There is a couple of possible reasons I can think of.

Over stirring the mixture could be breaking the rice down releasing more of the starches which will be making the sauce thicker and sticking the rice into clumps.

Over cooked rice again making the rice overly sticky.

Like you've mentioned, lack of liquid. If the sauce is getting far too thick the starches will be more concentrated again sticking the grains together.

If the sauce is thick then certainly adding more water should help loosen it up a bit. Soaking the rice in cold water for half an hour before and then rinsing a few times will help get rid of some excess starch.

Also a possible factor is your choice of rice type. Some are more "sticky" than others.

Without tasting it myself it's hard to give a 100% reason but hopefully you will get a better result by paying attention to all the above.

If after all the above methods one last ditched effort might be as follow. 12 years ago when I was just starting out in my first kitchen I remember my head chef telling me "when you pour you're rice into boiling water, you must make sure they all fall freely and hit the water individually". Now I've remembered this ever since and thought about it every time I've cooked rice since, I've never done it though and can see NO reason why it would work or make any difference.

It's also worth noting I've never used a rice cooker in my life, not even sure what they are or do...


Is it safe to cook large cuts of meat sous vide?

Generally speaking, to answer the final question in the post, i.e., "It is sometimes unsafe to cook large cuts of meat using sous vide techniques," the answer is assuredly, "Yes, it is sometimes unsafe."

The problem is that it's difficult to identify precisely when it becomes unsafe.  That's why the USDA guidelines are so strict: they are meant to be simple rules that apply even under really non-ideal circumstances.

What are the factors to consider?  Well, the thickness itself is only a small part of the equation.  The numbers cited from Douglas Baldwin in comments and in Stefan's Gourmet linked in another answer are grossly oversimplified to the point that they aren't much better than the USDA blanket recommendation.

I mean no disrespect to either of those sources here, because both are valuable.  The Stefan's Gourmet link simplifies the approach of the book Modernist Cuisine, which is itself an oversimplified view of microbiology.

I'm not a microbiologist, but I have taken courses related to it.  I've also taken courses related to heat transfer, and I've done basic numerical modeling on how you'd have to look at heat transfer in a large hunk of heterogeneous material.  It's incredibly complicated.  The equations that are used to generate tables used in those links are already rather complicated, but they are based on a lot of assumptions -- the important ones here being (1) symmetrical shape, (2) homogeneous composition of material, and (3) a specific thermal profile of that (fictitious) homogeneous material.

In plain English, those tables basically treat a turkey as if it were a giant sphere (or cylinder) of X, where X is a magical substance that is chosen as an "average" of the various components of "average" meat.

Compare that to heating an actual large piece of an animal, like a whole turkey.  Muscles vary in their density, which changes thermal properties.  Veins of fat or connective tissue have their own thermal properties, as do bones.  Bones might serve as speedy conductors of heat energy in some cases, but might slow down heat transfer in other situations.

What's the temperature of the water bath?  How far is it above the danger zone?
 That's also not something reflected in some simple charts.  What you care about is how much time it takes the meat to get over around 130F, not how long it takes to get within 1 degree of the water bath temperature (or whatever the desired outcome).

And then you have the problem of air, as in the cavity of a turkey -- which is a huge issue in however you cook a whole bird.  Air often acts as an insulator, though it can be used with convection to transmit heat more effectively.  In a sealed sous vide bag, though, most of that air is likely to just sit in there, getting in the way, along with the bones and other stuff that will have all sorts of impacts on heat transfer.

That's why Douglas Baldwin wisely tends to stick to thin steaks or whole cuts of muscle tissue, as they will be somewhat more predictable.  Modernist Cuisine and its followers take a more cavalier approach to food safety, basing their recommendations largely on Salmonella death computations.  The latter were originally chosen by the USDA many years ago to model food safety, as Salmonella is often the fastest growing pathogen in relatively quick-cooking methods (as recommended by the USDA).

But the USDA (and Salmonella death rates at various temps) are not enough to the toxin problems in something like a turkey cooked for a very long time in the "danger zone."  At that point, you'll kill off the Salmonella just by heating above the danger zone for long enough.  You can easily ensure that in a sous vide situation.

However, the problem with something like a large turkey isn't going to be Salmonella -- it's going to be so-called persistent toxins produced by rapid growth of other types of bacteria at elevated temperatures in a water bath (though not hot enough yet internally to kill bacteria off).  These persistent toxins may require higher final temperatures to denature the toxins and render the food safe to eat.  In some cases, the temperatures required to destroy such toxins might be high enough that the advantages of sous vide would be lost.  In other cases, the overgrowth of bacteria during cooking in the danger zone could leave large numbers of bacteria in spore form, which will begin to grow again after cooking, leaving the food safe to eat immediately, but unsafe for leftovers.  (That's probably a concern when you're cooking a large hunk of meat -- you often want to be able to use leftovers.)

None of this is really answering the question directly, because it's really hard to give appropriate guidelines without falling back on some "rule of thumb" like the USDA.  Based on the USDA's own advice for cooking meats like large turkeys from a frozen state or smoking meat at low temperatures, I know they find it acceptable for some parts of the meat to be in the danger zone for longer than two hours.  But how long is too long?

Some people, for example, cook a Thanksgiving turkey "low and slow" overnight at 200F in the oven.  To me, that's a bit too risky.  (Though I might do a modified recipe where the turkey spends time in a hot oven to brown first, "jump starting" the internal thermal gradient to get it to temperature at least a little faster.)
 Putting a whole turkey in a sous vide bath at 165F or something would probably get it out of the danger zone quicker than that, so while I wouldn't cook a turkey that way myself, it's probably safer in terms of statistical likelihood of danger than some methods people already use.

Some of the risks can be mitigated by searing exteriors of whole cuts in advance (to kill surface bacteria), restricting sous vide to relatively homogeneous cuts of muscle, and/or cooking at a higher temperature for an initial portion of the water bath before turning the bath down to the final desired temperature.

But honestly, I'm not going to mess with any of that.  Sous vide has its greatest advantages when it can cook evenly -- one might say that's the main point of sous vide cooking.  A whole turkey or a whole chicken is not going to cook evenly in a sous vide bath when it spends a large amount of time at different internal temperatures.  In fact, with the large amount of air that will remain in the cavity, it is even sous vide (i.e., "under vacuum") anymore?

So, cut the turkey or chicken into pieces.  Bag them individually.  You'll get a superior result, I'm sure.  In addition, you could do what's most appropriate and cook the dark meat to higher temperatures in your bath than the white meat.

For large roasts of other animals, I'd consider cutting them up in they were oversized.  A prime rib is probably not going to have as much internal bacteria to worry about as a chicken or turkey, but it still will heat unevenly due to mixtures of lots of fat and muscle as well as bones.  Still, I've done a boneless rib roast in sous vide and would do it again -- but that seemed thin enough to me to not worry about the transient heating issue.

Bottom line is that sous vide is probably just as safe if not safer for large hunks of meat as other super "low and slow" methods people sometimes use in the oven, etc.  But those latter methods are themselves probably not very safe in some cases.  When I look at charts in those links and see that under ideal conditions with a perfectly homogeneous hunk of meat it might take more than eight hours to get through the danger zone in the center -- I might start to think twice about a recipe.  And I might start looking at the final temperature more closely: will the meat get to a high enough temperature to kill off bacteria and denature possible toxins that accumulate over several hours?

There's no simple answer here, but I wouldn't trust any recipe or table of values telling me to cook something for more than about four hours without understanding the assumptions it is making and the food safety model it is based on.


straining methods for liquids to be used in whipping siphon

For the non-professional coffee filters are the best bet. If you want to go a bit further get some disposable laboratory filters, they can trap smaller particles. You wanna go below 25 microns for the food to be imperceptible in the tongue.


Can dry roasted squash be used effectively for gnocchi?

Some ideas:

I like to do do pumpkin gnocchi. The dryer the pumpkin, the better, since you will need to add less flour and get a lighter result. It has a lovely sweet taste compared to potato gnocchi and goes really well with sage and butter or blue cheese sauce. The recipe in the link is just suggestive. My approach is to add an egg yolk and to keep adding flour just to the point where the mix gets together. The reason is because the less flour, the better the final result (however flour is important, otherwise you get a sticky mess that you won't manage to roll and cut).
Also on the pasta side, you can make ravioli filled with pumpkin and again serve with sage and butter sauce.
Pumpkin bread. You could incorporate your pumpkin puree in a bread dough and proceed as usual for bread (you can do sourdough, tin bread, etc). The sweetness of the pumpkin works great when serving the bread with cheese, and the pumpkin gives a nice orange colour.
If you have not salted it, pumpkin sponge cake or pudding.
Pumpkin soufflé, goes well sweet or savoury.


Removing Pesticides from Herbs like Cilantro

Fruits are fairly easy to clean things off of, because they tend to have thick rinds and/or hard exteriors (apples, oranges, bananas, etc.); so pesticides sit on top, and we just have to wash them off.  Baking soda and water will do that to some extent (plus rubbing, which is quite important!).

Greens, though, don't have that kind of exterior.  Pesticides on the surface can be cleaned off, and should be, but to a large extent they're already inside the green.  Soaking them might remove some of the pesticides, but odds are you'll remove a lot of the flavor if you soak them long enough to help; and remember, pesticides are typically intended to not wash off too easily (or they'd be gone the next time it rained!).

That said, cilantro (and other herbs) are relatively low risk for pesticides, particularly if they're US-grown.  Consumer Reports rates them "Low" (Mexico) and "Very Low" (US) risk; I suspect it's not because Cilantro doesn't have pesticides (it does - search 'Cilantro Pesticide' and you'll find a lot), but because you just don't use that much of it in your food.  Much more concerning would be lettuce, broccoli, etc. - things you eat in large quantities - because you'll have a lot more of the pesticide along with it.


to answer the primary question, yes you could, but pepperoni is already cooked and processed and is hard (dried),it's easy to eat in small thin slices, but not in big chucks.
You could try grinding it down again and find a way to bind it in a patty (egg?breadcrumbs?) but the final texture might be weird,
pepperoni is also usually quite strong in taste and making a whole burger out of it would be overwhelming flavour (IMO).
As someone (SnakeDoc) wrote  in the comment, you could finely chop pepperoni and mix it with your burger meat.
pepperoni is more or less ground pork (or beef or mix of both) with spices and smoked.
As a substitute,
You could make a patty of ground pork and beef, add some pepperoni spices, including smoked paprika (or some liquid smoke) and use that as a burger meat.


