Fudge is technically a crystalline sugar candy so a true fudge should have have the feel of tiny sugar crystals when you bite into it, but it should not be grainy.  Controlling the grain in fudge is a matter of controlling three things:  the temperature that you cook your mixture to (the soft-ball stage you referred to), the way the mixture is cooled, and the addition of certain crystal interfering agents (e.g. corn syrup, fats, marshmallow).

I, personally, believe that controlling temperature is far superior to the drop-and-mash test from which the "soft-ball stage" inherited its name.  I also have had better results with the lower end of the range (235 °F) than with mixtures that have approached the higher end of the range (245 °F).

Marshmallow fudges, in my experience, rarely have the micro-crystal bite of fudges made without marshmallow.  Marshmallow fudges are sometimes called creamy fudges to denote their more-creamy/less-fudge-y mouthfeel.  Most marshmallow fudges don't really need careful attention to the cooling stage like fudges made without marshmallow.  I assume you are making a peanut butter fudge w/o marshmallow?

Now, having said that, for fudge that I make without marshmallow, I use a little bit of corn syrup (1 Tbsp. per 2 cups sugar per 5 oz. condensed milk - plus the chocolate or peanut butter or whatever) - I heat my mixture to a boil, then I allow the mixture to boil without stirring until the mixture reaches 235 °F, then I remove the pot from the heat and allow the mixture to cool undisturbed until the temperature lowers to 130 °F (keeping the thermometer in the mixture).  By doing this the goal is to create a supersaturated sugar solution - a mixture that is holding more sugar in solution than it normally should.  At this point I stir the mixture as vigorously as possible until it loses some of its gloss and it becomes increasingly difficult to stir - then transfer it into a heavily buttered pan to cool to solidify.  Losing the gloss and changing consistency are two signs that the sugar is re-crystallizing out of the supersaturated solution - the vigorous mixing should prevent larger sugar crystals from forming in the fudge (and prevent graininess).

It is also important to prevent stray sugar crystals from "seeding" your mixture and bringing crystals out of your supersaturated solution prematurely and creating a grainy fudge - people usually control for this in one of three ways:  by buttering the sides of the cooking pan, by briefly covering the boiling mixture so that condensation drips from the lid onto the sides washing them down, or by brushing down the sides of the pan gently with water.

As a short summary - I shoot for 235 °F and focus more on the cooling of the fudge to prevent graininess.


I've cooked plenty of crispy bacon in plenty of ovens— gas and electric, commercial and home, with and without convection— and I really doubt the browning of bacon could be noticeably retarded by trace amounts of moisture from the gas. A common trick to getting crispier bacon involves generously sprinkling water on the tray before cooking so it will render out more fat (which happens at sub-boiling temps) before it starts to brown. (Personally, I haven't seen enough of a difference to do it consistently, but I've known chefs that have sworn by it.)

I've heard people say that it can affect the browning of bread, which makes sense considering how much more readily starches absorb water than protein. This might be relevant for recipes which use time rather than appearance/smell/texture/internal temperature to determine when to stop cooking something, but I'd blame lack of more accurate measurements to consider whether the bread was done and/or needed the heat adjusted before I blamed the heat source. I've also baked plenty of bread, pizzas, and other starchy foods in gas ovens without a problem.

If you're using the same bacon you used in your old oven, the problem is almost certainly an inaccurate oven thermostat in one or both of your ovens. Oven thermostats are notoriously inaccurate. I'd recommend purchasing an oven thermometer so you can more accurately gauge the temperature of your oven, and cranking up the heat until you achieve your perfect bacon. Even if I'm totally wrong and you've got a gas oven which is nearly steamer-level moist, the answer is probably more heat.

Good luck!

Edit: Are you sure your oven is properly vented?


You say you are substituting the juices for milk.  You have to ask yourself, what roles does milk play in the recipe, and how well will the juices in question fill those roles?

What does milk contribute?

The milk adds:

Liquid, to gelatinize the starch in the flour to create the structure of the cake; the water will also contribute to some gluten formation, but in most cake techniques, this is minimized
Very minor acid component
A small amount of fat, but compared to the oil in the above recipe this becomes negligible
A small amount of sugar, but compared to the sugar in the above recipe, also negligible
Some proteins and other milk solids which will interfere slightly with gluten formation, again enhancing tenderness; they also help to retain moisture so the cake stays fresh longer
A very milk neutral flavor that comes out as a general contribution to the richness

The fruit juice

In contrast, what do fruit juices bring to the recipe?  I am ignoring the heavy/light or thin/thick distinction because it means very little.

Water--exactly the same as the milk
Significant acid.  Fruit juices tend to be much more acidic than milk.  You might wish to experiment with reducing the baking powder, and adding some baking soda to use the additional acid to power the chemical leavening, while neutralizing some of the overall acidity
Most fruit juice is essentially fat free, but as the fat contribution from milk is negligible, this is not an important distinction
Possibly some pectin or other long polysaccarides which will contribute to the overall structure and mouth feel of the cake, but this effect is probably negligible
Flavor.  The fruit juices will have a strong and significant flavor--of course, this may be a positive, but it will influence the outcome of the cake
Sugar.  Fruit juices tend to be sweeter than milk, so the overall cake will be slightly sweeter.  This is probably somewhat mitigated by the increased acidity, and again, compared to the overall sugar in the recipe, probably not a large contributing factor.
Fruit solids (proteins, minerals and so on).  Much like the milk solids, probably contribute somewhat to the more tender crumb, but hard to characterize.

The truth is, the "heaviness" or "thickness" (by which I infer you mean viscosity, or how fast the juice flows or pours--or how easily it coats a spoon, which is an easier way to see it) is not that important.

You could use pureed fruit with almost the same result--for example, canned or pureed pumpkin or mashed banana. Even pureed fruit is still mostly water.

Still, every juice or fruit puree is its own entity.  I would keep a little diary of how each trial worked out, whether you like the results, and adjust the next try accordingly.

Edit:

What juices to use?

I realized I never specifically answered the question, what juices to use?

Use whatever juice (or fruit puree) you like, based whether you like the flavor and how the cake turns out.  Each time you try something new, there is some risk, but you should soon find ones you like, and which perform well.


According to Food Network and chowhound.com, chowders are thick, usually cream- or milk-based soups with chunks of vegetables and/or fish. A cream soup is generally pureed, a thinner consistency and smooth, with no chunks of food.
Food Network also notes the regional aspects, in that the Northeast seafood-based chowders are more common, while further inland meat-based soups are more prevalent.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to/chowder-and-soup/index.html

Chowder's roots are in the Northeast, with the most popular being New
England Clam Chowder. It has been said that the soup took its name
from a type of French cooking vessel, the chaudiere. But the French
can't claim responsibility for this truly is an American tradition.
Customarily, chowder included onion, potatoes, and cream. Nowadays,
not all chowders adhere to these guidelines. New England Clam Chowder
is sometimes made with milk, and Manhattan Clam Chowder doesn't have
any milk or cream, but has a tomato base instead. As chowders pop up
across the country, they have taken on many different ingredients but
most people still expect a chunky, creamy soup. So whether it's corn
chowder or seafood chowder, it will not be a smooth puree and it will
not be thin and wimpy.

PreparedPantry.com describes chowder attributes:

A chowder is a thick, rich, chunky soup usually made with a white
sauce base though Manhattan chowders have a tomato base.  Originally,
it was a fishermen’s stew made with seafood but today, vegetable
chowders are common such as corn chowder and potato chowder.
Chowders typically have five parts:
The vegetables or seafood, the focal ingredient of the soup.
Ancillary ingredients which may include cream, diced onions, bacon, or herbs.
The cooking liquid—usually broth or stock.
A thickening agent—usually cornstarch, flour, or potatoes.
Seasonings including salt and pepper.

http://www.preparedpantry.com/Recipes/How-to-Make-Chowder.htm


What is the best/easiest way to juice a watermelon?

The way that i found to juice mine is leave the rind on, mash the melon to bits inside of it, cut a spout in the rind for easy pouring, line my stock pot with chese cloth (although i'm sure a lot of other things would form a great strainer), then just pour the whole thing into the stock pot. I then wrap the cheese cloth up and tie it off with a rubber band. Then you place a plate on top of the cloth and weight it down with a book. Check back every one or two hours to tighten the cheese cloth up and you end up with a lot of juice and none of the nasty bits.  I also tend let the contraption sit in the fridge while it does it's work but it will work just fine on a counter top.  The set up takes me about ten minutes.


How can I hold the flavor and texture of my spheres?

Once the calcium and alginate react the process will continue regardless of whether you rinse them or not. The rinsing will slow the process down but won't inhibit the reaction altogether. In order to ensure liquid centers you will have to heat the spheres to 85°C for 10 minutes (from modernist cuisine). However, you have a ton of calcium going on in your mix between the calcium in the apple juice and the fact that you're using calcium lactate as your setting bath so you are likely going to benefit from a sequesterant like sodium citrate to bind up some of the free calcium ions. I would actually suggest you go with a calcium chloride bath for this type of direct spherification. If you were doing larger spheres I would suggest reverse spherification but that won't do you any good for caviar.


I don't know what candy to use for gingerbread windows

Hard Candy would be your best bet, like this recipe, if you want to make 'custom' windows. The presence and concentration of food coloring can get you from 'clearish' to solid colors. If you want to go 'off the shelf' There are a variety of lollipops that are translucent which might give you a nice effect.

If you want to get 'real fancy' break up some Jolly Ranchers and use a little frosting to go "stained glass" :o)


Are there any 27" residential ovens that can accomodate a 3/4 sheet pan?

Update: The KitchenAid True Convection Architect 27" has interior dimensions of 22" width, 16" height, and 18.75" depth, which appears to be just big enough for a 3/4 sheet pan. (per OP)


Salt itself doesn't really have a perceptible odour.

However, salt added to other ingredients will usually react with some of them, which will indeed cause a change in the dish's overall smell.

