NSF rated accessories from other manufacturers available if you cross reference the part numbers.


Why does a plastic lunchbox tend to be more greasy than glass one?

There are few reasons why this happens.

Plastic get dull much faster than glass. Just one wash with sponge make the difference. Making more surface oil can stick to and harder for detergents to go in grooves and wash it away.
Oil reacts with plastic as both are (In very very layman terms) the same. Plastic is made from oil. So when you have warm (or even hot) oil put into container (or warmed up in that container for example in microwave) you start reaction called polymerisation. The same that you use to create non-stick surface on cast iron pans.
But here the bonds from oil bond to plastic. So you make the plastic surface oily and non-stick forever. The better quality containers have this process made during production so the polymers will "fall off".

To avoid this:

Don't put hot food in plastic container.
Don't heat up food in plastic containers. Especially ones that have dying agents (famous "tupperware after one turmeric")
Don't wash them with rough sponge. Usually a little bit of dish soap and hand is enough. Dishwasher might be safe from temperature point but the container is moving in the rack.


With this method, you are effectively steaming the meat which allows the top of the burger to cook directly, instead of the gradient heating that happens from pan to bottom to top of the burger. Therefore the cooking time will be reduced because you can cook for less time once you flip to the other side.

I've not seen this technique used to reduce the fat content before, and I can't comment on the science behind that.


Does fresh mackerel have more omega-3 fatty acids than smoked mackerel?

Theory is a good thing, but data is always better. Especially when somebody else does the whole work of gathering and evaluating it. Luckily, there is somebody who does it for food. Following data comes from the USDA. It is very verbose, so I had to cut off most of the screenshots. I left all the lipids in the first one just to show how much they measured, and only used the data for Omega 3 in the other ones.

The first data set is raw Atlantic mackarel. I picked Atlantic just because it was first in the list, they have several kinds.

Sadly, they didn't have data for smoked mackerel. But as Frankie points out, you can do a hot smoking process and a cold smoking process. I think that the cooking in both is very well approximated by cooking on dry heat, resp. salting. Of course, it is possible that the smoke itself destroys more fatty acids than just applying heat or brine, but these numbers give us an upper limit for the amount of omega 3 left after smoking.

Now we can start making conclusions.

  First conclusion: there is something fishy about the data.

Zero standard deviation for all the values in the raw fish? Zero data points for the salted fish?! I can only assume that they just wrote a zero where the actual information is missing from the record. Still, I think we can trust the data (because the USDA has no interest to lie and because we don't have a better data set).

Before we start making further conclusions, we should remember that these are values per 100 gram of end product. 100 g of salted mackerel isn't made with 100 g of raw mackerel! Luckily, the source also gives the water percentage of the samples (not shown on the screenshots), which is 43% for salted mackerel, 53% for cooked mackerel and 63% for raw mackerel. So, we should in fact compare the numbers per 100 g of dry matter (we assume that the cooking process neither adds nor subtracts dry matter - not exactly true for salting, but we can assume that the difference is small). The numbers are:

  Second conclusion: Heat (so presumably also hot smoking) destroys around 40% of the fatty acids in mackerel

This is straightforward, comes from the numbers in the table.

  Third conclusion: The salted mackerel didn't come from the Atlantic

Unless I have made a big mistake in my reasoning about the comparison based on dry matter, a salted fish has more omega 3 than a raw fish of the same size. The difference in data is small enough to have been caused by the choice of a different kind of fish (note that the standard deviation within a sample of the same kind of fish is 10 to 15%).

  Fourth conclusion: Cold smoking probably doesn't destroy a significant amount of omega 3 acids.

While the data comparison here has some problems (the assumed different kinds of fish, the fact that salting isn't the same as smoking), I think we can see the trend here. If the salted fish had lost too much of its omega 3 in the salting process, then it wouldn't have such high omega 3 values after the salting. We can assume that a cold smoked fish is also salted (my personal experience and Frankie's answer support that), so any possible preserving effect of salt should be present in cold smoking too. There is a risk that the smoke itself could destroy the fatty acids, but I doubt it. After all, the smoke doesn't penetrate the tissues very deep, so there shouldn't be much contact.

Of course, I am not 100% sure about the conclusions above, but I think it is reasonable to assume that they are true. I have tried to make clear any possible problems. So the short answer is: fresh mackerel and cold smoked mackerel have about the same amount of omega 3 fatty acids, but hot smoked mackerel has much less omega 3 than the original.


I want my potatoes to be baked within an hour, but I forgot to preheat the oven. Should I put them in while preheating or not?

I'm going to assume 'baked potatoes'[1] to be 'jacket potatoes' in the absence of any other evidence.
As already mentioned, putting them in a cold oven as it heats might win you five minutes, but not much more. It's very slightly more efficient overall than waiting for the oven to be hot then opening the door.
Two additional methods of speeding up jacket potatoes.

Put a metal skewer through the longest centre, then bake in the oven.

