If you are unable to boil them in the baking soda solution on site then pre-boiling the pretzels shouldn't be a problem. I also agree with Fabby's comment above about wrapping them individually in a foil and keeping them refrigerated overnight. Note that I haven't tried this myself but am pretty confident that it should be fine, good luck.


How do I make the beef in my beef stroganoff more tender?

Supermarket 'stew beef' is notoriously unreliable.  Its often just scraps of beef that the butcher or market can't sell otherwise.  My stews were hit and miss for years while I tried to tweak cooking time and such. But then one day I watched a movie on rouxbe.com (paywall, sorry) and they talked about not using 'stew beef' - its often too lean and doesn't have the 'stuff' to produce tender, but juicy bits.  They strongly recommended cutting up your own from a chuck....and they were so, so, so right.

In short, cutting up your own chuck is by far the better route - if you're looking for 'stew beef'.


Film on top of my almost vegan potato / onion / parsley soup

Since you mention the film develops after cooling, it is likely to be a very thin layer of fat.

There are some sources of fat in your recipe: the butter you sweat the onions and garlic in, and the bouillon cube. Both of these are very minor sources of fat, but it's still present. A quick stir after warming should incorporate it back in, or you can instead skim it off when the soup is completely cooled.


How to turn sugar syrup into sugaring wax?

I think if you start with regular sugar syrup, you have too much liquid. I make sugaring wax by putting 8 parts sugar, 1 part water and 1 part lemon juice in a sauce pan and let that simmer for about 10-15 minutes until you have an amber colour.

It will take a couple of times to judge the mixture on thickness and colour. Once it's set, you should be able to push a finger in it and that mark should stay there for a couple of minutes.

If your mixture is too pale, it's going to be too liquid and the finger mark will disappear too quickly. You can just put it back on the stove and let it boil for a bit longer.
If your mixture is too dark, it's going to be too hard. You will be able to make the finger mark, but it's gonna be hard to do. You can reheat the mixture in the microwave and use it warm.

Depending on how you want to use it, cooking times are more or less forgiving.


Usually the best way to incorporate any bits into cookie dough is to first mix the dough completely and then mix in the bits - whether it be chocolate chips, nuts, oreo bits etc. This way the bits are not smashed and stay as undisturbed as possible and retain their shape as a whole.

So mix the dry and wet ingredients together to form the dough, then lightly mix in bits by hand (literally use your hands. I find it's the most gentle way) or with the paddle attachment on the lowest setting in a standing mixer.

As for the substituting... Go by volume (Catja's suggestion). I wouldn't sub more than half the chocolate chips with oreo bits, simply because it will make the end result too sweet (because of the oreo filling) and not chocolatey enough. Maybe use dark/bitter chocolate chips as well that aren't as sweet so that you are compensating for the sweetness of the oreo cream filling.


Safe and efficient way to keep hands clean while preparing food

Your are following proper procedure by washing your hands after handling raw meat. In the videos you see, the ingredients are usually pre-portioned or are only going to be used once in the preparation of that specific dish. In that case, it doesn't really matter as any that is left over will be thrown away.

At home it wouldn't be as practical to follow this procedure unless you pre-portioned your ingredients. Or you could put small amounts of salt, pepper, rub, etc. in containers, use what's needed, and discard the rest. This eliminates a lot of the hand washing, but I find that it wastes a lot over time.


Maiale al latte, or milk-braised pork, is a classic northern Italian preparation, with variations in Tuscany, Veneto, Bologna, among other locales.  Some claim the lactic acid tenderizes the pork. I don't know about that, but when done correctly (IMHO), the milk caramelizes, often curdles, and becomes a delicious, albeit broken, sauce.


I have an insanely hot pepper: now what?

Have you ever eaten something so hot it made you cry and felt like it'd never stop burning? Given what you've said you've tried, this thing is probably 10-100x as hot as the kind of pepper that would do that to you. Please be careful.

In any case, pretty much the sole point of a pepper like this is to try to be the hottest thing in the world. The amount of capsaicin is incredibly huge compared to the amount of other flavor in it; you're basically never going to taste anything but heat from it. So if you want to actually use it, just assume that the only thing you can do with it is make something hot.

I have a decent heat tolerance and love things with a bit of heat, but I still probably wouldn't bother. There are plenty of ways to add heat with much less risk of creating something completely inedible. If I really wanted to make use of it, I'd probably start with a very small quantity in a dish to try to get a sense for the heat level. This means using it in some kind of soup/stew/sauce where you can incrementally add things as you cook, not in something like a cake where you have to just go for it and possibly end up throwing away a whole cake. (For some peppers I might also try touching it to my tongue first, but I don't think I'd recommend that in this case.)

Finally, you can always try to cover it up by using it in a rich, fatty dish, e.g. a sauce with plenty of cream or coconut milk, but honestly, you'll still be lucky if you can taste anything from the pepper besides the heat.


should my sour pickles be sealed while pickling?

Those pickles create their own acid. Wild bacteria that can handle the very high salt content produce lactic acid, thus preserving the pickles.

Botulism won't grow in that much salt and with how acidic the pickles are going to be when they're done. That's kind of the point of pickling in the first place.

The instructions say to leave the lid loose because the fermentation may also produce gas and it needs to escape. You don't want a half-fermented-sour-pickle bomb to go off in your kitchen.


How do I add a strawberry swirl to my cheesecake without cracks and craters?

I'd mix a small amount of your cheesecake batter with your strawberry component to help with it's bake stability. Try that and swirl that in. Hope that helps.


Tortilla Espinoza — what is it and how do I make it?

...or Tortilla de Espinacas?  This is a dish from Spain where a tortilla is a potato and egg dish made in a low-sided, oven-proof skillet.  This particular version uses spinach - hence "Espinacas".

http://herbivoracious.com/2012/02/tortilla-de-espinaca-spanish-omelet.html

I'm not sure if this is what you might be looking for but I can't wait to try it!


How do you reheat rice in a takeout box after you've already made the mistake of refrigerating it straight up?

Assuming it's been kept cold & is therefore 'safe', then just drop it into a larger microwave-safe dish with a not-quite-sealed lid & maybe a tablespoon of cold water.

Once it's halfway heated, you'll be able to break it up a bit to stir. When fully heated, it will break up with a fork. Your family will never know ;)


Not likely. Wild salmon is pretty low on the list of foods that can cause harm because of cross-contamination, particularly salmon that has been frozen for an extended period of time. Undercooked fish is considered risky more because of potential parasites than bacteria. Months in the freezer is going to pretty much eliminate any risk of consuming a live parasite. Plus, the toxins that can be found in fish are not particularly common in salmon. If the fish didn't spend too long in the "danger zone" either before or after freezing, you've got very little to worry about.


How to make croutons crunchier throughout without burning?

It's easy to make croutons crunchy: Just dry the bread pieces in a dehydrator or low-temperature oven (around 125°C) for a couple of hours. This should be done before adding oil or seasonings, since the process would cook off a lot of their flavor. Afterwards, drizzle on the olive oil and seasonings, and bake or fry as desired. (Be careful with the oil: the dried bread cubes will absorb it much more quickly than fresh or stale bread cubes would.)


Your options are really limited to:

Reducing, i.e. simmering until you have less of a thicker gravy, but then (i) you might not have enough and (ii) you risk overcooking the chicken (and some other ingredients) unless you remove them.
Thickening.

Corn starch is a common way to thicken but many other starches also work. You could even make a roux of flour and butter, then mix plenty of the gravy into that, and add back in. Depending on your dish, you may be able to use a compatible thickener with some flavour (coconut flour works in some curries, for example) but in general you're best using a neutral starch. I suggest being sparing with it - in my opinion a slightly thin sauce is preferable to an over-thickened cloying one.


de buyer mineral b carbon steel seasoning

I have the same pan. Are you following the instructions that come with it?

The center is too burned.
Flaky is not good.
The border is not seasoned.
The border is not rusty.

Is your fire big enough for the pan?

You should clean the pan (thorough scrub with salt) and re-season. See this Q&A


Cannabis Grapeseed Oil Infusion from Non-Decarboxylated Plant Matter - When is infusion done?

My Main question is this... At what point is the infusion done?

This would largely depend on your definition of the word "Done". Your own research reveals a number of opinions on how long it takes for this process to reach completion. In any kind of infusion process the results are not linear. You likely get (something like) 70% infusion in 4 hours. Another 4 hours will get you to 80% the next 4 hours to 85%... It's a condition of diminishing returns, that will probably never reach 100% (or 'done'). How much of the cannabinoids are you willing to just throw away because you don't want to wait for them to infuse? At what point is the infused oil "good enough" for you.

  Is there a difference molecularly that allows grapeseed oil to infuse
  cannabinoids more easily? ... Which is 'better' to use?

What is the 100% saturation point for various oils given various herbs is far to general of question for us to address with any specificity. Even given the herb the variety of oils still leaves us too much to really address. Lastly, when asking for whether A is 'better' than B it helps for you to provide some tangible criteria. I propose that if you want to use it as a salve coconut oil would be better (solid at room temperature) where if you want to cook with it, grapeseed oil may be the 'better' choice (higher smoke point, cleaner flavor).


Looking to bake side dishes, having problems with dryness

To prevent the sticking, you might want to use a spray oil, maybe even just on the foil before you put the vegetables and potatoes on. It's a tiny amount of oil, not enough to make things noticeably greasy, but will be pretty effective. Another spray over the top will make them brown a little more nicely and may even prevent a little drying out. Alternatively, you can just toss them all in a bowl with a small amount of oil; it really doesn't take much, and I'd hardly describe it as "covering with a lot of oil."

As for preventing things from drying out, first and foremost, don't overcook them. Broccoli and onions both roast very nicely, but you definitely want to pull it out before it starts browning/burning too much. If you slice the potatoes thinly enough, they'll cook in roughly the same amount of time as the broccoli and onions. So if things are getting overcooked, just don't leave them in the oven as long.

You can also always try covering them. Another sheet of foil over the top will trap a fair amount of moisture, letting them steam a bit and probably preventing some burning as well.

(I suppose it's also possible that it's all drying out because you're cooking them too slowly, so they have plenty of time for moisture to escape, but that seems less likely given the way you described things.)


Can one keep chocolate uncovered in the freezer?

