How to line a tart ring for a perfect tart crust

TL:DR; don't chill the pieces after you cut them. Assemble it straight away.

Long version:

I think what's happening is that chilling after cutting the pieces will dry the surface, making it harder for them to stick together when assembling.

The point of putting the dough in the fridge is to help stabilise temperature, allow sugar and other solid stuff (salt, leavening if using) to dissolve, and most importantly for gluten to relax. But the fridge is also quite good at removing humidity from your products, that's why you cover it in saran wrap.

If you put the cut pieces back in the fridge, the very high surface to volume ratio will inevitably cause an undesirable moisture loss. Dry edges will not join - I've seen recipes suggest using wetting the edges when assembling similar things (with different doughs), but it should not be necessary.

The recipe itself looks fine (I would add a pinch of salt, but it does not make a difference for your purpose). Pastry flour could help, but since you're already cutting it with almonds it should not be a big issue.

Temperature is also a factor. At my latitudes, temperatures in this season (45° N, august, ~30 °C during the day) make it very difficult to make a good pate sucree in a kitchen unless there's air conditioning going on at full blast. Butter will begin melting much earlier, making it much more difficult to avoid overworking.

Here is how I would change the procedure:

Assemble the dough in the processor as per recipe
Chill it ideally 4 to 24 hours. 30 min is too little. 3 days is definitely too much.
Take it out of the fridge, knead it a bit to make it workable (you can also beat the dough packet with a rolling pin. Really!)
Roll it, cut the pieces, assemble it straight away
The side on top of the base version should be easier to work with than the base inside the sides, since the dough will contract during baking. The other version could have a slightly better look when finished though.
Use your fingers to make sure the join is... joined. The warmth of your hands should convince the butter to yield very quickly. You should not be able to see any seam.
Alternatively, I've seen pastry chefs completely avoid working the joint when using micro dotted rings as you're doing, instead applying softened butter with a brush like glue to avoid the kind of separation you're experiencing.
Back in the fridge, turn on the oven
Bake it as per recipe.


When trying to infuse spices into an oil, why is it important not to cook the spice?

Cooking and infusing are different processes.

When cooking with a spice you want it to release flavor and aroma into the food you're cooking with it, and usually you also enhance the flavor of the spice by frying / roasting it.

For infusing you want to be more gentle so you don't add bitterness and don't destroy subtle flavors. You want to slowly release the flavors and aromas and preserve them into the oil.


First time egg pickler, does pressure in jar mean they're spoiled?

As somebody who ferments things, unexpected ferments generally should not be trusted. Even I throw them out, even though I'm pretty sure they're safe, personally.

Based on these two recipes and others I Googled, it seems like fermentation is not expected or desired. It seems like the two recipes you link to assume that the acidity of the pickling brine will be enough to preserve the eggs at room temperature for some time. We store vinegar at room temperature all the time!

But there are a lot of variables that could affect this. How much sugar did you use? How much chili and garlic? were they fresh or dried? How big were your eggs, and how much vinegar did you use relative to everything else? How much water did you add to your brine mixture before simmering it? And how long did you let your brine cool?

Although sterilization is hugely important, so is the pH of the brine and salinity/sugar content of your additions. So if you're inventing recipes, make sure you take some time and really think through how your additions could be altering the pH of the overall solution. If you're lowering it, consider how that might change the method.

In order to keep this from happening again, I would recommend hot-packing your eggs, and consider looking into canning them. Hot-packing means take your jars out if the oven, put your eggs in them, pour in your hot brine, and close the lid. Then let them cool and transfer to the fridge.


missed out cream of tartar in chiffon recipe

It will most likely turn out fine.  Cream of tarter is sometimes added when beating egg whites to enhance the stability of the foam that you form.  The egg whites beat into peaks on their own, but the cream of tarter is an accelerator of this process and also a bit of a preservative of the structure when you're folding in the rest of the batter. A bit of an "insurance policy" if you will.

And no, it won't affect the taste either.


For safe boiling water canning, can I substitute acidity requirement using lime juice instead of lemon juice?

Yes, for the most part, limes and lemons can be used interchangeably in recipes. However, it's important to note that lime juice is more acidic than lemon juice, so you may need to use a little less of it than what your recipe calls for. The general rule is 3/4 cup of lime juice substitutes for 1 cup of lemon juice.


Assuming the chocolate really hasn't melted at all, I would just remove it and melt it seperately before pouring it back on top so it can actually combine with the marshmallows.
If it sort of fused with the marshmallows, I would consider getting more to just put on top, depending on how well the not-melted chocolate covers the marshmallows. If the newly melted chocolate can't reach the marshmallow, it'll still just fall apart after the 2nd batch of chocolate cools.


Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or a chemist.
The recipe does not tell you to ingest the crushed pits themselves, just the juice that you extracted. The question then is whether you will extract a significant amount of amygdalin using water. This answer on the Chemistry SE suggests using methanol to extract amygdalin from apricot pits. This video also goes into extracting the cyanide from cherry pits, which takes quite a bit more effort than just letting the pits sit in water for an hour.
Thus: the recipe does not neutralize the amygdalin, but the final product is unlikely to contain dangerous doses of the stuff.


How do you make the shell for this dinosaur egg dessert?

This seems to be a version of the chocolate ball, only not intended for melting.

The standard chocolate ball is made by covering the inside of a spherical mold with tempered chocolate, then melting away the bottom so it can be placed over a scoop of ice cream. For the detailed process, see this video.

This version seems to use white chocolate instead. It is impossible to tell what the dots are, exactly, my best guess would be Oreo cookies ground to fine crumbles. An alternative would be ground (unpeeled) nuts like hazelnuts, or some poppy seed (that's probably not what the picture uses, but it would work well when you recreate the recipe).

The biggest problem would be the mold, I have no idea where you can source one. There are methods for making your own silicone molds from mixing caulking silicone with cornstarch, but I wouldn't consider them foodsafe. Maybe you can get away with using the paint-a-balloon method, but the shape won't be completely egglike. You may be able to hide this by using a more egg-shaped balloon, like the ones with a bit of a tube before the round body, and melting some more of the base away (where the balloon's tube is).

The egg in the picture looks like the ice cream is larger than the base. For that, you may need to work in two halves and glue them, which would be very fuddly work.

The nest looks simple, just use whatever form of chocolate sprinkles and shaved chocolate you have.


What is the "grated yam" in okonomiyaki?

It's "a slimy potato" - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioscorea_opposita.  It might be available in Asian grocery stores.

You could probably get by without it.  Okonomiyaki translates literally as "cook as you like it".  It's a savory pancake-like batter, to which is added whatever you want; often whatever you happen to have lying around the kitchen.  Much like an omelette, okonomiyaki is a pretty free form thing.


Are limes and lime juice more acidic than lemons and lemon juice?

I'm culling a lot of information from one of my favorite cocktail books for this one.

Yes, limes have a slightly higher acid content (on average) than lemons do - about 6% for limes, compared to 4.5% for lemons.  More importantly for their flavor, lemons have about 2% total sugar, while limes have somewhere between 0.5% and 0.75%.  Sugar/sweetness has quite a suppressive effect on the perception of sourness, so lemon juice will most likely taste a bit less sour than lime.

The composition of acids in the two also differ.  The acid in lemon juice is almost entirely citric acid, which also makes up most of the acid in limes.  However, limes include about 10% each of succinic acid and malic acid which have an effect on their flavor.  Malic acid is most recognizable as the sour flavor from tart apples and rhubarb.  About succinic acid, Wikipedia states:

  It lends to fermented beverages such as wine and beer a common taste that is a combination of saltiness, bitterness and acidity.

Personally, I think the difference is perceptible in beverages, but less so in cooking.

Culturally, lime would most certainly be the traditional choice for Latin American cuisine.  Lime is much more readily available in Central and South America (three of the biggest producers in the world are located there).  How the difference in acid content would contribute to the browning of avocados is more questionable.

EDIT: Here's an interesting paper, suggesting that ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is more effective at preventing avocado browning than citric acid.  Which is an interesting wrinkle, because lemons contain significantly more vitamin C than limes do...

EDIT 2: And along comes Jolenealaska, with an experiment that seems to undermine the entire assumption that acid reduces browning of avocado at all!  Seems like the real secret may just be keeping your avocados either uncut, or refrigerated and tightly wrapped if you have to cut them ahead of service.


How do you make homemade sausage without meat grinder/sausage stuffer?

Well, you don't need to spend hundreds of dollars, but you might need to put in more elbow grease. You can get a hand-crank meat grinder for about $30 or so and a manual sausage stuffer for about the same. You could save on the grinder if you have a food processor or blender that can have its way with the meat.


No instructions are going to be that precise; there are too many variables at play. What temperature was the chicken before you started? Exactly how big are the pieces? How precisely can you measure and maintain the temperature of the oven or cooking medium?

What you need to be sure that your chicken is perfectly done is an instant read thermometer. At first, aim for 165F (74C), that's the minimum "safe" temperature. After that, you may choose to go a little higher, especially for dark meat. Some people prefer a few degrees lower, especially for breasts. Whether temperatures under 165F are safe is a bit controversial, you need to assess any risk on your own.  Once you know the exact temperature that seems perfect for you, that's where to aim. The temperature will continue to rise after you remove the chicken from the heat. For small pieces that "carry-over" temperature rise will be pretty negligible; a whole chicken will rise a few degrees.

Whatever recipe you follow, take the temperature a few minutes before the time in the recipe. As you gain experience, you'll get better at zeroing in on doneness by appearance.


Why do small things taste better than big things?

A few factors are in play here (and these probably aren't all of them). I'll stick mainly to fruits (in a rough botanical sense) but some of this will generalise more widely.
Many commercial varieties have been bred for yield (as expressed by weight) and appearance. This is likely to have come at the expense of other variables, such as flavour. This leaves room in the market for tastier varieties, even if smaller or a less attractive colour or shape.
For a given variety of some fruits, water uptake can make a big difference. I have wild blackberries at the bottom of my garden, and don't water them. In a wet year they're juicy but not very tasty. In a dry year, they've got plenty of flavour, but they're hard - good for cooking with apples but not for just eating. I'll try to track down an article I read on arid agriculture - careful minimal irrigation could produce a premium flavour but a low yield. In the mean time here's an article coincidentally published today saying the same for herbs.
Some fruits stop growing long before they ripen, while others don't. This, combined with the timing of water availability and sunshine when needed for ripening,  will affect the concentration of flavour compounds produced during ripening.