Alternatively: Split the task, half microwave, half oven. Prick the skins with a fork first, or they may explode in the microwave. 15 mins* at full power, then 15 mins in the oven is a 'fair guess' at how long it will take. This, of course will vary depending on size/weight of potatoes, power of microwave & temperature of oven.
*I think the last time I ever actually did this, I had an 850W microwave. Reduce time accordingly if you have a more powerful one.
Though the mic should manage to have heated the centres in around 15 mins, you can still use the skewer trick once they're ready to go in the oven. The skewers would still be useful to test the centres are cooked in the mic before you transfer.

The essence of the microwave method is to get the centres cooked before you transfer to the oven, to add back some flavour.
I'd weigh up which method to try based on how much time you have. Skewers will bring the time down by maybe a third, so that might be borderline for your hour from cold. Mic + oven & you're down to half an hour or so, but the result isn't quite as good.
I suppose you could still use the microwave as a starter, even if your result is to be 'roast potatoes' ie, peeled, chopped, done in hot fat. It will be a lot messier, but should still be feasible. I've never tested this, so timings & quality of result you'd have to find out for yourself;)
[1]Addendum
This may be cultural/linguistic, but to clarify from a UK perspective, these are baked (or jacket) potatoes…
Comments suggest the same descriptions are true for the US.

…and these are roast potatoes


How much fizz in water carbonated with ISI whipper?

When carbonating in the ISI whipper, it is important to start with a cold liquid (or fruit, i.e. carbonated grapes).  Charge with one CO2, agitate, then slowly release the pressure so that you remove all air from the charger.  Then, charge with one or two (depending on size of ISI) CO2 charges to fully carbonate.  If you leave out the first step you are simply compressing trapped air, rather than dissolving CO2 into your product.


My parents have a Boskoop tree in their garden. I would probably peel the apples before baking them into a pie, but it wouldn't be impossible to not peel them.

The skin is thicker than most red/yellow apples but not as hard as a Granny Smith's, say. When I lived in the Netherlands, if I bought Boskoop (or Goudreinette, as they're commonly called there) in the store, the skin would be a little thinner than from my parents' tree (maybe because the conditions are not as carefully controlled as with professional growers?), but the statement above still holds.

Boskoop apples are one of the foods I miss from home, living in Canada now. Sniff.


Put salt on the eggplant and let it sit for an hour to drain out the bitter fluids. Rinse with water afterwards to remove the salt.


Chickpeas are starchy, so it's natural that the liquid they are cooked in will thicken when it cools. It will not 'clog your arteries' - food doesn't travel directly to your bloodstream in the form in which you eat it.


Properly?

You throw it in a pit with hard wood coals for at least 8 hours. Of course we don't refer to that as roasting. :)

Oven roasting is easier. Turn the oven on to 250F or so. Put something flavorful on the roast. Stick in a probe thermometer and put it in the oven.

Remove when the thermometer reads 150F. Let it rest for a few minutes before carving.

For more color and fat rendering you can roast at 450F for 10 minutes before dropping the oven to 250F and putting in the thermometer.

Flavorings are varied of course. Apple works well.


When is it necessary to put foil over a pie's crust?

Generally speaking, when the length of the cooking time required to cook the filling correctly is such that the crust would burn if it wasn't covered.

It is usually more necessary when you have blind-baked the crust, but I must say I've cooked a lot of pies in my time and never covered the crust because I'm always careful to par-bake the crust just enough to seal it and no more.


Melamine is quite a soft material and wears quickly. Not only would metal and hard plastic mixing utensils wear it down, abrasive ingredients like sugar, oats and so on would take little bits off the bowl's surface. Over time, it is common to have pits and grooves carved into the bowl. These small indentations are hard to clean properly and could trap colours. In warmer and more humid climates, they are great habitats for molds, living off the trapped micro-scraps. Both or either could be the source of the dark spots. Melamine should not be microwaved or used with boiling water. At high temperatures (pasteurization temp is too high from memory), decomposition happens with toxic releases.

Glass (clear borosilicate or Pyrex), glazed pottery and stainless steel (in that order) are preferable in my view for abrasion resistance and non-reactive properties. I generally avoid using stainless with any wet alkaline ingredients. Also, you cannot microwave a metal bowl. I would however go for stainless if I need to heat or chill the contents rapidly.


According to the New Cookbook, from Better Homes and Gardens (p. 106), pickling cucumbers should be picked and used in the same day. Standard salad cucumbers last about ten days. Trying to get from 1 to 10 is a bit of a stretch, and storage considerations can vary.

Some people recommend the standard washing and wrapping in paper towel, others indicate plastic bagging without washing. The slime and mushiness seems to be a result of the loss of moisture through the skin. Perspiration is inhibited by waxing, this is likely the reason behind the prohibition on washing (assuming you have a waxed cuke). If you are getting the cuke from a stand it is likely fresh*er* and unwaxed.

