Cookbook says to store dough in fridge overnight, why can't I just bake it already?

You can, in theory, leave it out on the counter for longer to develop the same amount of fermentation.  What you won't have is a very cold fermentation, which helps to develop the big holes in rustic breads that many people love.  Temperature and fermentation are a tricky balance, and you should listen to an expert like the author.  Also the overnight fermentation keeps you from needing to do something like a full 9 hours in one sitting.

Bikeboy389 made an excellent point in the comments.  BBA has absolutely everything you want to know to make its recipes successful in the first part of the book, which Reinhart strongly advises you not to skip.  If you want to make excellent bread, you will want to know all that information.  Plus, as a amateur or professional baker, you should find it fascinating.


Pears caused uneven bake - how to stop this?

If you were baking this in a glass dish, the color of the sides should have been a hint that you needed to take the cake out of the oven.  This is one reason for the popularity of glass dishes.  But you have to keep in mind that a glass dish holds a lot of heat, so things baked in it need to be slightly underbaked when you take them out.

Also, it sounds like this would be a good candidate for the toothpick method of cake testing (the toothpick, when inserted in the middle, comes out dry).  You're not trying to caramelize the cake, just cook the batter entirely.

Slices of fruit, especially pear, are never going to go brown like a naked cake would.  So you need to allow for that in your evaluation.  One of my coworkers baked a cake into leather last week because she thought it had to be really brown - that is not the case, a mild gold is usually enough.  If you want more color, you might consider sprinkling a slight bit of sugar on top, that usually causes a bit more brown for the same degree of doneness.


The main enemy of oil is oxidation, which is the reaction of the constituent molecules with oxygen. How fast oxidation occurs will depend on the type of oil you consider. For example, unsaturated fat oxidizes faster than saturated. Therefore oils with higher content of unsaturated fat tend to oxide faster.

Since oxidation is a reaction, it changes the chemical content of the oil. Oxidation is measured in the industry by looking at the molecules that were not there originally. More specifically, they differentiate primary, secondary and tertiary oxidation, each associated with the presence of certain subproducts of oxidation, in increasing order of complexity.

The fact is that if you go to the lab and take two samples of the same oil, leave it in the same room for the same time, one protected from sunlight and the other exposed, and after you measure oxidation according to the criteria aforementioned, you will observe that the exposed oil will have a higher concentration of secondary oxidation chemicals than the protected one.

Oxided oil might not be completely spoiled, but it definitively changes some of its 'nice' properties.

The crude underlying reason is the photoelectric effect: light can excite electrons and make molecules more reactive. If you are interested in more chemistry details I would recommend reading this paper or this simpler one, that explain also the role of other factors such as humidity, temperature, etc.


Just slice it into thin discs (a mandoline is quick) and the kids use it as chips'n'dip. Try some natural or Greek style yoghurt and whole seed mustard as a dip. Very crunchy and tasty

If the skin is dry or blotchy I quickly run the potato peeler over it first

Otherwise, just grating it into soups or stews is a nice vegetable filler

EDIT Doh, forgot the best thing to use it for Coleslaw, it replaces cabbage perfectly. Or you can mix cabbage and broccoli. Just coarse grate it with some carrot, onion. Blend it up with a little mayo and yoghurt, or lemon juice and olive oil. Add some ground fennel and cumin seeds or some chopped mint for extra zing


I rarely clean the old oil from my slow-cooker, is it OK?

You have a couple of potential issues, one possibly dangerous, the other has to do with flavor/quality control.  First, by not washing your cooking vessel, you leave the potential for bacterial growth.  This would be especially true if there is some down time (even a couple of hours) between uses.  The quality issue is that over time residual oil is going to become rancid, introducing off flavors into your food products.  So, I would strongly suggest a wash in warm, soapy water, or the dishwasher, between uses.


That depends on the wine.

Generic "rice wine" usually means something like sake.  Chinese recipes often use Shaoxing wine, which is a drinkable dark/sweet rice wine.  If it's a Chinese recipe, and it calls for just "rice wine", you may need to guess at the flavor expected.  If the sauce should dark & sweet, then Shaoxing, if it's supposed to be light or acidic, sake.  Chinese, Japanese and Korean folks also cook with Plum Wine, which should be called for specifically.

All of these wines are drinking wines, and you'd no more substitute the cooking variety than you would with wine made from grapes.  As with grape wine, "cooking" rice wines are really just poor quality wine that's been salted to make it undrinkable.

Except there is one cooking wine that you should use specifically: Mirin.  Mirin is a sugary sake made for cooking, and recipes that call for it expect that sweetness. If you have to substitute regular sake, you'll need to add sugar to the recipe.


Small emulsified breakfast sausages in Dutch countries

I am going to guess that you are likely getting british or irish breakfast sausage.  The national dutch sausage, Frikandel, is minced, skinless, and not usually eaten at breakfast.  There is a perception amongst the dutch that Americans eat nothing but meat and fat in huge portions.

I did a semester abroad in the Netherlands.  For the first few days, the host family fed me eggs and sausages for breakfast.  I usually have some toast or cereal for breakfast.  So, after a couple days I asked them if this is what they had for breakfast every day.  My host mother said, "No, this is what we were told Americans have for breakfast everyday!"

After a chat, they said they were buying British breakfast sausages and eggs for me.  Their typical breakfast was a slice of bread, some cheese, and a very strongly flavored liverwurst.  My tastes were not as developed back then.  After two days of that I asked if there was any other breakfast choices. My host mother bought me suikerbrood.  It is a loaf of bread with sugar baked in it.  It was delicious!  I told them that I enjoyed this new breakfast very much.  This caused a lot of chortling for my two host siblings.  It turns out that suikerbrood is a small children's breakfast.


Is it safe to use vegetables (e.g. Romaine lettuce) that may be contaminated with E. coli if they are fully cooked?

From what I have read, some strains of E. Coli are heat-resistant, so it's not a good idea to think that cooking it will kill the bacteria if present. Also, you might contaminate your cooking utensils or other surfaces that do not encounter the heat. It's safest to just get rid of it.


I would chunk it, better to waste it than risk illness. Fresh garlic and olive oil left at room temperature for a significant amount of time (not like the 10 minutes it might sit during prep for addition to soup, pasta, etc.) makes a prime breeding ground for botulism.

Potentially dangerous things like this shouldn't sit out longer than 2 hours at room temperature. Three days in the fridge would be fine if it were safe when it went in, but in this case it wasn't.

For further information:

Brief write up on harvesting and storing garlic from UC Davis

FDA sheet on the temperature danger zone and two hour rule

Flavored vinegars and oils, article from Colorado State Extension


If you wish to continue down the road of a singular dish I would recommend the emulsifier. Incorporating the fat through blending it with some of the liquid in a side pan or pot with ground mustard would be easiest and most complete. You should be able to continue cooking without further separation.

However, if you are cooking the dish too hot you may be forcing some of the fat from the meat or otherwise loosing it from too much agitation and you will want to make any adjustments necessary.


What do I search for when looking for unsweetened recipes?

As pointed out in the comments, the correct search term is "savory."  Keep in mind, however, that while chefs often create savory versions of typically sweetened items, those versions usually have sugar or other sweeteners in them.  In granola, for example, we understand it generally as a sweet breakfast or snack item.  While the sweetness in the savory version is dramatically reduced, it is that remaining sweetness that allows us to interpret it as granola.  Otherwise, it would just be toasted grains, which, maybe in the end, is what you want.


I was referring to the plastic type disposable liner. I made the lasagna without it anyway, just sprayed the interior with cooking spray. I see no reason for anyone to judge my energy level. BTW the lasagna came out great, just used the noodles right out of the box without preboiling. New favorite method.


Is unnecessary refrigeration problematic?

Living organisms, including plants, are very complicated miniature chemistry factories. Even separated, dead body parts still have chemical processes taking place completely independent from any parasitic organisms (bacteria, molds) present. But of course, lots of the processes which take place in the living plant don't take place any longer, and their absence can change the food considerably (rigor mortis in animals, wilting in plants).

Refrigeration slows down the growth of bacteria and molds, and some of the processes going on internally in the plants. There are two problems with that: 1) sometimes, you want these processes to go on. A pear will continue to ripen and enhance its aroma after plucking, especially if there are catalysts like ethylene present. If refrigerated, this ripening will be limited severely. 2) Some of the chemicals already present in plants will change under low temperatures. ESultanik pointed out two such examples, the self-destroying aromatic compound in tomatoes, and the starch-sugar conversion in potatoes. These and similar changes happen in other fruit and vegetables too. But it doesn't mean that all fruit and veggies undergo undesirable changes.

There is a good rule of thumb to predict where such changes may occur. It says that the bigger the temperature difference between the plant's living conditions and storage conditions, the more likely it is for its chemicals to behave strangely. So everything which thrives north of the Alps should do well in the fridge (if the fridge has a crisper, use it). Everything else must stay outside (including tomatoes - you can grow them in Middle Europe, but they don't taste well). Shape, color, etc. is quite irrelevant to storage temperature. If you have logistic difficulties, just use small breathable containers for placing berries etc. into the fridge, instead of the squishable plastic bags you may have bought them in.

The rule isn't perfect, but to do better than that, you'd have to research the optimal storage conditions for every single fruit or vegetable and possibly furnish a cold storage cabinet or pantry in the 10°C - 15°C range.


Uneven rolling of pitas can usually cause this problem. Make sure you shape even with roll pin & keep it half centimetre thick!


Make sourdough starter without discarding

While I have successfully begun a starter with only 10 grams of flour at the outset, I think I agree with Stephie that doing a little more is more efficient.  I used to do very wasteful starters until I happened upon this site back in 2002 or something.  (Amazingly, it's still there.)  You can read the details there, but basically the guy who did it designed his initial starter regimen based on the amount of flour he'd eventually use to bake bread (i.e., with no waste).  (It also has a way to get to a lower pH earlier which helps the starter along while inhibiting bad stuff; this was years before the internet discovered the "pineapple juice solution.")

