Can I marinate chicken that has already been cooked?

I don't think you will get the same effect by marinating chicken after it's cooked. It will not absorb much of the marinade.


Sugar isn't added to baked goods just to sweeten them: it also does things to the fats and starches to help create the texture. This is related to why some recipes require castor sugar (i.e. very fine crystals) and others do not.

One solution you could experiment with is changing the sugar. Dextrose is noticeably less sweet than cane sugar, for instance, for the same quantity.


Tips for reheating food in the microwave

The best advice I can give is that you're not going to want to use full power very often.  I find that food tastes much better if you cook it for longer at 60 or 70% power then if you blast it quickly at 100%.  This is especially true for proteins like chicken.  I guess this allows for slightly slower, more even heating without destroying all the water in the food.  The extra minute or two of time is worth the huge difference in the final texture.

I find that pretty much any vegetable or rice-based dish will reheat "ok" in the microwave, because of the nature of the microwave itself, which works very well for steaming.  When reheating stuff like this, throw a tsp or Tbsp of water in the container, and place a lid on it (but do not seal the lid, you want it vented slightly).  Again, stick with less than full-power.

I know someone who swears by boiling a glass of water in the microwave first to fill it with moist, warm air.  Supposedly it helps with evenness and faster cooking, and reduces drying out the food; I don't know if I buy it but thought I'd mention it so you and the community can comment/decide.  I understand the idea, but feel like you'd lose so much of that just opening the door to swap the water for your food.  If you do go this route, it's very important that you understand superheating water, which is dangerous.  Don't try to boil water in the microwave without reading that link.

If you're adventurous, there's a line of Corningware Microwave Browning products (scroll about halfway down the page where it mentions browning) - I was given one a half a year ago and was surprised at how well it works.  There's a lining of microwave-safe metal (I believe tin oxide) inside the bottom of the casserole/skillet, and you heat the casserole by itself for a minute or two first which gets that blazing hot.  When you drop food on it, it actually sizzles, so now you're using a combination of normal microwave cooking and direct, skillet-like heat.  I've had a lot of good luck reheating things like pork chops and keeping/adding a crust to them.

Also, there's a book, Microwave Cooking For One, and an accompanying website, that are both supposed to be really useful.  I don't own the book but have heard from friends who do own it that you can learn a lot about general microwave use from it - even if you don't plan on cooking from "scratch" and are just reheating leftovers.

All that said, I completely agree with Jefromi's comment.  90% of the food I reheat is reheated in the toaster oven, either preheated like a regular oven, or under the broiler depending on what the food is.  You might take an extra 5 or even 15 minutes to reheat this way, but the difference is unbelievable, and the convenience is still the same - I just put whatever I want to reheat into a casserole dish and throw it in, sometimes covered, sometimes not.  So, cleanup still only involves one dish, and you can eat directly out of it (though it will be very hot, so be careful!) Once you get into the habit of using the toaster oven, you'll find a way to make up for the small amount of extra time - for example I often I empty the drainboard while it preheats, and wash dishes or something similar while the food heats up.


If you can, put all grains you buy in impenetrable containers as soon as you get them home, and freeze them. Keeping rice (or any other grain) in the freezer for a full day will help. Keeping the grain in the freezer for a week will kill just about any creepy crawly that's already in the rice, the impenetrable container will keep new visitors out. Glass or hard plastic containers (like tupperware) are impenetrable, Ziploc style bags may not be.

If you don't have room in the freezer for all of a new rice purchase, go ahead and repackage it in the impenetrable containers, and rotate the containers until they have all had at least a full day in the freezer (a week is better).

Get rid of anything that already seems like a breeding ground. Thoroughly go through all of your food storage space, get rid of anything infested, put all you can save into impenetrable containers, and consider a (hopefully) one time use of a pesticide.

Also, the cooler you can keep the stuff that the bugs like, the better. Bugs that are well fed and warm are happy, happy bugs.

One more thing. I don't know if it actually works, but it can't hurt: Try putting a few bay leaves in each container of rice. It's a bit folklore-ish, but the countermeasure has been touted for decades, maybe longer.

I assume you soak the rice before cooking and get rid of anything that floats?


Cezve doesn't leak with cold water in it, leaks after heating

You would have to find the crack (presumably there is a crack which is tight when cold, but opens with heating due to thermal expansion) and then you would need to fix it, or have someone else fix it, with a food safe (lead and cadmium free) solder or brazing material. Whether this is economical or not depends on many factors:

Can you do it yourself, do you know somone who can, or will you need to hire a professional
Are professionals who do "pot and pan repair" easily found in your area or not?
How much does a new coffeepot (cezve) cost relative to the cost of getting it fixed?


It's almost certanly a variety/potato age thing.

There are thousands of varieties of potato and different countries grow different ones based on climate and local taste. You can group potatoes in to two sets:

Thicker skinned potatoes that spend longer in the ground as they grow slowly. Varieties sold this way tend to be be a colder weather crop.
The other sort are thin skinned, waxier varieties which include 'new' potatoes. Varieties suited to this grow faster and tend to grow better than the other sort in warmer weather.

There are 'waxy' firm varieties of the first group but most would be termed 'floury'. These are dryer potatoes and make great mash and chips and roasts and fluffy baked potatoes.

Waxy potatoes are better for holding together in dishes and salads. These just don't crisp up as well. I assume you're just getting these varieties.


Well-kneaded dough should be smooth and supple.  Once you have experience, you can usually tell by the feel of the dough.

Sometimes the "skin" of the dough breaks over the surface; this also indicates that you're done kneading.

The classic test is to poke the dough with your finger: if it springs back, it's been kneaded enough.

(Incidentally, the way you know the dough is finished rising is that it doesn't spring back when you poke it).


I've used xanthan gum with great success. You can get it in powdered form at places like Whole Foods and health food stores. You might find guar gum also, although I haven't tried it. The teaspoon measurement is about right for a standard home recipe that makes a quart of ice cream, although you can add a quarter teaspoon at a time and stop when the consistency looks about right.  Add it while spinning the mix in a blender to prevent clumps. If you add too much, it'll become thick and sticky like peanut butter.

I'm assuming they're calling for some kind of stabilizer because Baileys has a lot of water in it, but you may find that you don't need the full teaspoon.


How long will tuna salad stay good refrigerated?

U.S. Gov't Food Safety Department says 3-5 days at 40º or below (where your fridge should be set).  The site also says that tuna salad does not freeze well.

For more info:  http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/storagetimes.html


Tomato sauce is not made by just pureeing tomatoes.

This is not a recipe site, but searching online will find you many recipes for a simple tomato sauce suitable for putting on a pizza. They will generally include other ingredients (such as salt, sugar, and onions) and include some cooking time.


If you're located in a place where premade pie crusts are available, then you're located in a place where premade cookie dough should also be available.
Pie crusts contain no sugar, no eggs, no leavening, no flavoring. Adding any of these things after the fact is likely to result in a tough, uneven mess of a cookie. I wouldn't suggest it.
If you already have the pie crusts and need to use them up (for something other than pie), you can try rolling out the crusts pretty thin, cutting them into wedges, frying them, and immediately after they come out the oil, rolling them in powdered sugar. Serve with a nice fruit jam.


Should chicken be cooked beforehand while making pizza?

Cook the chicken ahead of time. I doubt your pizza cooking time and your chicken cooking time will be a perfect match, and it is more likely than anything that your chicken would be undercooked. That would not be good for anyone.

If you are worried about the chicken being dry on your pizza, you can try par-cooking the pieces instead of fully cooking them (though that may be a little dangerous, too), or you can add the cooked pieces to the pizza after it has begun baking.


What you tried is nowhere enough salt for the fish.

Both methods, drying it out in a bag of salt, and brining it in a saturated salt solution, are common. But this kind of high-salt brining is not similar to typical vegetable brining which is done with low-salt solutions.

When they say a "saturated" solution, they mean it. The Internet says that this happens at 35 to 40 g salt per 100 ml of water. I have never measured it, but it is obviously a lot more than your 5 g of salt per 600 ml.

There are also other ways of gauging the saltiness of your solution. I found a recipe with the directions to keep adding salt until a fresh egg or a cleaned potato floats on top. It also gave 48 hours as the brining time. This will probably have less salt than a saturated solution, but obviously, what you want is a very strong salt solution. I think that you can go with the actual saturated one (keep adding until some doesn't dissolve), it is unlikely to be an economic problem for you to add enough salt to saturate it.


Summer sausage is cooked in the smoking process, and fermented, which kills bacteria and gives it a long fridge life.  Some summer sausages don't even require refrigeration until opened! Wet, raw sausage, on the other hand, is asking for trouble.

I'm sure your husband will forgive your fussiness when you bring him kielbasa and a nice chunk of aged cheddar, open in the same container, and ready to munch!


Sugar / caramel melts far above the boiling point of water. So apples are likely to cook and going to be soft faster than the caramel can melt. The only things I can suggest are to make a caramel sauce or pour liquid caramel onto the (sautéed or somehow else processed) apples. (Another option would be using a salamander or even a burner like the ones to make créme brulée but I don't think you have such an oven or burner.) Making the caramel more acidic may be an solution. I don't know if it lowers the melting point of the caramel.
I've tried something similiar with sautéed peaches some months ago. I thought of some crispy, caramelly stuff. Same problem: peaches mushy, caramel still solid.


How to salvage a totally nuked cast iron dutch oven?

Simply put you nuked your food. The temperature got too high too quickly and the moisture in the pot boiled off faster than it could be replaced by the meat, and then all the fat and juice plus the meat in contact with the pot's surface got charred on. Fat from the meat got stuck all around the pot and adhered, and the heat was intense enough to blacken the surface of the meat. It sounds like temperatures were far higher than 450F.

The good news is that there's probably nothing wrong with your dutch oven that you can't fix with some steel wool and good old fashioned elbow grease. The blackened stuff at the bottom is simply charred meat, I don't imagine the metal underneath is damaged, so scour it clean and re-season it. The lid got covered with lots of fat which has yet to come off which is why it's sticky, lots of dishwashing liquid and more scouring should fix that too. Personally I've never had any luck with boiling or baking char off pots and pans.

