Tortilla or flat bread breaks and ruins inflation

Only some flatbread recipes are expected to "fully inflate" during cooking. Mexican flour tortillas, in particular, will have bubbles up to around 2", but shouldn't puff up into a balloon. So "what might cause it" is you doing things correctly.
In order to fully inflate, the inside of the flatbread needs to be weak enough when the outside gels and dries, such that the force of the steam can rip the inner crumb but not the outer crust. That means the hydration can't be too low, the flatbread can't be too thin, and the temperature can't be too low. Full inflation is unlikely to occur when cooking on a griddle (with no radiant heat from above) since the top won't be cooked. You might be able to get a griddle flatbread to inflate by cooking for a short period at a very high heat on the first side and then flipping, but I haven't tried this.


Why does my cake lack air bubbles and looks like a molten mass?

This is a very vexing case, I douobt that anybody can tell from looking at your cake. So you will have to troubleshoot it yourself by first trying to bake a successful cake by following a traditional recipe and using best practices, and then, if that cake works well, start changing it back towards your preferred recipe one-by-one and seeing what makes the difference. For the test cake, you should bake a very standard recipe that has the best chances of rising well - I'd say that's a pound cake.

So, use following factors:

200 g eggs (4 whole eggs), 200 g white all purpose flour, 200 g sugar, 200 g cow-milk butter, 10 g baking powder (not baking soda!). Do not make any replacements here, and don't add other ingredients (flavors, etc.)
make sure the ingredients are all room temperature, and have gotten there slowly. Just leave them overnight, no "Oh I forgot the butter in the fridge, I'll give it 15 seconds in the microwave".
use the creaming method. Cream the butter and the sugar together until you see an obvious change in color and volume (can take 10+ minutes), then add the eggs and beat well, only then add the flour and baking powder.
Use freshly bought baking powder
sift the flour
bake in a 175 C oven for as long as it takes to pass the skewer test.

If that works, as I said above, you will have to slowly change the ingredients back to your preferred recipe and see when the change happens.

If it isn't work even for that, there is some hidden factor that is very difficult to guess at. You will probably have to ask a good baker to bake together with you and either show you how they bake, or have them watch how you bake, and see if that person can spot the problem. You can also have them bake in your kitchen and with your oven, to see if they get the same trouble - but if you measured your oven's temperature, there isn't much that can be going wrong there.


Why is the fourth stomach (abomasum) of cows not used for tripe?

It is used.  It's almost hard to avoid in Florence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampredotto

If the question is, why is this stomach used less frequently than other stomachs, I have no idea.


Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it. It depends a little bit on the ratio of cream to chocolate you're using, but your ganache will turn out fine without adding sugar. If you're only using, say, 2 Oz of chocolate for your whole batch then it's worth adding some sugar to compensate. But if you're making enough to fill or cover something, the reduction in sugar would be hard to notice. You can (and in my opinion should) add a pinch of salt as well, which will help balance the flavors a little bit.

If the ganache does split or curdle, there are ways to fix it as well, usually by adding a little more hot cream at a time and whisking.


That depends on the rice. I have done my own measurements in the past (I hate volumetric measurements,) and found:

1 full-to-the-brim rice cooker cup of dry SunRice Brown rice (medium grain?) weighed 142g.
1 full-to-the-brim rice cooker cup of dry SunRice Calrose rice (medium grain) weighed 150g.

Both were Australian grown rice.

The rice cooker cup's top measurement is 160ml, but I always fill to the brim because ... I'm too lazy to look at the notch.

Why is the weight different?

Because different grains of rice can wedge together more efficiently (less air pockets.) The weight measurement for a long grain rice like Basmati would be different again.

TL;DR: buy a scale to be accurate.


Why does my chicken breast become so dry?

It's my opinion that the "proper temperature" is a number set by lawyers, not by chefs. The government standard for a roast bird is 180°F (83°C)! Are you kidding me? HTST pasteurization is 161°F (72°C) for 20 seconds, but my turkey has to get to 180°F for safe human consumtion? What the hell kind of bacteria do they think live in there?

165°F (74°C) is a common number, and a pretty decent one, though I always take mine out before that for the reason below.

You need to remember that the internal temperature of the bird will continue to rise for a while after you take it out of the oven: the heat on the outside is still migrating inward. If you wait to take it out until the internal temperature is the "right" temperature, by the time it peaks, it'll be 10°F (~5°C) HIGHER than the right temperature, and that's in the dry zone. We're talking 190°F (88°C) thanksgiving football. Blech.

Dark meat almost always handles being overcooked better than lighter meat. The breast is the hardest part of the turkey to cook correctly. If you haggle with the temperature, and your white meat is still on the dry side, you might try brining the bird for 24 hours or so. It makes a big difference in terms of juiciness.


Teflon pan safe to use after being in an oven?

I think the pan should be just fine to use because Teflon begins to deteriorate at temperatures of 500 degrees Fahrenheit or more according to the Wikipedia article on PTFE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene).


Can sarsaparilla and sassafras be substituted with licorice root?

liquorice root is suitable for making a root beer drink. It is important to note that most liquorice candy is actually flavoured with aniseed, which is the source of the intense flavour. however in answer to your question the following link will provide you with a natural, healthy recipe that uses liquorice root to create a root beer. http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/licorice-root-beer-recipe-zmaz04djzsel.aspx#axzz3QBIpu06t


My soft chocolate cookies are soft but still too crumbly. How should I fix it?

One think I would try is changing up the egg white to egg yolk recipe by multiplying the other ingredients by 1.5x and adding an extra yolk. Egg yolks are a source of emulsified fat and they keep cookies fudgier (and chewier). For other variables you can tweak, you might look at J. Kenji Lopez Alt's guide to chocolate chip cookies. He takes each ingredient 1 by 1 and changes it up to see how it effects his cookie texture. Your cookies are going to be a little different thanks to the extra fats from the chocolate (hence why I think an emulsifier would help), but it should still be a helpful resource.


Use a large area pan to help the evaporation and use a higher heat with constant stirring to avoid burned meat.


Unfortunately, there's no quick solution to de-boning trout. The best method is to remove the entire backbone, along with the ribs.

To achieve this place the fish skin side down and with the point of a sharp knife, gently work along both sides of the fish freeing each fine rib bone. Once they have been freed from the flesh, you can cut around the spine (try not to break the skin) and remove the whole lot.

If the fish has been filleted, then lay the fillet flat and with a pair of tweezers work your way front to back, extracting the small bones as you go.


How do I prevent stickiness in a rice cooker?

One thing to try is to let the cooked rice rest for a while.  My rice cooker's pot is non-Teflon and scratched, but I've found that if I remove it from the heating element and let it rest 15-30 minutes, there is virtually no sticking.  If I try to remove the rice immediately, there is significant sticking.


Can induction electric cook-top simulate wok hay?

I have wokked on Induction cook tops. Because they are so effective at transferring heat it works quite well! But there are a few things to consider:
1. you need a flat bottomed wok, which means it is slightly harder to stir
2. You cannot lift the wok above the cooktop which means you can not "flip" the
food.

So you have to manually stir.

And you can't just calculate the kW to BTU, because induction cooktops heat the pan directly the per-watt efficincy is much higher. In my experience a domestic induction cooktop at full power (2000watt ish) is better than a domestic wok burner but not nearly as hot as a specialized wok burner.


Why isn't Almond Milk (and other non-animal based 'milk') considered juice?

One reason is simple appearance, I think - opaque white liquids or saps have long been called "milky", including nut milks, coconut milk, dandelion or milk thistle saps, and several other white substances.  Nut milks get called milk because they look like milk to the eye.

Another reason is that nut milks behave like milks in recipes - they are emulsions with sugars, proteins, and fats... fruit juices tend to have nutrients and sugars, mostly, they behave rather differently in cooking.  Almond milk was a long held substitute for animal milk in medieval times because it was more reliable - the nuts would be shelf-stable, while actual milk could spoil within hours.  It is worth pointing out that nut milks were substitute for so long because they worked in dishes calling for milk, at both the chemical level and for rough flavor profiling.

Also, it is probably worth noting that nut milks taste like milk, as well - a mellow flavor, very mild and a bit rich.  The flavor isn't strong or sweet like other juices.  They are different from cow's milk, true, but perhaps nut milks are not immensely more different from cow's milk than it is different from sheep's milk or goat's milk.

In the end, nut milks get called milk because they seem similar, and there's no other category they fit into more neatly.  If it is to label them as an alternative, it is a very old label, and for an alternative that works very well in nearly all applications.

Ps: if it helps, the nutrients extracted from the almonds into the milk were produced by the parent tree and intended to sustain the baby almond-plant... so the major difference is that the plant stores the milk in solid form, not whether it was meant for the next generation or not


Differences between canned and fresh tomatoes

Canned tomatoes, compared to fresh, are:

Cooked.  As part of the canning process, they are fully cooked.
Peeled.  Most canned tomatoes are peeled
Acidic.  For safety reasons, canned tomatoes often have additional citric acid added to the can (this prevents botulism growth)
Ripe.  The tomatoes to be canned are often vine ripened to a more ideal ripeness than retail tomatoes, and then immediately harvested, processed and canned.

Most of these attributes are actually an advantage in creating a pizza sauce, and so starting with a quality canned tomato may be far more convenient and flavorful than starting with raw tomatoes.


I've seen 2 tricks to help.  One is to pre-roll the roll while it is still hot, just out of the oven.  You will sometimes get cracks when unrolling the roll, but they are less visable as the cracks originate on the inside of the roll.  Once you roll it back up, they tend to disappear.

The other is to just bake it on a piece of parchemnt paper and use that to lift, roll and support the pumpkin cake.  As you lift the parchment paper, you roll the cake down into itself and it almost rolls itself as you lift the paper.  Just have to keep it moist, but not too moist.

Good Luck!


Does hard-boiling eggs in broth impact flavor?

It does impact them, crockpot cooking in chicken broth. The lady that owns the hotel that I visit when I’m on business makes them all the time. Off the chain!


