How to make sure that potatoes are boiled properly?

You would probably do best to check the internal temperatures of each and every potato. You can do this with a meat thermometer.

  Potatoes are done if tender when pierced with a fork and the internal temperature reaches 210 degrees F. Use a meat thermometer to test for doneness.

[ Source: http://whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/PotatoBaking.htm ]

(That's 98.8889 degrees Celsius, because I can't read Farenheit.)

Now, baking and boiling are different, and what you are going to end up doing with it or what type of potato you used will have an effect on this. However, you get the general idea. Thermometers will provide the best accuracy for any method of cooking.

If you want to really keep things accurate, you can use the ChefSteps method of selecting potatoes to begin with: http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/finding-perfect-french-fry-potatoes

So all your potatoes have about the same water content.

Then you can cut them all to exactly the same size.

Then you can put them in an immersion circulator/waterbath at 194°F / 90°C, use a special sous-vide bag thermometer to test the internal temperature (it pierces the bag and reseals it on the way out,) and you have the most accurate potatoes ever.

Mmmm, accurate potatoes.


I love palm sugar, when can I bake with it

Yes, absolutely you can.  However, you may need to make adjustments.

First, there's water content.  Palm sugar has a relatively high water content out of the cake, almost 4%.  That's compared to less than 2% for brown sugar, and about 0.4% for white granulated sugar.   So you'll need to adjust the water content of your recipes accordingly.

Also, palm sugar won't brown the same way other sugars do.  Particularly, white granulated sugar is good for crispy baked goods because it melts well without giving off water, and you won't expect that effect from palm sugar. Further, since you generally need to grate palm sugar yourself, it won't have the large crystals like granulated sugar does.

Overall, I'd suggest that you'd get the best results substituting palm sugar into recipes that call for brown sugar, and otherwise into recipes for cakes, rolls, muffins, and similar things that don't rely on the sugar's texture.


How to substitute in baking so the result is both egg- and gluten-free?

AFAIK, (which isn't much) there is no one good substitute for eggs in baking. This is because the egg can be there for one or more of several reasons. This includes as a flavorant, emulsifier, moisturizer and leavener. So, I'll address each of these separately.

Flavor - I have yet to find an ingredient or ester I can easily produce to replicate the very eggy taste of eggs. You're best bet is likely a commercial substitute (which also may solve the other issues below).

Emulsification - (Soy) Lecithin. Period. Probably about a tablespoon per egg yolk replaced. If this leaves your recipe too dry...

Moisturizer - Applesauce. Period. The high pectin is an emulsifier as well, and it will moisturize without imparting strong flavor. Alternatively, add more liquid (which see below for gluten notes).

Leavening - Baking powder may do the job here. You may also want to use buttermilk alongside it. If that doesn't work, Xanthan Gum may be worth trying alongside the BP or buttermilk. Use VERY LITTLE XG, it will thicken it up nicely. However...

Gluten. Its what makes bread so bready. As long as what you're making isn't bread (if you need to sub egg out for a whole egg in bread, I got nothin') you can substitute out any flour that's not wheat, rye, or barley based. If you're friend has Celiac Disease, simply not using those flours or any byproducts in a from-scratch recipe should be fine. If your friend has IBS and it's a FODMAP issue, there's quite a few more landmines to avoid, and I recommend asking a nutritionist for specific advice/check a recipe. If it's an allergy to wheat, ask for a list of known allergens from your friend. Best thing to do is have your friend forward the specific diagnosis that their doctor/nutritionist gave them; I'm sure they wouldn't mind so that you can safely cook for them.

It's not quite as easy as just using a different flour though. You'll probably want to use less flour overall, and a mix of different flours to go toward a specific taste and feel.

TLDR; Substitutions are hard. Use rice flour and applesauce, I guess.

Experiment! You can report back with your findings...


Yes, you should refrigerate it.

Once a commercially bottled dressing is exposed to the air it is contaminated. Your homemade dressing is no different, and is likely more contaminated to begin with. The bottom line is that your dressing is food -- for humans, bacteria, and mold. It might not be the most hospitable of environments, but something is bound to find a home there. This process is arrested by refrigeration. Additionally, the garlic and basil will be going through a decay process that would be delayed by refrigeration.

I'm not sure what kind of olive oil you used, but I've never had a vinaigrette turn solid in the refrigerator. If you're in a rush I'd suggest submerging, or running hot water over the bottle you store it in to quickly thaw it. You'll shorten the shelf life, but if you're using it frequently enough (used all in less than a month) that shouldn't matter.


How to distinguish cream of tartar from bread improver

This depends on what is in your bread improver. Cream of tartar is salt which acts as a buffer. If the bread improver also contains acid (ascorbic acid is sometimes an ingredient), it makes it harder to distinguish, because it will react similarly in many circumstances.

The first simple test would be to add baking soda to a solution of each ingredient. If only one sample fizzes, this is the cream of tartar, and the bread improver has no acid. If both fizz, the bread improver has acid and you cannot tell from this test.

The second test needs six jars of water (or smaller things, like espresso cups) and pH strips. Dissolve each of the ingredients in two jars, and fill pure water into the third pair. Add some baking soda to one of the water jars, and a colorless acid to the other one. Use a pH strip to see that you added enough to be able to measure it, a change in pH by 1 step should be enough. Then add the same amount of soda to a cup with ingredient A and a cup of ingredient B. Repeat with the same amount of acid. Measure the acidity of the new cups. The ingredient whose solution remained at a neutral pH is the cream of tartar. There is a small chance that both will do this, because we can't know if the dough improver also have a buffering quality, but I think this is not so likely.

A third test, if you don't have pH strips for the second: whip an eggwhite with a pinch of each ingredient. The more stable foam will be the cream of tartar. With some luck, the bread improver eggwhite will whip even worse than pure eggwhite, if the dough improver has emulsifiers (intended to soften the bread). But this test is not perfect either, because ascorbic acid or other ingredients used to make stronger bread could also stabilize the eggwhite - they are intended to strengthen gluten, but will work on eggwhite proteins too.

The best test would be to use not chemical behavior, but taste. For this, you need a new, labeled sample of either cream of tartar or the same brand of dough improver. You can just dip your finger in it and lick. Then repeat (with a different finger) in each of the unlabeled ingredients. As long as you are sure that these two are indeed food additives (you don't have an unlabeled box of NaOH sitting in your cupboard, for example), there is nothing dangerous about the test. The taste should be distinctive enough.


The only thing of note I've ever taken from commercially available dried fruit is that sulphur dioxide is almost universally used as a preservative. Some people are sensitive to this. There are various limits on how much you are allowed to use, but no outright bans in preservation.

You can buy fruit that has no added sulphur dioxide. This tends to be in the organic section and therefore tends to be that much more expensive.

But remember that dried fruit is essentially concentrated sugar. There's a reason young children like it. So for the same reason you don't let them eat as much chocolate as they'd probably like, I'd encourage some moderation. Perhaps try some fresh fruit in your baking.

In relation to calcium, it's sulphur dioxide that makes "acid rain", which leaches away limestone and other calcium carbonate rock sources. I can't find anything reputable that makes a link here but there's a big pile of "health" blogs out there that seem to think "because acid rain" is an answer enough, who has time to do the science? I'm certainly not saying you should avoid sulphites (unless you medically need to) but they can be avoided.

Dried prunes are apparently well recognised for their benefits to bone health.


How to bottle your own homemade salad dressing

To can foods safely, you should always use a tested recipe. You can find safe recipes for most things on the site of the National Center for Home Food Preservation or on the Ball Jars canning site.

Sources like this recommend against trying to can your own flavored vinegar or flavored oil ... one could safely assume they would thus recommend against home canning of vinegar and oil.

I think this article is a helpful Q&A explaining why it's not recommended (or safe!) to create and can your own recipes -
http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/nchfp/factsheets/heatprocessingbackgrounder.html


500F is not really that hot, in terms of Neapolitan pizza.  Traditionally, they are baked for 2 minutes or less, at 700F - 900F (371 - 482C).  So, this could be a temperature, and/or a cooking surface issue.  What type of oven are you using?  On what type of surface is your pizza cooking?


Cut or mashed bananas, like many fruit, will turn brown after a very short time, a few minutes should show first discoloration and after a few hours, the surface will be brown. This is primarily a matter of aesthetics, because the fruit looks less appealing.

As far as food safety is concerned, it depends on your definition of “a couple of days”. The rule of thumb for storing whole bananas  in the fridge is 2-3 days, but you are dealing with mashed fruit, which means a much larger surface area and some broken cell walls. So one or two days should be ok. But if you notice any signs of spoilage like discoloration apart from the aforementioned browning, visible mold or a strange smell (acidic, boozy, or just “off”), discard them regardless. The general rule is always:

  When in doubt, throw it out.


Better way of getting out excess water/oil from food other than paper towels?

If you have the time, wrapping something in a cheese cloth & suspending it over a bowl can get a lot of liquid out.


I need a translation from Moroccan to English

After a quick googling and just looking at the words.