There are several different reactions involved:

Salt will draw fluids from most fruit, vegetables and meats. The fluids have an odour that was previously trapped within the food's structure and is now available to your nose.
Salt makes a fluid more acidic, which causes all sorts of changes. For instance, the difference in smell (and other properties) between a fresh cucumber and a pickled cucumber is mostly due to the brine, which is water with a high salt content.
Salt may facilitate other chemical reactions in the organic molecules of the dish. Obviously, different molecules have a different smell.

Each of these reactions may occur separately or together, depending on the specific ingredients used and a host of other factors, of course, but salt can definitely cause a change in the smell of a dish.


Substituting fresh vegetables/fruits for canned

Tomatoes are one of the few things I use from cans, mostly because they have more flavor than the ones you usually get at the grocery store, but about 2-3 good-sized, ripe tomatoes substitute just fine for a can.

The canning process includes heating the food being canned, so using fresh fruits and veggies might require more cooking to get the same effect or texture in a dish, and as was noted in the comments, could also cause some other effects like denaturing enzymes. If you're preparing a recipe that doesn't require you to cook the canned veggies, you may want to steam or blanch their fresh counterparts before adding to the recipe.

I find the can also affects the flavor, but not in a good way, so I wouldn't worry about that difference ;-)


Is it safe to eat pumpkin seeds with peel?

We never peeled them growing up.

We'd coat them in some oil, roast them in the oven (stirring occasionally), then season them when they came out.


I don't see why not.
A food mill is regularly used to make purees. It's a popular choice for people making baby food. Here's an example with two different mesh options:

Another option might be a ricer, which is more like a giant garlic press, whereas a food mill has a crank, a ricer has a lever-action.
Ricers are also popular for baby food and mashed potatoes and  often have different hole size options.

As a note, you'll want to make sure that there's not anything too hard in the stock like bone fragments. They might be fine in the ricer but they may be problematic in the food mill.
Based on comments here, it seems like the mill is more versatile. Everyone loves the ricer for potatoes but seem to prefer the mill otherwise, so your idea may be better.
User bobcatsteph3 says:

I only use my ricer for potatoes. With the food mill you can puree soups, make smooth tomato sauce, make easy, fantastic applesauce, and yes, mashed potatoes. And you can do all those things with the skin/peels on.
The food mill is harder to clean, and takes more storage space, but I really like OXO's, it's very easy to use, if I could only have one, I'd take the food mill.


Should I pre-cook sausages before scrambling into eggs?

It takes more heat/time to safely cook sausage than it does to fully cook eggs. This would be especially true for omelettes, where the egg is in contact with the hot pan, and the filling only warms indirectly. Add your expectation to start with cold sausage, and cooking the sausage and egg at the same time seems like a really bad idea. (Yes, you could just cook the whole assembly longer, but you'd end up with seriously vulcanized eggs.)

Be safe: cook the sausage, and then add the eggs.


It is safe to store celery in aluminum foil?

Yes, it's safe.  It's not acidic, and thus won't corrode the foil or cause it to leach in.

Personally, my favorite was to store celery is in the crisper, in a vented tupperware container, lightly moistened.  This extends lifetime somewhat.


I make gingerbread houses every year. Walls should be approximately 1/4 inch thick. I have found that cutting the pieces first to work best. Yes there is some spread, but when they come out of the oven, I replace the stencil and trim up any spread (for the straight outside edges, a pizza cutter works well). I know it sounds redundant, but sometimes I don't cut quick enough, or I am distracted by the phone, or any other number of things, if I only cut after  baking. With the items pre-cut, if I get distracted, I at least have a usable part. Granted I may have to shave any spread very gently with a microplane or the edge of a knife, but that is just what works for me.

I also will roll the dough out on parchment paper, cut and remove the excess, then slide the whole thing onto a pan for baking. This way, you don't get any "stretch" of your pieces. I have several square cookie cutters that I will use to cut out the windows and such. I make the windows rectangular by using the cookie cutter and cutting a square then moving it and cutting another half square. This is helpful because when the gingerbread comes out of the oven, you don't have to spend a lot of time with a knife trimming the inside of all the windows... you just punch any spread out with the cookie cutter.

As Sobachatina mentioned, melted sugar makes beautiful windows. I however, will lay the walls on a silicone mat and pour the sugar directly into the window holes. No need to "glue."

I'd hate for you to make a gingerbread house with the "wrong" icing. You want an icing that will dry rock hard, like cement. For this you will want to use "Royal Icing."

For larger houses, use canned goods to hold the walls in place while the icing dries. The house should be built at least one day before you start decorating, to be sure it has set up really good.


Reasons for Discarding the Core of the Onion When Chopping?

There is one reason I might do this. If the core is green, that is starting to form a sprout. I cut that out as it can be bitter. Otherwise I don't know why one would do that.


Why does fish broth made with frozen fish lack flavour?

I think it's not so much the fact that you're using frozen fish (which certainly isn't the best), but the fact that you've missed an important step: pan-frying the fish before making the soup. I can say that all fish soups I've had have always had the fish pan-fried before boiling, with ginger added, otherwise you just don't get the same flavour.

Another thing is, in a properly made soup, the fish should not have much fish flavour remaining as it should all be in the soup.

I would recommend retrying the soup with the same type of fish, but pan frying them and adding ginger. If the soup still does not taste great, it could be that the YFG you're buying just isn't very good, and you could consider using a different type of fish.

Here's a link I found supporting my assertion, with more detailed instructions:
http://www.chinesesouppot.com/4-soup-techniques/1195-how-to-make-milky-white-creamy-fish-soup


I'm sure you have not expericed the same thing with products other than yoghurt. It is difficult to standardize the taste and consistency of yoghurt despite of climate controlled manufacturing facilities because there are numerous factors other than just temperature. Also, the milk is not always the same despite of homogenization process.

In other words, it's not your mouth, it's the product which comes out different every time. It is also the case with artisan wines.


I added olive oil to my cake, but I haven’t baked it yet

First, you could bake it as planned. The taste may become less pronounced, especially in comparison to the other, still developing flavors from caramelizing and the Maillard reaction during baking.

There are quite a few cake recipes that use olive oil (so it’s not necessarily a bad idea), and often they use citrusy and slightly savory flavor combinations, e.g. a pound cake with rosemary and orange or a lemon cake. (Not sure whether olive oil would work too well with, say, milk chocolate.) You could take that approach as an inspiration: If there's still time, add e.g. some lemon peel. If not, you can combine the baked cake with a citrus marmalade or a glaze.


You don't say what type of rice pudding you want to make, and wikipedia lists quite a few. I'm assuming you want to make a traditional british baked rice pudding in this answer, but if not then it might be useful to clarify what you want to make, as many cultures make different rice puddings and use different rices to make them.

I think you can make rice pudding with any short grained white rice. Traditional 'pudding rice' is just a cheap short grain rice, but you could use arborio, the traditional short grain risotto rice or sushi rice and get a similar result. This article outlines attempts at using a few different rices, with varying degrees of success.

The key to getting it soft when cooking is probably just a function of having enough liquid. Too little liquid and it'll stay firm, more than enough and it'll go soft & squidgy. Starchy rice (which white short grain typically is) will give you the sticky, gloopy rice pudding consistency.

This question might also be useful


Why is the chicken in Indian food so tender?

It is a combination of the marinade (with yoghurt and lemon juice probably being the main factors in the tenderness) and the hot, fast cooking in the tandoor, further enhanced by the use of metal skewers which conduct the heat to the middle of the meat quickly. A good tandoor chef will time the cooking perfectly so that the meat is safely cooked but hasn't dried out.


Can I substitute agar-agar for gelatin in pudding?

Agar is not a good choice for pudding because it makes a brittle gel and it won't melt in your mouth at body temperature. What you want for pudding is a starch based thickener. What we call pudding in the US at least is typically thickened with cornstarch. Modified starches like Ultra-Tex 3 can also work well. Are you thinking of something more along the lines of panna cotta, which does normally have gelatin in it? If so, you might try carageenan instead of agar. Here's a recipe that looks promising: http://irishherault.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/vegetarian-panna-cotta/


What exactly is "Japanese" Salt and Pepper?

They may have been trying to describe "salt and Japanese pepper". Japanese pepper is unrelated to black pepper, but closely related to Sichuan pepper; its flavor has been described as "lemony" and it has a "numbing" quality. It's also known as "sansho". Mixtures of pre-ground sansho and salt are readily available in Asian grocery stores. This mixture is commonly sprinkled on grilled meats, so this would be my guess.

Of course, it's also possible they meant black and/or white pepper. There's a number of varietals of peppercorn, and how they are roasted, stored, and ground will have a significant effect on the taste.


What alternatives do exists for properly squeezing lemons?

A lemon wedge squeezer may be what you want.
They are
and the lemon wedge .

(Pictures from Amazon.com)


how do i make a regular chocolate syrup get solid?

You'll have to get it pretty cold to get it to freeze. Due to freezing point depression, all of the dissolved sugar in that syrup will give it a freezing point of well below 32F. There are a variety of freezing point calculators available online, most of which probably call for more chemical knowledge of the solution that is available. I can find one source claiming that simple syrup freezes at around 18F though.


I definitely think you should cook it down.  I sometimes use canned whole tomatoes to make sauce by slicing them open and letting the liquid out, and combining that with the liquid from the can and whatever else (e.g, a bit of white wine).

I roast the tomato solids under a broiler with some sweet onion and garlic (starting the onion 5-10 minutes before anything else).  While that's happening I reduce the liquid by half, so it is a bit syrupy.  Exactly how much you boil off I guess depends on your ratio of solids to liquid.   The whole process takes maybe 20 minutes, then I combine the two in a blender.  If it's too thin or too thick, you can always reduce it further or add some water.

Roasting the tomato solids gives the sauce an enhanced flavour.  Credit where it's due: I got this idea from Alton Brown's "Good Eats" -- but I don't recommend the specifics of his recipe, which involve way, way too much vinegar, sugar and capers.  There's no strict recipe needed anyway; just add whatever you  normally would (or wouldn't).  Reducing a liquid and broiling tomatoes is pretty straightforward.


What can I cook for Indian guests without trying to mimic Indian cuisine?

If Belgian food is anything like the Dutch food my Oma made, your best bet is to limit it to the dessert course and strike out in a different direction.  Even there, throwing in an extra pinch of salt and a little fresh ginger or cardamom powder may help liven it up for your friends.

