What do I need to consider when upgrading to a 40 quart mixer?

If we assume that each of the mixers is as capable as your existing one, you'd have to consider how much it saves you, and compare that to the cost of the new mixer.

New, that model of mixer when new goes for US$10,000 to $15,000.  Accessories will increase the cost; the scraper blade you mentioned runs around $500.

We have two ways to calculate the value to you; we can base it off of time savings of using the new mixer, but those calculations can be a bit messy.  If you're planning on buying this to grow into it, and only going to be doubling recipes, your time savings from mixing may be lost from cleaning (if it doesn't fit in your sink), or just hauling it around (shipping weight for a replacement bowl is listed as 47lbs/21kg); even if the bowl is only half that, a full batch might be 60lbs or more).

If you value your time at $8/hr, at $11,0000, you'd need 1375 hours to start seeing a benefit.  If you only saved 1hr per day, working 5 days per week, this would take over 4 years to start seeing a benefit.  If the cost with accessories is near $16,000, you'd need 2000 hrs, or almost 6 years).

These time savings may seem low, but remember that you're not necessarily quadrupling your batches in the same time; you still have to consider time to scoop them out, bake them, etc.  If you don't have sufficient oven & cooling space, you may not be able to take full advantage of the larger mixer.

You may value your time as more than $8/hr, and that would improve your cost recovery time ... but also consider that if you value your time highly, you could instead hire extra help.  If you hired someone half time at $15/hr, it would take 10.5 to 15.25 months to recover the cost.

...

Your second alternative for calculations is in how much additional profits you could make.  So, if you could turn out an extra 400 cookies per day (and could actually manage to sell them all), you'd consider the cost recovery time to be the increased profits minus the increased costs (ingredients, extra sales staff, etc.)

...

And for both of these calculations when we're looking at long time-scales, you have to consider what they call the 'time value of money' ... or what your effective interest rate is.  If you have the money saved up, it may be near 1%, or whatever you can invest it at (with low risk).  If you have to borrow the money, it may be 15% or more if you're putting it on a credit card.  It should be somewhere in between with a bank loan.

So, that 6 year 'payback' value with a savings of 1 hr per day at $8/hr, if you had a 15% interest will actually take 27 years to pay off  (calculator), as you only make back $140/month.  If you were to save 1.25hrs/day ($160/month), we cut the time down to 13 years.

...

So, to summarize, some of the considerations:

can you fit the bowl in your sink to clean?
will you be able to manage the bowl when it's filled?  (may be able to get a dolly to move it around)
how expensive are all of the accessories you need?
would you be able to take advantage of the size, or should you consider a smaller (20qt, 30qt mixer)?
how much time will this save you per day/week/etc?
how much extra profit could you make if you had this?
are there other things you could do to expand other than the mixer? (eg, hire extra help)
how long would it take to recover the cost of the mixer?


How do I heat up pre-made crepes with cognac?

Given that you ask about flaming cognac, I'm going to assume that you're making Crepes Suzette.

If that's the case, it's not complicated.  Follow the recipe I just linked; you'll see that even though it includes making crepes from scratch, that's a separate, first step.  You then heat the crepes in the orange butter and sugar.  if they are too dry to fold, heat them briefly in a dry pan over low heat.

Flaming with cognac is the last step, and it's done by setting fire to the cognac in a cup and pouring that over the crepes.  Again, this is all in the classic Pépin recipe I linked above.


How can I know when a thick simple syrup is done cooking?

You aren't actually trying to cook anything. When you heat a solution, it makes dissolving a solid in to that solution much easier. So you can dissolve more sugar in to hot water than cold water. With a 1:1 ratio, you wouldn't be able to get all the sugar in to solution with cold water. So, you heat the water to allow more sugar to become part of the solution. So the answer is, as soon as there is no visible sugar in the water, you are done.

If you were to cook it for longer, you would reduce the syrup, increasing the concentration of sugar in the solution. You'd have to reduce it an awful lot before you burnt this. However, if you reduce it too much, then the liquid will become solid when it is cooled. Both of those would probably qualify as "over cooked".

Here's a nice science description of sugar solubility. Interestingly, they say that sugar has such high solubility in water that you can get 1800g in to 1L. Using this volume to weight conversion site, that's approximately 7.5 cups of sugar in 1L of water. 1L = 4.2 cups, so you can get ~1.8 Cups of sugar in to 1 cup of water (under ideal circumstances). So, if you are actually interested in cooking your water off to get a more sugary syrup, you can't reduce the water to less than 1 / 1.8 = or 55% of the original volume. However, if you do want a ratio higher that 1:1, then I would suggest introducing the appropriate amount of sugar in the first place and stopping when the sugar is dissolved rather than using less sugar and cooking the liquid down, as the first approach is much more precise.

(for purposes of this answer, I have ignored the possibility of super saturating the syrup, as that would be essentially useless for cooking....although it would be funny)


Substitute for egg yolk in ice-cream (Egg Allergy)

One of my favourite ice creams involves fresh strawberries (just picked), cream, and sugar. That's all. It can be hard finding "recipes" for things that are simple, so when you search for recipes you get all kinds involving you making a custard first and so on. If you've made eggless icecream and don't like something about it, that's one thing, but my guess is you haven't made eggless icecream yet. Try it.


Is wagyu beef suitable for amateur cooking

When you are dealing with very high end ingredients, it is more important than ever to let the product speak for itself.

At the restaurant, we rarely use Wagyu, but when we do it is fantastically simple: salt, fresh cracked black pepper. Sear and mark it on the grill, and finish in the oven. A little melted butter on it when it comes out, and that's all.

Do be aware that when you are cooking Wagyu (or, if you're very lucky, Kobe), you actually want to take it to at least medium rare, or even a little bit beyond. I know, that's heresy, and it's coming from a person who likes his steak cooked only to the point where a competent veterinarian could actually resuscitate it at the table. The reason is that when meat is as highly marbled as Wagyu (that is to say, when it has such a high distribution of intramuscular fats), you actually need to cook it further than a lean cut in order to melt the fat and extract all the flavour.

Beyond that, I would agree with Treblekicker. Practice on less-expensive steaks first. Learn how to really maximize the essential beefy flavour of a not-great steak; those lessons will make sure that as you move upwards in quality, you will be getting the most bang for your buck.

So for cooking steaks, a few guidelines:

Medium is overdone. Seriously. Learn to love your steak red, there is a LOT more flavour
Learn how to check for doneness by touch; cutting into the meat will release juices = losing flavour. To do this, hold up your left hand, palm facing you. Feel the pad at the base of your thumb. That is blue rare. Touch your forefinger to the tip of your thumb. That is rare. Do this sequentially with the rest of your fingers; that will be med-rare, medium, and well done in order. Well, that's North American colours; the French go slightly less for each level of doneness.
There is conflicting advice on seasoning (salt and pepper) your steak. Thomas Keller maintains that meat should be seasoned 20 minutes before cooking and left to rest. Harold McGee (I think it was him) says that steaks should only be seasoned after they are flipped. I prefer seasoning before grilling, as the salt helps draw out some moisture which therefore assists in the Maillard reaction (browning and accompanying flavour development).
Always let your steaks rest a few minutes after cooking. This redistributes juices throughout the meat. In practice, this means taking steaks off the grill or out of the pan a bit before they are done, as carryover cooking (residual heat) will continue to cook the meat.
Only flip steak once. Try to keep an even cooking time on each side so that the inside cooks evenly. There is a caveat to this however! If you are cooking in a pan, frequent flipping (every 30 seconds or so) will create a much more evenly done steak, and bastes the meat in its own juices. This will come at the expense of slightly less browning, but will be significantly more tender. This is also the best technique for cooking hamburgers in a pan or on a flat-top grill.
Never squish your steak with your tongs. This presses juices out of the meat.

That's all I can think of for now.


I've heard of adding sugar to stir-fries, to make a caramel flavoured sauce/glaze in Vietnamese cooking, as in this recipe.  Although I've usually seen sugar used, I see no reason why a similar effect could not be obtained by using honey.


How to inject carbon dioxide into hard candy, to make popping rocks?

Looks like it takes about 600psi CO2 to treat the liquid candy.
Patent search should reveal more detail: US patent 3012893

Patent links are notorious for decaying over a short time frame.
If the second link is dead go http://www.uspto.gov/patents-application-process/search-patents or here to find find out how the inventors did it.
Patents before 1976, are in image format, and are hard to look through, sometimes Google is a better choice than USPTO on these.

See also US Patent 4289794 (1981)

  Gasified candy which produces a more pronounced popping sensation is prepared by maintaining a sugar melt at a temperature of below about 280° F. ... Such a candy is made by a process which comprises melting crystalline sugar, contacting such sugar with gas at a pressure of 50 to 1,000 psig for a time sufficient to permit incorporation in said sugar of 0.5 to 15 cm3 of gas per gram of sugar, maintaining the temperature of said sugar during said absorption above the solidification temperature of the melted sugar, and cooling said sugar under pressure to produce a solid amorphous sugar containing the gas. Upon the release of the pressure, the solid gasified candy fractures into granules of assorted sizes.

High temperature, high pressure. Even as a hard candy, the stuff has a short shelf life.
Baking soda/acid mixture candies are just Fizzies in disguise. Feel weird when they bubble in your mouth, but they do not explode like pop rocks.


You've answered your own question, it's size and shape. You could buy a roast and slice it into chops and you'd get the same thing as if the butcher does it. That's if they are both pork sirloin, sometimes there can be confusion between sirloin and tenderloin, which are not the same thing.