First, ensure you are picking ideal cucumbers by verifying that the skin and flesh feels firm and without shriveling or soft spots. Then, in my experience with unwaxed cukes, you will likely get 3-5 days with them stored in a breathable container (to prevent pooling of moisture, and slime; a similar humidity issues arise from the high perspiration of grapes). Waxed, which seem unlikely to encounter, stored in a plastic bag it may last longer.

A breathable container could be one of the paperboard crates they come in (that's how I keep them), a basket, maybe a plastic perforated grape bag, or perhaps a so-called Green Bag ("breathable" bags, however absorbing ethylene is not terribly necessary here).


How come heating milk in the microwave is safe?

When metal is exposed to microwave radiation, an electric potential difference can develop as the microwaves generate electric charge in parts of the metal. Flowing electricity can cause sparks as electrons migrate to places of lower potential. Solid metal is susceptible to this because its electrons are relatively loose, making it a good conductor of electricity.

Calcium (Ca) in milk is bonded with other atoms (mostly as calcium phosphate), so it doesn't behave as a solid metal would: first because its electrons are secured in bonds with other atoms, and second, because the Ca atoms are not aggregated together but intermixed with nonconducting ones.


Can we replace wheat flour totally with gluten and other grain flour like bhajra, oats etc?

Yes, you can mix gluten and other starch sources to replace bread. The amount of gluten added depends on what type of flour you are trying to approximate.

All numbers below give the final ratio of gluten. So, "cake flour: 5-6% gluten" means you should mix 5-6 g gluten with 95-54 g of your other flour to get an approximation of cake flour.

The gluten ratio is roughly:

cake flour: 5-6%
pastry flour: 6-8%
AP flour: 8-11%
bread flour: 12-13%
high-gluten bread flour (bagel flour): 14-15%

Flours above that are typically made from durum, not wheat. They are used for certain styles of noodle.

Note that, if you are using a refined grain starch in addition to the gluten, you will roughly approximate white wheat flour, with slight differences depending on the source of the starch. Tuber starch is also an option, but will absorb different amounts of water.

But if you are working with whole grain flours of other grains, and not their refined starch, you will have a much different behavior, closer to whole grain wheat flour, and possibly with some other surprises along the way. You will certainly have to test your recipes 4-5 times, fine tuning the water amount at least.


Does "1 lime leaf" mean a pair of leaves, or half a pair?

What does "1 leaf" mean?

Since there does not seem to be a clear consensus, this answer will attempt to weigh both positions.

For the sake of clarity, in this answer:

Digits (1, 2, etc.) refer to the number indicated in the ingredient list;
"Full leaf" means two attached segments, as they grow from the tree;
"Half leaf" means one segment (attached or detached).

Evidence-based arguments

This section presents sources that address the meaning of "1 leaf" either explicitly or implicitly. The most explicit sources so far tend to fall into the "half leaf" camp.

1 leaf means "full"

fourwindsgrowers.com:

  The leaves are double-lobed and the top leaflets are slightly pointed.
  The leaflet attached below is broadened on its upper edge. The size of
  the leaves can vary quite a bit, from less than an inch to several
  inches long. The medium to large size, more mature leaves are darker
  in color and usually preferred for cooking.

This excerpt is attributed on the above website to a book titled It Rains Fishes: Legends, Traditions and the Joys of Thai Cooking by Kasma Loha-unchit (Pomegranate Artbooks, 1995). See also: thaifoodandtravel.com (below, in the "unclear" section).

1 leaf means "half"

foodsubs.com:

  [The leaves] look as if two glossy, dark green leaves were
  joined together end to end, forming a figure-eight pattern.  Most Thai
  recipes count each double leaf as two separate leaves.

mvcitrus.org.au:

  The leaves ... are a dark green color with a
  glossy sheen. They come in two parts: the top leaflet is lightly
  pointed at its tip and is attached to another leaflet beneath that is
  broader on its upper edge. The size of the leaves can vary quite a
  bit, from less than an inch to several inches long. ... In recipes
  that call for them, estimate the number to use according to their
  size, with the average single leaflet (detached from its double) of
  about two inches long and an inch wide equaling one leaf.

Unclear

thaitable.com:

  A leaf has two connecting leaves which I call ‘double leaves’.

Sounds like this one is in both camps at the same time. Each leaf is two leaves—very zen.
importfood.com:

  lime leaves grow in doubles. Sizes vary, but the average
  individual leaf is approx 2" long.

This site indicates that there are ~25-30 individual fresh leaves per dry ounce. May need to contact the seller and/or take independent measurements to determine confidently which camp this falls into.
cooksinfo.com:

  The leaves are a dark, glossy green and look like two leaves stuck
  together tip to tip; they are often described as being "double-lobed"
  or "double-leaves." Each separate leaf is about 2 inches long (5 cm.)