One area where you'll both be happy: Mediterranean/Middle-Eastern fare.  If you pick a recipe with plenty of aromatic herbs and spices, and maybe yogurt, it'll have the rich flavors your friends are used to. However, they won't be the same dishes they have at home, so they can't compare unfavorably to their mom or auntie's cooking.  Flatbreads, kebabs, braised lamb, goat, yogurt sauces... these will be familiar elements, but by using Mediterranean or Middle-Eastern versions, you'll give them a taste of the exotic too.

Using South or Central American cuisine will have similar results; dishes rich in pungent chilis, cumin,  and coriander will combine elements of comfort food with something new.  Indian chapatis and naan (flatbreads) are very similar to homemade tortillas.  It goes without saying that beef is to be avoided.  Depending on what part of India your guests are from, coconut milk and tamarind paste may be other familiar elements to play with.

Portugal also has a fine tradition of spicy foods, including the Vin d'alho which Indian adapted into the now-familiar vindaloo.

If you don't feel comfortable with these cuisines, you might do Indian, but with a fusion twist.  I found that Saag Paneer with blocks of feta instead of paneer is absolutely divine.  Halloumi cheese might work well too.  In fact, I'd say it's better than the original dish.

A word on dietary restrictions:
Presumably you know your friends' dietary needs, but if they're bringing new acquaintances it is wise to give some thought to dietary restrictions.  Many Indians are Hindus, who do not eat beef, and another major fraction are Muslim.  Muslims follow a dietary law called halal, which is very similar to kosher law, and likewise excludes pork and animal blood.  It also excludes alcohol... which means a spicy tamarind-port pork marinade isn't viable.
A sizable part of the Indian population is also vegetarian, so any meal should include a vegetarian entree.


Mustard is mostly vinegar, so instead of diluting mustard with water, try vinegar, or vinegar and water.


My chocolate-chip cookie expanded after baking

There are many reasons why this can be happening, cookies will spread more if the oven is not at the right temperature, try preheating for 20 minutes before you put cookies in the oven. Our ovens sometimes change through time and it might not be  hot enough. Another thing could be that you added more sugar than before, sugar tends to make the cookies also spread if you add more that you were supposed too. Another one could be, since air will cause cookies to spread, you don't want to whip too much air into the cookie dough when you're creaming the butter and sugar together. Only cream for as long as it takes to combine the butter and sugar, which might only be 30 seconds or so. Beyond that and you're just incorporating too much air. SO check on this things and maybe something here rings a bell, this has happened to me when I have substituted margarine for butter, and sometimes yeah I tend to cream a bit long cause I get distracted. So yup check on this things :)


What is the shelf life for candy with fresh butter?

I agree with Jay. If you live in a hot city (with temperatures above 30°C), I wouldn´t keep it out of the fridge more than a couple hours. Otherwise they should last at least five hours at room temperature.


Why does my De Buyer pan cause food to burn?

Then you aren't using "low to medium heat". The heat is defined by how quickly your food cooks, not by the setting on the stove. Lower your heat until the food fries at a reasonable rate. As for the oil, if in doubt, err on the side of adding a bit more than you think you'll need.


Hard cheese usually uses rennet, and a mechanical cheese press to extract as much whey as possible, and usually a long aging (drying) time to make it hard.

I think there may be a discrepancy between the original poster's definition of "hard" cheese and what is generally known as hard cheese like Grana Padano, Cheddar, and others.

The process the OP is describing sounds like how one would make fresh paneer, and "hard" in this case might be more like the texture of "firm" tofu.


Safety of Sous-Vide for long cooking times

The reduction or elimination of pathogens in cooked food is not simply a factor of temperature, but a factor of temperature AND time. Lower temps typically mean longer cooks.  This changes the texture of the final product.  Sometimes to the point that people find it unpleasant to eat. You will need to factor in the thickness of the cut, and the desired effect you are looking for, in order to determine the length of your cook.  Your best bet is to look here for a comprehensive treatment of the subject.  In fact, Baldwin has a short section on brisket.


Why do Irish & British sausages have soft casings?

There are many potential variables here, particularly if the sausages are made with natural casings.  More likely it has to do with the actual casing source.  Casings from beef are different consistency from casings from hogs and from lambs.  I have found that hog casings are the softest that I have used, but I am in the US, not in Britain or Ireland.  I have also found that casings from different suppliers are different.  The ones I can buy locally in small quantities tend to be much tougher than the ones that I purchase online from a commercial provider.

I am guessing you have a situation where the sausage makers in Britain and Ireland have access to very high quality casings that are softer.

Some of this may be due to the diet of or the breed of animals that provide the casings.


How can I tell if this is baking soda or powder?

Baking powder contains starch, which is insoluble.

Baking soda is completely soluble

Take a small bowl, and put 1/8 tsp of the substance in the bottom.

Add water.

If the substance is bicarbonate of soda, the solution will be completely clear.

If it is baking powder, a cloudy/powdery residue will remain.

(You can also use excess vinegar which gives the same result, and fizzes in a pleasingly sciencey fashion...)


Minimizing or Controlling the Flavor of Infused Butter

Flavour infusion is mostly a chemical process and without some serious tools, chemistry, and knowledge you'll have tough time dictating what you want infused.  Sort of like sending a bunch of kids to a Smarties jar and hoping the blue ones are left behind.

As time progresses more and more compounds that can dissolve in butter do, and with more concentration.

The best suggestion I have is to experiment with different lengths of time at different temperatures (freezer even) in the hopes that the ones you'd like to keep away are bigger and take longer to dissolve.

Your other option is to do the opposite and dissolve the stuff you don't want in water or another butter batch and once you have a good base, infuse a fresh batch of butter with the remaining (good flavours).  Though given your base herb this may be undesired.


Do pressure-cooked vegetables really have nothing else to give?

After extended pressure cooking (or any liquid cooking, for that matter) the vegetables' cell walls (composed primarily of flavorless starch) have broken down to the point where they're barely holding together, and are basically mush.  Most of the flavor and nutrients contained within those cells has escaped into the liquid at that point.  There might be a bit left in the solids to extract, but very little practical way to do so.

It's probably more accurate to say that the vegetables have given up enough that they're unpalatable. You could eat them, but they wouldn't be anywhere as pleasant as fresh vegetables, and would offer little nutrition separate from the broth itself.

I suppose you could puree them (though you'd be turning flavorless, starchy mush into smoother flavorless, starchy mush) but they have little culinary value left. At most they would be filling, but probably unpleasant to eat.

On the other hand, if you look outside of culinary applications, they make great compost.


Looking for some advice on why brown bits burned

Stirring and scraping would prevent burned bits. The onions and peppers release water as they cook the mechanical action of stirring and scraping pulls up the brown bits before they burn and incorporates them into the peppers and onions.


White residue emerging while cooking bacon

The answer is related to a similar issue appearing in this question.

Basically, that residue is mostly water, along with denatured proteins from the meat.  When meat is cooked and the cells expel moisture, there are a lot of dissolved proteins which sometimes make the liquid light-colored and thick.

People tend to notice it more with certain meats than others.  With bacon, it tends to show up a little more because a lot of commercial bacon is now wet-cured by injection.  The extra moisture in the bacon flows out quicker during cooking and carries protein with it.  This is also more of a problem with thinner cuts of bacon, since the more "damaged" cells, the more this protein leaks out.  Thinner cut bacon -- like the ground beef mentioned in the link above -- has a higher ratio of cut and damaged cells than thick-cut bacon.  (There are other factors that can add to this too, e.g., freezing, which also damages cells.)

It's safe to eat, though not particularly pleasant textured or tasty.  Rinsing the bacon wouldn't help.  A few ways to lessen it:

Try a different brand of bacon, perhaps one that adds less moisture
Buy thicker bacon
Cook more slowly: this may not help much with some bacon, but the faster the meat cooks up and shrinks, the faster the liquid flows out
If possible, buy traditional dry-cured bacon with no liquid injected (sometimes hard to find these days)


Do I need to grind Ceylon Cinnamon sticks for coffee/tea, or can I add them whole?

Most people just use ready-ground cinnamon.
It's much cheaper & just stirs in with no chewy, twiggy bits.
Of course, it looks a whole lot better with en entire stick of cinnamon bark sticking out of a tall, elegant glass/mug, but the amount of flavour you're going to get from it is going to be minimal in comparison.
If you're cooking with cinnamon, it will simmer for several hours, after which you pick out the bits & throw them away. You could see how much flavour you get from one steeped in hot water for 15 minutes or so & it might be enough, but I'd save the sticks for a long-cook, or for when you need the look, rather than when you just need a hint of cinnamon in a tea or coffee.
I have never actually tried it myself [I keep both in the cupboard, ground & sticks], but I doubt you'll get a smooth-enough powder from any home-grinder if you try to DIY.


looking for a substitute for liquor in a cake recipe

If your objection is merely to using liquor then I would suggest Brandy Extract, technically, yes it does contain a wee bit of alcohol, like all good extracts, but it is inconsequential. (There are several good Brandy Extracts, the link is provide as an example, not an endorsement)

If you are simply 'out of brandy' and seeking a substitute, Whiskey or Bourbon would likely carry the closest flavor profile.


Can I use liquid-form sugar to replace powdered-form sugar in meringue or sponge cake?

In theory you should be able to replace the sugar with a liquid form. The purpose of sugar in meringue is to stabilize the foam generated by the whipping. It does this by preventing the foam from drying out and collapsing as the structure becomes weaker from a lack of water. Hence anything that can retain the water will help.
The one major difficulty that you might encounter is that liquid sugars contain water already, so they might make the foam too liquid/soft to retain the meringue texture. You may be able to overcome this by whipping a lot more, but it might not work. To get around this you could substitute some of the sugar with guar gum or xanthan gum, at 0.04%, both of which appear to stabilize the foam formation (PDF; see page 88).


What is the best way to store stock in the freezer?

When I want to freeze portions of almost anything liquid (including stocks and sauces), I use a covered ice cube tray like OXO Good Grips.  Just spoon it into the tray and throw it in the freezer.  Easy!  Keeps very well, and makes it very easy to portion out later.