Food-safety-wise, putting chocolate in the freezer is not an issue and not even necessary.

However, quality may suffer:

Freezers do tend to have some off flavors over the time, and these can be absorbed by the food inside, if not packaged properly. To be safe, I recommend you put the chocolate bar in some kind of airtight package, either a freezer bag or a Tupperware-style box.
Humidity can be a problem for “crisp” fillings like wafers or, to a lesser extent, crispy caramel. The packaging and the chocolate coating protects the original bar, once you have eaten half, it is exposed. Unless you live in an exceptionally humid environment or store too long or in a humid environment where condensation can happen - like a freezer - , this should be a minor issue. Again, wrapping the half-eaten bar with a (mostly) airtight seal should do the trick.


How-to Cut Baking Chocolate bar clean for perfect squares

You can score and snap.  You make a shallow score in the chocolate using a knife or other sharp object (gentle!).  Then you snap it.  It works better on harder chocolates.  Since all I have around the house this instant is a leftover halloween candy, I'll show the sequence here, but with this soft chocolate it would be easier to actually cut it through...

1) Score.

2) Pinch it. Here I pinched it between a plate and a cutting board.  You may be better off using a cutting board and your fingers -- so long as your hold it down stiffly with your fingers.

3) Strike it with a blunt object.  Or depending on the chocolate you can often just bend it with your fingers until it breaks.

(This basic approach is used in industry to make straight cuts in glass, tile, and silicon chips!  The harder the object, the better it works.  You can also try this on brittle candy, etc.)


You should use a large, heavy pan with a thick metal base, definitely not non-stick.


I've struggled with this issue as well because I live in a moist climate and instant espresso powder cakes up on me between uses.

Generally recipes which use instant espresso power are trying to add a kick of bitter and roasted flavors to deepen chocolate flavors and make them richer.  You can try substituting instant coffee 1:1, but the flavor of the baked good will certainly suffer a loss of richness. Increasing the amount of instant coffee, however, would likely add more bitter or acidic flavors -- and caffeine -- to the cookie or cake than you want.  Also, instant coffee takes longer to dissolve, so it needs to be added straight to a liquid.

There's no real way to substitute liquid coffee in most recipes, such as chocolate cookie or brownie recipes, because the recipe has no water in it in the first place.  In the rare recipes where there is water, you could substitute strong-brewed coffee for an equal quantity of water+espresso powder, and this would likely work fairly well.

So, summing up: there's no really good substitute for instant espresso powder in recipes which call for it that I've found with some significant experimentation.  Hopefully someone else has had better ideas than me.


What is the optimal steep time for cold-brewed coffee?

I've been using a Toddy for about two years now.  I have found that you can get a plenty strong concentrate with only 1/2 pound of freshly ground coffee steeped in filtered water (like in a Brita) for just short of 18 hours.  Beyond 18 hours the grounds become waterlogged and the same elements that produce the bitterness found in hot brewed coffee start to come out.  12 hours, though, is barely enough to get the flavor out.  At only one or two hours, I can't imagine that there would be much flavor at all.  If you use a Toddy, you will find that using a finer ground will result a very cumbersome, frustrating draining process and/or sediment in your concentrate.    As to the caffeine, I believe you will find that the matter is undecided.  Someone needs to conduct an experiment with well defined parameters to really figure it out.


How to Harvest and Prepare Prickly Pear Pads Without Getting Poked

At grocery stores in our area they prepare cactus pads for sale in-house. I haven't sat and watched them for hours but it seems that the process involves a pair of gloves and a knife. The gloves are generally the cloth gloves with rubberized palms/fingers and the knife is a chef's knife.
This image shows the process I usually see them following, though they're using a much larger knife in the store... admittedly, they do it on a daily basis, so it might be good to start with a smaller knife:

click for source
This image is from what looks like a nice guide on preparing cactus pads.
The steps are pretty simple:

VERY IMPORTANT TIP: Use kitchen tongs to hold the nopales or, better yet, wear gloves to protect your hands from the thorns. Once you are familiar working with cactus paddles then you can try to clean them without gloves.

Place the cactus paddle on your cutting board and, using a sharp knife, trim off the edge. Scrape the spines, thorns or eyes, running your knife from back to front until completely clean. Turn the cactus paddles and do the same on the other side.

Other sites seem to echo this process, so it seems pretty universal. One site even recommends replacing the knife with a spoon, which is less likely to dig into the cactus pad, particularly if it's convex.


Cocktail shaker - silver plate but black on the inside

Yes, it's safe.

Silver tarnishes easily, particularly in contact with sulfur-containing foods, particularly egg. The tarnish is not hazardous, and can be cleaned off with silver polish or with DIY chemistry like in Tetsujin's answer. Black tarnish doesn't form readily on its own, so if you're not planning on using eggs in your cocktails then cleaning off the existing tarnish will likely last you a while (it'll be bright silver initially, but will quickly tarnish to a dull greyish silver). However, it can also be ignored (which was apparently the approach taken by the previous owner).


It looks like a honeybell. Also known as a tangelo.


Soy sauce is not known to chemically influence capsaicin or capsaicin absorption. The effect is likely subjective and has to do with something like spicy heat feeling less objectionable in a higher umami dish.

If you used more oil or fattier meat this time, this might be the real cause of the perceivedly milder taste - fats strongly influence how capsaicin is perceived (they do not neutralize it!) because they dissolve and redistribute it throughout the dish.


Are these tomatoes San Marzano knockoffs?

It's not a knock-off, per se—but this particular brand has never been imported from Italy.

"San Marzano" is a variety of plum tomato, as well as a protected designation of origin for those tomatoes grown in a specific region and in a traditional way. There is no single "San Marzano" brand or trademark owned by a particular company, and the name is not legally protected in the USA; instead, products originating from the traditional region are indicated by trademarked "DOP" certifications.

Your can is produced by Simpson Imports, the same company that made the San Marzano canned tomatoes with the recognizable design that you're familiar with, which has always been grown in the USA—so in that sense, your can is not a knock-off. However, historically, the brand has probably benefitted from confused customers who thought they were buying tomatoes from the traditional region. The "SMT" design appears to be a newer rebranding; without actually knowing the motivation, it's possible that it may perhaps be to try to establish a trademarkable name, or to incorporate non-San Marzano varieties of tomatoes in their products, or to respect the designation protection and reduce consumer confusion, or perhaps some other reason.

Old label:

New label:

(This label is for puree tomatoes instead of whole, so there are additional differences beyond just the rebranding.)

Brand website: http://www.simpsonbrands.com/
San Marzano tomato drawing (but not "San Marzano" name) trademarked by Simpson Imports

Information about the San Marzano protected designation:

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/12/what-is-a-dop-italian-san-marzano-canned-tomato.html
https://livethelive.com/2015/08/14/san-marzano-tomatoes-real-or-fake-3/
http://www.pastene.com/san_marzano.html
https://www.gustiamo.com/san-marzano-2/


What is the difference between acetate sheets and baking paper when making chocolate deco?

Acetate sheets posses a firm and rigid shape, with a glossy coating that assists the removal of decorations such as chocolate decoration. It also can be shaped without being indented at any point which baking parchment most frequently fails to do.

Baking parchment is very agile, this fails to support decorations as a mould, and would consequently lead to breakage of the decoration should the parchment not retain a flat edge. It could also bend in frequent points, misshaping the chocolate. This is what makes it suited towards cakes, as as it can be ripped off.

I would therefore conclude that it would be most suitable for you to use acetate sheets.


What is the US equivalent of "Joint of Sirloin"?

Any butcher can probably get you a Joint of Sirloin by request, but you will not likely find it "on the shelf".

A "Joint of Sirloin" is a rare cut in the US given the other possible uses of the sirloin.
If one looks at the T-Bone/Porterhouse cuts, where the the "T"-bone bi-sects the steak. The smaller side is the tenderloin and the larger side is sirloin. While it is not entirely uncommon for the short-loin primal to be cut to form a tenderloin roast from that side of the "joint" when that is done the sirloin is then usually (in the US) trimmed to be either "New York Strips" or "Kansas City Strips".

Here we see a section of the short loin primal, from this end only a thin layer of fat separate the tender loin from the sirloin.

And this is the trimmed joint of sirloin.

And the Bone-in version of the joint of sirloin


Damn, that looks good. I've never made this particular type of bread before, but here are some things that I do know which might help:

Butter is (roughly) 10% water and 90% fat, while lard is 100% fat. So if you substitute one for the other, you should adjust the amount of water in the recipe accordingly. The flavor will be a little different, but I bet either one would work.

I would not assume AP flour. In fact, I'd assume high-gluten bread flour. The gluten is what creates those fibers. It's the fat that keeps it tender.

This looks very similar to a brioche, so you might want to look at brioche recipes to learn some of the principles. One thing that most of them will tell you is to to knead the dough to develop the gluten fibers, and then add the butter. This I think is the key. I know that fat can keep gluten molecules from sticking together into strands, so if you add the fat later, you should wind up with strands of gluten surrounded by fat.


How to make Instant Hot Chocolate Taste Less Watery

I can think of four possible fixes.  One is simply, use less water - a smaller amount of a richer drink may well be preferable to a larger amount of a watery drink.  Another is the reverse, use more mix, which uses two packets (if not all of the second is necessary, you might share with someone else who wants extra, save it for next time, or simply discard).

Third option would be to add a pinch of salt.  It can help balance the flavors (a pinch isn't enough to make it not-sweet), and it's commonly described that less salt can make something taste "watery", and adding a touch of salt makes things taste more balanced.  It will change the flavor a bit, but not necessarily badly.

Fourth option is to add stuff.  Sugar, creamer powder, spices (possibly brought from home), whatever pleases you - and some of which might already be present for doctoring coffee.  Any of these options should add some flavor, changing the taste but perhaps not badly.  I wouldn't recommend milk, since (as you mention) it has enough liquid it can dilute the flavors, but powdered flavorings might help (and not dilute).  Or you might even try keeping on hand a candy to dissolve in your drink (peppermint round, wrapped caramel) the heat and water should let it dissolve a burst of flavor into your drink.  Again, flavored, but not necessarily bad.


Can I refrigerate the stuff left over on the baking sheet?