Make homemade seitan taste like commercial

I have never cooked with seitan, but found your question very interesting. The below  excerpt from VeganFuel , includes a letter from the President and Founder of Fresh Tofu, Inc, a distributor of Ray's Seitan:

  We asked if their seitan is made in house, as it is consistently the best seitan we’ve had. We thought we may get some secrets for making our own as tasty. To our surprise, they don’t make it. They get it from Fresh Tofu Inc., who distubutes Ray’s brand seitan to a number of restaurants including Candle Cafe and others. If you’re in NYC, you can find Ray’s at Lifethyme on 6th ave. Anyway, I contacted Fresh Tofu and their Pres/Founder Gary was more than willing to give me some tips on making our seitan more kick-ass. He said it’s all about how much starch you rinse out after it is in dough form- this also means using high gluten flour as oppose to my beloved vital wheat gluten. Here is his email reply for all of us nerds:

  Hi,

  Use a high gluten flour. King Arthur is 1 brand. Mix the flour and water and knead to make a dough. Let rest for 10 minutes, keep it covered in water. Then rinse with luke warm water until it looks stringy and the water is getting clear that rinses out. This is the point that you need to decide how much starch to rinse out, which will effect the texture. Let it rest a bit, then boil in broth stirring so it doesn’t burn to the bottom of the pot. When it floats and is cooked through it’s done.
  Learn from your errors and improve the next time.
  Blossom and Candle are very good at cooking with seitan, that’s why it tastes better. Candle has a cookbook that might help.
  I hope this helps.

  Gary


how long to cook stuffed chicken breasts

The time and temperature can vary widely based on a lot of different factors. What's important is the final temperature. Chicken breast is safe and largely considered palatable at 165F (74C). Use an instant read thermometer in the thickest part of the breast.

Just to give you an idea where to start, here are several recipes for Stuffed Chicken Breasts from Cooking Light.


Will any sugar substitutes brown in a crumble topping?

As breadcrumbs in a savoury topping brown quite nicely (and so does unsweetened pastry) I should think you'd be able to find a mix that would work.

The recipe would probably involve both fat and some sort of starchy ingredient(s). You might need to switch from oven to grill for a few minutes when it's cooked to get enough browning -- and getting just the right amount of browning might be harder, as some ingredients might burn quite suddenly. Of course, only browned sugar tastes like browned sugar (unless you can find a suitable caramel additive).

Perhaps a good place to start would be a "flapjack crumble" recipe, modified in a similar way to the many sugar-free flapjack recipes out there.  A crumble topping that's more like pastry crumbs should also do work but the texture is likely to be less forgiving.


Why is orange juice or apple juice added in a smoothie?

Apple juice will give you very little additional taste, but it will sweeten your smoothie. Especially filtered apple juice has a rather subtle flavor which is easily covered by other fruit flavors. Juice producers use this to make their juices cheaper - if a juice advertises 100% fruit, and a flavor from an expensive, non-juicy fruit like strawberries, it is usually a blend of a small amount of strawberry juice and a large amount of apple juice (this is not fraud, the ingredients are listed on the package if you care to read it). Apple juice is normally made from low-acid apples, and it tastes quite sweet, so it is useful not only for bulking, but also for sweetening blends made with sour juices like elderberry, cranberry, etc. In a smoothie, it will have the same effect as in a juice blend, plus a diluting effect, as it is less viscous than your other ingredients. It won't amplify the flavor of the smoothie, it will even reduce it, as sugar tends to suppress other flavors in general. But the reduction won't be too big, and you might find the overall result better if you are accustomed to heavily sweetened food. You can also remove the sugar if you use apple juice - I wouldn't put it there anyway, even without juice.

Orange juice is much more acidic than apple juice, and it has a stronger aroma. It will add an orange flavor to your smoothie. I would count this as an advantage, because orange flavor goes especially well with bananas and is OK with strawberries too. It will also make the smoothie taste more sour, and again dilute it. Overall, the effect will be pleasant. As for what constitutes "overpowering" the taste, I think this is subjective. You should just experiment, adding a the juice in small proportions, until you have achieved the ratio which tastes good for you.


I would ventilate it well, wipe everything down and wash up the turntable. Then, when the smell has cleared (and doesn't come back when the door has been shut for a while) use it but only for covered (loosely) food at least at first.

I'd also test that it heats up a cup of water before cooking anything real in it.


To make your life easier, I'd look for another muffin recipe that does not use almond milk.

You should be able to substitute with rice milk, soy milk.. or even regular milk (cow, sheep ...) or other non animal milk.

For example, this site tested muffins with different kind of milks.

https://teaspoonofspice.com/almond-milk-muffins/


I have a very simple reason for taking the edge away:
It's less dangerous - for you, don't do this before someone.

I don't know if it makes for better or worse honing (should be the same as long as the angle is the same I'd say).


How does replacing some butter with shortening affect rising / leavening in cookies (biscuits)?

To answer this question we should turn to the oracle:
http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/season3/Cookie/CookieTranscript.htm

The relevant quote is:

"Nothing affects a cookie's texture more than the melting characteristics of its fat. Butter has a sharp melting point meaning that, uh, just a few degrees difference between a solid and liquid states. So since conversion occurs at a relatively low temperature, the resulting batter spreads prior to setting."

The problem is that shortening melts at a higher temperature than butter and so cookies made with shortening typically rise more than butter made cookies. Thus your rising problems are probably not caused by the type of fat.

I suspect that the temperature of your fat might be causing the problem. If your butter came from the fridge and the shortening was room temperature then the shortening cookies would melt faster and rise less.


Order of combining wet and dry ingredients when baking

The dry ingredients are lighter, less dense, and less viscous than the wet, which means they'll have a tendency to float on top of the wet. The dry ingredients that come in contact with the wet will form a sort-of skin, preventing the wet from distributing throughout the dry. You end up with clumps of dry, unmixed, and (ultimately) uncooked dry ingredients.

Pouring wet into dry forces agitation and more uniform distribution.


Sounds like a basic Asian Cabbage Slaw. Sometimes the dressing is made with rice vinegar, lemon juice maybe a little sesame oil to make a vinaigrette. I'm sure the dressing is dependent on the restaurant. where did you get it?


How can I tell when the wax has been removed from citrus fruit?

The best way to remove wax from citrus is simply to wash it with dish soap under warm, running water. Don't obsess about how long you should wash the fruit; usually the wax application is very thin and quickly removed.

There is no easy way to tell whether you have removed the wax, so if you return citrus to fridge after removing the wax, you might want to add a sticker to the fruit, or somehow indicate in another way that it has been washed, so that you know to use that piece of fruit promptly.

The true indicator that you have removed the wax is that the citrus will spoil more rapidly :(


It is possible. The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations classes wine as grape wine, citrus wine, or fruit wine; as examples of labelling of citrus wine containing only one fruit it mentions orange wine and grapefruit wine.

However, the Wikipedia page on fruit wine notes that it's difficult to make, and it's normal for some of the citric acid to be neutralised.


When left out in an open container, what % abv does vodka retain at room temperature?

As a chemist I'd say that the question is really impossible to answer as given.

The gist is that for a water/ethanol mixture both components will evaporate. So if the liquid is left out long enough, the liquid will evaporate completely.

The atmosphere contains essentially no ethanol so an equilibrium between the whole atmosphere and the ethanol in a glass can never be reached. There is water in the atmosphere (aka humidity) so the evaporation of water could be retarded, or prevented entirely if the "local" humidity is 100%. But unless the "local" humidity is already 100% then an equilibrium between the liquid and the atmospheric water won't be reached either.

Pure ethanol has a higher vapor pressure and thus evaporates faster than pure water (in 0% humidity). So the gist is that as liquid evaporates the water/ethanol composition of the liquid will change. Thus the relative rate of evaporation of water and ethanol changes too.

In terms of the rate of evaporation there are a number of unspecified parameters.

How much volume compared to the exposed surface area? So liquid will evaporate more slowly from a tall narrow glass than a short wide one.
Temperature? The higher the temperature the faster the evaporation.
Air currents? If you use a fan to blow air across the glass evaporation will occur much faster than if a fan isn't used.


what are the small black things that fall from top ceiling of my grill?

This answer is in regard to an outdoor Weber grille.  According to the Weber grille people the black peelings are carbonized grease that accumulate when cooking and are not harmful. They might not be tasty though so I recommend a quick wipe to loosen the particles before cooking.  Again Weber suggests using aluminum foil to brush the top and I believe that is because aluminum is softer than steel and so won't scratch the surface.  Happy grilling!


How long will spaghetti and meat sauce last in the refrigerator?

Sauce = 5 days

Meat (Left Overs) = 3 or 4 days

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-long-foods-stay-fresh-in-fridge/


According to Sigma-Aldrich, pure caffeine has a shelf-life of four years at room temperature, or many years at 2-8°C.

A caffeine solution can be stable for months even at moderately high temperatures.

So, essentially, your day old coffee has still all its caffeine in it, although probably it does not taste that well, but that's caffeine unrelated.

As a side note, after drinking coffee/tea/Coke/etc. it will take ~1-2 hours for blood caffeine levels to peak. Caffeine half-life in the body is ~3-6 hours.


There's really no such thing as 'sealing in juices' when it comes to meat. Skin-on chicken breast stays relatively moist because of the fat in the skin; because the skin is on top, it pretty much self-bastes. Broiling just crisps the skin afterwards and will do nothing moisture-wise.

With pork chops, however, the fat is around the side and so will drip off during roasting, and broiling beforehand will just dry out the surface of the meat. I'd suggest rolling the fat in some salt, then placing the chops fat side down on a warm pan for a few minutes. This will render out the fat. You can then drizzle this on to the pork to help keep it moist and impart extra flavor.


What's the most cost effective way to make chicken bone broth?

Formulas for stock are somewhat variable, but a common case is to use 3 kg of bones (and half a kg of mirepoix, which is a vegetable mix used for taste) with 4-5 l water, which after cooking down yields 3 l of stock, or just a little bit more than that. I couldn't find an especially good figure for the bone:meat ratio of chickens, but many Internet sites seem to agree on a 30:70 figure (I hope they didn't copy it from each other without fact checking). So, you are looking at either buying 1 pound of bones, or one 3-pound chicken per day.