My own experience with dutch ovens is that they work better if you have heat coming from all around rather than just at the bottom. If you only have bottom heat it has to be more intense to heat the whole thing, and as campfires are not an exact science it's easy to accidentally char the bottom. Having less intense heat on the bottom and putting a shovelful of coals on the lid gives a nice even heat.


Can I use icing sugar instead of caster sugar? Are they the same thing?

Icing sugar is much finer than caster sugar.  However this way round you can probably get away with it ("probably" because without the exact recipe it's hard to tell).  I have recipes for butter biscuits that differ only in one using caster sugar and the other using icing sugar, for example, and cake recipes that use icing sugar. Icing sugar clumps badly so can be less convenient, plus it used to be more expensive though these days there's nothing in it.

You must work by weight when substituting between coarse and fine sugar, as they pack very differently into volume measures.  If your recipe works by volume, you shoudl go out and get the right sugar.

What you can't do is use caster instead of icing sugar in icing, as there's not enough liquid for it to dissolve.


Fresh Japanese green tea leaves (even after they're processed) should look green. The Japanese steam the leaves which is why the leaves maintain the green colour. However, you've to keep the green tea dry. If it's exposed for too long (or too often) to air and humidity, the leaves will start to oxidise and turn yellow. In such cases, it also often starts to loose it's aroma and flavour.

I hope this helps!


What is the easiest way to measure bread's rising?

Do you have a large plastic container? Something like this:
.

Use a non-permanent marker on the outside to mark the initial volume.

A small diameter will make it easier to monitor the volume.


Which fresh herbs goes well with an omelette?

Plain omelette: parsely and chives.

I'd be careful with woody, stalky herbs like rosemary; not because of the taste but because I don't want to chew on the hard pieces. Keep in mind that the omelette does not get cooked as long as other dishes where these work well.

Then depending on the filling: anything with cream and fish may work with dill. Italian style with sage and thyme. (Not herbs, but for completeness: Paprika with mushrooms and red wine. Garlic with fried onions.)


Can I make meringues with commercial egg whites?

Egg-whites in a carton are usually pasteurized. Pasteurized eggs are not great for meringue because the heat from the pasteurization process negatively affects the proteins in the whites that make for good meringue. With a lot of whipping (and more cream of tartar or other stabilizers) pasteurized egg whites (whether from pasteurized eggs or from cartons) can make meringue though it most likely won't be as stiff as those from non-pasteurized eggs.

I would suggest getting regular eggs and trying to use the left-over yolks for something like creme brulee.


We make vegetarian chili every few months, and use a combination of many kinds of beans. You can use kidney, cannelini (white kidney beans), pinto, small red, small white, roman, etc. We like Goya's beans. If the meat is tough, you may want mushier beans to add textural difference, so you might want to avoid black beans or black-eyed peas. (Unless they're your favorite, of course!)


Could I use chili powder in a homemade hot sauce recipe?

Sure, you can do that. It'll be a slightly different style of hot sauce than you'd get with fresh green chilis, less bright and fresh pepper flavor, more of a deep, rich flavor. If it's just a plain pepper and vinegar hot sauce, with the peppers providing a lot of the bulk, the texture isn't going to be the same, though.

If the lack of that brighter pepper flavor is an issue, you might seek out recipes that already have plenty of non-pepper ingredients. Acids like lime and vinegar, fruits, and herbs could all help fill in the gaps.

Also, I don't know how severe your boyfriend's allergy is, but if you end up experimenting a lot, I'd suggest being careful to have him try chili powders before you use them in large quantities. I've never heard of chilis being peeled before made into powder, so I wouldn't be too surprised if not all chili powder is actually okay for him.


If you mean like a potpie or a TV dinner? Yes you're fine, go for it.

If you're really worried about it here is the rule. (been a few years since I took serveSafe)

When reheating foods you want the internal temperature to reach 165 degrees F. (74C) for 15 seconds. In practice (at home NOT at the restaurant) just get it nice and hot.

Note: Homemade foods generally need to be carefully reheated but not frozen dinners etc. They cook them pretty good at the factory.


why do some pavlova recipes have cream of tarter to be added

Pavlova is essentially a baked meringue, which is made from egg whites. The purpose of cream of tartar ( tartaric acid ) is to help denature the proteins in the egg whites, making a more stable foam once you whip it and bake it.


If espresso is by definition pressure-brewed coffee, is French press coffee a form of espresso?

Espresso is brewed by passing high pressure water through the coffee at a temperature lower than 100°C (i.e. not boiling water).

Guidelines from the Istituto Nazionale Espresso Italiano state that the entry water pressure is 9 ± 1 bar and the entry water temperature is 88 ± 2°C (67 ± 3°C in the cup). The coffe is brewed for 25 ± 2.5 s.

French press coffee, instead, is brewed by leaving the coffee for 2-4 minutes at atmospheric pressure (no high pressure involved) in 90-95°C water. The press in the name has nothing to do with high pressure, is just describing the fact that you press down the coffee grounds with the piston once it is brewed.


Why would I use Arrowroot instead of Cornstarch?

Compared to corn starch, arrowroot:

Results in a clearer, shinier texture;
Survives the freezing process much better; and
Works better in acidic liquids (certain sauces, soups, etc.)

Where it doesn't work so well is in many fruit pies and some other baked goods (because it tends to break down under high heat), and in dairy dishes (you'll end up with a "gooey" texture).

Use arrowroot in place of corn starch whenever your needs match the above.

P.S. Many people are also allergic to corn, and this is probably one of the most common reasons to use arrowroot.  If this applies to you, and you're making a dish that is not suited to arrowroot, tapioca flour/starch is another great thickener and actually thickens better than corn starch.


Kneading dough - significance of warm hands

The temperature influences the speed of rising, but to significantly change the dough hardness, you need a very cold temperature. Even if your hands are "cold", they are certainly above air temperature, and firming up dough through coldness is only possible if you use very cold ingredients, below fridge temperature (4 Celsius).

It could be kneading technique, if by "technique" you mean the amount or type of lubricant added. Some people knead in a bowl of flour until the dough stops sticking. This will give you a very hard dough. Some use minimal amounts of flour during kneading, and yet others may knead without a lubricant, or using oil or water. Again, this is a very likely culprit in achieving different grades of softness.

A somewhat more "hidden" influence would be the direction of kneading (do you align your gluten into sheets or ropes, or do you just knead directionless) and the relaxation time given to the dough during kneading. The length will also play a role, longer kneaded dough develops more gluten and becomes tougher. But while these differences will contribute to a harder (actually "tighter") dough during kneading, they should be reduced after proofing. And the baked bread won't be harder, but slightly more translucent and chewy. This is because they result in more gluten, and what you describe (bread harder after baking) points to more flour.

So, if there is no difference in lubricant addition, one of you is probably measuring differently from the other and ending with a different ratio. Maybe one or both of you measures by volume, or is using a badly calibrated scale.


Whenever something gets hot in a microwave, it indicates the presence of water. If something that used to stay cool suddenly heats up, you have water present where previously there was none.

I assume you are using a glazed ceramic mug or jar, not one made of glass. Your glazing must have tiny cracks in it, that allow water to reach the clay underneath and collect there. Basically the wear and tear of long use. These cracks may be so tiny that, especially if no discoloration is present, they are virtually invisible. Each time you use the cup in the microwave again, the expanding water will actually aggravate the problem. The same is true for running the cup in a dishwasher, which in my experience allows for more water to seep through the cracks than a quick hand wash.

Time to get a new mug. Consider one made of glass or porcelain (china) this time.


Well, no one else has answered, so I will. I made the pudding again, this time I did the "dump" just as the milk and syrup started climbing the sides of the pan. Apparently the tiny temperature difference between that and "almost boiling over" was the difference. The second pudding was completely smooth. The recipe is great and it works just like ATK promises. Now I need to find that chalazae removal tool SAJ showed me!


How do I boil/cook frozen vegetables to maintain nutrients?

What you want to avoid is where you leave lots of liquid behind.

When you're boiling, water soluble nutrients (eg minerals, vitamins B) will be leached out.

If you cook it slowly in fat (oil, butter, etc.), but it's so much that it's a puddle left behind, you might be losing fat soluble vitamins (eg, vitamins A, D, E)

Cooking at too high of a heat can also break down nutrients into other compounds ... but it's a trade-off, as cooking breaks down cell walls and makes them more bio-available.

...

Personally, I tend to look at flavor, not just nutrients, as if it doesn't taste good, you're not going to eat it, and then you won't get any nutrients.

So, I'd recommend a 'steam-sauté' method:

Put the vegetables in a pan with a little bit of water (about 3 TB / 45mL) and a lid
Heat until you have steam, and let steam for a couple of minutes (exact time depends on the size of what you're re-heating, but you want them defrosted)
Take the lid off, and let most of the water evaporate.  You can push the veg to one side to speed this up
Add a little oil and whatever seasoning, and cook 'til you get a little bit of color

For fresh vegetables, I'll sauté first, then steam.  (and for brocolli, I saute the sliced up stems before adding the florets)


Why do burgers sometimes fall apart on the grill?

In addition to the fat content, making sure the meat is cold while forming can help.


How to keep saute pan hot without it burning for searing fresh greenbeans or zucchini

I have seen various establishments par-cook their vegetables then finish them in whatever sauce is being used or quickly reheat them in a pan or on a flat top in oil or butter.

Like part of your morning prep would be to cook off however many zucchinis (broil it? oven fry? up to you, you're making them in bulk so sauteing may not be the most efficient route) you're going to need for the evening, cool them on a half pan in a single layer, then store them in your line until the order comes through. Chuck them in the morning if they don't hold up well overnight, I'm not super sure how well zucchini holds up. Green beans should hold just fine for a day or two.

All you need to do then is get a serving out and saute until heated through. Shouldn't take too long, and it shouldn't leave an unwieldy mess in the pan as long as it's oiled appropriately.


Odour removing metallic soap: what is it and how does it work?