How do you fry chicken, so that oil doesn't explode on your shirt?

The problem is that you're using a lid.

Spatter screens keep the oil mostly contained, while still allowing any moisture to escape.

A lid, on the other hand, collects the moisture on the underside of the lid.  When you go to lift it, the water drops back into the oil, and causes increased spattering.

You're actually better off without a lid, if you don't have a spatter screen.  Yes, you'll likely have to clean everything in the vicinity of the vessel of hot oil, but you don't have the problems associated with the lid.


Why does almond milk make eggs stick to a nonstick pan?

If  the friendly farms almond milk you used is the original variety, this has sugar in it in the way of cane juice so that's why your eggs did what they did.


Salep is essentially glucomannan; you can subsitutue Salep with Konjac GM (not konjac flour as it might impart a fishy flavor). And this is the key ingredient in Dondurma.

When it comes to mastic, you can try to omit it as it's mainly for flavor. Not all Turkish Dondurma is with mastic; you could simply use vanilla...

Note: I’ve made Dondurma simply like this, and it turned out almost as authentic as it was in Turkey.

Dry blend the sugar (10% of milk by weight) and KGM (0.6% of milk by weight) and whisk into cold milk.

Keep it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Boil and simmer for 15 minutes.

In a stand mixer, with the paddle attachment beat the hot mixture for 20+ and until it cools down to room temperature.

Transfer to a bowl and put it into the freezer, every 30 minutes take out and whisky a bit, until it’s quite solid.

Keep it in the freezer for another 12 hours.
And serve.


How far in advance can sweet potatoes be peeled?

Speaking as someone who's had to prep ahead two garbage barrels of sweet potatoes for a giant gumbo event:

If you're just peeling them a few hours ahead, then just hold them whereever.  Unlike russet potatoes, sweet potatoes (especially garnet yams) do not turn brown or lose texture on exposure to air.

If you're going to be holding them for a couple days, then drop them in cold water and refrigerate it.  Or drop them in ice water and add more ice about twice a day (this is what we had to do, it took 2 days to prep all the ingredients).   Wrapping them tightly in plastic wrap might also work, but I haven't tried it.


Refreeze it. You know how long it will take to thaw now, so put it back in the freezer if you are concerned. There's all sorts of myths saying re-freezing is bad but there's no risk. It may impact the texture a bit, but it's better than it spoiling.


How long do I bake a stuffed butternut squash at 325 degrees with a fresh Turkey when the squash recipe calls for 2 hours at 375 degrees?

The way to approach this is to ask how much hotter 375 degrees is than 325 degrees from the starting temperature of the food, then use that factor to multiply the time.

Doing the calculations, if your food starts out at room temperature (assuming 65 degrees) then (375 - 65)/(325 - 65) = 1.1923, or 1.2 rounded up a tiny bit. So 120 minutes * 1.2 = 144, in other words 2 hours and 24 minutes. It's a rough calculation, but I've used it pretty successfully.


Since nobody has answered yet, I took a shot at this one from the opposite direction: searching for solutions to a too-dense pie hoping to find some steps that were "wrong" for the questioner but would be right for your opposite goal of denser pie.

This is how one remedied his too-dense pie; in the link is the recipe from which he made his modifications:

  This pie is just too dense. Not enough liquid. I will always add one
  can of condensed milk which provides lightness, no extra fat and a
  wonderful texture. Don't add the whipped cream to the pie use it on
  the top.

http://www.landolakes.com/recipe/2923/classic-pumpkin-pie

Another one recommends whipped egg whites into your filling for fluffier pie – would whole eggs, and/or not whipped, have the opposite effect?

  There are those who would say it's just not Thanksgiving without a
  pumpkin pie - and those who can't abide the pie's dense texture. A
  simple way to keep all of your guests happy: Fold two whipped egg
  whites into the filling for an airier, soufflé-like consistency.

(recipe for starting point is in link)
http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/tips-were-thankful-225000108.html

This one seems to clarify that, suggesting three whole eggs and less evap milk for a denser pie:

  The vast majority of people tell me this is the best pumpkin pie
  they've ever had. It's light and fluffy - however... if you want a
  heavy, more dense pie, use 3 eggs instead of 4 and 1 can of evaporated
  milk instead of 1.5)

http://www.pickyourown.org/pumpkinpie.php


How to store homemade pasta without freezing

Any standard pasta recipe (basically flour, salt, water or egg) should do. Unless stated otherwise, fresh pasta can be cooked right away or dried and stored for months. Cooking time will vary, of course, with fresh pasta done in a few minutes, dried in roughly the same range as store bought.

When drying pasta, use the same aproach as for laundry: Separation, dry conditions, slight air flow if possible. For long pasta, it's usually hung to dry, e.g. on (clean) broomsticks or poles, smaller shapes can be put in a thin layer on dish towels or table cloths, pro's use wodden frames with thin mesh, like one would for drying fruit. Tagliatelle are sometimes gathered into little nests (= 1 serving), then dried. For pictures, search for "pasta drying rack". Usually you'll need about 2-3 days for pasta to dry thoroughly.

Your estimated storage time of six months should be fine, even up to a year, but only for basic recipes with white flour. If you like to try whole grain, other grains (buckwheat, spelt) or more exotic flavours/colours (tomato, beets, spinach, curry...), I'd aim for three months just to be sure nothing goes rancid or looses colour. Paper bags (food grade) are ok, as is cellophane or plastic, but make sure the pasta is really, really  dry, when packing in plastic. Store in a cool, dry , possibly dark (for coloured pasta) place.

side note:Have fun and remember to take pictures once you've flooded your house with drying pasta ;-)


Unless you are prepared to build some industrial strength equipment of your own design and then move everyone in the neighborhood away while you experiment with this, I fear you are taking your life in your hands.

Normal pressure cookers add a maximum 15 PSI to achieve a water boiling point of 121 C or 250 F.  Autoclaves, used for surgical sterilization, go to 30 PSI.  You are talking about going more than twice that.

There is no reason, based on the science of Maillard reaction, to believe that it would not occur at a high enough temperature.  The presence of excess water would normally inhibit the process because of temperature reduction, but your "super duper pressure cooker" would keep the temperature at a high enough level to allow the chemical breakdown to occur.  You might, in fact, discover that it occurs a bit earlier, as water tends to facilitate many reactions.  Caramel making comes to mind as an indicator of what might be achieved, as sugar syrup (OK, most of the water is gone, but in principal) browns when you get in the above 330F-165C degree range.

As to crisping based on quick pressure reduction (perhaps when your device explodes?) That seems less likely as most crisping comes at the loss of water, and you are, in effect, keeping water in contact with your food both in liquid and superheated steam form.  It would, most likely, be similar to a braised food surface, than a fried one.

Interesting thought.  Please don't try this.


How do you know how large or small your cut pieces should be?

Conventional wisdom suggests cutting ingredients so that it results in bite size pieces so that it is easier to eat, either with spoons, forks or chopsticks.

Vegetables usually do not shrink that much, but meat and fish/seafood will shrink a little bit.

I'd say cut raw meat in to 2 cm pieces.


A cooked rice grain is not an evenly cooked product... The center has a different consistency to the outside. Pounding the rice would combine the stickiness and would activate rice gluten that is present.

I would assume using rice flour in the recipe would be like using a different grade of flour in a recipe... The texture would be different, more or less sticky, more or less stretchy...

Malaysian cakes are improved by adding different grades of rice flour as well as adding other types of flour to the mix. And freshly made rice noodles made from ground rice; as well as Vietnamese rice paper noodles taste better when the base if 100% steamed rice instead of a mixture of rice and rice flour.

Mochi which is as much about the flavor as well as the texture I feel would benefit from the process as much as the quality or processing.

As an aside, why does hand folded and spread pizza dough taste and feel so much better than a machine made pizza base? Same ingredients, different process no?

Making Rice Paper In Vietnam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaTr-DPC5yo

Making Mochi in Japan (where would it be without the theatre?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olTuSpJTL2g


Using Pyrex casserole dish as bread cloche?

I've done it several times with good results. It shapes a round loaf so that it rises up instead of spreading out, and you can see when it has risen enough to bake, but it would be easier to remove the finished bread if it were a real cloche with a knob on top instead of a bowl. I put a lot of oil on the bottom and sides of the bowl so that the bread does slide right out, but still it can be a little tricky getting it out.

The 1.75 qt bowl has the right depth to width for me, but I wish they had a bigger bowl with the same proportions.


Should I seal my hot leftovers before putting them in the fridge?

Part of the challenge here might be your definition of "hot."  When I think of "left overs", I see what is left over after eating a meal.  It is certainly not "piping hot", as in just off the stove.  There is no problem packaging, covering, and refrigerating these items.  As an alternate example, when I make a batch of chicken stock, once it is cool enough in the pot to deal with so I don't burn myself, I portion it into deli containers for freezing.  I cover (but sometimes don't completely seal, depending on how hot), and leave on the counter for 30 minutes to an hour before moving to the freezer.  These are just examples.
It seems to me that (as at least one link in another answer here states) waiting until your food is room temperature might be problematic, as this could easily place it in the danger zone for some time.
Putting a lid on a deli container is only a problem if the items inside are so hot that the lid bulges.  The issues is not food safety, but that the lid might be compromised or unseal.
Sealing does not cause spoilage.  Spoilage bacteria do that under proper conditions of temperature and time.
Bottom line:  Place your leftovers in a container, seal them, and refrigerate as soon as you are able to handle them, and within food safety parameters.


How do I reverse my cake-like brownies to chewy?

Take them out a bit before they are completely cooked through, just short of done. They will collapse a bit but the result will be denser and chewier.


Even heating: skillet thickness vs. electric element size

Electric oven spirals turn on and off continuously, and the temperature of coil depends on the ratio between periods of cooling and periods of heating.