Cuorre Pikante : Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
Pimante Negra : Black peppercorn.
Pimante Rojo : Pink peppercorn.
Kanela : Cinnamon
Comeno : Maybe the brand name of the 7 spice mix ?
7 Especais Mexta : 7 Spice mix.
Jengebre : Ginger
Courcuoma : Curcuma/Turmeric


For peanut butter, do peanuts have to be roasted with their shells or without their shells?

The shells are not used in making peanut butter.  You would need to shell these peanuts (and remove the papery skins from the individual peanuts) before grinding them to make the peanut butter.

It doesn't matter whether they are roasted in the shell or not--what matters is that they are roasted, to give the deeper, richer flavor.

I have to assume your peanut vendor did not mislead you, and therefore the peanuts you bought are already roasted.  You would just shell them and grind them.   Note:  if they are roasted, they will be somewhat crunchy, with a toasty complex aroma, and light medium beige to brown color, whereas raw (or "green") peanuts will be closer to very pale yellowish beige, like unfinished lumber.

Due to the large number of peanuts that may be used in making a reasonable quality of peanut butter, and the inconvenience of shelling those peanuts, one might choose to purchase already shelled, roasted, preferably unsalted peanuts for the purpose.

Edit:  in response to the second question, I defer to the mighty Alton Brown whose recipe indicates to roast peanuts at 350 F for 30-35 minutes.   Since he doesn't give us a test or indicator to know when they are done, and a careful and meticulous recipe writer such as Brown would not omit this if one exists, I infer no good test for doneness of the in-shell peanuts exists.

However, since the individual peanuts within the shells are very uniform in size, the time and temperature guideline is likely to be quite effective.

You should almost certainly be smelling roasty peanut aromas as the peanuts close in to being done, but there is no way to describe that.   Its like knowing when a cake is done by the aroma--its certainly possible, but you have to have experience with the recipe to know.


No, there is no specific temperature you need to reach. Once the sugar is dissolved (which will happen well below boiling temperature) you’re done.


Are there books describing the general principles of cooking?

The best resource for this kind of questions is On Food and Cooking: The Science And Lore Of The Kitchen, by Harold McGee. It's best described as 'a cookbook without recipes', even though there are a couple of them in there.

It has several sections and describes in detail what various foodstuffs contain and how they are affected by different cooking methods. For example, there's a chapter on Bread, which goes through the whole process from kneading the dough to the crumb going stale.

It's very thorough, but also very readable. (I have read both the 1984 and 2004 editions cover-to-cover, and I don't think I'm the only one...)


Is there a Guide to non alcoholic ice cream floats?

In the US, ice cream floats are simply ice cream and carbonated soda, and so are naturally kid friendly.

One of the most well known is the root beer float - vanilla ice cream and root beer. Another that seemed to trend some years ago was orange sherbet and cream soda.

The flavor combinations are endless. Use your imagination and fix what suits your taste.


How to create thick, hearty garlic marinara sauce?

Ditch the cream and onions, and don't use tomato paste. Take a whole bulb of garlic, peel the cloves and leave them whole.

Heat a cup of good olive oil over medium heat and add the garlic, stirring occasionally until very lightly brown and blistered: be careful not to burn it!

Then add 4 28oz cans of chopped/crushed Italian tomatoes and some chilli, being careful of bubbling oil, and simmer very gently for 4 hours. Season well.

This method produces a thick, intense sauce that you can use for pretty much anything. Keep in the fridge for a week or the freezer for months.


(note : I'd have posted this as a comment because I don't have personal experience w/ this, but people keep complaining when I do as this might have enough information to be considered an answer)
I don't know about this case, but in other times when you're cooking down sugar there's always a fear of 'seed crystals' getting into the sugar (causing it to become grainy).
A little searching seems to support that theory.  There were many websites talking about seed crystals, but I'm going to quote the one from Fine Cooking (The Science of Caramel), as they specifically mention problems with the sides of the pan:
http://www.finecooking.com/item/60729/the-science-of-caramel :

What can go wrong when making caramel?
The caramel turns grainy
The biggest drawback to the wet method is that the sugar tends to recrystallize more easily than it does with the dry method. When the sugar and water boil, sugar syrup may splash onto the wall of the pot, where it evaporates quickly and forms back into sugar crystals. If even one of these crystals falls back into the syrup, it can seed a chain reaction, turning the clear syrup opaque and grainy. Should this happen, you can remove it from the heat, add a few tablespoons of water, return it to the heat, and stir until the crystals dissolve before continuing on. That said, it's better to keep recrystallization from occurring in the first place, so here are a few ways to prevent it: ...

See the article at Fine Cooking for advice on how to prevent seed crystals and other information on caramel.


Is it difficult to make a béchamel sauce for 15 persons?

I've worked in more than a few commercial kitchens, and we've always made 'mother' sauces in large batches during prep for dinner. Béchamel is one of them; it's the base to quite a few other sauces.

For 15 people, I'd suggest using a small stock pot with a thick bottom on medium-low heat to cook out the roux, and then use the residual heat to hold the sauce if that's how you plan to serve it. Cook the sauce just prior to serving it.

Just remember, the more of it you have, the heavier it gets, and greater pressure is exerted on the flour at the bottom of the pot. Once you think it's nearly done, use a ladle to pour some into a shallow bowl, do the spatula test as Joe suggests and get it off the heat as soon as your happy with it. And, whisk from the bottom up (a figure-8 as you turn the pot works well, and turning the pot helps prevent burning). Otherwise the last few servings are going to taste a bit off.

You can also use a wide but more shallow pan, which also reduces the risk of burning some of the sauce. I've just not yet developed the amount of control over my enthusiastic whisking problem to do that in a setting where I'm also responsible for the mess :)


Would carbonated water be a good substitute for two eggs in this cherry loaf recipe?

It would be useful to see the whole recipe, but the answer is probably no. Egg whites are protein and water, and yolks are fat, protein, and water, and each contributes important things to cakes. There is complicated chemistry going on, and you can't just eliminate the eggs from a recipe like this. Carbonation does nothing. However, if your recipe calls for, e.g., whipping the whites to create a stable foam, you could replace this with whipped aquafaba. There are other similar vegan substitutions that could be made depending on how your recipe is using the egg.


Water in the microwave to reheat pizza better

I just tested 3 individual slices on the pizza setting. That setting basically just turns the heat on and off so the food heats more evenly.

I tried:

A small shot glass of cool water
A mug of cold water
A mug of warm water

They were all the same. The only thing I noticed was that the pizza was cold where the shot glass was touching it. The #2 and #3 were done with the mug underneath the plate.

Stomach satisfied, but myth busted.


The meat doesn't really "absorb" the smoke, as much as the smoke sticks to the meat, for the most part.

The real answer here is strictly what your preference is. While there are some preservative qualities that are delivered through smoking food, you should consider smoke a spice no different than salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc. Smoking food for two hours should be plenty for most people's palates. It is better to be a little light on the smoke than a little heavy (I know this from my own mistakes in the past).


Best way to cook rice to serve cold later?

You want to use oil as just any fat.  More to the point, you want something that is liquid at refrigerator temperature.  Butter becomes solid at that temperature and makes for a terrible texture.  Beyond that, err on the side of using an overly flavorful broth, as flavor is far more subdued at colder temperatures.  Beyond that, to ensure tenderness cook it slightly past al dente, as the texture will firm up as you cool it.


Test if whitish chocolate has bloom or is spoiled

It is is almost impossible for chocolate to mold as it doesn't have any moisture, required for mold growth.

There are two types of bloom:

Sugar bloom -- wipe the chocolate with a wet finger, it will dissolve.

Fat bloom -- wipe the chococolate with a dry finger, it will feel waxy or greasy

Either tends to look like a chalky coating, not very thick, definitely not fuzzy (like mold).


How do I reduce the lime flavor in my Slow Cooker roast?

You cannot get rid of the lime flavor, it's there to stay. Your best course of action is to try and balance the strong lime flavor with sweet and savory flavors, for instance shredding the roast onto a bed of chicory/endive leaves with a soy-honey dressing.