These soaps are simply soap-shaped lumps of stainless steel.  You'd get the same results from rubbing a spoon on your hand, or rubbing your hands on the sink.

There's a ton of anecdotal evidence that stainless steel works; unfortunately there seems to be very little scientific evidence backing it up.  I've never read any in the past, nor was I able to find anything convincing while researching this answer.

Various explanations abound but should all be treated as speculation until some hard experimental data comes out:

About.com's Chemistry Ph.D thinks it's a chemical reaction with sulfur, but admits that it's speculation.  I find that explanation dubious at best, because the whole point of stainless steel is that it's non-reactive, and not all of the odours that S.S. supposedly removes are based on sulfur.
Another cooking blogger references McGee and postulates that it might be due to static electricity, which is sort of corroborated by the Straight Dope's hypothesis of ionization.  Follow-up comments to the former entry dispute his claim, as well.
Finally, the Straight Dope link above also suggests that the metal might simply be acting as an abrasive.  This, to me, is the most plausible explanation, but there's still no specific evidence supporting it.  Again, if you care about anecdotal evidence, someone did a little experiment on SD's discussion board and claims that rubbing with anything works - it doesn't have to be metal - which supports the abrasive hypotheses.  Then again, it's questionable whether the experimenter here actually impregnated the skin or just got a little scent on the surface.

So make of it what you will; nobody seems to know for sure why it works, but anyone who's tried it can tell you that it does work.

But don't waste your money on one of those "metal soaps" - just use a metal ladle, or the handle of a knife, or any other metal surface, and rub it on your hands under cold running water.


How do I strain ginger powder to make ginger tea?

I think, even though it’s way subjective, the best way to make ginger tea/(infusion actually) is to boil the fresh ginger in hot water for 4-5 minutes, and discard the ginger.

So modifying this recipe, and adapting for ginger powder, you should boil the ginger powder for some time and then filter using a coffee filter. However you should try to find the optimum time here, I think it will be less than the time needed for fresh ginger, as the powdered ginger will have waaay more surface area than the fresh ginger.


Why do some sorbet recipes call for egg whites?

From a food blog:

  I often use egg whites to emulsify (smooth) my sorbets. I have also used lecithin and xanthan gum to great success when trying to not add extra liquid or worrying about someone who is allergic to egg whites.

And another one:

  Others swear by whipped egg white for a creamy consistency

So it seems it makes ice cream creamy. I guess there are other ways to create the same effect. And maybe you don't want to have the same effect across all recipes.


Does it make any sense to grate the radish on a grater without peeling its skin?

Daikon peel is edible. I believe it does have a somewhat different flavor (stronger? I don't have one around to try) than the rest of the root, so you might want to try a bit before you include the peel in a dish. You'll also have to wash a bit more carefully to make sure you don't leave any dirt on. And the skin is tougher, but if you're grating perpendicular to it, you'll end up with small enough pieces that it shouldn't be a problem.


How long does fresh salmon last in the freezer?

Yes, as long as food goes, 2 weeks in the freezer is not that long (assuming it was always in the freezer). So feel free to defrost it and enjoy your salmon.


Is condensed milk the same as sweetened condensed milk?

Just to add to Marti's answer: If the recipe was written in the US within the past 30-40 (maybe more) years, "condensed" almost certainly means sweetened condensed. Sweetened is just assumed if the milk is described as "condensed". At least in the US, unsweetened condensed milk is never called "condensed", it is called "evaporated".

To boost my confidence in this answer before I posted it, I searched Amazon for "Condensed Milk". In 22 pages of results, I was not able to find a SINGLE product described as "condensed milk" that was unsweetened. I did however find several that used "condensed milk" without the word sweetened in the name of the product page, but without fail, these ALL turned out to be sweetened.

If the recipe is old or if its origins are outside of the US, I can't be absolutely positive what the author intended, but I have never seen "unsweetened condensed milk".


This is a translation from the Italian of perle di parmigiano.  It is a mixture of egg whites and grated parmigiano formed into balls ("pearls") and deep or shallow fried.  Youtube recipes (in Italian) are shallow fried here and deep fried here.


There are a lot of variables here that can cause smoke.

Are you oiling the pan before use? Direct contact electric stoves set to high or max typically cause light oils (olive oil) or other oils with low-ish smoke points (coconut oil) to smoke pretty quickly.
There could be crud on the bottom of the pan as noted by a previous ans.
There could be crud on the heating element itself.
Cast Iron will smoke if it's seasoned well and placed on a direct heat source. The fats in the pan and oils that keep the cast iron from rusting (and also give it the smooth, stick-free surface, and excellent flavor profile) will cook off under high direct heat, causing smoke.

To tell if it's a cast iron pot, look for raw, exposed iron. If not, it could be enamled cast iron, which would not smoke like a seasoned cast iron pot or pan.

note: cast iron should not be heated rapidly under direct heat, you can crack the pot... heat cast iron gradually


What is the name of this Venetian pastry?

Those are Pan Pistacchio - this blog entry (not mine) has a picture of a sign in a shop window identifying them. It goes on to say that the general category of these buns is Fishermans Buns or Pan del Pescatore and that the green ones specifically are pistachio, which matches what I saw in Venice myself - the pistachio ones were always green and there were often other flavours next to them.

That should be enough to get you more pictures and recipes. I found some at this TripAdvisor page, but you can experiment.


Do the herbs which promote relaxation in certain herb teas have more efficiency when theyre warm/hot as opposed to cool/cold?

We're hard-wired to relax with warm drinks, right from our very first hours with mom, so of course, warm beverages tend to be more relaxing than cold ones.

Now for the physics of it all: Heat is an indication of the energy in any given substance. The energy determines how active (and reactive) it is. That is why sugar dissolves more quickly and completely into a hot liquid than into a cold one. When we smell any odor, it is actually molecules of the substance escaping into the air, coming into contact with our nasal sensory apparatus, and being translated by our brains. The hotter the beverage, the more molecules escape into the surrounding air. The more molecules escape the beverage and make contact with our sensory cells, the stronger the smell will be. The more aromatic the tea and the more reactive it is, the greater effect it will have.


Can you freeze cheese and still keep the flavor when you defrost it?

We've successfully frozen shredded mozzarella and then baked with it without losing flavor. Apparently the thing to be concerned about is the texture, not the flavor, and harder cheeses tend to retain their texture better (though using them for cooking/baking is still the only recommended way) according to Still Tasty.


I'd put it in the smoker low&slow until the desired internal temperature is reached (minus some degrees, depending on the size of the meat), then brown it in a hot pan.


Why would a recipe say mix all ingredients, then add egg and mix again?

There isn't really a technical reason for this in most cases.  It is for the convenience of the cook, to get things mixed thoroughly with a minimum of mess and hassle.

However, with meat loaf, once you add the egg, it gets even more sticky and messy.

When I make meatloaf or meatballs, I actually do it in three stages:

Mix all the onions, herbs, spices salt and so on into the breadcrumbs so that they are uniformly distributed (everything except the meat and eggs).
Mix that with the ground (minced for you UK types) meat, loosely breaking it up and tossing with my fingers
Add the eggs and mix again briefly just to incorporate.

The only purpose of this is to easily get thorough mixing, with minimum messiness, and minimum additional working of the meat.


They're a thing, though mostly eaten in India and other parts of asia . Banana Blossoms are actually typically found as a great big bundle like this

You basically need to remove the purple 'cover' to get the little yellow flowers
The little yellow things are the edible parts though you need to manually remove the stamen from each. They're slightly bitter and typically cooked.

Beansprouts are... well sprouted beans - I believe typically mung or soya, and are a whole plant, not part of a plant.

In short, they're completely different in every way other than maybe being tubular thin edible plant parts. Swapping in one for another isn't something that would work.


Meat lasagna minus meat will not be as satisfying - it'll be missing both a flavor and texture component. And tofu by itself does not have much flavor, especially compared to the rest of the lasagna.

Substituting for meat is a broad question, as you'd see if you'd tried searching for vegetarian lasagna. If you're determined to make something that's as close to lasagna with meat as possible, then you probably want to use something that's actually intended to be a ground meat substitute. There are various options, but they're generally soy- and gluten-based, with some sort of flavor. This will be good for vegetarians who wish they were eating meat.

But for vegetarians who don't feel the need to pretend they're eating meat, and especially for ones who don't want to feel like they're eating meat, you're asking the wrong question. Don't ask what to replace the meat with. Ask how to make a good vegetarian lasagna-like dish. The flavor of mushrooms works well (including plenty of umami - note that mixing varieties gives the broadest flavor) and provide some nice contrasting texture to the rest of the dish. Peppers and onions also have great flavors, and don't drift too far from the original flavor. I tend to enjoy spinach and eggplant too. Just try searching online for vegetarian (or vegetable) lasagna, and you'll find tons of variations. They're not all for everyone, for various reasons, but there's plenty to look through for something that works for you.

As for tofu... there's already a ton of cheese in a lasagna, which does have protein. Unless you're really worried about protein intake, I don't see focusing on protein as the route to a pleasing dish here.

(And this advice is pretty much all general; it applies to most flavorful casseroles that might normally contain ground meat.)


How can you prevent the lettuce from wilting if covered with something hot?

Wilting in greens is triggered by temperature, pH, and salt content.  To reduce wilting, you can cool the vegetables or shrimp, make the vegetables more acidic*, or decrease their salt content.

My suggestion would be to cool the shrimp with an ice water bath or cold running water.  This is the most traditional approach for shrimp salad.  Alternately, you could apply an acidic dressing before topping, but wait to salt it until the shrimp have cooled to 140F.

Alternately, wilting of vegetables adds a rather interesting variation in flavor or texture to a salad.  This technique has been desirable and in vogue at various times.

Why does this all happen?

Plant cells wilt when cooking breaks apart the cellulose-based cell walls, and allows water to escape, causing them to soften.  To quote On Food and Cooking (pp 282):

  When the tissue reaches 140F/60C, the cell membranes are damaged, the
  cells lose water and deflate, and the tissue as a whole goes from firm
  and crisp to limp and flabby.