Thicker skillets act as accumulators of heat, allowing smoother transitions between those periods. They heat up slower and cool off slower, thus making temperature more consistent.

Another voice for thicker frying pan bottoms is that it prevents them from warping as much – metal contracts and expands on temperature changes. Cheap pan will warp after a while and stop forming a good contact with electric stove spiral, resulting in uneven cooking.

Hope this answers your question.


Does cooking raw meat/poulty extend its shelf life?

Shelf life for flavor...or for safety?  Two different issues.  Many variables.  How was it handled before freezing?  How was it defrosted?  How is it being stored after defrosting.  Those will all be factors impacting the safety issue.

Lets say to minimize the safety concerns you roast upon safe defrosting.  Now you have a safe product (from a bacteria standpoint), as long as you handle the chicken appropriately after cooking. Keep it out of the danger zone...even freeze it...it will be safe...but flavor probably begins to degrade over time (picks of fridge flavors...freezer burn if frozen).

Now you take that chicken and make stock.  You pull from fridge (or defrost appropriately) and cook to boiling while making stock.  That kills any bacteria that MIGHT be present (doubtful if you cooked well and handled appropriately after cooking)...so from a safety standpoint you are probably fine.  However, you probably have a stock that is not as flavorful as it could be because of the lengthy holding time.

In the end, I would say (nothing to back this up but my own experience) the final stock has the same shelf life as any stock, but it probably tastes different from one made with the freshest ingredients.


Large milk dough for pizza; doesn't seem to knead at all

Probably a combination of causes. You're using whole wheat flour, which really does not knead like white flour, even used in moderation with other flour: in addition to having less gluten, the shards of bran cut through the dough structure as you knead. Particularly if the "refined flour" (hmm) you were using wasn't high-gluten bread flour, that could leave you with very little cohesion. The olive oil will also interfere with gluten formation, as will the milk to some degree, particularly whole milk.
Now, none of that may actually matter. Pizza doesn't need a gluten matrix for structure in the same way a free-form bread loaf does, and the recipe you've chosen indicates that you're not looking for the classic Neapolitan crust texture anyway. If you're forming the pizza on a pan, you don't need the gluten to pull the crust, and the starch gel that forms during baking will make it hold together just fine as a cooked pizza. Treat it like pie crust, and roll it out instead of pulling it out.
Oh, incidentally, 10 tsp is a real weird measurement. It's just shy of 1/4 cup; use that instead, and give your measuring hand a rest.


I used olive oil to finish my salad serving utensils - now what?

Do nothing, or maybe give them a soap wash.

You seem to be very worried about what are very small effects. Sure, the oil can oxidize over time. It won't turn your utensils into a big ball of funk. You probably won't notice that much difference in reality. Maybe, if you hold them under your nose, the whiff will be different than if you hadn't used olive oil. You can wash if you want to reduce the effect, or keep it so you can at least enjoy the esthetic difference of having oiled wood.

Also, wood is not all that easily damaged, especially the kinds of wood a small artisan maker would use. People used to eat out of unfinished wooden bowls every day. Sure, you shouldn't leave the wood soaking in water, but you can wash it with detergent and soap now and then without getting much change in quality. I have a cheap, large-pore bamboo pan spatula which I regularly wash, sometimes with soaking, which is a worst-case scenario, considering the large pores of bamboo. It doesn't look 100% "like new", but it is still a normal, serviceable, nice enough spatula in appearance. The corners of the turning edge are slightly rounded, and the turning edge itself is a tiny bit frazzled, which could be repaired with a bit of sandpaper - but remember, this is something that gets washed regularly.

If you are still very serious about getting that oil off, sandpaper is probably the way to go. But depending on the kind of surface the maker intended, you may ruin that surface. If you have small-detail carving, that would look much worse, since you'd have to remove a small layer of material, not just surface-polish it, and you may not be able to get into each carved hole/chip anyway. And if the set was not intended to look too rustic, you will need to go through a progression of sandpapers applied with some skill to get a nice, even sheen.

Also, remember that those are salad utensils. If you intend to use them, as opposed to hanging them on the wall, they will come into contact with edible oils frequently, as well as ingredients like vinegar and lemon juice. Especially if you wash them rarely, and/or use little soap, they will get a "seasoning" of salad dressing on their surface just from use. Yes, it will get slightly rancid, and all that. You will likely get a visual difference between the heads of the utensils, and the dry-staying handles. That is normal and expected with wood utensils in use. If you want to keep them pristine, the only chance is to get some heavy acrylic or nitro finishing on them and keep them away from food, in a room different from the kitchen.


As the origins of the Buccellato di Lucca go back to the 15th century, you can be fairly sure that there is not "the one and only canonical recipe".

The Italian Wikipedia states:

  Il Buccellato di Lucca non ha una ricetta riconosciuta, come accade spesso per i dolci appartenenti ad una tradizione locale, e ogni forno e pasticceria ritiene di custodirne il segreto per una perfetta riuscita.

Which roughly translates to "there is no officially recognized recipe, [...] every bakery keeps their secret of the perfect recipe.".

And I suppose the same is true for every family, who sees their recipe, probably handed down over generations, as the right one.

As recipe requests are generally off topic here (partly because we don't want to put ourselves in the line of fire between Italian nonne defending the family recipe for Buccellato), your approach of reading a few recipes and choosing one or a combination thereof is the best solution.


Does chopping steak negate the benefit of using better meat?

If it's a properly done cheese steak, and it's not sliced in the same direction as the grain of the meat, he's probably right.

It's quite possible that a cheaper cut of meat would have a "beefier" flavor, just because many of the tougher cuts of meat tend to be more flavorful, partially because of the fat content.

All of that being said, it's really a matter of personal preference.  Some of of the places near me use the equivalent of "steak-ums" and not everyone's a fan of the texture.   If you want to find out if it's worth it for you, get a few friends together, order two subs with the same toppings, one with the upgraded meat, one without, and do a taste test.  (and if you can, get one person to order it and label the packages, then hand off to someone else to portion it out, so it's at least closer to double blind, particularly if they use two different labeling schemes)

update : Unlike chicken, beef doesn't have the obvious distinctions between light & dark meat; the normal rule is that the further from the hoof and horn it is, the less that muscle group has worked, and thus the more tender it is ... but as with chicken meat, it's the working muscles that tend to be more flavorful (although tougher cuts).  And as with chicken, it's the fattier meat that has more flavor.

Some cuts of beef have the grain run in one direction -- because of this, we can cut the meat across the grain, which tenderizes it.  It can be done before cooking, as with philly cheesesteaks, or afterwards, as is done with fajitas.  Common cuts used for this sort of treatment are flank steak and skirt steak, which may be difficult to find in all grocery stores as so much seems to be diverted for restaurants.

Besides cutting, other aspects of processing (eg, aging) can affect how 'beefy' the meat is.


Are you beginning the cooking process (after the marinade) with a spice rub and then poking that spice into ("jerking") the meat? This is an obviously key step considering it's how the technique got its name, but I thought I might mention it. A good rub will go the distance, but like posts about buying chili powder and italian seasoning, make your own. Find one you like then build it from scratch. The 'definitiveness' is really in the cooking and the attitude of the fire. (Also, you list allspice, but don't mention if it is fresh ground; definitely make sure to do a fresh pass through the mortar and pestle and buy whole if possible... and you might add some coriander but that's more a complement than a jerk necessity.)

Working within the marinade, I would recommend steering away from the brown sugar a bit and incorporating a fruit juice like orange or any tropical fruit pulp.

For an additional bit of emphasis on thyme: I am not sure how much you are digging into the cayenne/onion flavors, but the more you are the more thyme can also help lift the spirits of the dish and give its smokiness a brilliant contrast. Of note, too much thyme though and you will veer sharply toward cajun, for better or worse.


How can I preserve Jamun (Indian blackberry) without sugar?

I usually just puree the Jamun and freeze it. No need to add anything else. It stays good for 4-6 months in freezer


Why doesn't chainmail ruin a cast iron's seasoning but metal scouring pad will?

Steel wool, or other scouring pads, are made of quite small, rougher metal fibers or ribbons that will get into much smaller spaces, and clean away much smaller bits of matter, which includes the "seasoning" that coats your pan and/or the metal surface itself.

In contrast, the chainmail links are much larger, and each link's surface is relatively smooth overall.  This is great for removing bits of food and other foreign matter, but does not abrade on the much smaller level would be required to do permanent damage to the seasoning and/or the metal of the pan.

See these close up views of magnified steel wool and magnified titanium chainmail.  While the chainmail pictured is not steel, the smoothness would be rather similar between the two.  As you can see, the surface of the two materials is much different.  The smoother surface of the chainmail would therefore do far less to erode the surface of the pan, while still being quite effective at cleaning away food particulates.


A few questions to consider:

Were you following a recipe that used an additional acid (like citric acid or lemon juice) in addition to tomatoes and peppers?
Does your recipe include significant amounts of garlic or onion?
Does your recipe specifically call for water bath canning?
How many years old is your recipe?

The reason I ask these questions is that most modern-day tomatoes grown for conventional stores do not have the PH levels that our grandmother's tomatoes did, making most canning recipes for tomato sauces unsafe for traditional water-bath canning methods, unless you are adding an acid like lemon juice or citric acid.

Likewise, large amounts of garlic or onion will also affect the PH in a way that makes them less safe for water bath canning.

I tend to agree that your bubbling is likely from over-filling the jars.

To be absolutely sure and on the safe side, boil the sauce from those jars again - bring to a boil, then simmer for 10-12 mins., then can again, leaving approx. 3/4" minimum of headspace at the top of your jars.

I wouldn't recommend leaving the cans as-is that bubbled over, as it indicates the seal is broken or a strong, clean seal was not created in the first place.

Good luck with your canning adventures!


Why you shouldn't use soap to clean a pizza stone? or some pans and pots?

Some cookware are 'cured'. Mostly cast iron pots and pans. I never heard of a pizza stone being cured, so I'm guessing this is to avoid eating soap. Other than that, I wouldn't know.

Cast iron gets cured for two reasons: 1. Create a non-stick layer 2. Avoid oxidation. Neither of these reasons apply to stones (or do they?)