But I think this depends a LOT more on your feeding regimen, especially in the early days, as well as the flour.  I've written a lot about the variables in my other answers here on sourdough related questions, so I'm not going to repeat it all here.

Briefly, though, YES, it is possible.  It can be just as reliable as using more flour and a lot less wasteful.  Even if you don't do a true exponential growth model for your starter, you can also be significantly less wasteful by keeping the starter relatively small until it's established.  There's no reason to be feeding and throwing away a cup or more of flour every time for every feeding, particularly if the starter isn't even growing yet.

Also, the same applies to maintaining your starter.  If you want to do detailed calculations, I've explained them here.  When I first started with sourdough, I used to produce way too much of it and throw it away.  Now I generally save just a tablespoon or two, feed it a little, and put it away for the next batch and build up from there when necessary.


The Environmental Defense Fund has made a few recommendations based on EPA guidance:

  Canned white, or albacore (0.32 parts per million of mercury). Children under six can eat up to one 3-ounce portion a month; children from 6–12, two 4.5-ounce portions a month. Adults, including pregnant women, can safely eat it up to three times a month (women, 6-ounce portions; men, 8-ounce portions).

  Canned light — the safer choice (0.12 parts per million of mercury). Children under six can eat up to three 3-ounce portions per month. Older children and adults can safely eat it once a week. But look out for "gourmet" or "tonno" labels. They are made with bigger yellowfin tuna and can contain mercury levels comparable to canned white.

  A better alternative is canned salmon (mostly sockeye or pink from Alaska), which is low in contaminants and high in heart-healthy omega-3s. It's also sustainably caught in Alaska and similarly priced, making it a great choice all around.

They may say "safer choice" but what it comes down to is that regardless of which type of tuna you eat, you're going to be getting a pretty high amount of mercury if you eat it frequently. Mercury accumulates in animals higher up in the food chain. I hate that I'm screenshotting an svg in order to post it but below is a helpful little diagram:

- via Wikipedia

I included the part regarding salmon from the EDF source because salmon is just a better choice to make environmentally and for your health. I know your question was albacore versus yellow fin, but the difference there is negligible. The light vs white is a matter of which cut of the fish you get and that does matter, but you're still getting a fair amount of mercury. Eat smaller fish, like salmon, herring, sardines, kippers, etc. if you are truly worried about mercury.


what made the juice/water of the beans turned black

It sounds you ended up with magnetite in your broth. That is the black stuff you want to use to season cast iron pans by binding it with fats. Sounds like that went wrong with your pans. If you really want to use them for boiling, you need to season them again, and test if that was successful...(water with a drop of lemon juice or two or three as a test). It is not poisonous.
If you don't know how to season a pan, this is the method I like to use: guide for seasoning a pan


Do I need to boil filled jam/chutney jars?

Recipes for preserving tend to be very specific.  They're calibrated to balance factors like pH and sugar content in the final recipes, and of course to minimize the risk of spoilage.  In general, you should always follow the steps as written in your recipe.

What I've generally observed is that jam-type recipes don't always include the final boiling step because the jam is already cooked (edit: and because per rumtscho, the sugar content is generally high enough to be inhospitable to bacteria).  That differs from canning fresh fruits and vegetables which are largely raw.  The purpose of the boiling step here is to kill off pathogens before they get a chance to settle in and spoil the contents, as no matter how well you clean them, there are likely to be some spores, bacteria, etc. remaining.  Even a tiny initial population can grow and spoil your preserves over the length of time they'll be put away.

So, initial sterilization is always required to clean the jars themselves.  The second boil pasteurizes the  contents.  If you've already done this as part of your preparation, as with a jam, then it most likely isn't required.  It probably won't hurt, especially if you plan to put up your jams for an extended period of time (i.e. months or years) but you'll have to weigh the convenience of skipping that step against the potential risk of spoilage.

That said, let me state again for the record that if your specific recipe says to include the final boil, then there's likely a very good reason, and you should follow that instruction.


How can I get the maximum flavor from orange peels?

First I would recommend viewing the episode of Good Eats, Orange Aid. While there is not a direct answer to your question Alton does talk about getting the maximum orange flavor as well as how to avoid the pithy flavor. (This link to Orange Aid will take you to Amazon Prime, where if you are not an Amazon Prime member you may purchase for $2.99...)

The take away that I believe applies to your situation is this: remove as much of the pith as possible (but I'm guessing you already know this)...

The second take away is that the variety of orange really matters, many varieties are more flavorful than others and these are NOT the varieties most frequently found in your mega-mart. (which are chosen more for appearance than flavor--go figure)
Valencia, Hamlin and/or Seville oranges would be good choices. Avoid NAVEL ORANGES!

Having looked at your recipe ever so briefly I might suggest an experiment as well... take about an ounce of vodka or everclear and let that sit for a few days with orange zest and vanilla beans, filter out the solid and use this concoction in place of the vanilla extract. The orange oils in the zest are alcohol soluble and thus should provide you with a nice orange extract to intensify your flavor. (I have not tried this with orange, so this is pure speculation).


What is an alternative to oil in layered paratha?


How can I add yogurt to a quickbread recipe?

Unstrained yogurt has the exact same ratio of water/protein/fat as the milk that it was made from. The amount of sugar will be different as some of the sugar was converted to acid during the fermentation.

This means that yogurt can be substituted 1 to 1 for milk, and sometimes other liquids, in baking. Know that the pH of the batter will be lower and if that will be a problem then add a little more baking soda to compensate for it. The lost sugar won't usually adversely affect a recipe because they usually have plenty of sugar added.

Quickbreads don't usually have a lot of added liquid and adding a significant amount of yogurt would throw off the batter. It could still be good but it wouldn't be the same thing.

To mitigate that problem your recipe uses Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt has been strained which simply means that the yogurt was stirred to break up the protein mesh and some of the whey was allowed to drain off. The whey will be mostly water but will also contain some sugar, lactic acid, and riboflavin. Even with the whey drained off Greek yogurt is still mostly water. This water, however, is locked up in the protein mesh. Where normal yogurt will weep whey when cut, Greek yogurt will not (at least not so easily).

The yogurt will regardless add some liquid, a fair bit of protein and potentially fat, and some acid. The acid and fat will add some wonderful flavor while the protein and fat will interfere with gluten development. In quickbreads you don't need gluten so this is a good thing.

To compensate for the additional acid your recipe includes a little extra soda along with its baking powder.

In summary:
Yes you can add strained yogurt to a quickbread for flavor. Be careful not to add so much that the added water will throw things off and remember to add the extra soda to compensate.


Three day old pancake batter with grey spots

Yes, the pancake batter is going bad and bacteria is developing. No mold is good. In a restaurant environment I would sometimes keep it over night in the fridge but not any longer. From a food safety standpoint, food should not be left out longer than 4 hours before being discarded. Just because it does not smell does not mean it is OK. Pancake batter is cheap so tossing it is no loss. If you are asking your question from a chemical reaction standpoint, I am sorry I can't help. But I do not think you would want to go to a restaurant and be served pancakes with grey spots.


If you watch Alton Brown's show Good Eats (Food Network) he frequently uses 3D models to show where various cuts come from. A good example is the episode "Tender is the Loin", where he uses a model of a steer to show where the loin primal is and then location of the tenderloins.


First, those are not a "tin" which may explain why you've had trouble finding them. They are individual tart rings which must be placed on a baking sheet. Sometimes they're called flan rings or, if they're larger, cake rings.

If you do a Google search with Australia "tart ring" you'll see that plenty of baking supply businesses in AU sell them.

Good luck!


Completing an unattended to apple cider vinegar

If you are making your own cider vinegar, you might want to be come familiar with what you are likely to see by doing some research first.

I have to assume that you are referring to the "mother" which is a standard, normal part of the vinegar fermentation process. Say hello to acetobacter, they are doing the work you require. Even if they do look a bit slimy and disturbing en masse.


None of them are right—or, all of them are right.

"Ground bison" does not fully describe the product. Any ground meat is produced from one or more cuts of varying fat content, and usually does not have the same overall fat content as the average across all cuts of meat for that animal. So, to have a chance at comparing these different sources of information, you would at least need to know the fat content of the ground bison meat. To make things more complicated, the %fat indicated on ground meat labels in the US refers to the maximum proportion of fat in the product from a regulatory standpoint. There is some flexibility in how accurate the label must be for the product to be in compliance with federal regulations, so the actual fat content could be as much as 20% more or less than the advertised value; but in practice, a vendor won't get in trouble for selling meat that is leaner than advertised (even though this would be very annoying for those of us who are more concerned with preparing the dish properly than having it be low-fat). From the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service guidebook:

  Q. Is the leeway on values still 20 percent?

  A. Yes. The regulations in 9 CFR 317.309(h) and 381.409(h) specify
  that certain nutrient values are not out of compliance, unless they
  are more than 20 percent above the labeled value. That rule applies to
  the labeled values for calories, sugars, total fat, saturated fat,
  cholesterol, or sodium. These regulations also specify that certain
  nutrient values are not out of compliance unless they are 20 percent
  below the labeled value. That rule applies to the labeled values for
  vitamins, minerals, protein, total carbohydrates, dietary fiber, other
  carbohydrates, polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fat, or potassium.

  Q. If a producer is not sure of the lean and fat percentage of a
  ground or chopped product, could the producer label it with a worse
  lean and fat percentage? For example, could a producer label a product
  that is actually 80% lean and 20% fat, with a 70% lean/30% fat label?

  A. FSIS would not take action against producers estimating that their
  products are higher in fat than they actually are.

For an analytical perspective, check out this item from the Agricultural Research Service, which shows that at the lean end the of the spectrum, ground beef products are more likely to be fattier than the label advertises, while the reverse is true at the fatty end of the spectrum (near 70% lean/30% fat, which is the absolute maximum fat content allowed by law).

The other glaring problem with comparing these different sources of information is that the BisonCentral page is giving information for cooked meat, while the self.com page is giving information for raw meat. The sfgate.com page doesn't even specify cooked or raw so I would consider it the least credible of the three.