The OXO product is my favourite, but it's not too hard to find generic substitutes at any superstore.  Try to find one with a soft bottom so you don't struggle for 5 minutes trying to get the cubes out and then scraping the sides for all the bits you left behind.


Would it be advisable to partially pre-grill hamburgers and freeze so that they can be pan fried when a customer orders?

I understand the challenges of running a small restaurant, I've experienced the extremes of the problems. During tourist season I always hired help, but during winter it was just me - Bartender, waitress, cook, dishwasher, bookkeeper, janitor - you name it. Occasionally buses would pull up and unload 30 people on me at once, of course I was never prepped for that. I had some tricks up my sleeve just for that occurrence.

As far as par-cooking your burgers in advance, don't do it. You will lose juiciness, I know this from experience. Besides, if you fully cook par-cooked burgers from frozen, you're really not saving any time after they're ordered. Grill marks don't matter, you don't see them anyway. You're much better off being sure that the patties are of excellent quality to begin with.

The scope of your question is such that all I can really say is, "Don't do it." I do have about about a gazillion things I could share with you that might help speed up your service, minimize waste and put out a great product. Meet me in chat, I'm here quite a bit. You could also write questions that are a bit more broad. I'd love to help in a meaningful way.


How do I get my pizza dough base really crispy?

This may be more of a function of cooking surface and temperature, but there are a couple of other issues too.  Traditional Neapolitan pizza is fermented at least overnight (which reduces the the need to knead intensely because gluten develops over that time).  This type of pizza dough has a fairly high hydration and no oil. We are talking 70% hydration.  You will also want to use 00 flour, which is milled powdery soft.  It's cooked on a stone surface at a very high temperature  (600 - 700F), for a short time (2 -3 minutes). Thus achieving a crisp exterior. If you have a wood fired oven, I would recommend your first experiment be a high-hydration dough with 00 flour, and an overnight ferment.  There is also a technique to stretching this dough.  I am sure you can find some videos on the net, but it does result in a center that is thinner than the edges, as another poster suggested.  Do not use a rolling pin to stretch your dough as you will ruin the effect.


Should I sear sous-vide chicken breasts?

I would sear. It is not necessary, really, but I prefer the texture and flavor that comes with a good sear. To me, while it would be moist and tender, it would also be rather uninteresting. Bear in mind much of this is driven by personal preference.


What is the white film on my wet carrots?

Even though the surface may be wet, that white stuff is dehydration. It's the cells that are drying on the inside, not the surface of the carrot. It's referred to as "blushing", and it is harmless. Baby carrots are adult carrots that have been cut and polished. That polishing removes the very outer surface, making the baby carrots more susceptible to blushing than full sized carrots.

See related article here.

EDIT: I should have mentioned, soak the carrots in ice water for an hour right before you use them. That will temporarily get rid of most of the discoloration.

This is what the carrots look like when they are dehydrated:


Hardcooked eggs by steaming (not boiling)

This may not be the fool-proof magical solution you are looking for, but I normally steam duck eggs or large hens eggs in a bamboo steamer over a pan of boiling water on medium-high heat for 15 minutes. 12 minutes would be adequate for a medium hen's egg.

These are the timings for a hard boiled egg, UK sizes, and always produce a delicious, perfectly cooked egg with a bouncy white and smooth, fudgy yolk.


Blind baking is indeed just baking without a filling — it can be fully or partially.  Typically you do this because your filling will either need to bake for a shorter time than your crust (a quiche for example) or not at all (a pie filled with some kind of pre cooked/set custard).  It can also be done to help 'set' a crust against a filling that will make it rather soggy.

Oftentimes you will want something neutral in the shell to keep it from becoming a big bubbly, puffed up crust. This may be in the form of formal 'pie weights' or just a piece of parchment paper and some dry beans will suffice.

I have no idea why it's called blind baking, but the English.SE site is notoriously good at word origins.


Do Morrocan-stye pickled lemons really need 5 to 10% salt?

As I understand it, you may be seeing some confusion between two very different processes.  When making sauerkraut, you are fermenting cabbage in brine, and the fermentation gives sauerkraut its characteristics.  I believe this means you need to have or introduce the right microbes, and give them time and space and the right environment to work, and prevent oxidation (keep it submerged), especially since you need access to the air to vent the gasses being produced, things like that?

Pickling, at least these kinds of (brine?) pickles, are not the same thing.  To make this sort of pickle, you are steeping the food in a sterilizing brine, one high in acid (usually vinegar) and salt and sometimes other preservatives, and all sorts of things that microbes don't like.  The changes that happen are nothing more than the food steeping in the brine, and osmoisis-ing the brine and food into equilibrium.  The food doesn't even have to age much in pickling - it gets the most flavor into the food, but there are shortcuts (like chopping smaller or making various "quick-pickle" recipes) which is simply not possible with fermented recipes.

The point is, fermentation preserves, it keeps food from spoiling, by using friendly microbes to out-compete the microbes that spoil the food.  Brine pickling intends not to let any microbes grow, because the pH is too low, the salt is too high, the environment is generally not microbe-friendly.  Fermentation is fussier (needs lots of variables right), but it is also transformative.  Brine pickling is easier, but also tends to produce much stronger flavors (especially at preservation strength).

At some point, I think, "fermented pickles" became a term, or the results of fermentation were also referred to as being pickled and the terms overlapped, or something - and certainly you can ferment lemons, if using much less salt (especially given your commenters' mention).  But judging by the recipes I saw, it looks like the Moroccan preserved lemons your source quoted at 5-10% salt are simply preserved, not fermented - left in a brine with salt and acid, which were intended to keep the food unspoiled.  So the problem may be that you're mixing up two very different preserving methods, that happen to be a little bit similar and are for some confusing reason called by identical names.


That is wax, it's done to help keep the moisture in the root. Turnips are also.

You know it's getting along when it gets soft and spongy or when the skin starts to wrinkle, same with turnips, beets, parsnips, carrots....You pretty much can tell whether they are good or not in exactly the same ways. Are the firm and crisp or soft, flabby and spongy?


How to know if frozen clams are good when cooked

Per

http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodstorage/a/clamstorage.htm

  Do not freeze clams in their shells. To freeze clams, shuck them,
  being careful to save their liquid. Rinse with salt water (1
  tablespoon of salt to 1 quart of water), and place in a container with
  the reserved clam liquid and additional salt water so they are
  completely covered. Frozen clams will last up to 3 months at 0 degrees
  F. Thaw frozen clams in the refrigerator before using, and never
  refreeze them.

While About.com is not always the best, in this case their information passes the gut test.  Frozen clams certainly would be killed, and so wouldn't open upon steaming.

The thing about never refreeze is almost certainly a palatability issue, not a safety issue, as long as they stay in the safe zone (under 40 degrees F) and are not unfrozen for very long--but clams are highly perishable. I would exercise considerable safety.

Sadly, I found conflicting information saying freezing them in the shell is okay--but they didn't offer any detail at all, so I its hard to give credence to:

http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/freeze/clams.html

despite their being a university sponsored site.

Being conservative, I would cook then freeze.


What's this yellow plum-like fruit with a spiky stone? West Africa

Best guess:  June Plum, apparently underripe.

Another page has pictures of june plums that match your photo quite well:

All the photos above are of the same type of fruit at different stages of ripeness.
Scientific name Spondias Dulcis:

Spondias dulcis (syn. Spondias cytherea), known commonly as ambarella, is an equatorial or tropical tree, with edible fruit containing a fibrous pit. It is known by many other names in various regions, including kedondong in Indonesia, buah long long among the Chinese population in Singapore, pomme cythere in Trinidad and Tobago,1 Dominica, Guadeloupe, and Martinique,2 June plum in Bermuda and Jamaica,1 mangotín in Panama, juplon in Costa Rica, golden apple in Barbados and Guyana, golden plum in Belize, jobo indio in Venezuela, cajá-manga and cajarana in Brazil and São Tomé and Príncipe, quả cóc in Vietnam, manzana de oro in Dominican Republic, cas mango in Cameroon. In Republic of Maldives Anbulha.
Spondias dulcis is most commonly used as a food source. In West Java, its young leaves are used as seasoning for pepes. In Costa Rica, the more mature leaves are also eaten as a salad green though they are tart. However, it is most commonly used for its fruit.
The fruit may be eaten raw; the flesh is crunchy and a little sour. According to Boning (2006): "The fruit is best when fully colored, but still somewhat crunchy. At this stage, it has a pineapple-mango flavor. The flesh is golden in color, very juicy, vaguely sweet, but with a hint of tart acidity."5 In Indonesia and Malaysia, it is eaten with shrimp paste, a thick, black, salty-sweet sauce called hayko in the Southern Min dialect of Chinese. It is an ingredient in rujak in Indonesia and rojak in Malaysia. The juice is called kedondong in Indonesia, amra in Malaysia, and balonglong in Singapore.
The fruit is made into preserves and flavorings for sauces, soups, and stews. In Fiji it is made into jam. In Samoa and Tonga it is used to make otai. In Sri Lanka the fruit is soaked in vinegar with chili and other spices to make the snack food acharu. In Vietnam the unripe fruit is eaten with salt, sugar, and chili, or with shrimp paste. Children eat the fruit macerated in artificially sweetened licorice extract. In Jamaica, it is mostly considered a novelty, especially by children. It can be eaten with salt or made into a drink sweetened with sugar and spiced with ginger. In Trinidad and Tobago, it is curried, sweetened, salted, or flavored with pepper sauce and spices. In Cambodia it is made into a salad called nhoum mkak. In Suriname, the fruit is dried and made into a spicy chutney, mixed with garlic and peppers. In Thai cuisine both the fruits and the tender leaves are eaten.


Do I need to use sterilized jars straight away?

You should be packing the jars while they are still hot, for rawpacked or hot-packed products. For hot-packed products, this helps avoid the risk of the jar breaking.

For great instructions on how to can at home, see the National Center for Home Food Preservation.