Having trouble getting lower fat fluffy pancakes with baking soda approach

One thing you can try to increase the fluffiness of your pancakes is to separate the egg whites from the yolks so that you can incorporate more air into the batter.  Gently combine all off the ingredients except the whites, whip the whites to stiff peaks, and then gently fold the whites into the rest of the batter.


How can I cure and store bacon in a warm climate?

Most bacon home curing methods you will read use a semi-dry cure where the bacon is covered in a cure mixture then allowed to sit in the resulting brine made of salts, sugars, and exuded liquid from the meat.  This is probably due to the fact that most people are more comfortable using their fridge and are also only making a small amount of bacon.  The key to what you are looking for is dry curing with drainage.  By using a cure mixture which includes nitrates (traditional) or nitrites (modern) as well as a draining board or table you produce a quickly cured meat product that is stable and can be produced at higher than fridge temperatures.  The drawbacks are that the final product will have a greater loss of meat weight due to the loss of water, the product will have more pronounced flavor, and will be saltier but it will also be better preserved. This method is best for meats that will not be cooked but smoked and air-dryed or just air-dryed. It is the best curing method for people living in hot climate or having no refrigeration.

In the South, bacon and ham production is something that was traditionally done in the late Autumn to take advantage of the natural cooling to reduce spoilage during the air drying portion of the curing process.  The second traditional foodway that allowed bacon to be a staple in the South was the use of root cellars.

Method:

To guarantee continuous supply of salt and uninterupted curing of the meat, the dry curing is performed in a few stages.

The cure ingredients should be thoroughly mixed. The mix should be rubbed into the meat at a ratio of 1:100, curing salt mixture to meat, by weight. During this initial salting of the meat, it is important to thoroughly cover all surface of the meat piece with the salt mixture, because the high salt level and the cooler temperatures are the only means of protection against the growth of spoilage bacteria.
Then the meats would then be packed tightly in a container with larger pieces like hams on the bottom and smaller pieces on the top so that each piece will retain its shape. The meats are packed skin down. Liquid drawn from the meat will accumulate on the bottom of the container and if the holes were made it would drain off. (If you want to experiment with smaller amounts of meat you can perform this part of the process on a flat tray set at an angle to allow juices to drain away or in a perforated pan.)

The rule of thumb is 2 days of curing for each pound of original meat weight.  Flip the meat after 3 days, and then again every 7 days thereafter, making sure that there is salt covering the entire surface.  (For bacon that would be stored for a long time or subject to higher temperatures they would most likely overhaul the cure, replacing the salt mixture 1 or more times during the process.)

After curing is complete, the meat pieces must be rinsed in fresh water to remove any crystalized salt that accumulates on the surface that would prevent sucessful smoke penetration. Blot dry then hang the meats or place on wire mesh to dry overnight. Store meat in a refrigerator or cool root cellar overnight or for up to 2 days. Allowing the bacon to dry uncovered in a cool place the night before you plan to smoke it encourages smoke retention through pellicle formation.
At this point you would smoke the bacon and then let it air dry in a cool barn (during Autumn and Winter) or a root cellar.  Like country hams, the bacon would likely be stored by hanging it in the root cellar in a muslin sack.
Bacon produced this way is saltier than modern bacon.  If you find it too salty, you can blanch it in simmering water for 30-60 seconds immediately before frying to reduce the salt.

Curing Methods Info


How does FPC compare to mammalian rennet?

it’s also known as recombinant chymosin. Per wikipedia:

FPC contains the identical chymosin as the animal source, but produced in a more efficient way.

Since it’s essentially produced by the same genes, the molecular structures of both products should be identical, thus the results.


Freeze the cake - it carves much, much easier.  Make sure and wrap it tightly before going into the freezer, otherwise it may pick up odd freezer smells easily though.


Can a cast-iron casserole be used for steaming?

Enameled cast iron pots, like the one you have, can be treated as if they were steel for purposes of steaming.  You don't need to worry about rust unless the enamel is chipped or cracked. It'll take a bit longer to heat up, but it'll also retain heat better -- so keep in mind that it won't stop steaming until 15 minutes or so after you take it off heat.

If you had a non-enameled cast iron pot, I'd say that you shouldn't steam in it until you had a chance to build up a good seasoning. But that's not an issue for you.


I had unopened block cheese in my fridge for 8 months is it still good?

Mold is usually the first sign of degradation.
I just cut that stuff off.
Listeria tends to hit softer cheeses, but there's always a danger.
If it's not moldy, not Brie or similar, I'd eat it. I've eaten 2 year old fridge cheese before, and not died. But as with all matters involving health, you're on your own, and the question is really outside the purview of this stack.


How to increase Thai curry flavour without increase spicy

I did a search for Gelbe Curry Paste and found the product in your pic in a result from Amazon.

Based on what I read in a review, you add coconut milk to this curry paste. Therefore I'm hopefully correct that you are toning down the heat and flavors by adding more coconut milk or other milk. So after you tone it down, you want to add flavor back but not add more heat.

The product description lists the ingredients as:

  Product of Thailand Dried Red Chili, Shallot, Garlic, Lemongrass, Salt, Galangal, Tumeric, Cumin, Coriander Seeds, Spices

You can add flavor back by adding some of the listed ingredients (to your liking), but not adding more chili. In the US ingredients are listed in order of amount, highest to lowest. While this may or may not be the case here, it may help with deciding which to add more of.

You'll likely have to play around a bit, but hopefully you can get that flavor back.


Salt will kill yeast if directly exposed; furthermore it will have an effect on the texture as well as significantly altering the taste.

Just remember that if you are baking your own bread the amount of sodium is significantly reduced compared to commercial products (Most of the bread recipes I've used have very little salt in them anyway) and you may find that you will not need to modify the recipes to fit your husband's diet.

Also, you might consider using a low-sodium salt substitute.

King Arthur Flour has a great rundown of how salt affects bread here.

I've copied and pasted the text in case the link dies:

  Salt is a major component in bread, and performs several important
  functions. We will discuss these functions in detail, as well as some
  other attributes, with the goal of providing the baker with a thorough
  understanding of the characteristics and correct use of salt in bread
  baking.

  Salt provides flavor. Bread baked without salt will have a flat and
  insipid taste. On the other hand, bread made with an excess of salt
  will be unpalatable. Generally, the correct amount of salt in bread
  dough is 1.8 to 2% of salt based on flour weight (that is, 1.8–2
  pounds of salt per 100 pounds of flour). The lack of ability to coax
  fermentation flavor from bread sometimes causes the baker to use an
  excess of salt. But it should be kept in mind that, while salt
  provides flavor, it is not a substitute for the fine flavor of
  well-fermented flour, and the role of salt is to enhance, and not take
  the place, of true bread flavor.

  Salt tightens the gluten structure. The tightening gives strength to
  the gluten, enabling the dough to efficiently hold carbon dioxide,
  which is released into the dough as a byproduct of the yeast
  fermentation. When salt is left out, the resulting dough is slack and
  sticky in texture, work-up is difficult, and bread volume is poor.

  Salt has a retarding effect on the activity of the yeast. The cell
  wall of yeast is semi-permeable, and by osmosis it absorbs oxygen and
  nutrients, as it gives off enzymes and other substances to the dough
  environment. Water is essential for these yeast activities. Salt by
  its nature is hygroscopic, that is, it attracts moisture. In the
  presence of salt, the yeast releases some of its water to the salt by
  osmosis, and this in turn slows the yeast’s fermentation or
  reproductive activities. If there is an excess of salt in bread dough,
  the yeast is retarded to the point that there is a marked reduction in
  volume. If there is no salt, the yeast will ferment too quickly. In
  this sense, the salt aids the baker in controlling the pace of
  fermentation. Nevertheless, we should note that a careful usage of
  yeast, control of dough temperature, and the type, maturity, and
  amount of preferment used are better tools for fermentation control.
  Salt quantity, as we have noted, should stay within the 1.8–2% range.

  Salt indirectly contributes to crust coloring. This attribute is a
  result of the salt’s characteristic of retarding fermentation. Starch
  in the flour is converted into simple sugars by the amylase enzymes,
  and these sugars are consumed by the yeast as it generates
  fermentation. Since the salt is slowing the rate of the sugar
  consumption, more of what is known as residual sugar is available at
  the time of the bake for crust coloration. In the absence of salt, the
  yeast quickly consumes the available sugars, and the crust on the
  baked bread is pale and dull.

  Salt helps preserve the color and flavor of flour. The carotenoid
  pigments, naturally present in wheat flour, are responsible for giving
  flour its creamy color and wheaty aroma. It is extremely important for
  the baker to understand that an unbleached flour, such as all of King
  Arthur’s flours, contains a complete profile of carotenoids, and that
  bleaching flour destroys these fragile components. For this reason
  alone, choosing a high quality unbleached and unbromated flour is
  preferred for all breadmaking. Other than bleaching flour and thereby
  destroying the carotenoids, overoxidizing of the dough during mixing,
  which occurs when a dough is mixed too intensively for too long, also
  destroys them. Salt has a positive effect on the preservation of
  carotenoids, because dough oxidation is delayed in the presence of
  salt. For this reason it is preferable to add salt at the beginning of
  the mix. In this way, salt benefits the eventual flavor of the bread
  by helping to preserve the carotenoids during the mixing of the dough.
  When salt is added during the later stages of dough mixing, it can be
  detrimental to the carotenoids, which may become overoxidized.

  One other use of salt is useful to note. It is common to include a
  portion of salt in a levain culture during warmer and more humid
  months. This addition of salt, at a rate of 0.2–0.3%, retards the
  action of the natural yeast, and thus prevents over-maturing of the
  culture. In the preparation of German-style rye bread, there is a
  similar technique that is occasionally employed, called the Salt-Sour
  Method, in which all the dough salt is used in the sourdough phase.
  The result is to slow the activity of the sourdough yeast cells,
  reduce the production of acidity, and have a strengthening effect on
  the gluten structure.

Also, you may find this thread helpful.


Why does the roux break down in my chicken velouté sauce?