The nutritional information source I recommend is the USDA National Nutrient Database, which has over a dozen entries for various forms of bison meat:

NDB No.    Description
17148   Bison, ground, grass-fed, cooked
17149   Bison, ground, grass-fed, raw
17156   Game meat, bison, separable lean only, raw
17330   Game meat , bison, ground, raw
17157   Game meat, bison, separable lean only, cooked, roasted
17331   Game meat, bison, ground, cooked, pan-broiled
17267   Game meat, bison, top sirloin, separable lean only, trimmed to 0" fat, raw
17268   Game meat, bison, ribeye, separable lean only, trimmed to 0" fat, raw
17269   Game meat, bison, shoulder clod, separable lean only, trimmed to 0" fat, raw
17332   Game meat , bison, top sirloin, separable lean only, 1" steak, cooked, broiled
17335   Game meat, bison, ribeye, separable lean only, 1" steak, cooked, broiled
17336   Game meat, bison, top round, separable lean only, 1" steak, cooked, broiled
17337   Game meat, bison, top round, separable lean only, 1" steak, raw
17333   Game meat, bison, chuck, shoulder clod, separable lean only, 3-5 lb roast, cooked, braised
17334   Game meat, bison, chuck, shoulder clod, separable lean only, 3-5 lb roast, raw

In fact, if you look closely at the chart on the BisonCentral page, you'll see at the bottom:

  Bison, separable lean only, cooked, roasted. USDA NDB No. 17157

The corresponding NDB page doesn't agree exactly with the BisonCentral source (if you add up the lipid entries, you don't get 2.4%) but it's at least in the ballpark.

You have another problem: That's not a "ground meat" category. When the meat is raw, grinding it won't change the proportion of fat by weight, but when you cook ground meat the fat escapes much more easily than it would if you cooked the whole cut(s) from which the meat was originally ground.

Here's some further reading from Texas A&M about ground beef labeling, for those who are interested.


What is the minimum temperature yeast will be active?

It will even rise (very, very slowly) at refrigeration temperatures (4C, 39F). For it to completely stop rising you need to freeze it (or very close). A lot of recipes call for the dough to rise overnight in the refrigerator. Depending on the dough, it may it may in fact completely rise in the refrigerator overnight. Long rises create more flavor than short ones, often speed is not of the essence. Frozen dough will start (slowly) to rise as soon as it starts to thaw.

Never judge readiness by time. Temperature is only one of many factors that will vary from loaf to loaf.

Volume is the main indicator of readiness (usually double the "pre-rise" size). Also, there's the poke test. Stick a couple of fingertips a centimeter or so into the dough. If the indentations remain after your fingers are removed, that's an indication that the dough has risen enough.


Flavor in most meats is generally determined by a few things.

How the animal was raised and if it is of a particular heritage breed.
How it was treated over its lifetime (i.e. diet and environment).
When and how it is slaughtered.
How it is handled from the slaughterhouse to the butcher, was it properly stored, etc.

Also, how fatty the bird is and light to dark meat ratio will also determine flavor of the bird.

I definitely have tried a lot of different types of "free range", "organic", and/or "local" chickens out there and you basically get what you pay for in terms of meat quality and flavor. At my restaurant, we try to source best quality chickens — local, organic and free range, if possible — because it just tastes better and it coincides with our philosophy.  Properly cooking and seasoning the chicken will also help.


For baking, is there a common "done" temperature across different kinds of breads?

It depends on how "heavy" your bread is. White bread is done at around 202 - 205 degrees Fahrenheit. Darker bread, 208 - 212. And definitely use the Thermapen if you have one. There is no point in guessing if you don't have to.


Are gas stoves preferred in a commercial kitchen due to having a constant heat source

Commercial burners generally have a high power output. A commercial kitchen doesn't have to be large to have 12 burners, all capable of 3kW, in a small space, plus ovens, and running near constantly. By this point the cost saving of gas over electricity becomes significant (in the UK, electricity is about 3x more per kWh). In addition many premises wouldn't have sufficient electricity supply to support that in addition to all their other consumption, and running a fatter cable is very costly.

Only induction gets the pan up to cooking temperature as fast as gas, and although it's getting cheaper, it's still expensive to install. I've seen induction wok stations used for food that's cooked to order; one advantage is that they need less extraction than gas (but still some).

The pulsing you mention isn't really an issue. The fairly thick aluminium pans used in many commercial kitchens, and the large thermal mass of food being cooked would tend to minimise fluctuations in the temperature of the actual dish

Many of these reasons don't apply at home, but many of us prefer gas anyway for its controllability (at least compared to mostelectric stoves, I've only cooked on induction a few times and fairly simple stuff).


My first reaction was to be surprised by your question as Arctic Char is fairly common in Alaska, I didn't realize that it is hard to find in the lower 48.

It's closely related to salmon, so salmon would be a reasonable substitute for most applications.

This article tells more of its range in the wild (far north) Arctic Char. It is farmed in the US Farmed Arctic Char but not in huge numbers. I'm not aware of it being known by any other name.


I doubt you would find a significant difference as long as option 2 means placing the ribs on the pan and putting foil over the ribs...and, it was sealed tightly, but Meathead Goldwyn suggests wrapping the meat itself.  The idea is that you are creating more of a braising environment. The wrap also significantly reduces evaporative cooling from the surface of the meat.  This helps in being able to more consistently predict time until they are done.


Combine skim milk and cream to substitute for whole?

If you want a fat fraction of f, starting from cream with a fat fraction c and milk with a fat fraction of m, then the fraction of cream to use is (f-m)/(c-m).

All you have to do is multiply that by the total volume to get how much cream to use, and then fill in the rest of the total with milk.

For example, if you want to approximate 1 cup of 3.25% whole milk using 36% heavy cream and 0% skim milk, you need (3.25-0)/(36-0) * 1 cup = 0.09 cups of cream, or 1.5 tablespoons. So take 1.5 tablespoons of cream, and add skim milk to reach 1 cup.

Or if you want two cups of 10.5% half and half using 33% whipping cream and 2% milk, you need (10.5-2)/(33-2) * 2 cup = 0.55 cups, or about 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon of cream. So take 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon of cream, and add 2% milk to reach 2 cups.

Unfortunately it's hard to provide a really useful table of examples, because fat content of dairy products varies around from country to country, and even within countries. Probably the most useful single thing to know is that you can use Google, e.g. search for (10.5-2)/(33-2)*2 cups in tablespoons to do the calculation from the previous paragraph.

For example, in the US, I believe:

whole milk - usually 3.25%
half-and-half - usually 10.5% or maybe 12% (can be up to 18%)
light cream - usually 18% (can be up to 30%)
whipping cream - usually 33% (can be 30-36%)
heavy whipping cream - usually 36% (can be higher)

Resources for finding fat contents if not given:

Wikipedia on cream
US/UK conversions (the dairy section)

Derivation is pretty simple. If x is the fraction of cream, then the resulting fat fraction is:

f = x * c + (1-x) * m.

This is simply a weighted average of the component fat ratios: x is the fraction of cream, so 1-x is the fraction of milk. (If you really wanted to convince yourself of this, you could write out the amount of milk in each component and the total, and the volumes of everything, and divide to get this.)

Solving for x yields the formula given at the beginning of the answer.


Marinating is basically a surface treatment.  Marinades don't penetrate more than a millimeter or two.  Most flavor molecules are just too large. So, if you like the flavor after a short bath, just keep it at that.  A longer marination generally doesn't help.
Now, salt does penetrate, that is why brining works.  However, don't confuse brining with marination.  The added salt will not improve the effect of marination.  Only the salt will penetrate.
These are two different processes.


What are Good Resources for Baker's Percentage Ranges?

You are confusing terms here. Baker's percentages are used for bread and bread only. In pastry baking, ratio is even more important as in bread, but traditionally, nobody calles it "baker's percentages".

The book you want is Ruhlman's Ratio. It gives exactly the information you want for pastry and some other things (noodles, mayonnaise). About the only common ratio he doesn't explain is ice cream. It also has some recipes, but the main focus is on the exact proportions of flour, sugar, fat and liquid you need for each type of baked good.


Which machine/ product would be best for melting then maintaining sugar mixture at constant temperature?

If you need to maintain a certain temperature over time, this is the domain of sous vide cookers. They are typically made for proteins, so if you cannot find one that goes to 90 C, you can use a homemade setup instead (controller + drop-in heater + small pump). It will serve you much better than any purpose-made device, unless you can find something exactly for your use case. If you go with sous vide, don't immerse the heater or pump into the syrup, use a second container (a simple pot will work).
I would be somewhat worried about the long holding though. This is simmering temperature, and you will be losing moisture all the time, changing the ratios in your recipe. Also, I assume you are not making standard hard candy, as the temperature is too low for that. If you have other ingredients, they may not take well to being kept heated constantly, for example if you are making gummy candy, gelatin will not work well (or at all) after being kept for several hours at 90 C.


Can I deep fry food in butter instead of vegetable oil?

You can certainly deep-fry foods in clarified butter (also known as ghee) and in lard.   In fact, there are many foods that are traditionally fried in these fats.  They both have very high smoke points and are excellent for making crisp fried foods.

For example, Puri, Indian fried breads, are deep-fried in ghee (clarified butter).  And many Southern USA and many Mexican deep-fried foods are meant to be fried in lard, such as hand pies or sopes.  In fact, if you watch the videos of Cowboy Kent Rollins, you'll see that while many of his recipes say "frying oil", what he actually uses is lard.

As for the flavor question: yes, using ghee or lard will affect the flavor of what you're frying, but in subtle ways.  Both of these fats are mild-flavored (at least, high-quality lard is).  Generally, the extra flavor you get from the butter or animal fat is considered desireable; they fell out of fashion in the use due to concerns about cholesterol, not taste.  Only foods that are meant to have a very light, airy batter (like tempura) are unsuitable for frying in animal fat.

There are some other animal fats that can be used for frying and deep-frying, such as beef tallow, schmaltz, horse fat, or duck fat. These have a much stronger flavor that is recommended for specific foods (for example, there are many aficionados of duck fat french fries), but aren't a good general substitute for vegetable oil.