You might want to try it by hand with a whisk first, rather than going straight to a blender, though a blender will work fine (though I've only done it with a standing blender, not an immersion blender)  The key I've found is the very slow addition of the oil to the beaten egg yolks.  (only yolks, no white).  You might want to taste your oil to make sure that it isn't rancid, which might be the cause of your "stinky" issue.  It does take some practice to pour the oil in slowly while you are beating the yolks, but you can add more oil at a time as your emulsion gets more stable.

I've found that it's not so hard to do by hand, and that you will get a real sense of accomplishment once you've done it.


What helps against astringent mouthfeel from spinach or chard?

Blanching briefly does an excellent job of neutralizing bitterness, or more precisely, astringency, even if the blanched spinach is recooked.

Basically, boil water, add washed spinach until submerged (5-30 seconds depending on preference; chard could go up to a minute or so depending on the target texture desired). Drain quickly. Submerge drained spinach in a bowl of ice and water to rapidly chill. Press spinach to remove excess water.

Recooking, even in applications like quiche, will do a very nice job of retaining the bright green color and generally astringency, if present at all, is minimal. If I am not recooking in some way, I often just dress simply in something like fresh ginger and soy sauce or a ground sesame, mirin and salt based sauce without reheating.


How to serve oranges so it is easy for guests to enjoy them?

For special guests you can 'segment' citrus, but I've always found it a thankless chore that wastes a lot of fruit, so I don't undertake the process lightly. This process is especially nice if you are using the citrus in something like a dessert or salad where the texture of the tough membrane can throw off the dish. However, as is the case with a citrus salad, the time adds up. To do it easily, it helps to have a really good paring knife, and a nice piece of fruit.

Start by cutting the top and the bottom off, just enough to expose the familiar star pattern of the segments. Then, cut down the orange from top to bottom, removing the entire rind by section. Leave none of the white stuff, it only gets in the way. The smaller you make each strip, the more fruit you can conserve. You should be left with a bald, juicy looking thing.

Now the membrane, which separates each segment, is exposed. To dislodge the first piece (always the hardest), slide the knife just membrane on either side. Once the first piece is freed, you have the room to peel back each membrane in turn. You be left with the essence of orange on one hand, and the deflated (and nutritious) husk of membrane on the other.


The journal article lists the chemicals they used, the concentrations tested, and the suppliers they purchased them from (https://academic.oup.com/chemse/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/chemse/bjv036). Contact the manufacturer and ask for pricing. Their website will likely give quantities and item numbers. Make sure it is food grade. I’ve been able to buy small quantities of pure food grade chemicals for $40 from Sigma (as a business). It’s possible they do not sell to individuals though. As a second source, try amazon.


What can I substitute fennel pollen with?

You might try ground fennel seed, or even anise, but they will not have quite the same quality.  You would certainly have to increase the quantity.

In situations like this, I have to point out:  it does not make sense to make a dish where you are forced to substitute for the ingredient which gives the dish its identity.  Instead, make something where  you can employ the star ingredient.


Why did my idli looked cooked from outside but was still mushy inside?

If you are in a "perfect temperate climate" then the batter should not "go rotten" as the method is from southern India, which is very hot. It does not rot there, so it will certainly not in a cooler climate. You may not, however, have the same rate of success for the same reason.

You imply you are an experienced idli and dosa maker, so you will have to experiment with fermentation and cooking times. If they did not rise, it would suggest you are not fermenting long enough. And denser batter will take longer to cook. You already have a genuine desi (Indian) recipe and methodology, you just need to tweak it to your local conditions.


The picture isn't from the best angle for identification, though it's very pretty, but it looks to be a pea shoot (picture).

These are common garnishes for savoury dishes, but much less common for sweet dishes, though not completely unknown (also a lemon recipe).


Similar cheeses to Queso fresco in Belgium?

I would say: soft cheeses, like here is a easy way to make instant cheese: 16oz. Cup organic farm milk, 4 oz. White. Vinegar, pour into a pot and boil on stove top 5 mins. Then turn off fire- and let sit uncovered, for a hour untell cold
Pour liquid milk into a cheese cloth in to a bowl.
The clumps be cream cheese - great for crackers.
I like to keep those cake spread small containers with blue lid and make cream cheese to carry along in back pack -with crackers - with a spoon.
Great for picnic or hiking also when one walks alot.


Can a sous-vide circulator fully replace a crockpot?

Would this accurately simulate a crockpot?

No.  Most crockpots operate on the principle of having a relatively low-powered heating element that very slowly raises the temperature of food over several hours.  In many slow-cooking dishes, that additional time spent at lower temperatures is useful in breaking things down, allowing enzymes to work (before they are destroyed at higher temperatures), allowing flavors to marry, etc.  Partly for this reason, most crockpots also have a heavy-duty ceramic insert that does not transmit heat quickly.  Some dishes for crockpots even depend on this -- placing ingredients closer to the bottom which need more time at higher temp to cook properly, while having ingredients that need less high-temp cooking time on top.

A typical pot placed inside a vat of water with a circulator will absorb the heat from the water much more quickly.  The duration of the "transient" (i.e., the time it takes the water to warm up, and then the food inside the pot to warm with it, until they reach a constant temperature) will vary a lot depending on temperature, comparative sizes of the pot and water, etc.

But in general, I'd say it's likely the sous vide circulator will get the water up to a high temperature much quicker than a crockpot typically would.  And depending on the material of the pot, the pot could then transfer heat to the food much more quickly than a typical crockpot would.

Whether this difference is relevant to a particular application or not depends on the situation.  In general, the common replacement for a slow cooker is usually a low oven, as that can transfer heat relatively slowly and gradually heat up a dish like a typical crockpot.  Sous vide is designed to usually raise the temperature of the food to a target as quickly as possible (hence the water bath -- the water transfers heat much more efficiently and quickly than air in an oven or a coil or whatever element under a ceramic crockpot) and then maintain it there.

In sum: crockpot goal = long transient duration; sous vide goal = transient duration usually as short as possible.


Peanut and canola are vegetable oils. Vegetable oil is a catch-all term, it's not asking for a product labelled "vegetable oil" although you can buy it in the store. Oils labelled vegetable oil are blends and can be any proportion of things like canola (rapeseed), peanut, corn, sunflower, etc. Just don't use Olive oil, it is a vegetable oil but it won't be good for cakes!

Different vegetable oils will give different properties although most will give you about the same result. Canola is flavorless and relatively light while peanut is a bit richer and, well, peanut-y. The differences in your cake will be subtle, however.


You can fry an egg on a non-stick pan without any oil or butter, however you will get a better result with some oil or butter. The reason you use oil or butter is to:

Seal the pores of the pan
Provide quick heat transfer from the pan to the egg

Water doesn't do either for you, all you'll do is cool off the pan. Your egg will still cook, it just won't add any benefit.

You don't need much oil, if you have greasy eggs you are simply using too much. A small amount of cooking spray is enough, you can also wipe a bit of oil on the cold pan.


Is there any reason not to keep fruits inside nalewka for too long?

Aging time is one factor that you might consider, but the amount of fruit you're using, how it's prepared, and other factors can have an impact too.

You're correct that the seeds and kernels of stone fruits can produce harmful substances, namely cyanide.  More properly, they contain amygdalin, which is readily extracted from the kernels by ethanol.  This substance can be broken down by enzymes (either those in the fruit, or in your intestinal tract) to produce glucose and hydrogen cyanide.  To be fair, there are plenty of other common foodstuffs that contain minute amounts of cyanide precursors, but cooking generally renders them safe.

Cyanide is obviously very lethal, and there is real risk to consuming raw stone fruit pits.  In general, the amounts required are fairly high, depending somewhat on the specific fruit.  Somewhere between 13-15 peach pits, 17-20 apricot pits, or a full cup of apple seeds is enough to cause cyanide poisoning, assuming that you really wanted to choke down raw peach pits.  Because of their smaller body mass, these amounts can be lower for children.  Distilled alcoholic beverages are also a particular concern because harmful substances can be concentrated in the distillate.  Peach brandy made by crushing and fermenting whole peaches (including the pits) was a popular liquor in the colonial-era United States (fun fact: even its first president tried his hand at some) but fell out of favor after it was implicated in multiple deaths.  Modern producers of the plum brandy slivovitz also run the risk of creating cyanide in their finished product, but fortunately there are means of neutralizing and removing the toxin during distillation by adding copper sulphate.

Now that you're sufficiently terrified, here are some mitigating factors.

I can't find reliable information on the amygdalin content of cornus mas.  They may contain a fair amount, or very little.  They seem to be used in a wide variety of different preparations, so it seems unlikely that they're particularly toxic; otherwise a cultural aversion to them would probably have developed.
The enzymes that break down amygdalin into cyanide work most actively when the pit is crushed, so how you're preparing the fruit is a big factor.  If they're left whole or only lightly crushed, the alcohol has relatively little surface area to contact and won't be able to extract as much amygdalin.  If the pit remains undamaged, then the enzymes that would convert amygdalin to cyanide would remain mostly unactivated.
This isn't a distilled preparation, it's an infusion.  At most, you'd be able to extract as much amygdalin as is present in the fruit - which could still be hazardous, but isn't being concentrated further.

If there is extended contact between crushed pits and the alcohol, then macerating for longer than instructed could be problematic.  But in that case, the hazardous substance is already being extracted, and the original recipe could already make you sick if consumed in sufficient quantity.  A potential fix for this would be to remove the seeds, but from your question I'm assuming that they're already included in the recipe.

In general, I'd say there's more to worry about here than over-infusing the fruit.  if you've made this before and consumed it without adverse effects, then letting the fruit extract for longer in your next batch will probably not kill you.  But be aware (and if you're giving this away, be sure the recipients are aware!) that there may be a small amount of hazardous substance in the end product.  Overconsumption could indeed make you very sick (over and above the potential problems with too much alcohol) and the only way to be completely safe is to not drink it at all.

That said, there are measured risks involved in consuming many types of food and drink, from undercooked meat to homemade preserves.  If you're preparing this for your own use, and you're aware of the risks, then it's your body and your health, and you can make your own decisions regarding risk.


How to fry an egg without a burnt thin crust around?