Per SAJ14SAJ's comment, the suspension in a traditional veloute relies on the gelatin to keep everything in place. Stocks are naturally rich in gelatin, due to the bones and connective tissue used to make them. Using a base to make the sauce is probably not providing the gelatin necessary. Other rich liquids frequently do separate when simmered for a long time (think curries and gumbo), so it's to be expected that your emulsion will break down eventually. I think your solution is to either use a real stock instead of the base, or perhaps fortify your liquids with a bit of gelatin before adding the roux (or barring those, cook only until your starch is gelatinized).


You can give your candies hard shells by dipping them into a melted mixture of one part water, two parts sugar, and 1/2 part corn syrup. Melt those ingredients together over medium to medium-high heat until the sugar has totally dissolved and the mixture is at the hard crack stage (295-310° F./146-154° C.). Remove your pot of glaze from the heat and place it into a waiting metal bowl of ice water. Once the glaze has stopped bubbling, begin dipping your candies immediately. Once dipped, set them on an appropriate, lightly greased surface to cool (use a flavorless oil or kitchen spray for greasing).

You'll want to skewer your candies to dip them; never attempt to dip candies into hot glaze by hand. You'll also want to set everything up for dipping before you make your glaze: have your bowl of ice water ready; have a greased tray or marble slab/counter ready to receive your dipped candies; have your kitchen to yourself (distractions aren't good when working with hot glaze).

Your glaze will cool very quickly, so work carefully but efficiently.


Half butter half shortening in overnight potato rolls?

That should be fine. Potato and butter is a pretty solid flavor pairing! :) Know that butter contains some water (~15%) so you may want to adjust your liquid ingredients accordingly. That amount of butter contains about a teaspoon of water, so not enough to really worry about, but be aware. Use unsalted room temperature butter, and come back and tell us how it went!


Are eggs in the US safe if stored at ~45°F for a week?

The float test has nothing to do with quality or safety, only with the age of the egg (the air cell in the age will expand as the egg ages as the shell is porous).

When eggs in the US are processed the protective coating on the shell is removed, so they need to be refrigerated. Only about 1/10,000 eggs has salmonella. While I won't, on principal, advise whether your eggs are safe to eat, I will say that I believe the risk is low based on what you have told us.

The risk of spoiled food has many factors. Temperature is one. Time is another. Origin and processing are others. You should always keep your eggs in the back of the fridge where it's colder. Keeping them in the door (where the egg keepers are often built in) is the worst place because you open and close the door all the time so temp goes up and down, contributing to additional risk/premature aging.

If you are worried, using the egg in a way that cooks it through will reduce your risk (baking, scrambled medium or hard—yech, hard cooked (aka hard boiled)).

You can also pasteurize your eggs using sous vide which allows them to be used safely for many recipes where the yolks are not fully cooked. This might be your best bet if you are concerned. If you don't have a sous vide device (and every kitchen should!) there are alternate methods that will work well. In the case of eggs, since you only need them to be 135°F for about 75 minutes, you may be able to use water from your tap put into a beer cooler. If your tap water is only 120° (depending on your water heater setting), just boil some to bring up the temp of the rest. Check with an instant-read thermometer and I'd suggest a little above 135 so you maintain that temp for 75 minutes. You can check the temp after 30 minutes and add a little more boiling water if it's starting to dip a little too low. Make sure the lid of your container is kept closed. If you have a probe thermometer (which every kitchen should also have), then you can keep it in the water with just the wire feeding through the top with the lid closed.


'Proofing' in the context of breads actually has multiple meanings. Proofing 'the yeast' is also known as 'Fermenting' and is

  To make sure active dry yeast (not quick-rise yeast) is alive and
  active, you may first want to proof it

Proofing 'the dough' on the other hand

  refers to the final rise dough undergoes, which takes place after
  being shaped into a loaf, and before it is baked.

The second article continues to elaborate that

  the words proof and fermentation are sometimes used interchangeably.

When making a single loaf of bread at home most recipes want you to add flour in stages up to the final amount. In 'large operations' the flour can be added, in part, to the yeast slurry and then to the larger mixer, as we see in the video. As Joe commented, in the video they are making a puff-pastry, so the analogy isn't perfect, but the principal remains the same.


Will I never be able to cook anything needing tomatoes in a seasoned cast iron Kadhai?

The PH scale ranges from 0 - 14 with the lower numbers being more acidic than the higher number. Canned tomatoes are generally around 3.5-4.5 on the acidic scale, in other words just above the half way point below neutral 7.

As long as your tomato based sauce is not left in your seasoned Kadai (as Kristina rightly points out) for a long timeframe and your kadhai is washed out immediately after use no damage to the seasoned coating should occur.

Just remember to wash out your Kadai (with warm water and a cloth) immediately after use to preserve the seasoned coating.


Chocolate Berry Cake with Berries as main batter ingredient?

There is actually a well known Bundt cake that is blueberry puree swirled into the cake. The original isn't chocolate, but that wouldn't take more than some cocoa to cure. And there's no law that says you can't play with other types of berries.

It's an America's Test Kitchen recipe, so this is when I would normally say, "(sorry, paywalled)". Today however, the recipe Gods are smiling upon me. ATK (Cook's Illustrated) has allowed the recipe to be published online and available to even us mere mortals who have not yet paid their subscription fee this year.

So:

From Dispatch.com

Also, the ATK video is still not paywalled, but I expect that the change quickly as it's actually from last season (they don't charge for the current season). ATK

  Cake:

  3 cups (15 ounces)  all-purpose flour

  1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

  3/4 teaspoon baking soda

  1 teaspoon salt

  1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

  3/4 cup buttermilk

  2 teaspoons grated

  lemon zest plus 3  tablespoons juice

  2 teaspoons vanilla extract

  3 large eggs plus 1 large yolk, room temperature

  2 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened

  2 cups sugar

  Filling:

  3/4 cup sugar

  3 tablespoons low- or no-sugar-needed fruit pectin

  Pinch of salt

  2 cups fresh or thawed frozen blueberries

  1 teaspoon grated lemon zest plus 1 tablespoon juice

  Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat to 325 degrees. Heavily spray nonstick Bundt pan with baking spray and flour.

  Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together in large bowl.

  Whisk buttermilk, lemon zest, juice and vanilla together in medium-size bowl.

  Gently whisk eggs and yolk to combine in third bowl.

  Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, beat butter and sugar on medium-high until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down bowl as needed. Reduce speed to medium and beat in half of eggs until incorporated, about 15 seconds.

  Repeat with remaining eggs, scraping down bowl after incorporating. Reduce speed to low and add 1/3 of flour mixture, followed by half of buttermilk mixture, mixing until just incorporated after each addition, about 5 seconds.

  Repeat using half of remaining flour mixture and all of remaining buttermilk mixture. Scrape down bowl, add remaining flour mixture and mix on medium-low until batter is thoroughly combined, about 15 seconds. Remove bowl from mixer and fold batter once or twice with a rubber spatula to incorporate any remaining flour.

  Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside while preparing filling (batter will inflate a bit.)

  Filling: Whisk sugar, pectin and salt together in a small saucepan.

  Process blueberries in a blender until mostly smooth, about 1 minute.

  Transfer 1/4 cup puree and lemon zest to saucepan with sugar mixture and stir to thoroughly combine.

  Heat sugar-blueberry mixture over medium heat until just simmering, about 3 minutes, stirring frequently to dissolve sugar and pectin.

  Transfer mixture to medium-size bowl and let cool for 5 minutes. Add remaining puree and lemon juice to cooled mixture and whisk to combine. Let sit until slightly set, about 8 minutes.

  Spoon half of batter into prepared pan and smooth top. Using back of spoon, create 1/2-inch-deep channel in center of batter. Spoon half of filling into channel.

  Using butter knife or small offset spatula, thoroughly swirl filling into batter (there should be no large pockets of filling remaining). Repeat swirling step with remaining batter and filling.

  Bake until top is golden brown and skewer inserted in center comes out clean, about 60 to 70 minutes. Let cake cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes, then invert cake directly onto wire rack. Allow cake to cool for at least 3 hours before serving.

That may not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's a place to start.


I'm not sure what a steam oven is either, but I think I can answer: YES!

I regularly cook porridge in an unsealed/unlocked pressure cooker that has been set on a hotplate which is plugged into an appliance timer.  I put my oats and liquid into a metal canister that fits inside my pressure cooker, and I put foil on top of the canister to keep extra water from dripping into it.  The pressure cooker has a "rack" in it to keep the canister off the bottom of the pot, which keeps the porridge from burning on the bottom, no matter how high you turn up the heat.

I keep the hotplate set to just barely a boil, because I use 100% milk for my liquid and don't want it to scald.

I have the timer set to start cooking it a full 3 or 4 hours before we wake up.  I prefer to soak my grains overnight, so I set everything up the night before, and we just wake up and eat!


How to make sweet potatoes disintegrate in stew

This depends a bit on the kind of result you are aiming for, generally speaking most people struggle to keep their sweet potatoes "in shape" and prevent disintegrating:

For a slightly textured result, cooking your peeled and cubed sweet potatoes long enough should suffice, just make sure you have enough liquid in your dish and stir every now and then to help them break them up a bit.
If you want smoother results, stir vigurously or use a potato masher and "stab" your stew a bit once everything is very soft - stop when you reach the desired "chunkyness"/"smoothness".
But for a totally creamy and homogenous sauce you will need a food mill, a food processor or - even simpler - an imersion blender.


Left crockpot unplugged for about an hour

It likely depends on if the food came up to 140°F (60°F) while you were still at home, and how much it cooled off during the trip.

Basically, your time in the 'danger zone' is cumulative, so it's the sum of:

Time to heat up to above 140°F (60°C)
Time from when it cooled down to below 140°F 'til it go back up to 140°F

So, if it never got up to 140°F, then it likely spent 2 hours in the 'danger zone'.  (40min + 1 hour + time to get up to 140°F), which some people consider to be right at the edge of acceptable.

... but if it got up to 140°F in the first 20 minutes, and it was well-insulated so didn't drop below 140°F until 30 min into the trip, and it came back up to temp 10 min after plugging it back in, you'd have had (20min + (1hr - 30min) + (10min) = 1hr ... which is well within recommended times.