Acids will impede wilting, because the cell walls are held together with hemicellulose, and it is "not very soluble in an acid environment" (pp 282). Table salt is a problem, because "its sodium ions displace the calcium ions that cross-link and anchor the cement molecules in the fruits and vegetable walls, thus breaking the cross-links and helping dissolve the hemicelluloses" (pp 283).  Calcium has the opposite affect, so if you can use hard water or add calcium salts, do so.

*Acidic solutions will reduce green colors(On Food and Cooking, pp 280-281), but preserve texture (282).


So first, you should be aware that there is an avocado shortage this year, and as a result the avocados you are getting at the store are probably lower quality than you are used to.

There are two reasons for avocados to taste bitter: underripeness, or because they have been cooked.  If the avocado is fairly firm, then it's probably just underripe and you can wait.  If it's soft, though, then either it was picked very underripe and never lost its bitterness, or at some stage it was allowed to get really hot during shipping (possible since the shortage was triggered by high temperatures in California).  In either of those two cases, it is ruined and you should compost it.

There's nothing you can really do to get rid of that bitterness.  Contrasting flavors, such as tartness from lemon juice, will help cover it up, but it will still have a bitter aftertaste.

References:

https://www.quora.com/Does-avocado-turn-bitter-when-heated
http://blog.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/why-would-an-avocado-taste-bitter/


Does temperature of water affect carbonation process

Carbon Dioxide (and gases in general) dissolve more easily in cold liquids. This means that it's easier to carbonate (inject with Carbon Dioxide) your soda using cold water than warm. As your liquid heats up the gas falls out of solution creating the bubbles in your soda. Fountain dispensers usually have the water lines run through the ice hopper (or they have a cold plate) to further chill the cold water they feed to the machines for this same reason.


Topside chunks still tough after 2 hours cooking?

Topside is a good cut of beef for slowly braising, which is what you're doing here. I assume you're following a recipe that calls for 2 hours of cooking? Many recipes for braised meat dishes tend to understate the amount of time it needs to be cooked to become tender (just like how they will tell you you can caramelise onions in 20 minutes). 2 hours is a very short time for this kind of dish. I tend to cook braised beef for anywhere between 4 and 6 hours to get it tender enough to fall apart. It takes time for the chemical reactions that you're after to take place. Give it at least another two hours, and it will be much better.


Yes, I also got pickled garlic that got blue after I got it from market. What I always do is as soon  as I get them from a market,  I insert few cloves in it for a short duration of time because I don't want the flavour of cloves and blanching it does help. The heat in blanching will destroy the pigments for coloration.

How to blanch:
- Dip garlic in cold water
- Heat it
- Repeat again and again (Preferably 4 times)

The blue color is mainly due to the enzyme (sulphur and amino acids) and is harmless.

Hope this helps....


Precise cooking time: how to figure it out

It is very simple.

Note the time you start cooking it, and the flame/power setting/temperature.
Check periodically to see if food is cooked
When food is done: record time and subtract from start time.

If you cook the same dish a few times, you can average it out.  A lot of cook times are approximate anyway; you have to check the dish a bit before it should be done to make sure it hasn't cooked faster than expected.


Can you make strawberry extract at home?

Some essences and herbs need alcohol to be extracted, but not strawberries.

Extracts from berries can be made in the pressure cooker, to later turn into syrups or jellies.  Here's a step-by-step photos and instructions on how to do it.
http://www.hippressurecooking.com/2011/08/blackberry-italian-soda-from-your.html

You could then mix the syrup with vodka, instead of mineral water as in the recipe, to make a strawberry cocktail.


Oven Temperature

Most ovens keep inaccurate temperatures with respect to your setting. You may be setting it to 350, but it could be baking at 375. I would suggest investing in an oven thermometer. I've seen these for a dollar--well worth the investment.

Baking Vessel

I was surprised to find this out, but the pan color actually affects heat conduction. If you use a non-stick tin, for example, your brownies are more likely to burn. I've seen some people use silicone brownie pans to minimize this kind of uneven cooking.


It's perfectly safe.

Pet food has to go through the same sort of preservation methods as human food in order to give it a good shelf life so it's not going to have nasty foodborne illnesses. Cat and human metabolisms aren't too far off, and cats don't require nutrients which are harmful to humans so it won't hurt you one bit.

As for whether it would be healthy to eat long term that's a different story and not for this site.


How can I replace sweetened condensed milk in key lime pie with goat's milk?

Here is a sweetened condensed milk recipe using evaporated goat milk.

1 - 12 oz can evaporated goat milk; 1-1/2 cup sugar.
Combine and simmer at least 30 min stirring often.

Maybe not as thick as "regular" condensed milk but when 4 egg yolks and 1/2 cup of lime juice are added it sets up just fine when baked in a graham cracker pie shell. A perfectly acceptable non-cow's milk Key Lime pie filling.


Crock pot left on high for longer than recipe called for

Make sure nothing burned onto the sides (scrape it out if necessary), and add extra water if too much has boiled off.

After that, I'd probably check it after 3 hours on low, pretending that the hour on high cooked it twice as much as it would have on low, and see if you think it's done. No harm letting it go the full remaining 4-5 hours if it seems like it needs it, or like it won't hurt.

The recipe probably isn't very sensitive anyway; there's a good chance even if you had followed it exactly you'd think it was fine over a pretty broad time range.

...all that said, a chicken cooked on high for one hour and low for one hour sounds like it'd probably be done to me. I'm not sure why the cooking time is so long, and you could honestly just check it right now.


Walnuts are most likely your culprit.  Black walnuts have more of this tendency than common cooking walnuts, but I have had it occur with both.  I especially have seen in with port chops stuffed with walnuts and applesauce getting a very purple stain to them.  I have seen multiple theories on why purple, but with walnut breads a common suggestion seems to be that iron reacts with the walnut to cause the purple, and some flours are higher in iron than others.

And idea, but just a suggestion, is toasting the walnuts first might reduce this tendency.  In fact, here is an article from Cook's Illustrated https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/6672-preventing-purple-walnut-bread.  They indicate that they believe it to be Gallic acid in the walnuts doing it, and that blanching for 1 minute before using them will reduce the effect.

ETA:  Looking up Gallic Acid was interesting.  It was used as a key ingredient in "Iron Gall Ink" in the 12th through 19th centuries as a standard writing and drawing ink, giving some idea of its ability to color.


Vegetables don't ripen. Carrots, potatoes, leafy greens, etc...

They will get bigger of course and some veggies will get more bitter or woody with age. Greens will get bitter.

Generally speaking veggies are better young. Carrots are particularly sweet and tender when young. Potatoes are also perfectly fine at any size.

The possible exceptions would be the fruits that are labelled vegetables for cooking purposes like some squashes and tomatoes. These do need to be ripe and whether they can be ripened after picking will depend on the plant.


Are there substantial benefits to grinding your own flour?

You're very correct the grinders are pretty pricey. I believe we paid about $300 for ours.

There are a few good reasons for me to have a grinder. Whether they are good reasons for you is your call.

1- I can grind whatever I want. Right now I am using hard white wheat. Unbleached, hard, white wheat flour is more expensive than your run-of-the-mill flour and comes in annoyingly small bags. I also grind beans, quinoa, oats, etc.

2- I can control the fineness of the grind. This is a minor thing but it is nice for me to be able to experiment with the texture of the product. In practice I usually leave it on the same setting but it is finer than the flour I can purchase.

3- Wheat flour is very perishable. I go through a fair bit of flour. As much as 200 oz in a heavy week. In order to have enough wheat flour on hand for a couple weeks it would have to live in the freezer. I don't want to waste that much freezer space. Whole wheat berries last almost indefinitely.

4- I like the flavor better. It tastes fresher and more nutty. This may be imagined- I haven't done any double blind tests. I should do that.

5- Cost- I had to do some of the maths as I don't usually pay a lot of attention to this.
King Arthur white wheat flour costs approximately $1.00 a lbs.

I buy 25lbs bags of bulk white wheat for $12-$15 or $0.50-$0.60 a pound.
If I use around 10 lbs of flour a week (usually a little less, it varies) I am saving about $5 a week. If you don't have access to wheat that cheap or don't make that much bread then of course the savings will be less.

As for nutrition- I read all the time that the nutrients in whole wheat flour degrade very quickly. I'm not a chemist but those results seem plausible to me based on how quickly the flour itself degrades in quality.


Thanks to science, it has become very hard to determine the actual quality of meat these days. Packaged meat is flushed with a gas that has a high concentration of oxygen (60-85% or so) to oxidize the myoglobin in meat, which keeps the meat red.

What this means is that you cannot visibly determine if the meat is good, ever. It could've been "only" refigerated for a time and then frozen, without any optical change due to the gas that's in the package. Indicators of bad meat, however, are a bad smell (of course, you can only determine this at home) or if the container seems to be under pressure, which indicates that microbes produced additional gas that can't get out of the container.

Sadly, I have given up on trying to find out if meat from the supermarket is fresh or not, as there doesn't seem to be a way of knowing. While still having a lot of tricks at their disposal, going directly to a butcher seems to be the only option that gives you at least a better chance of getting fresh meat.


How do you recover if you lose track of what you're measuring?

Going forward, as you say, it's best to use either a separate bowl/ramekin/etc. for each ingredient, or to save on dishwashing, use one larger bowl and put each ingredient in its own spot in the bowl so you can see them and figure out what's missing.

In this specific case, though, where you've forgotten if you're at 1/3 or 4/3 cup of sugar, you could weigh the existing mixture and try to figure out by weight how much is already in there:
1. Tare an empty pot.
2. Pour mixture into empty pot and weigh it; pour it back into original pot.
3. Weigh (using tared pot) an identical amount of water (then pour it out).
4. Weigh 1/3 cup of cornstarch (and pour it back into the box).
5. Weigh 4/3 cup of sugar (and put it back).
6. Add the weights from #3, #4, and #5, and subtract the weight from #2.
7. Weigh out sugar to match the total in #6.