This could go either way; "[they] look like two" implies "but are actually one," yet the phrase "separate leaf" implies the opposite. Length cited agrees with above, but this could just mean they have a common source (or one is taken from the other).
thaifoodandtravel.com:

  The dark green leaves come in double form – a more pointed top leaf
  joined to a more rounded bottom leaf.

The zen approach again. Note: This is written by the author of the book mentioned in the Four Winds Growers entry, above.
theepicentre.com:

  They come in two parts: the top leaflet is lightly
  pointed at its tip and is attached to another leaflet beneath that is
  broader on its upper edge. The size of the leaves can vary quite a
  bit, from less than an inch to several inches long.

specialtyproduce.com:

  The leaves grow in pairs from stem to stem. Sizes can vary from leaf
  to leaf, though they each have a teaspoon shape with pointed ends that
  can also be sharp, certainly a natural defense mechanism.

I was inclined at first to put this in the "half" camp based on "the leaves grow in pairs." However, "they each have a teaspoon shape with pointed ends" gives me pause because the "half" at the stem is typically rounded or cardioid in shape. So the "each" there sounds like it refers to each "full" leaf. The "half" at the stem has no sharp tip, being attached at either end to something else.
boxedupchef.com:

No quote, but interesting to note that this is the first source I've come across that shows an image of the leaves separated into two "halves." Even the sources above that are explicitly in the "half" camp show images of the conjoined "full" leaf.

Practical arguments

This section discusses why (and when) one or the other interpretation might be more appropriate, practically speaking.

1 leaf means "full"

"Half leaves" do not occur by themselves; only "full leaves" grow on the tree, so each one/single leaf must be this "full leaf."
"Full leaves" vary less in size than "half leaves" because they always contain one "half" from the branch side (usually smaller) and one "half" from the tip side (usually larger).
Using "full leaves" when cooking imparts a more intense flavor to the dish, which may be particularly important when using frozen or dried leaves (avoids under-seasoning the dish if you read the recipe incorrectly).
Thinking in terms of "full leaves" when writing a recipe ensures that at worst, the reader will use less of the ingredient than is called for, which may do less harm than using more than is called for.
In some trees, especially very young trees, the "half" on the branch side is so small as to be almost entirely stem; it would not make sense to refer to this "half" as "1 leaf" since it has no practical use.

1 leaf means "half"

Each "half" is distinct, shaped more like a typical leaf than the "full" pair, and easily separated from its neighbor.
The most explicit sources give "half" as the common meaning of "1 leaf," so using this meaning may be the quickest way to be understood most of the time by people who are already familiar with the ingredient.
Using "half leaves" when cooking imparts a less intense flavor to the dish, which may be particularly important when using fresh leaves (avoids potentially overpowering the dish if you read the recipe incorrectly).

A better terminology?

I would encourage anyone who shares or writes a recipe calling for lime leaves to clarify exactly how to measure "1 leaf" or to avoid using the term "leaf" at all. Weight measure would be ideal in many cases but can be impractical, depending on the rest of the ingredients in the recipe (and how much time you care to devote to measurement). Some alternatives include:

This recipe uses "stem" instead of "leaf," which is more precise in that two "half leaves" and one "full leaf" both share a single stem.
This recipe refers to both "leaves" and "pairs" to make the quantity explicit.


It's no secret, here it is! Complete with the cocaine that was removed from Coke's production in 1903:

Picture and text from This American Life
The radio broadcast recording on the above link makes a very compelling case that the picture at the top of the page is really the original formula for Coke. Of course it has changed over the years; it's not exactly the same thing now as it was way back when. In addition to removing the cocaine, they've also cut the caffeine, switched from sugar to high fructose corn syrup and use phosphoric acid now instead of citric acid. The proportions of the 7X ingredients had to have changed as well over time, as the ingredients themselves have changed. Extracting oils is a very different process now than it was over 100 years ago.
The idea that the formula is ever-so-secret is a marketing gimmick. Sure, the actual formula is a trade secret, but the massive effort to keep the world's biggest secret thing is just a bunch of theater.

Photo and caption from NY Daily News
The "down to the gram" specifics of the production recipe today is a trade secret, but no more so than just about every trademarked, brand name food item sold today. No one person mixes and measures the whole batch (that's just practical, it's not even necessarily a security measure), so keeping the "super-secret-recipe" as it stands today from being published is no more difficult for Coke than it is for KFC. Nor are there highly-paid super-slueths trying to steal the formula against whom Coke needs to take extraordinary measures.
EDIT 9/20/15 This American Life has added the following to their story:

Much of the press about our story takes at face value Coca-Cola's statements that we have not found the recipe for Coke, present or past. But when asked if the company has actually checked to see if this formula matches the original formula - which archivist Phil Mooney assured me they still have - company spokespeople always politely sidestep the question. So it seems entirely possible that no one at Coke has checked. If they'd checked to see if the formulas match, why not say so?
Phil Mooney even admitted something interesting about the recipe in our interview: "Could it be a precursor? Yeah, absolutely." He then went on to express, as his opinion, not as fact: "Is this the one that went to market? I don't think so."