Wikipedia has a whole article dedicated to this question! Various possible reasons for Bond's preference are given; the last paragraph in this quote seems like the most solid explanation:

"Shaken, not stirred" is a catchphrase of Ian Fleming's fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond, and his preference for how he wished his martini prepared.
[...]
Scientists, specifically biochemists, and martini connoisseurs have investigated the difference between a martini shaken and a martini stirred. The Department of Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario in Canada conducted a study to determine if the preparation of a martini has an influence on their antioxidant capacity; the study found that the shaken gin martinis were able to break down hydrogen peroxide and leave only 0.072% of the peroxide behind, versus the stirred gin martini, which left behind 0.157% of the peroxide. Thus a shaken martini has more antioxidants than a stirred one. The study was done at the time because moderate consumption of alcohol appears to reduce the risk of cataracts, cardiovascular disease, and stroke, none of which afflict Bond.
Andrew Lycett, an Ian Fleming biographer, believed that Fleming liked his martinis shaken, not stirred because Fleming thought that stirring a drink diminished its flavour. Lycett also noted that Fleming preferred gin and vermouth for his martini. It has also been said that Fleming was a fan of martinis shaken by Hans Schröder, a German bartender.
A part of Ian Fleming's James Bond character was based on people in his surroundings. One such influence was his friend Bernhard von Lippe-Biesterfeld, who drank his vodka martini as Bond did, always shaken, not stirred.
Some connoisseurs believe that shaking gin is a faux pas, supposedly because the shaking "bruises" the gin (a term referring to a slight bitter taste that can allegedly occur when gin is shaken). In Fleming's novel Casino Royale, it is stated that Bond "watched as the deep glass became frosted with the pale golden drink, slightly aerated by the bruising of the shaker," suggesting that Bond was requesting it shaken because of the vodka it contained. Prior to the 1960s, vodka was, for the most part, refined from potatoes (usually cheaper brands). This element made the vodka oily. To disperse the oil, Bond ordered his martinis shaken; thus, in the same scene where he orders the martini, he tells the barman about how vodka made from grain rather than potatoes makes his drink even better.
Other reasons for shaking tend to include making the drink colder or as Bond called it, ice-cold. Shaking increases convection thus making the drink far colder than if it were to be stirred. Shaking is also said to dissolve the vermouth better making it less oily tasting.
While properly called a Bradford, shaken martinis also appear cloudier than when stirred. This is caused by the small fragments of ice present in a shaken martini. This also brings into question the movie versions which are never cloudy.
[...]
Through multiple letters in New Scientist's Last Word section (June 5–11, 2010), the mystery has been solved. When Ian Fleming was writing, most vodka was produced from potatoes and potato vodka has an oily aftertaste. Today's grain vodka has no oily aftertaste. Experimenters found that potato vodka shaken with ice tasted less oily than did potato vodka stirred with ice.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaken,_not_stirred#Purpose_of_shaking

On a side note, that Wikipedia carries weighty articles like this should be reason enough to give in to their yearly pleas for a donation. ;)


Can one use chocolate fèves/callets/nibs for tempering?

Yes, you can temper the callets.

Couverture is couverture, and the only thing that's really different about the callets is their shape - they're specifically intended to be melted easily, unlike the bars which they (sort of) expect people to eat directly.  The bars are less likely to melt during shipping which is why they also sell them in that form.


What are the differences between slow cooking and poaching a chicken soup and how does slow cooking/poaching soup affect salt absorbtion?

Poaching is about cooking something gently, until just done. This is good for chicken breasts: white meat has very little fat and connective tissue, which makes it well-suited to this. It's at its most tender when it's not overcooked. Dark meat will be fine too. As with most other methods of cooking, it just needs to reach the appropriate temperature in the center.

Slow cooking, on the other hand, is about bringing something up to temperature and cooking it there for a long period of time. (There's no temperature to reach - it'll have been hot enough for a long while.) With meat, this is good for tougher cuts, as the long cooking helps break down connective tissue and soften it up. This is amazing for something like a pork shoulder, which can be cooked for hours and hours, until it's completely falling apart. You can probably get some fraction of that effect with dark meat. White meat will be iffy.

As for your favorite topic, salt absorption, longer cooking will get you more penetration into the meat, especially if it begins to fall apart. That won't happen easily with white meat, though, so it'll be a small effect - possibly you could cook it a while then pull it apart with a fork to help. It'll be a bit better for for dark meat.

Finally, since you've posted so many questions asking basically the same thing, my two cents: the best thing to do is probably just to roast chicken (don't overcook it!), shred it, and add some kind of sauce with a decent amount of salt. Cook it a little bit longer if you like, and there you are. You can only go so far with boiling/simmering/poaching/slow cooking, no matter how much you try to optimize it, and you've already gotten the main advice in other questions: possibly tenderize it, cook it in salty liquid, and perhaps help pull it apart once it's mostly cooked.


Whats wrong with my rice cooking process in my Zojirushi?

Based on your description, you seem to be measuring the rice and water in a measuring cup and adding them to the pan. Having used the same Zojirushi rice maker for 8 years, I can testify that relatively small variations in the water/rice ratio can produce large changes in the final texture of the rice. In your case, it seems to be that you're using too much water. Adjusting the ratio to 1:1 should give you a chewier baseline to work with, and adding water in 1 oz. increments should allow you very fine-grained control (no pun intended) over the texture of the rice.

That said, I believe that the most reliable results come from using the 3/4 C / 180 mL "cup" provided. To use it, you scoop a number of "cups" of rice and add them to the cooking pan, washing in the pan. After pouring off the wash water, fill the pan with water to the line on the inside face corresponding to the type of rice used and the number of "cups" of rice you added to the pan. In my experience, using this method produces essentially perfect results every time. Adjusting the water level to very slightly below the line will yield chewier rice, while adjusting slightly above will yield mushier rice.


What is the purpose of adding baking powder to a recipe that contains yeast?

Most baking powder available today is double-acting baking powder. The "first" action is when it gets wet. The "second" action is when it gets hot (above 140°F/60°C).
Generally speaking, the yeast would provide the pre-bake rise, and then the baking powder would assist with additional spring once it's in the oven.
Interesting about this recipe that you link to is that the yeast gets a very short amount of time for the yeast to proof before baking. The recipe calls for a 5 minute rest after mixing, but no additional proofing time after shaping. I'm not familiar with these particular cypriot pies at all, but my first impression is actually that because there isn't a step to let the pies rise after they are shaped, the baking powder is likely somewhat necessary to ensure a decent lift.


What is the difference between bún tươi and bún khô?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there doesn't seem to be a difference in the two. They are both rice vermicelli noodles.

While I found very few search results in English, they appear to be the same. I also searched images and found that there are packages of each but there are also packages labeled like this:

So I came away thinking it's more semantics than anything.


If I double a bread recipe do I double the salt?

If you’re measuring your ingredients by weight, I don’t see any reason not to double the salt. I usually do. If you’re measuring ingredients by volume, it might be best to err on the less salty side, as different types of salt have different densities. Hope this helps


why does toast smell and taste different than bread?

Mailliard reactions. I'm going to guess there's already another question for this one and this will prove a duplicate, so low-effort answer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction

Basically (and I don't claim to know any better than that) it's alterations in the proteins brought about at elevated temperatures (there may also be carmelization, but that's a different-yet-similar process.)


What are the limitations of aquafaba as an egg white substitute?

I don't think it is useful to think of aquafaba as a egg-white substitute. Rather, you should think of whipped aquafaba as a replacement for French meringue, in cases you are not relying on it setting under heat.
So, when you need a vegan foam, you can try aquafaba (after whipping) to get the right texture. To regard it as a general replacement for egg whites is an exaggeration.


How do I make brown rice bread rise without any wheat flour?

I have been making a gluten free yogurt bread with the brown rice flour and haven't had any problems.  You are going to need xanthan gum with any kind of gluten free mix you need.

With the other gluten free bread recipes I have in my book, they are all calling for a tsp of vinegar in addition to the dry yeast.  Not sure if that helps with the rising, but my recipes have all come out exactly like the book says and haven't had a problem with them not rising.  I just turn my stand mixer on HIGH and don't worry about kneading the bread.


Can I bake 2 cakes at a time on 2 different shelves in my oven toaster grill?

It will most likely not work "just like that". Even if your otg has both top and bottom heating elements, the cake on the upper rack will have the heat to its bottom blocked by the cake on the lower rack, resulting in an overcooked top and undercooked bottom part, and for the cake on the lower rack it will be the other way round.

You can try to swap the two cakes after some time (probably between half and two thirds of the baking time) to compensate. But opening the oven door partway through the baking (thus letting hot, humid air out and colder, drier air in) might itself negatively impact the outcome.

If your otg has a convection fan, that is probably your best bet. The circulating air will distribute the heat much more evenly onto all sides of both cakes.

To convert a conventional recipe for convection baking, you typically reduce the temperature by 20°C, maybe put a bowl of already boiling water in the oven along with the cake (to make the air more humid and thus compensate for its movement, which would otherwise evaporate more water from the cake, causing it to dry out), and start keeping a close watch on the colour and texture of the cake's surface about 10-20 minutes earlier than the recipe says the cake will be done.


Can i freeze dough without killing the yeast?

Yeast can definitely survive in the freezer, yet timing for the final rising will be altered by unfreezing.

After several attempts, I found it best to freeze viennoiseries such as croissants, pains au chocolat (croissants leavened puff pastry), pains aux raisins (danish leavened puff pastry) and brioches suisses (small brioches filled with chocolate chips and crème pâtissière) after shaping and before the final rise and coating.

I leave them at room temperature at 10-11pm, directly from the freezer and brush them with dorure (blended eggs) in the morning (6am) while the oven is pre-heating. (I also freeze blended eggs in ice cubes and unfreeze the proper quantity for every batch). This works for a week, not that the yeast dies afterwards but it matches the family consumption rate of these viennoiseries.


I haven't done it myself, but since the "goodness" of a cake is largely subjective, I think you should try it and see what happens.

Be scientific about it: if you don't like it, change a variable and try again.

A cursory search on youtube might also help. Here is one I found:
Zojirushi Mother's Day Cake


Opinion is divided (usually along the border) as to whether the French or the Belgians invented French fries. The name favours the former, but this is possibly due to the fact that the French are seen as having invented gastronomy in general.

It is probably impossible to answer - who knows when the first adventurous cook decided to try frying potato alongside his piece of fish?