Your pan is probably too hot, so the edges burn before the middle. Try turning down the heat some.


you need to let them cool completely on a wire rack before moving them to a plate or sealed container.

This will prevent the starch on the bottoms from steaming onto the plate.


How to avoid chicken getting too tender when cooking in a crock pot?

Funny you should ask about this as I have just been experimenting with tough old chickens.

Your chicken is falling apart because the connective tissues in the meat are being turned into gelatin.

Cooking meat in a wet environment at low temperatures causes the connective tissues (collagen) in the meat to dissolve into delicious gelatin and makes the meat more tender. Cooking at the lower temperatures means that the meat can cook for longer without over heating and maximize the gelatin conversion.

This is often a very desirable thing. Cheap, tough meat can be made delicious. Crockpots are designed to make this very easy.

Roasting in the oven is hot and dry. The meat cooks faster, not very much gelatin is converted and the meat holds together better (or is tough depending on the meat).

The solution is simple: Don't cook your chicken as long.

To taste done, your chicken needs to reach 140F. To be safe from bacteria, your chicken has to get up to 165F. (Actually, it can be safe at as low as 135F but you have to hold it at those temperatures longer to kill the bad bugs. This document has the whole time chart.)

You should use a thermometer to determine when the interior of your chicken is done and then stop cooking it. How long it will take to get your chicken to those temps will depend on your recipe, how much meat there is, what shape it is, and the properties of your crock pot.

Keep in mind that a crockpot is still wet cooking (braising) where an oven is usually dry. The outside of the chicken will never be as browned or crispy from a crockpot as from an oven.


Frozen beef barley soup , adding more ingredients and re-freezing

If you thaw your food in the fridge it is safe to add additional ingredients and re-freeze, but the quality will probably suffer. Don't thaw outside the fridge. You're better off freezing the new ingredients and combining them when you're ready to heat and serve them. Do your best to freeze as quickly as possible and with as little air in the containers as possible.


Availability of pure alcohol in the UK (or alternatives as fuel for alcohol-burning cookers)

You can't use methylated spirit to cook that way. Methylated spirit contains 1% pyridine to deter people from drinking it, and it will taint the sausage (and no, they don't say what is in it on the label).

The way that excise tariffs are set up, you could buy pure alcohol in UK, but the duty would drive the price to about £75 per litre.

Better to buy pure alcohol in countries that are used to selling it retail (I always bring back a couple of litres from Italy, about €16 / litre).


How to modify a quick bread recipe to add spice / tea flavors?

I just noticed that your recipe uses water. That's an ideal way to get tea flavor into things - you can replace it with concentrated tea. Assuming you use teabags, you should be able to steep two in that 2/3 cup of water. Tea is a fairly subtle flavor, so you may not taste it too much in the bread, but this is easy and doable with what you have! There's also instant tea, if you want to try to boost it - but it of course won't be as good as real, fresh tea. (You could buy chai concentrate, but I think it's usually about double strength, so not really better than you'll do on your own.)

I'd then replace the spices normally in your recipe with chai spices. If you've ever made chai from scratch, you could use that recipe as a guide, but it sounds like you might not have. There's an awful lot of variety here, from region to region, and in Western variations; you could search around online for chai recipes that appeal to you. I'm not an expert (I'm from Texas!) but from what I know, here are some common spices, with the most standard ones toward the top:

cardamom
cinnamon
fresh ginger
black pepper
fennel
cloves

Cardamom is pretty much required, and that'll help give you a flavor very different from your usual spice blend. I'd mix/grind up the spices separately from the rest, smell them to see if they're what you're looking for, and adjust as needed before mixing into the rest. Aiming for a similar total volume of spices to that of the original recipe should work fairly well. It might be a bit spicier, since you'll also have the tea, but that's probably fine. (Fresh ginger obviously won't go with the dry spices, if you use it - maybe a teaspoon or two minced?)


I agree with the others that 1 gram is way too much saffron.  Unless you're making one of those huge outdoor pans of paella which feeds 20 people.

Exact quantities depend on how much paella you're making, and the freshness of the saffron involved.  I tend to use a hefty pinch, which would be around 12-20 threads, for a paella for 6 (2-3 liters).  I'll adjust that downwards for very fresh saffron, and upwards for old stale saffron.  You can tell how fresh your saffron is by (a) smelling it, and (b) soaking it in a small amount of warm water.  Fresh saffron will smell strongly floral/spicy, and will turn the water bright yellow very quickly.

I like saffron a lot though, and also tend to err on the side of more rather than less.


Kosher alternative for butter as emulsifier

Sauces like pan sauces and Roux-thickened sauces like bechamel or veloute are not traditionally finished in the same way.

Pan sauces, like for steak au poivre involve deglazing, reducing (still primarily water-based liquid,) and either reducing further with heavy cream, or adding cold butter directly and not heating anymore, so it stays emulsified.
Roux sauces like bechamel and Espagnole are made by adding hot liquid to hot roux in a pan. Though roux does a bit of emulsification— which is bonding fat based liquids with water based liquids— its primary purpose is still as a thickener. The starch cells in the flour explode, thickening the liquid. An uncooked version, beurre manie works the same way.

Roux itself simply involves toasting flour in fat, in approximately a 50/50 (by weight) mixture. From what I understand (I don't have my copy of On Food and Cooking around to double check,) the primary purpose of the fat in the roux is to keep flour from clumping up as the starch cells expand in hot water-based liquid, so the water and milk solids in the butter doesn't aid that goal in any way; in fact, in my experience, it causes some of the starch cells to explode prematurely, which makes butter roux a little more difficult to work with.

As the commenters pointed out, roux can be made with any fat— I've made it with many fats— so I'm guessing the trouble you're having with it might just be technique related. Since you said that you needed to add a water-based liquid to the roux to get it to work out, maybe your fat/flour ratio might not be right so it's too clumpy? As soon as you add a water-based liquid to a roux, you've stopped making a roux and started making a sauce with the roux.

Roux troubles aside, if you're looking for a parve emulsifier which adds a bit of richness— something to replace the role of butter in a pan sauce– letting your sauce cool a bit, whisking egg yolks into it and heating it to around 175F would work really well. If you don't have a thermometer, look on google images/youtube or whatever how to determine if a sauce is 'napé'... something which I think you have to see, rather than have it explained to you. Keep in mind that heating it to anything much above 180F and you'll have scrambled eggs. This would be my go-to for something like a kosher steak au poivre pan sauce.

You could always go the food nouveau route and use a glace— a heavily reduced stock. Boxed stock won't do, but if it's for a special meal, a pressure cooker or crock pot stock will work beautifully.


Supply of Boiling water without power outlet

Do as others do and use a camping stove.

They come as gas stoves like this one or even as wood- or charcoal-fired versions (see here). Perhaps an avid camper among your friends could even lend you one, means you'd only have to buy the fuel.

But before you do this check with the local authorities / people responsible for the event whether they are ok with these open-flame stoves at a public event, keep a fire extinguisher ready and ensure noone can accidentally get hurt, especially if lots of people are attending. Ensure the stove is set up properly and on solid ground, not wobbly or uneven. Be careful not to burn yourself or your partner, especially if business gets hectic. You'll also need the corresponding equipment, e.g. a stovetop kettle, a hand-filter or french press for the coffee, and fresh clean water (unless available on-site).


What's are the benefits of different sourdough starter consistencies?

Since a starter is actually a symbiotic mixture of microorganisms, factors like hydration level can change the balance of bacteria and yeasts. Depending on which organisms are favored, it can change the flavor, gas production, etc. They're not necessarily "benefits", but different consistencies can definitely produce different starters. The biggest and most consistent difference that I can think of would be that wetter starters are usually more active.


File powder is mostly used for thickening gumbo, and there are two schools of thought on that (armed with shotguns and rifles, so trifle with them at your peril):  file gumbo and okra gumbo.

A file gumbo is thickened with file (typically added by the diner at before eating the gumbo), as mentioned.  An okra gumbo is thickened with... well.. okra.

It is possible, but not traditional, to combine the two in the same recipe.

If gumbo is your goal, consider making a an okra version.

Otherwise, if you are using it for its unique flavor, there probably is no substitution.  If you are using it for its thickening properties, depending on the recipe, you might try a roux, cornstarch, or arrowroot.


Cocoa powder is sometimes added to regular chili because the bitter earthiness compliments the dark chilies.

White chicken chili only contains green chilies and has no complex flavor to compliment.

White chocolate might make your chili creamier but there are cheaper ingredients that do that better.


How do I make 1/3 cup liquid glucose for toffee apple recipe?

The purpose of the glucose is to make the caramel more stable. Glucose contains sugars that do not crystallise as easily as regular granulated sugar, so adding it will make it less likely that the caramel will fail. Making glucose at home is not really possible: you need a small chemistry lab to pull it off (you can hydrolyse corn starch with sulphuric acid to get glucose syrup). Instead, you can substitute the glucose with another sugar that also doesn't crystallise easily. Which one is available to you depends on your location, but golden syrup, corn syrup, or light molasses would all serve the same purpose as the glucose.


What you need is a refractometer, also known as a Brix meter. They can be quite inexpensive. Brix is essentially sucrose in baker's percentages, so 1 gram of sugar in 100 grams of water is 1 brix. You just need to choose a model that measures in the range you are interested in. Here are some on Amazon.


How close to the top should I fill a pie to avoid overflow?

A basic bechemel or broth based pot-pie filling will not expand significantly when being baked.  It may bubble a little under the pastry from being simmered.

You would the casserole up to maybe 1/2 inch (1 cm) below the lip, and apply pastry on top of that.

Less is fine if you have less filling.


How to remove residual flavours from, e.g., a coffee press

The glass jar should be mostly residue-free due to the smooth surface.

Sometimes slight traces remain when the jar is hand-washed but the harsher detergents usually used in dishwashers should get rid of them easily. (Side note: Don't do this to the coveted stained teapot of a true tea aficionado...)

The other parts are a different issue: often, they are not dishwasher safe and there are plenty of tiny nooks and crannies where coffee residue might "hide" and cling to and impart the characteristic coffee flavour - especially in combination with alcohol, which acts as a solvent.