One other caution: if you switch to frying with animal fats, you need to make special provisions to dispose of the used fat.  It can't be safely poured down the drain. This is actually true of all deep-frying oil, but animal fats are a greater problem: they may clog your pipes as well as hurting the sewer system.

ADD: per @wjandrea below, clarified butter, ghee, and brown butter have different flavors based on the amount they were cooked while clarifying, which will affect the flavor of any fried foods made with them.


Is there an alternative to using oil when baking muffins

Yoghurt, squashes, yams, sweet potatoes, egg yolks, tofu or ground nuts could possible be added as an alternative.


You cannot change it. It is always going to be there and bug you.

You taste things when some chemical compound hits a receptor in your mouth or nose (in this case, it is likely to be the nose). It doesn't matter what you add, the offending compound will still be there, and you will still notice it. And as we don't know which compound it is, and given the limited chemical changes you can do to food while staying palatable (basically you can heat things or change the pH and hope that some reactions occur) you are unlikely to ever change that compound. Worse, it is even more likely to be the combination of multiple compounds which you hate in honey, and then you cannot hope to randomly change them all.

People do try masking or dilution. For masking, you add something with such a strong smell that the signal from that one compound gets drowned out when the brain is creating the olfactory sensation. It can work for things to which you are mostly indifferent, but once you absolutely hate something, it stays salient and is perceived together with the masking smell.

Dilution works because some aromas are only unpleasant when they are too intense. But seeing that you want the honey to be a major component, you cannot use dilution here.

So, there is nothing you can do. Either eat cheap bars which you hate, or switch to something else regardless of cost.


What are the best suggestions for cutting gloves

There's no such thing as "cut proof", so you should still try to be careful. I use a Microplane glove with my mandolin, and it's worked out quite well so far. Cook's Illustrated also recommends this glove.


How frequently should I feed my sourdough starter?

My first impression is that the towel might not be porous enough to let the all-important yeast and bacteria in. Try cheesecloth.
If that doesn't do it, here's the long version:
Creating a Starter:
First and foremost, a week isn't necessarily enough time to get a starter going full steam ahead. It can take as little as a few days or as long as a month. You're relying on ambient yeast and bacteria that are floating around in the air, and the amount of yeast and bacteria available varies according to location,  climate conditions, and all sorts of other environmental factors.    The specific species and strains of yeast and bacteria also vary from place to place, which is why San Francisco is renowned for its ssourdough - they have the best ambient yeast and bacteria strains.  Give it time.

Source

Maintaining a Starter:
Feeding Schedule:
As a general rule:  Once your starter is healthy and active, bubbling, rising vigorously, and smelling sour, you have two options:

If you store the starter at room temperature, you need to feed it twice a day. Don't wait for the risen starter to collapse before the next feeding, because it messes with the ph levels and can make the yeast and bacteria less active. Every 12 hours, feed it.

If you store the starter in the fridge, you can go up to a week between feedings.  The cold won't kill the yeast and bacteria, it just slows them down. Just make sure the starter doesn't get shoved into a super cold spot and freeze.

The feeding process:
Stir the starter, remove all but 4 ounces of it (you can either discard the rest or use it to bake something). To the remaining 4 ounces, add 4 ounces flour and 4 ounces of purified or bottled water (chlorine in tap water is bad for the yeast and bacteria, and most filters remove chlorine taste, but not all the chlorine). Room temperature starter gets room temperature water; refrigerated starter gets lukewarm water.  Stir until no dry flour remains. Cover with a non-airtight lid.  Refrigerated starters need to stay at room temperature for several hours after feeding so the yeast and bacteria have a chance to wake up and eat.

Source


When simmering black eyed peas, should the water turn brown?

I am sure it is; the pigments in beans can be soluble in water, and there will be more time for them to dissolve when you cook the beans.

If you cook black beans, the water turns nearly black.


Whether you are making the filling or the shell, this is recoverable.

If you are making the filling or center, just melt it down again, and add the additional chocolate. Let it cool and continue your recipe as normal.

If you are making the tempered shell, it is more difficult, but you can melt down, add the additional chocolate, and re-temper.  This may not be worth it since you would need one of the more difficult "from-scratch" tempering methods. Still, you can use this chocolate for another filling, where tempering is not required.


I'd recommend just using regular flour. Since this is not a GF recipe, the quinoa flour is likely added for nutritional reasons, including increasing the protein content. If that is not a concern of yours, just use regular flour. Using whole wheat flour would give you a different flavor profile.


How do you emphasize the yeast flavor in bread?

Use lots of yeast, and short fermentation times. Prefer cake yeast over the dried types.

Fresh yeast has a specific taste and aroma, which disappears during fermentation, giving you a different, bready taste, which is not the same as yeast taste. Pro bakers are normally trying to achieve perfect fermentation, using low yeast amounts and long fermentation types. Household recipes are trying to take a more convenient route, preferring speedy fermentation (so baking times are reduced) and lots of yeast (because 1. this allows for even quicker rising, and 2. some decades ago, yeast quality was not so good, and you had a chance that the culture in a cake you purchased was barely alive, so it wouldn't rise if you used the minimal amount pro bakers with fresh daily supplies went for). This results in lots of unfermented yeast, which gives homemade breads a specific yeasty taste. While pro bakers will try to avoid it, many people associate the taste with pleasant experience of homemade bread made by a beloved family member, and like having it in their own bread.

So, use cake yeast. About the highest amount you can get away with would be 10% (50 g cake yeast per 500 g flour). But if your bread starts getting a whiff of ammonia, reduce it a bit. Ferment at warm temperatures (30°C is good, yeast starts slowing down over 35) and wait for volume doubling at each stage - should take 30-40 minutes per stage. Be careful to not overproof, because with this ammount of yeast, the dough is fickle, and may not rise if proofed for too long.


Why wine _before_ butter in shrimp scampi?

Because you want to cook (reduce) the wine down (or any other liquid).

Also, adding butter, usually cold butter chunks in the pan at the end will help emulsify the sauce.

in the grand scheme of things it is not a big problem if you add wine after the butter, but the result will be different, the wine will taste more raw, the sauce will not be as smooth.

I personally would not throw it out if it is for me only.


I only have experience with metal and non-metal cutlery/food combination. I'm aware this isn't really what you've been asking, but still find it worthwhile to share.

From my personal experience there is a tasting difference between metal (I only know stainless steel) and non-metal (in my example nacre) with eggs. The difference comes from the "mouth-feel" of the spoon. I tried this with the same egg and the spoons both rested at the same place (to compensate temperature differences).

I experienced the metal spoon as cold (even though it was at room temperature), kind of "hiding the eggs flavor", while the nacre spoon was not only warmer, it felt kind of as if it wasn't there or at least much less prominent, offering a fuller flavor of the egg.


They have a different ratio of white sugar to molasses.

Therefore, dark brown sugar is more hygroscopic, and will have a deeper molasses flavor (and color, obviously)  They're pretty similar, and you can usually get away with replacing one with the other, but if you want subtle flavors coming through, dark brown sugar might mask it.

I've seen recommendations that call for substituting light brown sugar with a 50/50 mix of white sugar and dark brown; I don't know how messy (or if even possible) to add molasses to light brwn to get dark brown sugar.


Word plays on the excrement of indigenous moose are common everywhere moose are common. In Alaska, we often refer to "Moose Nuggets" both as novelty food items and as (I kid you not) novelty jewelry items. Moose excrement is much like rabbit excrement in that it comes in big piles of perfectly shaped, tiny turds.

There is a company out of Spokane, Washington that sells Moose Mints:

It's the same kind of silly word play/scatological humor. There is no particular type of candy or kind of mint involved, it's just meant to be cute play on the rather bizarre (and therefor "funny") nature of moose poop.


Candy making in Dutch Oven when there is only one of you

One option is to put the dutch oven on top of something next to your cooling pan then tip it on it's side, still on top, and scrape it from there.  You could probably use an upside down pot or tray, depending on the size of what you have.  This way you won't be holding the weight of the dutch oven so much as just keeping it from rolling side to side.


How can I tell whether my potatoes are waxy vs. floury?

Cut one in half and rub each halves against each other. If water shows up the potatoes will hold together after boiling.
If the halves stick to each other and the juice is more cloudy than clear then the potatoes are starchy and "floury".


Most mole sauces are not particularly perishable, and would be fine for several days at room temperature.  If it has a high salt content, it could be fine for weeks.  Further, in the Northern Hemisphere it's currently winter, so if you live on this side of the planet you don't really have to worry about the jar being exposed to high temperatures.  Tips:

Ship using a carrier who will reliably deliver in 3 days or less
Make sure there is "headroom" in the jars, so that if the mole freezes it doesn't crack the jar
Pad the jar with at least two layers of distinct padding, for example bubble wrap surrounded by crushed paper.
If it's not winter where you are, then you'll want to line the box with insulation and enclosed some ice packs to make sure that the mole doesn't heat up, which could cause it to go bad in less than a day
Avoid mole recipes that include fresh, uncooked fruit purees or pastes; a mole where all ingredients are cooked together for an hour or more is ideal
Label the box "perishble, open and refrigerate immediately"


Do professional chefs ever suffer food poisoning?

More opinion than a back up factual answer, but I knew a Cordon Bleu and CCI trained chef who stated one of his first days in professional training he was required to eat a raw chicken breast.  The reasoning:  He was expected at all times to have a kitchen that was clean enough and product that was fresh and high enough quality that he could do so.  That if he was not confident enough that he would not get sick from eating something raw, that her was never to serve it to someone else.  No matter how diligent he was, there would be times that he would serve something under-cooked or cross contaminated to a customer, so he had to have that confidence that the odds of them getting sick even with a mistake were low.