This is a silly process unless you've already added something expensive (or inconvenient to replace). I've gone through exercises like this when I've added saffron to some stock, or it's midnight and I don't want to go to the grocery store for a new box of baking soda.


What is the Best Way to Keep Digestive Biscuits Fresh

You're thinking along the right lines. Airtight is what you're aiming for. Old fashioned biscuit tins were probably less airtight than a lot of modern plastic boxes anyway, so just use the smallest tupperware box you can fit them in (all types in together is fine). I'd leave them in their wrappers, but it doesn't matter.

If you don't have any container at all, they keep for a few days with the end of the wrapper twisted round and clipped shut; that's enough of a seal.


Fresh seafood should smell briny, like the sea. It generally should not smell strongly in any way--not in a "fishy" way, and not like ammonia.

According to the US FDA, you should not eat seafood that has even a fleeting, minor smell of ammonia:

  Uncooked spoiled seafood can have sour, rancid, fishy, or ammonia
  odors. These odors become stronger after cooking. If you smell sour,
  rancid, or fishy odors in raw or cooked seafood, do not eat it. If you
  smell either a fleeting or persistent ammonia odor in cooked seafood,
  do not eat it.

The scent of ammonia in shellfish is a strong indicator that it's gone bad. When the crab meat begins to decompose, the byproducts create the scent of ammonia. Even thought the scent was minor (you could smell it, but not your wife), this would still indicate that the crab legs had begun to rot.

Crab legs are generally flash-frozen immediately upon harvest, and kept frozen until you buy them and bring them home. This keeps them "fresh" because they spend very little time in the danger zone.

Likely, in transit between the dock and your home, the crab legs thawed, spent excessive time (more than 2 hours) in the danger zone, and have spoiled. I would not expect the refrigerator storage to have caused this alone, unless there was also additional non-frozen time before you purchased them.


There’s a food processing trick, where producers use dextrin to keep the coating crisp for hours. You simply replace some of the flour (around 20%) in your recipe with dextrin and you’re good to go.

As the other answer mentions, multiple layers also helps creating a thick barrier to slow down moisture seeping into the coating. You can use dextrin in both layers.

Once you’ve adapted your recipe to use dextrin, frying followed by rapid cooling should give you a good result.


What does "until fork tender and the juices run clear" mean and how do I tell?

It is a "metric" which requires experience to recognize.

First, juices "running" clear doesn't mean that they will flow freely. You have to cut into the meat and look at the juice inside it. Is it clear or not?

Second, there is a difference between the feel of meat at different stages of doneness, when you poke it with a fork. If you cannot notice it, this means you haven't trained yourself sufficiently. Noticing the difference is a skill which has to be learned.

As you can see from the other question and the comments, the thermometer is the recommended way to do it. The old thermometerless way is both inaccurate and has a learning curve, making it hard for people to learn cooking. In fact, it is not really a metric. Experienced cooks recognize meat which is done by look and feel, including a look on the inside (cooking) and feeling with a fork instead of burning their fingers. What the recipe really says is "stop cooking when it's done". But because this sounds like a tautology to inexperienced cooks, the experienced ones try to describe in words what they should be looking for. And so this rough description is created, and the inexperienced ones use it as a guideline while learning to recognize doneness by trial and error.

Of course, it is always good to pay attention to your meat when you are cooking it. Do look at the state of the juices and the feel when poked with a fork, and you'll learn to recognize it with time. But before you have become comfortable with your knowledge that the meat is done, rely on the thermometer instead of the feeling. Also, if you want to comply with food safety rules, you have to use the thermometer every time, as meat cooked by feel is not guaranteed to have reached the recommended temperature and will be sometimes unsafe.


Can I cook Meringue on tin foil rather than Baking paper?

Joy of Baking actually recommends using parchment or foil:

  ... it is a good idea to use parchment paper or aluminum foil to line
  your baking sheets, not wax paper, as the meringue will sometimes stick to wax paper.

According to Living Strong:

  Next in line for substitutions similar to parchment paper comes
  aluminum foil. The flexibility of the aluminum foil allows you to
  easily lift the meringues off your baking sheet and gently peel them
  away from the foil, individually rather than trying to scrape them off
  the pan with a spatula or knife. Just like parchment paper and waxed
  paper, aluminum foil cuts down cleaning time by eliminating
  the need to scrub your baking sheet.

They also say that if you don't have foil, as a last alternative, you can try spraying the sheet with baking spray (the kind with flour in it), or spray with regular oil spray and then dust with sugar.


Is it okay to use aluminium foil instead of parchment paper while baking cookies?

You CAN bake cookies on aluminum foil, but you should be aware that they will cook faster and the bottoms will brown more and get crispy.  I would suggest using a slightly lower temperature and briefer baking time.

Coincidentally, King Arthur Flour just posted an image of cookies baked on a bare, dark-metal baking sheet (cookies on the LEFT), which will heat similarly to aluminum foil, vs. parchment on a lighter sheet (cookies on the right).

These cookies were cooked with exactly the same time and temperature.

Why does this happen?
With parchment, the bottoms of the cookies get heated less than if they're on metal, and more of the heat comes from hot air passing over the top.  Aluminum and metal in general are excellent heat conductors, so they will pass a lot of heat to the bottoms of the cookies. Parchment is a reasonably effective insulator, so it will slow conduction of heat to the cookies' bottoms.


Why does baking bread in a closed pot make a good crust?

The steam should only be used for the first part of baking. Recipes vary in opinion on how long it's best to have this steam, but the range I've seen is usually 10-30 minutes. The moist baking environment allows the outer layer of dough to remain stretchy so that you maximize "oven spring" in the first part of baking.  Steaming the dough also causes the starches on this outer layer to gelatinize, which is what leads to the crispy and nicely browned crust.  If you continue to steam through the whole baking process, this layer will not have a chance to dry out, which is what's required for it to brown and crisp up.

This article has lots of information on how to achieve a good crust.


How to reduce sugar in chocolate chip cookies without losing the texture

You can toast your sugar. Stella Parks on Serious Eats and in her cookbook Bravetart explains that toasted sugar undergoes thermal decomposition that make a more complex, less sweet flavor and (importantly to your question) is lower in the glycemic index:

  Not only does toasted sugar taste less sweet, it has less sucrose, fewer calories, and a lower glycemic index than plain sugar. How much lower would depend on the extent of thermal decomposition

Toast sugar by putting white sugar on a baking sheet in the oven at 300°F for one to five hours. Stir occasionally. You will likely need to place the resulting toasted sugar mass in a food processor to break it up. It can be used 1:1 for the sugar in the original recipe.


Can you pressure cook whole fish and get soft bones without overcooking fish?

Here is the answer to a related question: How to cook a fish to make it's bones soft

Basically, the pressure cooking doesn't allow any moisture to escape the system so the fish will retain the moisture and not dry out. It will still reach a hot temperature inside the can, which may result in a slightly different texture than if you were to sous vide, for example. But the pressure cooking should soften the bones and be the solution you are looking for.


Can I store a soup in my cast-iron in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours in the cast-iron pot?

Perhaps there are some types of soup that would be ok, but many foods can easily pick up a metallic taste from cast iron if left in the pot overnight. Examples are tofu fried in a cast iron frying pan, egg omelet (egg sometimes even becomes gray), and anything tomatoey. I'm sure there are others, especially mildly flavored foods, and acidic ones.

So in general, rather than find out the hard way with your particular type of soup, I recommend changing containers for storage in the refrigerator.


How to compensate for citric acid in hard candy?

You are breaking the sugar into fructose and glucose, getting invert syrup

I'd suggest making the sugar base and then adding fine powder or dissolved acid with rapid cooling to stop the hydrolysis.

Or use a paste of fine citric acid with some oil to slow down dissolving of the acid.

You can also try to use mechanical mixing like extruder screw or rolls to keep the water contents lower and better control heating.

Also note that your candies can turn soft and sticky over time.


Quail is small and lean, so fast and hot is the way to go. 200C/400F in the oven for about 20 minutes is about right, but trying to cook meat properly by time and temperature is a mug's game. Get an instant read digital thermometer from Amazon and get it right first time, every time.

You are probably looking at an internal temperature of 70-75C for quail, though if it's wild it should be slightly more forgiving than chicken in terms of food safety.


Why would a commercial kitchen buy enormous carrots?

This is just a guess, I have no factual proof, but is it possible it is purely for aesthetic or decorative purposes?

I am guessing in cruises, hotels and other festive, leisure, touristic or vacation occasions meals often have a certain flair, and presentation is a big part of it. Plates, tables, rooms, etc. are often adorned with purely aesthetic artifacts like small sculptures or ornaments made of fruits, vegetables, other edible and non-edible decorations.

I imagine larger pieces (of any material) provide more creative freedom. By yielding larger chunks, bigger vegetables can be cut into different shapes and allow sculpting more inventive forms with attractive appearances that wouldn't "fit" in smaller vegetables.

Carrots for their consistency and bright color make a good edible medium for these decorations, and larger ones probably provide the artist/cook more freedom, less waste and flashier results.

Alternatively, maybe some particular dish served on board also requires larger carrots, like some sort of stuffed carrots, or something served over a carrot as a vessel.

There may also be economic or logistic reasons, like saving space and money. Ships generally have inherently limited space; larger products pack better and store more efficiently by wasting less space and packaging per net amount of usable product, both saving space and money aboard a cruise liner.


What could it be the white fatty substance I found in raisins?

The vast majority of dried vine fruits are coated in one vegetable oil or another. The ones I’ve seen which name the oil tend to use sunflower oil or cottonseed oil. They use them to prevent the vine fruits clumping.
Sunmaid are one of the few mass producers which declare that they don’t use oils or glazes.


According to Wikipedia, "The dried noodle block was originally created by flash frying cooked noodles, and this is still the main method used in Asian countries, but air-dried noodle blocks are favored in Western countries."  (from   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_noodle   ) So I don't know where you are, but if it happens to be a "Western country", maybe that's why.


How do you clean a seasoned cast iron skillet?