What is the effect that cooked sieved egg yolks added to pastry dough will have on the final product?

I have seen some blogs (without any references) that some old European recipes utilise hard boiled eggs, for Cakes & Sablé.  It is mentioned that it is used to reduce the gluten binding together too much.  I would guess it works similarly to gnocchi, the quantity of mashed potato mixed in the flour reduces the gluten leaving a soft pillowy texture.


Possible to cook chestnuts on a wood burning stove?

Chestnuts can be rosted in the oven, no special equipment necessary. You should prepare them properly, though. First, soak them in lukewarm water for at least 30 minutes. This will soften the skin and help to loosen the fuzzy inner skin later. Then, use a small knife to cut either a slit or a cross on the round side. Place them, cut side up, on a baking tray and roast at 180-200 °C / 350-400 °F for about half an hour. The cuts should open when the chestnuts are done.

If you want to try this on your stove, prepare them the same way, then roast in the pan. Aim for a rather hot stove, mimicking the coal fire, stir them often. If possible, use a cast iron pan rather than non-stick, as the coating might suffer.  Some street vendors here add a dash of water to the roasting pan (over the coal fire) to create steam once in a while. As to time: see above, cuts should open and chestnuts can be easily pierced with a knife.

Did you know than you can also boil chestnuts? Prepare as described above, then boil for about 10 minutes.


The answer is that both can be used just fine for the same purposes, however stock pots tend to have much thinner walls than the bottom and thinner than those found on Dutch ovens. The thinner walls mean that they retain less heat and so are less efficient at cooking on the stove top (e.g. soups), and more likely to burn or stick around the walls if placed in the oven - because of the faster heat transfer on these thin surfaces.

Stainless steel is more prone to sticking for some items too (e.g. eggs, meats), and is relatively difficult to season (it's generally not done to stainless), whereas cast-iron can be seasoned very easily, it's more or less mandatory for this material and essentially makes it more or less non-stick.

Enameled/ceramic-coated cast-iron pots such as the Le-Creuset ones are generally non-stick from the shop and have the same benefits as cast-iron.

Having said that I use an oven-safe stock pot for making things like pasta-bake, where it is in the oven for relatively short periods of time (~40 min - 1h), and don't generally have any problems.


I need to quickly and safely thaw frozen ground beef, what are my options?

Put the meat in a sealed plastic bag, place in a bowl in the sink, fill with cold tapwater, then set the tap running in a thin stream with the water overflowing the sides of the bowl.  The moving water will safely thaw the meat through convection.  Make sure you get as much air out of the plastic bag as you can.  You might need to put some weight on it in the bowl to keep it submerged in the water.


Substitute baking powder for yeast in a focaccia?

Short answer:  no, you cannot without radically changing the recipe until it is something completely different.

See my answer here for more information:  https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/32294/14401


What to do with left-over rices from Chinese takeouts?

Apart from the Fried Rice mentioned.

Rice Cakes - not the polystyrene looking discs.

Wor Bar/Puffed rice cake (Shape is strictly personal preference)
 drying/dried wor bar
 fried wor bar
 fried wor bar

Pressed/shaped rice cakes are dried, before frying into a puffy rice cake, to be eaten on it's own or with some dip/seasoning, or as a crispy sizzling base for a saucy dish).

The rice needs to be wet/sticky enough to squish together form a cake (alternatively add some flour, try 1 tablespoon per cup of rice), before leaving to dry on a rack, low oven, or a dehydrator.
Once dry, deep fry in hot oil until all the rice puffs up (ideally the rice stays white, but fry as long as you prefer)

Mi Xiang - Puffed rice cake
 mi xiang being pressed/rolled
 mi xiang bars

Puffed rice with a binding agent (honey, syrup, or caramel), typically mixed with roasted peanuts, sesame and/or coconut (however, any fruits, nuts, or grains can be added), before being compressed, then cut into bars (similar to a flapjack/granola bar)

Puffed rice - Cooked Rice can be dried, then placed into hot oil, which will puff up similar to 'rice krispies'
Jhaal muri
Puffed rice mixed with a selection of spices, and optionally other fruit, vegetables, nuts or sauces.
Deep fried rice balls/Arrancini  - A deep fried rice ball, which can be stuffed with filling and/or coated (breadcrumbs, flour, nuts, etc)
Rice Tamales A rice parcel with sweet or savory fillings, that is wrapped (bamboo leaf, banana leaf, corn husk, etc) before being boiled or steamed.
Onigri - A compressed oval/triangular shaped rice, can be plain or filled, and/or wrapped with a sheet of roasted seaweed 'nori'.
The completed Onigri can be grilled, broiled, or pan fried into 'Yaki Onigri'
Thickening agent - Soups and stews can be thicken as the rice absorbs liquid and breaks down.
Sushi - gunkan, nigri, maki, temaki, oshi sushi, inari sushi, etc.
Chirashi sushi - A bed of rice (seasoned with vinegar), with toppings covering the rice.
(Cheat's) Hainanese Chicken Rice - A Boiled chicken and rice dish, originally from Hainan, China.
(Cheat's) Congee - A rice soup/gruel/stew , which can be flavoured with stock, meat or vegetables.
If you steam or broil a dish, try using rice as a bed, it will heat up and absorb any sauces or juices.

There seems to be a number of leftover rice recipes on the internet.


I think it is mostly for the taste. It certainly isn't necessary - I roast beets without any vinegar all the time, and they turn out great. I just roast them in their skins, without any oil or anything added. It takes a long time, over an hour depending on how big they are. When they are completely tender, let 'em cool, and the jacket slips right off. Roasting intensifies the flavor by caramelizing some of the sugars and removing moisture. You can always season with vinegar after roasting, depending on what you plan to do with them.


Harissa Sauce is likely what you want, the sauce has found different names, it's origin includes Lebanon.
I found one of many recipes at:
https://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/harissa/


Why microwaves do not kill harmful bacteria as well as boiling?

I'll go ahead and take a stab at answering this, even though the question is a bit vague. I assume by "cook" you mean "cook with a non-microwave method", like boiling, steaming, baking, frying, sauteeing, or anything else.

First of all, no, I can't think of any reason why microwaves would be worse than any other cooking method. If you fully cook something in a microwave, it is as safe as fully cooking it any other way. If the food reaches the same temperatures, and is held there for the same amount of time, the bacteria will be just as dead no matter what the heat source is. The heat supplied by a microwave is fairly similar to that supplied by steaming, and no one claims that steaming is an unsafe cooking method. The only thing I can think that would be unsafe is if you don't actually fully cook the food, but just heat it to the temperature that you want to eat it at. But that'd be a problem for any cooking method; dangerous undercooked meat is dangerous because of the temperature, not the cooking method. (And of course, not all food needs to be cooked to be safe.)

The arguments you suggest don't really make much sense to me, either. For the first, I don't have any idea what you mean by heat frequency or sequentially different waves; heat is not a wave, so I'm not sure how to respond. No matter how you're cooking something, heat is being transferred into the food. Heat caused by absorption of microwaves is no different from heat supplied by contact with boiling water, steam, pan, or the hot air in an oven. It's still heat transfer, and it makes the temperature go up. Different methods may heat more or less evenly, or at different speeds, but heat is heat.

As for your second suggestion, reflection of microwaves, well, that happens already. You may have noticed that the food in a microwave ends up hot on all sides; this is especially noticeable if it's a big solid piece of food like a casserole. It'll be hot on the top, the bottom, and the sides. The microwaves are reflected around; there's really no other way for it to be. If they weren't reflected they'd have to either be absorbed (meaning your microwave would heat itself up) or pass through the walls (meaning standing next to a microwave would be dangerous). And it'd be horribly inefficient, on top of that.

Of course, all the stuff about reflection and heating from all sides is still a moot point in terms of food safety. When you cook something in a pan on the stove, as long as you fully cook it, it's fine, even though it's only being heated from the bottom. All that matters is the temperature the food reaches.


How can I train myself to identify flavors better?

One thing that my mother suggested to me when I first started getting interested in learning to cook beyond blindly following a recipe was that I try making scrambled eggs with one single spice in them to see how that flavor affects the taste of something I know well. It's actually a pretty good way to train your tastebuds to understand what flavor a particular spice imparts. You could then move on to combinations of spices.

For Indian food, however, they're probably using a combination of lots of spices. Garam Masala can be up to 12 different spices, not counting aromatics such as onions and garlic. So you may be better off trying to compare different recipes for that particular dish and seeing what the difference is with those particular spice mixtures.

In general, I'm a big fan of trying different things and seeing if you like them. For example, I can't stand the flavor of black licorice, and so I avoid anise and all variants. However, I wanted to try making a chicken pho which called for star anise. I tried it, and found that in very small amounts, I actually like it. So go and experiment. Try different recipes for the same things, and try modifying your own recipes a bit at a time. Sometimes it may not work, but even then you'll be learning a lot.


The main issue with reusing the sanding sugar is what else may have been mixed in to it:

There may be crumbs from the cookies, depending on how fastidious you are in policing your baking sheets, especially if you use the sheet for a second time in the oven
The sugar may get oil on it if you have been greasing your sheets

Within a single baking session, I would certainly reuse the sugar.

It would be a more significant issue if you are retaining the sugar between sessions, but still, unless there is dough with raw eggs mixed in with the recovered sugar (which would no doubt be a very tiny amount, and soon quite dried out), neither of these is a safety issue, although they may be an aesthetic issue.

I would ask, though.. how much extra sanding sugar are you loosing?  If you sprinkle each cookie (rather than casting sugar across the entire sheet) you should have very little excess sugar to recover.

Still:  reuse it if you want to, and you are not displeased by its performance when being reused.


An issue you'll have to deal with is diameter. A high flame on a smaller ring may put out more or less heat than a low flame on a bigger ring. While you might think the pan size would cancel that out, a big pan may need to go on a small ring for a gentle simmer. The height between the burner and the pan rest isn't exactly standardised either.