If you are planning on using only the jar for your martinis, run it trough the dishwasher, give it an extra rinse with clear water just to be sure there is no trace of detergent and cheers!


Home-make yogurt: add sugar / something else with the starter?

The statement "so that bacterias would have something to eat" is incorrect on several levels- including grammatically.

Bacteria already have plenty to eat. There is a lot of sugar in milk. Cow's milk is 4-5% sugar. Additionally, giving the bacteria more to eat would allow them to create more acid and make the product more sour not less.

The bacteria used in yogurt making are lactobacilli and prefer munching on lactose anyway.

That said; Lactose tastes less sweet than the sucrose in table sugar. Adding sucrose will make the yogurt sweeter if that is your taste.

Making the yogurt thicker is done by

accurately controlling the fermentation temperature,
using higher fat milk,
adding protein in the form of dry milk powder,
or removing water after fermentation.

When I have added sugar to my yogurt it has not had a noticeable effect on the texture.


Device to squeeze last yogurt out of carton

As the response to my comment didn't say it wasn't the boxy aseptic packaging (used for soy/rice/coconut/almond milk, broth/stocks, shelf-stable milk, milk and juice cartons, etc.), I'm going to assume it was, and move it to an answer:

Square or rectangular packaging should have two little ears on the bottom of the package.  If you pry them up, you'll find that the box is really a tube with one end sealed, like a tube of toothpaste.

I've not tried this for the aseptic packaging (as I've never gotten viscous items packaged that way), but you might be able to use the same trick for toothpaste tube:

With the open container on the top of the counter, press the sealed edge on a sharp corner of the counter (not one of those really rounded over ones, as those don't work as well).
Place your hand on top of the container, and push it both down and off the edge of the counter.
Once you have enough over the edge to grab, grip it and pull it down (or at least at a downward angle).  This will force the contents towards the open end of the tube.
Once the contents come up to the container's opening, squeeze in into a bowl or other vessel.  (it can help to fold the tube a bit, so that squeezing doesn't force it back into the end that you just cleared out).
Repeat until you've gotten all that you can out.

It might seem strange, but once you've gotten the hang of it, if you have a good edge to work it against, it's quite easy.  If you don't have a good edge ... you might try against the rim of a sheet pan.


Are refrigerator section pickles (Clausen) safe if left unrefrigerated?

I called Heinz (Kraft), the makers of Clausen Pickles. They told me that they can't recommend consuming their pickles labeled "always keep refrigerated" if the package has been unrefrigerated for as long as a week and a half. Even if the jar is still sealed, they won't assure us that it is still safe to eat the pickles.

That seems like very much a CYA statement, but it is from the horse's mouth.

So, consider yourself warned that the pickles may not be safe.

The old adage When in Doubt, Throw it Out seems to apply here.


Is it okay for oil to smoke in stir-fry?

Yes, there's smoke coming off the oil, but it's not heavy, black smoke.

If you're frying things, when I see that, it's a sign to either get the pan off the heat, or to get food into the pan to cool it down.

When you're stir-frying, you want very high heat, so you're often working right at the smoke point.  Whereas, for sautéing, I always learned to put the food in when it shimmers, but before it starts to smoke.

So, should you let the oil smoke?  Generally, no, but it's okay if you use it as an indicator for when to put in food if you're quick about it.

update: To answer the culinary questions in your comment :

The oil does denature, but it's not all denaturing at once, just like when you boil water, it doesn't all evaporate at once.  Or if you burn an item, the whole thing doesn't instantly turn to ash.  It's not a boolean (yes/no) answer, it's a question of the degree to which it's denatured. Letting it smoke so you know when to put in the food isn't the same as if you let it sit there an smoke for 5 minutes because you don't have your food ready.
Moist food will cool off the oil because the water will turn to steam, resulting in evaporative cooling.  This process ends up sucking energy (heat) out of the oil in the process.  Flipping the food repeatedly (as you would with a sauté and some people do with a stirfry) can also cool down the pan, as you have more heat transfering to the air (more surface exposed while it's being flipped), and you typically lift the pan off the burner so there isn't as much new heat entering the system.


How much citric acid powder to use when preparing fruit for drying

From Teresa Marrone's "The Beginner's Guide to Making and Using Dried Foods" -

"plums need no pre-treatment."

The standard range, per quart of water, is 1 to 3 teaspoons of citric acid. Since they supposedly don't need it at all, I'd lean towards the lower end, if you want to use it anyway.


PA style fried chicken with no breading or batter, just a thin amber color crisp coating

I can't claim familiarity with that particular area's style of fried chicken, but I have two ideas that may meet that description:

Korean fried chicken wings with ultra-thin crust a la http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/10/the-food-lab-korean-fried-chicken.html
Double fried chicken wings with no batter a la http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/01/the-food-lab-how-to-make-best-buffalo-wings-fry-again-ultimate-crispy-deep-fried-buffalo-wings.html

I know these are recipes for wings, but I would assume this would translate well to other pieces of chicken. Both of them start with a neutral base that you can modify with sauces etc. to your liking. I'm afraid I don't really have a good recipe for breaded fried chicken though, something about good Korean fried chicken makes everything else pale in comparison ;)


Sealed hard cheeses will indeed keep forever at 15 Celsius and below, unsealed they can go mouldy or so dry you can't cut them.

Soft cheeses can't be stored past their expiration date, they are a perishable product. (As always, the "freezer stops the clock" rule applies, but you already said you don't like the resulting texture).

In short, unless you have a dedicated cheese cellar, you can't do better than your fridge.


Do recipes which measure flour by volume assume that I'll sift the flour?

In all the recipes I've followed with a cup measurement (volume) of flour, it is unsifted.

From what I've read, if a recipe calls for sifted flour there's two ways to do it:
If it calls for "sifted flour" you sift the flour first, then measure it.
If it calls for "flour, sifted" you measure first, then sift it.


Guidelines for marinating vs seasoning steak based on grade and/or cut?

Why marinate?

Marination is used to add flavor and seasoning (if the marinade contains salt).  Some marinades, which contain active enzymes (as from fresh pineapple or papaya) or acid (as from yogurt, lemon juice, or vinegar) can soften meat as well (although they should not used for too long, as they will turn it to an unpalatable mushy texture).

Contrary to myth, marination does not penetrate more than a few millimeters into meat, so it does not flavor the interior, although salt may penetrate further if given time.

Does the grade matter?

No, the grade of the beef is not relevant to whether you choose to use a marinade.  Higher grades of beef simply have more internal marbling.

The real question is whether you wish to compliment the meat with the flavors in the marinade.    Dry rubs are another technique for adding flavor.  Finally, simply salting is just for seasoning, but doesn't add any distinctive flavor.

Broiling versus grilling

Broiling and grilling are essentially the same technique.  Both are primarily radiant heat methods:  the infrared from the fire or element is what cooks the food.  With grilling, the fire is under the food; with broiling, it is above.  There are even restaurant appliances called salamanders which have elements both above and below.

If there is any practical difference, it is easier to get more intense heat on an outdoor grill than it is with an indoor oven.

None of this affects whether you choose to use a marinade on a particular piece of meat or not.


Does 85% lean ground turkey have the same amount of fat as 85% lean ground beef?

Yes.

"85% lean" means that 15% is fat... regardless of the type of meat.

"95% lean" means that 5% is fat...

Much of ground turkey is made from turkey breast, which is naturally nearly fat free, which is why it's often sold as "99% fat free", meaning there's only 1% fat.

The turkey that's 85% lean is usually dark meat - legs and thighs - which are significantly higher in fat than the breast meat. This is generally standard for most (if not all) fowl.

Here's some numbers:

  Ounce for ounce, white turkey breast meat trumps dark meat, calorically speaking. Per 3 ounces, opting for white meat over dark will save you 45 calories and 6 grams of saturated fat: 115 calories and 0 grams of saturated fat versus 160 calories and 2 grams of saturated fat, respectively.

In general, sources tend to say that dark meat is more flavorful and more moist, which is generally true of higher-fat proteins.

Beef doesn't have as many sections that are similarly lacking in fat and ground beef is often made from trimmings from all sorts of parts of the cow, not just one part.

As a note, I regularly see ground beef as low as 70% lean (this is the lowest it can be - as stated by USDA law)... but I've never seen turkey lower than 85%, that I can think of.


Recipe calls for garlic powder and all I have is garlic salt

Garlic salt is typically 3 parts salt to 1 part garlic powder. It's mostly salt.

That means if you use 3x the amount, you'll end up with roughly the same amount of garlic powder, but also a lot of salt.

Are you able to reduce salt elsewhere in the recipe? If not, I would just leave it out. Generally you can substitute garlic powder for garlic salt (just add salt) but not the other way around.


What is the procedure to dry out Fenugreek leaves?

The biggest cause of mould or fungus is humidity (moisure, dampness, water in the air) and the leaves by nature will produce this as they dry. After all, the drying process is removing water from the plant.

As long as you dry the herbs in an area with plenty of air circulation (to avoid humidity build up and take away any moisture as the leaves dry) you should be fine.

Make sure the herbs aren't bunched together, spread them out on a tray so the air can circulate around them. Turn them over regularly - every day or every 6 hours or so so they can dry evenly.

Remove any damaged/crushed/torn leaves or stems where mould can get a hold and spread.

Also remember just because the outside leaves stems may feel dry, the insides may not be, so give them longer to dry out than you think.


For short term freezing they should be just fine as far as texture and taste are concerned. Just make sure you avoid freezer burn by wrapping them tightly in plastic wrap and then either aluminum foil or a freezer bag. If you store them more than a few months then they will start to degrade.


What is the maximum time for which the dough should be allowed to rest before making Parathas?

Why resting longer?

Resting the dough not only let's gluten linking begin, but also allows enzymes to "transform" starches into sugars. There are some technics for making bread that take profit of that to extract more taste from the wheat, such as autolyse (invented by Raymond Calvel) or Pain à l’ancienne (which uses autolyse and other delaying methods that you won't use in not leavened breads).