In your place, I would prefer to use bones, not whole chickens, because of the logistics involved. With chickens, you'd need lots of freezer space, and then will end up with 2 lb of chicken meat daily. The work of removing the bones, especially if your recipe requires you to do so before boiling, will also cost a lot of time. But I don't know in what circumstances you live, maybe these points are not a problem for you.

If you decide to use bones, the first place to look for them would be a local meat seller. I have heard that in the US and Canada, bones are seen as a waste product and sold cheaply. If you cannot find a convenient place which sells them, you might have to ask a butchering company. They will have many bones, but are unlikely to bother to trade in small amounts, so while you are likely to get a good price, you might have to deal with a bulk delivery (and the uncooked bones will need freezing if they are to last for more than a few days).

A catering business or a restaurant might be another place to ask, as showbiz suggested, but you should be aware that fast food chains get their halfway prepared ingredients delivered from a central factory, and high-end restaurants use the bones for cooking stock for their own needs.


Building upon what @Joe already mentioned.

The cheesecake rises because as the temperature of the air trapped inside the mix goes up it tends to move upwards. This creates an effective spring force pushing the mix up. The hotter the oven, the stronger is the force since the bigger is the temperature gradient between the air inside of the mix and the top of the oven.

This phenomenon is sometimes called oven spring, especially among bread bakers (which by the way go crazy trying to maximize it!). As your mix cooks, it loses elasticity and become rigid. In the case of the cheesecake, this is mainly due to the coagulation of the egg proteins. Thus the oven spring effect takes place mainly in the initial cooking stage.

Different from bread bakers, you want to minimize this effect. The key for that is to have the eggs cooked with the least temperature gradient between the center of the mix and the top of the oven. Egg coagulates at around 70 degrees, so you don't really need high temperatures to make the cheesecake set.

One simple but laborious approach would be to start cooking the cheesecake at lower temperatures and only after it has set you to increase it to get browning on the top. One way of checking this is to shake it and see if the top moves or not, or to drill it with a toothpick. The water bath also helps to reduce the speed in which heat penetrates the mix since it effectively 'shields' the cake with a layer which has higher heat capacity.


OK I can read Chinese and let me tell you the answer: the noodles you bought are made by eggs. They're not made by rice. (FYI, there are TWO kinds noodles called "Rice Noodles", they are actually made by rice. The two kinds varies in thickness).

You can first make soup noodles to grasp the texture of the noodles you bought. Try undercook and overcook a bit, see if you can find the sweet spot you want.

Now, to go with other ingredients, here's how Chinese "fried noodles" are made:

Prepare a pot of boiled water (must be boiling at 100C, not just hot)
Add a bit of salt into the water. This helps taste and prevents the noodles absorbing too much water.
Add a bit of oil into the water. This prevents the noodles from sticking together later in the process
Put the noodles in and cook them for 30s to 1 min. Never (very important!) cook them for more than a min.
Take out the noodles. They should be undercooked now, which is good. Use a scissor to cut the noodles, otherwise you'll have very long noodles later in the process. There is no need to rinse them using cold water if you use this method.
You can turn off the heat to the water pot now. But don't throw it away.
Add oil to a hot pan, cook the spices (e.g. onion, green onion, whatever you use)
Cook the meat ingredients in the pan.
Add a slight amount water from the pot (which has salt and oil in it) to the pan. Also add sugar, soy-sauce, etc. for final adjustment of taste.
Now put the noodles into the pan. If done correctly, all the water (should look like soup by now) should be absorbed into the noodles right away.
Cook the noodles a bit.
When the noodles are around 80~90% done, add the vegetables.
When the vegetables are done the noodles should be done as well. Finish!

As for Lo Mein, it's not a kind of noodles, rather a style of cooking noodles. When making "Lo Mein", the noodles are only cooked by hot soup. A "Lo Mein" dish is where the noodles are cooked by a minimal amount of water. It's like serving soup noodles but without the soup. The procedures are largely same as above, except the noodles are put into the pan at a later stage and only briefly fried, or not fried at all. I personally consider "Lo Mein" a more difficult dish than "fried noodles" (aka "Chow Mein").


Is it possible (and if so, how) to convert a store bought "pickles in vinegar" to "pickles in sweetened vinegar"?

As far as I'm aware, the difference between 'regular' pickles & 'Jewish' pickles is sugar & dill. [I honestly don't know what makes them Jewish, but my partner grew up in the Jewish community & that's what she calls them, so that's about as much research as I've done ;-)

So - you'd think that adding sugar & dill & leaving them for a while after that would be just fine… except that once opened, those pickles only have a 5-day fridge life. A 'regular' pickle has about 6 weeks, by comparison.

I think your best shot, in that case, would be to over-sugar a bit & see what they're like by tomorrow or the day after. Mainly the sugar will be on the outside. Some fresh dill might just infuse the liquid a bit overnight, but you don't really have the time to experiment much after that before they're no longer safe.


What is the recommended temperature for cooking eggs?

The FDA recommends 160°F (71°C) for dishes containing eggs. If you're scrambling eggs or making an omelette, as long as they're coagulated/solidified, they'll be safe.

The easiest way to confirm this is with sous vide eggs. For example, this Food Lab sous vide egg guide has 155°F, 160°F, and 165°F eggs:

which clearly show that the white won't be totally solidified until 160°F or even 165°F, even when cooked for an extended period of time.

(To be clear, those lower-temperature eggs are actually safe if cooked for sufficient time. The point here is just to show coagulation versus temperature, to demonstrate that when eggs cooking in a pan, you can use the solidity as a temperature indicator.)


Yes, it will be more beefy than what you might be used to.
Whether it would be "too" beefy depends heavily on your taste.
If you're worried, add more spices and/or cooking liquor.

I sometimes use wagyu (or U.S. angus) mince when I make Chinese dishes such as mapo tofu, and I feel that both are too beefy than what I'd like (compared to the meat of Chinese breeds, which is quite bland). The solution is very simple too: just add more Shaoxing wine and minced ginger & garlic than usually add. In your case, if you're making chili for example, you'd just add more onions (or shallots), garlic, and wine than usual. Be careful about the excessive fat, though: it's a good heat conductor, so you might want to cook your aromatics for a bit less time, otherwise you'd overcook them.


Why did my tiramisù cream become grainy?

It's funny google directed me to an unanswered question when I went looking for ways to keep my mascarpone from curdling.

That's what I think happened to you by the way. The same thing happened to my tiramisu cream last week. I probably shouldn't jump to conclusions since it was a different recipe, but I noticed when I was beating my mascarpone into my zabarengue (to use Chef John's parlance) it took on a somewhat broken appearance. It happened once before in a different dessert when I got impatient and decided I could fold my mascarpone into my barely warm berry syrup.

After much panicked googling, I discovered that mascarpone can actually be quite temperamental when combining it with ingredients that are different temperatures, but I also think the moisture content can encourage separation and curdling.

The tiramisu recipe I recently tried called for the yolks and whites to be beaten together with the sugar over a double-boiler for several minutes, allowed to cool, and then the mascarpone beaten into it. Either I didn't let my egg mixture cool completely (my guess), or the different fat content of the zabarengue disagreed with the mascarpone. It split at that stage, and after refrigerating, it had the exact same grainy texture you described.

EDIT:
After further googling, it seems like contrary to common law, it's better to use mascarpone cold. It's so high in butterfat, that it's very easy to overmix and essentially churn it. I recently made a bananamisu (tiramisu with bananas) and used the same previously curdled recipe, and by beating the cold tiramisu a little to soften it and then beating the zabarengue into the mascarpone a bit at a time, and folding the whipped cream in by hand, I can happily report no separation issues.


Is there any benefit to mixing bread dough by hand?

You can achieve great results by hand or using a machine, it's a matter of technique. I prefer kneading by hand as it has the advantage that you can feel the texture of the dough change, and through experience you know when a dough is right. Hand kneading also is good for gauging the hydration of the dough, as you can feel if it seems to dry or too moist and act accordingly. Through practice you get to know when a dough too sticky, and sprinkle just the right amount of flour on to get it just right, or add a few grams of water to open it up.
A machine is less work, but as you aren't feeling the dough as you go it's harder to gauge when it's kneaded right, and it's easy to overdo it and get a tough dough. With a machine it's also harder to know if the hydration level is right as you aren't feeling it. You can remedy that by stopping often to feel the dough, which is what some people do, and through experience get good results.


How should I layer the ingredients in a taco salad?

While reading your question it sounds like: 'How can I make a salad without the ingredients to touch each other'. So I think what you actually wants is not possible.

So if you want all of your 3 points to work for, I would suggest you don't make a salad, but serve the chips/cheese separated from the rest of your ingredients. Also, then you can mix the ingredients easily such that your dish does not get plain at the end.

Maybe it won't look as nice as you want it to look, but it's about taste in the end isn't it! So just:
-Serve the chips/cheese separated from the rest of the salad
-mix the other ingredients such that your dish does not get plain near the end. (I would say, except for the sour cream, you don't want that to be fully mixed with the other ingredients)
-I also think that serving your chips separately gives you the change to eat them with some  side dishes, like guacamole or a salsa.

If you really want it to be a salad, you can maybe make smaller portions, so give every person it's own plate. Then there is in total more 'edge' on all plates together to put the chips on, there they will become get less soggy. Also a personal plate will be less 'deep' and so you won't have the problem of getting a plain dish at the end. You can put on the cheese afterwards at the table, so it is not already melted before being served.


Why is store bought frozen food worse than homemade?

I think that at the end of the day, store bought frozen meals aren't per se worse, but rather that the manufacturer needs to appeal to a large, diverse audience of buyers and so their recipes are not tailored to your tastes. Recipes you make at home are often tailored to your taste by the mere fact that you selected the recipe and you know what you like.