These also assume that you didn't take a long time to get the chicken home from the store and/or leave it on the counter for 30 min while you were putting away other groceries.


Can you use brandy instead of rum in cake recipe

Almost certainly yes, but the flavors will be slightly different.

Brandy is likely to be slightly more acidic than rum, but otherwise quite similar in composition, and should perform in the same way.

If you want a more tailored answer, you should provide more information, such as the full recipe.

See also:  Are there any general principles of ingredient substitutions?


Replicating the thin, soft crust of Portuguese Sweet Bread

I'm the OP. After a lot of experimentation and reading, I've found that the solution is to use steam. A lot of articles talk about how steam is necessary for a hard crust so that made me think it was the opposite of what I needed.
I learned that steam does several things, including keeping the top surface soft for longer so the bread can expand further, preventing the crust from burning, and helping the starches become a gel that turns into a brittle and glossy shell. But in almost all cases, recipes call for steam to be used only during the first portion of the bake, and then removed to allow a hard crust to be formed in the latter part after the bread has finished expanding.
I did several experiments where I added steam for a little bit longer each time, finally just using steam for the entire bake. That's when I finally got the ultra-soft, wrinkly crust like in Portuguese Sweet Bread. After going back to read the article mentioned above, I realized that its suggestion of adding a tray of boiling water to the bottom of the oven at the beginning of baking was what I needed, but to also keep the water in the oven for the entire bake.


Can salad dressing be made with coconut oil?

Yes, you can, but it needs to be a warm dressing.

The only warm dressing that I'm aware of is for spinach salad, where you use bacon fat to make the dressing.  See Alton Brown's Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing

I would stick with dark, hearty greens or cabbage, as they'll hold up better to the heat than most lettuces will.


what muscles should be present in a ny strip steak?

Yes, it is a NY strip. The "strip loin" is like two feet+ long and at least 3/4 of it is what you're used to seeing. The last four or so steaks include an additional muscle or two at the "top." You got those last few steaks. (SOURCE: I'm a butcher ;)


How much water does pasta absorb when it is cooked?

You need 1.1x as much water as pasta for al dente! I measured this myself, cooking penne rigate (in water, not sauce) - 200g of pasta weighed 420g after being cooked and thoroughly drained.

The estimate below from the nutrition facts is 1.4x, which probably corresponds to typical American overcooked pasta - a surprisingly large difference from mine. I'm guessing you'll be somewhere between, maybe 1.25x.

You can also ballpark it from nutrition facts. Cooked spaghetti has 31g carbs per 100g pasta, and dry spaghetti has 75g carbs per 100g pasta. So 100g dry pasta turns into 100g*75/31 = 242g of cooked pasta, meaning the added water was ~1.4x the weight of the pasta. So for a pound of pasta, that's 1.4 pounds or about 2 2/3 cups of water. Given people's tastes, this might be a little past al dente, so I would personally start with maybe 1.25 cups of water then add a little more if necessary. (I'll also try cooking pasta normally and weighing it if I get a chance.)

Note: if you have a significantly different variety of pasta, it will obviously behave differently. This is for pasta that's 13% protein and 75% carbohydrates. For the standard 2oz/56g (dry) serving on the package, it'll say 7g protein and 41-42g carbohydrates. I checked Barilla, De Cecco, Ronzonni, Garofalo, Safeway store brand, Trader Joe's store brand, and those nutrition facts, and they all matched. If you're branching out to other styles like whole grains or egg noodles, things will obviously change, but things are very uniform in the US.


How long does unopened, room temperature pop last?

It lasts indefinitely. The date you are seeing should be viewed as a "best before" date. Over time the soda can become flat and the flavor will degrade, but it will still be drinkable as long as the can was not compromised.

Based on looking at some Coke I recently purchased, it appears that the date is likely 1 year in the future from when it was canned. The cans in my fridge have a date of JUN1711; I bought these in late July.

Plastic bottles. on the other hand, have a much shorter "best before" window. This is because the plastic bottle leaks the carbonation much quicker than an aluminum can does. I don't have any bottles on hand, but if I recall correctly they typically have a date only 3 months out.


I don't believe they are inversely proportional.  You can a tender cut that has a lot of flavor, such as a good rib-eye steak.

For flavor, the general rule of thumb is "fat is flavor".  Were not talking about all the thick and hard gristle fat on the edges, but the marbled fat speckled in the meat.  That fat helps provide flavor and moisture as it breaks down.

For toughness, it relates to where on the animal the cut is taken from.  Meat taken from areas where there is alot of muscle activity and movement is going to be "tougher" and required the more low and slow cooking approach to break everything down.  Meat taken from the opposite side of the spectrum that gets very little physical activity is going to be softer and more tender.

At the end of the day, you have to cook the cut of meat properly.  You can make a tender cut tough and a juicy cut dry if you don't cook it right.


Cranberry Beans, probably any beans; medium-term storage options?

My recommendation would be to shell and wash the beans, blanch for 3-4 minutes then quickly plunge in an ice bath, drain and pat dry, and seal in a freezer bag (squeezing out as much excess air as possible).

I have done this with fresh green beans by cutting into 1-inch pieces and they lasted 3 months in the freezer with no problem. I realize cranberry beans are quite different, but I think the same method would apply and work well. I would think the cranberry beans would be less temperamental than regular green beans.

As an aside, I have similar plans and this is how I am going to try to store them long-term.


What's the best way to propagate baker's yeast?

Absolutely there is a way to propagate yeast, it's as simple as making a starter with it. Most of the time these days people create starters for sourdough using natural yeasts, but you can use them to feed any kind of yeast. All you would do is put flour and water in a container with some yeast, let it get to work and once you start to get bubbles put it in the fridge to slow it down. You would then use half of it for every batch of bread you make, replacing the flour and water to keep it at the same quantity.

If you don't use any of it for a few days you'd want to throw half away and refill in order to give the yeast a fresh supply of food. You can share this with as many people as you like, just split it into two, give each a fresh supply of flour and water, and repeat as many times as necessary. Using this technique a small amount of yeast could theoretically supply the entire planet.

NOTE: During the Coronavirus outbreak it's worth noting that corona can survive on surfaces for quite some time, so you should take great care to ensure that your yeast propagation does not lead to virus propagation!


I use almond milk as a milk replacement, almost exclusively.  I was about to say when I made pancakes with almond milk they turned out fine, when I realized I made Buttermilk pancakes instead of just regular pancakes.  I compared recipes for normal and buttermilk and noted that there was far less milk called for in the Buttermilk recipe (makes sense).

In short: you may try finding a recipe that does not call for so much milk, such as a buttermilk pancake recipe.

For reference, the recipes I compared had 1 1/4 cups of milk in the original recipe versus 1/4 cup in the Buttermilk recipe.


Can I just skip the hot sauce when making buffalo sauce?

The Frank's sauce is thickened (the xanthan gum) so your sauce might be runnier. That's easy to fix with a thickener of your choice. I'd probably use arrowroot or cornflour (corn starch to Americans) because I've got them in the cupboard.  Arrowroot gives a clearer sauce but you don't want to boil it or the thickening properies will be reduced.

The bought sauce is also likely to be cooked for longer, allowing the flavours to mix, while at least one of your links only heats the final sauce briefly.  That's also easy to fix by cooking a little longer.

Looking at the proportions, it seems like a slightly thinned Frank's sauce with extra butter rather than a sauce flavoured with Frank's.  That doesn't affect the conclusion that it's possible to make your own.


Why does my girlfriend love onions, but hate garlic?

While onions, garlic and leeks are related, their flavours are not the same and a person may well like one but not another, or even like one cooked one way but not another (for example, fried but not raw onion, or roasted but not raw garlic). You ask "chemically, what's going on here" – there are different chemicals, as you can surely intuit by tasting the three for yourself (and each chemical will change during a given cooking process too).
Food preferences are idiosyncratic, and while sometimes you can identify a reason (for example, there is a specific gene related to finding coriander/cilandro unpleasant, or someone might have previously had food poisoning after eating a particular item and afterwards be unable to stomach it) on the whole you shouldn't expect an explanation deeper than 'because she does'.


Grilling burgers: flip once, or keep flipping?

I'm solidly in the flip as often as you want camp.  As long as it's not over (or under) cooked I find that you get better results flipping often. Plus you can rearrange things to make more room as you flip.

To tell how cooked a burger is poke it with a finger or something else that's not too sharp; just like a steak the more cooked it is the more firm it will be.  You just need to learn how "squishy" you like them.

Also, as fun as it is, don't press the whole burger into the grill!  All that happens is that the delicious juices are forced out.


Exposure to germs is the problem, once you open these they are exposed and the clock starts. If you vacuum seal you are vacuum sealing the germs in with the food, and not taking steps to kill the pathogens. Pouring into a sterilized container again just puts contaminated food into an uncontaminated container.

The only way to make them shelf stable again would be to process them. You could vacuum seal and then pasteurize the food inside for example, or re-can and pressure-cook. This takes a lot of time and energy, and each time you do it you lose quality.


We had a very similar question about making your own garlic oil here:

Botulism, Garlic, Cold pressed Olive oil and mason jars

Oil is effectively an anaerobic environment, which promotes the growth of the bacteria and spores responsible for botulism.

However, these types of risks are common in home canning.  Major factories producing canned or bottled goods are going to want to protect themselves against millions of lawsuits, so they are going to take steps to pasteurize (for lack of a better word) the foods before packaging them.  Commercially-packaged infused oils have probably either been heated, acidified, or filtered to guarantee food safety.

On the other hand, the linked question above demonstrates that there are people out there who aren't taking the appropriate precautionary measures.  If this oil came from a well-known company with a good track record then I would not worry (and you can always contact them if you are worried); however, if it came from somebody you've never heard of, and can't find any reliable information on - i.e. somebody who's making this stuff from home - then I might be a little more concerned.

If you trust the source, then trust the oil.  Otherwise, you might want to try sterilizing it yourself; you need to either heat it to 250° F (121° C) or expose it to acid conditions.  Neither of those things are really desirable; heating it can taint the flavour or even burn the oil depending on what kind of oil it is, and if you want to take the acid route, you basically need to to pickle it.  But there you have it, that's what you can do if you don't trust the safety.