What's wrong with using spin dryer to dry lettuce?

I think the thing boils down to how much you need to get from the lettuce. If you demand the best of the best performance for your salad, you want to blot it dry with paper towels, so that the texture is best preserved and the appearance is undisturbed. For my purpose, in my kitchen, a salad spinner saves money (the paper towels), time (my time), and allows me to do something more interesting than blotting it dry, and the time saved can be used to better decorate the dishes I love better than the salad.

In essence, there is nothing wrong with any method of cooking if you enjoy the result, and it doesn't involve health problems. Spinning it dry is fine for me, and if you accept the result, there is little to hesitate using one.

Thomas Keller also told us that after vegetables release the flavors in the soup we should discard them, and replace them with fresh cooked vegetables with better colors and better flavor for better presentation. In my kitchen, I am not serving a Michelin 3-star soup to my family, and thus it is fine having those vegetables in the soup for some more fibres in our diet.

It is a matter of fine dining, it is not a matter of home kitchen. Insist if you have to, but relax if you actually can.


How do I make my blended soup a more appealing colour?

Of course “appealing” is quite opinion-based, so let’s look at the problem in a slightly more neutral “how can I avoid the colors mixing when I blend the soup”.
In short, you can’t.
If you have a significant amount of green and red veggies, that is.
One of the appeals and key features of a classic minestrone are the colorful ingredients that give you a bright and versatile palette, almost a mosaic in a bowl. But let’s not argue with the question’s premise.
If you want to blend the whole soup, you need to stay in a limited range of the color wheel, which means for your soup everything that’s between red (as dictated by the tomato base) and yellow will be fine, as is white or translucent.  Stay away from green. Blueish ingredients are quite rare and not part of a minestrone, so we can ignore that. In your example recipe, the spinach is out.
Alternatively you can blend everything except “the green”. That means you need to either fish out all the green vegetables or cook them separately. That said, the spinach in your recipe will cook so quickly that you could even add it after the blending step. And of course you still get chunks in the purée.
If your desire to blend is not motivated by the desire for a chunk-free result but about thickening the soup, you could use alternative ways to thicken the soup. An easy way would be to scoop out a few of the starchy ingredients (e.g. the potatoes), mash them up and put them back. Or introduce an additional thickener, e.g. a starch slurry.


The skin isn't fat, it's protein (or at least mostly protein). Hot liquids that are rich in protein will form a skin as the surface loses liquid and begins to dry, pushing the proteins together. A related example would be "tofu skin" which is formed by skimming the protein that coagulates on the surface of heated soymilk.


Wouldn’t flash cooling inside a freezer ice cube box be as effective as an ice bath?

I was a mechanical engineer.
The heat transfer will be much quicker in the ice bath because you will have full surface contact between the meat and the water, even into all the nooks, cracks and crevices of the meat. This is not possible just putting it in tghe freezer. Water is a great conductor of heat. Air is an insulator. You will have parts of the meat surface insulated by air.

There are other, greater, problems with your suggestion in lieu of the ice bath. When is the last time the freezer box was sanitized? Probably never?
Where does all the melted ice water go? Into a puddle at a low spot to refreeze?
You are bringing odors into the freezer box.
The meat is picking up odors from the freezer box even though you might not be able to smell them or are just aclimatized to them.


Why does canelé batter have to be made 24 hours in advance?

I am pretty sure it is for cross-linking to form gluten and possibly rearrangements of other proteins also. As far as I can work out, there is no impact to either caramelisation or maillard. Resting time and temperature do need fine tuning for different sizes though which is quite logical and may explain different recipe timing. So, do look out for that. Temperature plays a part in the reaction kinetics. Again, not looked into it, but chilling suggests better to slow things down and possibly to prevent unintended fermentation. 5C from experience is perhaps the upper limit.


I wouldn't bake them in, for a start, as I wouldn't be confident of what the bootlaces would do in the oven. Thinking about it, a possible way of going about it is to 'thread' the bootlaces through the cake before you ice it.

Cut the cake in half (vertically), get a big needle like a darning needle or something similar, and (carefully) thread a few laces through, cutting them off flush with the surface, then stick the cake back together with icing or jam and pipe on the outer icing. The tricky thing will be getting them to follow curvy paths.

The other thing you could do is use said needle (or perhaps a chopstick) to poke little tunnels through the cake, then pipe red jam into them. This would perhaps give a nicer result - it might be a bit odd to be eating a slice of cake and then to suddenly be chewing a rubbery bootlace.


Is using commercially available yeast to create a sourdough starter effective?

Don't do this. A sourdough starter contains several strains of yeast and bacteria in a fairly delicate balance. These consume sugars and produce CO2 and a range of byproducts. Commercial yeast is a different species of yeast, engineered to eat and reproduce much faster than any of the wild yeasts in your starter. Adding commercial  yeast to a starter will lead to the commercial yeast outperforming the wild yeasts and gradually replacing them. You will end up with a commercial yeast culture, rather than a sourdough culture.

Edit I realise I have somewhat misunderstood your question. The answer still holds, though: you cannot start with commercial yeast and expect to create a sourdough starter. The commercial yeast would prevent any wild yeasts and bacteria from colonising the starter. You can keep a culture of wild yeast (to some extent), but as @Chris H's comment states, it won't be sourdough.

If you want a better guarantee of success, your best bet is to somehow obtain an offshoot of someone else's starter. Some bakeries will be happy to give/sell you some, or you can try buying a starter online.


The standard advice is a paper bag, but I don't think it is optimal. I always put them in the smallest bowl that will hold them, and put a plate over the top of that. The idea is for the peppers to sit in their own steam for a few minutes while they cool down. The steam seems to loosen the skins.

Whatever you do, don't take the skins off under running water, which is a tip that you will see sometimes. It makes it easier, but washes away a ton of the flavor!

Consider wearing food-grade latex gloves while doing this procedure if the chiles are at all spicy. It will save you from burning hands later.


Why do most belly pork recipes recommend cooking the pork at a high temperature at the beginning of cooking?

As far as I've always believed there is 3 reasons for it.

I. Theory the high temperature shocks the skin helping the skin crisp up if you've ever put a chip in cold oil you'll notice it takes far longer to crisp up than one dropped into the same oil but once hot. Or a better description is probably ... Have you ever put a poppadum into cold oil? Notice how it never puffs up, just goes brown.
The high heat helps seal the meat I'm theory helping keep the moisture in, even though most of the 'moisture' in belly pork is actually the fat self basting itself.
The high temperature helps raise the interior temperature to above the 'danger zone' quicker.

Now I do agree with you, the initial blast does not make the skin crackle, especially since I cover my meat with foil after the first blast which essentially means the skin then steams for 5 hours. I did however try low from the start once and the end result was a thin crispy but a little chewy almost crackling layer even after half an hour at 230c at the end. So I do think high initial heat plays a crucial role to getting good crackling in the long run even if it doesn't seem like it to begin with.

I would suggest not fixating on any time frame for the initial blast. Keep your oven on full wack until the skin bubbles up, if I can be bothered (it's a bit messy and risks major burns every time) I pour 300c oil over the top of my pork half way into my first blast which really helps the skin blister and results in perfect light crispy skin at the end.


Can coffee beans be roasted in an airfryer

I haven't tried it myself, but I'm pretty sure that it would work. In general the temperature you need is between a 150 and 300 degree celsius, but the best way to find out is to try and see what works best for you. There are plenty of sites explaining how to roast coffee beans at home, even with less "advanced" gear (popcorn makers, ....).

There are a few things to be careful about:
You are working at high temperatures and the airfryer is not built for roasting coffee, so you shouldn't leave the fryer alone!
You should be aware of the strong smell that roasting coffee produces, I'm not sure if the coffee smell/taste (and I'm not talking about a fresh ground coffee's aroma) will affect the taste of other food you plan to fry. And last but not least, this won't produce very good coffee, since you don't have much control of the whole process.

Try:
https://www.breworganic.com/Coffee/HowToRoast.htm
http://www.sweetmarias.com/instructions.php

Good luck!


re-hydrate dried and salted cod with water and milk

Normally I poach the fish in milk as a last stage of preparation, especially if I'm making brandade.  The milk, in that case, adds creamyness to the fish. both making up for some of its residual dryness as well as helping mask the salty taste.  However, that's after the fish is soaked in water for 24-48 hours.  A 1-hour poach in milk is also my way of "emergency quick soaking" cod.
Presumably soaking it in milk would be to achieve the same effect, without poaching it.  Salted cod has almost no fat, so the milk bath would be adding some much-needed fat to it.


African palm oil locusts seasoning & preparation?

Good information at InsectsAreFood. Scroll down for a decent list of places to buy. There is also a site called BizarreFood.com that has a shopping page with all sorts of bagged and canned bugs. It appears that the UK has the best-developed edible insect markets. If you live elsewhere, you might want to research your country's laws, regulations and requirements before you order.


Combating adverse effects of garlic and onions

Roasting garlic mellows the taste and bite quite a bit; have you tried using the supergarlic roasted?

You don't need special equipment; just cut the top off of a bulb, dip or rub some cooking oil (I use grapeseed; others use EVOO) on the cut surface, wrap it in foil and and place it in your oven at 350 to 375 F (176 to 190 C) for about 40-45 minutes.