Using this level of product and practices costs more, and is part of the reason we have to pay more for items from a high quality place.  To protect themselves they must do all they can to protect you.  In normal practice though, they are taking very small tastes. They have trained tastes and can recognize spicing issues and such with a small enough sample to not be high risk.  Sure, it can happen and they may end up sick, but the odds on any given sample are low and it is their profession.  One of the challenges at home is for us to also learn to make those judgements in taste from a small sample while limiting the risks of cross contamination.  I would not eat a piece of raw chicken because I don't have access to the quality and assured freshness that say a Gordon Ramsey has.  Notice though, he tests under cooked, but does not serve that way and will not eat that way when served.  In my kitchen I will taste test repeatedly for fear of killing flavor with too much salt for instance and can usually tell with a pretty small taste.  I do not tend to hesitate even though I have a low tolerance to tainted food due to having gotten food poisoning more than once as a kid.

Where many of us especially struggle compared to a quality professional though is knowing how flavor will develop as the dish continues to cook, such as tasting early in a sauce.  In this case it takes a lot of practice to mentally extrapolate how the flavors will finish when tasting early, and yet that is when you prefer to have many flavors added so the meld together better.  That you can only gain through practice, which means even more tasting and even more need for care in selection high quality items and in avoiding contamination.


Pan release spray (such as PAM in the US) can help hold the paper in place (to aid your piping) and prevent the finished meringue from sticking to the paper once cooled. I've used this technique in both professional kitchens and in my own kitchen at home.

Spray a light coating on the pan, then lay down the paper.

If necessary, spread the coating evenly with your fingers or a towel (for some reasons, the consumer/home versions of these products often emit more of a "blast" compared to the finer "mist" of the professional ones).

Then repeat the process on the top side of the paper.


Short answer: yes. Long answer: depends on what you're cooking.

  Grilling some popular food items can produce cancer-causing compounds called heterocyclic amines (HCAs)

  HCAs, a family of mutagenic and cancer-causing compounds, are produced during the cooking of many animal products, including chicken, beef, pork, and fish. In January of 2005, the federal government officially added HCAs to its list of known carcinogens.

  Cancer Project nutritionists determined that many commonly grilled foods contain alarmingly high levels of HCAs. This table lists the five foods containing the highest levels.

(Source: Cancer Project/The Five Worst Foods to Grill)


I think it is important to defrost the meat completely because it is impossible to season it properly if it is still frozen, you also risk burning the surface while the center is still cold if the steak is thick.

You can put the steak (or other frozen seafood) inside a zipped bag like ziploc, squeeze out the air and zip the bag. Then put the bag under slow running tap water (if the water is too cold, turn on the heater and make it lukewarm), then you can quickly defrost it without damaging the taste (compare with soaking in water directly).

Also now those hi-tech microwaves usually have a defrost function. You just need to input the weight of the food and it would defrost it automatically (e.g. 200g for 2 or 3 mins).


Should you add specific garden-fresh herbs to a stew at the beginning or the end?

It depends on the herbs.

Something like thyme or rosemary or oregano can withstand cooking for a long time and should be removed before eating or blending (IMO)

Other herbs like basil will not withstand long cooking time and should be added raw at the end, or at serving time to have their full flavor shine.


Actually, it sounds like everything went right to me, that's a classic terrine. You simply picked the wrong recipe if you don't want fat - 1/4 of it is lard after all. When you cooked it the fat melted and got squeezed out to the sides, that's perfectly normal.

If you want less fat then replace fat with gelatine which will solidify to hold it all together.


What types of cuts of meats are ideal for (beef) stew?

You want a cut amenable to stewing, which is a low, slow, wet cooking method--its a variant of braising.

These are generally tougher cuts with a lot of connective collagen which will convert to gelatin during the cooking, a part of the animal that works relatively hard in life.  These cuts are flavorful and usually (relatively) inexpensive.

One cut that is often used for this purpose is the chuck (for beef) or butt (for pork), which is the shoulder of the animal.


Making pork pernil, and had a slight "lasagna battery" issue - is it safe to eat?

The best authoritative answer I could find specifically concerning the food safety was from a chemistry professor and science columnist.  According to him, there is no known danger from consuming food that has fallen victim to the 'lasagna battery' effect.

Personally, I have had this happen numerous times and served and eaten the offending food with no perceived effects.


How long will blackberries keep in the refrigerator if they have been cooked with sugar and water added?

It depends. If you used at least 1/3 sugar to 2/3 berries ratio by weight AND let all the water cook off until it jellied a bit, you cooked a jam. It will last for weeks to months to years, and the first spoilage will be mold, which is visible.

If you either used less sugar or did not cook out the water completely, it was not preserved and the shelf life is like that of any other cooked food, 3 to 5 days in the fridge.


Do restaurants regularly disinfect baskets and trays?

I run a restaurant in California and every multi-use item touched by a customer in any way gets washed and sanitized, even if we use wax/paper wrappers.

The actual law is in Chapter 5 of the Cal Code (for California, obviously): http://www.cdph.ca.gov/services/Documents/fdbRFC.pdf

No idea if there's noncompliance rates out there though. (I also don't want to think about that, ewwwww. I hope that means that the restaurant's permits get suspended.)

The actual relevant quote is from Chapter 5:

  114097 . Equipment food-contact surfaces and multiservice utensils shall be effectively  washed to remove or completely loosen soils by
  the use of manual or mechanical methods  necessary, such as the
  application of detergents containing wetting agents and emulsifiers,
  acid, alkaline, or abrasive cleaners, hot water, brushes, scouring
  pads, high pressure sprays, or  ultrasonic devices.


what reasons would you give regarding the unsuitability of butter for deep frying?

The milk solids in the butter will burn and render the butter bitter and whatever you want to dry.
Best fix would be to clarify the butter to remove the milk solids.


This can be one of two things:
1) If you bought this from a store the squash is a bit old. It own't hurt you as mentioned in one of the comments above it just isn't pretty.
2) If this is a fresh squash, if you had a heavy rain storm or a higher than normal concentration of smoke in the area (like forest fires) then it is possible for excess minerals to be deposited in the meat of some veggies (squash is among that list).

Either way it won't hurt you.


Why did my hollandaise sauce break when adding spices?

Adding salt and pepper should usually not lead to a clotted sauce hollandaise.

It happens if the whole thing starts getting to hot.
The next time you do it you can try the following:
Put some ice water aside as you start. If you determine the sauce starts separating beat in a tiny amount of ice water. If you are lucky you can form the emulsion again by that. If it doesn't work you have to start over again.


In order to know how and what to bake in your oven you need to know what temperatures you get from your low and high settings. There's no standards with ovens that have just a low and high setting, so we can't tell you for sure. The low on an oven may be barely enough to warm something or it could be very hot.

You need to work backwards, measuring what temperatures your oven produces and picking recipes which work in that temperature range. I suggest you buy an oven thermometer and record the temperatures produced by each setting over a couple of hours. Test whether using the burners (if your range has gas burners as well) while the oven is on makes a difference in temperature so you know what to expect if you are using both at the same time.

You might get steady and predictable temperatures, or they may go up and down a lot. If they fluctuate more than 10 degrees then you won't be able to bake anything that requires an exact and constant temperature, but there are still many things you can make. Using covered heavy metal pots like dutch ovens will help smooth out temperature fluctuations.

Here are a few things you can make at different temperature ranges once you know what low and high give you. It's not a full list but should give you an idea:

Below 50C: You can dry foods, keep them warm, and rise bread but not actually cook anything
50 - 120C: there's not that much you can bake at this temperature, although you could do a very slow roast or braise as long as it's above 90C or so. If it's too low, say below 70C it's not hot enough to kill off foodborne illnesses
120-160C: this is a good temperature for slow roasting and braising meats, and roasting vegetables. You can also bake some breads and cakes at the high end of this temperature
160-200C: there's a lot you can do in this range: breads, cakes, pies, cookies, brownies, baking potatoes, roasting tender meats and poultry, and baking fish. Casseroles are very forgiving and would be fine anywhere in this range, even if it's fluctuating
200-230C: this is getting hot, things get crispy quickly at this temperature. Some breads (usually thin rather than loaves) need this temperature, you can bake chicken pieces, meatballs, pizza, and fish. You can crisp up the tops of dishes like crumbles and shepherds pie
Above 230C: Thin pizzas like a really hot oven, you need to be careful what you bake in a very hot oven as it can burn very quickly. You can crisp up the tops of dishes but keep an eye on them  and pull them out before they get charred

I suggest you stick to braised meats, casseroles and other dishes that can tolerate the temperature going up and down until you have some experience with the oven, then expand the types of things you bake once you know what to expect.


Optimum Bone To Water Ratio For Pork and Beef Stocks

I don't think you have a problem here. If you find yourself with a rich stock but your recipe needs something gentler, you can simply dilute it as necessary.

When making stock, I follow Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's methods (from his Meat book):

Use as much bones as you can reasonably fit in the stockpot; break them up with a cleaver if necessary.
Include vegetables: onions, carrots and celery are the classics, but some others also work e.g. switch parsnips for carrots to give a paler stock.
Pack the stockpot with the bones and veg until it's mostly full, then cover with water. Use enough water to cover the ingredients, but not much more than that.
Bring to a boil and simmer.
When simmered, strain the liquid and bin the remaining solids.
With just the stock, boil it hard to reduce it down to a smaller volume of richer stock.

I reduce mine until, from a large stockpot's worth of stock, I have as much liquid as fits in a single icecube tray, freeze the cubes of stock and keep them in the freezer in a plastic bag for when I need them. Then, I just dilute to taste if necessary; for example if I want a light stock for cooking rice then just one or two cubes to a litre of water works well. If I want to enrich a stew, I might throw a few cubes straight in.


Use your nose. Bad cheese will smell of ammonia.

Use your finger: Brie should be firm to the touch; if it is too soft, it is too mature and will spoil soon.

If the cheese was improperly stored, then it will age and mature sooner; bad bacteria will start to grow on the cheese.

Throw it away.


What is it about boring, normal ketchup that makes it "fancy"?

Found in this wiki  article , is the following information:

  "Fancy" ketchup

  Some ketchup in the U.S. is labeled "Fancy". This is a USDA grade, relating to specific gravity. Fancy ketchup has a higher tomato solid concentration than other USDA grades.