They also need to use ingredients that they can get in large quantities, so the individual ingredients may not be the ripest or most flavorful variety (think tomatoes or apples).

Some things frozen at the store are probably better than at home, such as frozen vegetables or sometimes canned tomatoes. They usually have better technology to freeze the vegetables in the most efficient manner that best preserves their important qualities.


I haven't tried this myself, but I have a suggestion. You could slice the liver as you might when frying it. Then put butter/oil and a single layer of the meat in a glass pan. Cover with a paper towel. Microwave only a few seconds at a time and always keep an eye on it. It could explode or burn. Rotate the meat a few times.
You could also try boiling it, but I'm not sure that's what you want.
I fear the meat will never be as tender as you would with other cooking methods :(
But try it, it'll still be edible, unless you burn it


Comparing different binding agents (Konjac, Xanthan Gum, Guar Gum, Corn Flour)

I'm not familiar with cornflour being used as a binding agent, but as a thickener or as a key ingredient in things like Turkish Delight as a gelling agent. When cooked it releases starch which gels things up.

Xanthan and guar gums are used as a substitute for gluten in flour blends that cater for coeliacs and other sufferers. Since they replicate gluten's role in baking it's safe to say that they're quite sticky when wet.


How can I stop fish from sticking to a stainless steel pan?

I used to have this fish sticking problem in my Aluminum wok.

The solution (accidentally discovered) was to put the fish in the wok only after the oil is hot enough.

Que: How do you decide whether the oil is hot enough?
Ans: Drop one Yellow Mustard Seed in the oil. If it cracks immediately then your oil is hot enough for the fish to be dropped in. If not, then you may like to wait for few more minutes and try the same with another mustard seed.

Yellow Mustard Seeds start cracking in very hot oil only as opposed to Cumin seeds which do turn brown in non-so-hot oil too.


I ended up finding Chlorella algae at a local health food store in powder form. Dusting the curd before pressing worked out perfectly. I held back about 1/3 of the curd so that some marbling would be apparent from the outside. I can't wait to cut this open in a few months!


No, blue legs in and of itself is not an indicator of bad shrimp.  Many, if not most (or all), shrimp, lobster, and crayfish are coloured various blues, aquas, and greens before cooking at which point they get their traditional red look.


To best preserve it's texture, especially that slightly moist part a good ham is supposed to have, I've found wrapping cured meats in plastic foil and keeping them in the fridge at a temperature where there is little condensation (not extremely cold, but you have to know your fridge) works for a decently long time (couple of weeks at least, if not months).

However things wrapped in plastic in the fridge tend to get moldy over time, there is no escaping that. And dried salted meats are after all a product of ancient preservation techniques. So if you really need it to last storing it in a dark and a bit chilly area, wrapped in a clean dry cloth or paper it should also stay good for long, although it will dry up some after it is cut and not vacuum sealed.

Last option is to wrap it in some paper and leave it on the bench. The paper should protect against dust and moisture, but at that point I would suggest that just eating it is a better way of storing it if it is a really good piece you spent some effort in acquiring.


Shan Tofu not jelly-like but rather crumbly

If it is crumbly you are probably using not only a little too much flour, but also have a problem with hard water, which means lots of calcium dissolved in the water. One way I remove calcium is to boil the water for about 5 minutes, let it cool down for an hour and then pass through a coffee filter. Otherwise try cooking with a non-fortified artesian spring water.

I will probably get a lot of hate for the following recommendation, but in extreme cases, I sometimes use distilled water in cooking. It probably isn’t healthy to drink pure every day, but it’s really magic when you are making sauces or pressure cooking vegetables.

You could also add agar agar to gel it up.


What is the purpose of tempering chocolate?

Chocolate is an odd substance when it comes to melting and hardening.  When chocolate hardens, its melting point will end up being just a few degrees higher than the hardening temperature.

When chocolate crystallizes at high temperatures, it forms a strong, dense crystalline structure that, texture-wise, is quite brittle.  Most bought chocolate (baker's chocolate and chips) is already tempered, but when you melt it, you break down that crystalline structure, and if you harden it at room temperature then it ends up forming very weak crystals that will melt in your hand.

If you use a special coating chocolate (couverture or the lower-quality compound chocolate) then you don't need to worry so much about tempering (although it's still a good idea), but if you use ordinary chocolate and don't temper it then your coating will end up being messy and wet and rub off on your hands while you eat it.  It might even melt while stored.

Tempering is the key to making a room-temperature-stable chocolate coating.  If you don't do this, you'll need to keep your pastries refrigerated until they're ready to consume.


How to prevent food colouring changing the taste of food?

If you use the same Dr. Oetker colouring that I have used in the past, which is advertised as a 'gel' colouring, then you have to use a lot to get a good intense colour.

You may have better results (colour and taste-wise) getting proper concentrated gel food colourings, like those made by Wilton. You need to use much less than cheaper brands so you don't run the risk of flavouring the food, and you can even use them in meringues without ruining the structure.


What is the driest, brownest bread that I can make for a stuffing?

Any bread can be dry - slice or cube and put it in the oven at 140F, or low, until it's as dry as you like.

Wonderbread is not even bread, in my opinion - it's certainly not anything like a yeast bread, even one made from all white flour. So it's not hard to be very different from it. As such you might want to heed the advice in comments to scale back your reaction a tad.

For a different approach to "very brown bread" look at Anadama recipies - much of the brown there can be from the molasses, but you can also whole-grain it up as much as you like - but 100% whole grain and some tendency to crumble go together in my experience, so I'd probably limit the whole grains to 25-50% of the flour bill, tops. I quite happily mix and match the whole grains as well as bean flours, potato flour, etc.


Can I double the pizza dough recipe for my bread machine

You might be able to, give the capacity you state in your comment, but it might not mix or rise properly.

You'll have to test, keeping within the capacity limits to protect the machine.  You might end up with bad dough, but it may be receoverable with some extra kneading and proving (though it won't recover to as good as you'd have got in the first place).

You may also have some success with a generic dough program for the amount of flour you want to use -- but again you might have barely-acceptable results, or you might have a complete failure the first time.  You may need to adjust the water content if your dough doesn't work out.

Personally I'd test it but not for guests until you'd perfected it.  I tend to make the standard pizza dough quantity for my machine but roll it out much larger for a thin-based family-size pizza -- another way to make one batch go further.


Can I heat frozen waffles in the oven without a baking sheet?

Not only is it okay to do so, I frequently place waffles directly on oven racks after making them fresh to keep warm or to cool before freezing (without ruining the crisp crust, as happens when you put them on a plate or stack them).

There's no reason you can't heat items you'd normally put in a toaster (or toaster oven) in a normal oven.  The only possible problem is having to clean up any mess that results (in this case likely only crumbs) after the oven has cooled.

Just make sure the racks/grill are clean, and watch the temperature and time so they don't burn.


Why should I use garlic making roasted potatoes?

I assume the recipe says to put the garlic in the pan with the potatoes, not just in the oven with them, in which case the garlic will flavour the fat you are roasting the potatoes in, and so will subtly flavour the potatoes themselves.


Edible straws that look like plastic ones

Pirouette cookies (here by Pepperidge Farm) are rolled wafer cookies. The inside is stuffed with chocolate, chocolate hazelnut or vanilla.

Here's a recipe that includes a picture using them in a manner similar to what you're asking.

You could follow the recipe, but tweak it to look more like a straw and with colors and flavors that suit your purpose.


Honestly, all three of those will crisp up very quickly, and just about any ratio will produce a crispy end product. The blend may be for textural reasons; potato starch is typically very fine and produces a tempura-like shell, while rice flour can have little bits of individual rice grains which produces a "chunkier" texture.

I probably wouldn't try to use pure starch as it will brown and burn very easily, but you probably don't even need all three ingredients. Personally, I'd start with a 50/50 blend of potato starch and rice flour and adjust from there. You could use tapioca starch instead of potato if it's easier for you to find locally, but definitely keep rice flour in the mix.


Yes, they are safe for three reasons:

They are approved by the food safety organizations.
You work the chocolate at a very low temperature.
You transfer the chocolate very rapidly.

Even with 'unsafe' plastic, nothing bad would happen.


I agree with @logophobe; open-ended and/or subjective questions are frowned-upon as you probably know from your other SE sites.  That said, I like mixology (though I despise that term...), but I am no professional. I'll try to pick off a few parts that were helpful for me as I started this hobby, and hope that will either help you get started, or help you refine your question! I tried to arrange this answer from specific to general, because I couldn't stop typing. :)

The tl;dr answer: pick one drink. What's your favorite drink? Buy the ingredients. Mix it straight from the book. Taste (hopefully, enjoy). Vary the proportions. What happens? Tweak. Then pick another one; repeat.  Alternatively: pick one base spirit; riff on that.

The longer answer... You articulate the universal problem in mixing: how to begin without going crazy or broke (or both). My ridiculous answers below also illustrate this: you can spend unbounded time thinking about this and talking about it. :)

Here are some examples of how I'd suggest starting, because, apparently, I like hearing myself type:

Pick a booze.  E.g., vodka: first, sip it by itself. Then mix with endless variety of mixers or juices: tonic, orange, cranberry, grapefruit. Explore mixers: triple sec, peach schnapps, Rose's lime juice.  With that alone you can make at least a dozen legitimate cocktails (cosmo, cape codder, SotB, greyhound, fuzzy navel, ...).
Pick a drink.  E.g., manhattan: start with a reasonably inexpensive bourbon or rye whiskey that you like, some decent sweet vermouth, Angostura bitters. Mix by the book. Vary the vermouth: half-and-half with dry vermouth: perfect manhattan.  Vary the bitters; see which you prefer (citrus, Peychaud's, Angostura).  Drop the vermouth and add some sugar: old fashioned.  Add anisette liquor: whiskey Sazerac.  A similar riff could be done with many other classic cocktails: e.g., dry gin martini, pink gin, Americano, Negroni, ...