The garlic will squish easily out of the individual cloves. Roasting breaks down those harsh chemicals so they don't mix like they would when you crush a raw clove, so hopefully they wouldn't affect your body odor as pronouncedly.


It could be that your oven temp is too low during the cook, so you are essentially dehydrating the outside of the potato.  I would preheat to 350 for at least 30 minutes, to make sure your oven is up to temperature.  Then put the potatoes in.


That happens sometimes, it means that the ecological balance in your yogurt has shifted to some less tasty bacterial strains. There is even a small chance that you picked up something slightly pathogenic.
There is neither a need nor a practical way to shift it back to the original strain. It is best to start with a new, known-good culture. You can get either store-bought yogurt, or pure starter from a type you enjoy.
You can expect this to happen again and again after a long chain of reinocculations, because in home conditions, you don't have perfect control over your fermentation process. It is just part of the life of a yogurt maker to get back to a fresh culture when the homegrown one weakens.


What gas output required for home stir frying?

Here's a quote from the short section "Stir-Fry" in the Gargantuan work "Modernist Cuisine":

  ...a wok burner can deliver up to [...] 200,000 BTU/h of thermal power. [...] By comparison, Western-style professional gas burners deliver [...] 15,000-30,000 BTU/h), and domestic gas  burners [...] 6,000-14,000 BTU/h)...

So for professional stir-fry ("bao" in thai - I think), the hotter the better. But there's also non-professional "chow" stir-fry, which is, in "Modernist Cuisine"s words, more like a "covered saute". You don't do the asian stir-fry because the flame is just too small, so you cook the fresh foods in their juices, stop while they're still crisp, and know that the world holds compassion also for guys with stoves like ours.


When making fried rice, how does the amount of heat affect the taste of the food?

It's an issue of thermodynamics.

When you're cooking food, the food cools itself off through evaporative cooling and the energy being used to cause chemical changes in the food (eg, caramelizing sugars).

If you have too much food in the pan, the balance is overwhelmed by evaporative cooling, and thus you can only get to the boiling point of water.

To change the equation, you need to do one of the following:

Use a more powerful heat source.
Cook less food at a time
Reduce the amount of moisture in the food before cooking it.

You'll often see advice for #3 -- such as patting dry steak or chicken before grilling it, as without it, you won't get good browning.

You can't do that when you're dealing with sauces.  You can try cooking less, but with sauces you cause more problems -- if the pan size is the same, the area for evaporation is the same, so you don't really improve the balance.

With a sufficiently sized burner, you can actually heat sauces above the boiling point, as you're putting in energy faster than evaporation can cool it.  This which will change the chemical reactions that occur, thus the resulting chemical compounds and the resulting flavor of the food.


Something is very wrong there; you need to get this serviced right away. 17,000 BTU should be enough to keep a full rolling boil going on a pot much larger than 8 cups, or sear the daylights out of your burger. I'd go so far as to say I wouldn't use it until a service tech has looked at it.


Swiss meringue is a very stable meringue compared to the more commonly used French meringue.

Swiss meringue is a meringue that has been heated and cooked so that the sugar has melted and reached a certain temperature whereas the French meringue is a raw meringue.

I won't go into too much details about the preparation of the Swiss meringue but due to the cooked nature of Swiss meringue, it can be stored much longer than the French meringue. The cooking helps make the meringue denser which allows it to keep its form better. The cooking also provide the secondary effect of pasteurizing the egg mixture which also extend shelf life.

A Swiss meringue can be prepared a day in advance and should be stored in the refrigerator, covered. It will not leak as a traditional meringue typically do. It is not recommended to freeze it though.

Nonetheless is it still a meringue which is unstable at heart. Its structure will slowly deteriorate  but it isn't too noticeable until 2+ days. And if stored properly in the refrigerator it should fall apart before it becomes unsafe to eat.


In this recipe, what is a possible substitute for serrano pepper?

The closest thing that's at all common in grocery stores in my experience is just a jalapeño. There might be some alternatives, but I think they'd be even harder to find than serranos. (This is based on my experience in the US, but I'm guessing it'll be true in Europe too.)

Failing that, just use green bell pepper. The flavor is similar, minus the heat, and you can make up the heat with whatever you want, like cayenne or another mostly-just-hot ground chili.


What is the white goo in the middle of some hard-boiled egg yolks?

This is so called white yolk, aka latebra, present in any egg, with slightly higher protein content. Its precise function is unknown; it is believed to be a center of the egg development. Perfectly safe.


Get another thermometer and check that your thermometer is calibrated correctly. Many of the candy thermometers from China are ± 20 C


How to keep shallots from overpowering vinegarettes

I always rinsed onions and shallots, to remove the compounds released when slicing through the cell walls. Since reading the following article in Cook's Illustrated March 2011 edition, I prefer its baking soda method.

  Toning Down Raw Onion’s Bite

  We’ve often heard the claim that soaking sliced or chopped raw onions in liquid can mellow their harsh taste by drawing out the pungent sulfur compounds known as thiosulfinates that are produced when the onion is cut.

  But what kind of liquid and how long of a soak? We tested three of the most commonly recommended liquids—water, milk, and vinegar—by soaking the cut onions in each for 5 and 15 minutes. We found that 15 minutes was necessary for any of the treatments to be effective.

  The vinegar soak did rid the onions of much of their burn, but it was replaced by an equally strong sour taste, even after thorough rinsing. Milk was also very effective at removing the sulfur compounds, but it left the onions tasting washed-out.

  The best method—better than even plain water—was our own: a baking-soda solution (1 tablespoon per cup of water). Unlike the other methods, which merely do their best to leach away the offending sulfur compounds, the alkaline baking soda neutralizes sulfenic acid, the immediate precursor to the harsh-tasting thiosulfinates, and prevents them from forming in the first place.

  Just be sure to rinse the onions thoroughly before using to remove any soapy baking-soda taste.


A firm mousse with juice with my cream whipper

It's very difficult to create a firm anything with a cream whipper, since by definition what it does is whip. It's meant for preparations that incorporate a lot of air - i.e. light and fluffy. Most mousse recipes don't only use cream, they also use eggs and/or gelatin and that is what gives it its body.

There are certainly ways to whip things without cream - for a gel preparation (as opposed to a foam) you're generally looking at egg whites (or equivalent), gelatin, or carrageenan. Gelatin is already a very common ingredient in mousses, but I think carrageenan might be a better choice for what you're trying to do, because of its shear-thinning property; whereas with gelatin you have to heat it in order to loosen it up, carrageenan you can just shake a bit.

I think you'd do well to start off with a meringue-based mousse and forget the whipper, just to see if it's a texture you like. You make the base and then fold in the other ingredients. It's not going to be the same as a traditional mousse at all, but nothing will be without fat. Italian meringue has more of a frosting/icing-like quality, so you could try that as well.

Then you could try incorporating iota carrageenan (kappa isn't shear-thinning) or gelatin. I don't think I'd recommend a whipper for this, though. Typically you'd make this by first preparing the meringue, then folding in egg yolks and other flavours. The gelling agent would probably go in with the latter half, since I'm not sure if it's possible to whip egg whites with gelatin or carrageenan already incorporated (I've never tried, but it sounds dubious). If you do it in a whipper, I'm not sure how you could separate these steps. You could try to do them together if you don't mind the possibility of throwing away ingredients; my guess is that it might fail to whip at all, or if it does whip, then might be too thick to dispense.

You might also consider more traditional dairy substitutes - for example, there's a recipe for coconut oil chocolate mousse that you should be able to adapt to fruit. Coconut oil is a fat, of course, but I'm assuming your real issue is dairy - you don't explain your reason why you can't have fat or dairy and without details, it sounds like an unnecessarily arbitrary restriction - if this has something to do with not wanting a "fattening" dessert then it's the sugar, not fat, that you should be concerned about.

Anyway, one last thing - you probably will not meet with much success trying to use actual juice for this. I suggest using an extract and some food colouring if you want it to look right - or maybe some frozen juice concentrate, so you don't need to use as much. If you're whipping egg whites, you can't water it down, and you don't want to lower the pH too much either.


Why did butternut squash make my fingers dry and yellow?

It's definitely a very real reaction. I'm not sure exactly what in the squash it is that causes it, but since different people react differently - some people have strong reactions like you, some people have mild ones, and some have no problem at all - it seems to be some sort of mild allergic reaction. It's often called contact dermatitis, but that's a very generic term and doesn't really mean anything you don't already know. I'm not sure exactly what component of the squash it is that causes it, but I don't think it's carotene or potassium. It's likely some more complex molecule that tends to be present in various winter squashes.

Images from http://foodworld-eva.blogspot.com/2010/01/squash-reaction-on-skin.html.

You can avoid it by completely wearing gloves while working with the squash, or if you're lucky, you have someone else with you who can handle the squash without problems. For many purposes, like soup, you can also simply cut the squash in half, roast it, then scoop out the good stuff. But if you do really need to peel it and cut into chunks, your best hope is just to try to avoid touching it too much. You'll also want to wash your hands immediately after, or even a few times while you're cutting if it takes a while.