Yes, it'd be safe to put the sheet in the fridge. But you might not want to if they're just plain rolls:

Refrigeration makes bread go stale faster, so you may not want to refrigerate your rolls at all.
It's important to get things airtight in the fridge, and often it's a pain to wrap up a baking sheet to be airtight.
If the coating on the sheet isn't perfect, and it collects condensation in the fridge, it might rust a little faster.
Baking sheets can be bulky and awkward in the fridge.

If you want to keep bread long enough that room temperature storage doesn't work well (more than a few days), the freezer is a better option.

On the other hand, if they're filled with something perishable, you'd need to refrigerate or freeze. In that case, you could use the sheet if you really have to and can wrap it reasonably airtight, but generally it'd still be easier to transfer to a bag or smaller container.


Should Chorizo Be Peeled Before Cooking?

It depends on what chorizo you're using. If you're using soft (i.e. uncooked) chorizo then no, you don't need to remove the skin, because it should cook with the sausage. If you are using the cured, ready to eat chorizo you should take the skin off as it will be tough.

This may well vary by brand, incidentally.


How do I make the panko bread stick to my egg-coated chicken?

Panko won't stick to chicken (too dry), but will stick to egg.  Egg won't stick to chicken (too smooth and non-absorbant), but will stick to flour.  Flour will stick to chicken.  Dredge first through flour, then through (well beaten) egg, then through panko.  It's a tricky combination, but if you do it right the results are excellent. Any dry spices you want to put in can go in the flour.  While I don't know for sure, I would certainly wouldn't include any oils in the coating, as none of flour/egg/panko will stick to oils.


Was honey in ancient times different than now?

It's not honey that's changed since ancient times, it's wine! Wine makers in ancient Rome lacked the knowledge and equipment to prevent oxidation and unwanted bacterial colonies, so their product was pretty awful by modern standards, being both sour and bitter with all sorts of off flavors. Honey and spices were added to try and make it palatable.

So you can't re-create the roman recipe without roman style wine, which you won't find in any store because nobody would want to buy it! If you add the same amount of honey to wine of today it will be overwhelmingly sweet, my suggestion would be to add a little bit of honey to it and work your way up. I would also suggest you not follow the recipe to the letter:

Don't let it sit like the recipe suggests, add the spices in and let it steep, then strain and add more wine
Don't filter it through charcoal: the reason they did that was because wine makers added all sorts of awful stuff to preserve the wine, modern wines don't have those issues. If it has particulates try using a coffee filter instead.


It makes no difference whether you use sheet or powdered. Just make sure to use the right amount. It should be given on the package, like "this sachet is enough for 500 ml liquid". You can try to use less than indicated for a softer texture, but if you don't use enough, it will stay liquid, so you may need to experiment until you get it right.

You can't bake gelatin. It is a protein and denaturates at 50°C. The proper way is to bake your pie or fruit cake as always, and after it is ready, pour the gelatin containing liquid over the fruits and wait for it to congeal. (I am assuming here that you just want a gelatin glaze over a complete pie. If you want a complete gelatinized filling, everything below applies. Bake a shell, put the fruit in it, then fill it with the liquid).

The liquid itself can be pure water, or water syrup, or, if you used canned fruit, you can catch the liquid from the can and strain it. Then use it, pure or diluted with water. Sugar of food coloring don't interfere with gelatin, use them as you see fit (I think it's popular to color the gelatin on strawberry cakes a light red).

The mixing is very similar to panna cotta. First, bloom your gelatin by putting it into a cup with some water (1-2 tbsp) and leaving it for awhile. It should soak up the water, use it while it still looks moist, before the granules stick to each other. It usually takes around 5 minutes. Meanwhile, warm your liquid on a very low setting. It is best to use a thermometer. Dump the gelatine into the liquid while still on the heat. Stir until dissolved completely, never let it get too warm. When dissolved, remove from the heat and pour immediately.

There aren't many things which interfere with gelatin, but some fruits (or the enzymes in them) do. These tend to be tropical fruits with at least moderate acidity, like papaya, mango, kiwi and pineapple. If you pour gelatine on them when they are raw, it will have trouble setting. Cooking them should help, but I don't know how long or what temperature. If they are canned, it should be OK. Bananas are not a problem, even when raw.

And because you said you want to make it "professional": If you are talking about a thin glaze, gelatin is not your only choice. You can use starch as a thickener, many professional bakeries do so. It eliminates the possibility of getting the right texture of the glaze (which will be rubbery with too much gelatine and half liquid if you don't use enough), and maybe you'll feel more comfortable with it.


To put it simply: if you increase the amount of capsaicin per bite of food, you'll make it hotter.

So if we're talking about just a sauce that's basically pure peppers, then yes, the mixture of a very hot pepper and a more mild pepper will be somewhere in between the two, and the addition of the mild pepper dilutes the sauce - a spoonful of it will not contain as much capsaicin.

But if we're talking about a dish that's mostly other things, with ghost pepper for heat in the sauce, and on top of that you add another pepper to the sauce, then yes, the other pepper will add heat - there'll be more capsaicin in each bite. Will it be noticeable? If it's a banana pepper, no - it's orders of magnitude milder, so you'll never notice. If it's a habanero, probably - it's not that much more mild than the ghost pepper.

Other peppers may well add great flavor, though. There's quite a variety among all the chilis, and it's perfectly reasonable to use half a dozen different ones in a single dish just to get the nice full flavor you want. This is still true if you're making a really hot dish. That said, if you're talking about "the hottest foods" and ghost peppers, it sounds like your goal is really just to make something really hot, not something you can actually taste - you can definitely get plenty of heat from other peppers. If you're using the hottest possible peppers, it's probably either a gimmick, or the whole point is to burn your tongue off so you can't taste anything else anyway.

This is of course all assuming you're actually using the whole pepper, in order to get all the heat from it. If you're not, then... why are you bothering with ghost peppers? See Cos Callis' answer for more explanation.


It's all about getting the absolute optimum amount of batter into each cupcake. Can you make one experimental batch before the "real" one? If so, very, very carefully measure infinitesimally larger amounts of batter in successive cupcakes. Take careful notes. One of the cupcakes will be perfect; use that measurement for all cupcakes in the next batch. If you've got a digital scale, this is a good reason to whip it out.


Success tempering chocolate with Kitchen-Aid heated mixing bowl?

I haven't used the Kitchen-Aid, but I have the Kenwood Cooking Chef which is similar, and I frequently use it to temper chocolate. I have tried a couple of different ways:

Heat the chocolate to 32°C degrees while stirring - This takes a long (looong) time and the results are not great (too viscous)
Heat the chocolate to ~40°C while stirring, then lower the temperature to 32°C and add about 10% finely chopped chocolate, stirring until it's all melted. - This is faster and fairly foolproof, but the chopped chocolate takes a while to melt.
Heat the chocolate to ~40°C while stirring, then lower the temperature to 32°C and add about 1% mycryo (fine cocoa butter crystals) - This is faster and the best I've come up with yet. Note - You must let the temperature of the chocolate come down to about 36°C before adding the mycryo - or it will melt them completely, ruining their special crystalline structure.

Another thing I have discovered is that adding ~5-10% cocoa butter makes for a less viscous chocolate that's easier to work with, especially if it's to be poured into moulds. (It's easiest to add it at the beginning.)
I use a rubberized spatula that scrapes the bowl. I assume Kitchen-Aid has something similar.
Adding cocoa butter is controversial. Some people claim that it's cheating, but I find that it gives a better shine and snap to the finished product, without affecting flavour noticeably.


My main concern (would have been) BPA, as most cans nowadays are coated with BPA plastics inside to protect flavor.  Cooks Illustrated evaluated the BPA leeched into chicken using this method:

  Beer can interiors are coated with an epoxy that contains Bisphenol A
  (BPA). Is the popular method of cooking a chicken perched on an open
  beer can really a good idea?

  Some studies have linked BPA to cancer and other harmful health
  effects. To evaluate the ramifications of cooking chicken on a beer
  can, we roasted two whole birds, one set on an open beer can
  containing 6 ounces of beer and the other on a stainless-steel
  vertical roaster with the same amount of beer poured into the
  reservoir. After roasting the chickens, we collected their drippings
  and stripped each carcass, grinding the meat and skin to create
  homogeneous samples. We sent the samples to a lab to be evaluated for
  BPA content.

  In each chicken, the BPA measured less than 20 micrograms per
  kilogram, leading us to believe that the beer can cooking method is
  safe. (The Food and Drug Administration’s current standard for
  exposure is 50 micrograms per kilogram of body weight for adults, or
  3,400 micrograms per day for a 150-pound person.) For those who have
  any remaining concerns, there is always the vertical roaster, which
  works just as well as a low-tech option.

  Published May 1, 2011. From Cook's Illustrated.

There are several available vertical roasters that act just like a beer can.  Here's a photo of the Steven Raichlen SR8016:


Is it safe to re-heat food twice in a short time span?

The real issue is the total time it spends in the "danger zone" (40-140 F, 4-60 C), not how many times it is heated, frozen or refrigerated.  Those things may change the quality and make the food unpleasant, but that is a separate issue.  Re-heating in and of itself is not inherently unsafe.

See also:

How do I know if food left at room temperature is still safe to eat?


Can I use a larger crockpot than the recipe calls for?

If you keep the lid on, it shouldn't make much difference in practice.

The thing to watch is that the larger surface area and heat supply of the 6 qt pot might make the recipe cook a little quicker than it would in a 4 qt pot, and also make it dry out quicker than it should (which is why you need the lid on). Just take a look after about two thirds of the time and decide if you should add a little water, or not.


Is it okay to bake caramel pudding rather than steaming it?

I haven't seen your recipe, but from looking at others, steamed pudding takes on the order of a couple hours of steaming. Doing it in the oven won't be any faster or less boring than steaming it - it may even be slower, since heat transfer from steam is pretty efficient. 45 minutes at 120°C would probably leave it undercooked, and if you cook at a higher temperature, you'll be missing the point - steaming for a long time lets it cook slowly and more evenly. You could work out how to cook it hotter and faster, but it wouldn't be a steamed pudding anymore, it'd be a "normal" pudding.