Edit: adding response to Mojito/Rum preference. Given that you like the Mojito (muddle lime, mint, and sugar; add rum; fill soda) and rum; I'd start like this:

Back to basics. Having very similar (though simpler) ingredients: Try a daiquiri. First, this gives you an opportunity to learn how to make yourself some simple syrup -- sugar syrup; recipe. Make a bunch and keep it (once cool!) in the fridge. Ice in a glass, add rum, lime juice, then some of your brilliant simple syrup. Shake, strain (or leave on the rocks, my preference), enjoy.  This also gives you the opportunity to try a cocktail shaker with pint glass and a cocktail strainer.
Add a new ingredient. Mix it up a bit with some grenadine; you get a Bacardi cocktail. This gives you an excuse to buy (A SMALL BOTTLE!) of Grenadine. (You see where I'm going with this...)
Now go back to the Mojito. Get yourself a wooden muddler and mash up the solids first, right in the glass: muddle the (quartered) lime, mint leaves, sugar, until crushed. Then add your liquids and stir.
Garnish! Add a straw-shaped slice of some fresh sugar cane stick and fresh mint sprig on the top. Presentation!
Change the spirit. If you like white/light rum, look around for cachaça. It's a relative of rum (both made from sugar cane; rum from refined/molasses products).  See if you like it straight or chilled, then try a caipirinha. Try cachaça in place of rum and vice versa.  I find the stuff rather vile, but it's a unique taste.

Anyway. I hope you see what I'm trying to illustrate: just change one dimension at a time.  This gives you the opportunity to see exactly how each feature (spirit, garnish, mixing technique, gadget, flavouring) impacts the result.  Just my take.  Have fun!

Then, more generally: Mixing involves three categories (from my perspective):

ingredients (basically, dictated by what cocktails you're trying to make)
technique (i.e., how to make them)
gear (i.e., what you need to make and serve them; like measures, glassware, shaker, utensils)

If you want to get really fancy, any of these could (figuratively) consume your entire life and income. To start, you need only a few bottles and some ice. As you say, collect more over time.

Since it sounds like you're focused on the ingredients (which, IMHO, is the right place to start) my basic recommendations are as follows:

Start by exploring a few classic cocktails that have a small number of basic ingredients. Consider looking at

the official IBA list or
Wikipedia's list of duos and trios.

Understand the classes of ingredients and what they are:

base spirit (e.g., vodka, gin, rum, whisk[e]y, tequila, brandy),
liquors (e.g., triple sec, anisette, coffee liquor, herbal liquors),
other additives or garnish (e.g., bitters, fruit, herbs)
mixer (e.g., sour mix, simple syrup, soda water, tonic, fruit juice, milk/cream)

Mix what you enjoy!  Could be boozy classic cocktails, fruity vodka drinks, easy-going aperitifs, ...
Get a cocktail book; read :)

Because I can't help myself to give a general answer as well: A bunch of sites and blogs have recommendations for general bar ingredients; search for something like "essential cocktail ingredients" to get started.  I like the following ones (beware ad content...)

Gizmodo takes a mathematical approach to identify the most common ingredients in popular cocktails
Martha has an overview of storage, gear, and ingredients
This other generic overview

Last, my overarching recommendations: Start slowly. Taste everything. Have fun.

Hope it helps! Enjoy (responsibly). :)


How well does it work to just throw in all the ingredients and boil?

Ah, One Pot Pasta....

As loads of bloggers, authors and cooks - possibly inspired by Martha Stewart and her team - have confirmed: dumping the pasta, sauce ingredients and a carefully meassured amount of liquid in one pot or pan will give you a "pasta and sauce" dish in ten to fifteen minutes.

And it works. Sort of.

Your instinct matches my experience: when you omit the sautéing or slow roasting of ingredients you are missing the flavour compounds that this step creates, likewise if your recipe stews the sauce for a long time. So while all ingredients in one pot pasta will be cooked, due to cutting everything to the appropriate size, the flavour will be different from what your traditional method creates.

If you expect one pot pasta to taste like your traditional recipe, you will probably be disappointed. If you are simply aiming for a creative, hassle-free quick dish, go for it.


Why does cheese need boiling while paneer not?

(I'm in Germany, in case that is relevant)

Here, you can eat/drink most dairy products without boiling - with the exception of raw milk that is sold "has to be boiled before consumption".
Milk: possibly because in your country milk is usually sold raw?
Cheese: some recipes/processes call for boiling at various steps, e.g. for removing whey.
Not all cheese is made from pasteurized/boiled milk. And in particular fresh cheeses can spoil by mold or other microorganisms with which they can get contaminated after the cooking.

There may also be regional differences in the prevalence of various diseases that mean that in some parts of the world you can skip the additional boiling steps while in other parts that comes at a high risk. TB comes to mind in that respect.

Milk:

The vast majority of milk that one can buy here is already pasteurized, so no further boiling is needed.
Raw milk can be sold/bought only if:

either the customer is told unambiguously that they should boil the milk. This is allowed only if the milk is sold directly at the farm.
so-called attested milk (Vorzugsmilch): here the farm is under a very strict hygiene and animal health regime and is therefore allowed to sell raw milk that is for raw consumption (I know that this possibility exists, but I've never consciously seen any such milk offered).

Cheese:

In general, some cheeses are made from raw milk, while others are made from pasteurized/cooked milk.
Whey cheeses are always prepared by cooking: the whey protein is the protein fraction that did not precipitate by acid (casein), it precipitates by heat.
Many cheeses (as well as Qurk, yoghurt etc.) are made by adding particular microorganisms to the milk. This includes cheeses made from raw milk. "Bad" microorganisms that may be around in small quantities will at least be seriously outgrown by the "good" ones that are added.  Of course, processes starting with pasteurized/cooked milk are of still less concern.
So one difference between German Quark and Indian Paneer is that while both precipitate the protein (curdle the milk) by acid, for Quark the acid is produced by (lacto) bacteria rather than adding acid like lemon juice or vinegar (and AFAIK, both usually start from pasteurized or boiled milk). Because the milk is inoculated with these bacteria, we know they are "good" ones.
The harder the cheese, i.e. the longer it did ripen, the safer: if a "bad" microorganism gets into the milk, that will become obvious long before the year or two of ripening is over.
Many hard cheeses also start with raw milk but have an intermediate step where they are heated to maybe 60 °C.
Fresh raw milk cheeses have again particular hygiene restrictions. Such cheese has also to be labeled as "made with raw milk", so e.g. pregnant women or people with compromised immune system can avoid them (toxoplasmosis and listeria risk)
For immunocompetent (and not pregnant) people, the recommendation is that our senses are good at detecting if something is wrong with dairy products (exception is the raw milk for raw consumption).
Around here, bovine tuberculosis is very rare nowadays (it basically only happens to happy cows out on a meadow who meet a coughing deer or if a farmer with TB infects their cow). In 2018, there were 63 cases of bovine tuberculosis among the 5429 tuberculosis cases (and 70 % of the tuberculosis patients are foreigners, but most farmers have German nationality).
The vast majority of dairy products here is produced industrially and under industrial hygiene regulations.
The only exception are fresh cheeses like yoghurt or kefir that are home made from boiled milk that is then inoculated with the desired microorganisms.
I don't know anyone who still makes sour milk by hoping that the correct bacteria fall in (and the family tales do include stories of that way of making sour milk going wrong every once in a while, usually leading to some bitter slime). My yoghurt experience also includes that this can go wrong.
As I understand Indian Paneer, that is consumed really fresh. I.e., in contrast to Quark, there is no time needed to culture microorganisms. You boil the milk, add acid, get rid of the whey (in the cold) and it is ready to eat. This naturally leaves less time for contamination after the boiling and consecutive growth of microorganisms than keeping the stuff at a nice warm temperature for several hours before you start separating the whey.


no... deep frying is necessary because you need the water inside the noodles to flash to steam, which creates the puff. baking is a slow and indirect heat and therefore will not work.


Can something have more sugar per 100g than the percentage of sugar that's in it?

Looking up Shreddies, I found this site. It lists, in the ingredients

  Whole Grain Wheat (96%), Sugar, Invert Sugar Syrup, Barley Malt Extract, Salt, Molasses, Vitamins and Minerals (Niacin, Iron, Pantothenic Acid, Folic Acid, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin)

There is no percentage for the sugar in the ingredients list.

And the nutritional information says

  Carbohydrate  70g
  of which sugars   13g

If that's where your confusion comes from, then it is simply that you didn't realize the different meanings of the word "sugar".

Chemically, sugars are a class of molecules with a roughly similar structure, most of which taste similar. For a cook or food technologist, "sugar" is any ingredient that constist of one or many of these molecules and can be used to sweeten food. And finally, in everyday language, "sugar" without any further qualifications is exactly one of these products, namely white crystal sugar, that consists of the molecule sucrose only.

In the ingredients list, the second ingredient uses this third meaning of the word sugar - they have put less white table sugar than whole grain into the cereal (making the white sugar amount at most 4%). The nutrition label uses the first meaning - it sums together all chemical sugars in the cereal. And it is normal for even unprocessed whole grain to contain some of those - this being a cereal, and a malted one at that, it has more of them. So, part of your "whole grain" ingredient is made up of (chemically) sugars, as well as the "sugar" ingredient, the "invert sugar syrup" ingredient, possibly the "barley malt extract" (pure malt is quite a bit of sugar), and the "molasses" ingredient. Together, the weight of chemical sugars is 13% of the cereal.


Mole is often made with unsweetened chocolate or cocoa powder. No added sugars are involved. (There is a tiny amount of natural sugar in the cacao, about 1%.)

Chocolate is not absolutely necessary in mole. Mole verde generally does not contain chocolate; some recipes for mole rojo also leave it out. You could simply leave out the cocoa from a mole recipe, if you wish.