You might do better to think in terms of the pictures on the dial: big flame, little flame, and halfway in between. Even then you'd have to normalise for pan size. Perhaps assume a pan a bit wider than the biggest flame that ring delivers. Even the amount of variation between max and min is quite variable.

As for colour, if it's not blue, turn it off. That's a simple message for kids but it's a good starting point.


I don't see why not.

I make channa masala from scratch - fry onions, garlic, chilli, add spices, drop soaked chickpeas
...and enough extra water so it will absorb and evaporate in the required time.

That's your only bit of guesswork, but for soup that's probably not as crucial as for a dish which is served almost dry.

What may be your sticking point -  you may have to salt towards the end, or they will be tough. As I don't pressure-cook, I'm not sure how easy that would be. For regular stove-top, it would be 30 minutes before the end of a 2-hour cook.


How long does breakdown of collagen etc. take for sirloin cooked sous vide?

Sirloin steak doesn't have a huge amount of collegen, which is why it's traditionally cooked over high heat for as short a period of time as possible. If I were you I'd be more worried about the meat become unpleasantly mushy if left in the bath for too long. I would just use the Douglas Baldwin tables for bringing the meat up to the required temperature:

Heating Time from 41°F (5°C) to 1°F (0.5°C) Less Than the Water Bath’s Temperature

Thickness   Slab-like   Cylinder-like   Sphere-like
  15 mm       35 min       18 min          13 min
  20 mm       50 min       30 min          20 min
  25 mm       1¼ hr        40 min          25 min


Safety question for defrosting and refreezing chicken breasts

One should only defrost once. Refreezing defrosted proteins results in loss of texture and flavor (regardless of the marinade.) The acidic component of your marinade is not enough to stave off the possibility of bacterial contamination. Why not just defrost your chicken breasts, place them in the marinade, and cook them off after several hours. You could re-heat them later.


Seal it in an airtight zip type bag, squeezing out as much air as possible.   Submerge the cream cheese under lukewarm water for several minutes, until softened, which you will be able to feel through the plastic.

You can also microwave it on low--but do it slowly, and check it frequently, taking off softened portions so that they don't overheat and melt.


Gas leak (and flames) around burner intake

It looks like the burner tube is not sliding back far enough onto the gas outlet on the control valve. Then some gas leaks there instead of going into the burner. All the gas should go into the burner tube. The gas will aspirate air into the the tube, mix with the air and give blue flames at the little holes. If there is orange flame, the adjusting collar on the tube needs to be rotated. Your problem should be a simple fix of sliding the burner tube tight against the valve. It is a pretty forgiving system: I have a 20 year old grill that is on about the 5th set of burners, not made for the specific grill and have not had a problem. (I use the grill a lot). At the end of season I buy whatever burners are on sale, they have all worked so far.


Slow-cooker burns mash potatoes instead of keeping them warm

That just looks like mildly burned mashed potatoes to me, possibly with a little oil/margarine included.

I think the issue here is just that potatoes are thick, and there was no stirring. Slow cookers are best suited for liquids, so that convection can transfer heat throughout the contents. With potatoes, nothing can move around, so whatever's around the edges can get a lot hotter. I've definitely managed to burn things a bit in my slow cooker too, for example apple butter that was too thick for good convection.

I'm not sure there's really much you can do about this given your slow cooker. If it had an even lower "warm" setting, you could try it. If you were willing to make really wet mashed potatoes, there might be enough water to avoid burning. But otherwise, you might have to look to another solution for keeping warm, like the oven, or or maybe an insulated carrier/box if it doesn't need to hold too long.


Why do some pie crust recipes include vinegar?

From On Food and Cooking:

  Acidity in the dough - as from a sourdough culture - weakens the gluten network by increasing the number of positively charged amino acids along the protein chains, and increasing the repulsive force between chains.

And weaker gluten structure is definitely a good thing for pastry doughs!

From the same source:

  [Eggs] supplement gluten structure with tender protein coagulum, tenderize products; slow staling

So eggs help provide a more tender structure, again good for pastry doughs.


What's the numbering system for spaghetti and does it matter?

Ok, here is the straight dope, directly from De Cecco customer service:

  With reference to your question we would like to inform you that the numbers you mention do not have a logical criteria but are just code numbers which we give our products each time we make a new shape.


I use two nested pie plates all the time when I'm blind baking a crust, but glass plates don't work well. Glass plates actually have a much bigger difference between their inner and outer profiles than you might expect, so I usually use metal pie plates instead of glass because they nest a lot tighter (the thinner sheet metal stamped on a die allows for much more precise nesting).

Just be sure to dock the crust, ensure there is no gap between your pie plates and the crust itself, and remove the inner plate a couple of minutes before removing the crust from the oven to allow any excess moisture to escape and brown properly.


I'm sure you can obtain something interesting, but nothing can replace an oven for the puff pastry to cook correctly and uniformly. So even if you manage to get it cooked, the consistency won't be the same.


How to make Honey Roasted Peanuts just like Planters?

The best first resource and guideline for replicating specific commercial products is always the nutritional fact information on the back of the package.

http://planters.com/varieties/nutrition-information.aspx?Site=1&Product=2900007345

Ingredients:  Peanuts, sugar, honey, oils, corn syrup, salt, fructose, & stuff.

The lesson, here, is that Planters Dry Roasted Honey Roasted Peanuts (two roasted-s?) are actually sugar-honey roasted.  Most honey-roasted nut recipes swap butter for the oil (I think that would be a desirable swap!) - but if you're looking for that Planters flavor, you're going to need to make sure your recipe calls for more sugar than honey.

Getting heavy-handed and sloppy with the honey is going to take you in the direction of some failed foray into honey peanut brittle territory - you're looking for a delicate flavoring touch here so be delicate with the ingredients.

Also, for what it's worth, please note that the Planters information would imply that their peanuts are made with no flavorings or spices.  Evaluate your recipe accordingly.


How to make bubble tea - the "real" (tea-less) version? Is there a way to create the powdered flavoring?

You can try finding the powder at an Asian grocery store.  The one I frequent has a section of powders that seem like they might be geared more toward a consumer than a restaurant.  I just checked: it's a one pound bag.  I was able to buy just the one bag, but it was a while ago, so I don't recall the price.  According to the bag, the ingredients are Non-dairy creamer, (whatever flavor - I have strawberry and almond) powder, glucose, and coloring.  Even though it says it has glucose, you're still supposed to add sugar according to the directions (and it definitely needs it).

As for creaminess, you might consider trying milk/soy milk/almond milk, etc. instead of water.  When ever I've made it, it turned out much better like that.  The directions call for extra non-dairy creamer, but the recommended amount didn't seem to be enough, so the next batch, I just made it with soy milk (no particular reason for soy over regular: I just don't have regular on hand).


You have two pieces of evidence that your starter has changed - the bread itself, and the "jelly foam" that happens during room-temperature proofing.

I suspect your starter has been contaminated with some other micro-organism.

You should toss your starter, clean your refrigerator carefully, and get a new culture.


How many racks of lamb can be made into a crown roast?

I don't think the amount will matter too much for cooking, just may take a bit longer, but a thermotor should help there.

What I would consider doing is make the crown out of the three like you had planned and cook the fourth seperatly (but at the same time).  When the lamb is done carve the extra rack (by the single bone) and use it to garnish the crown either inside the crown poking out, or infront of the crown laying on their sides so everyone can see how perfect the lamb is cooked... so everyone will be impressed with both the pretty crown and how well the meat is perpared.


The great benefit of brining is that it opens the fibers of the meat and allows the water, and what is dissolved in the water, into the meat. I suggest you convince yourself of this by adding a fragrant herb such as rosemary to a chicken breast brine, and comparing it side-by-side with an unbrined breast. The difference, deep into the meat, will be noticeable. It is not large chunks of the herbs that find their way into the meat, but the oils and dissolved parts. That is why you heat and steep the water before cooling it for brining.


Torani Peach Syrup!

It's readily available online or at coffee shop supply outlets. Amazon link


You were right to throw them out, no liquid was a sign that something went wrong in processing and therefore a safety concern. When it doubt, throw it out!


How much citric acid to use to preserve vegetarian jelly?

You will have to use the amount specified in the recipe you are using. It varies with each fruit or vegetable. Further, making up your own recipe is not wise because of possible bacteria that could set in. You will want to check out recipes from sites like http://www.freshpreserving.com/tools/faqs.


Do you need eggs for extruded pasta dough?

The original pasta recipes of old were simply wheat and water.  Eggs or oil (the two most popular "water substitutes" in pasta recipes) are not at all necessary to make pasta dough, but they will have an impact on how the dough turns out.

Now, it's hard to give a firm "this is the best way to do it" answer, because everyone has their own preferences on pasta doughs, but you will tend to find that egg-based pastas are a litte more "creamy" than water-based ones.  In my experience, they work fairly well for rolling and cutting, but seem to be a little to "sticky" when extruding.  When I've tried it, the dough has had some issues with sticking to the various extruder plates, causing the pasta to tear.

Now, I have not tried it myself, but I've heard that water-based pasta doughs to much better with extruders/presses, because you can control that "stickiness" a little better and make a slightly drier dough, which comes out much more smoothly.  I've been meaning to try it myself, but have not gotten around to it yet (I really love the flavor of egg pastas, so I tend to just make those and cut them, instead   :)   ).


The photo on the left, specifically the upper left quadrant appears to have a concave shape that would make one think (at first glance) of the short ribs, but the ball joint and size definitely is the give away here. Assuming the dish it rests in is an 9x13 casserole dish you are right that this is probably from a lamb rather than a beef. But the folks at Victorian Farmstead provide a photo that makes it completely clear that we are indeed looking at a "Bone In Leg of Lamb"


How to prevent sliced vegetables/roots from sticking to the blade

I just ignore slices that stick to the blade. Each typically gets pushed off by the next one, so you only have one or perhaps a couple of slices on the blade at a time. When I've sliced the whole thing, I can wipe them off. This doesn't work when you're rough-chopping, in that delightfully casual way the TV chefs say "just run your knife through it all a few times" since half the stuff is on the blade, but it does work when you're slicing a carrot or garlic or whatever.