If you do end up with this despite your best efforts, cortisone cream can help relieve the reaction afterward.

(And as for your soup, there's nothing wrong with letting more moisture escape in exchange for browning. You can always just add more water or stock back into the soup. This can even be a good thing, since it lets you replace water with a more flavorful liquid.)


Your new oven might be off in temperature calibration.

Or your old oven might have been off in temperature calibration, but you were used to it - so you set the new oven where you set the old oven, and even if the new oven temperature is correct as set, it's not what the old one was when set there.

If there are other differences between the ovens (fuel source, convection fan or lack thereof, etc.) those may also play a role.


Why dry steak/meat/chicken/fish before cooking on a stove?

Because any moisture left on the surface will turn into steam upon touching the hot pan.

The steam will cause a lot of oil splatters (which is not only a huge mess, but can also hurt you), and if it can't evaporate fast enough, will interfere with proper browning, especially if you are overcrowding your pan or if your meat exudes a lot of moisture.


If it's for a pie, by melt the recipe author probably meant to dissolve in the least amount of water.  You can do that by making a glucose syrup, as Pulse mentioned.  Place one cup of dextrose with a third of a cup of water in a pot and heat until dissolved.  Commercial glucose syrups are typically 10 to 25% water.

If you melt solid glucose in a pan, which happens at about 146°C, it will burn.


Scientifically speaking, smoke is a solid mixed with a gas, so no, smoke is not grease.

However, the smoke that gets generated by the decomposition of cooking oils (called the "smoke point") at a certain temperature (T°) is mixed with grease molecules and yes, they settle down somewhere.

To explain further let's take an analogy with water at 1 ATM

1L of water boils at 100°C
At 75°C it evaporates rather quickly
at 50°C it evaporates quicker than at room T°
at 25°C it will eventually evaporate (Room T°)
at 0°C it will sublimate rather slowly

Now, with cooking oils, the smoke point is way below the boiling point for most, but as you can see from the above analogy they will evaporate though more slowly than water as an oil molecule is heavier so takes more energy to get "kicked" out of the liquid.

Note 1: I tried finding a list of cooking oils with both their boiling and smoke points but couldn't find a decent list with both, but it's irrelevant to the question as any liquid does evaporate at room T° eventually...
Note 2: The best way to ensure the grease molecules don't settle down inside is to ensure there is excellent ventilation or invest in a high-volume extractor


Just flour and water? Unless your goal is flatbread, like a tortilla, you are going to want to add some type of leavening. This can be fresh or freeze-dried yeast, or a starter culture.  There are also "soda" breads that make use of baking soda and powder.  Egg whites are also a leavener, though in a bread situation, probably not as effective.


What food dissolves in acid but not in water?

If your question is specific about acid: Nothing.

The conventional way acids work is by dissolving them in water. I even have some vague memories that it's not technically correct to call a substance an "acid" before it has been dissolved in water - for example, pure HCl (a gas) is not an acid, but once it is dissolved in water, it becomes hydrochlorid acid. pH, the well-known measure for acidity, is defined as the logarithm of the number of protons swimming around in the aqueous solution - and before you dissolve the acidic substance, the protons stay firmly attached to their host molecule. I have never heard of an acid working without water being present.

I am not a chemist, and maybe there is an way to get acid to work using some other polar solvent instead of water. So I don't want to tell you that it's absolutely impossible to have an acid without water (although this could be the case, I just don't know). But:

The acid itself is by definition water-soluble. You can't bring acid and water two together and not get a new, weaker, acid-water solution.
I can't think of any edible polar solvent besides water. Ethanol could qualify, but most people don't consider 96.4% ethanol to be "edible".

If it doesn't matter to you what the other liquid is (not an acid), you can easily use anything non-polar. In food, any fat will do.

You could start by floating solid-fat spheres in water and then pouring them into oil. The problem here is that they will take quite a long time to dissolve (although this can be circumvented by using warm oil). The other way round will work better. Take something which dissolves in water quickly, and make the hollow sphere out of it. Float it in oil. Then you'll pour it into the water to release the fragrance.

Crystals are best for dissolving rapidly in water. I think that either salt or sugar will work well for your spheres. Of course, you are left with two problems: 1) how to manufacture the hollow spheres, and 2) what fragrance to use which will not dissolve the spheres themselves. For 2), you are probably looking at essential oils (warning, use foodsafe ones, not all are!). For 1), you probably need some precision candy-making techniques.

Update: letting food react with acid.

The answer above assumed that you are really looking for stuff which will dissolve in acid. The commenters pointed out that this is not necessary, as you can let the food react with the acid instead. It's an interesting idea, but it won't be easy to get done.

From the major food groups, you can exclude all proteins. We are made of protein, and any acid strong enough to quickly corrode spheres of gelatin or similar will ulcerate our mouths right away.
You can also exclude the sugars. They are water-soluble.
The polysaccharides are a better bet. Especially the hemicelluloses should be good candidates, as they are insoluble in water, and the result of the hydrolisis is edible (sugars and some polisaccharides). But they typically need very strong acids for the reaction. You might try to use a concentrated edible acid for the reaction, then dilute the result for consumption, but you'll have to pay lots of attention to proper ratio. Also, I don't know how you'll manage to physically shape one of the insoluble polysaccharides into a water-tight capsule at home.
The fats are also bad candidates. They are largely unimpressed by acids, in fact their most interesting reactions are with bases (saponification, etc.) The short unsaturated ones will probably react with an acid, but you'll need a fairly strong one, and the result won't really disappear.
The probably easiest way to do this is with salts. Especially the sodium salts tend to be edible and to react readily with acids. Plain old calcium carbonate sounds like a promising material, and with a bit of heating you can get it to react very quickly with acid solutions dilute enough to drink afterwards. Again, you have the problem of somehow making spheres out of it.


How long is the longest I can slow cook pork shoulder?

According to Modernist Cooking Made Easy (emphasis added):

  For medium rare cooked pork shoulder, the meat should be held at 135°F
  or 57.2°C, while medium cooked meat is done at 145°F or 62.8°C. If a
  traditional well done shoulder is desired, it should be cooked at
  155°F or 68.3°C. No matter what temperature range is used, the pork
  shoulder should be cooked for 1 to 2 days. For a crisp or well done
  outer part, sous vide pork shoulder may be finished by searing,
  grilling or torching.

Note that to safely maintain and control temperatures this low for the sustained period of time, you must have a proper sous-vide setup, with a means of maintaining the temperature of the water bath.

Even at 135 F, over several hours, the method is safe because the killing of pathogens is a function of both time and temperature.

Similarly, the conversion of gelatin to collagen which gives slow cooked pork its unctuous texture is also a function of both time and temperature.  While in more traditional cooking methods (oven or barbecue), reaching internal temperatures of about 180 F is necessary to get collagen conversion in a reasonable period of time, it can be done in the truly extended time periods sous-vide cooking makes possible.

For more traditional cooking methods, about 225 F is about as low as you want to go

See also:

Why would a pressure cooker shorten a braise time? which looks at this question from the other end, making the conversion more rapid, and describes collagen to gelatin conversion in more detail.


Do tomatoes lose their nutritional value when they are made into tomato sauce?

Nutritional changes in cooking foods (including tomatoes) are not simple to answer:  cooking can reduce some nutrients, and it can make other ingredients more available.

Tomatoes are a case in point, as cooking has both effects.  According to as study in the Journal of Food and Agriculture, as reported in Cornell Chronical, both effects happen.   Vitamin C is reduced as it breaks down under heat, but certain lycoenes and anti-oxidants increased.

  Tomato samples were heated to 88 degrees Celsius (190.4 degrees
  Fahrenheit) for two minutes, a quarter-hour and a half-hour.
  Consistent with previous studies, vitamin C content decreased by 10,
  15 and 29 percent, respectively, when compared to raw, uncooked
  tomatoes. However, the research revealed that the beneficial
  trans-lycopene content of the cooked tomatoes increased by 54, 171 and
  164 percent, respectively. Levels of cis -lycopene (which the body
  easily absorbs) rose by 6, 17 and 35 percent, respectively; and
  antioxidant levels in the heated tomatoes increased by 28, 34 and 62
  percent, respectively.

See related:  Does cooking in a pressure cooker destroy nutrients?


"Completely" definitely isn't a standardized term; however, since we're talking about making ice cream here, the correct answer is going to be "as cold as possible without freezing".

When making ice cream, it's important to get the mixture as cold as possible before you freeze it, especially if you're not using an ice cream machine, so that you give it as little time as possible for ice crystals to form.  If large ice crystals form, then you won't have ice cream, you'll have ice.

So get it all the way down to refrigerator temperature and work quickly when you take it back out of the fridge.  It'll be quicker and easier if you chill the bowl or receptacle first.


Clearly, your flatmate was misinformed. Firstly, Italian cuisine is defined regionally. There are vast differences throughout the country, usually defined by local ingredients and historical influences.  However, there are many Italian dishes...from north to south that contain both onion and garlic.  It could be true that someone's specific recipe for, spinach, for example may only have onion...or only have garlic, but if you like the combination, there is no reason not to use it.  There is no such general "rule" in Italian cuisine.