But you don't have to simply because you're diabetic. Seek a recipe which uses cocoa rather than Mexican chocolate; the Googles are full of such recipes.


It seems there is no reliable conversion formula - if you check the websites of mixer manufacturers, they go as low as 1/5 of the time (KitchenAid) or suggest machine-kneading for about 4/5 (Bosch). And I don’t think it’s just because the KitchenAid is so super fast.

The good thing is that the lack of a formula forces you to learn how to recognize a well-kneaded dough. I let you in on a little secret here: if a recipe gives a kneading time, it’s simply an estimation or approximation of how long a user may have to knead to reach a certain stage. Individual technique and even working speed varies so much, that a value like ten minutes is just ballpark number.

When you prepare a bread dough, your goal is to create a gluten structure that will trap the gasses and give you the desired crumb texture. There are two main methods:

One uses mechanical kneading for a “long” time and you can recognize the desired results when the dough becomes very homogeneous, smooth and so elastic that it can be stretched to almost translucent thinness (-> window pane test). That’s what a recipe that calls for ten minutes of kneading is aiming for, so check for that stage when using a stand mixer.
The other approach doesn’t knead, but just mixes the ingredients and let the gluten develop over time (-> no-knead bread, stretch-and-fold). But that’s a totally different concept that needs a lot more time. Not the method of your recipe, though.

So in short, if you really need a number (e.g. if you want to set a timer and walk away), instead of finding a generic conversion formula, you could measure how long it takes for your recipe and your machine to get a well-kneaded dough and then use that value in the future.


How long does Turkey Crown take to defrost at room temperature?

Disclaimer: this is likely to be closed as duplicate, but I couldn't find the corresponding post. And as Christmas dinner and the health of a whole group  is at stake, I'll post an answer anyway.

Do not thaw meat on the counter. No matter what your Grandmother did, it's not safe. If in a hurry, thaw in cold water.

This uses the fact that water is a way better heat conductor than air and has a higher thermal capacity.

Simply submerge the meat in its packaging in a sink or bassin of cold water, either keep the faucet running slowly or exchange the water every 30 minutes to ensure it stays cold and thus even the already thawed parts stay out of the danger zone where bacteria can grow well.

At ca. 30 minutes per pound, cold-water thawing is reasonably quick and safe, plus once thawed, you still can pop the meat back into the fridge if necessary. You can even interrupt the thawing process and go to bed and either finish thawing in the fridge or continue water-thawing tomorrow, depending on your schedule. The maths is pretty straightforward.


In short, it's about extraction.  Too fast, and you don't get the right flavours and too slow and you'll get off and bitter tastes.

With a setup like the one you describe you can't change the speed the water passes through coffee (unlike espresso, for example) so you control how long water spends with your coffee (and the surface area of contact) by the size of the grind.

The water will tend to stay and mud up super fine grinds.  If you were to try to filter through turkish grind, you'd be waiting a long time and might taste something harsh.

Too coarse of a grind and the water will run through and not pick up enough (low extraction).

Aside from colour, taste and aroma, what you are looking for is how long it takes for water to pass through the coffee grind.  I can't tell you how long for your specific setup, but if you're going slower than 20 seconds per ounce of water, it's likely too fine of a grind.  Also note that the longer water spends with coffee, the more caffeine it'll pick up.

Finally, if you can, keep an eye on the drips as they leave the filter.  When the drop or stream is no longer cloudy and starts looking clear, that's about when you've extracted what you can with that grind (both amount and coarseness).


Perfect idea and great multi-use of your jam!  Your plan is perfect...just create a nice sweet tart balance to your liking.  If you want a little more texture you could plump up some golden or dark raisins by nuking them in the microwave before adding.  Coriander seed is often used and provides a little texture contrast as well.  A bit of ground allspice could be good as well.


Can a combination of Grilling and Baking be used for Chicken?

To answer the question about cooking technique...yes, you can sear chicken on the grill and then finish cooking by baking in the oven.  You can also do the reverse (oven then grill). There are plenty of recipes floating around the internet (recipe requests are off topic for this site).


Is there some sort of pot with a sort of sieve on the bottom to separate sauce?

Broiler pan.

This is mine.  The last thing I made on it was bacon this past weekend.  It worked just like what you want - the bacon cooked and the fat dribbled down thru those slots into the pan below.
I have melted cheese many times on this pan.  It is perfect for nachos.
The other nice thing about melting cheese under the broiler is that you can get it really hot, fast.  The cheese melts some but gets toasty too which is the best of all.
I am too much of a provincial to know if other countries incorporate broilers in their ovens.  In US ovens the broiler is a heating element or heatable screen on the top of the inside of the oven.  Stuff to be cooked is placed underneath.
I always sit on the floor next to the oven when I am using the broiler because I am easily distracted and stuff burns in a heartbeat.  I was taught to leave the oven door open a crack when using the broiler.

Not sure why there is so much white space under the photo of the broiler pan.  That is not how the photo looks.  Ideas?  Edits?


A higher water and ambient temperature definitely speed up proving and rising. The consequence is poorer flavour and dense bread. Generally the slower the rise the better the bread.

If you don't have somewhere cool in the house, try proving at room temperature for, say, 20 mins to get the yeast going, then finishing in the fridge. Or if you can wait, just put it straight in the fridge and wait overnight. Take it out an hour or two before baking to take the chill off.


Can a pre made jam be thickened into pate de fruit?

Here is a discussion on Jam to Pate de Fruit? at eGullet Forums.
Question posted by pastryani:

Is it possible to make PDF from jam or jelly?  Jam is essentially a more fluid version of PDF, so I would think that I could either (1) boil off extra liquid from the jam until it's thicker, or (2) warm the jam and add a bit of pectin to it to thicken it.  If I were to try the latter, anyone know what amount of pectin would be needed?  Thanks!

One answer by ElainaA:

I've done (an unsophisticated) PDF from jam many times. The recipe is from one of the first candy books I bought, years ago, Weinstein's The Ultimate Candy Book. It uses gelatin: 2 envelopes of unflavored gelatin, softened in 1/3 cup. 3/4 c. granulated sugar and 1/3 c. water combined and heated to a boil. 1 c. jam or marmalade stirred in to dissolve, gelatin added, bring to a boil and cook 2 minutes. Pour into an oiled pan and refrigerate until set.
There is a very similar recipe in Ruth Kendrick's Candymaking called 'fruit jam jellies'.
I'm not sure if these are true PDF but they are good. I've made both with various types of jam or jelly. I preserve so much I have to do something with it.

Conclusion: It is indeed possible, and not hard to do.


Because older beans, and larger beans may take different amounts of time to reach the desired softness, it is impossible to tell exactly how long beans need to be cooked for. Nevertheless, the tables found here and here can offer great information on how long to cook different types of beans.
(I have merged both of them below)
Black Beans
Soaked: 1 1/2 - 2 hours
Unsoaked: 2 1/4 - 2 1/2 hours
Black-Eyed Peas
Soaked: 1 - 1 1/4 hours
Unsoaked: 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 hours
Cannellini Beans
Soaked: 1 - 1 1/4 hours
UnSoaked: 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 hours
Chickpeas
Soaked: 1 1/2 - 2 hours
Unsoaked: 2 1/4 - 2 1/2 hours
Great Northern Beans
Soaked: 1 - 1 1/4 hours
Unsoaked: 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 hours
Lentils
Unsoaked: 20 - 30 min
Lima Beans, Large
Soaked: 3/4 - 1 hours
Lima Beans, Baby
Soaked: ~1 hour
Navy Beans
Soaked: 1 - 1 1/4 hours
Unsoaked: 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 hours
Pink Beans
Soaked: 1 - 1 1/2 hours
Pinto Beans
Soaked: 1 - 1 1/4 hours
Unsoaked: 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 hours
Red Kidney Beans
Soaked: 1 - 1 1/4 hours
Unsoaked: 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 hours
Small White Beans
Soaked: 1 - 1 1/2 hours
Soybeans
Soaked: ~3 hours
Split Peas, green
Unsoaked: 1/2 - 3/4 hours

Soaking can be done by either covering beans with water, and leaving them covered overnight, or, boiling the beans with water for ~2 minutes and then removing them from head and letting them sit covered for ~1 hour.


What can I do to make my Cheese & Onion Pie freeze well?

The way to freeze this well would be to use instant potatoes simply mixed cold and not cooked.  Then when you bring it out to reheat, you'll cook the potatoes.  The taste will be of instant potatoes, though.

The problem is that the starches in the potato will undergo retrogradation, recrystallize and expel moisture when reheated.

You could counteract this by stirring in some potato starch after the potatoes have cooked and cooled and before you assemble the pie, but the instant potato method will work better and will require less experimenting.


How do I remove small grounds when using a french press?

After pressing the coffee I always let it settle a while prior to pouring.  Pour slowly, then let it settle a moment in the cup.  I leave the last of the coffee in the press to avoid most of the sludge.  Some very fine grounds will inevitably make it into the cup -- it is the nature of the beast.


Measuring glucose syrup without wasting it

Put the bowl on a scale and put the difficult ingredients directly from their packaging into the bowl. That way, you don't have to clean up any measuring utilities and waste no ingredients.


How do chefs come up with recipes for good food?

I am not a professional chef, but I have worked in restaurant kitchens, and have been lucky enough to befriend some enormously talented people - line cooks, pastry chefs, culinary school graduates, and executive chefs.  I'm basing this mostly on my observations of the way they work, and the conversations I've had with them.  Although I never sat down and asked them directly how they came up with dishes, I have sometimes served as a sounding board for their ideas, offered suggestions, and seen menus-in-progress, which I think provide some valuable insight.