If you want to do it in the oven, you should use a water bath to keep it from getting too hot - put the vessel with the pudding into a larger vessel, and add water to come most of the way up the sides of the pudding. Then you can increase the temperature of the oven, perhaps to 150-175°C, without overheating the pudding. But I doubt you'll be able to get the cooking time very much less than the original cooking time with steam without significantly changing the results.

Finally (thanks Elendil), steaming helps keep the pudding moist, and an oven even with a water bath is not a terribly humid environment, so it might still be drier than desired. Covering tightly, and possibly adding a tiny bit more liquid, might help with that.


Cooking and storing rice for a whole week

Don't put it in the fridge, that makes rice hard. Pack it in individual servings (sandwich or snack sized zipper bags are great for this) and put them in the freezer. When you reheat the rice (microwave or boil in the bag), the rice will be almost as good as freshly made.

See: Safe to wash rice the night before and leave overnight before cooking?

And: Rice gets burnt and watery - Basmati is just the same (should usually be rinsed though).


How deeply should I peel sweet potatoes?

It doesn't really matter.

A lot of people cook them with peel still on and peel it with their hands when cooked (Careful, hot!).
You can peel them before you cook them, and then it's just a question of taste I'd say.

Personally, I would peel off the white as well, though I'm not sure about this.


Smell Something Burning. Course of action?

So with gravy, you are talking about a scorched taste. Once you smell it, it is probably too late to salvage it. If you want to try, the best course of action is to remove it from the heat (obviously) and carefully ladle off as much of the top of the pan as you can, leaving the scorched part on the bottom. Then taste what you ladled off and see if it is really edible. In my experience, people try to convince themselves that the scorched flavor isn't really there, but it is, and once it is, all is lost.


I'm assuming that you're referring to a cast-iron kettle. One of the common strategies for removing rust from cast-iron is to rub the oxidized areas with steel wool. You'll want to remove as much of the rust as possible that way, and then you can consider using a wire or plastic brush, soap and water.

Subsequently, once you're confident you've removed the rust, brushing with food-grade flaxseed oil (or shortening, in a pinch) and heating the pot for a period of time, then letting it cool so that the coating is mostly polymerized, will help reduce the likelihood of future rust development.

There is a guide to restoring cast-iron covering roughly the same set of steps.

The reason for preferring flaxseed oil is its polymerization properties as noted above, but you may want to see a more detailed explanation.


How to get dried split peas to be equivalent to fresh peas

There is no way that dried peas are going to perform well in a recipe designed for fresh peas.  Instead, you should look for recipes that work with dried peas, such as the canonical split pea soup.


Tips for Creating a Creamy and Smooth Sorbet

The general things that can cause icy sorbet:

Too much water Compared to other ingredients. Since you probably aren't going to take water out of your fruit, you pretty much have to add sugar or alcohol to compensate for this. This is tricky if you're improvising, and if the water content of the fruit varies.
Bad churning/freezing: This is mostly determined by the ice cream maker you have. It sounds like you're probably okay, since you get good results sometimes, but if the churning isn't good, you can get big ice crystals as it freezes around the outside before getting mixed well. If you're using the common type with a pre-frozen vessel, make sure you've frozen it thoroughly, so that you can churn long enough to smooth things out.
Chunky fruit: Big chunks will be really obvious, but even tiny chunks can help provide little bits that make the result freeze hard. Make sure that you puree well.
Too cold a freezer: sorbet is going to be best if it's not frozen extremely cold, but your freezer probably is nice and cold. Be willing to let it sit out a little bit before eating, or and perhaps keep it in the door where it's slightly warmer.

David Lebovitz has a good blog post about making homemade ice cream softer; most of what I've mentioned is also there, along with more details and some things that apply only to ice cream - for example, fat softens things too.


The best way to roast silverside of beef in th oven?

For the US crowd, silverside is the part of the round closest to sirloin, so it's a working cut and fairly lean.

In order to keep this juicy you'll need to bard it, in other words add fat. I'd do this by wrapping the whole thing up in streaky (US style) bacon and then sear it at high temperature to give it that crust before turning it down and continue the roasting at a lower temperature. So turn your oven up full-whack and let it get good and hot, then rub your roast with some salt, then into the oven for 20 minutes, then turn it down to 160 and roast it until it reaches 120F/50c. Remove and cover with foil, then let it rest for at least 30 minutes. If you don't let it rest it won't get tender at all.

In all honesty silverside isn't a cut I would roast, and I've tried. It just too lean and has too much connective tissue to be tender. It does make a good braise though, which is what I'd do with it.


Is an unrefrigerated canned ham safe to eat?

If the words "Keep Refrigerated" are on the label, and the ham was kept on the shelf for weeks or months, the only answer I can responsibly give is that you should call poison control: 1-800-222-1222 in the USA. If you're not in the USA, Google "Poison Control (your location)" or call a medical professional. Since you've already eaten it and we can't assure you that it was safe, it has become a medical issue - not a culinary one. We are not qualified to answer medical questions.

  Canned hams labeled “keep refrigerated” require
  refrigeration and, unopened, will keep 6 to 9 months in
  the refrigerator. Processed at a time and temperature sufficient to kill infectious organisms (including Trichinae); however the ham is not sterilized so spoilage bacteria may grow. - USDA


Yes, it is safe to freeze and rethaw bread, although it might not help with the quality.   Toasting it when you are finally ready to eat it will help bring out its best qualities.


Help in identifying Scandinavian dessert recipe

Maybe it was a variant of chokladbiskvier, a Swedish macaroon?


Scaling problems with a cake - mousse layer increases more than other layers

Density = mass / volume, so if you double the mass of mousse, the volume should also double. The only way you can get more than double volume is if the density decreases, which I doubt is happening.

If you're covering the sides and top with mousse, than mass--which is directly related to volume--isn't going to help, you need to think about surface area. For a cylindrical cake frosted on the sides and top, the surface area and volume are

SA = pi d^2 / 4 + pi d h
 V = pi h d^2 / 4

with d the diameter and h the height. You could imagine two cakes of the same mass, one thin and very broad with a very big surface area, the other a bit tall and small around with much smaller surface area. So you'll need to take both height and diameter into account when figuring how much more mousse you need.

Edit

We can simplify a bit. The ratio of new mousse to old mousse in volume or mass should be the same as the ratio of new SA to old SA. Using your edit that the height stays the same:

Ratio = SA_new / SA_old = d_new / d_old * (d_new  + 4h) / (d_old + 4h)

I'm going to assume that your height is pretty big, and that four times the height is maybe getting close to the bigger diameter. Then we could approximate the ratio above (there is some height h such that 4h is between d_old and d_new such that)

Ratio = d_new^2 / d_old^2

So if you're going from an 8-inch diameter to a 12-inch diameter you'd want to make 144 / 64  = 2.25 times the mousse. And, as this is pretty rough, I'd add a little to that to be safe and make 2.5 times the mousse. (And having a little extra mousse doesn't seem like the worst thing in world.) If my guess about the height is wrong, just measure and use the actual formula, you'll get better results! Always make a little more than the you expect to need though, because nothing's worse than having not quite enough.


Why does this Egg McMuffins recipe taste terrible?

For starters, you left off the slice of Canadian bacon. McDonald's cooks their egg more by steaming it in a round mold; they do not fry them in a pan
You might try going to the Serious Eats site and looking at Kenji's recipe for Egg McMuffin:

  Pan toast muffin in butter, fry Canadian bacon in butter, crack egg in lid of wide-mouth mason jar to use as a mold, break yolk, pour water in the pan with egg in mold and put a cover on pan so the water turns to steam to cook egg, drain egg on paper towel, assemble {muffin half, bacon, egg, cheese other muffin half}. No mayo, other condiments or seasoning.


The only dessert I can think of where alcohol would be truly done on a portion by portion basis would be the type of ice cream parfait we used to serve at a restaurant I worked at in my long ago youth:  it was essentially vanilla ice cream layered in a parfait glass with a sweet liqueur such has au de noisette or Framboise--the possibilities are endless.  You will note this is essentially a minimalist adult sundae, so you could easily have one made with plain caramel sauce or chocolate sauce for the designated driver.

Still, if the issue is a designated driver, rather than a recovering alcoholic who can have no alcohol whatsoever, I wouldn't worry overmuch.  Many desserts which contain alcohol have very little per serving, and should not be an issue for the driver.  Some of these are spectacular show pieces.    Some you might consider are:

Bananas Foster
Crepes Suzette
Rum cake
Truffles (as lemontwist mentioned in their comment answer)
Trifle

Another option would be any number of rich coffee based drinks, where you could omit the liquor for the designated driver's portion.   Not truly a dessert, but in line with your theme.

Lastly, I don't think a party of any sort, even a cocktail party, requires desserts with alcohol in them.   Be free.  Serve what you like.  Serve no dessert at all if you like.


To 'roll out' laminated dough, you generally need to flatten out the dough first.

One technique can be to repeatedly press a rolling pin across sections of the dough to spread/soften the dough.  Until the dough is pliable or near the required thickness.  This method is usually started along the center line (as if dividing the dough in half), continuing to each quarter (halving again).  Rotate the dough, or the rolling pin if you need to keep a specific shape.

Another technique is to roll the dough out to almost or the required thickness before chilling.  This is probably more suited when using grated frozen fats.

PS: Depending on the climate, dough can be rested in as little as 20 minutes in a refrigerator/freezer.  As it's only to stop the fat melting into the flour.


What would be a good substitution for powdered milk in cereal cookies?

I don't think that infant formula would be a reasonable substitute for powdered milk in your recipe.

The inclusion of powdered milk here is to provide the taste of milk to go with the cereal component of the cookies (so they're actually sweetened cereal and milk cookies that crunch - not just cereal crunch cookies) - so the real milk taste of the powdered milk is important.  Admittedly, as an adult, I have not tried powdered infant formula, but I would be willing to wager that, either dry or reconstituted, it does NOT taste like the milk you put on cereal.

Also, I would be wary of how the ingredients in infant formula would react when heated in an oven over time.  Different infant formulas have different compositions - typically they have some components isolated from cow's milk, but add other ingredients to achieve a desirable consistency, nutritional balance, and vitamin/mineral content.  There probably isn't much research to help you predict what happens when you bake dried infant formula - you might not want to be the first to take the risk.

Basically, I wouldn't risk substituting a primary flavor component of your recipe with something else - I think you should stick with the powdered milk.