I wouldn't recommend smoking any whole poultry without the skin as it may dry out the meat. You would have to be constantly basting it and that would throw off your cooking time and temperatures due to keeping the lid open to often.

Not knowing your cooking technique, I can only guess at a few things. Either you're not cooking it slow enough to allow the smoke to set in or you're not using enough smoke. I like to cook very low at about 185 to 250 for a few hours with plenty of visible smoke then I raise the temperature to about 350 to 375 to finish it off keeping the bird close to the heat source so that it crisps the skin slightly.

Some other advice would be to avoid checking the bird often. It's tempting to see what's going on under that lid but if you lift the lid to often you're letting all that good smoke out and losing the flavor.


Can I freeze undercooked (pink) chicken to finish cooking later on?

It is entirely fine! The only thing I would worry about is when you are re-cooking them. Let them come down to room temperature before you throw them on the heat, otherwise, you'll get overcooked/burnt edges and a barely cooked centre. I would just be wary about keeping them in the freezer for over two weeks, not for health and safety, but just for taste and culinary standards.

For when you take them out for your meal; enjoy!


What makes carrot bits turn green in carrot pineapple bread? (And are they safe?)

Here is a super in-depth analysis of what may cause the carrot to turn green:

http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/turngreen.html

Unfortunately, it doesn't come to any hard conclusions. It does make it clear that it's not simply pH though, as a carrot will remain green even in a 0.1 M solution of sodium hydroxide.

It does provide an anecdote about a baker that had a similar issue, and how they solved it:

  [they overcame] it with a change in formula of baking powder and a good clean out of equipment.

Perhaps this could apply in your case? It might be a reaction from your cookware in combination with other factors? What if you remove the pineapple? Does it still happen? Perhaps trying a different brand of baking powder may work.

One thing is for sure, it's definitely not mold, and I'm very confident that it's harmless.


What is the difference between butterscotch, caramel, and toffee?

Butterscotch and caramel are very different things. The taste difference between the two is far from 'slight' in my opinion.

Caramel is typically made with granulated sugar, milk and/or cream, butter, and sometimes vanilla. The primary flavors of caramel are the sugar and milk/cream.

Butterscotch on the other hand is made with brown sugar. It's primary flavors are brown sugar and butter. It typically also contains milk/cream but they are not as prominent as caramel.

Toffee is butterscotch that has been cooked to the hard-crack stage.

There is no liquor in butterscotch.

There is a lot of leeway in what things get called caramel, butterscotch, and toffee. The important differences to keep in mind are that caramel is made with granulated sugar, whereas toffee and butterscotch are made with brown sugar and much more butter.


Sorting means a few things:

Remove foreign objects like small stones, other seeds, twigs.... that may have accidentally been packed with the beans.
Remove damaged (think insect damage, for example) or otherwise shrivelled, infected or moldy beans and loose skins. Hint: Hollow beans and skins float up.
Double-check for bug infections. Sometimes there are little hitchhikers, even if you have impeccable hygiene at home.

It boils down to making sure you have nothing in the pot that doesn't belong in your meal.


Can I reuse an alginate bath for reverse spherification?

This site say you can use it again, just make sure you strain it before you store it
http://www.molecularmixology.co.uk/index.php?act=viewRecipe&recipeId=34

This site says you can store it for a couple of days in the fridge
http://www.molecularrecipes.com/spherification/7-tips-making-spherification-caviar/

As for how many spheres can be produced - I'm afraid that would be completely dependent on how large you make your spheres.


Roasting caramelizes the natural sugars in vegetables and, eventually, burns them.  Roasted anything that turns out bitter is almost always the symptom of overcooking.  Sometimes it also means that your ingredients were spoiled or "off" in the first place.

As for saving them - there's not much you can do in either case, other than trying to mask it with some other flavours.  Beetroot pairs well with cranberry and other tart fruits, which would probably mask the bitter taste; cream, sweetened yogurt or sour cream would also be a good bet.  Otherwise, I can't really think of anything else to do with them; overcooked food usually ends up in the trash for me.


Animals that are killed, independent on the method, have to be examined by a veterinarian and a sample should be tested. When the test comes back clean, the animal can be butchered and eaten.

However, a restaurant kitchen is not an abattoir and there's a high risk of cross-contamination. Think about the fur, the dust, the lice or other insects on the carcass. This means a restaurant should not butcher animals. Period.

If you take a road-kill home, take a sample (the tongue) to the local vet.


Has there been some change in the varieties of broccoli sold in US supermarkets in the last few years?

First, there can be a difference in varieties that are sold in supermarkets. Calabrese, which is a member of the broccoli family, is what is most often sold in grocery stores. The other variety that may be found is 'Italian Green Sprouting'. (Note that I am not referring to other types such as broccoli rabe, broccolini, etc., but just what we think of as 'regular' green broccoli.)

From  seedaholic.com :

  Calabrese & Broccoli is a confusing series of plants:
  Supermarkets have helped to confuse the issue of what is broccoli and what is a calabrese by calling both by either name. Most ‘Broccoli’ sold in the supermarkets is actually Calabrese not broccoli.

  Broccoli has small heads (mainly purple, sometimes white or green) which mature slowly and can occupy the ground for almost a year. (The word broccoli means 'little sprouts' in Italian). Calabrese are smaller plants that produce larger crowns.

  Keep in mind is that broccoli is an over wintered crop but calabrese produces its crop the same year before winter. Sprouting broccoli can be harvested from late winter to late spring. Calabrese can be harvested from mid-summer to mid-autumn. If you grow both calabrese and sprouting broccoli, your kitchen will be kept in broccoli for most of the year.

  To add to the confusion, this variety, called "Italian Green Sprouting" is a "heading" broccoli. The name refers to the multitude of sprouts it produces once the main head is harvested.

Next, and what may be an even larger factor, is how it is stored on its way to market or production and in the store. I would suspect that this may well be the source of your issue. From  farmtotable.colostate.edu :

  Safe Storage and Handling

  Broccoli should be stored unwashed, in loose perforated bags in the refrigerator. Broccoli left unrefrigerated will quickly become woody and fibrous. Wet broccoli can become limp and soggy as well as support the growth of microorganisms, so wait to rinse it until just before eating.

And...

  Why is my broccoli so tough and chewy?

  At room temperature, harvested broccoli will convert its sugar into a fiber called lignin. The more time spent at room temperature, the more lignin is produced and the more fibrous your broccoli becomes! Keep your broccoli refrigerated to extend the shelf life.


How much evaporated milk do I use for a half a cup of milk

In order to substitute evaporated milk for regular milk, you need to reconstitute the milk according to package instructions. Usually, that's a 1 to 1 ratio. So you would use 1/4 cup each of evaporated milk and water. (double check the label, other concentrations may exist)

See: Can evaporated milk be converted to "regular" milk?


Why is it easier to separate a cold egg?

It's a simple matter of viscosity, when eggs are cold the white is less runny. When eggs are warm the white is much more runny.

As for whether it is easier to separate eggs when cold or warm it depends on your method. If you use the shells to separate the white, by cracking them in half and then transferring the yolk back and forth between the halves, then I'd say cold is a bit better because once the white starts to drip out it tends to go as a whole. With warm eggs more white will stay in the shell with the yolk.

However, if you use your hands to separate the eggs, by letting the white drip between your fingers (or using an egg separator which does the same thing), warm eggs work much better because the runniness allows them to flow easier. This method works fine for cold eggs too, but warm is faster.

Of the two methods I prefer using my hands rather than the shell for a few reasons:

Less broken yolks: It's easier to break a yolk when using shells
It's faster: especially if your eggs are room temperature you can separate eggs twice as fast this way
You can whip the whites right away: Most of the time the reason you are separating the egg whites is to whip them into peaks, and warm whites whip better than cold whites. If your eggs are warm already then you can whip them right away, if they are cold you have to wait for them to warm up

A handy trick if you are separating a lot of eggs is to separate each white into a separate bowl, then putting the white into a larger bowl with the rest of them. This is so if you get a bad egg, or a yolk breaks into the white you can discard the egg and keep the rest of them.


Just omit the mustard. In just about every recipe I have seen for beans, it is proportionally a very small component. And while we tend to think of mustard as being bold in flavor, it's really the vinegar that makes it seem that way.

You should also stray from any recipes that call for store bought barbecue sauces, as many will contain mustard.

Finally, one reason mustard appears as an ingredient in dishes like this is it is an emulsifier. You may wish to find a substitute emulsifier, making sure of course that your friend can handle it as an ingredient, to keep too much of the pork fat from separating in your mixture.


Question about safety of eating cooked bread if it is over or under-proofed

Under- or over-proofed bread will change the "crumb" of the bread but has nothing to do with food safety. If it is baked fully it will be safe even if it's a little dense or too airy.


Depends how acid it was ("contains vinegar" is not a pH) and what temperature it was "held" at, as well as jar size.

As a rule, canning is best done by following tested recipes and procedures which have been checked to work for the particular food type and jar size - i.e. many things are not considered safe if packed in quarts due to the larger size of the jar, or those that are/can be require more time.

If I guess that you might have boiled/steamed the jars at atmospheric pressure (boiling water bath) that is only an accepted technique for "acid" foods, where "acid" specifically means having a low enough pH to retard botulism growth, not "yep, there's some vinegar in here." One normally attains that by following a tested recipe.

Pressure canning at 15 PSI/1 Bar is required for safety with "low acid" foods. You still need a procedure that ensures that all the contents of the jar get to an adequate temperature for an adequate time to kill botulism spores.

There are many canning procedures that were used, or are being used in some cases (by folks following tradition rather than science) that are not particularly safe. Grandma always doing it this way and not having a known problem is not any guarantee of a safe procedure.


What are these chocolate meringues called?

There is a 'merenguitos' recipe online and these look pretty much identical.