Just now, I sliced potatoes thinly for gratin and noticed that I semi-automatically gave each slice a little shove, using one of the fingers from the hand that was holding the potato, just as the slice finished. Obviously this only works for slices large enough to stand up past the top of the blade, but it's a technique you can use for some roots and veggies, even if not for garlic. I'm pretty sure I don't do that for things I intend to chop again in another direction, but only for things I am slicing.


Cajeta with powdered goat's milk? Or evaporated?

By golly it worked! :)

Short Answer

Yes, evaporated goat's milk works just fine in Cajeta and you can start with at least 50% less water than you would use to fully reconstitute the milk.

That being the case, powdered goat's milk would probably work just the same way, but that has not (yet) been tested.

EDIT one year later:

I did it again using slightly more than 50% of the water that would be required to fully reconstitute the milk, and the process was smoother. I mention in the text below that I would try it with 2 tablespoons more water next time. That is the way to go; it worked better.

Much Longer Answer

Here's what I did:

24 Fluid Ounces (710 ml) Evaporated Goat's Milk (double strength)
1 1/2 cups (300 gm) Granulated Sugar
12 oz Water (355ml)
1/2 tsp salt
3/8 tsp baking soda in 1 TBS water (yes, I did actually measure 3/8 tsp)

Optional (I used both)

Cinnamon stick
1/2 TBS Vanilla Extract

Or if you're made of money

1 vanilla bean, scraped (are you kidding me? That would more than double the price of this whole operation!)

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, who adapted loosely from Rick Bayless

Check, check, check, check...alright, lets go!

Everything but the baking soda and vanilla went into the pot and was brought to a simmer.

Add baking soda

Now this is kind of funny. I carefully measured 3/8 tsp of baking soda and mixed in the the little custard cup with a TBS of water. When I went to pour it in, half the baking soda stayed in the cup.

Screw it. The cup is stainless steel and I have to dig out the cinnamon sticks anyway.

Now it's just a matter of simmering, and stirring. And tasting, lots of tasting, tasting is very important. Did I mention tasting?

As the caramel thickened, it needed a lot of stirring, a lot of scraping. Towards the end it was tricky to stop stirring long enough to taste, but I managed.

It took about an hour and a half to get from simmering milk to dealing with thickening caramel. The last stage of constant stirring lasted about half an hour.

With practice I'm sure I could get the whole operation in under an hour, I was just very conservative with the temperature 'cause I've seen way too many pots of dairy boil over. With all this sugar, that is one mess I did not want to deal with.

I stirred in the vanilla just before I pulled the pan off the heat.

Well, I patted myself on the back for creating my first Cajeta. Both of the recipes I looked at while developing this recommend straining the warm caramel, and I can see why, it definitely has specks of darker and harder stuff. But, this particular batch of Cajeta has a destiny, it's going to be cooked in a custard base for ice cream. That custard gets strained twice, and it will be whole lot easier to strain that than it would be to strain this sticky stuff.

So it's done, and it's absolutely delicious, but I have one more cool thing to share with you.

I've been making (perfecting) this ice cream for a while. I've been starting with two cans of sweetened condensed milk turned into Dulce de Leche. One can goes into the ice cream base, the other goes into a Ziploc baggie. I snip off a corner and use the baggie like a pastry bag as I'm packing the ice cream into its container. Then I get the swirls of Dulce de Leche. Of course I only use like a quarter or a third of it. So to store the remainder, I just squoodge the caramel away from the corner and fold it over. No mess, no fuss. So....

Lookie there, 14.85oz. Perfect for a batch of ice cream. (minus 4.75 grams for the bag, but who's counting?) Putting it the baggie allowed me to get a volumetric measurement too, by displacement of water in a measuring cup. It was pretty darn close to exactly what I expected it to be, 1 1/2 cups.

The caramel is a wee bit hard, I'll know better next time and take it off the heat a few minutes sooner. If it's difficult to deal with cold, I can just drop the whole baggie into almost simmering water for a while. Or I can just cut off the bag. Chilled, I think it'll just peel away from the bag in one piece. I can just drop the chunk into the simmering milk and mix it in before adding the eggs to my ice cream base.


Choreography of making many yorkshire puddings

I would buy two tins, for the reason that one of the most important factors for successful Yorkshires is a good hot oven. This is required to convert the water in the batter into steam quickly, causing the puddings to rise. Your oven loses a lot of heat when you open the door, so you will more than likely get a poor rise on your second batch if you reuse the tin.

So, I would use two tins, then you can keep that door closed until the last possible minute.


are syrup more flavorful than powder or similar?

45 gm of vanilla powder (pointing to the box the keep the powder in) 2 pumps of mango (Pointing to a big jar of a mango syrup) and spoon of cinnamon
all belnded in a 16 ounce cup of ice

That sounds like it's vanilla-flavoured powder of some sort, perhaps milk-based, (or plant-milk-based), perhaps including maltodextrin, to give texture as well,  It could even be flavoured protein powder in some places (though they'd normally say so); that's about the right quantity compared to when I've made chocolate-vanilla milkshake with vanilla protein powder.
Certainly anything purer than that wouldn't be used in such large quantities.
As far as mimicking it goes, I'd start by using a teaspoonful of extract, and 45g of your best guess as to the rest of the powder.


Yes, you can save it. I transfer it to a small container, label it (with the date), and stick it in the freezer. At some point in the future I'll rediscover it and add it to broth, soup, or a sauce. (Generally, the advice is 6 to 12 months, during which time it loses flavor rather than becoming a health risk. I've used it safely long after that.)

Most of the time, of course, you'll use it to make a sauce for the dish you're cooking. But if you don't use it now, it's a generic meaty-brown flavor that pairs well with a wide variety of things. You could throw it in a pan with sauteeing vegetables, or on top of sauteed scallops, or add it to beans.

You could also refrigerate it; use it within 5 days.


What foods/preparations demonstrate the flavor difference between sea salt and table salt?

Much agreed with Krister that simple is best.  Also, to really emphasize the difference, I'd aim for larger flakes of both the 'regular' salt and the sea-salt. Here are some serving ideas.

Just the salt.  Side by side, on a dark plate with some small divider.  A pinch of each.  That's it.
Broth.  A very simple vegetable broth, made with a little butter (unsalted of course) and fresh tomato, and perhaps a sprig of fresh thyme or rosemary, warmed to about 160 degrees, and strained through cheesecloth. I'd add about 2/3 the salt during cooking and a few 'fresh' flakes at service.
Fish.  Preferably raw.  A piece of sushi-grade salmon would be delicious.  Add a few flakes of salt.
Meat.  Take one very good, very fatty, very juicy piece of meat.  Sear it on all sides to about medium rare.  Salt.
Chocolate.  Salt is a wonderful accompaniment to dark chocolate.  And dark chocolate with caramel.  Make or purchase such a confection, and serve two side by side with a few flakes of each salt on top.
Fruit.  I recommend a piece of watermelon.  Possibly grilled.  With salt.
Tea.  Find a good recipe for salt tea, popular in parts of Asia.  Serve in two small Japanese style tea cups.

You have lots of options.  Small portions will be key.  Not overcooking anything will be key.  Interesting options whether or not to tell your guests ahead of a dish which preparation is which, or let them to identify the difference with their palettes. Perhaps a combination, letting them try to guess at first, then with instruction, and finishing with guessing again.  I'd add in some history, possibly from the highly recommended book Salt.  Or just Wikipedia.  Tell them all of the functions salt serves in our bodies, but especially in the transmissions of flavor on the tongue.  Great idea...!


What is the risk of food poisoning when making nattō

Your question has two facets.

I’ll answer the first one. While brewing beer or wine as well, you’re advised to sterilize all the equipment and use a specific culture of bacteria. The reason for that is, if the “stuff” you’re trying to ferment gets some wild yeast/mold/bacteria, your end results won’t be what you desire. So you’re trying to minimize that risk by sterilizing it.

I believe people with relevant food-safety experince will better answer your second question on safety of fermentation. As I will leave it unanswered. Even though I also think in similar terms with you.


I don't think these have a specific name, but it's possible to take a guess what they are made of.

The container is a "cialda", a thin waffle. Here is a recipe with pictures, basically it's done with a waffle iron with shallow ridges.

The cup is also lined with dark chocolate - the rough appearance suggests this was made in the shop and not bought already made.

What is inside is the hardest to guess, but I think it's likely some pistachio-flavoured "crema pasticcera", pastry cream. Likely milk (possibly also cream), sugar, pistachio paste, egg yolks, rice and corn starch.

The topping is made of crushed nuts, I'd say pistachios but the picture is too small to be sure.


Fresh vs Canned tomatoes in Indian cooking

These are the factors to consider when using tomatoes in Indian cooking:-

1) Does the recipe need pureed or chunky tomatoes to contribute bulk to the gravy? >> if puree then canned is fine or even tetrapak puree. But stick to fresh tomatoes if you need to increase the gravy's volume. E.g.: Paneer Butter Masala where tomato puree is better vs. Matar Paneer where diced tomatoes bring out more tangy spicy flavor.

2) Do you need to keep the peel on or lose it completely? If you need to lose the peel, peeled & canned tomatoes can save much time over having to boil or microwaving the tomatoes.

3) What is the cutting style required in the recipe? finely chopped, coarsely chopped? This point is relevant in case the recipe needs only semi cooked tomatoes.

4) Are the tomatoes being used to add bulk or for flavor? Canned tomatoes do have a slightly different flavor specially if a preservative brine solution has been added.

5) In salads or Indian dishes like bhel puri, the way tomato pieces are added also contribute to aesthetics and make food more appetizing. so canned tomatoes are a stric no-no for such dishes.

And overall- Use Fresh Tomatoes >> tomato is one of the veggies which can be chopped fast & painlessly. To save time, turn your tomato over when chopping (fleshy side up, peel side down)


Why do you need buttermilk to marinate chicken before frying?

Rich, slightly acidic buttermilk makes a good marinade for deep fried chicken for a couple of reasons:

The acidity and milk fats help to break down the outer skin of the chicken so it gets crispier as it fries.
It adheres to the chicken and helps the flour coating stick to it.

There is a discussion here that goes through all that and recommends a minimum of two hours marinade time.