Kosher salt and a small amount of vegetable oil.  Scrub the pan with the salt on a rag or paper towel, if there are stubborn bits mix a couple drops of oil with the salt, wipe dry with clean towel.  If you use a wet method to clean the pan re-heat it after cleaning to make sure it is completely dry before storing.


You should never eat freshwater fish in raw preparations. Freshwater fish are far more likely to have nasty parasites such as the lung fluke, that can only be killed by cooking. There is a slew of other nasty beasts that can be harmful if not killed.

Unless you want to end up on an episode of Monsters Inside Me, stay away.


What kind of knife should I use to slice tomatoes?

A really well-sharpened santoku-style chef's knife is usually my choice. But, it does depend on the type of slicing... such as thick/thin discs, wedges, or dicing.

While I understand that a serrated blade can help with slicing a super-ripe tomato, when I want really thin disc-shaped slices, something very sharp and preferably a thinner spine. The favorite in my kitchen is definitely a Henckel santoku chef blade. Some versions can have a very thick spine, and wouldn't work as well, though. This type of choice is also more utilitarian if you're cutting any other veggies at the same time, or making additional cuts in the tomatoes, such as when you're also going to be halving the discs or full-on dicing.

Things I like the thinnest slices on are a ham and cheese melt, roast beef sammy, a sub for the road, and sometimes for a garnish. (hors d'œuvre, anyone?)

Also, when I'm cutting tomatoes into wedges, I also like to use this same type of sharp, non-serrated blade. Otherwise, I find it harder than necessary to do the smaller divisions after the 1/4-of-a-tomato size. I nearly always do 1/8 or 1/12 sized wedges for salad, so it isn't terribly often I use a "real" tomato knife. When I do, is when it's for a lunch and I don't want to sully a larger blade, or when doing large batches. Getting the core out is certainly easiest with a smaller, serrated blade.


Is it just as effective to mix fat in at the end of a curry?

Fat helps carry flavor, it also add to the mouth-feel of the final product.  Fat also adds flavor.  So, getting the "flavor into the fat", or probably better put, to be carried by the fat, is only part of the equation. So, in part this depends on why the fat is necessary for a particular dish.  There are all types of curries, so clarifying your recipe and purpose would be helpful in, at least partly, answering this question.  As @Cindy points out in the comments, since you are adding this at the end, it would be easy to reserve some of your product without the extra fat added, and compare it with the final product once the fat is added.  See which you like better.


Can I use just flour instead of roux in my gumbo

I wouldn't recommend it.

Dark roux is actually a pretty weak thickener compared to a light roux.  As you get darker, it's more of a flavoring.  Flour on its own gives an obvious raw flour taste.

As an alternate method to make darker rouxes, search for 'oven roux', where you're working with a more easily controlled, even heat, as opposed to something that you have to keep stirring.

If you're still scared of roux even after that, I'd recommend a slurry of cornstarch or arrowroot over plain flour.


Whipped cream - as in, pure cream that's been whipped - isn't stable. Even just left on its own for a long enough time, it will collapse without a stabilizer like gelatin, xanthan gum, and/or dextrose.

You added water and alcohol, which is pretty much the opposite of what it needs. I'm hardly surprised that it collapsed. Most whippable items will fail to whip if you add more than a tiny bit of water. You might have been OK if you'd used a stabilizer, but even then, I wouldn't count on it.

Chantilly cream is a mix of 3 parts whipping cream to 1 part pastry cream (which doesn't whip, but is thickened with eggs). Because it is so much more stable, it can accept much more in terms of flavouring. It takes much longer to make but would probably have handled the amount of amaretto that you added.

But a much better solution would be to use almond extract instead, which imparts far more almond flavour with far less liquid.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that flavoured treats can be easily made from liqueurs. Most of the time, liqueurs have far too much liquid. I once, long ago, made the mistake of trying this with truffle ganache, which is far more forgiving than whipped cream - it got way too soft and still had hardly any of the flavour.

If you're able to adjust the water in a recipe then you can use liqueurs, but usually you're better off buying some concentrated oils or extracts, which tend to pack as much punch in a teaspoon than a full cup of the liqueur. Some are easily found in grocery stores (almond extract, mint, etc.) and others you can get from specialty vendors like Lor'Ann.


I think you got very close, just a couple of tweaks are necessary.

Generally the reasons for a dense loaf are that the dough is too dry and/or inadequate gluten development. If you have reduced the liquid in the recipe by adding less honey and not replacing it with something then you will have less gluten development because gluten needs water to unwind and yeast needs water to function. It's also possible you added too much flour when kneading, don't add any more flour than the recipe calls for, even if it is sticky, it will incorporate and become less sticky as the gluten develops.  A dry dough will also get less oven spring from the expansion of air and water vapor. Leaving out the apples in this case shouldn't make the bread dense as they are a filling and not the actual dough.

It's also possible you didn't let it proof enough. Recipes often give timings for proofing, but what you should be looking for a result. Challah is an enriched dough, the honey, eggs, oil, and sugar will all retard the yeast action, making it slower to rise. It can take awhile for an enriched dough to get working, so it helps to budget extra time. I like to let a challah more than double in size before I move on to the next step.

Another problem could be you didn't knead enough. Kneading unwinds gluten strands and lets them entangle, giving your dough elasticity and allowing it to trap the air created by yeas action. If you don't knead enough there will be less gluten development, and less elasticity. It doesn't look like this was the case for you, but it is a consideration.

Now, when it comes to braided breads there's a few gotchas. Your goal when braiding and shaping your bread should be to preserve as much as the air in the dough.

Rolling: You have to work challah dough a lot when you roll out the braids, the tendency can be to really press down when elongating the individual braids. This has the effect of squishing the air out them, meaning all that hard work the yeast did gets undone. Instead of squishing and pressing the dough down in order to get it to go out try using the rolling motion to stretch the dough out, you'll retain more of your nice air.
Handling: Try to treat your braids a bit gently and rough handling will knock out air. You don't need to knock back the dough during rising as you'll be doing enough rolling and braiding to get rid of any large air bubbles.
Braiding: One common reason for dense braided breads is that the braiding was done too tightly, leaving no room for expansion during the last rise. Bread dough is alive, when you rolls the braids out you'll lose some of your rise, but a healthy and active dough is going to spring back. You need to leave some space to allow for this, or the dough in the middle will have nowhere to go

Looking at your picture the edges of the bread have bigger air holes than the center, which leads me to think you braided it too tight and/or were too rough with it when braiding it up. The edges still look a little dense though, probably it was a bit too dry as well.


What are the 'natural flavors' in a fruit drink that contains no juice?

Ok... I'm going to ruin your day with this.  In orange juice for instance, the process of homaginization and storage kills the flavor of orange juice, so the industry has enlisted the help of the perfume industry to help them.  Each orange juice company has basically a perfume of orange flavors that it uses from the peels and rinds and biproducts that it uses to try to recreate the taste of real orange juice... It's why every orange juice brand tastes slightly different even though they are all "fresh squeezed" (btw, they are technically fresh squeezed, they're just then stored :))

If you google "orange juice flavor packs" you can see what this is talking about.  The flavor packs are incidentally made out of parts of the orange, so the fda has no problem with them (sadly).

http://consumerist.com/2011/07/oj-flavor-packs.html

So to directly answer your question, you can flavor something with fruit derived perfume and call it "natural flavors"

Here's a quote from the site:

  Juice companies therefore hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that formulate perfumes for Dior and Calvin Klein, to engineer flavor packs to add back to the juice to make it taste fresh. Flavor packs aren't listed as an ingredient on the label because technically they are derived from orange essence and oil. Yet those in the industry will tell you that the flavor packs, whether made for reconstituted or pasteurized orange juice, resemble nothing found in nature. The packs added to juice earmarked for the North American market tend to contain high amounts of ethyl butyrate, a chemical in the fragrance of fresh squeezed orange juice that, juice companies have discovered, Americans favor.


Well, you could make your own onion powder. It isn't that difficult.

  Peel and finely chop your onions.
  Then, spread the onion pieces out on a tray and heat in a 150°F degree oven or in a food dehydrator until dry.

  Tip: The onions are dry when you can easily crumble the chopped pieces
  in your hand.

  Allow the onions to cool. Then, grind with a coffee grinder, spice mill, food processor or mortar and pestle until you reach your desired
  consistency.
  Store your finished onion powder in an air-tight container in a cool, dry spot or freeze.


Good sauces for large Italian Conchiglioni pasta

This is borderline opinion based, and also borderline asking "what do I do with this ingredient", however I think it can be answered so I'm going to give it a shot.

Large pasta shells are generally stuffed rather than used as a simple pasta and sauce scenario, the size and thickness of them means that sauces don't really coat enough to accompany that much starch, so the experience isn't as good as smaller or longer pastas. If you are going to fill them then you'd have a filling and a sauce, the filling would need to be relatively thick in order to help the pasta keep its shape. The most frequent fillings would be meat and/or cheese based, for instance ricotta or a thick meat sauce. The pasta will often be topped by another sauce, this one a typical pasta sauce, often contrasting with the filling. If the filling is cheese the sauce will be tomato, for example.

However, the possibilities are pretty wide open really, use your imagination. Fill them with small chopped sauteed vegetables and top with a olive oil drizzle and fresh parmesan, or fill them with mozzarella and top with pesto.

If you do want to just do a single sauce with no filling then thicker is better so you get as much to adhere to the pasta as you can. Think giant shells 'n cheese, or a thick and chunky tomato sauce.


How do you prevent chicken from sticking when searing?

Use a heavy bottomed pan. Heat pan medium high.  Add oil.  Place chicken skin side down.  Don't move the chicken.  Once you see browning, gently see if the chicken releases.  If it does not, leave it.  It should release with some gentle nudging, but it should not be moved if it doesn't release.  Usually the issue arises when the meat is flipped or removed too soon.


Not sure my meat spent long enough on high in the crock pot?

Check the crock pot manual.