For cornstarch to thicken, two things are required: a temperature of 95°C/203°F, and to be left alone for a while to gather its thoughts. Cornstarch causes thickening by building a network of starch molecules. Once this has formed, stirring just breaks the network and the thickening effect is ruined.

Make up a new cornstarch slurry and add it a little at a time to the simmering soup. Only stir it enough to incorporate it through - don't keep stirring after that.


Cooked beef roast covered with red coloring

To quote a comment:

  According to Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking", when meat is cooked for an extended time below 120˚F or brought up to temperature slowly the myoglobin remains intact and there will be a distinct red color throughout the meat. –  Didgeridrew Sep 23 '13 at 16:39

Here is the Science of Cooking article @Digdgeridrew mentioned

To quote from there:

  When dark meat is cooked, myoglobin's color changes depending on what the meat's interior temperature is. Rare beef is cooked to 140° F, and myoglobin's red color remains unchanged. Above 140° F, myoglobin loses its ability to bind oxygen, and the iron atom at the center of its molecular structure loses an electron. This process forms a tan-colored compound called hemichrome, which gives medium-done meat its color. When the interior of the meat reaches 170° F, hemichrome levels rise, and the myoglobin becomes metmyoglobin, which gives well-done meat its brown-gray shade.

Now to address why it was on the outside I'm going to make an educated guess. Per Wikipedia:

  Myoglobin is an iron- and oxygen-binding protein found in the muscle tissue of vertebrates in general and in almost all mammals. It is related to hemoglobin, which is the iron- and oxygen-binding protein in blood, specifically in the red blood cells.

I have personally experienced this same phenomenon slow-cooking stews, roasts and even chili in the crock pot. All perfectly normal. Have you noticed when you cook red meat over high heat, like grilling a steak for example, the blood remains inside the muscle? I have noticed slow-cooking tends to "release" more of the blood content from inside the meat, likely due to more even cooking. This in my view would explain also why myoglobin would be found on the outside, rather than inside, of the meat.


Can I replace rolled oats with instant oats in a cookie recipe?

(Disregard previous version:  I did not notice this recipe had no wheat flour.)

This recipe gets all of its structure from oats.

Instant oats are pre-hydrolized, so that they cook faster.  Regular oats are just the natural oat, perhaps cut, and rolled flat.  They need more moisture and time to hydrolize.

The recipe will probably work, perhaps with a slightly different texture.  They may bake faster due to the fact that the oats are already hydrolyzed.

If you choose recipe where the structure comes from wheat flour, the type of oats will matter less.


What can I substitute for tomato paste to thicken a marinade?

In the future buy real Italian tomato paste in the tube. You'll use it all up, it lasts and lasts.


What was this pickled vegetable which I was served at a middle eastern restaurant?

I suspect that these will be pickled almonds. Almonds are a favorite ingredient in many middle-Eastern dishes. The green color and fuzz give it away, most other fruits like apricots and plums lack enough fuzz to be noticeable at the unripe stage and are very hard when unripe.

I found a recipe with this photo:

Are these are what you are after?


Can I eat raw salmon I froze for a week on my home freezer?

If the salmon is cheaper "raw" than frozen, it's probably a product that was frozen and then thawed so subsequently refreezing it will have the opposite effect of what you're trying to accomplish as thawed products must be cooked before being refrozen to ensure bacteria introduced during the thawing process are eliminated.

That being said: we cannot give you good advice without actually holding the salmon and feeling and smelling to ascertain it is not a thawed product.  You should ask the supermarket's HQ if refreezing that product would be safe as the local people will probably not know...


How do I keep ground turkey or chicken from clumping when I cook it?

Add a little water to the skillet with the meat. Figure about 1/4 cup of water per pound of meat. Stir and chop the chunks vigorously in the beginning, then brown as normal. As the water evaporates, the chicken or turkey will brown as if the water was never there, but the texture will fine and uniform.


I actually think that is an old-style duster handle, not a food processing tool. Used with disposable dusting units with a tube that slides over then handle.  It is clearly not for cooking IMHO.
Something like this more modern unit. I could be wrong, but that's certainly what it looks like>


The pot choice should depend on the amount of water (which depends on the amount of pasta you're cooking) rather than the other way around. For detailed advice on amounts, see these answers (answer 1,  answer 2).

Generally (not using fresh pasta or very long pasta when more water is necessary) you just need to cover the pasta. A bit of oil on top will help keep it from boiling over, as will keeping the lid off after it's begun boiling and just simmering it rather than a rolling boil.

With longer pastas like spaghetti you should add more water than just enough to cover the pasta, but as long as the top of the water is more than an inch below the top of the pot (after adding the pasta) you shouldn't have trouble if you follow the precautions above.


It can range on the size of the lemon and the time of year.  A medium lemon will give 2-3 Tablespoons of juice, where a larger lemon can give 1/4 cup (4 Tablespoons).   Just have to decide on much lemon flavor you want in your recipe as to which number you pick.


There's a Sicilian preservation of eggplant called Melanzane Sott’Olio.  It's similar to giardiniera, but after pickling, you pack it in oil.

Because of the botulism risk of putting garlic in oil, it's considered risky for long-term storage (more than a week, and that's refrigerated), even though it was used in Sicily for generations.  You might be able to replace the garlic with something safer, or omit it entirely.


Does a GRILL in a UK recipe refer to a BROILER in US?

Yes, a grill in the UK is essentially the same thing as a top broiler. In the UK, and most of western Europe, ovens are electric and have no separate drawer - the grill is a heating element at the top of the oven. Ovens come with a tray that slots in at the top, similar to a broiler pan.


What German product is the equivalent of cream in a recipe from the United States?

"Cream" is most certainly süße Sahne. A modifier gives you knowledge about the fat percentage. Half and half refers to 20% fat, which you could mix yourself if needed, but few recipes are that sensitive, so you can use milk (Vollmilch, 3.5) or whipping cream (Schlagsahne, 30 to 35 percent). The only problem is double cream. That's Konditorsahne, at inner 40 percent, and not available retail in Germany. If it has to be whipped, you have to find a high-ish Schlagsahne (33 instead of 30), drizzle some Sahnesteif, and cross your fingers.

If the recipe needed a cultured product, it would have specified Greek yogurt (10) or sour cream (10 to 20, use saure Sahne or Schmand for that). Creme fraiche is not used in traditional American recipes, as it is a rare and expensive imported product. You can use it in a recipe calling for sour cream, obtaining a product with a richer mouthfeel and less tanginess.

The "what type of cream is suitable" question is unrelated to terminology and should be asked separately. Briefly, the answer is "all of them".


What size cake pan could be substitued in place of muffins?

Which pan should I use?

Volume of a regular muffins
1/3 cup equals about 79 ml
1/4 cup equals about 60 ml
--> I take the average of both: 70ml per regular muffin

Volume of mini muffins
1/8 cup equals about 30 ml
2 tablespoons equal about 20 ml
--> I take the average of both: 25ml per mini muffin

Total volume
24 mini muffins ⋅ 25 ml/mini muffin + 4 ⋅ 70 ml/regular muffin = 880 ml = 880 cm³ batter

Using the 8x8 pan
8" ⋅ 8" = 20.32 cm ⋅ 20.32 cm ≈ 413 cm². Height of the unbaked cake: 880 cm³ / 413 cm² ≈ 2 cm ≈ 0,75".

Using the 9x13 pan
9" ⋅ 13" = 22.86 cm ⋅ 33.02 cm ≈ 755 cm². Height of the unbaked cake: 800 cm³ / 755 cm² ≈ 1 cm ≈ 0,4 inches.

I assume that baked muffins will gain the same the volume as the volume of the unbaked batter. Or at least 3/4 of their original volume.

The cake without streusel topping in the 8" x 8" pan will be 4 cm or 1,5" thick and the cake in the 9" x 13" pan will be 2 cm or 0,8" thick on the average. After baking, the cake in the 8" x 8" pan might look like a molehill cake :D

After adding streusel topping, I assume you cake will be 1 cm thicker. To prevent extreme doming and to have a shorter baking time I recommend using the 9" x 13" pan.

Baking time

Some receipes in my cook / baking book say that pound cakes backed directly on a sheet pan take about 25 to 30 minutes at 180°C / 356F (in an electric oven) to de done. You should still check your cake continuously after 15 minutes.

image sources:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Muffins_with_honey.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Muffin_Starbucks_2.jpg


Why are we not generally using egg in Buckwheat crêpe (or galette) but only in Wheat Flour crêpe?

Eggs make crepes stronger, which makes them less vulnerable to tearing. It also adds some taste if you like eggs.

If you have a good frying pan then you don't need them at all. You can make crepes with next to any type of flower without eggs or any egg replacement. Pure buckwheat on the other hand does not have gluten and might be more fragile.

In my experience "galettes bretonnes" are always with eggs, water and buckwheat, but without white flower or milk. I expect here the eggs are especially in use to make the dough less fragile.


I don't know that you'd want to make a full meal of it, but it sounds like you'd enjoy nutritional yeast. You can find it at any "health food store" type of grocery. It is deactivated, so you don't need to worry about it filling you up with CO2. The flavor is somewhat reminiscent of Parmesan cheese. Googling "nutritional yeast recipes" will give you plenty of ideas for what to do with it.


How do I adjust cooking time for smaller batch of bread?

Your best bet is to use a thermometer.  Most bread is done when the internal temperature hits 190F (88c).  Some people will bake longer because they enjoy a more browned crust. If it were me, I would keep your first bake step the same.  Once you reduce the heat, the second step might not take as long.  I might check the temperature at 15 minutes to see where it is.


With spices, that best by date is for flavor, not for safety.
This site states that, under good conditions, you can use cinnamon for 6-12 months after its best before date but notes that, as I've mentioned, it's not harmful, it's due to loss of flavor:

Of course, the shelf life of cinnamon is shorter if it is not stored properly. However, in terms of how long cinnamon lasts, it does not matter too much if it is opened or not as long as it has been properly re-sealed. But remember, like a lot of other spices, it usually has a best before date or a sell by date and not a use by date or expiration date. Because of this distinction, you may safely use it to compliment your favorite foods even after the printed date has lapsed.
Although not a perfect test, your nose is usually the most reliable instrument to tell if it has gone bad. If cinnamon has gone bad, the pleasant aroma will be gone and with it much of the taste. Using this cinnamon will not harm you, but it will not have much flavor. If you choose to use your cinnamon after the eat by date, you can just use a larger quantity to get more flavor.