I sometimes steam asparagus before sautéing on a high heat with some lemon juice to get some caramelization on the outside of the asparagus. You could adapt this idea to the grill by sealing the asparagus in tin foil with a little water and steaming for four minutes (for finger thick spears). Then give them a bit of colour by placing them directly over the grill for a minute.


You probably can't.

Cereals are highly processed food, and they use methods not available at home. Producers also don't release information on the exact methods used in a certain product.

If you just want to feed your baby a grain-based pap, look for recipes. Parents have fed grain products to babies long before Nestle existed. Old books for housewives and parents will have recipes, but there are probably recipes on the Internet too.

Such recipes may produce something very different in taste, texture and digestive quality from the industrially-produced pap, although they will be suitable for babies. If you want exactly Cerelac, you will have to buy it. Even if there was a way to know exactly what they do to the grains, you'd probably need industrial equipment to replicate it.


What's the chemical difference between normal coffee beans and Kopi Luwak?

Actually they recently came up with a reliable test for civet coffee. Apparently a great deal of supposedly authentic stuff never actually traveled through the bowels of a cat.

According to the abstract, the levels of citric acid, malic acid, and the inositol/pyroglutamic acid are so much higher in kopi luwak that their ratios can be used to validate mixes with other beans where the proportion of kopi luwak is 50% or greater.


Is there a significant difference in flavor between black and white truffles?

Yes, yes there is.

Black truffles are dark, earthy, sexy in flavour. Renaissance writings compare them to 'unwashed slatterns' and 'bedchambers, rooms of sexual congress, unaired and reeking of the recent activities contained therein.'

White truffles are lighter in aroma and flavour, with distinct garlicky notes. Each has their place--black works better on its own, white works better as an adjunt or finishing note to a dish. I am personally partial to white truffle oil drizzled on cured duck breast, or a black truffle risotto with charred endive.


How can I tell if a vegetarian recipe is suitable for freezing?

Freezing is bad for things which have a special structure and lots of water. Everything else should be OK with freezing.

The prime example of a thing which behaves badly when frozen is a fruit. It consists mostly of water, but is firm instead of liquid because the water is contained within a cellulose structure created by the cell walls of the fruit. When you freeze it, the water turns to sharp ice crystals, which also expand in volume (water is one of the few liquids which does that upon freezing), and they hurt the cell walls. When you defrost the fruit, it turns terribly soft, and all the juice runs out. It is practically like maceration without the sugar. You can use the fruit for cooking, e.g. for a jelly, but it is not the same thing as a fresh fruit.

Another example which is very structure dependent is whipped egg white. It is a fragile foam, and the formation of ice crystals is also very damaging for it. Whipped cream is similar - you can freeze it (and get ice cream), but it melts to a liquid, not a foam.

On the other hand, foods which have a specific structure but not much water are OK with freezing. Butter is not pure fat, it is an emulsion of 17% water in 83% fat. Emulsions tend to have very fragile structures (don't freeze mayonnaise), but butter is OK, because there isn't much water so the formation of crystals doesn't disrupt the structure. Another exception which is OK to freeze is dough. A dough being practically a mesh of gluten, it doesn't get really hurt by the crystals.

There are a few ingredients which develop an off taste when frozen. For example, don't freeze anything carbonated, it tastes terrible afterwards.

You should also consider the problem of freezer burn. It happens when the moisture of the frozen product sublimates in the dry freezer air. To prevent it, you have to seal the food airtight. You are therefore limited by the kind of food you can seal. If you have a food which would make a mess in a home vacuum sealer, like a wet stew, you could try freezing it for a night, so it is hard but does not have freezer burn yet, and then sealing the frozen chunk and returning it to the freezer.

Some ingredients will prevent the food from freezing into a solid block. Notable examples are salt, alcohol and propylene glycol (which is used as a solvent in food coloring and baking aromas). This shouldn't be a food safety problem, because first, bacteria growth is inhibited by low temperatures, and second, if you have these things in concentration high enough to completely prevent freezing at -18°C, then they will kill the bacteria by themselves. But it can cause some logistic problems if the food stays too soft.

As you see, these general guidelines have exceptions, or at least require some knowledge of what food is built like (but frankly, I would have predicted that yeast dough freezes badly if I didn't know from experience that it works well). So you should definitely try to remember it on a per-case basis for the most common things you intend to freeze. A very convenient guideline is to think if you can buy a premade equivalent frozen at the supermarket. If they sell it, it will probably turn out OK when frozen at home (sometimes with differences, like frozen fruit). If they don't have the food (or its major ingredients), there is probably a reason for that.


Garlic brown spots, safe to eat the rest of the bulb?

Yes you can eat it. It is the same as a potato. You get brown spots on your potato you just cut the brown out. This is the same for garlic. If it is molded I would through it all out. I have eaten garlic and potatoes that have had brown spots for years. I'm still alive and kicking. I hope this helps.


This works out to a ratio of 77% hydration (see this answer for an explanation of the term), which is a very good choice for this flour mixture and should not be dry at all. So the problem is most likely in your measurement. The best you can do is to use a scale, because volume is very unreliable. In  If you absolutely insist on measuring by volume, you will have to invest time in getting to do it properly - not packing, levelling well, etc.

Also, you should not be mixing the flour into the dough, you should bne kneading it. If by mixing you mean you are stirring it with a spoon, this is only an early step, you will have to continue kneading the soft dough in the bed of flour until the flour has been absorbed, and then continue for enough time to get a nice elastic dough (about 15 min of hand kneading). I am sorry if this sounds patronizing and you are already kneading properly, you did not describe it in detail so I am trying to exclude the possible culprits here.


keep house hold chemicals bottles near food shelves

As a chemist this makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. One cardinal rule in a chemistry lab is not to eat or drink in the lab. So you are not going to instantly die, nor will you grow another ear, from have cleaning supplies near food items, but to me it is a really bad idea. The cleaning supplies should be stored in a separate location. Under the kitchen sink is typical.

In other words - !! PLAN AGAINST STUPIDS !! You don't want to accidentally spray your frying pan with roach killer instead of a spray oil.


Which speed setting of a mixer-grinder should be used for which purpose?

This is for mixer.

At the low speed you have stir / mix.  At the high speed you have whip.

You would stir eggs to make scrambled eggs.  And you would whip cream to make whipped cream.


How to get more lactic acid vs acetic acid in sourdough?

This is a theoretical answer based on several publications and it would require actual experimental tests. The most probable tip seems to maintain your sourdough at 32 °C as it will affect facultatively heterofermentative lactobacilli present in your sourdough.

A lot of spread knowledge provides, without explanation, several tips such as: feed your starter more regularly, use more starter, add baking soda, use white flour, add baker's yeast, rest your dough at cooler temperature, etc.

Wikipedia currently cites a post by Debra Wink to assert:

  Conversely, a wetter and warmer starter has more bacterial activity and less yeast growth, with more lactic acid relative to acetic acid.

Debra Wink's post is a quite detailed theory of what's going on with lactic and acetic acid productions in sourdough based on several research papers.

The temperature argument is not so clear and seems to be based on so-called baker's rule that low temperatures (20–26 °C) are better for yeast growth. Indeed, this paper argues that you will need a warm temperature (90 °F or 32 °C) and enough humidity as these are the optimal conditions for the growth of lactobacilli, and you need to slow the growth of yeast. While some yeast species (such as Candida milleri) grow faster within 20–26 °C range, the optimum temperature for growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the species of baker's yeast, is supposed to be 30–35 °C.

And more importantly, yeast does not produce acetic acid or lactic acid, it only produces ethanol (alcohol) and CO2. All acids are produced by bacteria.

Lactic acid is produced by lactobacilli and to increase the lactic acid to acetic acid ratio, it seems you will indeed need to favor lactobacilli growth, hence the temperature argument.

However, details are more complex. There are three kinds of lactobacilli:

obligately homofermentative, producing two lactic acid molecules per 6-carbon  sugars;
obligately heterofermentative, producing one lactic acid molecule, and one ethanol molecule and one CO2 molecule per 6-carbon sugars (or just lactic acid and ethanol for lactobacilli able to ferment pentoses) ;
facultatively heterofermentative, chosing either path depending on availability of sugars and required energy.

Facultatively heterofermentative lactobacili will apparently choose the homofermentative path (produce only lactic acid) at higher temperature.

Acetic acid is a by-product of the metabolism of heterofermentative path: whether you end up with ethanol (CH3CH2OH) or acetic acid (CH3COOH) depends on the availability of co-substrates.

Obviously, you might consider having only homofermentative lactobacilli, or facultatively heterofermentative lactobacilli in a warmer environment, yet you might not be able to choose your starter with this precision in your kitchen.

Indeed, the issue seems to concern obligatively heterofermentative lactobacilli including Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis, which has been extensively studied as it is part of common sourdough. According to the post mentioned above, it will produce acetic acid by co-metabolizing fructose with maltose. However, Henry Ng, in a 1972 paper referenced by this post, found that limiting oxygen will limit the amount of acetic acid in a sourdough composed of Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis. In fact, this paper established Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis as an obligatively heterofermentative lactobacilli.

Furthermore, according to Michael Gänzle, another author being referred to, oxygen is the co-substrate for acetic acid, Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis will reduce fructose to mannitol, not to acetic acid, and the amount of oxygen is limited anyway (unless you shake it as Henry Ng's team did). Consequently, the production of lactic acid appears to be the principal factor of the lactic to acetic acid ratio.

Please note that this author stresses that you do need acetic acid in your sourdough:

  Spicher says that a ratio of 20 acetate to 80 lactate is optimal. […] The acetic acid is furthermore important as growth of spoilage organisms such as molds or rope causing bacilli (Bacillus subtilis) is inhibited by high acetic acid concentrations.


When is granular erythritol as good as powdered?

The crystals are only really useful when you want a crystalline form, for instance sprinkling on top of sugar cookies where you want that crunchy sugar texture. I sprinkle raw sugar crystals on top of some cocktails as well (when there's a froth on top to support them) as a garnish, I imagine you could use them that way as well for a lower calorie version.
For any application where you want it mixed in the crystals are not better than powdered, as you point out they are hard to mix in.


How do you make Yorkshire Puddings rise reliably?