Chocolate IS tricky to get right, and I have had mixed results using a double boiler, I have also tried using a microwave- ten seconds intervals, checking temperature each time and waiting till the chocolate is good and warm before stirring. I have also used this method- place chocolate in a plastic bag and leave it in a warm sunbeam or outside if it is a warm day until melted, IF you have the patience for this method, I have consistently had good results with this method. In regards to your concerns about air bubbles, I would definetely use either room temperature molds or warm molds, gently banging the molds on your contertop after you add the chocolate will cause air bubbles to rise to the top. I would also suggest letting the chocolate cool to room temperature on your countertop before placing in the fridge to harden. Hope this helps.


Why cut and discard the base of asparagus, before dipping in water?

For the same reason as you re-trim the last inch or so from a bunch of flowers before putting them in a vase.

The damaged cells at the original cut will have dried & sealed themselves by the time you get it home. That damage may now be extending up the next part of the stems. Cutting off another inch exposes fresh cells, still capable of drawing up water.


How safe is it to harvest wild sassafras?

I have been cooking with sassafras roots for years, all wild, as taught by my Indian Lore classes in scouting, and what I teach to current scouts.  I also have taught specific recipes with the leaves, but only as flavoring in steaming and such, never eating (not for harm or issues, but because of the bitter aftertaste of the leaves)

As far as your actual questions:

How true is this?
Is there a way to ensure safety in my cooking (beyond scrapping the project altogether)?

For 1, I would have to say that they are true, but also clinical, and I have not been able to discover any documentation that sassafras directly harms humans, only that some of the compounds found in sassafras are harmful at higher levels, and given that the plants are wild, the concentration levels are unknown.

For 2, I would say that one standard root (approx 6 inches in length of varying circumferences) is good for about a half of a gallon to a gallon of water, boiled 2 to three times.   If you want a concentrated flavor, boil the water down, and you will get a more potent mixin liquid.   (also used for making beers, and ales - ginger ale included, both alcoholic and non alcoholic)


Tiny bit of mold on maple syrup—can I still bottle it?

Not many molds can live in a substance with such a low water activity. They call those things "xerophiles": they're the food equivalent of those bacteria that grow in cyanide and lava and crap like that...Foodie extremophiles.

These are probably some kind of wallemiomycetes. I can't find any information on whether or not they're toxic, but, generally if you have any kind of mold infestation, it will affect the taste.


Can I defrost chicken to separate then refreeze?

Technically if it was defrosted in safe conditions you could refreeze without too much fear of
contamination, but that's not the main issue - quality is. Refreezing meat usually results in a horrible, mushy texture, because of the cell damage caused by freezing. Look for individually vac-wrapped parts if you can find them.


Can this silver-colored skillet be put and used in ovens for baking?

If the skillet is entirely made out of metal, then yes, you can use this in the oven. If there are any non-metal parts or coatings, it depends on what those are. Without manufacturer information about oven safety, in the latter case I wouldn't risk it.


How something has been stored is almost as important as how long it's been stored.  If the packaging is intact, and it was stored in a cool, dark place, odds are that it will still rise just fine.
If you want to take some extra precautions to ensure a rise, there are two simple things that you can do:

Add a little extra baking powder (not baking soda) to the mix.  Maybe 1/4 to 1/2 tsp, as it's not really all that old.
Add extra air.  If it's a cake mix that calls for eggs, separate the eggs, whip the egg whites (in a clean, non-plastic bowl), and then fold that into everything else (that's already been mixed together).

You do risk ending up with a cake that might be a bit too light -- more chiffon / souffle like, rather than the standard texture.
You can also use the cake mix as an ingredient in other dishes.  Besides the various 'dump cake' recipes out there, as it's mostly sugar and flour, you can add oatmeal and butter to it to make a streusel topping.
It's also worth noting that a 'flat cake' generally isn't that bad.  Forgetting to add leavening to a chocolate cake was supposedly the origins of the brownie.  Even the worst cake can be used as layers in a trifle, be dried and crumbled over ice cream or a parfait, or used to make a bread pudding (but avoid sugar in the custard so it's not overly sweet)


Chocolate cake baked from recipe is too delicate/fragile

With a batter like this there are several things that can go wrong. My first guess would be, that the cake would have come out much different had you made the full recipe. When using only a third of the batter you have an increase in surface area compared to the inside of the cake. Not knowing the exact circumstances, I assume your cake dried out a bit too much while baking, especially around the edge. Higher cakes tend to be a bit more moist and also a bit more dense, which makes them more stable.

Another thing could be, that you didn't let the cake cool enough, before removing the parchment.


How to remove the distinct flavor of vital wheat gluten when making faux meat?

One way to avoid the vital wheat gluten taste is to develop wheat gluten directly from flour (a somewhat popular food in China). To do so, make a dough of bread flour and water, knead it well, rest 2-3 hours, then "wash" the dough in water until most of the starch has been rinsed away. The result is a high protein/water mass that I assume could be used in faux meats, that will taste highly umami (from wheat protein's glutamate), but not unpleasant like vital wheat gluten.

To wash the dough, submerge it in a bowl of water in the sink and rub it (like handwashing clothing). Change out the water until it turns clean. This process can take ~15-30 minutes and 10+ changes. It's a hassle, but the result, if done well, will have an amazing chew and flavor.

This method has a low yield. One method to increase it involves adding a small percentage of vital wheat gluten to the flour. This increases yield without really effecting flavor, though adding too much can make the dough unpleasantly tougher. Another method to increase yield may be to add salt.


What can I do with a lot of fresh tarragon?

Most fresh herbs can be used to make infusions to use when the herbs are out of season.  You can infuse oil, vinegar, simple syrup or vodka depending on what sort of dishes you typically cook.

You can also make herb sauces (take inspiration from a chimichurri or pesto, but substitute for the herbs you have on hand) or herb butters (mix chopped herbs with softened butter, shape into a log, then chill or freeze).


You should be ok as long as it is properly cooked (boiled)
People will often (re)use juices from raw meat in sauces.
For example, you can use the leftover marinade as a base for a sauce.


Is it possible to purchase Disodium Ribonucleotides (E635) in consumer/small quantities?

Alibaba looks like the place to look for "inosinic acid" "food grade"
Amazon India has it, but it looks like no one has bought it yet, and you'd have to figure out their currency system.

If you buy the free acid, you can just take the pH up with sodium hydroxide.


Closest thing to a donut I can drink coffee out of

As far as foods that double as dishes, off the top of my head I could only thing of a bread bowl for soup. You could certainly drink coffee out of a bread bowl, but I don't think it will be enjoyable.

A bit of googling leads me to:

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680504/a-cookie-coffee-cup-thats-easy-to-recycle-just-eat-it

The trick behind this is that it's a cookie lined with "special icing sugar" that works as a semi-waterproof barrier and an insulator. It will dissolve over a long enough time, though, and will sweeten the coffee as it sits in the cup. I can't find any information on when it hits stores, but it's a Lavazza product.


Does placing a metal spoon in an open bottle of sparkling wine (etc.. .) help keep its fizz?

As a beer brewer, I'm pretty concerned with fizz ;)  Since the below may be a little tl;dr, the short answer to your question is, "I don't think so."

This is actually the first time I've heard of the metal spoon "trick", so I can't directly comment on that, but I'll share a little of what I know about carbonation.

Carbonation is carbon dioxide (CO2) that is dissolved in the liquid (beer, champagne, soda).  The fizz is that CO2 coming out of solution and escaping into the air.

Keeping it cold helps keep the fizz, as CO2 dissolves more readily into a cold liquid.  And conversely, comes out of a warm liquid more readily.  Ever pour a glass of warm soda or champagne straight after opening?  It'll foam over everywhere.

The only way to not lose all that CO2 is to seal the container.  Even then, the CO2 will come out of solution and pressurize the headspace (space in the top of the container).  That's why you get a hiss when you first open a bottle.

Again, temperature comes into play.  In a warm bottle, more of the CO2 comes out of solution and pressurizes the headspace.  Chill that same bottle down, and the CO2 can dissolve back into the liquid, giving you a sparkling beverage again.

Now, back to the spoon.  I would think that putting a spoon in the carbonation liquid would produce nucleation points, causing the CO2 to come out of solution faster.  This is why many beer glass manufacturers are coming out with laser-etched designs on the bottom of their glasses - the effervescence caused by the nucleation points helps bring out the hop aromas.


Can I freeze all cookie dough? How far in advance can I make it?

All baking dough does well in the freezer for a few days. But I'd suggest not thinking of meringue cookie mixture as cookie dough... it's an entirely different animal. I think of dough as anything with lots of flour and a decent amount of fat and moisture in it. You can't freeze anything with whipped egg whites and expect it to survive. You can't even leave whipped egg whites to settle on the counter for very long before they start to loose the air bubbles you've worked so hard to incorporate.


What is the US equivalent of Golden Syrup (UK)?

Honeycomb can be made with honey or molasses but the flavor will not be the same. There isn't a US equivalent - we have molasses, but it's darker. You can substitute corn syrup in recipes where it isn't the principal ingredient, but here that would not work.

That being said, my local grocery store has a British food section which carries golden syrup. You probably don't have to substitute, you just need to find it in your local grocer.


Do I have to defrost chicken before cooking?

Not a great idea. The oven cooks from the outside in, so by the time your chicken is done on the outside, it'll still be uncooked on the inside. If you cook it longer so it cooks through, the outside will be as tough as shoe leather and the inside will be just lukewarm enough to encourage microorganisms (that may have survived the freezer) to fester, which could sicken you.

Put it in the pan the night before, cover it (or not, as Alton Brown sometimes suggests), and put the pan in the refrigerator. When you get home from work or whatever, preheat the oven to 450 F, season it, and bake until done. When is it done? It's done when:

  The chicken is done when an instant-read thermometer reads 165 degrees
  F when inserted into the thickest part of the thigh (the legs of the
  chicken should wiggle easily from the sockets too.) Remove the chicken
  to a platter and let stand for 10 minutes, so the juices settle back
  into the meat before carving.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/the-ultimate-roast-chicken-recipe/index.html

Note that some would say 165 F is over done, but safe is better than losing a kidney to E. coli or other nasty microbeasties.


Is that bechamel that Gordon Ramsay is adding to the lasagna?