  USDA Ketchup Grades

Grade           Specific Gravity  Total Solids
Fancy           1.15              33%
Extra Standard  1.13              29%
Standard        1.11              25%

Hope this helps!  :)


Is it safe to keep dried out egg noodles?

My italian grandma does it, but says to really make sure they dry out.

You can dry them out and then freeze them, if it makes you feel any less hesitant.


Is there a bacteria that would eat gluten for cooking?

"How do I make gluten-free bread?" is a question that's answerable simply by searching for "gluten-free bread recipes". The key to those recipes is that they start from a gluten-free flour, and take some steps to ensure that there's enough structure to hold the bread together despite the lack of gluten. There's a bit of variety in gluten-free flours; the good ones are a mix of starches that work better in baking applications than an arbitrary gluten-free flour might.

If in contrast you tried to make gluten-free bread by starting with normal bread and destroying the gluten, you wouldn't have edible bread anymore. You'd have to add other things to create the structure, in which case you might as well just have started with gluten-free flour.


Why do my huge bone broth ice cubes become tiny puddles when melted?

We (humans) can be pretty bad at estimating volume by eye, especially if you're putting a bunch of cubes in one bowl - they don't pack efficiently (there's a lot of air in there). You might not actually be losing that much volume.

For example, I just dumped out an ice cube tray full of cubes, and they looked like a bit over 2 cups, but once melted (and I checked by weight, I didn't lose any!), they're about one cup:

The ice is a bit (~7%) less dense than water, but the rest of that apparent 2x reduction in volume is just the packing inefficiency. Depending on the size/shape of your cubes and the size of the vessel you're melting in, it could get exaggerated even more.


Artificial Wood Chips/Smoke for smoking meat

I'm confused.
You don't want fake smoke but you don't want to use wood? Are you asking for a synthetic substance you can burn that will not be worse for the environment than burning wood?

First of all- burning wood is not bad for the environment- that carbon has not been sequestered and so it would be released into the atmosphere anyway when the wood decayed.

Secondly- mesquite is a cancerous weed here in Texas and I encourage everyone to smoke with it to restore the damaged ecosystem.

Thirdly- You can't fake the taste of smoking with wood. That's the point. Even liquid smoke is actually made by distilling real smoke.

(I originally posted a comment and decided to modify it into an answer.)


Even with a whole bulb, break it into cloves.

Put clove(s) on a cutting board. I usually cut off the root end of each clove. Lay a large chef's knife flat on the clove, then smack the knife to crush the clove.  This breaks the skin of the clove and makes it much easier to peel.


Gas burner is "clicking" - how can I stop this?

I bought a used cooktop off ebay once that did the same thing. I discovered it to be one of the dials which was catching in the ignite position (although the dial didn't look depressed).
Give the dials a good workout when the ignitor is clicking away--you might release the switch.

That fixed it for me and I soon identified the culprit dial. Every so often the constant ignition would come back but I'd just smack the guilty dial and it would stop.


Cooking over high heat causes capsaicin (the hot chemical in chiles) to break down and to vaporize, leaving less in the finished dish. There's a huge difference between cooking in water at 95C vs. in hot oil at 150C; simmering only causes losses of up to 1/4 of the capsaicin, while frying can cause much greater losses, up to 90%.
So by adding the cayenne pepper earlier, you were cooking it at hot oil temperature, and thus lost the majority of the spiciness.  If you'd waited until the vegetables broke down, the water they release lowers the cooking temperature to near boiling, and thus little hotness is lost.


What can I use as a substitute for canned refrigerated biscuits in monkey bread?

Using refrigerated biscuits for monkey bread is actually just a convenient shortcut - if you don't have pre-prepared biscuit dough at hand, you can simply make your own sweet yeast dough from scratch, that's the classic (pre-Pillsbury-can) recipe.

Either find a recipe that uses sweet yeast dough from scratch or substitute your favourite sweet yeast dough. (The Wikipedia page linked above has a link to a recipe, for example.)


Adding citrus to stew while cooking or after

When citrus juice is added to a soup or sauce, it's usually added at the last minute, after cooking. The reason is that when citrus juice is cooked, it looses some of its flavor.
As Juhasz mentioned, dried beans should not be cooked with acid. Acid will make them take a lot longer to cook. It may also make the skins tough and unpleasant to eat. (Unless you removed the skins, as is sometimes done with fava beans.)
You could possibly use that to your advantage if your fava beans are fully cooked before the rest of the stew is done cooking. Adding an acid might stop the beans from getting too soft while the rest of the stew cooks. (Emphasis on "might;" I'm only guessing about this. All the references I've seen are focused on the goal of getting the beans fully cooked, not on stopping them from cooking too much.)
Summary:
Don't add any citrus or vinegar until the fava beans are fully cooked. If you do add some after that point, expect that the citrus juice will lose some flavor the longer you cook it. Add additional lime juice immediately before serving if you want that bright, fresh taste of lime juice.


Yogurt-based sourdough smells like alcohol

You should try the same recipe again, but use a cloth instead of plastic wrap to cover your dough for the fermentation period.  The alcohol smell is the ethanol the yeast is producing, and in my own experience the more anaerobic the greater the level of ethanol produced.


I can't advise on any of these, so I'd normally put this in a comment, but it's a bit long.

Searching on 'how to cook avocado seeds' found a few articles on the topic:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/31737-eat-avocado-seeds-nutrition/ : calls for grinding it in a 'powerful food processor' and warns that it might damage lesser ones.
http://www.wisegeek.com/can-i-eat-avocado-pits.htm : calls for drying it for several days, smashing it with a hammer, and then putting it in a food processor or blender (against warning that it might damage them)
http://eattheweeds.com/forum/index.php?topic=973.0 : mention roasting then grinding (and has links to the various reports on toxicity in animals)
http://www.veggieboards.com/forum/188-raw-food-support-forum/138169-eating-avocado-seeds.html : mentions drying then grating it (but they were making a facial scrub, not food).
http://www.ehow.com/how_8171238_boil-avocado-pit.html : calls for grating it (without drying) then boiling it (but this one also seems to be for facials, not eating)

The only common thing between all of these is that they call for getting it smaller before eating.  Most make it into a powder first if they're planning for consumption.  I don't know if grating it first might make it safe to go through a food processor without damage.  (or if you could grate + boil then process)


If you punch down a no-knead loaf, on average, you'll get a more consistent crumb and fewer large holes in the finished loaf.


How was the usage of yeast for bread discovered?

The first yeast was "just there" - in the environment, everywhere. People discovered very early on that leaving the dough (or just a flour-water slurry) out would lead to it getting "sour" and "bubbly", thus leavening the bread: What we today call sourdough is in fact a mixture of yeasts and bacteria (lactobacillae).

The origins of bread-making are so ancient that everything said about them must be pure speculation. (M.G. Gaenzle: Encyclopedia of Food Microbiology)

Early sources are the Bible (-> the explicit demand for of "unleavened" or "unsoured" bread during Passover suggesting that otherwise was the norm) and sources from Ancient Egypt.
The "modern" yeast that was explicitly added was mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis historia as a foam skimmed from beer:

In Gaul and Spain, where they make a drink by steeping corn in the way
that has been already described - they employ the foam which
thickens upon the surface as a leaven: hence it is that the bread in
those countries is lighter than that made elsewhere.
Source: The Natural History, Chapter 12: Wheat. Pliny the Elder.
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and
Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

Sources from the 18th century describe how the yeast from the brewing process (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) was used for baking, leading to the "specialized strains" of bakers' yeast cultivated separately when the brewers switched to bottom-fermenting yeast (S. pastorianus) in the 19th century, which preferred cooler temperatures and was not as easy to harvest as the top-fermenting types.
The use of separately cultivated yeast allowed to bake "milder" breads than the sourdough types with their typical acidic undertones but is restricted to certain flour types.


Using a Convection oven. Do I use the same temperature as a Fan oven?

The temperature of the food raises faster in case of the oven with a fan, so you have to set a higher temperature in a conventional oven than a fan (Convection) oven.
It is not possible to have any conversion chart as between them, because how fast the temperature of food raises depends on the food itself. So, some experienced has to be gained while using conventional(without fan) oven keeping in mind the first point I mentioned- "In most of the cases, temperature you have to set this time will be higher than an oven with a fan".


What is the best time and temperature for taste when cooking a salmon fillet in the oven?

When you're determining the doneness by time, you're doing it wrong :)

There are too many differences between individual fish to go just by weight, thickness, oven temperature, and time. The best way is to measure the internal temperature (stick a thermometer into the thickest part of the fillet); I like about 120 F (50 C) for salmon (carryover cooking raises the temperature a little higher after taking it out of the pan), but then it has to be good quality fish. You need to check early and often, because it can go from undercooked to overcooked fairly quickly. Now, like zanlok says, my experience is mostly with pan frying, and I'd expect using the oven would be a bit slower than using a pan because of slower heat transfer; so you should be a bit safer.

If you don't have a meat thermometer, an easy way to test fish for doneness is to look for translucency. Salmon can still be just a little translucent in the middle. Also, properly done fish flakes along the natural "seams". Another nice trick (which doesn't work for boneless fillets - sorry) is to find a bone in the thickest part of the fish: if it comes out fairly easily, then the connective tissues have mostly dissolved and it's done.

That leaves the temperature for your oven. I would go with very high - that way the fish gets the least possible time to dry out (which is going to be a big risk with this cooking method, I would think - unless you wrap your salmon in bacon or something like that). At a guess, I'd try 450 F (230 C).


Canola oil is a neutral oil (meaning it has little/no flavor of itself) so you need another neutral oil to work. If you want to avoid vegetable oil (which in USA usually means soybean oil), you can try peanut oil, sunflower oil, or safflower oil. These are all neutral oils and should not change the flavor of the recipe.


Do bread bins really keep homemade breads fresh?