They're just goofin.
Addendum
When I wrote this answer, I had no idea that it was going to get so "big" or that Skeptics.SE and Chemistry.SE had taken on the same issue. Had I known, I would have spent a little bit more time researching. I have since done quite a bit more research and I am now even more strongly of the opinion that the secret-formula of Coke is just a normal trade secret, and the hype is just hype for the sake of marketing.
Furthermore, the recipe for the 7X (that's even what Coke calls its "ever so super-secret" formula) in the old book pictured at the top of this answer is genuinely either the original formula or a precursor to it. At any rate, it's darn close.
If you're interested in learning more about the handwritten recipe in the book, I strongly encourage you follow this link: This American Life and listen to the recording of the radio broadcast about the book, the formula and the hype.
Early in the broadcast they make a point that I've been saying since I first got wind of this completely over-the-top marketing gimmick. One of the legends of "the secret" is that it is only known by two people, and they never fly on the same plane (you know, like the President of the United States and the Vice President).

“The company has always said, and as far as I know it’s true, that at any given time only two people know how to mix the 7X flavoring ingredient,” Mark Pendergrast, historian and author of For God, Country and Coke told This American Life. “Those two people never travel on the same plane in case it crashes; it’s this carefully passed-on secret ritual and the formula is kept in a bank vault.” Time Magazine

Think about that a second. If the vault contains "the secret" known to only the two men, and the two men died in the same plane crash, wouldn't someone at the company be able to open the vault? If the two men know something beyond that (or somethings, one version of the legend held that each man only knew half the secret) why wouldn't they put that information in the vault as well?
Furthermore, if you have a really big secret that you'll go to any lengths to keep, would you shout from every mountaintop, "I know something YOU don't! Nee ner nee ner nee ner!"?
So I say again, yes it's a trade secret, it's just a normal trade secret. It's not the Manhattan Project. The hype is just hype, the fact that we're talking about it now just emphasizes how effective the marketing is. Buying into the hype is just drinking the Kool-Aid.


What is the physical effect of sifting dry ingredients for a cake?

Originally, before flour was as processed as it is now, sifting helped remove things like twigs and other contaminants.
Sifting just helps remove clumped up dried ingredients (flour, powered sugar, etc, ) so that when you add in the wet ingredients you do not have to mix too hard to remove the clumps.
Edit : When mixing the mixture too hard or too long you risk of "creating" gluten and that will render the cake mix too "bread" like (too dense, too chewy)
You could just use the flour as is and whisk it in the bowl to try to remove the clumps.
see : https://www.thekitchn.com/is-sifting-flour-for-baked-goods-really-necessary-213894


Normally a white risotto would be made with chicken or fish stock. While the stock you get at the store is normally brown, homemade stock can be quite light in color if made properly and won't impart much color. Further, a splash of cream and a bit of a white cheese at the end of cooking can have a whitening effect.


Another consideration is that some apartment complexes have restrictions on what type of grills can be used because of fire hazards. Where we lived many years ago we were not allowed to use charcoal or gas.

So, there are a couple of options. First would be a smaller than full size electric grill. There are many available in different shapes and sizes. Some can be used both indoors and outdoors.

This is similar to the one we had. It has a small footprint and works well where there is limited space. But there are also many small table-top models available.

Another option is a smokeless indoor stove top grill. This is closer to actual grilling than a grill pan and actually works better than it looks like it would. I have one that we have used for years anytime outdoor grilling has not been an option. Most are very reasonably priced and work well on both gas and electric stoves. And using two (or more) is always an option.


It is certainly safe to keep them refrigerated for a few days, but you will probably get much better results by freezing them.

The cooked starches will re-crystalize if you refrigerate them, making them hard and unpalatable--this is one of the major modes of staling.

By freezing them, you reduce this effect.

You can then heat them directly from frozen in a warm oven to use the left overs.


How do the various methods of roasting beef compare?

A roast is a roast is a roast.

Roasting is a method of cooking that involves the aplication of a lot of dry heat to a peice of meat. You can obtain a great roast from all the above the cooking methods as long as you take into account the various ways they work.

A rotisserie offers all around even heat and will remain juicy although you can lose some juice from the skewer through the center, but may not cook the roast as perfectly as you lack good tempature control.

The oven is a great way to roast meat as long as you use the two tempature method.  That means you start high and finish low or vice versa.  I tend to side with Alton Brown on this and start low (normally 200 but you can adjust according to time requirements) until my roast is ~25-to-20 degrees of medium rare, pull it out and bring the oven to 450, put back in and remove to rest at 15 degrees short of desired doneness.  You also have to make sure that you raise the roast off the bottom of the pan because if you don't you will end up braising the roast in it's own juices.