Gordon says "white sauce", which is a simpler term for bechamel-based sauces and is quite common when making lasagna.

Yet the stuff that gets stirred in the bowl looks somewhat "fluffier" than classic bechamel and when it's piped has a "raggedness" that plain bechamel doesn't have, but smoother that pure ricotta.

My conclusion: it's hard to say for certain, but to me it looks like a mixture of both.


How do you infuse the flavor of a sauce into chicken?

You can't do it, it's physically not possible. Your meat will always taste of meat, not of sauce. Meat is not some kind of sponge which can soak up sauce, it's a dense muscle.

If you want more flavorful meat, you can buy more flavorful meat. Most meat you can get in the supermarket is tasteless, because 1) people don't really like meat flavor if they are not accustomed to it (see the recent mutton question), 2) it's cheaper to raise tasteless meat (young chicken vs. soup hen) and 3) you need a fattier meat to have more flavor, but people prefer lean meats nowadays. Still, the meat will then taste of meat, not of sauce.

If you find your food way too tasteless, you can also consider preparations such as a meatloaf, where you can physically mix spices into the protein.


How long will food last in a refrigerator that is turned off?

[Edited] I think 10 hours would be safe enough for most food: the first couple of hours the fridge will still be quite cold, and after that it takes more than a few ours for most food to spoil. When I leave milk out of the fridge for three hours at room temperature (say, 20 °C), nothing happens. I do this often. And the temperature inside the fridge will never reach room temperature in those 10 hours. When it is really hot in summer, it might spoil after 2 hours outside the fridge, but otherwise it takes much longer.

Cheese, food in jars, sauces, leftover cooked food: none of these are more sensitive to spoiling than milk. Fresh herbs are probably equally sensitive. Eggs are much less sensitive. The most sensitive kinds of food I can think of are probably raw meat and raw fish without preservatives. Smoked or salted meat and fish do not count: they can be kept much longer. I think even raw meat and fish will pull through, but you might want to apply the following tips to be sure.

Tip 1: put as much material in your fridge as possible, a day before the outage. That will "absorb the cold" that your fridge feeds it while power is still on. Then, once power goes out, the "cold reserve" in your fridge will be significantly increased, so that the average temperature of the interior will stay colder for a much longer time. The higher the volumetric heat capacity, the better. See this table ('volumetric heat capacity') for the best material; water probably wins. So stuffing bags of water in every nook and cranny would seem like a good idea. Or else bottles.

Tip 2: if you have a freezer, stuff it with bags and/or bottles of water, and put most of those in the fridge once power goes out (swap with some of the bags/bottles that were in the fridge). The freezer will probably do better, because it has much better insulation than the fridge. And put the most sensitive foods in the freezer maybe a few hours after power goes out (or maybe later—lest they freeze after all).

Actually, start putting as much water bags/bottles in the freezer as you can several hours before power goes out, and move them to the fridge once frozen. They will remain half-frozen for hours and hours in the fridge, so they will add extra coolness to the fridge. This way you're "saving up" cold from the freezer and increasing your cold reserve even more.

Tip 3: most refrigerators have a temperature slide/wheel/thing, which determines what temperature the thermostat aims at. You could set the slide to maximum power (so lowest temperature) a few hours before the power outage. Most people, including me, have the slide somewhere in the middle normally. The slide usually doesn't mark the exact temperature, but rather some symbols. It is usually found inside the refrigerator.

Tip 4: cook and/or eat any raw fish and meat before the outage. I think it would not be necessary at all if you follow the above tips, but cooking your meat now may just be simpler. Then either store the cooked meat or eat it. Incidentally, I wouldn't half-cook any meat: that may actually increase the rate of bacterial growth if it doesn't kill the bacteria completely. But something like salmon can be (fully) cooked first, reheated later.


As rumstcho said in comments, European flours operate on a completely different system than the American "protein = gluten = strength of flour" system.  Not to go too far into this, but American flours vary a lot depending on type of wheat.  "Harder" wheats produce higher gluten/protein flours.  If you buy American "pastry/cake" vs. "all-purpose" vs. "bread flour" vs. "high-gluten", a lot of the difference will often be due to the precise type of wheat used.  In some cases (especially all-purpose), the flour can actually be a blend of multiple wheat types.

But dough strength is not only impacted by total protein content or type of wheat.  European flours often vary significantly in "extraction" rate, which is how much of the bran and germ are removed from the pure white starch.  This also happens in American flours, particularly for cake and pastry flours where pure starch is more desirable.  This also changes the "ash content" of the flour, which is basically correlated to extraction and more-or-less denotes the amount of stuff leftover after the pure starch is burned away (which consists of various minerals, etc.).  Differences in milling procedure and size of milling particles can also significantly affect the way flour behaves by damaging the protein/gluten or by leaving larger particles of bran that can interfere with gluten networks (as in whole grain breads).

My point is that it's perfectly possible to have a "10% protein flour" that behaves close to a pastry flour or an all-purpose flour or even a bread flour in terms of various characteristics (gluten network formation and durability, elasticity, hydration tolerance, etc.).  For some applications, some European bakers will still use relatively low-protein flour by American standards for various types of breads, but because of differences noted above, sufficient rise is still possible.  But other characteristics may change (for example, a more tender crumb with different elasticity).

A final note is that stronger flours have become more common both in the U.S. and in Europe over the past century or two.  If you go back to the 1700s or 1800s, historical evidence suggests bread was often baked with much "weaker" flours in terms of gluten content than today.  Even a few decades ago in the U.S., "bread flour" was often a specialty item and "high-gluten" flour was unheard of for the average consumer.  My grandmother and mother baked bread for many decades ONLY ever using what would today be considered a somewhat "soft" all-purpose flour.  European standards have also changed significantly over the past century, so it's difficult to know exactly what Julia Child's flour was like beyond just the protein number.

And unless you have a close match to that original flour not only in protein content but the other characteristics I mentioned, you may have difficulty producing the original bread.  If you want to see some other folks struggling to replicate Julia's bread using modern French flours (which are probably still not a match to Julia's original flour), I'd suggest a look at this thread.

Regardless, if you want to make bread recipes work with lower protein flours than they're expecting, do be prepared to decrease hydration significantly, and perhaps increase interventions during fermentation to maximize gluten strength (e.g., stretch-and-folds, using a pre-shaping and bench rest, good shaping technique in general).  My guess is that may the reason behind the "three rises" in the recipe you mention; if you're seeing failures, I'd recommend decreasing total fermentation time before bake and instead increase frequency of interventions to strengthen gluten.


How can you make bread from pizza dough?

Pizza dough is supposed to be stretchy and pliable, so it is going to be a bit loose. Given those characteristics it's not going to be able to hold a shape that well. You're best off aiming for a ciabatta shape, putting it into a tin or shaping basket. Best of all make a focaccia type bread with it by just spreading it out flat, letting it rise, then dimpling it with your fingers and pouring some olive oil and salt on it before baking.


the problem with ceramic knives and bones is that they are incredibly brittle. Any slip into bone can cause chips in your blade so I would just not use them when bones are involved.


Cork-like flavour in "tasteless" Xanthan Gum

OK to sum up what this is. This can be a multitude of things separate or combined. Since its a cork smell, i would say throw that batch out and get a new one and try it. If its the same thing, then report it on their website (If they have one) and just get a different brand. it might be molding, or staling of the gum. Either that or they make Juicy fruit gum out of the game stuff and its just not reliable. ANYWAYS, i would say get a different brand nonetheless and try that.


To summarize the comments:

Use common household tools (such as pliers) as improvised nutcrackers
Try using the bottle gripper/opener on kitchen shears as an improvised nutcracker
Use impact tools, such as a hammer, a heavy pan, or even cleaned rocks as nut smashers, but you may not get whole nutmeats with this method
Bite the bullet and buy or borrow a nutcracker

(This is part of my little quest to get answers to some of the non-answered questions....)


Why does my homemade pasta stick to itself whilst cooking?

I have that problem when I am impatient and don't let the pasta dry out long enough before putting it on to boil.

It is important to let the pasta dry even just in loose little heaps once sliced into noodles.  It doesn't have to get totally dry just dry enough that you can't squish the noodles back together into dough.

Also you need to cook fresh pasta for a very short amount of time in a LOT of water, about 1.5x as much water as you would use for dry, so that the noodles have less chance to run into each other.  In fact I frequently don't boil them at all separately but just toss them in the soup I am serving them with for for a two to three minutes before serving.


I forgot to add butter to my cupcakes but they were ok - why?

Butter (and basically any saturated fat) is added to cake recipes mostly as a way of adding texture to the final product. By adding the fat product to the recipe, you make the cupcakes light and fluffy. If you leave the butter out, it will affect the taste slightly and will cause the cupcake to stay smaller and more dense, as you noted, but it will still be perfectly edible and probably quite tasty.


Order of ingredients when making Pizza dough

I read two or three different questions here:

Should I dissolve yeast in water?
a. Should I proof yeast?
Should I mix wet ingredients into dry, or dry into wet?

1) You don't need to dissolve active dry yeast in lukewarm water anymore (if you're using some other kind of yeast, this may not apply).

  You may have heard over the past year or so that active dry yeast (ADY) has been reformulated into a smaller particle size, and can now be used without dissolving it first – as had always been the requirement....

  You don't need to dissolve active dry yeast in lukewarm water before using it. (Even though it still says you should dissolve it on the back of the yeast packet, if you buy your yeast in packets.)

"Active Dry Yeast: Do you really need to dissolve it first?" King Arthur Flour

1a) Proofing yeast doesn't improve anything in the dough, it's just a means for you to discover whether your yeast is still active. If you bought it relatively recently, from a relatively busy story, you probably don't need to worry.

Yeast packages often have expiration dates.  I've found them to be not all that accurate.

2) Typically we add wet to dry: Order of combining wet and dry ingredients when baking

The gist is, dry powdery substances tend to float on top of water and form a skin.  Adding the water to the flour (better) prevents this and tends to allow the wet ingredients to be incorporated more easily.

So, putting that together, you should mix the flour, salt and yeast (unless you think you need to proof it), then mix in the water (and oil, if you're using it).