While using a hot oven and keeping the tin hot while filling are both critical elements, equal concern needs to be taken with making sure that your batter is at room temperature.
If the eggs and milk aren't room temp to even slightly warm, then it will take a significant amount of heat to simply warm the batter in the pan before significant steam can build for their expansion.
You can warm eggs quickly by placing the whole egg (in shell) in a bowl and covering with hot water from the tap.  Let it sit for 5-10 minutes and you'll have room temperature/warm egg.  Milk can simply be microwaved to only slightly warm (not hot, or you'll cook the eggs).
You might also try using bread flour.  Here in the south all-purpose flour has a lower gluten content than most other all-purpose flour in the US and it's also bleached to weaken the gluten content that's there.  I've recommended to guests of mine that have had issues with popovers not rising that they try bread flour and I've heard positive responses following the use of bread flour. Bread flour will also have a bit more flavor and produce more browning from the additional protein.


It is unlikely that the chemical leavening was a contributor to perceived grittiness.  If you had extra leavening, especially in clumps large enough to perceive, you would also have a very metallic off taste, that surely would have been worth mentioning.

These cookies are made by the creaming method, and have very little water.   The most likely suspect to cause graininess is the sugar.

If there were clumps in the granulated sugar for any reason, they might not dissolve completely during the mixing or baking, leaving a gritty texture.

The way to prevent this, if you consider the effort worth it, is to sift the sugar through a very fine strainer prior to using it in your dough.


This is how I cook bacon, and also produce almost perfectly flat bacon. No special tools required (Well, I'm assuming most people have the following in their kitchen).

Tools

Sheet Tray
Cooling Rack (slightly smaller than the sheet tray)
parchment paper (Optional, but makes for easier cleanup).
BACON (I like the extra-thick cut).

Steps

Take the sheet tray and line with parchment paper.
Lay bacon down on parchment paper. You can fill the tray up, but I make sure the bacon stays in a single layer with no overlapping.
Place the cooling rack upside down onto the bacon. This should keep it from curling.
Place into oven and turn oven to 400 F. I don't find I need to pre-heat it, as, well, bacon isn't very complicated to cook.
In about 15 minutes or so, you'll have cooked, flat bacon. (Adjust cooking time depending on your preference of crispiness.
Take out of oven and remove from tray. (The tray and fat are hot, the bacon will keep cooking if you don't)

The cooling rack should keep it from curling while the fat slowly renders out. As a bonus, I don't need to clean my stove after.

Alternatively, the mention of the George Forman grill reminds me of an idea I saw somewhere (might have been Good Eats), use a waffle Iron! Use it just like the grill in Ward's answer.


Does red wine vinegar and red vinegar taste same?

Welcome to the site @User3176270. I'm not an expert in Halal but my understanding from my halal friends is that red wine vinegar is halal because the process of turning the wine into vinegar gets rid of all the alcohol. In fact, all vinegar is derived from alcohol, the sourness is created by bacteria that eats the alcohol and turns it into acetic acid, so all vinegar is halal unless alcohol was added afterwards, which is very rare. You should be fine, although I'm sure you would want to verify that with someone trusted on the subject.

Getting to the actual question, red vinegar is a rice vinegar which is colored and flavored by a fermented red rice. It is a different flavor from red wine vinegar, having less complexity and is also lighter. It may or may not work for you in that recipe, but there's no harm in trying.


You've likely already made your decision by now, but I personally would not refreeze them unless they were still mostly frozen or only partially thawed.  The repeated freezing and thawing action could have negative consequences: if you try to thaw them again and bake, the yeast may not work as well, the texture and flavor could be off, etc.  As FDA guidelines say for handling thawed bread dough after a power outage, "quality loss is considerable."

In most cases, I'd prefer to bake the rolls/bread anyway.  If I didn't think I could use them up immediately, I'd freeze the baked rolls after they had cooled.  They won't be as nice as if they are baked fresh, but if you then defrost and warm them in an oven or toaster oven, they will likely still taste pretty good.

That said, refreezing will likely work, though be prepared for the yeast to be more "sluggish" when thawing again.  If the dough is completely thawed and has begun to rise, I might fold it (or reshape the rolls, if it's in the form of individual rolls) to degas it before refreezing; that should help a bit when the yeast start to "wake up" again.

Again, if the dough is completely thawed, I think you'll likely have better quality by baking it now rather than refreezing.  But either way you'll probably still be able produce passable rolls which won't be quite as good as if you had just baked them and eaten them now.


Heated up oil for frying, stirred it, tiny bubbles appeared and rose slowly but with very loud popping sound - why?

It definitely sounds like you had some water on whatever you stirred the oil with. When water droplets get in the oil, they sink since oil is lighter than water. Then the water droplets turn to steam because the boiling point of water is much below the boiling point of oil. At this point, the steam rapidly rises out of the oil and escapes with a noise and a splashing of  oil.

It's good to be aware of the temperature of your oil when deep frying, but the oil will start to smoke long before it spontaneously combusts. Use a thermometer, and know the smoke point of the oil you are using, and you will be OK. The real danger is oil touching the burner, or the oil spilling on you, rather than the oil in the pot exploding. Stirring is unnecessary because the density of oil reduces as temperature increases, allowing the hotter oil to make its way to the top (but in a nice controlled manner, unlike water).


What are recommendable coffee roast types for Aeropress?

Coffee taste is indeed subjective.  However, there are some things you can look for since the added pressure (versus drip) can force extraction of flavours you don't like.  Below are some of the drivers (Disclaimer, I don't use the Aeropress):

Oily beans: Towards the end of the roasting process the coffee oil can seep out (sweat) and you end up with beans that look wet.  This may turn out ok taste with drip coffee, not so much for espresso types.
Roast Colour: Drip coffee roasts tend to actually be darker and most espresso roasts are usually lighter in colour (see illy or LaVazza Oro). This may be to compensate for the forces of added pressure extracting deeper and more into the bean.  There are exceptions to this (Bar Mexico in Naples uses dark roast but on a manual lever machine).
Bean Type: Aeropress might handle some robusta (similar to Muka) as opposed to pure Arabica.  More than 40% and imo your coffee will taste like earth.
Grind Size: Each bean type and locale and roast level will require minute grinder setting changes.  You can make the best roasted beans taste awful with the wrong grind.  Try varying your grind from fine to super fine and experiment.  Usually the higher pressure requires finer grind with the exception of turkish coffee.
Dosage: To the get right extraction, a balance of pressure, grind size, and dosage is required.  Good cafes measure their dosage to ~0.1gram when setting their grinder.  If you find the coffee starting to clear up too fast in your extraction try increasing the dose.


At a guess, you're tasting the chocolate.

Plain chocolate can actually have a lot of different flavor notes, depending on the bean type, origin, batch, and year.  A fruity taste is quite likely the result of working with a single-origin batch of beans that had that characteristic.  Other tastes can be mellow or sharp, reminiscent of different scents or flavors or kinds of sweetness that are actually not added to the chocolate bar - caramel, or tobacco, or marshmallow, or various fruits, spices, herbs.  Various kinds of fruity tastes are quite common - you can look up descriptions of types of cocoa beans for sale by batch or origin, or single-origin chocolates, and they will usually describe what typical notes might be found in the beans, growing area, or batch that they used.

Of course, some kinds of beans don't have that varied flavor, being more single-note.  Mixing several batches of beans can also lose the extra flavors, since instead of a few notes working together strongly, the much more varied and less concentrated extra tastes get kinda mixed together into a generic sweetness.  Big chocolate makers will likely deliberately blend different batches of chocolate together to get specific and reliable tastes in their products.  And those kinds of scent undertones are also often lost the more processed or diluted the chocolate is, with the addition of sugar or milk powder to help mask them, which is where the "typical" chocolate taste comes from, and why you don't get fruity notes until you hit very dark, pure chocolate.

If you would like to avoid the fruity notes, then you should perhaps avoid single-origin chocolates, or else specifically look for descriptors that match what you're looking for (smooth, intense, deep notes, something like that), and avoid what you don't want (fruity, tangy, floral, light).  You can also track which companies blend their chocolates the way you like, for pure dark chocolate (they will want consistent products, you understand) - though I have no knowledge of how the companies stack up against each other in this fashion, you may be stuck with trial and error.


Choux pastry, general questions with gluten free flour

I would suggest piping your dough.

Also, be sure your oven is thoroughly preheated, and you'll have much better results using a pizza stone or oven steel. I would suggest baking in the middle of the oven on only one layer (don't use two racks at once). Preheat the oven to about 15°C hotter than you are going to bake and then turn it down to baking temp as soon as you put in your puffs. Use the fan (convection) setting if your oven has one. You probably want to use about 15°C lower temperature with a fan than the recipe states unless it specifies with fan.

My recommendation is put your dough on a piece of parchment paper on a flat metal tray, then slide the whole piece of parchment paper onto the stone/steel (like you were using a pizza peel).

Just for fun: it's called choux because the puffs look like little cabbages (choux in French).


How acidic does a mixture have to be for milk to curdle?

Milk's natural pH is about 6.5, just slightly acidic. If it approaches a pH of 5.5, the casein proteins lose their negative charge and the micelles no longer repel each other, meaning they start to gather in small clusters. At around pH 4.6, the scattered proteins bond to each other again and begin to curdle.

Though this kind of curdling is not the same as when making cheese with rennet.

I don't know what proportions of milk and vinegar you need to keep the milk from curdling but using pH levels you should get a pretty good idea.


Why is there vinegar in the bread recipe?

If it contained a high amount of rye flour, an acid would be needed for the bread to leaven. This is because bread with lots of rye rises due to polysaccharates called "pentosans" (if i remember correctly) being sticky and holding in the carbon dioxide bubbles. With heat, an enzyme in rye called "amylase" will start eating up the pentosans, unless the amylase is deactivated with acidity (wheat flour uses a protein called "gluten" to trap bubbles, and its amylase is deactivated with heat anyhow). The acidity is traditionally lactic acid, produced by lactobacilli bacteria in sourdough, but could be vinegar.

If it's mostly wheat flour (i.e. if you have to knead it), the vinegar would just be for flavour.


Do not use pink salt unless you are following specific guidelines for food preservation. You could easily end up poisoning yourself or others if your are not careful.