So, when you let your spices age, they lose their flavor and won't taste as strongly. You can use more to increase the flavor but since you've already mixed it with sugar, that's probably not an option unless you're also going to make it sweeter.
Particularly ground spices will have a relatively short shelf life during which you'll get a good flavor from them. For that reason, I buy many of my spices in small quantities from the bulk section of the store - often only a tablespoon or two at a time. It's cheaper and I get consistently better flavor from them.
Another option is to grind stick cinnamon as you need it but this is not an option I'm personally fond of for cinnamon. I'd rather buy it in smaller amounts and use it quickly. I do use this method for nutmeg, though, which has a very long shelf life when whole but extremely short one when ground.


How to preserve this alcohol free herbal bitter?

It is not that it is going to turn bad, the issue is that the interesting components of this bitter are mostly volatile.  Volatiles and the flavor components of bitters are more easily "dissolved" into/preserved by alcohol.  Water is terrible for this.  So, the best you can do is purchase or make small amounts, be sure to keep it tightly sealed, and keep it away from direct light.  It's hard to say how long it will last once opened...days maybe, but I can promise it is much less time than a bitter made with alcohol.


How much Finger Food to make for a 'crowd'

This is the rule we use for kids parties in Brazil, where pretty much all that is eaten is finger food (besides the birthday cake), you can use it as a starting point for other regions as well (since portions are typically larger in the US I'd increase it a little):

6-8 snacks (savory) items per adult, 4-6 per child
4-6 sweet items per adult, ~4 per child (who will eat most of the cake)
Lots of drinks (soda, juice, alcohol for adults), which I don't remember the amount

A savory item is roughly the size of a 1" / 2.5cm diameter ball, while the sweet ones are a little smaller (1/2" / 1cm diameter).

With those quantities nobody ends up completely stuffed, and there isn't much leftover either. For kinds of food which I can reuse later I tend to get a little more than the "recommended" amounts, since I'm able to use the leftovers the following day.


What's the difference?
I did a little research, and this article does a good job at summarizing both the taste difference, and the growing difference.
Young ginger (or spring ginger) is harvested at the start of the growing season, before it has gotten as fibrous, and when the exterior skin is still thin & delicate. It also has  a more mild flavor. Mature ginger (what the OP calls "old ginger" is simply grown longer and has a tougher skin, and more pungent taste.
Full text from the above article:

Fresh ginger is available both young and mature.
Spring ginger. Young ginger which is sometimes called spring ginger has a very thin skin that requires no peeling. The skin is edible. Young ginger is very tender and has a milder flavor than mature ginger. Young ginger is found in Asian markets in the springtime.
Mature ginger. Mature ginger is usually harvested in the fall and has a tough skin that must be carefully peeled to reach the flesh underneath. Mature ginger is more pungent than young ginger.
Just harvested ginger—whether young or mature–should have a fresh, spicy fragrance.

So what can you do?
Once it's harvested, there isn't really a way to "mature" it at home in your kitchen. That needs to happen when it's still in the garden. You could try simply using a "heavier hand" and use more ginger to compensate for the slightly more delicate flavor, though that still won't be the same thing as using mature ginger to begin with.


Can some dishes be washed with only water?

Not using standard practice might violate safety standards in a professional context.

Technically, the important factor is whether the residues are made of something perfectly water soluble (sugar, salt, fat-free watery or alcoholic solutions, insoluble but not sticky solid particles...) or of something that is not water soluble and that will adhere to the dishes (about anything containing oils/fats). If you couldn't properly get it off your hands without soap, you won't get it off the dishes without soap.


Looking for meat ingredient suggestions for a Yoghurt Cake recipe

Bacon works well in sweet dishes because it is quite sweet itself. Why not try a sweet-cured bacon in a subtly maple-flavoured cake?

You can really boost the sweetness of the bacon by putting it in a very low oven for long time. It pretty much crystallises.


Assuming an electric oven as typically seen in the US:

Roasting is the same setting as baking. The words mean slightly different things, but not to your electric oven.

Using the baking setting has the heat coming from the bottom of the oven, broiling has it coming from the top. The temperature is usually set very high to broil (if it can be set at all, some ovens only broil on the highest setting). Baking can be done at any temperature within the range of the oven.

What is called broiling in the US is called grilling in the UK.


What can I do with the fat skimmed from chicken stock?

Yes, it is really chicken fat rendered during the stock making process.

Called schmaltz in Yiddish, it is an ingredient in its own right.  For example, you can use it to fry foods, or instead of butter in creating a roux, when you would like the chickeny flavor it provides.   It is a key ingredient in matzo balls, and similarly, makes spectacularly good dumplings of various sorts. You can refrigerate it for several months, tightly covered.

It is not necessary to return it to the stock, although you may use it as an additional ingredient in the dishes you make with the stock.

Stocks are normally defatted anyway, so you do not need to return it to your stock.


I have to contradict @saj14saj here. I have frequently had bread made with underdeveloped gluten (my grandma uses AP flour and tends to knead very short, 2-3 minutes per hand, and use very short proofing times). The bread is soft and cakelike, but it has no trouble rising, and it is neither flat nor dense.

On the other hand, I have had bread with exactly the same symptoms as yours - first feeling great, then left out for a long time to proof. After that, it looks good, but one touch makes it collapse into itself. The reason was very clear: overproofing. There is no doubt that underdeveloped gluten cannot have been a factor in my case. First, I am experienced enough to know when my gluten is developed - the bread was kneaded well beyond windowpane test. Second, it was a large batch of dough. I baked the first loaf at the optimal time and it rose just fine and had a nice texture with traceable gluten sheets through the crumb. It was the second loaf, which I baked a few hours later (and the proofing loaf spent them in a 30 degrees celsius kitchen in summer) which made the trouble. The dough had exactly the "loose" feel you describe, unlike the normal, springy feel before the proofing. It collapsed on touch and would not rise at all. It also had a very strong yeast fermentation taste, unlike the other loaf.

From your description and my experience, my conclusion is that overproofing until your starter died in its own waste products is the most likely culprit. The simple answer would be to not let it sit out overnight. The right amount of time to let it sit would depend on the room temperature, on the amount of starter you used, but also its leavening strength, and that is a bit hard to judge for a newly created starter. My best suggestion is to use trial and error and maybe bake 4 hours after knocking instead of 8 next time, and the time after that adjusting with a smaller increment in the right direction depending on whether the bread turns out overproofed or underrisen.


Ignore someone.

One of my favorite dressings is made with a base of rice vinegar, sesame oil, and ginger. There is nothing besides your personal taste to rule out what vinegar should be used for salads.

That said, I'd personally avoid malt vinegar.


Cast iron meat grinder; first time used had black stuff in it

If you did not clean and run an initial process through the grinder before using it for the first time, I recommend discarding the meat.

When the machine was packaged, oil was probably used to prevent sticking or corrosion during storage. Also, chemical residues from protectants and finishes may still be present in the machine. Before the first use, it is best to thoroughly clean the device and to put through a generous portion of raw meat fat to "sweep out" metal dust and filings and to clean up excess lubricant. Discard the raw meat fat where no animals will be able to scavenge it.


Can I bake cookies without baking paper?

First of all, if your baking sheet is nonstick you may not need baking paper at all. If it is not, then either directly greasing the baking sheet, or putting tinfoil on it and greasing that works reasonably well as a substitute.


Well, it depends on the size of the clove. A heaped teaspoon will probably be about equivalent to two cloves of garlic, but it's cooking, not particle physics. Remember you can always add an ingredient, but you can't take it away - so taste your food and adjust as necessary.


How long should meat be brined for in a 10 percent solution?

Depending on what meat and cut you are brining, and how you intend to treat the meat after brining.  You may need to experiment, anything from 50% to 100% of the time your recipe book suggest.  Search for brining guidelines and other useful information, there are a large community that have a lot of knowledge and experience.


Can gravlax be prepared from frozen salmon?

Yes, you can.  If the frozen salmon is of high quality, there is no reason based on the food science that it should not work.

Many of the recipes and articles on the web indicate that you should (or sometimes can) start with frozen salmon.  Some, including Cooking for Engineers, specifically recommend using frozen salmon to reduce the risk from parasites:

  Parasites, such as roundworms, can naturally reside in salmon
  regardless of if it was frozen or fresh. For safety, use salmon that
  has been commercially frozen or freeze the salmon yourself to at least
  -10°F (-23°C) for at least 7 days.


How do you clean cheesecloth full of bean roots?

You clean it by throwing it away. Is it worth the trouble?


Ought I still buy a honing rod, if I'm buying multiple whetstones of different grits?

Maybe.

Should you have a honing steel?  Yes.  Should you use it regularly?  Yes.

Are you actually going to use it?  ... well, many people don't get in the habit of it.  And unless you're in the habit of using it regularly, it's not going to do you any good.  And well, if they're like my grandparents (before they passed), it can be a challenge to develop new habits.

Once the blade has gotten bad enough to really notice, you need to actually sharpen your knife ... but that slowly grinds down the knife, and if you're not careful, you can change the curve of the blade.

I wouldn't recommend whetstones unless you're maintaining a lot of knives.  For one knife, just go out and get it professionally sharpened.  A professional knife store will do a phenomenal job, but for most german knives, you can just take it to most kitchen stores these days and they'll just run it through an electric sharpener (the same as you might) for around $10.

But honestly, a year is rather quick for a home chef to dull a knife to the point that you're talking about.  If you're going to splurge on something, make sure that they have a good cutting board.  (plastic or wood, not glass, stone, or other ceramic.


How is baby bok choy cooked in Shanghai?

I've never cooked or eaten in Shanghai, however, based on a rudimentary knowledge of Chinese cooking, cooking it at home, and with the support of Google, I would guess the following:

Bok choy is blanched for a short time in boiling water, and then refreshed in an ice bath.

It is stir fried in a very hot wok, probably with some garlic.

A slurry of cornstarch is added. It is made with water, soy, perhaps some sesame oil. This produces the light sauce.

I suspect that sometimes, fermented black bean might be added.