Originally Monsieur Calvel stated an autolyse time of between 20 and 40 minutes (that link might be in Spanish, but I don't understand why it's not in English), but nowadays people are experimenting with 2 hours, and even 4 or 6 hours of autolisis.

That enzymatic activity won't be affected by lipids, so adding fat or oil for Parathas or Rotis will work the same. They can be affected by a PH<4 or 3.3, but I don't think you'll reach that PH in a Paratha's dough.

So, how long is too long?

The longer you let enzymes make sugars, the tastier the dough will be. But if you rest too long a dough, the gluten will finally get broken: the dough will look more like a puree than a kneaded dough. It will depend on the enzymatic activity of the flour, and can vary a lot from one flour to another. It is measured by a value called falling number (you can see why is it important here).

That index is very rarely labelled in packages, but you can try getting in contact with the millers and ask them. Or you can also try to find the answer to your question empirically for the brands of flour you use (that value shouldn't vary from different batches of the same brand of flour). Touch the dough every hour to feel if it still has a workable consistency.

Note that your dough will be stickier, due to the sugars released by autolisis.


How to create fruity or grassy shortbread cookies?

Three things:

-You can flavor the sugar by mixing aromatic herbs into it and leaving it sit for a week or two. Rosemary pairs well with sweet desserts, as would lavender or basil. Sift out the herbs once you're ready to use the sugar.

-You can try replacing the butter in this recipe (or half of it) with some very good olive oil, as in this recipe from the NYT:

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/recipe-of-the-day-olive-oil-cookies-with-red-wine-and-rosemary/

That recipe isn't for shortbread cookies, but the technique may still be valid. No guarantees that it will give you the texture you want, but great olive oil has all of the grassy and fruity characteristics that you're after.

-I'm not terribly familiar with matcha, but couldn't you just take some regular green tea leaves and powderize them in a spice grinder?


Do bakeries generally knead dough for bread by hand or use a machine?

Most small bakeries use small rotary mixers (like a Kenwood that stands as high as a man) that handle batches up to about 100lb - using a dough hook for bread.

The really big bakeries use trough mixers with blades that turn along the length of the trough. A typical batch is around 600lb.


Bean based stew. Alternative to tomatoe sauce

I found I'd run out of chopped tomatoes when half way through making 3 bean & sweet potato chilli. I did add a little tomato puree, but only had a little of that, so had to find a substitute sauce.

The bulk of the liquid I used was beer, quite a bitter, tasty beer. I used more cocoa powder than normal (I always use some), and a bit of extra garlic. I thickened it a little towards the end, with just a bit of cornflour, and took some of the sweet potato out, mashed it and returned it for further thickening. I often use a little beer in chilli sauce, but not normally as the bulk, so long as I did some thickening.

A blended, slow-cooked, onion-based sauce, as is used as the base of some curries, should work nicely. This is something I make, and haven't seen it sold, but it freezes well.


If it only says "cane sugar" without any other qualifier, just use the normal white crystal sugar you have. There is a common attitude that cane sugar is supposedly superior to beet sugar (which is the prevalent sugar in Europe), although this might well be the result of successful advertising campaigns. In any case, if you use beet sugar, I am pretty sure nobody will notice the difference.

If it says something more than just "cane sugar", (e.g. "light brown cane sugar") it could be Demerara or something else. But then your question is not answerable without describing the full term.

See also The difference between beet sugar and cane sugar.


Weird air pockets/bubbles on bottom of cake

That happened to me as well. Luckily it doesn't change the taste, but it is annoying! It comes from air pockets which formed because you whisked/mixed your cake batter too intensely, and/or for too long, which creates air bubbles. So first, it is best to mix your ingredients delicately, try to avoid incorporating too much air (easier said than done), and stop whisking once your batter reached the desired homogeneous consistency (overwhisking is a common mistake). Then, when you pour your cake batter in the pan, it's better to avoid pouring it all at once in the center, it will also create air bubbles. It's better to pour it delicately from one corner and let it spread by itself in the dish. Finally, before putting in the oven, tap (delicately) the bottom of your pan on the counter to free the remaining air bubbles and let them reach the surface before cooking.
I hope that will help, let me know!


How long is the life of a shot of espresso?

This barista says no, you can enjoy your shot for a little while:

  In reality, there are only a couple of things that happen to espresso
  over the course of a few minutes.  First, the crema or foam that sits
  on top of the espresso reintegrates with the liquid.  Crema, on its
  own, contains some of the best flavors and aromatic qualities of the
  espresso in high concentrations.  Drinking it straight can be
  overwhelming but, it stands to reason, that having the crema
  reintegrate might actually be a good thing.  Second, the espresso
  cools down.  The temperature of espresso has a lot to do with how we
  taste the various flavors contained within it...

I am not an espresso fan myself--I like regular coffee, but not after it has cooled down, and never reheated.  Many folks are perfectly content to microwave a cold cup and drink it.

I imagine that older, colder espresso is palatable to you to the extent that you are willing to tolerate it.  A small shot of coffee--and lets face it, that is all espresso is, even if it is brewed in a fancy manner--is going to cool off much more rapidly than a full cup, or a full pot.


Chicken curry in a slow cooker turns out watery

A slow cooker needs a lot less water for the same recipe than something you simmer in a pan for 20 minutes. The sauce thickens in the pan because a lot of the water evaporates.

In this case, most your water is in the chicken stock. To get all of the flavor, but less moisture, drastically reduce, or even eliminate the stock. You've got plenty of water without it. Use a tsp of chicken base to keep the flavor without the water (recommended: Better Than Bouillon).

That alone will probably solve your problem. If it doesn't, come back to this question and edit it to tell us what you tried and any problems that remain, or ask a new question if the problem is different.

Welcome to Seasoned Advice.


Searing after sous viding - what temperature?

The searing applied after sous-viding should not be enough to alter the temperature of the meat notably.   All you're trying to do with the sear is create the flavorful crust on the outside of a piece of meat via the Maillard reaction, not accomplish any cooking of the interior of the meat itself.   This is best done by applying very high heat for a very short amount time, usually just a few seconds.  Some like doing this via pan-searing or on a very hot grill, but I usually use a high-powered blowtorch.  The important thing is that you not sear for so long that interior of the meat has a chance to notice.   A perfectly sous-vided piece of meat should be a uniform color throughout, except for a heavily seared crust.  There shouldn't be any gray band of over-cooked meat under the crust.  Avoiding that is why you're sous-viding in the first place.

Also, I find 125-130°F to be a touch on the rare side.  For a good medium rare, 133-135°F gives me better results.


what material should i use for cutting board?

There's a huge standing debate on that, and you'll find several articles contradicting each other.

While wood seems at first like a bad choice (it porous, so it harbours bacteria) it's quite the opposite.

  Researchers discovered that used, knife-scarred wooden cutting boards harbored no more bacteria than new boards, while knife-scarred plastic boards were "impossible to clean and disinfect manually." When the researchers scanned the plastic boards with electron micrographs, they saw "highly significant damage" to the surfaces from knife cuts. Bacteria inside wooden boards don’t multiply and gradually die. Comparing the bacteria found on wooden boards to those found lurking on plastic ones when both have been cleaned manually, the researchers found more bacteria on a used plastic surface than on a used wood one.


Why are there no nutrition facts on this US bottle of vinegar?

It may depend on the size of the label on the bottle - there are exceptions for small label area. Looking at a gallon bottle (different brand) that has the label, the numbers are all 0 anyway, which offers another option. If you happened to purchase it from a restaurant supply, that offers yet another exception.

  (j) The following foods are exempt from this section or are subject to special labeling requirements:

  (4) Foods that contain insignificant amounts of all of the nutrients and food components required to be included in the declaration of nutrition information under paragraph (c) of this section, Provided, That the food bears no nutrition claims or other nutrition information in any context on the label or in labeling or advertising. Claims or other nutrition information subject the food to the provisions of this section. An insignificant amount of a nutrient or food component shall be that amount that allows a declaration of zero in nutrition labeling, except that for total carbohydrate, dietary fiber, and protein, it shall be an amount that allows a declaration of “less than 1 gram.” Examples of foods that are exempt under this paragraph include coffee beans (whole or ground), tea leaves, plain unsweetened instant coffee and tea, condiment-type dehydrated vegetables, flavor extracts, and food colors.

  (13)(i) Foods in small packages that have a total surface area available to bear labeling of less than 12 square inches, Provided, That the labels for these foods bear no nutrition claims or other nutrition information in any context on the label or in labeling or advertising. Claims or other nutrition information subject the food to the provisions of this section. Foods in packages subject to requirements of paragraphs (j)(13)(ii)(A)(1) and (2) of this section do not require the information in paragraphs (d)(9) and (f)(5) related to the footnote, however the abbreviated footnote statement “% DV = % Daily Value” may be used.

Legalese from : http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=1&SID=4bf49f997b04dcacdfbd637db9aa5839&ty=HTML&h=L&mc=true&n=pt21.2.101&r=PART#se21.2.101_19


Can I replace eggs, oil and water with apple sauce or just eggs?

You can replace any of the three with applesauce, or all of them - with the caveat that it will change the taste and texture of the final product, with more difference from more substitution.  You do not have to substitute all of them if you choose to substitute one of them - the substitutions would be independent of each other (other ingredient amounts stay the same), although the results will stack together.

Substituting eggs with applesauce is fairly common - the pectin replaces the binding action of the egg.  One egg can be substituted with a quarter cup of applesauce.  The effects on the recipe are usually minimal if only one egg is substituted in this fashion, the more eggs in the recipe that are replaced, the bigger the change (tending towards denser since egg lifts and fruit sauce weighs down).

Substituting applesauce for oil is apparently trickier, since they both inhibit gluten but oils additionally act as binding agents in the dough, while applesauce is largely watery and does not bind the dough.  It is usually recommended to substitute out only part of the oil - and not more than a quarter cup total (in a one-to-one ratio) per recipe unless tested.