Keep in mind that every chef is a bit different.  There are many sources of inspiration that a chef can use when creating a dish.  They can think back to their childhood, look at trends among their peers and in the industry as a whole, look to many different culinary traditions, and so on.  The degree to which each person does this is unique, and it informs a large part of what we'd call their "style".  But, in general, I think there are some fairly universal processes.

There are really two distinct things happening when coming up with a dish: ideation and execution.

By ideation, I mean the process of coming up with an initial idea for a dish.  This is when the chef has pretty much a blank slate (though often times, it's in the context of coming up with a specific type of dish; an appetizer, or a meat course) and they're thinking about possibilities for what they want to do.  This can take a lot of different forms, and I've heard chefs describe how their ideas first came to them in a lot of different ways.  It can be:

A "lightbulb moment", where the concept spontaneously and suddenly appears in their mind, oftentimes when they're working on something else.
Thinking about multiple dishes and trying to re-match "elements" or components of each dish with one another.  For instance, taking the flavors of a ceasar salad (anchovy, egg, parmesan) and combining them with the presentation of a deviled egg.  [I should note that this is my own example, which is why it isn't a great one.  Like I said: I'm not a professional.]
Being inspired by a single ingredient, and finding a few other flavors that complement or contrast that core flavor.  For example, complementing a sweet corn soup with snow crab meat and a melted paprika butter.  [A much better example, from an actual chef!]
Taking a dish (from any number of sources) and deliberately trying to do something different with a single element, component, or flavor.  For example, taking tacos (which often use Latin American flavors) and instead using a southeastern Asian flavor palette (fish sauce, cilantro, ginger, garlic).

Notice that one of these approaches is not sitting down with a dictionary of flavors and trying to assemble combinations that "scientifically" go together somehow.  Good chefs have an intuitive feel for what flavors go well together, a kind of sensory memory, that is not just informed by flavor pairings but also by culinary traditions.  The list of potential flavor combinations is close to infinite, but people tend to gravitate towards the familiar in their food.  To some degree, diners want comfort and foods or flavors they recognize.  I'd argue that this is true even in molecular gastronomy, where the point is often to present unfamiliar flavors in a very mundane, familiar presentation, or the reverse - take known and loved flavors, and present them in a seemingly bizarre way.

Chefs know this from their training and experience, and they don't try to draw out flavor combinations from a blank starting point.  Instead, they utilize pairings that they just "know" work well, or that they love.  Sometimes they'll swap out a single component from that pairing for something similar, but in general they're not trying to invent totally new, never-done-before combinations of flavor.

For this reason, a lot of chefs I've known have truly absurd collections of cookbooks and recipes.  One head chef that I worked with for years estimated that he had over 1,000 books (and he mentioned this as he was browsing online, making a wishlist of more that he wanted).  The reason is not because they're cooking these dishes as written - instead, they're drawing on them for initial inspiration.  They're reading the recipe as written and thinking about how they want to utilize the particular method, what different components they can swap out, or how they could adapt the same dish to a totally different method of cooking.

Once the initial idea takes shape, it's time for execution.  This is typically a very iterative process, meaning that it involves cooking the dish, tasting it, and seeking feedback.  That feedback could come from themselves (by thinking about what they'd change or do better) but it often comes from others.  This can happen with specific elements of the dish cooked separately, or the entire assemblage of them.  Chefs usually seem to taste individual pieces as they go until they're happy; then they put everything together, taste the combination, and then try it out on others, but that varies depending on their style and how comfortable they are with what they're creating.

In a healthy team environment, there's usually a lot of collaboration.  Chefs will talk through their partly-completed ideas out loud and share flashes of inspiration they've had for one core element or a dish they want to do.  They might cook a small batch of something and ask everyone to taste.  One of my favorite parts of creating a new menu were workshop sessions with multiple chefs all bouncing ideas off one another, cooking their own dishes, then tasting each as a crew and offering suggestions (or sometimes coming up with totally new ideas by saying "why couldn't we do that like this instead?").  Feedback can also come from front-of-house staff or from guests; the first week or so is a very important time for a new menu because people are seeing things for the first time, and you can get their reactions (if you're humble enough to ask).

This is often the part where chefs will sit down with a "flavor bible" and look for flavors that go well with what's already in the dish.  They may feel that something is missing, and try to find something that will complement other components.  Or perhaps they want to use a different flavor from what's already present, and are looking for a replacement that will work well with other ingredients.  Or, they have one particular ingredient that they're happy with, but it's out of season, or too expensive, and they're trying to find a reasonable substitute.

Good chefs will also typically be thinking about plating at this point, and how the dish should be arranged and presented.  I often hear that "we eat with our eyes", although I think it's more accurate to say that plating is sort of an introduction to the dish.  In order for something to be really, really good, it can't just taste excellent.  It has to sound enticing on the menu, and it has to look (and smell) beautiful when it arrives - all of that contributes to anticipation of the flavor.

There's one more thing that really good, experienced chefs do well which goes beyond coming up with any single dish.  Assembling a menu is really an impressive skill that I think goes under-appreciated.  It involves repeating all of the above, not just for a single dish but for an entire array of them, all of which have to individually sound enticing and balance one another.  Creating an entire menu involves balancing a ridiculous number of factors, like:

The style of the restaurant (or venue, for special events)
The season (what ingredients are fresh, readily available; and just as important, what isn't)
The balance they want to strike between different types of dishes (appetizers, main courses, pastas, sandwiches, desserts, sides, etc.)
The balance they want to strike between different offerings (do they have something vegetarian-friendly?  A fish option?  A meat option?  Items for adventurous diners?  Items for the non-adventurous?)
The general price point they need to consider for their target audience
The variety of specific ingredients (avoiding the same flavor combinations being used in everything - or perhaps, being able to re-use the same components in multiple places for efficiency)

It's really pretty insane, and this in my mind is the defining line between a "chef" and an "executive chef".  I'm always impressed by the skill involved in not just coming up with a list of ideas, but bashing them into something that feels balanced, sounds consistently delicious, and expresses their unique style - and then in turn, having each one of those dishes executed well!  Home cooks can often come up with great dishes, and fantastic, original takes on classics, but you have to be a real pro to come up with 20-30 of them that fit into a cohesive whole.  So, the next time you sit down at a restaurant, scan the menu, and think "this all sounds really amazing", stop and give the chef a silent cheer.

In short?  It's really, really complicated.  There are no hard and fast rules.  It's not a procedure or a science; it's very much an art.  Chefs spend their entire careers learning how to do this well, and there is always the opportunity to get better.


If the first half of the recipe worked fine, it sounds like your crepe maker might be losing heat. Try giving the crepe maker a minute or two to reheat in the middle of your cooking.

Don't necessarily trust the ready indicator either. An infrared thermometer would help, but you can also drop a few drops of water on the grill. If the water quickly sizzles and evaporates, it should be ready.


What kind of rice to serve with Indian Butter Chicken (Murgh Makhani)?

I believe that it is de rigueur to use basmati rice when serving northern Indian/Pakistani sauced dishes.


Which type of chicken to use in a recipe if called for a "hen"?

I suspect what's meant by hen, as opposed to chicken, is a laying hen. When a laying hen's egg production slows down, usually between 3 to 5 years in backyard chicken farming, they're killed and used as 'stewing hens'. Commercial layers are generally culled earlier between 1 to 2 years.

You definitely don't want a Cornish hen. In North America, they're simply whole broilers (usually 7-10 week old birds) - nothing else. Older stewing hens make the best soups, stews and casseroles as the flavour is stronger and the method of moist slower cooking tenderize the tougher meat.


I recommend you add some form of fat into your recipe. Fat is what gives foods a smooth creamy texture. Some ideas to use are butter and coconut oil.


How long can pasteurized milk be refrigerated?

Per Still Tasty, well refrigerated, milk should last about 5-7 days.  Note that this almost certainly assumes that the milk has been pasteurized.

It is theoretically possible that you could periodically reboil milk, and then try to get it cooled to refrigerator temperatures rapidly, to increase its life.   I suspect that the benefit would not justify the effort.

You can also freeze milk, if you have a freezer available.  It will last essentially indefinitely (there probably is a limit due to oxidation of the milk fat, but that is a slow process), and will still be quite suitable for cooking.

Depending on availability and how you use it, you may also wish to consider shelf stable milk products like dry powdered milk, condensed milk, or sweetened condensed milk.


How long do unrefrigerated opened canned peppers last?

Given the vinegar, these sound like pickled peppers. Pickled items are usually made to last, even when not refrigerated -- preservation was the original purpose of pickling. As it says on the Wikipedia article about pickling:

  "Another distinguishing characteristic is a pH 4.6 or lower,[2] which is sufficient to kill most bacteria. Pickling can preserve perishable foods for months. Antimicrobial herbs and spices, such as mustard seed, garlic, cinnamon or cloves, are often added."

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickling)

-- But, how well an item is pickled contributes greatly to its shelf-life either in or out of the fridge.

As an example, I had store-bought kimchi (pickled cabbage) which wasn't great after a week or two opened in the fridge, but my homemade kimchi was good for months under the same conditions.

These differences in shelf-life arise because of differences in the pH level, the ingredients used, and the conditions wherein the product was made. All of these things are controlled when buying such items commercially, which is why an expiration date is even possible. However, this is not as easily determined in the case of home-made items, because there are no strict standards on pH, ingredients, conditions, etc.

I've made many pickled items over the course of years and my best advice is to open one of the jars, eat a pepper, and notice the taste, texture, smell, and other qualities of it. Then wait before eating another one. Draw it out and see how the taste evolves. Mark this down on the calendar and it will give you an idea of how long they may last. You can then use this when considering when to open the other jars.

When making my own homemade pickles, this is what I do, so that I can give estimates if I give them away as gifts. Just ask the person who made them (if you can) and make sure they're all from the same batch because that can influence the overall shelf-life. If you can't do this, assuming the shelf-life is relatively similar probably shouldn't steer you too wrong.