Doing some further searching and reading, it seems soybeans are heat treated to prevent sprouting. How much Monsanto has to do with this, I don't know. They are the main suppliers of non-organic soybeans.

Next time I visit my Vietnamese grocer, I'll check if they have soybeans specifically meant for sprouting.


Chicken has a strong, offensive chemical odor when boiled.

I would identify the source of the smell before consuming it. That said, I would certainly not consume any product (or wear it for that matter) that had a strong chemical smell, even if I were able to identify it.

If it's a recurring issue, perhaps it's the allegedly benign carbon monoxide used at some of the bigger stores to preserve meat for lengthier shelf life.  CO itself does not have an odor, but perhaps the meat develops a scent after being on the shelf that long.  I prefer to go to a smaller food chain in my area that does not prepackage the meat. I would find another meat source. There is no reason to have to perform detective work prior to eating food you just paid for. I don't think anything you eat should have an uncertain and questionable smell or taste.


Pumpkin pie where I come from (USA) is made with these big round orange squashes (we call them "pumpkins", but I believe that term is used for different things in some other countries). Unlike butternut squash, or other members of the squash family, our pumpkins aren't considered to be delicious cooked by themselves, and so people here pretty much only use them mixed with other tasty ingredients to make sweet dishes -- especially pies.

So the pies pretty much taste like the custard ingredients they are made with plus cinnamon, nutmeg, and the other "pumpkin pie spices" traditionally included. The moist texture is pretty much the only thing the pumpkin contributes to the finished product. In fact the pumpkin itself is such a minor contributor to the pie, that most people (I mean regular household cooks, not famous chefs or enthusiasts) will use canned pumpkin puree in a "homemade" pumpkin pie. However pumpkin pie is so traditional here, we tend to go on and on about how wonderful it is, and at winter holidays stores try to sell stuff scented with "pumpkin spice".... What that scent really is is just "spice"- mostly cinnamon.

I wonder if your expectations for pumpkin pie are a little too high, especially since all your recipes keep coming out similar, and "one of the spices overshadows the whole taste". I suspect that that's just the way pumpkin pie is supposed to taste. Even some Americans don't really like it.


I'd strongly advice against that. A cure only works as long as the salt and sugar concentrations are high enough. And although Gravlax does a decent job of infusing the salmon with both the content in the salmon itself is not nearly high enough to keep it preserved, it is the crust on the fish itself that keeps it ok to eat.

It is not a problem to keep your salmon under its crust for a week, just make sure to keep it on a rack so liquid can drain away.

What you could try is making a version of Stockfish but you'll need a dry and cool environment (like Norwegian cool). Stockfish is usually made with very lean fish, I don't know how that would work with fatty salmon. But a casual google seems to confirm people are making something called "salmon jerky" so it might just work.


I love "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". Can someone recommend similar books for other cuisines?

French Cuisine (other than JC):

Patricia Wells - Bistro Cooking, At Home in Provence

Paula Wolfert - The Cooking of Southwest France (if you love ducks, that's the book for you)

Elizabeth David - French Provincial Cooking

I've also heard great things about Dorie Greenspan's recent Around My French Table, although reviewers note that as a contemporary French cooking has a lot of influences from around the globe (Asia, North Africa and even USA). However, if you'd like to find out what French people are likely too cook at home these days, this has to be a great resource.

Spanish Cuisine

Penelopa Casas - The Foods and Wines of Spain, Tapas

Portuguese

Jean Anderson - The Food of Portugal

Italian

Marcella Hazan - The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Mexican

Rick Bayless - Authentic Mexican, Mexico One Plate At a Time

Russian

Anya von Bremzen - Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook

German

Mimi Sheraton - The German Cookbook: A Complete Guide to Mastering Authentic German Cooking

Japanese

Shizuo Tsuji - Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art

Chinese

Irene Kuo - The Key To Chinese Cooking

Barbara Tropp - The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking

Thai

David Thompson - Thai Food

Indian

Julie Sani - Classic Indian Cooking, Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grains Cooking

Madhur Jaffrey - Indian Cooking, An Invitation to Indian Cooking, A Taste of India

Middle-Eastern

Claudia Roden - The New Book of Middle Eastern Food

Greek

Susanna Hoffman - The Olive and the Caper: Adventures in Greek Cooking

Diane Kochilas - The Food and Wine of Greece

South American

Filipe Rojas-Lombardi - The Art of South-American Cooking

Copeland Marks - False Tongues and Sunday Bread

Elisabeth L. Ortiz - A Taste of Latin America


TLDR; If you defrosted the chicken in the fridge, go ahead and refreeze it.  If you thawed it on the counter, cook it, then freeze it.

I was always taught: DO NOT REFREEZE uncooked meat!

But, I did a search and found this somewhat contradictory statement from a reliable source:

"Refreezing
Once food is thawed in the refrigerator, it is safe to refreeze it without cooking, although there may be a loss of quality due to the moisture lost through thawing. After cooking raw foods which were previously frozen, it is safe to freeze the cooked foods. If previously cooked foods are thawed in the refrigerator, you may refreeze the unused portion. Freeze leftovers within 3-4 days. Do not refreeze any foods left outside the refrigerator longer than 2 hours; 1 hour in temperatures above 90 °F.

If you purchase previously frozen meat, poultry or fish at a retail store, you can refreeze if it has been handled properly."

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/FactSheets/Focus_On_Freezing/index.asp

There's also this: How long will uncooked chicken keep in the fridge?

Which says 1-2 days for raw chicken in the fridge.


What is the best way to store and manage tahini?

The oil will always separate from the rest of the product. (home made or natural/bio peanut butter will behave the same way)

When that happens, just spend some time and elbow grease to mix it back together again.

if the tahini was stored in the fridge, it might take longer because everything will be harder.

Just leave it on the counter for a while until it gets to room temperature before mixing it back together.

(after googling) People suggest to keep the jar upside down and when you want to use it, just put it back straight and let it stand for a while, it will mix itself (a little bit) together again.


When using puff pastry in the base of a savoury pie, do you need to blind bake it?

A Google search led to Pepperidge Farm's recipe for Chicken Pot Pie. Since they are the big name in the US for puff pastry, I tend to trust them.

They recommend lining the pan with a defrosted, lightly rolled sheet of puff pastry and pricking it with a fork before blind baking covered with aluminum foil for 25 minutes at 400F (~200C). Don't use pie weights, that will interfere with the 'puff'. They don't call for any egg wash or seal, and I can say from experience with the stuff that it isn't necessary.

They fill the baked bottom layer with the chicken filling, add a lattice top of puff pastry, then bake the whole thing (on a sheet pan or cookie sheet) for 45 minutes (or until the filling is bubbly and the lattice top is brown and puffy).

Be ready to put aluminum foil along the edge if it seems to be getting too brown.


Different cooking times and different dishes

I don't think theres a good way to do this if you're cooking them fully from the start. Souffles are usually best done just before serving. Plus, your oven needs to have the capacity to do all this.

The Au Gratin potatoes should probably be cooked most of the way (you don't specify the recipe you're using, so its hard to say anything more) beforehand, refrigerated, then reheated in the 350 F oven (for a usual casserole dish, I'd guess this would take 30-45 minutes?).

So, if you do the Au Gratin a day or two in advance, throw it in the fridge, start the ham at serving time - normal cooking time needed. Then, at serving time - 1 hour, throw the gratin in and put the souffle in at serving time - normal cooking time.

You might want to finish the Au Gratin with the broiler after the souffle has been pulled out, maybe with a drizzling of cream + cheese (maybe subtract a few minutes from serving time for this).


How can I cool down cooking oil after using it in a deep fryer?

You really can't. The best you can do is put some long stainless utensils in the oil to help dissipate heat, but it's still not going to be fast, just a little faster.


Store homemade kefir with paper towel on top or close the lid normally?

If you'll drink it quickly, you can store it with an airtight lid, but this will make it "fizzy". Personally, I'd store it with a breathable lid to avoid carbonating it, and possibly causing it to explode. There's still live/active cultures, even when you remove the kefir grains.

Edit: quickly, as in a day or so


after re-hydrating and desalinating a salted cod it became slightly brown

I suppose, the reason why the cod got brown, was that after storing the several pieces, the cut face, despite dry and salted, was not covered by the skin of the fish anymore and started to oxidation, hence the brown color.


Is it possible to freeze nuts to keep them from going bad?

Yes.

(do I need more of an answer than that?)

Okay -- the issue is the fats going rancid, and cold will help slow the process, but you should also try to get as much air out as possible.


Why did my sauce get lumpy after being frozen?

Assuming your roux is flour based, the original recipe mixture was able to be a sauce because the proteins in the flour formed gluten and created that lovely thickness we enjoy (your seasonings sound like a nice combo). The water from the other ingredients are trapped in the gluten. Unfortunately, when you freeze it, the water molecules form sharp shapes like knives and cut your gluten strands. This isn't a noticeble problem until your defrost it.

It doesn't matter how quickly or slowing you defrost. The damage was done when it was frozen.

To work around this issue, you have to freeze it faster! Professional establishments can super freeze things super fast. Freezing faster will make smaller knife-shaped ice crystals and that reduces the damage.

TIPS:

freeze in smaller portions and shallower depth on a pre-frozen metal
cookie sheet.
Defrost and strain the sauce. Make a new roux and add the defrosted &
strained sauce. The flavor comes from the frozen sauce and the new
roux recreates the gluten.


Good qualities of ovens/microwaves for baking cake

I'm not going to claim this is an exhaustive list, especially as I'm not a commercial baker, but a few things that I would personally consider:

What is she baking?  What size vessels does it need?  How tall does it rise? This will affect how can she fit in the oven at one time (how many per shelf, how many shelves for the height it needs).  Note that you don't want to pack them too closely, as you need space around them, even for convection.

What is the largest sheet pan it can fit with a couple of inches (5+ cm) around each side?

If electric, how much power does she have available?  (will it require getting an electrician in to run heavier wire?)

I'd also look to see if there are any places that deal in used restaurant equipment.  In the US, restaurants have a rather high failure rate, and there are places that specialize in liquidating restaurants / auctioning off everything in them.