Substituting applesauce for water is more easily done since the purpose of the water is only to provide moisture, which applesauce has.  It can be substituted one-to-one (though as it is thicker, more liquid might be needed depending on how wet the dough needs to be).  Again you might end up with a slightly denser product, since you are essentially adding solids (more mass) to the recipe and fruit tends to weigh the bread down.

Overall, if you replace all three with applesauce your final product will be heavily apple-flavored, a great deal sweeter, and probably very dense and crumbly.  It will not have the lift from the egg, or the binding from the oil.  It will dry faster, and will suffer more if over-baked.

In the end, I do not recommend replacing all three ingredients in the same recipe.  Replacing one will probably give you the best result, or the result most like the original recipe.

If you really want a recipe with all-apple-everything, you should probably look up a applesauce-bread recipe to begin with, or perhaps look at some of the recipes for banana bread that use a very high ratio of fruit to bread ingredients.


cornmeal crust on chicken is too gritty, is there a way to fix after chx has been baked?

The only way you are going to soften the corn meal in the breading is to let it get a bit soggy. Store it in a plastic container in the fridge overnight and let it's own moisture do the job. If the result you get is good then great, if the skin isn't good after that then just peel it off and eat the chicken.


What property makes a liquid soapy/bubbly?

Since I could see this being a cooking/food science question if you really wanted to play with this property of liquids in drinks, perhaps a quick answer is in order. This really would be quite well-suited to the physics stackexchange, though - this is a concept that's quite describable by physics.

To follow up on Sobachatina's comment, the property you're in fact looking for is surface tension (which is reduced by surfactants like detergent). If you want to compare liquids, be they water, water+detergent, milk (water+stuff), or even alcohol or oil, you just want to compare their surface tensions.

Surface tension is in fact a measurable quantity, with dimensions of force per length. There are a couple of equivalent definitions:

when increasing the area of the surface by a small amount, the amount of work (energy) required per area increase; or
when the surface is bounded by a line (imagine a bubble film and string), the amount of force on that line per length.

You should note that surface tension depends on the fluids on both sides of the surface. Most commonly we talk about surface tension of an arbitrary liquid against air, but surface tension against glass, plastic, or metal is commonly visible in your vessels and utensils, and surface tension between various fluids is of course visible when you try something like mixing oil and water.

As for actual examples, Wikipedia has a short data table with surface tensions of various fluids against air. Among them are a few potentially relevant for cooking: acetic acid + water (though stronger than normal vinegar), ethanol + water, a very concentrated sucrose solution, and water. Note that the addition of alcohol or acetic acid substantially reduces surface tension of water!

If anyone can follow up with more data on surface tension of liquids commonly seen in cooking, I'd be very interested!

It's also possible to measure surface tension at home, though I've never done it, and I'm not sure how accurate you could get.


How long should I cook apples in the oven?

Various factors influence the consistency of an apple when it bakes.

Acidity. The more acidic the apple is, the better will the apple preserve its pectin and remain its crunch. Also any acidic fluids surrounding the apple will make an impact here.
Thickness of the slices. Thin slices will make the apple heat up faster.
The surrounding environments ability to transfer heat. If the apples are surrounded by a watery liquid heat will be transferred much more quickly to the apple than if it was surrounded by air. Other kinds of liquids will transfer heat quicker or slower.

So you see there are no hard and fast answers. But knowledge of these factors might help you build up experience to make a qualified guess in each case.


Paneer can be used as is. Sometimes it is fried to extend shelf life. Cooks will also sometimes fry paneer until it is slightly brown and then put the fried cubes of paneer in hot water for a few minutes. This makes paneer very soft.

If you do cook paneer, it will not melt, like most other cheese varieties, because it's an acid-set cheese.


Substituting white chocolate in Julia Child's mousse

Guittard replied to my query after the fact, so I learned firsthand that one should use less liquid because cocoa solids in dark chocolate are absent from white chocolate.  I substituted 1/4 cup milk for the same amount of strong coffee in the original recipe, and the Baker's Premium White Chocolate liquefied.  Melted semisweet doesn't pour like it did, and I was paranoid my mousse wouldn't set.

I studied my liqueur options at the store.  A 750mL bottle of crème de cacao tempted me with thoughts of frozen cocktails, all requiring additional 750mL bottles of other liqueurs, and I didn't want to go there.  The selection of 50mL bottles was limited, but I settled on E&J Vanilla brandy.

When I opened it, there was no essence of vanilla; I smelled only brandy.  The 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract I added to the milk was imperceptible, as well.  My attempt at white chocolate mousse was more like a brandy Alexander custard.  My official taster said he wouldn't have known I used either white chocolate or vanilla if I hadn't told him all about it.

His initial "Wow!" and the way he savored it conveyed his appreciation nonetheless.  Brandy made for a good flavoring.  If I found Baker's 4-ounce bars on sale again, I'd forgo using liquid in the melting step, and hope for a less custardy consistency.  I even reduced the butter by 2 tablespoons, and beat the living daylights out of it before folding in the egg whites.  It set, but a spoon won't stand up in it like the original.

Thank you for your advice:)


What is the proper way to make a cup of mate?

Mate = the ritual

Mate = also means the gourd or wooden cup you use

Yerba = the ground up tea

bombilla = metal straw

termo = thermos with hot water, not boiled

Fill the mate with yerba about 3/4 of the way
Place hand over the mate and shake anyway you would like. The goal is to remove the dust because the straw will not be able to filter this out.
Fill the mate with a small amount of water on one side and pack the yerba into one side creating a 1/4 empty space
Pour water into the empty 1/4 and insert bombilla covering the top to prevent tea or water from entering (just like cover a regular straw and inserting into a cup to prevent liquid from entering)
The "servidor" is the person in charge of serving the mate. This person takes the first cup and tests the water temp, rids the cup and bombilla of any dust or bits of yerba that go through the bombilla the first sips.
*Note- it is an insult if you are to pass the first testing round to a guest.
Each mate full of water is per person. A good servidor will pour water over only part of the dry section of tea in order to allow each person a tasty mate.
Continue serving, wetting more and more of the dry tea section each serving until all is wet and the taste begins to wither.

Video Reference: How to prepare and serve mate correctly


It's a fungal infection. If you google Aphanomyces raphani you will see much more serious examples but that how it looks usually when the outside is not affected (so also not thrown out by seller)


Spring onion (green onion/scallion) in coq au vin?

Australian and keen Coq au Vin maker here; I am in Sydney so my response may be subject to regional variations; Australia is a big place.

There is yet another possibility. These

Coq au Vin requires onions twice; at the start, chopped, and later on, where the recipe I use (Mastering the Art of French Cooking) calls for small onions browned and braised in stock. In Australia it isn't easy to get onions of the right size for the latter dish - even the smallish onions sold as pickling onions are IMHO too big. The bulbs of the spring onions behind the link are the right size, about an inch in diameter.

As you can see from the other products on the page, yes, we have no standard naming convention. I'm British by birth, so I'll always refer to French Shallots as Shallots, and the OP's cebette as Spring Onions.

As an aside, http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/mar/24/how-perfect-coq-au-vin is well worth consulting. In fact the whole series is well worth consulting.


Just one day?

Feta is assembled in one day but it is pickled in a brine for at least a week. Recipes I've used call for 10 days.

This time gives bacteria extra time to work and make the product more sour.

I've had good success just using buttermilk as my mesophilic starter. I suspect your starter will be better than mine.

Just give it time.


How can I make pastry cream for a cake filling more a bit more firm/sturdy?

The egg yolks and cornstarch both serve as thickeners. Increasing the cornstarch is probably the most practical way to make that recipe firmer; try 5 tbsp as a start. (You could instead increase the amount of egg yolk; this will give you a more solid texture, rather than just a thicker one.)


Eggs are coddled for a Caesar dressing in order to make the yolk slightly thicker. This in turn allows for a slightly thicker dressing. From your description, it sounds like you are doing it perfectly!


How do I properly freeze a frosted cake?

You can generally freeze cakes, with our without icing, for a month without problems.  Beyond that, opinions vary...

How to wrap it depends on what type of cake and what type of icing.

For a cake covered in fondant:

wrap it in plastic wrap (multiple layers if you feel like it, by the time I make sure edges are overlapped I pretty much have two layers)
then wrap it in aluminum foil (I've never found a good explanation of why you need to do it, but it's what I learned to do...)

For buttercream:

freeze the iced cake first, then wrap carefully plastic wrap.
I've never managed to do this without messing up the icing at least a bit.  Work quickly, try not to touch the icing (heat from your hands will soften the icing), use lots of plastic wrap and let it be a bit looser.

In your case:  if "closer to Christmas" means "in a couple weeks" and if the icing is very nice, I wouldn't wrap it.  I'd get either a large enough container or a large plastic bowl that could be placed over the cake and sealed to the plate and just freeze it like that.


What's a good molasses-based glaze for pork tenderloin?

You might try giving it an Asian twist by replacing the cumin with a tablespoon of Chinese Five Spice powder (a mix of star anise, cloves, szechuan peppercorns, fennel and cinnamon), and the salt with a splash or two of soy sauce. I'd also add some freshly grated ginger and crushed garlic. You should then have a tasty, sticky Chinese-style glaze.


Do I put vinegar in the water when poaching an egg?

By far the most important factor in a nice poached egg is the freshness of the egg.

Fresh eggs shouldn't need vinegar to help them set, but It can help with an older egg, whose white has started to go a bit runnier. Vinegar does leave a flavor, but if you're poaching your eggs ahead of time and putting them in iced water to stop them cooking, that does seem to wash it out.

Salting the water will toughen an egg, better to season it after it comes out.

A large egg, starting at room temperature, in barely simmering water (trembling) will take 3 1/2 minutes to just solidify the white, and leave the yolk very fluid. If you want your yolk more viscous, another half minute.


What is the difference in blanching and parboiling?