Edit: I should add that I am referring to pink curing salt. The Himalayan pink salt is a different story and can generally be substituted for table salt. However if you are not 100% positive whether it is curing salt, don't use it as a seasoning.


Roasting sirloin which has already been cut into slices

You could try tying it up into the original shape, but the trouble is that you've got cut surfaces which have been exposed to bacteria, and which will not reach a high enough temperature to kill them  unless you're going to cook it to death, so I wouldn't recommend this. It seems you've actually got sirloin steaks, so why not just cook them as such?


Substituting Dried Cranberries for Fresh/Frozen

I wouldn't.

I'm guessing that a recipe which requires 4 cups of fresh cranberries has them as either the majority ingredient, or the #2 ingredient by weight.  With that assumption in mind, I'm recommending against this.

Fresh cranberries are very high in ascorbic acid (Vitamin C).  This makes them extremely tart, which is a big part of their flavor. In dried ones, all of this acid and about half their tartness is destroyed by the drying process.  Dried cranberries are often sweetened as well.  As a result, a rehydrated dried cranberry won't taste a lot like a fresh one ... compare fresh table grapes and raisins for a similar difference.


What is the name of this Israeli street food?

I was able to track down the dish. It is called Lahuhe. There is a picture of it here. Thank you to everyone for trying to help me out.


Why won't my butter and milk mix when trying to make cream?

I was thinking that this is a duplicate, but I can't find an original, and somebody edited it to be readable, so I will answer.

They didn't mix, because they can't mix. You can't get them to mix. There is no way to make whipping cream out of milk and butter.
The milk looked that way because there were bubbles of melted butter swimming in it.
Use it in any recipe which requires some milk and some butter without caring about the order. Pancake batter, casserole topping, etc.


Without question, newly manufactured metalware does not match the quality of the same items made several decades ago.

I collect a classic style of (copper bottomed) stainless steel cookware that used to be manufactured in the United States. The oldest pieces are heavier and have a finer, more durable finished cooking surface than newer items.

A well-maintained old pan is a treasure, that can often be had for very little money at a yard sale or flea market, and will be far superior to similarly styled brand new cookware.


This just means the potato has been exposed to light and has produced chlorophyll (the green color). It is most likely safe to eat, minus the green areas.

Producing the chlorophyll also produces solanine, which is toxic in large quantities. Remove the green parts and don't eat more than 4lbs.

For detailed information, see this link.

http://www.wisegeek.com/are-green-potatoes-poisonous.htm


Safety: Keeping sous-vide cooked chicken in vacuum

I originally voted this question as a duplicate.  However, the OP is correct in that the proposed duplicate does not address the specific case of sous vide.  Here, I attempt to help in that regard.

The definitive source for the answer to your question is Douglas Baldwin. From the information you've supplied, it is difficult to make any safety claims. However, you can compare your product, and your practice, to the points made by Baldwin.

First, sous vide (true sous vide...in a vacuum) can indeed extend shelf life...

IF certain hurdles are cleared.

FIRST, your product is cooked to the pasteurization stage.  It is hard to tell how thick your chicken breasts are from the photos.  Baldwin has tables that cross reference thickness, temperature, and times so that you can achieve pasteurization.  You'll have to compare your practice to this chart to see if you met the threshold. So, once sealed in a vacuum, the first hurdle is to pasteurize your product.

THEN, your product must be cooled as quickly as possible for long term storage. This usually means in an ice bath, then immediately refrigerating or freezing.  The method is called "cook-chill." Baldwin cautions, however that "The danger with cook-chill is that pasteurizing does not reduce pathogenic spores to a safe level. If the food is not chilled rapidly enough or is refrigerated for too long, then pathogenic spores can outgrow and multiply to dangerous levels."

Cook-chill, done correctly, greatly reduces the risk from listeria, and spore forming pathogens. However, he goes on to write:

"spores of Clostridium botulinum, C. perfringens, and B. cereus can all survive the mild heat treatment of pasteurization. Therefore, after rapid chilling, the food must either be frozen or held at

below 36.5°F (2.5°C) for up to 90 days,
below 38°F (3.3°C) for less than 31 days,
below 41°F (5°C) for less than 10 days, or
below 44.5°F (7°C) for less than 5 days

to prevent spores of non-proteolytic C. botulinum from outgrowing and producing deadly neurotoxin (Gould, 1999; Peck, 1997)."

I would recommend that you read the PDF.


What are other techniques to make garlic bread?

I find garlic powder to be kind of meh when making garlic bread. I suggest using fresh garlic that is finely minced that has been mixed with softened butter. You simply spread it on, cook, and enjoy.

Here is a recipe demonstrating this technique (I have not used the recipe):

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/garlic_bread/


Yes it is indeed possible.

The available starches that have dissolved in the water are a super convenient place for the bacteria that is naturally found on foods to grow.

I'd say for grits 2 days soak is the limit, they can start to fall apart after that.

The ultimate test is the smell test, if it smells sour then it has started to turn. This is how I determine if I have oversoaked legumes or grains (life happens!)

Adding a little vinegar to the water may help prevent this for a couple dozen extra hours, but as you likely realize, soaking for no more than 8-12 hours is the way to go.


How can I recreate canned whipped cream from scratch?

Sigh, I was trying to avoid answering this, but feel compelled to provide some information after all your revisions.  I'm answering only this part of the question:

  Can someone explain what these are: (maltodextrin, inulin (chicory
  extract), cellulose, mono- and diglycerides polysorbate 80, artificial
  flavors, carrageenan)

Let's break that down:

maltodextrin is a sweetener
inulin is also a sweetener
cellulose is a fiber (wood, basically) used as a stabilizer
mono- and diglycerides are emulsifiers, that make the cream smoother
polysorbate 80 another emulsifier
carrageenan algae, also a stabilizer

Now, "artificial flavors" could literally mean anything, which is a big challenge for your recreation experiment.  Not only does it not say which flavors they've added, the formula may be a trade secret.


Why do all meal replacement drinks have sweet flavours?

About 10 years ago, a store I shop at regularly (North American style grocery chain) had some powdered high-protein low-fat meal replacement 'soups'. Their prices had been greatly reduced. They were approaching their best-before date in a few months and the store was clearing them out before they had to be tossed. So I bought them all.

There were two flavours - asparagus and leek, both in a creamy base. They were meant to be eaten the way a soup is but were thin enough that they could've been drank if a person wished.

I asked why they were so cheap and was told that people weren't interested in foods like that. It was the sweet meal replacement drinks already prepared that sold. Since what I bought was a powder and had to be mixed with hot water to properly disperse the powder to make a soup. It seemed the vast majority of people didn't want the 'bother' of mixing the soup. They wanted it ready to drink immediately. And most preferred a sweet drink rather than a savory soup.

Even though I regularly shop at Asian markets (even more than I frequent than large Western type supermarkets), I've never seen anything that's the equivalent of meal replacement drinks. I can't speak for what European stores carry but the concept of meal replacement drinks seems to be foreign to Asian cultures as far as I've seen.

These are two likely reasons (sweet taste and convenience) that savoury meal replacements haven't done well (in North America, at least). One other thing worth mentioning is most Asian cultures (outside of India which has a rich history of sweets) don't eat anywhere near the amount of sugary foods that people in North America do, although it's changing over among young people. Asians consider all the sugar unhealthy.

(I don't have references to back up my last comment but I've had many Asians mention that to me in conversations about food.)


Can I use the green part of leeks for stocks?

Absolutely, go ahead and use it.

I always ignore the "white and light green parts" instruction anyway, and use the leek up until the point where it feels dried out instead of firm and fleshy—well into the dark green parts—and it's always delicious, even when cooked for significantly less than several hours.


Can you deep fry a frozen egg? Is it advisable?

It appears to be feasible!
I found this article in which a "cooking expert" gives a specific recipe:

Frozen egg tempura
Remove the shell of a frozen egg and cut the egg in half lengthwise without thawing. A peeled egg is slippery, so put a paper towel on the cutting board before you place the egg on the board. Lightly flour the halves of the egg all over, and dip it in a mixture of three tablespoons of tempura flour and two tablespoons of water. Deep-fry the egg in oil heated at 160 C for about three minutes.

They're not too specific about the results, but I imagine they'd have mentioned if it exploded or anything!
This answer mentions doing essentially the same thing for a scotch egg:

Freeze the raw egg in its shell, de-shell the frozen raw egg and wrap the sausage meat around it whilst it is still frozen. This can be difficult as the egg's albumen defrosts quickly. Coat in flour, egg and breadcrumb. Fry till the scotch egg floats and the crumb is a deep golden brown.
It's the only way I know that gives a soft runny yolk every time.

I don't know what frying temperature was used, and it's got sausage and breading around the egg rather than just tempura batter, but it's a deep-fried egg, starting from raw/frozen, and produces a soft yolk.


can onions be caramalized completely in the microwave? If so, how?

There are tricks with vinegars and other compounds, if what you are after is chemical breaking down of complex sugars into simpler sugars. Sure you can do this in microwave, technically, but it will never produce the flavor you get from contact heat. Microwave will boil and dry the ingredients. Vinegar acts helps to do this in a water solution – here I mean onion juice.

Or you can improvise with surrounding onions with oil – this way you will get microwave-powered deep fryer. This should produce contact-heat-like conditions and caramelization. But then deep fryer would be more energy efficient.

In other words – there is no substitute for contact heat.


I think you've misunderstood people talking about sodium; I would expect they are generally just talking about table salt, NaCl.
Addressing your question about quantity, it's very common that when cooking, people judge ingredients by eye and by their expectation of what a normal quantity would be, so use much less salt than a restaurant or commercial preparation. (Something similar is true of butter.) Commercial ice cream, for example, will contain salt, but home ice cream makers are unlikely to include much if any.
If you want to think of that as 'hiding' sodium in products, I suppose that's reasonable, but it's not being done through mystery sodium compounds you're not aware of.


What knife and cutting technique should I use for cubing bacon?