Your grill can work as long as you keep the lid closed and the roast from directly over the coals, but it is going to be the method that needs the most constant attention and will be easy to end up with a overdone outside and a underdone interior.


I don't think you can salvage that cake. That's just way too much vanilla, and you can't take it out.

You could take out enough to have two (tea?)spoons of vanilla, though, and use that in a new cake. For example, if the total volume is now 6 cups, and 2 cups of it is vanilla, you'd need 6 teaspoons of it to get 2 teaspoons of vanilla. You could then make the cake over again, and use that instead of the vanilla you'd have added. (Yeah, you'll get a little extra of the rest, but it's a small amount, it should be fine.)

To try to save the rest... all I can think of is freezing it to try to preserve it, so you can use portions of it to replace vanilla similarly in future cakes. With that much vanilla, I don't know if it'll actually freeze solid - it's mostly alcohol. So I might try putting it in an ice cube tray, in case it does freeze solid (so you put the cubes in a bag and still get individual portions) and then if it stays soft, you can always put it in a single container to scoop out of. Vanilla is pretty volatile, though, so use an airtight bag/container and don't expect it to last forever.

If it's vanilla syrup, the same generally applies: you have way too much, and you can't separate it. If you go the freezing route to try to save it, syrup also doesn't freeze very solid, thanks to the sugar, so same potential issue there.


Label everything with the date it goes in the fridge. That's about all there is to it. In my house we keep a marker and a roll of painter's tape in a drawer near the fridge, which makes labeling food easy; then you just stick to the system, religiously.

Incidentally, if it's not instantly obvious what's in a container (e.g., you have a container with opaque sides, or similar-looking substances like gravy and soup), put that information on the label as well.


I agree with rfusca that you are overproofing. However, if your yeast is too old, your symptoms would be different. You'd either get a normal(ish) rise with bad tasting dough (because of molds in the fresh yeast), or your first rise will be too slow or won't happen at all. If you get a rise at first and then it slows, your problem is not caused by the yeast being too old.

Yeast consists of living cells. They multiply exponentionally in the right condition, just like any other cells. When they multiply, they use up sugars (and are capable of breaking down starch to sugars before feeding) and produce CO2 as well as less wholesome waste (alcohol, and a compound which stinks of ammonia). The amount of byproducts after a certain time of rising is proportional to the cumulated amount of yeast cells which lived in the dough. The amount of yeast cells which lived in the dough depends on the amount of yeast you started with (duh), time spent proofing, and temperature (rule of thumb: the time you need to proof doubles for every 17°F drop in temperature). And remember, we are talking exponential here: first you have the amount increase slowly, then it explodes pretty quickly.

Within the slow increase of cells, you are allowed to tweak the parameters to suit you. Don't have the time to proof for a long time? Proof at 35°C instead of the 24°C usual in a kitchen. But mostly, you would prefer the slowest rise possible. This comes from the fact that the fermentation of the dough produces tasty compounds in a roughly linear manner. Proof half the time (by choosing a high temperature), and you get the same amount of rise, but half the amount of aroma. But still, you have the options to play around as you want.

However, once you get past the bend in your exponential function, your bread fails. You have altogether too much yeast cells competing for food and producing waste in your dough. They overuse their ressources and die from their own pollution. The missing starches lead to a dough with a certain unhealthy spring to it (if you can degas it at all, because the CO2 pockets in overproofed dough are too numerous and too evenly dispersed, the dough looks like a spiderweb). The dough has some noticeable acetic acid, the sharp taste of alcohol and the harsh smell of ammonia. You should never let it get to that point. (And don't ask why I have such a good knowledge of that dough state).

What you can do is to limit your proofing. First, you can indeed shorten your time at these temperatures. Rfusca's suggestion of a graduated container is good. If you don't have one of the size needed, just stick a small plastic ruler in the dough. Second, forget the sugar. Your dough will rise without it. Sugar gives too big a boost to the yeast at the beginning, because they don't have to waste time breaking down starch for food. And you can imagine what happens to exponential growth if the initial, slow part of the growth is boosted. If you are in the US, chances are that your bread flour already contains small amounts of malt to boost yeast growth anyway. Third, and probably most important, watch your yeast ratio. For a standard yeast bread, it is enough to use 2% live yeast (that's weight percentage relative to the amount of flour, not to the whole) or 1/3 of that amount in active dry yeast. Theoretically, you can go as high as 9% yeast and still handle it, but the dough gets extremly finicky and you need lots of experience to proof it right. Plus, you can't avoid a strong yeasty taste at such concentrations. As for using newer yeast, it won't solve your problem, but old yeast can give you different problems, so if you suspect it's old, replace it. In a lean bread dough (no fat and other additions) your yeast will start just fine when mixed in the flour (active dry yeast) or in the water (fresh yeast), no need to start it with sugar or make a sponge.


How should I deal with "thawed frozen puff pastry"?

No, you don't have to freeze it at all.