Usually, the "keep warm" setting will keep a temperature of between 145°F to 165°F (62°C to 74°C). This is the recommended food safety temperature to keep hot food in that is not immediately served (which is likely why the "keep warm" temperature is in this particular range in the first place). 145°F is also the safe internal temperature for beef, pork, lamb and veal.


Is it safe to use a new microwave if I dropped it on the back corner?

I'm not sure whether or not this question is really on-topic here.  But the basic answer is that microwaves generally have a lot of safeguards built in to avoid radiation leakage, if that's what you're worried about.  The FDA states:

  There is little cause for concern about excess microwaves leaking from
  ovens unless the door hinges, latch, or seals are damaged. In FDA's
  experience, most ovens tested show little or no detectable microwave
  leakage. If there is some problem and you believe your oven might be
  leaking excessive microwaves, contact the oven manufacturer, a
  microwave oven service organization, your state health department, or
  the nearest FDA office.

So, if only very minor exterior damage was done, and there was no damage to the door or seals, it seems unlikely there would be a problem.

On the other hand, WHO recommends:

  The design of microwave ovens ensures that the microwaves are
  contained within the oven and can only be present when the oven is
  switched on and the door is shut. Leakage around and through the glass
  door is limited by design to a level well below that recommended by
  international standards. However, microwave leakage could still occur
  around damaged, dirty or modified microwave ovens. It is therefore
  important that the oven is maintained in good condition. Users should
  check that the door closes properly and that the safety interlock
  devices, fitted to the door to prevent microwaves from being generated
  while it is open, work correctly. The door seals should be kept clean
  and there should be no visible signs of damage to the seals or the
  outer casing of the oven. If any faults are found or parts of the oven
  are damaged, it should not be used until it has been repaired by an
  appropriately qualified service engineer.

Basically, I can't know how much damage and/or what type of damage you did by dropping it.  (And no one else here could know for certain either.)  Microwaves are generally designed in such a way to prevent radiation exposure except in cases of severe damage or deliberate disassembling, but I have no idea what may have happened internally to your device by dropping it.

If you're concerned about other safety issues (electrical shorts, etc.), it would be even more speculative to try to address whether or not they could happen with these few details.


How to add fruit puree into yogurt without making it too liquid?

A great way to add fruit to yogurt is to use a jam, jelly, or fruit preserve of choice. By cooking out the liquid and thickening with sugar and pectin, a jelly ends up much less watery than a fruit puree. Depending on the fruit you are starting with and the desired texture, the exact recipe will vary. Store-bought jams work as well.
If you are looking for a fresh fruit flavor (as opposed to the cooked flavor of jam) you still have a few options. You could change the composition of your puree (e.g. by pureeing dried fruits, or choosing a less watery fruit to begin with). You could add a thickening agent that activates without cooking, like pureed chia seeds.
Finally, you could keep your puree as is and use a thicker yogurt: greek-style or another strained yogurt should be thicker in the first place, and the texture should still be reasonably thick even after mixing in a watery puree.
I am not sure how to answer your preservation question. A mixture of fruit and yogurt should keep decently in the fridge. But if you are trying to preserve it longer, we would need more details about your process.


First slicing, then cooking, or the other way around?

With a gratin, the idea is that the vegetables (traditionally just potatoes) are sliced so thinly that they cook very easily in the cream/cooking liquid while retaining some texture. If you pre-cook the vegetables, they will just disintegrate into a mush during baking.


How can I bake these cheese and pimento rolls so they're not gummy inside?

When you did different filings before, I suspect they took less heating up, and that your cheesy filling is stopping the internal temperature getting as high as it should. This could be because the cheese goes on fridge cold and has a higher heat capacity than whatever you used before. The water content of the pimentos and cheese may also not help.

In terms of a solution you need longer for the heat to reach the middle. I doubt just starting with the cheese at room temperature would be enough. To avoid browning too much you'll need to reduce the oven temperature, but not by too much or the pastry will be too pale and again not cooked through. This will take a little experimenting, especially if you take the approach of preheating the oven to the current recommended temperature and reducing the temperature when you put the food in (which can work well but depends on how well your oven is insulated). I work in Celsius but rounding my guess you might turn it down to 320F when you put them in.


Freezing Indian chicken curry---how to retain texture and flavor?

When freezing meat (or anything really), one of the main places where the texture will change is with freezer burn. This can be minimized by double wrapping and preventing exposure to air. An extra really great way to minimize freezer burn especially given that your dish has sauce, is to cover the food with the sauce and then freeze the whole thing as a giant block. I'd just reheat it in a saucepan.


What is the purpose of a spaced cross-hatch of grooves on the inside of a cast iron pan?

This kind of pattern seems to be added to a pan to increase its cooking capabilities.  This advertisement here suggests that the pattern itself is useful for making "crispy potatoes or a juicy steak", though it doesn't happen to say why the scoring helps, it does mean some people believe it will improve the food cooked in the pan.

It is possible that the lines give some texture to the sides of the pan, letting pieces of food be pushed up on the sides for a while without sliding back down, and so spreading the food out and giving better control over access to direct heat for browning, or letting pieces rest away from direct heat after they're done or until there's room for them.  Sort of similar to the theory of cooking in a wok, only not because woks depended on quick hot cooking, so smooth sides and falling back to the center were positives.

It is possible that when dealing with single larger pieces of food, the scoring gives a kind of access to the underside, letting oil or other liquids run underneath (and be wicked up by or rendered off of the food as needed) without disturbing the food before it is finished cooking - especially if there are reasons lifting or flipping shouldn't be done too often, if it needs the uninterrupted cooking time to hold something delicate together or form a crispy crust.

It is also possible that one of the reasons might be the pattern of grill marks or patterns of the scores left on food cooked in it (aesthetics does matter to some people), or that somebody had a theory as to why the score marks let the pan cook better, and so the pan is made whether or not it actually does cook better.  It is possible it had to do with visible effort - that this kind of pan was intended as art or display as much as cooking pan, and the extra difficulty cleaning it was secondary to that.


Does roasted garlic leave no aftertaste and smell

Roasting garlic tends to make it sweeter and milder in flavour yes. It will not be completely undetectable, but it is certainly less strong than sautéed garlic.


How long will a whole turkey keep in a refrigerator?

Not all turkeys are the same, and personally, I would not risk letting an entire turkey go rancid in the refrigerator.  There is so much you don't know about this turkey:

How was it butchered?  In particular, how long was it sitting on the block and was it packed immediately afterward or left sitting out for a long time?
How quickly was it cooled down to "transporting" temperature after butchering?
Was it transported immediately, or was it stored for a while before transport, and if so, what were those storage conditions?
How specifically was it transported?  What were the environmental conditions, aside from temperature?  Was it exposed to air?  Could it have picked up any other contaminants?
Just how cold was the refrigerator at Trader Joe's?  Are you sure that it's consistently that cold?
What if the turkey was shifted around?  For example, what if some other customer picked it up, tossed it in a shopping cart, then after an hour of shopping decided to put it back?
How did she transport it?  I'm guessing in a non-temperature-controlled trunk?  How long was it in that condition/environment before finally making it into the fridge?
Was the temperature in the fridge turned down as far as it can go long before putting the turkey in there?  If not, how long might it have taken to get down to the desired temperature, especially with a massive slightly-warmed-up turkey in there?
How cold does her refrigerator get?  Is it a new refrigerator?  Are you both certain that it gets as cold as the rep at TJ's is assuming?  Have you actually stuck a thermometer in there to measure the environmental temperature around where the turkey would be stored?

I'm not expecting you to answer any of these; my point is just that there are so many variables, so many things that can go wrong, and the quoted 10-day storage period (as well as the sell-by date) is for storage under ideal conditions.

I've seen turkeys go rancid in the fridge after just 2 days.  I've seen others take longer, but still far less than 10 days to go rancid.  It's an incredibly frustrating and completely avoidable experience.  Just put it in the freezer!  She just needs to make sure she gives it a couple of days to thaw in the fridge, due to the size of the bird.  A half-frozen turkey on Thanksgiving day is almost as useless as a rancid one.


Structure of tomato, ginger and garlic after blending in a blender

I suspect the culprit is the tomato, which does a good job taking on air and looking 'foamy'. I've noticed this if I use my stick blender when making pasta sauce from a few jars of canned tomatoes as well as when I make gazpacho. Even a few short bursts in a blender can whip up the contents.

A food processor, which typically has a flat blade, won't incorporate as much air as the blender, rather it's going to chop vs. whip.

Also, love how you asked about 'why' vs. expressing disgust at the result. Probably makes no different in the final result as the heat of cooking will take care of the foam, as will time.


Cleaning brown/gray spots on overheated stainless steel stock pot

Barkeepers Friend is a product that works wonders on steel and aluminum cookware. With a little elbow grease, this stuff removes discoloration very well. If you can't find BKF, Zud is another product that uses Oxalic Acid for it's cleaning power, although it seems to be less potent.


Around 2.5 - 3 cups (2.8 exactly) but I doubt exactness is necessary for your recipe if your willing to guess by volume.

May I suggest investing in some scales they will only set you back £14 for some bog' standard ones which will work just fine for home use.


I'm not sure how much it matters, other than the fact that it is difficult for seasoning to stick to a frozen steak.  I would season with salt and pepper (or whatever spice blend you prefer) after the sear and before the oven step...but you could also season at the end of the cook.  If it is a good steak, keep the seasoning simple.


Why can you not add herbs and spices powder at end?

That's absurd, imho.  You add spices generally to the earlier stages of a stew so they can meld in together, between themselves and with the main ingredients.  That takes time usually, more time than just cooking even.  It's why most stews are better the next day, when flavors have really had the opportunity to form a cohesive whole.

So if you add spices at the end, you run the risk of them not being totally well mixed.  But there's no way your curry would start to smell bad!  Especially from chili, which if anything would prevent any bad smell from its conservation powers. That's just superstition.  And I hope you added some and demonstrated that :-).  Or at least try it on your leftovers.