I would avoid anything that can't have a good wash.  I've had wooden bread bins in the past and crumbs in crevices can go mouldy and spread the mould to bread until you give up and throw the bread bin away
These days I either use the enamelled cast iron pot I bake in (and which therefore fits my boules perfectly) or a plastic box that originally held a lot of biscuits (if I bake in a loaf tin or use the bread machine).  Both can go through the dishwasher; the cast iron additionally gets sterilised at 240°C before baking.  The plastic box is presumably more airtight, but both keep home made bread fine for a few days, which is as long as I need.  It's important to make sure the bread is completely cool before putting it in, to avoid condensation, but not to leave it too long.


how is flaxseed processed for consumption

Seeds are inside the dried fruit capsule. There is a wikipedia acticle on flax which covers harvesting and processing.

Seed capsules are harvested by cutting and thrashing and broken to release the seeds, not really any processing other than cleaning and separation.

Another link.


What can I substitute for lager beer in a chili recipe?

Beef broth would be what I would go with if I had to substitute beer in chili.  While obviously not the same, it still has a rich flavor that should hold up well.


The Dutch make a few dishes similar to what you describe.  (note: I'm assuming that your 'like a cordon-bleu' doesn't mean it's breaded stuffed chicken, as you mentioned it was vegetarian)

If they're smaller (one or two bites), they'd be bitterballen.  They're normally meat-filled, but they can be filled with vegetables, too.

If they were larger, they'd be kroketten

update: to clarify, I am not Dutch, and moved from the Netherlands 30 years ago.  As a non-native Dutch speaker, I had (possibly incorrectly) assumed that 'kroketten' was a class of food / style of preparation.  From Marc Luxen's answer and Cerberus's comments, I'm going to assume that the term is similar to American 'burger'.  If someone ordered a 'burger' and you gave them a veggie burger, it'd not be what they expected.  (and similarly, we have 'cheeseburger', 'veggieburger' and other compound words that are more specific)

(and there hadn't been complaints about people answering in comments, I wouldn't have made this an answer ... as I had to make an assumption about what made it 'cordon bleu'-like.  I assumed something stuffed, then breaded & fried, possibly with cheese or other dairy).

... and I'm making this community wiki so that any native Dutch person can correct it, as I don't know how to undo it being marked as correct.


What rice should I use when a recipe asks for "short grain rice"?

Basically:

"Long grain" is just a generic classification for rice whose milled grains are at least three times as long as they are wide. (Don't worry; you don't have to be good at math to love rice.) Common varieties are usually simply labeled "long grain," but you might know them as basmati, Carolina, jasmine or Texmati.
With "medium grain" rice, the grains are less than three times as long as they are wide. Look for bomba, carnaroli, arborio, vialone, Valencia or Thai sticky rice, to name a few.
This is the last one that involves math, we promise. "Short grain" rice indicates grains that are less than twice as long as they are wide. To confuse things a bit, though, medium grain and short grain rice are often combined into this one category, which includes sushi and CalRose rice.

Source: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/guides/rice.php
Short grain rice isn't a specific rice. It is a group of rice that shared similar short grained characteristics. Generally speaking, short grain rice is short and stubby. When cooked, it will be chewier and stickier than its longer grained counterparts. You can tell they are short grain by what they look like.
Use this picture as a reference for what they should look like. And many rice packages even write the words "long grain" and "short grain" on the front.


Recalling poultry known to have Salmonella

You may have good food safety practices but not everyone does, and mistakes happen. A hurried food service worker accidentally cross-contaminating some food could be deadly to someone with a weak immune system, or make someone with a strong immune system very ill (I've been there - awful!). Recalling the food reduces the risks from mistakes.


Where can I find a quality comparison for Zwilling Knives?

There's a serious dearth of information about the differences between the Henckels product lines, but from what I can tell:

The biggest difference is the handle design, which impacts the balance.  You'll want to hold the knives to find which is right for you.
Stamped blades are used in the following lines: Twin Signature, Twin Gourmet, International Everedge, International Everedge Plus, International Fine Edge Pro, International Fine Edge Synergy, International Eversharp.  Source: Henckels Site.
Forged blades are used for the following lines: Twin Profection, Twin Four Star and Four Star II, Twin Cuisine, Twin Professional S, Twin Select, International Classic, International Forged Premio, and International Forged Synergy.  Sources: Henckels site, Squidoo, Amazon
Microserrated blades are used in the following product lines: Eversharp Pro, Everedge, Everedge Plus (Source: Henckels International website)
All but the Twin Cermax line are X50CrMoV15 steel, hardened to 54-56 HRC (some reports say up to 57 Rockwell C).  This means they're slightly softer than Wusthof (which now hardens many of their products to 58 HRC), but less brittle.
Twin Cermax uses special, superhard (66 HRC) MC66 steel, meaning they take a sharper edge and hold it MUCH longer than the other lines.  This is probably a clone of the ZDP-189 supersteel. (source)

The microserrated blades aid in slicing, but hurt the ability to chop and mince.  They WILL help retain a cutting edge longer, but also cannot be sharpened normally.

Edit:
Personally, I've not been impressed by Henckels knives.  Wusthof knives strike me as better quality at a similar price, and Victorinox is almost as good but a lot cheaper.  Why do I say this?  Well, Wusthof blades aren't as thick and unwieldy as Henckels, and they harden the steel to 58 Rockwell, so it takes a better edge. Victorinox is comparable hardness to Henckels, but about half the price, and the shapes of the blades just seem so perfect, with a deeper belly to slice thick items, and awesome grippy Fibrox handles.

Edit 2: 5 March 2016  - Henckels appears to have moved to a 57-58 HRC steel standard now for many of their blades, and switched to a narrower 15 degree bevel.  This means they are capable of finer cuts, but the edges may be a tad more fragile. Twin Profection is now 60 HRC. This means that steel-on-steel, the knives should now be competitive with Wusthof. The Twin Signature and International Forged Classic still use the inferior 53-55 HRC steels. Victorinox has also raised the prices on their Fibrox-handled knives.  Personal opinion, they're still a much better value than Henckels, but Henckels may be more competitive with Wusthof now.


What are the differences between a Dutch oven and ceramic casserole?

First, fully generically:

The main distinction made by The New Food Lover's Companion (Fourth edition, 2007) is that a "casserole dish",

  can be glass, metal, ceramic, or any other heatproof material,

while a Dutch oven is

  usually made of cast iron.

Another distinction is that the Dutch oven may be a kettle, which typically implies the presence of an overarching handle from which the entire pot may be hung (as over a fire), while no such option is offered up for their definition of a casserole.

This is generally confirmed by the fact that while, yes, both we and the marketplace (sellers) seem often to use the terms casserole and Dutch oven interchangeably, whenever the vessel is equipped with an overarching handle retailers seem to avoid referring to it as a casserole. More specifically, when you turn to high end concerns in service to restauranteurs, such as here, there's no confusion on the matter. Casseroles invariably lack overarching handles and, unlike Dutch ovens, may come in quite small sizes and don't necessarily require lids. So while Dutch ovens may or may not have overarching handles, they invariably have lids and are invariably substantial in size. The compiled side-by-side photos below, as extracted from WebstaurantStore, goes to show just how severe the contrast can be between the two items.

Second, to the question of browning:

Here are a couple of examples which seem to speak for themselves, as far as how well ceramics or ceramic coatings can be expected to perform when baking breads.

Williams & Sonoma offers a Cast-Iron Loaf Pan (photo below) about which it says,

  The specially formulated black matte interior enamel contains traces of quartz, giving it additional heat resistance and a rougher surface resulting in better browning.

Williams & Sonoma also offers a Bread Cloche (photo below), for which it makes the following claim,

  Duplicating the benefits of baking in a brick oven, the ceramic bread cloche turns out individual loaves with tender, moist interiors and crispy, evenly golden crusts.

I'm sure there exist any number of additional examples of bakeware, each of which possesses similar properties to these. (The links provide a good deal more information.) I hope this however is enough to help you take the plunge, so to speak, toward this option if that's what you're interested in doing.


How to solve under-baked cookie centers?

I agree with @Catija completely. Your oven may be running too hot. If the outside of the cookie is 'cooking' more quickly, or sooner than the middle, then your oven is too hot. Trying backing the temperature down 30-40F and see how you fair. Going to a hotter oven, would exacerbate the situation, since the outside would be crunchy and set, while the inside raw.


Baked eggplant is bitter - is there a way to fix it?

Some extra salt will help hide the bitterness, but obviously that only goes so far before it's too salty.


Generally lowfat sauces use tricks to get texture and some semblance of flavour. Starches and thickeners give the illusion of richness, while vast quantities of salt somewhat mask the lack of cheese and butter. Anyone with half a palette can tell at first taste though.

Make it seldom, but make it properly.


Is there a rule of thumb on vinegar's abilities as a preservative?

is it solely by virtue of its acidic
  content?

Yes, not a lot of biochemistry is happy living at pH 2 - and the stuff that can live there is already happily living in your gut with a ph of 1

  is there a kind of ratio (or other metric) of vinegar to know whether something needs to be refrigerated to keep from spoiling?

You mean foods already packaged in vinegar? It would depend on how well they had been cooked/sterilized before packaging and how strong the vinegar is.
Industrially made pickles will be a lot cleaner than something you pickle at home, but store bought pickles are likely to use much cheaper, more dilute vinegar than your grandmother did.

  what components can act to counteract vinegar's ability to preserve food?

Anything too alkali will neutralise the vinegar's acidity

  can vinegar stabilize anything that otherwise would spoil?

Not necessarily, it has to be something where the vinegar can penetrate into the food - it's not going to preserve steaks as well as vegetables. And of course the vinegar taste is going to help if you are trying to preserve say strawberries!
Also fungal spores can probably survive dormant in vinegar (if not grow) - fungal spores can survive dormant pretty much anything.


Cook the flour with some butter or oil before adding to the soup. You are making what is called a roux which is a traditional French method for thickening sauces and soups

Measure roughly two parts of general purpose flour and one part of fat (or equal parts by weight), and cook until bubbling and the raw flour taste has gone, or it is lightly brown

Approximately one teaspoon of flour per litre of soup

The other option is to use arrowroot, which is an alternative starch to cornflour


What kind of frosting doesn't need to be refrigerated?