It is not a good idea to combine ANY teflon pan with an automatic dishwasher, regardless of what the manufacturer says.

But fortunately for you, I have handy the Cook's Illustrated from October 2010, which did a nonstick skillet (aka frying pan aka saute pan) review.  According to them, even the best nonstick coatings won't survive more than a year or two of heavy use.  This makes proper care all the more important. Brand also isn't a good indicator of coating quality, because many pan manufacturers buy coatings from the same suppliers.  To quote the article:

  Most cookware manufacturers don't make their own nonstick coating; they buy it from suppliers offering a menu of options, from basic to premium, and spray it on their pans.  It's similar to painting a room; the quality of nonstick coating is determined not only by what's in it but also by how carefully it's applied and cured, and how many coats the manufacturer decides to put on.

They found the Tefal (T-Fal in the States) Professional Total Nonstick Fry Pan ($35) had a nonstick coating that outperformed the other pans by a significant margin, probably due to its 5-layer nonstick coating (most pans use 2-3 layers).  The only fly in the ointment was its handle, which had rivets that loosened after abuse.  But, for $35 that isn't bad, doubly because it outperformed the $150+ All-Clad nonstick pans they used normally.

If you're looking for something cheaper than that, I'd suggest you look at construction and not brand.  Pick a heavy pan (for its size), with either solid, thick-gauge aluminum OR a multi-ply construction.  This combination ensures the pan will heat evenly and rapidly (crucial for eggs), and is resistant to warping (important if you use an electric range). If you're cooking eggs, avoid hard-anodized aluminum interiors, as they don't help prevent adhesion of eggs, and just cost more.  The nonstick layer should look thick and smooth, not slightly textured.

My most-used frying pan (the default egg pan) is a small T-Fal that cost all of $7. The important thing is that it has the right construction and I treat it correctly; I'm careful not to scratch the surface with utensils, I never use a scouring pad on it, and it can't go near the dishwasher.  This makes more of a difference than picking a fancy brand.


How to use rehydrated Kombu after making Dashi?

You can chop it and eat it or add to your soup, stir fry, dry and crush into a powder to use as a condiment, etc.


What's the difference between a souffle and a mousse?

There is no strict delineation between these two terms.  Either can be savory or sweet.

Some common differences are:

Mousses may get their foaminess from  from plain whipped egg whites, a meringue, whole eggs, whipped cream, or  something else; a souffle is always leavened by whipped egg whites.
Mousses (except for some seafood mousses, which are gently poached) are rarely cooked as a whole dish; souffles are always baked to get additional rise.
Mousses are almost always served cold; souffles are usually served hot, immediately out of the oven to retain the additional rise they get in the heat of the oven.

One might consider souffles a type of baked mousse, much as quiches are a specific type of tart, but that terminology is rarely used.

See also:

Ochef


What type of lubricant should be used on oven door hinges?

Although they don't get as hot as the interior of the oven oven hinges are exposed to a significant amount of heat, so you should pick a lubricant which isn't going to burst into flames when exposed to heat, dry out, or gum up. My usual go-to oil for the home is 3 in 1 oil, but I wouldn't use it here because of the heat. 3 in 1 make a high performance spray lubricant which handles high temperatures, sprayon make a food-grade high temperature lubricant spray, and you can also get spray on bearing lube (for cars but is good for high temperature) - all of which would be fine for this application.

I would recommend a spray on lube because oven hinges tend to be hard to access, and the spray will help force it in better, however if you gave good access you could get a tube instead.


No, you will need to cook it for the proper length of time all at once.

Sous Vide heats the food very slowly and depending on the density and thickness of the food, it can take quite a while for the center to come up to the finish temperature. Additionally, this temperature is usually lower than the temperature applied in other methods of cooking so it kills bacteria and parasites more slowly than high-temp cooking.

For proteins, an extended cook time is needed to get the center up to temp. Additionally, because the temp is lower, more time is needed at that temp to kill off any bacteria or parasites.

By not heating for the entire time at once, you risk never bringing the center up to temperature! It might be undercooked or worse, it might be dangerous.

Note: Some fatty proteins are cooked at a higher temperature for longer periods of time to also break down collagen and connective tissue. Not cooking them all-at-once will similarly not have the desired effect on the collagen and connective tissue.

Another Note: Some might wonder how anyone ever cooked and served a rare roast beef in the past if a long exposure to lower temp is needed to make the roast safe in the center. The answer is that contamination of beef with parasites is not common and even though beef does contain bacteria, the bacteria exists near the surface of the meat. The density of the meat makes it difficult for the bacteria to spread to the interior parts. This keeps the center perfectly safe to eat raw if you could somehow cut off the surface without inadvertently contaminating the center with bacteria from the knife.

SOLUTION

One solution is to cook the protein completely on a day when you do have the time. You can leave the lamb chop still in the vacuum bag in the fridge for a day-or-two and then drop it back into the water bath at the same temp on the day that you want to serve it. Because you have already killed all the bad stuff and it has remained sealed, all you need to do is get the center up to temp and it will be ready for the final searing step or serving.

That solution is not perfect however. Empirically I have observed that when using this method some meats will dry out quickly on your plate after slicing. It must be something with the proteins or cell structure so that it releases all of its water quickly after being sliced. I've mostly experienced this with leaner meats like beef chuck steaks. I haven't tried it on lamb chops, but they are similar in leanness to a chuck steak.


Is Indian food more expensive to prepare than Chinese food?

Near as I can tell, it's probably the local economics. It seems to me that the cost is different per "component" but would probably balance out in the end.

Chinese food, generally speaking, relies more on fresh vegetables (carrots, peas, bean-sprouts, broccoli etc.) and meat. This means that the storage costs and spoilage costs are higher relative to Indian food, which is higher in legumes and beans that are much easier and cheaper to store, and last forever when dry.

On the other hand, Chinese is generally quicker to prepare (think stir fry, though not only), which means less time on the fire, and less man-power used. Indian food usually requires more cooking time, which may mean that the restaurant has a larger capital outlay for stove space.

Aside from that, in my experience at least, Indian is usually a register above Chinese for "comparable" places. The Indian equivalent of a Chinese place serving simple rice and 10-12 stir-fry dishes would be a simple Thali bar, but there aren't many of those, as us Westerners like to order several different meat/vegetable main dishes at a time, as opposed to a set menu.

Anyway, note that I haven't done any proper costing of these type of food preparation.


Does it matter if I heat water and mik together and pour it in the instant coffee altogether?

You can mix instant coffee with water, milk, cream, or any mixture of those, to your taste. It doesn't matter, and you don't have to do it in multiple steps.

This is different from fresh ground coffee. In ground coffee, you are making an extraction, which is a complicated chemical process. Your solvent has to get behind cell walls and get out again, this time with the solute in it. You never get full extraction anyway. Many factors such as heat, other stuff dissolved or dispersed in the solvent, etc. can hinder this already problematic process and give you a much weaker or different-tasting result.

Instant coffee is specifically made to be 100% soluble in water, so you only have a solution happening, not extraction. The process happens to be not very dependent on temperature (this is different for all combinations of solvent and solute). Maybe it is a bit slower in cold water, but the difference is not really noticeable in practice. The fat content in milk or cream is also not high enough to disturb the solution. So you can just do it any old way you want and you'll end up with 100% dissolved coffee.


Proper Order to Incorporate Ingredients in Pound Cake

What you're probably looking for is a hybrid between your pound cake and a seperated sponge cake, in which you'd probably want to cream the yolks, butter, and sugar, mix your egg white foam with flour, and then fold the flour/foam into the yolk/butter/egg mixture. My gut says the amount of butter in a pound cake will kill the foam structure of the egg whites immediately, but what the heck... experimenting is always fun.

Another option would be to make a regular separated sponge cake, and then use melted butter as kind of a soaking liquid like you would with a genoise. Might provide the fluffier, yet super buttery texture you're looking for. You could also just make genoise, but it's certainly not as rich as pound cake.


Eggy cake with less egg is dry: what next?

Substitute oil for some of the butter.

Here is a trick to  reduce dryness that I just learned from The Perfect Cookie.  Omit a tablespoon or 2 of butter and swap in vegetable oil.  I used safflower last but any mild liquid vegetable oil would do.

It is awesome for chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal cookies.  I have gone 50/50 butter and oil in the banana bread that I made lately and the texture was good.


How to make celery root dish without parmesan?

I find celeriac loves coriander -seed and especially root. White pepper, horseradish or perhaps mustard oil or powder can be added by a smidge for a hint of warmth.

This is still a mild side-dish, ya for something else flavorful on the plate?
I love serving pumpkin at the same meal 'cause they bring out the best in each other... IMHO.


I am skeptical that butter from yogurt is a thing.

When yogurt is made the milk proteins denature and form a mesh that traps all the large molecules in the milk. Water, sugar, and some small molecules can come out but the fat never does- it's huge and tightly bound up in the gel.

Even when yogurt is blended up the whey will separate out but the fat never does. I have a hard time believe that extricating the fat from that protein mesh will be easier than just letting it rise to the surface in milk.

Perhaps thoroughly cooking the yogurt would melt out the fat but you would still lose the rest of the milk solids and would have ghee.