How was Chinese Master Stock stored in olden days before refrigeration

The thing here is to use the stock often. Add to it often with other juices. Keep it at or above 160f. Filter often to keep impurities out. At 160f bacteria does not form in it. If let set bring to boil. Skim & filter. The cook stoves or heat never shut off.  If stoves ovens cooled to fast they could crack. So were always kept warm. Then came refrigeration. Modern ovens & stoves. Brick & stone stoves are like that. It takes 3 days to bank down the heat before you can cool them or they crack or fall apart. Fire clay. Turn of the heat cool fast. The clay will turn to powder. So to use the banked down heat. overnight sauces could be kept warm. Meat slow cooked in them at night. To use that heat.


Should hot water be added to the already hot cooked vegetables for making a curry or even room temperature/cool water would do?

This is my personal experience. It takes sometime to reach the boiling temperature (again) when you add colder water. As a  result, vegetables get cooked for a longer period than anticipated.  This makes some vegetables becoming mushy and not tasting as good as otherwise. (Example: Egg Plant)  Therefore, I make sure to add the right amount of water in the first place.


Big Chicken vs Small Chicken: weight and stuffing volume ratios

I think you are over thinking this...

One one hand, the size of the cavity in the chicken is approximately proportional to the width or height of the chicken, and the width is approximately proportional to the cube root of the weight.  However, for small values, the because of the cube law, the volume of the cavity is not going to change by huge amounts--a 2.5 kg chicken will take almost as much stuffing as a 3 kg chicken.

From 2 to 3 kg, you are looking at a ratio of approximately 1.4 versus 1.7, or very approximately 80 percent as much stuffing.  For most cooks, this is in the noise, I would suspect.

However, speaking culinary:

You can simply look at your chicken and estimate the volume of the cavity, or stuff it until it is full--see item 2.
You can bake any excess stuffing separately in a casserole dish.  Or you can bake all of the stuffing (technically, now dressing) in a casserole, which is my preferred method--then the amount you want is directly proportional to the number of guests you have.*
Many folks, including myself, believe roasting the chicken (or turkey) without stuffing leads to better meat, is easier, and the chicken will certainly cook more quickly.
Lots of folks like the stuffing the best, so your guests might want lots.
Leftover stuffing is delicious, and can be frozen.

*Geeks may point out that the guests may have to be weighted by a hunger factor...


Strawberries turn a natural red color in their ripening process. This is usually a very strong, ruby-red color. Rest assured, strawberries in the US are not dyed. FDA clearly lists all adulteration done to fruits (oranges can be dyed), but strawberries only has a regulation of when the product is considered moldy, etc. Note that even though dyed strawberries may not be sold in US, they may be exported in countries that permit it ( fruit intended for export is exempt).

Rest of the world is a different story. It wouldn't be uncommon for you to  find strawberries that are picked too early in the process, or are just grown in poor conditions that are dyed red to give it the luscious red appearance. There have been anecdotal reports of this in China - this color comes right off when washed, showing a white strawberry. Strawberries do leech a red fluid when washed, but that shouldn't result in a white strawberry.


Why won't my sourdough form a shapeable dough that doesn't stick?

When I was young and poor I baked all the bread my family of 5 ate, for several years.  I baked yeast and sour dough breads with various flours.
So some hints: 1. Use good bread flour! King Arthur's or Hecker's brand, if those are not available look for a high gluten wheat flour, if possible unbleached.
2. Get good at making yeast breads first.  Yeast is more efficient than lactoacid bacillus and will make bread rise better.  Once you have made a few batches of nice home style white, then try adding in some different flours.  I used to make oatmeal, rye and Anadamer bread.  All of which are variations on white.  None of them will rise as well due to the lack of gluten. Then add your sour dough to the yeast dough.  Yes, you can get sourdough to rise without yeast but it will take much longer and occasionally fail.  Adding the sour dough starter to a yeast dough will still get you the great sour flavor with the bonus of a better success rate.

3 There is no substitute for kneading.  You generally can't stir enough flour into a dough to make a firm bread, you have to knead in the last couple cups.  Your problem really sounds like not enough flour being kneaded in at the end. Your boule should be smooth and have a dusting of flour on the outside.  You can over knead, if the dough starts to tear rather than stretch just let it rest for half an hour.


Does proofing time depend on the quantity of dough?

No.

The proofing time of a dough is a function of the ratio of yeast and available water, and the temperature of the dough. Notice these are ratios. If you doubled a recipe but didn't double the yeast with it the dough would rise much more slowly.

The quantity of dough will only play a role in rise time if the dough is a significantly different temperature than the surrounding environment. In this case the dough in the center will rise at a different rate than the dough on the outside.


Adding spiciness to indian curry at the end of cooking

You probably can't fix the sauce, but the common ways to add heat/spice/flavor to a S. Asian dish after it's cooked are to mix in a tempering oil and to use spicy pickles. The former's easy -- heat up oil and spices in a pan until fragrant, then stir into the dish. You're cooking the spices at the temperature of the hot oil, which is much higher than the temperature a water-based sauce can attain. The latter's easy too -- buy some nice spicy lime pickle at the Indian grocery store!


How should we determine the proportion of yeast in thin pizza?

First, the title of the question is about the "proportion of yeast" in pizza dough.  As the question doesn't elaborate further on that point, I'm not certain what that question might be.  Yeast proportions in pizza dough are typically similar to other breads, though sometimes a bit less, as pizza doesn't need to rise high.

As to the specific questions:

Yeast is used to improve the texture.  You can make pizza without yeast (or other leavening, like baking powder), but the result will have a flatbread texture that might be more cracker-like or doughy (depending on thickness and how long it is baked).  Traditional Italian-style pizza generally at least has a risen edge that is thicker.  And even thin-crust pizza is often improved in the center by having small bubbles that give a more leavened "bread-like" texture.  Also, yeast provides flavor during fermentation, so that's another reason it's typically added.
Yes, added fat will reduce the strength of the gluten network somewhat, which is one reason why many recipes don't add any fat to pizza dough.  However, a small addition of fat (generally olive oil) does produce a softer crust.  Using a high-protein flour (like bread flour or high-gluten flour), as well as making sure to develop the gluten well by kneading, folding, and shaping, will ensure that it's plenty strong enough for stretching.  In fact, a little added oil can actually help to make the dough easier to stretch into a thin pizza shape in its process of softening the dough.  My standard pizza dough recipe has some olive oil, and it stretches very easily until it's so thin you can almost see through it, but it rarely tears unless I'm not careful.
I don't really see the need to stab the dough randomly with a fork (though I have seen recipes that recommend that).  But some people use a fork or other utensil to pop any large bubbles in the dough before topping and baking.  It is useful to get rid of large bubbles, as they can grow significantly, and then burn or pop and cause toppings to get distributed unevenly.  This step isn't strictly necessary (depending on your recipe and how long you let the dough rise before making your pizza), and I usually only bother getting rid of particularly large bubbles.


No, I cannot guess a time. What works is temperature. Bread is done at an internal temperature of 195F to 205F (90.5-96.1C).


According to this Korean blog post it is Salamande bread, and the packaging calls it "Taste of Europe". You know Koreans love a good European bakery.

Salamande is also covered in this blog post as well.


Pepperoni has quite a bit of fat in it, and it's going to break down over time as it ages in the fridge (just like the meat that went into it). That can result in a sort of tacky feeling to it. You get this in things like beef summer sausage, too. It's always rather dry by the time it spoils, which takes quite a while.

Sticking an uncovered sausage in the back of the ref for a day or so is something many folks do to bring out the spices it contains a bit more prior to cooking. It also tends to come out a little tacky, depending on fat and preservative content. I do this with store-bought Italian sausage to get the fennel and anise a bit more pronounced.

If it doesn't smell acrid or rancid, and feels like pepperoni despite being a little tacky, it's probably fine. When preserved meats go bad a few parts of it start to have an acrid sort of odor, quickly followed by the rest. It's harder to spot initially in chorizo and similar, but bad pepperoni really gives itself away pretty quickly.

Also, taste a small piece. If it's rather sour, you probably don't want to use it.

Source: Me always being given the job of cleaning out and rotating stuff in the walk-in in at a place I used to work that made a lot of pizza.


How can I use persimmons in a cooked dish?

Raw

Personally, growing up I've usually just eat it raw after it's ripened. That's the only form that i've a experienced a persimmon.

Nonethless, a quick google reveals use as a sauce:

  This morning, I cooked the last of the mushy persimmons into a second
  batch of persimmon sauce.  The first, served over bread pudding on a
  whim one evening, was so popular that it was deemed worthy of the last
  persimmons.  It’s simple and delicious, primarily because, as I
  discovered, a generous serving of  nutmeg and a bit of meyer lemon is
  the best way to season persimmon anything!

Source: Oakland Garden Kitchen

In this article, Oakland Garden Kitchen blogger, also lists a recipes for persimmon bread published by David Lebovitz. Lebovitz has a very comprehensive blog article about persimmons.

Persimmon in Bread

In this blog, he provides an adaptation of James Beard's, "Beard on Bread", Persimmon Bread recipe. If you don't like this version of the recipe. Epicurean has another version.

Persimmon as an Entree

Wine Press NW also once published a recipe of use of persimmon as a glaze for salmon.


How to grow baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) at home without creating a sourdough starter?

You can try it on agar.
Or you could imitate the industrial method. The industry uses diluted molasses and aerates the solution - yeast needs oxygen to multiply, in anaerobic conditions it does not multiply but converts sugars into alcohol.
You could also try to sterilize the flour (pressure cooker / oven).

Note: air contains wild yeast cells and lactic acid bacteria. So the chances that they contaminate your culture is high.

Also note: if the culture is not well aerated, it produces alcohol, which in turn attracts acetobacter, which turn the alcohol into acetic acid.

When culturing mushrooms, the growers try to make sure that the selected mushroom strain is the one, that colonizes the substrate first, because it can then outcompete moulds and bacteria. I think if you have a high yeast ratio, it might be able to outcompete lactobacilli. This way you could probably use flour without having to worry that it turns sour.

Edit: lactic acid bacteria likes anaerobic conditions, in the presence of O2 it forms H2O2 which limits its growth. This could also be used to improve your LAB/yeast ratio.