  Ingredients

  4 large egg whites without any traces of yolk
  1/2 cup Dixie Crystals Extra Fine Granulated Sugar
  Pinch salt
  1/2 cup Dixie Crystals Extra Fine Granulated Sugar
  1/2 cup unsweetened coconut

  DIRECTIONS

  Preheat oven to 200°F.
  Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
  Prepare a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip and set aside. (If
  a pastry bag is not available,  merenguitos can also be spooned onto
  cookie sheets.)
  Whip egg whites and first listed sugar to very stiff peaks. Add salt
  and stop whipping.
  Add second listed sugar and gently fold using a rubber spatula until
  well combined.
  Fill pastry bag with meringue and pipe large rosettes onto cookie
  sheets. If using a spoon drop two tablespoon amounts onto paper.
  Sprinkle generously with unsweetened coconut. (Sweetened coconut may
  brown too quickly!)
  Place in oven until merenguitos are very crisp. A good way to
  determine doneness is to break open a meringue and allow to cool for
  2 minutes. If the interior feels dry and is not sticky it is done.
  If not return to oven.

Obviously you would not use coconut and you would adjust this recipe to be more chocolate.


How do I recognize whether a Gorgonzola has gone bad?

If it grows a grey or pink mold around the edges, or a black mold, throw it out. That's an undesirable mold. Those molds aren't usually dangerous, but they can make the cheese taste bad. With gorgonzola cheese specifically, the mold is injected in to the cheese via needle-like things, and then it grows veins from there. If a mold is a different color and it's coming from somewhere other than the veins, that is probably not a good mold. See also this question.
.


How long should I let my tea cool before adding unpasteurized honey to it?

Well, after a cursory look online, it looks like the honey shouldn't be heated above 95 degrees Fahrenheit, or what a "natural temperature" of a bee hive would be. Assuming you're drinking black tea, you are boiling the water, so it starts off at around 212 degrees Fahrenheit (near sea level). How long it will take for the tea to cool will depend on what the tea is in and how cool the room you are in is. So, in other words, there really isn't a rule of thumb for the cooling part since the environment the tea is in will dramatically affect how long it takes to cool.

I'd just use a thermometer and check it the first couple of times you make the tea.


Yes, you can freeze pickles, there are no safety considerations you need to be aware of. Freezing ruptures cells and can change the texture food, so your pickles may have a different consistency when they are thawed.


Here I'm assuming that you mean macaroons as in the French patisserie macarons rather than the simpler coconut or almond based macaroons.

In any case almond meal and almond flour are essentially the same thing, both are almonds ground into a fine (or not so much in your case) 'flour' or 'powder'. Apparently, almond flour is made from 'blanched' (almonds which have had their skin removed) almonds whereas almond meal can be made from either almonds with their skins on (whole) or 'blanched'. I have, however, always found them to be used interchangeably.

If your problem is graininess, then you could either sieve the ground almonds before using or blitz/grind them finer in a food processor until the desired consistency is reached, however if you're grinding them in a food processor make sure you do it in small batches or if you're making macarons blitz them with the icing sugar (for the tant pour tant) to avoid making almond butter. Personally, I would do both to achieve a fine powder.


My pizza crust is very hard and tough and not light and crispy, why?

Your 60 qt mixer is going to mix dough at a much different rate than your 20 qt, even if their rotation speeds are the same. Your hook to bowl clearance shouldn't be an issue unless you're getting an excessive amount of crusty dough on the bottom of the bowl. The condition of the bowl is negligible too. Most likely your issue will be over/under development of your dough.

Does the dough from your other location pass a windowpane test? How about your new dough? Assuming your relative humidity, proofing box temperature, and oven temperatures are the same, its going to be dough development. Experiment with different mixing times until you find the sweet spot. Also, if you are scaling a recipe down, occasionally you'll need to adjust hydration levels just a touch.


What is missing in this recipe for Peruvian fish ceviche?

In general, ceviche is marinated/cured, using citrus as the main ingredient, with other possible ingredients (onions, garlic, etc).  That initial marinade is drained off, then the ceviche is "dressed" for serving.  It sounds like you are not draining the initial marinade.  This could be causing the excess acidity.


Why would using oil make muffins less sweet?

I think you are looking at it the wrong way... butter makes it sweeter, so not using butter is naturally "less sweet". It isn't that the oil 'causes' less sweetness.


will a mortar and pestle be sufficient to grind fish bones?

Small fish like sardines, pilchards, etc., yes you should be able to pestle these down with no problem at all (although they tend to break down naturally when you mix them with other ingredients.  When I eat sardines and pilchards, the bones are hardly noticeable.

Larger fish would be another matter though.

As with any unknowns, waste a little to learn a lot.  Just try mashing up a few fish and see what the state of the bones are afterwards.


Yes, you can make the tomato (or meat) sauce in advance and keep it a few days in the fridge.
You can also make the bechamel in advance and keep it in the fridge.


How to stop oatmeal from sticking to the sides of my slow cooker?

Are you cooking too long or too hot?

Oats shouldn't burn; stuck oats should just soak off.

Crock Pot Tips:

Often the slow cooker's ceramic pot gets quite rough and can have cracks in the glaze. Try an oven proof glass pot inside the ceramic pot (or instead of it if it fits OK).
A hardware-store drill-speed-controller, or heater thermostat/controllers, can be used on slow cookers to reduce their heat. Also, a plugin timer can be used to time the cooking cycle.

Different Methods:

You can bring the oats to the boil and pour into a preheated thermos flask (with a wide opening) and leave overnight. Traditional oats or other grains were brought to the boil on the evening fire, and then the  pot was put into a hay box* for breakfast and lunch the next day
Personally I cannot tell much difference between slow cooker oats and a serving of oats that were blasted in the microwave for three minutes. Just compensate with a little extra milk, and let stand five minutes before serving

* Large wooden box lined with dry straw or hay, with a cavity big enough for the lidded cooking, pot. More hay and a heavy lid placed on top (to keep the animals out)


Can you make latte-art with a panarello wand?

Yes, you can.  And it is not too easy.

Microfoam has small bubbles by definition and the panarello wand will draw a 'certain' amount of air and you can't really control that part.  The notes below might help you get there.  I have successfully done this with the panarello wands of automatic Saeco machines which aren't too different from deLonghi.

Run your steam wand in a cup water first until it's fully producing steam and not spuddering hot water mixed with steam.
Use a small Stainless Steel Milk Frothing Pitcher.  If the wand is trying to blow steam and air in for a long time, you'll end up with big bubbles.  That wand is not as powerful as a commercial espresso machine with a proper boiler.
'Stretch' the froth only for a few seconds in the beginning.
Keep the wand off-center in the pitcher to encourage circulation (see next point).
Most important: make sure you create a whirlpool to circulate the milk (helps to gently move the pitcher in a circular motion to encourage the start of the whirlpool).
I use the fattiest milk I can find.

  The trick is to move the milk in a circulation such that big bubbles
  break and only microbubbles survive.  Some microfoam creation also
  happens at the vortex of the whirlpool.


When does gluten start to develop in pie crust or biscuits?

Wheat and (other grains) contains the two protein classes gliadin and glutenin, which together can form the composite protein gluten.

This process requires water and is influenced by

a) the amount of water available and
b) the mechanical process of kneading.

Thus a strong gluten network (as desired in bread baking) is acchieved by either

dilligent kneading wet flour for a certain time (-> window pane test)
or a higher hydration (= wetter) dough and longer resting times, aided by the -> stretch and fold technique.

On the other side of the spectrum are  flaky and crumbly goods like shortbread , pie crust and bisquits - here you try to avoid excess gluten formation. There are two ways to do this, usually employed both:

Adding fat to the dry ingredients before adding any liquid.
The fat (butter, oil, lard...) "protects" the flour from "getting wet" once liquid is added, thus inhibiting gluten formation.
Using only a limited amount of liquid and no kneading and gentle handling of the dough after the addition.

So to answer your question:
There is only very little water in your butter which could trigger the development of gluten. Therefore you can "rub" your butter/shortening/... in without much influence on gluten formation. Once you add liquid (egg, ice water, milk, depending in your recipe), you need to be careful.


What is the best place to store garlic in the kitchen?

Keep your garlic away from the refrigerator, or any cold storage. Garlic germinates after exposure to cold, which is why it's planted in autumn. This means that putting your garlic in the refrigerator is a bad idea as it will cause it to sprout, which creates undesirable changes in flavor and texture.

The garlic you buy at the store has been cured (dried) and will last for months at room temperature, and that's the best place for it to be. Garlic pots are better than sealed containers because they have holes that allow airflow, keeping the garlic from getting soggy while protecting it from sunlight or other strong light. I grow garlic and make my own garlic strings and braids, which I hang in my kitchen, I always make sure they are hung somewhere out of direct sunlight, but if I wasn't putting them out for show I would keep them in a cool, dark cupboard.

Here's a picture of my garlic pot, although there are many designs out there.


You are seeing oil polymerisation, otherwise known as seasoning. It is not required on stainless steel, but it can happen on its own under some conditions (a very thin layer of oil, or only a spray of oil mist, on a very hot pan surface) and wokking produces these conditions at least on parts of the surface.

It is your choice whether to keep it or clean it. You won't be able to maintain a great seasoning on stainless steel, it will be somewhat patchy because it cannot cling as well as it does to reactive steels or iron. But since it is not functional on stainless, the quality of the layer is not really important. Just pay attention that it really stays a seasoning (made from burnt-on decomposed oil) and does not become char from carbohydrate deposits.

If you decide to clean it, you won't get far with physical efforts or everyday cleaners. The more convenient way is to use boron based cleaners, but they are not sold in some parts of Europe due to safety and environmental concerns. The other way is sodium lye, which does not have the boron toxicity but needs safe handling procedures because it is very corrosive.

You can also choose to retire that wok and switch to a carbon steel wok, which can hold better seasoning (and also, being many times cheaper, causes less consternation if it stops looking good). For that solution, you also need to season properly, which does have a learning curve at the beginning.

A side note:

  Am i doing it wrong

You may have a somewhat wrong wokking technique - I am surprised that your bottom is so clean while the walls got so much oil polymerisation. My suspicion is that you are overcrowding the bottom and not pushing enough food up the wall. But that is only an aside, since it matters mostly for taste, not for cleaning.