What are possible substitutes for pineapple in sweet and sour pork/chicken?

The recipe title kind of answers the question--it is the sweet, and some of the sour.  Pineapple also has a good firmness.  Note that all of the below is speculation, as this is a most unusual substitution request, so I haven't tried any of this.

Fruit will best serve the role of both tart and sour, so almost every reasonable substitute is going to be fruit.

You have indicated you don't like the flavor of pineapple, which for your goal, is probably good as nothing else will provide that distinctive flavor.  While my first choice would be to not make this recipe, where you don't enjoy one of the signature ingredients, if you do, then you want something that:

Has a good body and mouth feel the way pineapple does, even after the pureeing called for in the cited recipe
A floral, complex flavor
Something sweet and tart

In the recipe you cite, the pineapple is canned, so you are not losing its enzymatic action, as the enzymes in the pineapple were deactivated by the heat during the canning process.

What comes first to my mind is mango, perhaps with a mixture of lime and orange juice to replace the acidity of the pineapple juice, and maybe a touch of sugar to balance the flavor.  You will have to find the right balance, depending on your particular fruit--you may want extra acidity from lemon juice, even, or perhaps extra sugar.  I would use something that adds complexity like brown sugar or turbadino depending on where you live if it is needed.

If you try this, however, you will be inventing essentially a new dish, and will have to work out how long to cook the mixture.

Another more radical choice would be canned peaches, perhaps using some of their syrup for sweetness, and again, lemon or lime juice mixed with orange juice for the acidity. This will probably be even more divergent, but peaches have a good floral complexity, and with enough lemon juice, you should be able to find the sweet/sour balance.  Of course, this would be far from authentic.


Why is my fried chicken batter soggy underneath?

Are you allowing the buttermilk to drip off completely? I would either decrease the mixture (a scant coating), as it appears to be too much for this method of frying, or use a pre-made coating which is a bit thinner.


How do I substitute proofed dried active yeast for fresh yeast?

In both cases, you don't add the recipe's amount of water to the proofed yeast. If your recipe says e.g. 500 g flour, 300 g water and 10 g fresh yeast, you measure these 300 ml water, then pour some of the 300 ml over 10 g of pressed yeast to proof it, adding a teaspoon of sugar if you want it quicker. After that, you mix flour, proofed yeast and the remaining water together (for simplicity, I left out salt and possible other ingredients).

You do it exactly the same way with dry yeast, only you have to use the correct substitute ratio, which is 3:1. So you measure 300 ml of water and (1/3)*10 g = 3.3 g of dry yeast. Then you pour some of the 300 g of water over the dry yeast, and after it has bloomed, you mix flour, sponge and the remaining water. The bread hydration stays correct, and the fermentation time/amount is equivalent to the fresh yeast case.


Are there benefits to using a lemon squeezer?

I'm a recent convert to the type where you load the fruit between two halves of a metal mold and squeeze. I find that it extracts a very high percentage of the juice with minimal effort and does a good job of separating away the seeds. I find it a lot less messy than the reamer or other type I've owned in the past.


In addition to throwing things away as needed and using the pheromone traps, cleaning the pantry thoroughly once a week with hot water and a disinfectant (both shelves and outside of containers) helps.

They don't like bay leaves.  Try scattering a couple of bay leaves on each shelf, closest to the 'high-risk' items like flour, rice and oats.

Good luck - they're a real nuisance!


Tossing is a technique better suited for a video demonstration than a narrative. Fortunately we have Alton Brown (yet again...) In the Good Eats Episode "Flat is Beautiful" AB goes into a great pizza crust recipe and demonstration of tossing and stretching your pizza.

The link I provided goes to an outside site that has both part 1 & 2 of the "Flat is Beautiful" episode.


What are the pips and skin of an orange?

The skin is the outer thick orange-coloured cover; obviously as you're not told to remove it this would include the pith (the white fibrous material) as well. The pips are the seeds inside the fruit:

  pip

  noun

  plural noun: pips

  1.
  a small hard seed in a fruit.

  synonyms:  seed, stone, pit


If its soaked in the spoon, I'd not risk it for an inexpensive wooden spoon. A soak in a bleach solution is the common treatment though.  I'd buy a new one or replace it with a high temp silicone spoon (no unremovable mold issues in the future then!)


Frozen pizza kept at room temp (23 C) for 48 hours - safe to use?

Any perishable food (in this case I would be concerned about the ham more than anything) left at room temperature for more than 2 hours should be considered unsafe, even after cooking. Considering we're talking about a frozen pizza and not a full beef fillet, why take the risk? If it's been in the fridge, however, you may be ok.


How accurate is the window pane test? (breadmaking)

In my experience, the lighter the expected loaf, the more effective the windowpane test is.

The windowpane test will work best with high protein breads made out of very fine, or refined, flour with no gluten-interfering additives. This means "artisan" style loaves made out of bread flour, water, salt, and yeast. The gluten in these loaves is very well developed and they rely on this to create very light, open loaves.

If French bread is on one side of the glutinous spectrum, then a dense sourdough rye would be on the other. It would be very difficult to get a windowpane test to work with rye, because there is little gluten. It makes a very dense loaf.

Of course, your bread is going to be somewhere in the middle. 60% is a good ratio for standard sandwich types of bread. Any ingredients that will interfere with gluten development will make the windowpane test difficult. Coarse wheat flour will have less gluten and will cut the existing gluten; added fat will inhibit some gluten formation.

Either way, I wouldn't go by time. You want your dough to pull away from the side of the bowl and be "smooth and elastic". It should be less sticky and should spring back when manipulated. With a little practice it is easy to recognize this state while it is being kneaded and timing is no longer necessary.

Note

If the texture of your bread pleases you then the test isn't so important. If you would like to pass the windowpane test and make your loaves lighter and less crumbly there are a couple things that help:

If the recipe calls for fat, reduce it or leave it out
Fat gives tenderness and flavor. I often reduce it, but leaving it out may leave a flavorless loaf.
Use higher protein wheat flour
Bread should be made with hard red or white wheat. Soft wheat flour is used in Southern cooking that doesn't require as much gluten, such as biscuits.
Use finer wheat flour
The finer the grind on your wheat flour, the less it will cut gluten strands.
Add gluten
You can purchase essential wheat gluten. It is very helpful, especially with breads high in wheat flour.
Add acid
A small amount of acid helps with gluten formation. You can grind up a vitamin C tablet (ascorbic acid) or add a little citric acid. Sometimes I will use leftover orange juice, but remember to take into account the liquid and flavor that it will add.


Chilli con carne - chocolate, cocoa powder or nothing?

The origin of chili con carne is actually from the American southwest, not Mexico. It's tex-mex, not mex.

There are many variations on chili con carne, however if you go back to the earliest known recipes cocoa or chocolate are not on them. It's pretty basic, flavored mostly by cumin and chili. So if you want to make the most authentic chili to the origin then skip the cocoa.

However, there are many good recipes out there which have chocolate or cocoa in them and they are as valid as any other, so it all comes down to personal taste. I add unsweetened cocoa powder to my chili because the bitterness balances out the acidity of the canned tomatoes, and I like the flavor combinations you get. The umami from the chocolate enhances the flavor, and I like the way it hits the tongue, it gives it more punch.

Once I made a chili and split it into two, with one I added some cocoa powder, otherwise the chilis were identical. I served both and asked people which they liked better and the vast majority preferred the one with cocoa in it. You can also add a tsp or two of instance coffee instead although I don't think it's as good. Adding sweetened dark chocolate instead of cocoa powder works just as well, there's no much difference except the chocolate adds a bit of sweetness. The main benefit of using chocolate rather than cocoa powder is that you can try different varieties, however as it's just an undertone you aren't likely to notice.

So it's all down to taste.


Replacement for sun-dried tomato pesto sauce?

Yes, you can use chopped up sun dried tomatoes, either in oil or dry stored.

For the dry sun-dried tomatoes, you should re-hydrated them a little bit in warm water before mixing them up.

As always, you will need to experiment with the ingredient ratios to get the flavour you like best.


How do I get the ground spices to mix into my curry?

I like to add unground spices (cumin seeds, mustard seeds, fennel, star anise etc. and of course garlic and chili depending what curry I am making) at the beginning, gives a better flavour to the oil.
Then I would add meat and/or veggies, stir fry them a little bit, and finally add the ground spices and water. Water will dissolve the spices and will make it easies to have them cover the veggies uniformly. This is very important especially for turmeric which, if added in oil, only results in a mess. I find ground cumin or coriander are less problematic.

If the ground spices sticked to the veggies you should have just added some water, not oil, which has probably made things worst.

Also, as I generally use fairly high temperatures with the spices at the beginning, I would use vegetable oil (I use sunflower oil) or ghee (clarified butter) rather than olive oil.

PS: no need to be depressed for a meal that did not come out OK. That is how you learn cooking!


In my experience, the answer for most leafy herbs is yes, fragance and flavor is preserved. Never tryed hyssop, however Gardening Know How site says it freezes fine:

  it can be dried or frozen and stored for later use. When harvesting a hyssop plant, cut it in the morning hours once any dew has dried. Hang the plants upside down in small bunches to dry in a dark, well-ventilated area. Alternatively, you can place the leaves in a plastic bag after removing them from the stems and place in the freezer until ready to use.


Should I use self-rising flour or all purpose flour for two ingredient pizza dough?

Self-rising flour is just flour with the addition of baking powder and salt*. So, it doesn't matter whether you use self-rising flour or make your own by combining these ingredients yourself.

* note: not all countries include salt in self-rising flour. There is no salt added in the UK "self-raising" mixture for example, but there salt added in the US and Canada.

Because of this, if you live in the US and are using a UK recipe, you will need to omit some or all of the salt in the recipe since self-rising flour already contains salt.

Conversely, if you are living in the UK and following a US recipe, you will need to add salt if using self-raising flour where it calls for self-rising flour.

Otherwise you could end up with no salt or more than you intended. It sounds like in your case your recipe assumes that self-rising flour has salt added.

One of our devoted readers also found that US self-rising flour has less baking powder than UK self-raising flour, raising doubts as to whether additional baking powder may be needed for some recipes.