Both involve boiling water, but there are a number of differences:

blanching has two meanings -- it's mainly used when talking about setting (or enhancing) the color of vegetables, with minimal cooking (only the outermost layer is cooked).  As such, it's typically only a few seconds to a minute dip in already boiling water, followed by a shock (dip in ice water) to halt any further cooking.  It's often used for vegetables that are going to be eaten raw.
parboiling means that you cook something in boiling water to give it a head start.  (Parcooking in boiling water)  Typically, the purpose is to cook an item to speed up the cooking time for some following cooking method.  (eg, partially cook some items in a casserole so that all items will be done at the same time after baking).
And then we have the overlap case -- when you cook something in water to change the characteristics (other than color) of an item before some other cooking step.  For example, we might be trying to extract bitter compounds, or soften a food such that some other processing step can be performed (eg, soften cabbage leaves so they can be used as a wrapper).  In this case, you're typically cooking the item more than just superficially, and the pre-cooking results in a different result than you'd simply get by increasing the time of the final cooking  (eg, the oil blanch for pommes frites, softening the skin to peel a tomato)

So, to help make a decision on which term to use:

if the goal of the step is color change of the ingredient : blanch
if you cook it for only a few seconds, or up to a minute and shock in cold water : blanch
if there's no additional cooking done after this step : blanch
if you could skip this step with no change in other cooking times : blanch
if you could skip this step by increasing the cooking time at some later step : par-boil

... for other cases, where the step can't be omitted without causing problems in the recipe (eg, cabage breaks because it wasn't softened), or final result (too bitter) ... you can often use either term.  You might consider how far 'cooked' the item is after the step if you want to prefer one or the other.  (under about 25% cooked, go with 'blanch', if over 50%, go with par-boil)


So...you're both sort of correct, just depending on how you look at the question.

Curing vs Fermentation

First, let's have a quick science primer on food.

All of the food humans consume and utilize for energy can be broadly categorized as differing ratios of protein(remember these are amino acid (AA) chains), carbohydrates(sugars and fiber are types of carbohydrates), water, and fats (lipids). Plants, compared to animal flesh, are composed of different ratios of these classes of nutrients.

The difference between curing and fermentation resides in how these basic nutrient blocks change over time (whether it's in plants or animal flesh), and what chemically active ingredients/microorganisms are added to accomplish this.

What does curing do to these components?

Curing is specifically changing the amount of water that is in the cells of the food in question.  Adding salts (NaCl/nitrates, etc), or sugar to water (called a brine), or directly to the surface of the food tends to decrease the amount of water in the cells. This process exchanges the cellular water in part for the added salts/sugars/etc (also called decreasing the water activity). Decreasing the amount of water in the food inhibits deleterious microorganisms from setting up camp and spoiling the food.

Coming back to a part of the semantics portion of your question... you CAN cure both vegetables and meats.  The ultimate food outcome and success of curing comes down to the amount of curing compounds, water, time, and temperature.  Variations in those components impact the texture, flavors, and edibility of your final product.

OK, so what's the deal with fermentation?

In fermentation, particular microorganisms are either added, or wild-harvested to the food in question.  The goal here is to pre-populate your food with beneficial bacteria so that the bad bacteria (species that can make you sick) do not have a chance to get to any of your food.  Depending on the organism, they utilize the food-substance to manufacture (called metabolism) varying compounds like lactic acid or ethanol. The chemical byproducts of the bacteria contribute to the texture, flavors, water activity (because the bacteria need to use water to live), and pH of the fermented product.  Eventually, through aging, water evaporates  or is converted to alcohols, and is used by the bacteria until there is so little water or food substrate left, there are very few (if any) bacteria left alive (they also go dormant) on the food.

In summary:

Fermentation needs microorganisms, curing is changing the water inside the cells(plant or animal)  So you can both cure and ferment meat (even eggs!).  You can both cure and ferment vegetables, grains, and fruits. Fermentation of proteins does not equal inedible food.  Fermentation by microorganisms like salmonella, listeria, and strains of E.coli on food DOES equal spoilage.

Hope this was helpful.


Why are most circular pizza peels designed with holes in metal

The Chef Pomodoro round peel you picture is described by the manufacturer as a ‘turning peel’.

A turning peel is a must-have to easily rotate the pizza multiple times with precision.

Taking that cue I checked a few more on Amazon and they were mostly described that way.
A Turning Peel is specifically for rotating the pizza while it is cooking. I imagine that the radial slots allow increased friction making it easier to turn the pizza. I don’t think you could use it to put a thin, fresh, homemade pizza into an oven.
One reviewer of the Chef Pomodoro peel says:

The turning peel worked great and freed up my regular peel so we could keep making pizzas inside while I was cooking them outside.

which indicates a separate function from a peel you would build a pizza on.


In general, but mostly in my experience, it's a bit like treating a cold, or a flue: It you don't do anything, it will take 7 days, but with medicine it might only take a week.

In general, there are no natural fast-forward methods for fruits to ripen, at least not to the level that makes it interesting: If the actual specimen of the fruit is willing to cooperate, you might get from X days to X - 1 days, maybe X - 2 in very happy circumstances.

You may be able to force the fruit (or vegetable, whatever) to get to the stage where it fits your needs for processing (heat tends to work nice in general for instance, that's why we cook and fry stuff ), but it won't be the same as ripening that fruit. It's not like the fruit realizes what's going on, and starts to make up for lost time.


The closest Turkish equivalent is kaymak (prononunced like guy-mac but with a k, accent on the second syllable). It is reasonably well available in Turkish mini-marts, although the only available brand may use gums or other thickeners.

It is not a perfect substitute, and may not whip well if you mix it with cream for pastry-making. But for mixing into a pasta sauce, it will work very well and give you that fat-rich mouthfeel from real mascarpone.

By the way, I have seen many variants of this sauce. I make mine most commonly with German quark as the dairy component (if you want to try that, ask the Turks for kesmik, but make sure you are getting a wet kind, not a dry kind). So feel free to experiment with any kind of fresh cheese or high-fat fermented dairy, all of them are likely to produce something good, but slightly different in texture and flavor notes. Also, a small tip beside the dairy: instead of all-spinach, try half spinach, half chard (both wilted).


Serious Eats had a pretty thorough discussion of this a few years ago:  https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/01/best-easy-all-purpose-fresh-pasta-dough-recipe-instructions.html
They discuss how different egg white / yolk / water proportions affect the pasta, and also touch on some other issues that you mentioned (like salt and that you need to work it sufficiently to develop the correct elasticity), and they also discussed how resting the dough affected it, and had pictures to show how things changed.
And if you're not used to fresh pasta, I would also recommend reading my answer to a related question : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/112587/67


how do I cook sausages without poking holes through them?

If you are charring the outside then you are cooking the sausages too fast. Sausages are best when cooked relatively slowly: on a low pan, or under a medium grill. 20-25 mins in a 200C/400F oven usually does the trick as well.


How to balance the bitterness of Habanero peppers?

Capsaicin is an extremely bitter(in addition to spicy) off-white crystalline powder.  The bitterness is also very dependent on the individual.  You'll need to add a lot more sugar or possibly vinegar to offset this.

The flavor of certain fruits play well with chilies including stone fruits and mango. And, anecdotally at least, are know to counteract the bitter effect of the capsaicin.

Or you could use a milder chili.


Can I make caramel sauce with crystalline fructose?

It won't caramelize, it doesn't have the same properties as sugar.

What you can do is brown butter, cook it with cream, and flavor it with vanilla and crystalline fructose to approximate caramel. I haven't tried this, there are a variety of "diabetic caramel sauce" recipes you can google.


How can I make a silky smooth, rich mash?

Here is how we made pomme puree at the restaurant I used to work at, for a very well known (in Canada anyway) French chef:

Peel and boil as many potatoes as you need. Cook until slightly underdone.

Run the potatoes through a ricer/food mill. Then--this is key--scrape the result through a tami--a very fine mesh sieve. Most often used for sifting flour. Usually about 14-18" diameter, looks like a drum.

Return resulting potato to a pot, add melted butter, cream, salt, pepper, nutmeg to your desired consistency, stirring all the time.

If not serving immediately, chill as fast as possible, and reheat to order in a pan using a little more cream to loosen it up.

IMPORTANT: you must work as fast as possible; the potatoes need to stay hot the whole time or will become gluey.


What is the difference between rock sugar and raw sugar?

Rock sugar would be chemically the same as regular granulated sugar, but in the form of huge crystals. Some people call it "rock candy", and you can make it, slowly, at home by growing crystals in a syrup made of granulated sugar and water. How it is made at large scale, commercially, I have no idea.

See wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_candy. They have a picture:


How can I make my homemade potato wedges crispy?

You could put them in a pan of boiling water for 3 or 4 minutes (not so to they're cooked through) before putting them in the oven. The potato on the outside of the wedges will soften and cook a little bit which will help the outsides crisp up a little. Make sure you allow them to drain completely before you put them in the oven.


Using yellow instead of green zucchini in vegetable soup

In general, they are interchangeable unless the green color matters in your presentation. Texturally the differences are insignificant.

I've used patty pan squash, yellow summer squash (yellow zucchini), and regular zucchini interchangeably. There may be slight differences in sweetness or texture, but not enough to make your dish fail.


Technique for shaping meat for cordon blue (alike)

I would think this would be a great application for boneless, skinless thighs. I've never had much luck trying to get uniform pieces boning dark meat myself. Done commercially though, they're usually fairly regular. Trim off any excess fat and gently pound them out to about 1/3 inch (2/3 centimeter) between pieces of plastic wrap (don't use the jagged toothed side of a mallet, use the flat side or something smooth like the bottom of a pan). Place your filling on the chicken piece, add any "wrapping" (bacon, or ham slices or whatever). Just using one of the sheets of plastic you used for the pounding, tightly roll up the chicken with any filling and/or wrapping you desire, twisting the plastic wrap at the ends to get the tightest possible "cigar". If you want to use bacon to wrap, but your slices aren't long enough, overlap two slices at the ends and give them them a bit of a pound where the slices overlap. Chilling the roll should help keep the slices together, but you may need to tie them with twine. Chill for at least a couple of hours. After chilling, remove the plastic wrap and secure the rolls with a toothpick or twine, bread if desired. I would consider baking the rolls, seam side down on an oiled sheet pan instead of frying. If you end up "splicing" slices of bacon, try to keep the seam of the bacon lined up with the seam on the chicken. That way, baking seam side down will help keep both seams closed.