I've never had a buttercream frosting consisting of nothing but butter, powdered sugar and vanilla (and often cocoa or coloring) go bad. Even when it's got a little milk in it. There are two reasons for this. One, it doesn't last long enough. Hey! Where'd that last piece of cake go? Two, though I'm no expert, I think it is the high amount of sugar as Michael alluded to. I've had the infrequent cake with a piece or two that have hung around for a week without any problems other than a little drying.


First, it is very possible to make good caramel without stirring or burning. What you need is the right vessel and good temperature control. Choose a pot (or also a pan, if you won't be adding anything to the hot caramel) that has an even heat conduction without hot spots, and choose its size such that your sugar is less than 1.5 cm deep, but more than 3 mm. Then heat on mid-high, but do not go full strength on the burner. I use the dry method with this, and always end up with great caramel without any burning.

The thickness of the sugar is very important, if you make it thicker, the bottom will turn to caramel and burn before the top has even melted. Less than 3 mm can work, but it goes through the stages so quickly that it is very difficult to work with.

If you use this method, you will see the bottom getting liquid and coloring while you still have cold, unchanged sugar crystals on top. Do not stir them in! Just wait until they have melted naturally, no matter how  much it looks like it needs stirring. Else you end up with a mess.

You can use this principle with the wet method too, especially if you are not making caramel but candies at a temperature below caramelization. You can have it deeper then, since the convection in the syrup helps the upper layers heat up.

Once your caramel is at the needed point, you can start adding your dairy for making the soft caramels candies.

My second point: I am surprised that you are getting that crystalization when stirring. It is common enough with sugar syrup, which contains water, but if you are heating with the wet method, all water should have gone before you enter caramel stage, and I haven't had candy crystalize on me at that point. So make sure you use a thermometer to determine when the caramel is ready for the next step, and that you are adding sufficient dairy.


How to maintain the calories in rice (which were present in it in its raw form) after cooking it?

I'm afraid you interpret the tables wrong. You aren't destroying calories, you are adding water (=0 cal) to the dry rice. As the rice absorbs the water, you are in fact measuring rice + water for cooked rice.

This is true for calorie tables that measure by volume (like here) and by weight.

If you are cooking your rice by boiling and straining, you are effectively losing a few calories due to the starch that gets drained with the water, but that's not what you asked here.


If the egg whites are old, is it safe to make Italian meringue?

In short, if they are safe to eat cooked still they are likely safe to eat in a meringue.

There is a higher chance of salmonella on the outside of shell than the inside. 2 Weeks for eggs in the fridge is not very long. To find out a bit about the bacteria actions within the egg, submerge the whole egg fully in 2 cup a measuring cup of water. Make sure there is a couple inches of water above the egg when you first put it in. If the egg stands up, it is not super fresh, but also not spoiled, if it floats then it is not very fresh. If it jumps straight to the top of the water and bobs around, I wouldnt make meringue with it.

As the egg ages and bacteria develops inside, gases are released which will make the egg float. Eggs that float are still edible, but not super fresh and should be cooked more thoroughly.

This is a rough guide, but it has always served me well, I learned it from dumpster diving.


Is sourdough more resistant to mold than other breads?

The short answer is yes, sourdough breads are generally more resistant to fungus due to the fermentation process of the sourdough starter. The reasons for this are only now becoming understood.  This study from the Journal of Applied and Environmental Microbiology says:

  Sourdough is different from traditional bread because it takes an
  extra fermentation step, which uses lactic acid bacteria to metabolize
  sugars and add that particular spunky flavor. The researchers found
  that during sourdough production, lactobacilli bacteria convert
  another acid found in bread flour--linoleic acid--into hydroxy fatty
  acids that resist fungus.

So there you have it, it's possibly better for you, tastes good (I think so), and lasts longer without going moldy.


Grease fires do happen with self cleaning ovens, it's why I stopped using that feature: I didn't feel like I could leave it to get on with the cycle safely and I couldn't sit there for hours.

Cleaning it afterwards isn't a big deal, the grey dust is ash and you can vacuum a lot of it out once the oven is clean. If any ash remains good old soapy water will get off the rest.


Why does does vegan pulled pork specifically require jackfruit?

It is simply because jackfruit has a consistency and texture that makes it very well suited in a substitute for pulled pork.

Apparently, you can also use hearts of palm, but according to an earlier question, it's harder to acquire and not as good as jackfruit. Here's a mushroom-based recipe. A google search for "vegan pulled pork -jackfruit" renders many more recipes without jackfruit.

In Sweden, where I live, we have pulled pork substitutes made from soy protein available in grocery stores. Perhaps something similar is available to you.


Can I substitute brown or confectioner's sugar for granulated sugar in sugar cookies?

I've done this before, and you won't get exactly the same cookie as you got before.

Confectioner's sugar is a total bomb. Don't bother.

Dark brown sugar makes darker cookies, with a chewier texture, which keeps longer.

This isn't always a bad thing. Several of my cookie recipes I thought were a bit dry were saved by DBS. It added a nice depth to the flavor, as well.


Why does salt taste different in different dishes?

Two properties of salt that oregano doesn't have:

water solubility: you drop salt in water, you put it on chicken, you put it in tomato sauce.  Most or all of it ends up dissolving, making it easier to mix.

osmosis: related to above.  Sprinkle some salt on raw meat.  Come back in 5 minutes and you'll see beads of liquid on the meat, almost like it was sweating.  That's a combination of salt dissolving into the liquid on the surface of the meat, and osmosis pulling less salty water out of the cells of the meat to balance the salty water on the surface.  In 10 minutes, some of that liquid will have disappeared.  Part of this might be due to evaporation, but part of this is due to the liquid pulling salt into the cells, which changes the equilibrium and allows for the cells to draw liquid back in (principle behind brining meats).

Salt has a natural way of penetrating organic matter that oregano and many other seasonings don't.  There are other mechanisms at play too--salty foods can make you salivate, which may make something feel "juicier" in your mouth.  I'd highly recommend the Good Eats episode on salt as a start.


Why does fruit from a particular market go bad so quickly?

Shelf life and taste of fruit are inversely correlated. A few factors off the top of my head are:

It is extremely difficult to breed a fruit variety that's good at two things at once. The varieties that are bred for long life are not bred for taste.
It is "very expensive" for a plant (metabolically) to produce aroma, it's also expensive to produce color, and it's expensive to produce sugar. All three at once are really rare.
fruit that has been picked earlier (less ripe) lasts longer and looks better, and is less tasty.
fruit that has been stored under refrigeration lasts longer, and is less tasty.
fruit that has more aroma is more attractive to insects, whose bite sites spoil a fruit directly and also create openings for bacteria and mold to enter
fruit that is riper (and tastes better) is easier damaged during handling, which makes it easy for bacteria and mold to enter

Combine that with a segmented market. On the one side, you have the buyers who are not very sensitive to taste, and are sensitive to convenience and price. They buy at supermarkets, and tend to choose their fruit by looks. Then you have farmers who corner the "high-taste" market niche with fruit that is optimized for taste, and they find buyers who are willing to pay more and give up the convenience of shopping at a supermarket in order to get the best taste. These farmers don't have the incentive or resources to optimize for traits that diminish taste, and sometimes are against it because of personal conviction. These farmers tend to sell at open-air markets.

Bottom line, if you value shelf life very highly, the best strategy for you is to buy your fruit from suppliers who optimize for it, in that case the supermarkets.


Dump pearl onions (with skin) into boiling water (on high heat)
Bring water back to boil
After 1-2 mins, take the onions out, and dump them in cold water (or ice bath)
After 1-2 mins, take the onions out of cold water
Take an onion, hold it between your index finger and thumb, and squeeze. The onion will pop right out of the skin. Repeat this step for each onion.

Hope you find this useful...


Plain chocolate Chips same as semi sweet chips

Yes, dark chocolate of around 35-60% cocoa is essentially semisweet. Higher cocoa percentages are bittersweet.


Technology improvements of microwave ovens for thawing and reheating

By the late 1990s, most microwaves had turn-tables in them.  This was to prevent standing waves from heating up specific points within the oven, while ignoring others.  It's better than nothing, but it's still not perfect.

There's a newer system in some models where the cylcotron itself moves, so that the food can remain stationary, and they can better control how the hot spots / dead spots move within the oven.  I've personally never used one of these new models, so I can't comment on how well it works.

Other recent-ish features that you might be interested in are what my model calls 'turbo-defrost', where you tell it what weight and type of item you're defrosting, and it runs through some prepared plan.  (in some cases, it'll beep and ask you to separate things ... eg, for chicken pieces).

Some also let you chain commands together -- so you can tell it to defrost for 5 minutes, then switch to 50% power for 2 minutes, then high for 2 minutes.  (I find it to be more confusing than it's worth; you might be more comfortable using it)

There are also 'combi' ovens that can defrost via microwave, then switch to conventional oven to get some browning.  (I've never used one, however).


In preparation, there shouldn't be differences beyond the obvious (cook the fresh, drain the canned, etc), but the flavor will be different. Canned yams are frequently packed in syrup, which will make them very sweet. Some people think that canned goods taste "like can" as well. On the other side, the method used to cook the yams will effect the texture and flavor (boiled will have less flavor and be softer than roasted, etc).


Fiber Drink that are homogenous solutions

Think soluble fiber. The following excerpt from WebMD explains very well the difference between soluble and insoluble fiber and lists foods where each can be found.

Soluble vs. Insoluble Fiber
Soluble fiber dissolves in water. Insoluble fiber does not. [...]
Soluble fibers attract water and form a gel. [...]


Can you make croissants with compound butter?

I have made garlic-butter laminated savoury rolls, using roughly the same method as for croissants. It works reasonably well, but I have found that I need to grind the garlic pretty finely. If there are lumps they end up tearing the dough during the lamination. Another issue is that it's even more important to keep everything cold. I work on a chilled marble slab, and that works pretty well.