Cutting bacon into cubes was a regular prep task for me when I was cooking professionally, so I got very fast at it.  Here are the tricks I found:

Fully cooked (baked) bacon cuts MUCH faster and cleaner, and you can make perfect cubes
Don't use a serrated knife.  It'll be easier to cut with, but it will shred and fray the bacon as you slice, eventually making a mess.
Use the sharpest knife you have, especially for uncooked bacon.  There's already a tendency for it to slip and slide around, and a sharp knife cuts with less back-and-forth motion.
You want a deep-bellied knife such as a santoku or Chinese cleaver, because you can slice through multiple stacks of bacon at once.
Stack slices of bacon so you can cut multiple pieces at once.
Try to work with 4" by 4" blocks of bacon, so the pieces aren't big enough to slip around as much.  With this size you're still able to do a lot at once, but it's fast
Organize your cutting board.  Pick one corner for whole chunks of bacon, then cut into strips and move to another spot, then finally into cubes which goes in another spot.

Now if I were a culinary school, you'd have paid a few hundred bucks to learn what I just told you.


You probably do not want to simply dry it on a plate, as it may mold or spoil prior to drying.

When I checked the National Center for Home Food Preservation, I was unable to find any information on drying garlic.  I was also unable to find a single University Extension that provided instructions on safe methods for drying garlic.

If you google homemade dried garlic, you will find multiple recipes and methods, although powdering is more common than mincing.  None of these recipes or methods come from the most reputable sources, so use them at your own risk.


White stains that make potatoes sticking to my iron frying pan

These are hard-water deposits, mineral residue from your water that can build up over time, and interfere with the pan's non-stick properties.

You can get rid of them with a paste of equal parts baking soda and vinegar applied to the discoloration, and left to do it's work a half hour or so. Attack it with a nylon scouring pad, and finish off with a thorough rinse and dry.

You shouldn't need to re-season the pan when you're finished, but a fresh coat of oil and some time in the oven afterwards couldn't hurt.


I wanted to make homemade pickles, does it matter what type of salt I use?

"Pickling salt" is sold, the main difference being the absence of iodine and anti-caking agents. The anti-caking agents can cloud the pickling liquid, but shouldn't effect the flavor. Iodine can impart a bit of a bitter aftertaste, and some sources say can "react adversely with some foods".

I've never noticed a difference between the taste of table salt and that of kosher/pickling salt, but apparently others can. In any case, the differences are fairly minor. I would recommend investing in some kosher salt (its cheap) and using that in place of normal table salt. See Why do some recipes recommend Kosher salt?


It sounds like there is only one temperature that you can be absolutely sure of.... that water boils at the local boiling point.   Since you haven't mentioned high altitude cooking, I am going to assume that is close to 212 F / 100 C.  You also haven't said what sides you want to make so I am going to assume the traditional US type ones...

So things like mashed potatoes might be good, since you can boil them.  Similarly, with vegetables.

The turkey is the toughest part, since you have strong constraints:

You don't want it overcooked or it will be dry and unpalatable
You don't want it under cooked for food safety reasons, and under cooked poultry is also nont pleasant
You cannot measure temperature directly in a simple manner

The best approach I can think of is to do a braised turkey recipe.   The braising liquid will mitigate the unreliable heat of the oven if it is too hot; if the braise isn't bubbling slowly, you will know it is too low.

Braised dishes, by their nature are thoroughly cooked and should be quite safe.

You will find multiple recipes by googling "braised turkey recipe".

Root vegetables can be roasted at a wide, wide range of temperatures, and tested for being done based on softening.  The risk is you won't know how long it will take.  So you might precook them, and just reheat them for service, so that you aren't as time critical.

Cranberry sauce as a side is easy, and can be done stovetop without a thermometer.

Good luck.


Seasoning, freezing, thawing and then deep frying chicken

Safe? Yes, of course.
Wise? Probably not.
When you thaw the chicken, the surface of the meat will get wet, from both condensation and thawing ice chystals. Yes, proper handling minimizes this, but it can't be entirely avoided. So when you dry off the meat before battering (which you will want to do to make the batter stick), you will probably wipe off the seasoning applied to the surface too. With "wet seasoning" like brine that is supposed to "soak into" the meat, this will be less, but the main parts will be on the surface as well, as Jolenealaska pointed out in her excellent experiment here.

So seasoning when you are ready to prepare the meat is the more efective way - and IMHO you won't be saving time by pre-seasoning if that's what you are asking about.


What's the secret ingredient in beef jerky?

"Proteiny" usually indicates "umami", the so-called "fifth flavor" after sweet, sour, bitter, and salty.  It's triggered by glutamates.  Common sources of umami include beef, mushrooms, some seaweeds (most especially nori), rinds of some hard cheeses (most especially pecorino romano) and tomato paste.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if the store-bought jerkies you are comparing it to include monosodium glutamate, a common food additive that is essentially concentrated umami flavor.


What are the tasteful herbs served with dizi in Iran?

I presume it was mint. There are a lot of different variations of mint, from really spicy peppermint down to fruity flavors such as strawberry.

You probably had the Moroccan mint / Mentha spicata var. crispa. If you have specialty stores for Mideastern cuisine ask for "Nane"

Edit, after your addition of the Picture: By the looks I would suggest Thai basil, although this does not really have a minty taste and the stems should be darker ... or basil mint

Hard to say as both plants have so many variations to them. If it hat a distinct minty tase, I´d look into one of the mint variations.

And additional edit:
Just hat a look on my own herbs, and realized that the young Thai Basil I planted looks exactly like your picture, light greeen stems and all:


For freezing the desalted cod, see one of the answers to this question.  Apparently frozen, desalted cod is a common supermarket ingredient in Portugal, which suggests that it's as good, or almost as good, as "fresh".  This is not a surprise, since salted cod has already been dehydrated once, so a trip through the freezer is unlikely to hurt it any.
For freezing the whole recipe: yes, I'd expect that it would freeze well.  The cod will freeze fine, and tomato sauces also freeze well, so I'd expect portions of the finished dish to be a good keeper.


Why is a pressure canner needed when canning?

Physics stops you from heating up liquids that consist of mostly water to temperatures above (roughly) 100 C.

The temperature of your heating element can be set higher, but neither the temperature of the water bath nor the liquid in your jars can go higher than the boiling point where water changes from liquid to vapor  - which is 100 C at normal pressure 1. To raise the temperature, you have to increase the pressure, so that the new boiling point is at or above the temperature required for safe canning. A pressure cooker may be suitable for the purpose, provided the model is designed for the specific pressure and allows setting/reading the specific pressure or alternatively, temperature. Pressure canners on the other hand are specifically designed for that purpose and marketed as such.

——

1 Note that 100 C is correct only at sea level and given a few more constraints. At higher altitudes the boiling point may be significantly lower. For the answer here, 100 C is close enough. (Or far enough from safe canning temperatures for non-acidic items.)


Which is the better substitute for tapioca: corn starch or potato starch?

Both potato and corn starch would work equally well in the preparations you describe. When substituting flour, the proportions are equal, e.g., one tablespoon flour to replace the one tablespoon of tapioca. With cornstarch, it would be less: i.e, one tablespoon of cornstarch per two of tapioca. Were you to use pearl tapioca, it would be two of soaked pearl to the one of the quick-cooking version.

If it's available, it may be better to replace the instant tapioca with an equal amount of arrowroot starch. Both tapioca and arrowroot contain the same kind of starch, amylopectin, which differs from the amylose found in flour and cornstarch.


Why grease the pan, then line with greaseproof/parchment paper?

Greasing and lining with paper is something of a belt-and-braces approach to simply ensure the cake doesn't stick to the bottom of the tin. I have several recipes that go one step further and suggest greasing the paper as well afterwards. As you suggest, greasing the tin first also stops it from curling up.


How is jin jun mei (a Chinese tea) made?

According to Wikipedia, Jin Jun Mei tea is just a (unsmoked) Lapsang souchong tea or, in simpler words, a black tea. It is considered a black tea of special or extra high quality, but there are no indications that it is produced differently that "normal" black teas.

You might double-check with your religious authorities as the question of being kosher or not is off-topic here, but as I see it, the same rules apply as for any black tea.


How long will grease (from bacon or roast) keep in the fridge?

Depends on how many solids and how much water you have in it. If you've rendered, filtered, and refined it, it should last a few weeks easy.

Note: my mother maintained it never EVER went bad, refrigerated or not. Lot of old time southern cooks will say the same, but they all go through it fast.


Why do things smell good while cooking but have little flavour when finished

There are two components to flavor: aroma and taste.  The wonderful smells you get are the volatiles of the ingredients you have been cooking, and while they add a lot to dishes, aromas are just part of what makes food enjoyable. One also needs to worry about taste, and that may be the missing part.  When I decided to improve my cooking three years ago I was mystified by flavors.  I wanted to know how spices worked and how to use them better, but all the reading and experimenting did not help my cooking.

Then I learned the Remick Maxim (lower the temperature when possible) and the quality of what I made went up more than in the entire previous year.  I then heard Thomas Keller speak about salting and things clicked.  One has to get the salt, acid, and sweetness of the dish right or everything else amounts to nothing.  Once I learned to pay attention to taste, spices became easier.

The next steps have been:

Understand caramelization (the Maillard process or reaction), it is a great source of flavor.
The main ingredient needs to be rich in flavor. Even something as simple as rice will make a difference.  Try making rice with Basmati from India or Pakistan, where they age the rice before selling.
There are a lot of underdeveloped recipes out there.  Beware.
Use spices in groups that traditionally grow in the same region.  Cumin and coriander, basil and thyme.


As always, it comes to the meaning of "OK". The most likely scenario here is that the stone's life is shortened and it cracks. It's impossible to say when this will happen, it could be soon or it could stand up to hundreds of pizzas.

So if for you it is worth it risking the stone, you can do it. If you want to avoid with certainty the stone breaking after 4-5 uses, don't use it outside of the parameters determined by the manufacturer.


Why do my mung beans turn from green to dark brown in a rice cooker?

My mung beans also always turn brown before it's fully cooked. I never tried blanching them though. It's the way of preserving colors in cooking. But I never even heard of blanching Legumes. I might give it a try though. Hot water/Cold water shock in the beginning, and then the rest of cooking. We'll see..


As explained in this Wired video Gordon Ramsay answer twitter questions Blue cheese can't go off.
What it actually can do is turn from blue mold tint to green.

If you search for Bleu de Gex you will see that the cheese is in fact yellow and mold is greenish.

The only thing that would point to bad cheese is it's taste. If the cheese taste ok than it's ok.