I left stock out to cool overnight. Is it safe to use?

The correct way of cooling stock is to put the stock-pot in an ice-bath or in the sink with running water. If you put it in the sink, you don't even have to open the tap too much. Just a little stream of water is enough to cool the stock to room temperature in about half an hour or so. Then you can put it in the fridge.
A stock that's been left on the sink for more than 4 hours at 24ºC is a health hazard. You should take the stock at your own risk.
Harold McGee wrote an article on this very topic and the short answer seems to be that while you're not 100% safe with your stock, you could risk using it after a 10 minute boil:

I’ll admit to violating the guidelines in my own stock-making, though by a few hours, not days. When I cook a roast for dinner, I use leftover scraps and bones to start the stock, simmer it while I clean up, and take the pot off the heat right before I go to bed. At that point it’s too much trouble to cool the hot stock so it won’t warm up its neighbors in the refrigerator. Instead, I cover the pot, leave it at room temperature and reheat it in the morning, about eight hours later, before straining, cooling and refrigerating it. And my stock hasn’t made me or my family ill, either.
...
What about my lazy method of letting stock cool overnight, then reboiling and refrigerating it first thing in the morning? Dr. Snyder gave it a pass because it would spend only a few hours below 135 degrees, not enough time for the bacterial spores to germinate, start growing and reach hazardous numbers.
...
Any active bacteria are killed by holding the stock for a minute at 150 degrees or above, and botulism toxin is inactivated by 10 minutes at the boil.

The whole article is very interesting and worth reading in full.


It's impossible to address your concern of whether or not your steak is "too rare."  Steak is safely eaten in a range of raw to well done.  Safety depends on product quality and safe handling procedures.  I would say your pictures range from "looking" rare to medium rare. The only way to be more explicit is to know the exact temperature, as sometimes color is not an accurate indicator.


Difference between demi-glace and beef stock. Can I use a demi-glace instead of a beef stock?

demi glace is beef stock seriously reduced. So yes you can use it just need to add a lil extra water. What proportion no idea depends on how strong a flavor your wanting really. Just put some demi glace in a sauce pan (low heat) let it melt, add water till you get the right consistency/flavor your looking for.


Best way/temperature to get maillard reaction on meat/steak

The meat will pass through various temperature ranges when heated.  The moisture in the surface layers of the meat will gradually evaporate, and once they are dried out, the temperature will start to rise more rapidly.

I think the balance of caramelization vs. Maillard also has to do with specific proteins and sugars available, but you're right -- around and above 400F/205C, caramelization proceeds fast enough that there's generally little opportunity for Maillard (the sugars break down too fast).

In any case, the issue isn't how hot your heat source is as much as how long the surface stays within particular temperature ranges.  If your meat surface actually gets significantly above 400F/205C for a significant period of time, it will start to burn.  But even after a couple minutes in a pan, the meat surface may not be equal to the pan temperature.  Why?  Because generally moisture is constantly escaping from the layers immediately below the surface, and that moisture will keep the interior below the boiling point (212F/100C).  That lower temperature steam needs to be heated as it approaches the surface, which will keep the surface temperature from rising too fast.  In a very hot pan or under a very hot heat source, a significant dry crust will eventually form and ultimately start to burn if the heat goes on long enough.

To get to your exact question -- if you use a 300F/150C pan, the following things will happen:

You'll lose a lot of heat immediately when dropping the food into the pan, lowering the pan surface temperature temporarily.
Now you might have a pan surface that is only close to boiling water temperature or something, and that's not high enough to cause significant Maillard browning in a reasonable amount of time.
The surface of the meat will gradually come up to boiling temperature, requiring a fairly large amount of energy.  That won't allow the pan surface temperature to recover significantly for a while.
Once the meat surface hits 212F/100C, the water in the surface meat needs to boil off.  It takes a huge amount of energy to evaporate water compared to the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature.  While that's going on, the meat will get "stuck" at boiling temperatures for a while.  (This is quite visible, for example, when you crowd a pan with too much meat, and you get moisture pooling in the pan for a couple minutes that has to burn off.)
Note, so far, you don't get any significant Maillard browning going on, and no caramelization at all.  If the surface meat has taken too long up to this point, it can acquire a boiled taste/texture that may not be optimal and may change the kinds of browning reactions that eventually do occur.  Eventually, enough water boils out and the surface layers become drier.
Once enough surface moisture is boiled out of the meat, it can resume rising in temperature, which will happen much more quickly.  But if the pan is still only going to a maximum temperature of 300F/150C, it will take some time.  (Remember that the surface of the meat is still in contact with much cooler interior layers, which still have moisture that's generally not at a temperature more than 212F/100C.)  And heat transfer rate depends on the difference in temperature between two things.  So if the pan is 300F/150C and the steak is 212F/100C, you'll get a relatively slow temperature rise, and the closer the meat gets to 300F/150C, the slower the temperature will rise.
Eventually, after a few minutes, you'll get close enough to 300F/150C that Maillard reactions will occur noticeably, and you'll get some browning.  Even then, the browning may take a while, because you still have the moisture coming out of the meat, which would probably keep the surface layers below 300F/150C.

Now, if you start out with a pan that's at 500F/260C (or even higher), the pan surface will transfer its heat (probably dropping down to 200-300F/95-150C in the process), and accomplish steps 1-5 in a matter of seconds instead of a matter of minutes.  At that point, the layers of the pan underneath the surface will still have a lot of heat (since they started at 500F/260C instead of 300F/150C) and will transfer heat back to the pan surface.  So after the first few seconds, the pan surface rapidly begins to rise again getting to 300F/150C fairly quickly, which will produce maximum Maillard reactions.  Wait a little while, and you'll start getting significant caramelization.  Wait further, and the meat will burn.

What's the ideal pan temperature to begin to get maximum Maillard in a brief time?  It really depends on the material of the pan and its size and thickness, as well as the amount of meat you plan to drop into the pan (which will influence how much heat is needed to get through steps 1-5 quickly).  When starting out with a superhot pan (say, 700F/370C or so), you'll get a lot more caramelization, less Maillard, and you'll have to be careful not to burn the meat if you wait too long to turn.  With a pan that's only 400F/205C to start, you should get more Maillard, but it will take longer to brown, which may not be ideal if you want to keep the interior of the steak cooler (medium rare or whatever).  With a heavy pan that transfers heat slowly (e.g., cast iron), I'd generally go with something around 550F/290C personally, which seems to be a reasonable balance.  If the meat is going to crowd the pan, I'd go higher to burn off all that excess moisture as quickly as possible.

[Edit: As rumtscho noted in comments, the type of range -- gas, electric, or induction -- could also affect heat transfer and recovery time for a pan to come back to high temperature.  Also, there are many specific properties of materials that will influence the heat transfer rate and recovery time, including the rate heat moves through the metal (thermal conductivity), the amount of heat stored in the pan (heat capacity), the rate heat conducts out of the pan surface (diffusivity), and the rate that radiative heat comes off the pan, which is mostly dependent on color (emissivity).  Note that the heat capacity and thermal conductivity are often combined in one number to give a sense of "thermal inertia" or "effusivity."]

With a blowtorch, the temperature is obviously quite high, and the heat will be continuously replenished (unlike a pan, which has a temperature "recovery time").  You can go through steps 1-5 almost instantaneously.  Whether you get more Maillard or more caramelization will depend on how hot the flame is and how close you hold it to the meat surface.  You might experiment with backing the torch away just a bit and use it for a slightly longer time.  It might change the effect and flavor profile slightly, but I've never played around with this much myself.


Are meatballs different from Hamburgers other than in terms of size?

In the US, hamburgers are usually flat patties weighing somewhere between 3 and 8oz. and typically 100% ground beef. Many variations are possible, including mixing spices and other ingredients into the meat, but binders such as egg and breadcrumbs are not common. The defining characteristics of a proper hamburger for most Americans are the shape (flat), approximate size, beef as the primary ingredient, and sandwich-style presentation. A ground meat patty not made from beef is likely to be named differently (lamb burger, turkey burger, etc., even though the name 'hamburger' has nothing to do with ham).

Meatballs are smaller (maybe 0.5 to 3oz), roughly spherical, more likely to be seasoned, much more likely to contain eggs and/or breadcrumbs as binders, made from just about any kind of meat, cooked differently, served differently.

Also, the cultural traditions surrounding each are completely different. Spaghetti with meatballs and tomato sauce is classic comfort food; spaghetti with hamburger is unthinkable. Meatballs are usually served in a sauce of some kind; burgers (beef or otherwise) are served on a bun or bread with mayo, ketchup, mustard, melted cheese, lettuce, tomato, and so on. Many people like their hamburgers (beef) cooked rare or medium rare, but meatballs are always fully cooked. Meatballs can be held at temperature for a long time, or even cooked, chilled, and reheated; only cafeterias and other low-quality, high volume restaurants would pre-cook and reheat a hamburger -- at home or at a good restaurant the burger would be served as soon as possible after cooking.


My Bunn coffeemaker has started overflowing at the funnel

It's possible that the soft water is helping the coffee "bloom" (and eventually overflow past the top of the basket) more than when you were using harder/more mineralized water. All else held equal, there's a few things to try to solve the concern, as one or a combination of the following may work.
Try:

...reducing the amount of water you place in the tank, and expect smaller/less servings.
...putting in less coffee in the basket, balancing the risk of getting "watered-down" coffee (see #1 above).
...using/buying coarse ground coffee instead of the fine powder (for the reasons below)

Now if you grind the beans yourself, also try:

...using a burr grinder (instead of a blade-type) for more consistent coffee size, as the fines from using a blade grinder may be clogging your mesh/paper filter (not the nozzle!)
...grinding the coffee a little bit coarser to give more space for the water to run through.

Hope this helps.


Yes, add the mustard seeds to the Dijon mustard and add a splash of vinegar, stir well and let it sit like that for 24h.

For the impatient / I don't have 24h  ;-)

Microwave the newly created mixture for one minute @ 750W (without the metal lid on!) and stir again after microwaving. (Use oven mittens!)