The recipe you linked is indeed for puff pastry. It is rather tedious to create it, so it is available in supermarkets as a pre-fabricated food, just like pizza dough and other doughs. But it doesn't have a long shelf life in the fridge, so it is sold frozen. The recipe assumes that you will buy it frozen, and warns you to let it come to room temperature before you start baking.

If you are making your own, the end product can be used in cookies immediately. Just pay attention to follow proper technique and work with a very cold dough and butter while making the puff pastry. The link you posted probably explains it - if not, search for better instructions.


Lemon juice or diluted vinegar (say 1:1), a rag and patience. Gentle and light scrubbing. Rinse afterwards and dry thoroughly.

The bad news is that it is not going to last very long. Even if you are not using at all, depending on your ambient humidity and temperature, it will tarnish again, albeit perhaps uniformly. It is still better to remove the oxide spots early. The longer you leave them, the deeper the oxidation goes. Every time you get rid of the oxide, you are actually removing a tiny layer of metal. So, if you have a copper plated kettle, at some point, you will expose the underlying metal. If it is solid copper, that does not matter too much.

Other than greyish black oxide, you can also have greenish carbonates too.

You can meticulously dry off all the water on the the copper surface especially before you heat it, and store it in a dry cool place, you can slow down the oxidation process.

Alternatively, let it tarnish and develop some character.

Is it an electric kettle or a manual one? A manual one on an open flame (electrical stove is fine) will make things harder for you because of water and carbon dioxide from the combustion products.


How to keep rice in a biryani from burning and sticking together?

Some options:

Prepare the biryani in an oven (used when making biryani with uncooked meat) in a really thick, covered oven pan, with no foiling at 200 degrees Celsius for around 30 mins. It won't stick to the bottom or get burnt.
Keep a cast iron tawa underneath the pot the rice is in. Rice won't stick.
Add some ghee at the bottom of the rice before layering.
Keep the heat low. "Dum"ming the biryani is steaming it rather than cooking it with high heat. You'll also need to seal the container.

The sticky rice at the bottom is called "khurchan", and some people actually find it delicious. The burnt rice is because of the lack of liquid and the high heat. Happens mainly because the water evaporates while cooking.

There's a similar question asked here: How do I avoid dry meat and burned masala and rice in biryana?


Can I add cocoa butter to 100% chocolate

Chocolate can age in different ways. The most common, and probably what happened to yours, is that it 'untempered' (blooming?). I believe simply melting in and properly tempering again will recover the brightness, texture, and flavor. If it doesn't, it might have oxidized and got rancid. This is very uncommon though since the cocoa fat is very stable and rich in antioxidants. It lasts more than two years usually.

Cocoa butter can surely be added to create a silkier and smoother texture. It is solid and stable at room temperature so in principle I don't see why there should be a limit. The science behind tempering is that of crystallization. Cocoa butter can crystallize in six different forms, each having very different physical properties (melting point, resistance to shear, etc). For this reason, it is good to keep in mind that the more butter you add, the trickier it can be to temper properly.

Personally, I find it easier to temper mixing with some already tempered chocolate, a method known as seeding. But in your case I don't know if it is worth it if this means mixing your 100% Grenadian (good stuff!) with some other commercial chocolate.


What makes pineapples cause a burning / itchy feeling in the mouth?

Human skin contains oils which aid in blocking out the absorption of chemicals which would harm or irritate the skin. Those oils contain proteins. Pineapple contains a chemical compound called bromelain which has the ability to break down these proteins. This is bad, because it can then act on the skin itself (which is also comprised of protein molecules).

On top of that, pineapple is high in citric acid. The tingling/itching/burning sensation you describe is no doubt the result of both of these things acting upon the skin at the same time. Understandably, eating pineapple with (or after) meat high in oil content (such as pork at a luau) will mitigate against these effects.

Since there's no escaping this problem through the use of cutlery, there must have been some other factor at play to which you didn't make attribution at the time. In other words, some other factor was involved in slowing down or preventing the appearance of the undesired effects, such as the one I mentioned above.

In the old plantation South there's a tradition which involves giving pineapple as a gift to guests who are on the verge of overstaying their welcome. No doubt this is because the remarkable sweetness of pineapple is, quite soon enough, followed by a predictable unpleasantness.

On a side note regarding the acidity of pineapple, find here an entertaining blog entry as to whether pineapple is or isn't a citrus fruit (from which the pictures above and below were obtained).


Adjusting whipped cream to hold its shape longer?

Your best bet is probably gelatin stabilized whipped cream.  This recipe from Wilton gives you an example of how to proceed.  You can google many other results.

Depending on your tastes, to compliment gingerbread, you may also consider some alternate frostings which will hold up better at room temperature and taste great:

White chocolate ganache (sample recipe from the Food.com)
Cream cheese icing  (sample recipe from Martha Steward)

And I have to mention, in a completely different direction, a lemon glaze could be spectacular on gingerbread, although very different (sample recipe from Martha Stewart).