Note: A good clue will be the spelling of "self-raising" vs. "self-rising" to determine whether salt is expected in your mix. And Brits also have a lot of other weird spelling, grammar, and nomenclature differences, such as calling desserts "puddings." Be cautious when dealing with these people. They are very suspicious.

In the end, I would suggest just using normal flour and adding salt and baking powder yourself. If you are using a recipe that calls for self-raising or self-rising or pulling-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps flour, just find a similar recipe that calls for normal flour to see how much salt and baking powder should be used.


Is Torta de Santiago supposed to be very moist?

Torta de Santiago should be moist, but I wouldn't describe it as very moist. Bear in mind that the standard presentation is to dust it heavily with icing sugar and then drench it in liquor when serving. If it's so moist that the icing sugar turns to icing, that's a problem. Otherwise, it would be moist from the liquor anyway.


What should I use for old recipes that call for 'buttermilk'?

Given the variabilities in "buttermilk" from place to place and time to time, you should get sufficiently equivalent results by substituting modern cultured buttermilk. That's the job it was designed to do.

Recipes from the early 19th century and before are notoriously vague. They were generally written more as reminders of something you already knew through experience, rather than detailed instructions for creating it from scratch. Quantities and temperatures were much harder to control, and so recipes basically assumed you'd recognize a dough with enough liquid or a sufficiently-roasted quail. (One of my favorite instructions from an 18th century cookbook: "Cook until it is enough".)

Given those wide margins, you should find that simply using cultured buttermilk will make the recipe work. It's true that it will lack the tiny bits of butter present in "true" buttermilk, but there isn't enough to have a radical effect on the result. The really important parts (dairy protein, water, acidity) are present, in about the same quantities they would be in true buttermilk.

You'd certainly notice the difference if you were to just drink it straight. If that's what you want, you're just going to have to find somebody who makes it, or do it yourself. I've found it's often available at the kinds of farmers markets that insist on local producers. Personally, I find it nasty, but YMMV.

So if you're trying to revive an old recipe, just start with commercial buttermilk. You're going to have to tweak it from there anyway. If it needs richness, add butter, but probably only a teaspoon per cup.


Need chewiness and density added to blondies no carbs

Try powdered gelatin. Using these two recipes as reference (1, 2) I recommend you start with a tablespoon.
In candy making, gelatin is a very common way to create chewy textures, like in gummy candy or marshmallow. It turns out it can do just the same in baking. While candy recipes generally require you to "bloom" the gelatin powder to avoid clumping, this can be avoided in our case: you can simply whisk the powdered gelatin in with the rest of your dry ingredients.
Gelatin is a protein, so it definitely meets your zero carb requirement. It is also inexpensive when purchased in bulk (the tubs are usually cheaper than the packets).


The dough should be fine retarded overnight on it's own. What you are asking really depends on the filling. If you are filling the dough with something that has a tendency to "weep" or lose water, it can negatively effect your finished product. The water will be stuck in the cavity and can make your bread soggy and hard to bake completely.

If your filing contains sugar, it can draw moisture out of your dough. This will create a syrup and can also lead to sogginess, though it's more likely to lead to a thick caramel shell wherever the liquid leaks out. Salty fillings can also cause unpredictable results.

I think your best bet would be to make the dough, portion it, then retard the dough by itself. Let your dough portions warm up again before you're ready to bake and then fill them as close to the baking time as possible.


At what point is water considered "at a boil?"

By definition, 1 is a simmer (once the bubbles form a steady stream), 2 is a boil, and 3 is a "roiling boil."


How to clean ice from ice cream maker bowl without thawing?

I take a "good enough" approach - scrape it out reasonably well, rinse the rest of the way with hot water with a towel waiting in hand, then dry it as fast as possible. I usually end up with a very thin film of ice in some places, but it's not enough to keep it from working well the next time, and even if you always do this, it doesn't accumulate since you're rinsing and melting it all every time.


Sous vide octopus for maximum tenderness

Keller does octopus sous vide.  I believe there is a recipe in his Under Pressure cookbook, but I don't have it at this location.  I did a search on the web and came up with 77C (170.6 F) for 5 hours.

Personally, I have had the best results with the oven method in your McGee Link.


The easiest way would be to use an actual juicing machine. Instead of just blending everything together, a juicer will separate the juice from the pulp.

You're looking for something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Beach-67650-Mouth-Extractor/dp/B000FHQJ6C/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1292255706&sr=8-7

Juice goes out one end, pulp out the other.


I usually use 1/4 cup per person for a smallish portion, and 1/3 cup per person if you're a bit hungrier. You'll probably want to check the instructions for your rice cooker to check exactly how much water you should add as different manufacturers vary. I believe the one I used in the past needed an equal quantity of water to rice.


I recommend freezing portions of your finished coulis into some sandwich or freezer bags, and pulling them as you require.


Achieve butter-like aroma in a vegan recipe

Many of the modern "vegan butter-like spreads for cooking" have a passable butter flavor, not like the margarines of yore. You do want to get one that mentions it can be used in cooking/baking, rather than the "light" versions that are nearly half water. That's a fairly simple substitution. I'm knee-jerking away from suggesting a specific brand, both to be not spamming and because there are several options.


To get the best results reheating food in the microwave, use 50% or 75% power, and turn the plate every 20 seconds or so (if you don't have a turntable). Stir or flip a few times if you can. Only get it just hot enough, no more. Food overcooked in the microwave is just nasty.


Roast Turkey - How to get the meat to fall off the bones

I would assume that cooking at low heat for a long time would help get the right texture, kind of like how cooking a pork shoulder for 8 hours low and slow turns it into pulled pork. You might also want to add some liquid for your turkey to braise with - If it doesn't have enough moisture, the meat will tighten up, dry, and contract. If you braise it, it will absorb some cooking liquids. Not sure if braising a turkey is a great idea, though.


Why are certain fruit & veg bought in UK supermarkets tasteless?

Non-native and out of season fruits and vegetables that are available in northern countries (e.g. UK, Canada) need to be shipped from far away and will be picked before they are naturally ripe (under the normal sun and heat and getting nutrients from the soil).

They will ripen in controlled environments (UV lights, maybe controlled atmosphere and temperature) to be able to be ripen on time during the long transit to be ready when they are put on shelves in your local stores.

In the UK, it is currently the high season for strawberries (I assume it is the same time as in Québec); compare locally-grown strawberries to imported strawberries and compare the flavour and aromas.

(anecdotal) A quick tip when buying imported fruits (and vegetables); keep them outside of the fridge as much as possible, and if planning to eat soon, place them in the sun for a little while and the flavours will get better.


Can salt be inserted in unshelled peanuts? Do natural peanuts taste salty?

Unshelled peanuts are salted simply by soaking in brine. Some of the salt (and water) gets through the shell, which is a bit porous. They're then re-dried and roasted. I suppose the roasting is optional, but if you're adding salt you clearly want flavor, and that's what roasting's for too. There's a Serious Eats post with a bit more detail if you're curious.

You can do something similar at home - boiled peanuts. They won't be the hard crunchy roasted nuts you're used to: they end up soft, kind of like firm beans. You can season the water and impart plenty of flavor. The traditional thing in the American South is just salt, but you can use spices and get some pretty fun results. For example, a bit of soy sauce and five spice (or some of the components of five spice), or something Cajun-style (even just using premade Cajun spice blends).

(And no, unsalted peanuts shouldn't taste salty. You can confirm this by searching for unsalted peanuts nutrition facts, and seeing the 0mg of sodium!)


A quick search seems to suggest it's a liquid emulsifier. It's not the most natural of products: a couple of E-numbers and propylenes in there.

http://www.rajfoods.net/cake-improvers.html

Click across to Cake Gel Improvers.


How long does it take to warm a ham in the oven?

Since it's already fully-cooked, you don't need to be all that precise with time or temperature.  The most important thing is to avoid drying it out, so use a roasting pan and add a little water to the bottom (not more than 1 cm) and cover it while it's reheating.

It's best if you have a meat thermometer; toss it in at 300° F / 150° C (or up to 350° F / 175° C if you're in a hurry) and aim for a temperature of about 140° F / 60° C.  If you don't have a thermometer, this about.com page suggests 16-20 minutes per pound; it also suggests heating to 135° F which is also fine.  But if you're not going by a thermometer then you'd better make sure that it's completely thawed first, all the way to the interior, lest you end up with a semi-frozen dinner.

If you also plan to glaze it then apply the glaze after it's been heated and raise the temperature to 400° F (205° C) as the above link suggests.


Coating/skin on Quorn Sausage - is it edible?

They are edible I eat them all the time they are the same ones on the regular Quorn sausages.
I prefer to microwave mine though it keeps the skin on and cooks quicker, also it keeps in more of the flavour.


What are common/traditional uses for merguez?

Favourably, we put them on the barbecue.
You can also just fry them in the pan like a chipolata.

I wouldn't eat them in combo's where you use normal sausages.
It doesn't go well with apple sauce for example.
But this is of course a question of taste.
I prefer them (when not on the BBQ) with food which doesn't contain a lot of spices, like lettuce and tomatoes with boiled potatoes.


Should truly fresh steak (i. e. still purple) have a smell?

I ate the steak and was fine.  I think it was just an non-oxidized portion of steak.  I let it sit in the refrigerator for an hour or so before it I ate it and it's color changed from purple to red, so I'm inclined to think oxidation.


How do I prevent opened canned tuna from going stale?

At the very least, transfer to a food storage container (smallest possible) and cover...for more than a day or two, Ziploc bag, with as much air removed as possible (use water displacement method)...or vacuum seal.


Take double cream (you want a 48% milk fat, which is hard to get in the U.S. outside of a specialty market; heavy cream has a 30-40% milk fat content) and shake it. Forever. To be more specific, after sealing your double cream in, say, a jam jar, shake it until you hear the sloshing sound of butter forming (which will take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour); drain the liquid off and then rinse the butter until the water runs clearly over it. Squeeze your butter (I use cheese cloth or a linen napkin for this) to rid it of excess liquid (excess liquid can lead to rancidity), shape it into a block, and wrap it with wax paper.