These appear to be carbon steel pans. Carbon steel pans are similar to cast iron in that they are raw/uncoated metal and need to be seasoned to maintain a proper (rust free) cooking surface. The big different from cast iron is simply that carbon steel is thinner, and less massive--which makes it more responsive to heat changes, as it holds less heat within itself.
Virtually all advice for care of cast iron pans also applies to carbon steel. How to care for cast iron advice is plentiful on the internet.

Stop using the dishwasher. The detergent in a dishwasher is far too aggressive and will wash away seasoning.
Dry the pan immediately & thoroughly after washing--popping it on the stove to heat it up works great.

To finally answer your question...
Your pans aren't ruined--they just need some love. Your carbon steel pans can be easily saved with re-seasoning. This is simply a matter of scrubbing the rust off, and going through a process to polymerize oil on the surface to prevent future rust.
Then, have an intervention with the person who loves to put them though the dishwasher, and explain that they are abusing these pans and need to start hand washing them.


What kind of food should be stored in a refrigerator's "snack pan" drawer?

I believe that "snack drawers" tend to be the same temperature as the rest of the refrigerator and really just exist as a place for you to corral small items/kid-friendly foods. I know some people that put pudding, cheese sticks, etc. in their snack drawer without issue.


how long does chilling take for this icecream recipe

IMHO, there is no single answer to this question. It largely depends on the way you are "chilling". It ranges from:

Leave the pot on the counter until cooled to room temp, then stick it into the fridge until cold. Could be anywhere in the range of 2-6 hours, I guess.

with a bunch of variations up to:

Transfer custard from hot pot into a flat, pre-chilled metal bowl or baking tray, plunge bottom into a salted ice bath (or pile of snow if it's freezing outside) and stir constantly with a rubber spatula. Should be cold within minutes.

So what would I do? I'd make the custard a day in advance, let it cool somewhat, then freeze the cubes over night. Never bother about the given 4 hours first freeze, because I assume this is a minimum time to get the cubes frozen fully. Finish the ice cream  4-5 hours before planned serving time the next day, because it might get too hard if frozen too long, but this depends on the recipe and I can't say for sure what the texture would be in this case.


Syrion has already provided some good advice, but I think I can expand it. Note: I live alone and cook for one. And there are a few pieces I use every time. I have more, but I only use them when the primary tool for a task is busy because I am making an involved recipe consisting of multiple components. Beginning cooks seldom make such recipes. So here the list of the minimal setup which will get you through most cooking.

Pans The minimum is one ceramic coated pan. They are non-stick and can be heated to 400°C, so they are usable for everything you'll fry. The downside is that they are expensive and lose their non-stickiness over time. So you might want to go with two pans: one standard non-stick (PTFE) for eggs (can't be heated too much) and one normal pan for everything else - cast iron if you are willing to take care of it, else stainless steel. Invest in the thickest bottom you can find, 8 mm is a good starting point. As for size, I don't see why you'd need a big pan if you cook small amounts, my primary pan is 8 inch.
Pots Don't buy any. Buy an enameled dutch oven for everything you will boil and simmer. If you live in the USA, you can get a decent size for $50, in Europe the situation is worse, only the expensive brand name stuff is available. An OK size for a single household is 3 liters. If you find yourself often cooking dishes which need two pots (e.g. pasta with a cooked sauce), get additionally a deep sauce pan, SS needs the least maintenance. Again, look for a thick bottom.
Oven pan It is for casseroles, roasts, moussakas, lasagnes etc. You can also bake in it - savory things like quiches and filled breads, but also sweet pastries, pies and cake layers. Round is the most versatile shape. A size around 22 to 26 cm diameter and 4-5 cm depth is good for almost everything. As for the material, I prefer porcelain, it ensures a slower, more even baking. It can also be used in the microwave. If you get metal, you can first brown your onions and meat in it in stovetop, then add the veggies and shove it into the oven.
Pizza stone A good investment even if you only bake frozen pizza. Great if you ever start making your own pizza and bread. Look out for a massive one, not the thin stuff you get for nothing.
Bowls Two are the minimum I've been able to live on. A smaller one which fits on the dutch oven, preferably glass, can also be used as a double boiler. It is also good for whipping small amounts of yolks, cream, etc. You can make 1-2 portions of salad in it. The bigger one is for doughs and batters, but also for salads. If you add a third very small one (3-4 inch rim diameter), you can whip small things even better, but also eat soup out of it, serve nuts and gummi bears to guests, etc.
Strainer Very important. It is used for such basic recipes as pasta, stock, etc. You can also wash fruit, veggies and leafy greens in it. Get one which can be hanged over your sink. You can also buy a colander for pasta and washing, but if you only get one of them, it should be the strainer.

If you don't bake, that's about it. If you bake, add a springform pan, muffin cups, a silicon mat and a piping bag with tips. (I assume that your oven came with a cookie sheet). You'll also need 2 knives (chef's and a small one), a cutting board (wood, bamboo or plastic, anything harder blunts your knives) and some things to stir/serve with (ladles, sauce spoon, big spoons, tongs, etc). I consider a digital scale and thermometers also essential for a kitchen, but many people go by without them. You're then set up for cooking in a minimal kitchen.

If you can get what I listed above as a set, go ahead and buy it. I have never seen such a set, so I think it is better to buy them separately. Later, if you notice that you miss something, you can always buy it as a separate piece.


How can I scale down a high-yield recipe that calls for a single egg?

An alternative that wasn't presented in the link above would be to mix the white and yolk together and measure the appropriate amount of egg by volume.  A large egg consists of about 2 - 2 1/4 Tbsp. white and about 1 Tbsp. yolk.  The whole egg, mixed, would total about 3 1/4 Tbsp. (which would be 3 Tbsp. + a little less than 1 tsp. - or just about 10 tsp.).

So for a half egg, you would use 5 tsp. and for a quarter egg, you would use 2 1/2 tsp.  If you are cutting a recipe to 1/3 or 2/3, I would recommend just going for 3 tsp. or 6 tsp. respectively.

Aside from scaling down the volume of the whole egg in your recipe, the next best idea from the link above is probably the recommendation to go by weight (if you have an accurate food scale).

Also worth noting:  Whenever you scale-up or scale-down recipes where ingredients are not specified by weight (recipes that use, say, cups of flour and sugar), the recipe might not turn out quite the same as it would have if you had made a full recipe.  Recipes that don't specify weights are typically not very robust.  If you're going to scale-down, you'll probably have better luck with a half-recipe than you would with a quarter-recipe.


I assume you mean more glycerine, since glycerine is already in your recipe. Add a little, knead it, add a little, knead it. You don't want to add too much: fondant is supposed to be firm, though not crumbly.

I always use this recipe. It seems simpler.


Is marinade safe if it has had incidental contact with meat?

Not completely clear on what you've done. If you used the spoon just to pour over the chicken, from a few inches or more above, then the spoon wasn't actually contaminated (provided you didn't get splashes of chicken juice on it). If you used it to stir the chicken in the marinade, or to rub the marinade on the chicken, or it otherwise came into contact, then yes its considered contaminated.

Assuming it is contaminated, it is safe provided you treat it as you would chicken: store it in the fridge, not for more than a day or two; cook it thoroughly before consuming; don't let come into contact with other food (or that food will be potentially contaminated as well), etc.

You could also go ahead and cook it now; you can then store it like you would leftovers.

If you need to store it longer, freezing it will keep it safe. Most marinades will handle freezing fine, though you may need to re-mix it upon thawing.

I suggest labeling it—especially if you freeze it—so you don't forget that its potentially contaminated.


Creating steam at the beginning of the baking cycle has one goal: to keep the crust soft and pliable to allow for maximum oven spring.

Most breads are supposed to expand during the first phase in the oven. If the outer crust is already hard, it will prevent the expansion, either causing a dense interior or uncontrolled tearing of the crust - and in the worst case, both. Apart from steaming, slashing a loaf causes intentional weaknesses in the crust that allow expansion.

So how long should you steam?

Once the internal structure has started to solidify, the steam is no longer necessary. For my average two-pounds free-form loaf on a baking stone, I pour a generous cup of boiling water in at the beginning and then after about fifteen minutes I open the oven door wide to let the excess steam escape. Typically I also lower the oven temperature at this point.

For loaves in a pan, misting the loaf surface or adding a wash will also keep the crust pliable, similar to steaming.

But if I read your question correctly, I actually have another suspicion, why your bread stays cool inside or bakes longer:

If you used wet cool towels, they will

absorb a lot of energy from your oven and
act as a kind of "shield" or "barrier" that unintentionally protects your bread from the oven's bottom heat.


What's the proper way to muddle mint for a julep or mojito?

The classic mistake when making a Mojito or a Julep is to over muddle the mint. Pounding away at the mint will release so much flavour from it, that you won't taste any of the other ingredients. A perfect Mojito should comprise a balance of flavours. The other main constituents do not have a particularly strong flavour, so its very easy to swamp them with mint and end up with a glass of alcoholic toothpaste. Mojito = Rum, Mint and Lime. Julep's are a little more tolerant, due to the richer flavours of the other ingredients, but the same basic principles still apply.

Don't overdo the amount of mint you add. Leaves from one decent sprig of mint will do. Muddle the mint gently for about ten seconds. You want to bruise the leaves and release a little bit of flavour, but not grind them into a pulp.

Finishing off a Mojito properly is also essential. You only need a splash of soda. Adding more than a shot will just dilute the ingredients and destroy the subtle flavours. Most importantly, don't forget to taste the drink after you've made it, even if its for someone else! This is the best way to learn and improve your mixing and muddling techniques. It is also sometimes possible to rescue an imperfect drink (eg. by adding a touch of extra lime juice if its too sweet) if really necessary.


How do you know when a baked potato is done?

If you want to go all engineer on your unsuspecting spuds, take their temperature with an instant read thermometer. According to several online sources I found, the ideal internal temp for your 'tater is 210F (99°C).


Resting it in the fridge overnight ought to be absolutely fine, I've found that in general I get better flavor from a slower rise. I'm not sure that refrigeration is going to help with this folding technique though, it's going to make the dough less sticky yes, but it will also make it less flexible.

With cold dough I'd oil a work surface and my hands and gently stretch it and fold it that way. I think the goal of the folding technique is to avoid handling it too much and knocking the air out of it, and this may work as well. I use this method for focaccia, which is also very sticky, although I only fold it to get flavored ingredients into it.

Let us know how it goes.