How long should I let my new sourdough starter ferment until I can use it?

To make a sourdough starter work you have to create an environment where tasty yeast and bacteria will succeed and harmful or gross microbes will be either crowded out or unable to tolerate the acidity.

This environment is created by continually feeding the starter. That is, adding a consistent ratio of fresh starch to consume.

I read an analogy, perhaps Peter Reinhart's, that feeding a starter is like mowing a lawn. The big weeds won't get the upper hand if the lawn is kept consistently mowed.

Your sourdough recipe will have a ratio of starter to feed for each feeding. If you choose to not discard any starter then Everytime you feed you will have to use more and more flour to maintain the ratio. Depending on the recipe this could double everyday. It's not sustainable.

It sounds like you aren't feeding the sourdough at all. Depending on the temperature it will take only a short time, perhaps a day or two, before nasty microbes get the upper hand and your starter will rot. Believe me, this is an unpleasant experience.

If you are determined to not throw away starter you can collect the discarded portion in the fridge where the fermentation will be slowed. This can be used as filler in other baked goods but will not provide much sourdough flavor or lift until the starter is ready.

At first I hated throwing away starter but I realized I was costing myself a great deal of hassle to save pennies worth of flour.

When feeding a new starter, the amount of time depends on many variables including the feeding ratio and schedule, floor, present microbes, temperature, and desired pungency. Most recipes seem to call for around ten days and that matches my personal experience.


Is it safe to eat cod that has a pink color?

It is very difficult to tell someone else it a food item is good or safe, and the normal advice, especially with meats and seafood, is when in doubt, throw it out.  In this case, there honestly is too many unknowns.  The wording of the question:

  it sat in my fridge for a couple days and spoiled i froze it

Sounds as if they fish spoiled, and then you froze it.  Freezing will not reverse spoilage, it will only slow it.  If the fish had already gone bad, it is bad.

On the pink color, you do not know if it was pink before you froze it or not.  That makes it tougher still.  Right off, I really do not know of a reason freezing would cause it to turn pink unless the freezing/thawing help highlight an already existing condition.  I do know though of two conditions which will commonly cause a normally white fleshed fish to be more pink, spoilage, especially in a fish which was not cleaned promptly, is not stored at proper temperatures, and especially if it repeatedly goes from thawed to frozen or partially frozen and only to a soft freeze rather that recommended hard freeze temperatures.  This would be a fish I would consider bad, even if the flesh remained firm with not other normal signs of spoilage.  The second reason is poor bleeding at the time of harvest, which can be an issue with fish like cod.  It really does not have a major effect on taste, but is considered a lower quality fish due to ascetics and likely will spoil faster than a fish which was correctly bled.  These fish would normally be sorted out and sold at a lower price or to processors that will do something like make breaded fish from them.

There may also be other causes, but those are two common ones I know.  Between those, it would simply be wild speculation to guess without the fish in hand to examine it.


Microwave rice cooker vs low-end electric rice cookers

I never used a microwave rice cooker but if you are getting dry rice then it's a matter of the amount of water used. The same goes for electric rice cooker, if you don't like wet-ish rice then use less water.

The main drawback of the microwave cooker is you can't use the microwave while making your rice.

Electric rice cooker can keep warm, you can turn it on and come back the next morning if you want to (a decent model).
Some have time counters, clocks and other similar features.
The rice never sticks since it is a non-stick pan.
You can most likely make more rice with a rice cooker than the microwave container (googled an image).

Also when you have guests, some people might not like the idea of rice made in a microwave even though it might taste and look the same. Some rice cookers also comes with steam baskets so when cooking the rice you can steam veggies at the same time. A rice cooker can also be used to cook other stuff as well.


How do I clean burnt milk from a glass-ceramic stove?

There are a couple things you can try.  I'll list them from most conservative to

Let it cool. Squeeze some cleaning paste on it, and cover with a
paper towel. Wet the towel, let it soak, then buff it with the paper
towel or a non-scratch scouring pad.
Magic Eraser-type melamine foam sponge
Plastic razor blade scraper, sometimes called "Safe    Scraper" sold
at hardware and automotive stores
Metal razor blade scraper


Is the appetizer of a three-course meal always a salad?

The three sentences you quote are example usage of the phrase, and not part of the definition. These are simply sentences that demonstrate usage of the defined phrase, but are not part of the definition.

The definition, which is always true, is this part:

  A three-course meal is a meal that consists of three parts served one after the other.

Other statements that could be true of a three-course meal:

A three-course meal can cost significantly more than $10.
The three-course meal could include courses of a salami, a pasta, and a meat.
The last course of a three-course meal could be a salad


Is it bad to marinate meat for too long?

Two things-

If the marinade is very strong or salty then the meat could simply become over flavored.

If the marinade includes a meat digesting enzyme such as papain then leaving it too long could turn the meat to mush.