With homemade items, there are so many differences in ingredients and other factors that it results in a very different aging process, so a more precise answer in my experience, just isn't possible.

Just a few things to keep in mind:

The overall shelf-life after opened may be shorter, the longer you wait from the date they were first canned. This is because the items are still aging in the sealed jar, albeit at a much slower rate than after the jar is opened.
Take care not to put fingers, used forks, or other non-clean things into the jar when taking the peppers out. The more free of contaminants that it is, the longer the shelf-life will be after opened.


nutrition facts: what does "as packaged" mean?

"As packaged" effectively means "what is in the package to be consumed, divided by the recommended serving size", so it would include the dry mix.  (but they won't claim the fiber from the packaging, only the stuff you're supposed to eat.)

Now, if the package's instructions tell you to add 5 sticks of butter, and a quart of cream, they don't have to add that fat to the "as packaged" nutritional content ... only to the "as prepared" nutrition.

Many cereal boxes will give the "as packaged", but then also give the nutritional information when served with milk.  (but they always seem to go with skim milk ... go figure)


For coffee, there is milk in 10-ml portions. It is UHT, so it doesn't start spoiling until you open it, and you only open one of them per coffee. Alternatively, use powdered milk.


what is the purpose of lemon/acid in fruit maceration for pie baking?

While there might be an acceleration effect, sugar on its own is very capable of drawing out liquids quickly. Two other effects are probably much more important:

lemon juice is very effective in stopping cut fruit from oxidizing/enzymatic browning.
taste balancing. Fruit is naturally sweet and sour, adding heavy amounts of sugar can upset that balance too far into the sweet region, resulting in a cloying/one dimensional/stodgy character
in some recipes, keeping the sugar/fruit mixture from caramelizing/browning too much. Acid inhibits maillard reactions to a degree.
acid promotes sugar inversion when combined with heat, which slightly changes the sweetness profile (halfway to honey, more or less) and potentially significantly the texture (there will be no crystallization of loose sugar-water mixtures upon cooling).


Is soy yogurt considered a fermented food?

Yes, in this context cultured and fermented mean the same thing.  The bacterial culture ferments the food product it consumes, converting sugars into acids (or alcohols).

Soy yogurt is a soy milk product inoculated with the same type of culture used to create yogurt.  Given that lactobacillus is well adapted for milk, it is amazing that this process actually works effectively and at a commercial scale.


How do I know if I can double, triple or quadruple a recipe for caramels?

The short answer is yes, but I would do it by weight and absolutely not by volume.

A lot depends on how many times you are scaling up your recipe. With high viscosity materials, mixing small amounts is trivial, but with large enough amounts, the geometry of your mixing vessel and the type of hook/blade/impeller all matter, and matter to the point the sometimes the recipe itself needed changing. It is all about mass transfer. The same with heat transfer during cooking, hot spots and uneven temperature distribution are common problems. Without knowing the specifics, it would not be possible to calculate what "large enough" is. Twice is probably fine. Quadruple the batch, you might want to look out for mixing and heating issues.

A bit off-topic, when it comes to the economics of making a recipe into a business, allowances for wastage, measurement inaccuracies, ingredient and product losses do pile up when scaled up. These are unnoticeable in a small batch in a home kitchen. Hygiene when scaled up becomes disproportionately effect and cost intensive too. Budgeting errors lurk everywhere even for very experienced finance minded people. Underestimating power consumption is also common.


How to make more than one good cup of coffee with a moka pot?

America's Test Kitchen recently tested Moka Pots. In the video, they specifically say to pour all of the coffee immediately when it's done brewing. They don't mention a metallic taste, but they do say that not leaving the coffee in the pot is important for flavor, and that it was equally true for all of the models they tested. So for your purposes, I would recommend that you use a good small thermos or travel coffee mug, and pour your second cup into that immediately upon brewing.

For what it's worth (since I was looking at ATK equipment reviews anyway), this one won their top recommendation for travel mugs:


Is this white flaky powder in this tea "vanilla flavor"?

I don't think so. This looks like very low quality 'tea', where they put in ground stalks instead of (only) leaves. Given that quality, there could be any other 'ingredients' in it.


Can you use yeast that is 2 years old if it has never been opened and has been in the freezer

If I were you, I'd do a simple test that determines, how active (= alive) your yeast is.

When you supply yeast with ideal living conditions, you can observe the activity - or lack of - as the yeast bubbles and foams.

For a test, you sprinkle yeast in lukewarm water and check for activity. A detailed description can be found here, for example.

This should give you the answer whether your yeast is still useable or not.


Why did my pork center cut loin turn out tender but tasteless?

Did either your "Italian Seasoning" or the sauce contain salt? If not, then your pork was almost certainly tasteless because it needed salt.


why does my sourdough bread have lumps of flour

This looks like an excessive amount of flour worked into the dough when shaping - the spots do absorb humidity from the surrounding dough, but remain dense and hard.

To prevent this, be mindful of how much flour you add to your bench and how you shape your loaf. Especially with rather wet doughs, the impulse to flour generously to prevent it from sticking is obviously there. And while you can and probably want to flour what’s going to be the outside of the loaf, you should be careful about not working the floury parts to the inside. There are a few different methods how to solve that, if you search for shaping especially wet dough, you will find various methods that can also be used for medium hydration doughs. For example, Foodgeek has a nice video where you can see the shaping of a boule completely without bench flour and a batard with minimal flouring.


Is it safe to refrigerate a 3-2-1 ratio pickle I mistakenly processed for canning?

No, boiling should not have created health risks.  If anything, you are likely to have killed off some microorganisms that could have led to gradual spoilage (over weeks or longer) in the refrigerator.  So, the only likely effect on safety is that you may have extended the expected shelf life of the pickles in the fridge.

Of course, boiling the vegetables will also have softened them and given them a more "cooked" texture/flavor, which may not have been intended in the original recipe.  But as long as they are kept refrigerated, they should be safe to eat.


Lemon juice is still mostly ... water.

Water to molten chocolate (white or not - there is cocoa butter in either), unless in the form of cream and in a sufficient amount that completely changes texture (giving you a ganache), is generally known to do exactly what happened in your case - seize the chocolate.


Why did my gumbo stored in a metal pot refrigerated overnight change?

I can think of a couple answers here:

The larger volume of soup in the pot stayed hot much longer than in tupperware, and so it continued to cook, or fermented/spoiled overnight.
If the pot was aluminum and the gumbo acidic, the two reacted.  I've seen this happen with long-simmered, acidic stocks.  The color changes, and the flavor sometimes does too.


It is impossible to say which honey has higher quality. The difference is likely to be due to the honey coming from different plants. Other sources of difference is in the processing done to the honey after gathering, the one which crystallized has obviously not been treated against crystallization, while the other either has such treatment or is made from a plant which doesn't tend to crystallize.
It is entirely possible that the two honeys are off different quality, but all we can tell from your question is that they are two different types.


Why are there egg whites over my yolk when I try to make a sunny side up fried egg?

I suspect that you are using fresher eggs and are cooking too hot or too long.

In an egg, there are two different kinds of whites, the outer, runnier, and the inner, which clings more firmly to the yolk.

If you crack a fresh egg and place it on a plate or in a pan, you can see a distinct “bulge” of egg white. This also means that there’s a thicker layer of egg white on top of the yolk.

When you cook your fried egg via the steaming method described in the question, this layer will coagulate and become opaque. Even in older eggs the effect can be noticeable, but it’s more pronounced in fresher eggs.

To prevent this, you need to leave the layer of egg white slightly undercooked - that means lowering the heat in the pan to generate less steam and to carefully cook until the main part of the whites is just done, leaving the yolk runny. If you want a more done yolk, you have to rely on bottom heat alone, so that the yolk acts as insulation for the white on top, which means leaving the lid off.


Chard isn't as tender as spinach and will require more than just light steaming lest it be chewy and fibrous.

You said you want to keep its bright colors, so I would recommend blanching it in salt water. You need to add quite a bit of salt, such that it tastes like seawater. This keeps plant cells from bursting and releasing pigment. You can rinse your chard after pouring it off to tame saltiness.


Looks like the term you want is "French buttercream".

American buttercream is, as you say, full of sugar but rarely has eggs, relying on powdered sugar and butter with a bit of wet in the form of a dash of milk, cream, or alcohol.

French buttercream is based on egg yolks and contains relatively little sugar and is cooked over a double boiler.

  French buttercream is made by heating a sugar syrup until it reaches soft ball stage and then whipping it into beaten egg yolks and soft butter. This is the shiny, rich frosting of your dreams.

Italian Buttercream is similar but uses egg whites rather than yolks, so it's more of a meringue.

  It's similar to French buttercream in that you use a boiling syrup of sugar and water and cook it to soft-ball stage but then you pour it over beaten egg whites to create a meringue. As the meringue cools, you slowly add butter and mix like your life depended on it.


Baking the two together is unlikely to work.

Generally speaking, dishes that cook for a short time at 425F are meant to get crispy and/or browned, or (in the case of yeast or egg-risen baked goods) are meant to have strong "oven spring" from the intense heat.  None of these things will happen at 325 degrees; depending on the dish, it will be soggy, greasy, or flat.

I would suggest, instead, cooking the 325 degree dish first, taking it out of the oven and wrapping it in foil and and thick towel to keep it warm, turning the oven up to 425, and baking the second dish.  When the second dish is done, you can put the first dish back in the oven for 5 minutes to heat it back up, should it need it.

Of course, a lot of that depends on what exactly those two dishes are, but you should get the general idea.


There should not be any problems with mixing alcohol as long as you don't introduce organics.  I would suggest mixing the alcohols and leaving the lemon juice and splenda out until you pour a drink.  Keeping alcohol cool and in a dark place.  As for indefinitely, no.  The amount of time it stays good is dependent on the amount of air in the bottle. Glass is always preferred if possible.