With purchasable yogurt it would be even less feasible because it is often made from low-fat milk to begin with.

EDIT-

Searching online I was able to find Indian recipes for making butter from yogurt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vK8hW_oSu0
In this case they made yogurt from heavy cream. The goal was a cultured butter- not easier butter.


I visited some Chinese language websites, and it seems that there really isn't any magic here. Since their recipe is basically the same as the first one you linked to, I won't post any links here. I've never made tapioca balls, but the technique used here is a technique common in Chinese cooking called "hot dough" (tangmian 烫面), which I often use.
The water mixture (syrup?) must be consistent and boiling hot, so boiling the mixture for a while might be a wise choice. Also, stir quickly and well. This might explain why your first two attempts failed: the phrase to remember here is starch gelatinization, and if your water-starch mixture doesn't stay hot enough, there wouldn't be enough gelatinization there.
It's usually better to err on the side of too much water (but of course, not way too much), as you can add starch to get the desired consistency.
Also, you are not supposed to leave it there for 10 minutes; it is normal for the dough to become hard after a while. You are supposed to make the tapioca balls from the dough _right away. Yes, it would be hot, so it would be wise to wear gloves. If you really need to leave it to cool down, covering the dough with a hot wet kitchen towel might help.
Once you craft your bobas, it would be just fine to leave it to harden. It might be wise to cover your bobas with (raw) tapioca powder to prevent sticking.


How to get rid of tiny black spots on white plastic cutting board?

As has been indicated, pictures would be helpful for this but without one a simple suggestion would be to try bleach. Depending on the size of your board you can submerge the board in a bleach and water bath or get a towel (paper or cloth) soaked with bleach and water and set that on top of the spots and let that sit for a while.


Chinese crispy beef with minced beef instead of slice steak?

Try browning the ground beef first in a pan (no oil). Dump out on paper towels to absorb the grease.  Use onions and other aromatic vegetables at this step if you like, too.

Then stir fry the other ingredients,  and add the beef to the stir-fry towards the very end of cooking.

Have you ever browned hamburger meat (or whatever texture is the minced meat you speak of)? Ask yourself how stir frying is any different than that.  At worst, incompatible ingredients (whether temperature,  duration, vigor) are fried in different batches and then combined at the end.  You can often optimize by adding ingredients at different stages, such as putting the garlic in last so it doesn't burn and browning meat first so it doesn't burn everything else.

For an Asian stir-fry dish, you don't want to fry in the oil made by the beef, but change it out for cooking oil anyway, or if high temperatures are involved, peanut oil that won't smoke.


Custard based ice cream vs eggless ice cream

The two types of ice cream are generally referred to by name as:

Philadelphia style.  No eggs.
French style.  Custard based.

Each can produce a quality product.

Philadelphia style ice cream is easier to make, as it is not necessary to make the custard, and it can have very pure, clean flavors.  Its mouthfeel is critically dependent on the quality of cream, and the way it is churned and frozen (even more so than French style).

French style ice cream has a smooth almost silky texture, due to the natural emulsifiers in the egg yolks, as well as a distinctive eggy or custard like background flavor.  It is also somewhat more work to make, and the egg flavor can compete with other flavorings.

There is no way to give you a single recommendation, as both types of ice cream have their advantages.   For pure, single note flavors like a delicate fruit or coffee, you may wish to go with Philadelphia style.   For maximum richness and decadence, especially for deep chocolate and vanilla flavor, French style is very good.

There is no reason to exclusively make one or the other; you can have recipes from both types in your repertoire.

Either way, the quality of your product will be enhanced by making the base mix the day before, and refrigerating it over night before churning.

See related:

Why does holding ice cream mix improve flavor?


How to crisp breaded foods the next day (especially panko)

Reheating fried food is extremely challenging.

The least bad method is probably baking in a slow oven, about 250-300 F.  You want to reheat only enough to get the food warm enough to enjoy, but not so piping hot that it would trigger additional browning.

At these low temperatures, you should not get too much additional browning, although you will never have the ideal crispy texture that first-fried foods have.


Need to replace my "Bean Pot" what should I look for?

Ceramic does not quite have the nonstick properties of "true" (based on some kind of PTFE-ish material) nonstick, neither does enamel. Especially not for applications like jam making where charred jam might get stuck to the bottom. Also, from my anecdotal evidence, ceramic coatings hate thermal shock (eg when adding cold liquid into a hot pot to deglaze) and can stain.

The damage shown in the photo does not look like normal wear, but like wear from using tools that aren't inherently nonstick-safe too forcefully - metal-based immersion blenders, metal wire whisks, metal spoons....

But then, wear of "true" nonstick surfaces happens - slower if treated gently, faster if treated rough, so eventually, non-stick cookware that is seeing regular use will need to be replaced.


Uh...NO!

While running some 'minor spillage' down the floor trap is not a big deal washing a large amount of oil down the drain would be BAD. As the oil cools it will form a solid clog that would be very difficult (and probably expensive) to clear.

(there is no information about where you are from, so this may or may not apply to you...)

[In the U.S.]
Local fire departments will allow for the disposal of waste petroleum products (like this or motor oil).
Most restaurants which do a serious amount of frying have oil disposal services that come by and collect used fryer oil.


Using liquid nitrogen for tenderizing octopus?

The most delicious octopus I've ever eaten was tenderized by freezing first for a couple of days and then letting it sit at room temperature for a couple of days.  Then it was baked with onion, salt and coconut cream.  The smell while it was baking was unbelievably ... organic?  Okay, it smelled like boiling jockstraps.  I think it wouldn't work for people with delicate stomachs, but for people who still have the gut flora to handle naturally macerated meats, the octopus was soft and tender and the flavor was incredible.


What are safe, effective practices for smoking salmon in a commercial smoker?

I am projecting here, perhaps, but I think the question you're asking is "why doesn't my salmon come out moist and succulent like what I get at the store?"

A couple reasons.

First: you want to properly cure the salmon for at least 24 hours beforehand. 36 is better. To cure, you will need two whole sides of salmon (or one cut in half), with the skin on. Rub your cure into the flesh--so 2:1 salt:sugar, plus whatever other spices you care to use. The addition of brandy sounds lovely; I like tequila or a nice peaty/smoky Scotch myself, or maple syrup (but obviously nix the sugar if you're doing that). Place the two pieces together, flesh to flesh, optionally including herbs between. Wrap very tightly in plastic, completely sealed, bung into your fridge to let it cure.

Second: when the fish is cured, remove from the wrap, rinse off the cure.

Third: time to smoke. If you want dry and flaky, hot smoke--this seems to be what you're doing and what you don't like. Therefore, it's cold smoke time. The two basic ways to do this are either to add LOTS of trays of ice to the smoker itself, or to route the smoke through a cooler filled with ice and then back into your smoking chamber. A quick Google should provide you with diagrams for doing so.

Do not over-smoke. Fish picks up flavours quite readily, and will dry out if oversmoked, even if cold. Really for salmon I don't think you need much more than 20 minutes of cold smoke.


Can I use this Ikea glassware on stove top?

No, you can't.

You should always assume glass is not safe to use on the stovetop. Essentially none of it is, and while there are a very few exceptions, they'll say so explicitly. (For example this set says stovetop-safe in the description.)

That bowl is nothing special, definitely not stovetop-safe - it'd shatter under the thermal stress. If you look carefully on the packaging, you might even find a warning that's not for use on the stovetop.


The reason I asked if it was from a take away is whether or not it was cooked beforehand then reheated to order.

Chances are the restaurant has cooked a large batch of rice, cooled it and then reheated it for your order. If this is the case I would rather lick my toilet seat than reheat the rice again.

Why?

There is a bacteria spore (Bacillus cereus) that can live inside each grain of rice which can't be killed by boiling, also present in beans. The killing of this bacteria requires 120c (i think) which is only achieved under pressure (think canned foods). When the rice is then reheated again it's giving this bacteria more chance of growth, each time you heat it, leaving behind toxins.
Take away are notoriously bad for sticking to safety guidelines. Possibly allowing the rice to cool on the side in the kitchen or a stuck straight in the fridge. Where is is a must you cool the rice to fridge temp within 30mins. I'd personally always cool my rice under running water and ice. But I don't cook Chinese food and I imagine this would wash away much of the starch required for that 'sticky' Chinese style rice.
The warm time between them cooking the rice originally, then the time after reheating it, packaging it, delivering it to your door, you dishing it up and leaving it on your counter while you eat and only then putting it in the fridge... Bah tummy bug in a tub if you ask me.
We have no idea how long this rice was kept in the fridge at the place in question. Could be fresh that day but there's every chance it's older anything up to 3 days (hopefully no longer) which is way past the recommend 24 hours.

When people complain about getting ill from the Chinese/Indian they had the night before because of the prawns. Really more often than not it is the rice making them sick not the meat.

So the short version...

...bin it.


Is this the centre of the stem of a mushroom or different kind of mushroom?

This does look like the centre of the stem. Often when I separate the stems from the heads, the centre of the stem would stay attached to the head, It looks just like this.

In any case, if you're buying your mushrooms from a reputable source, you can be sure there are no poisonous mushrooms accidentally mixed in. Cases of mushroom poisoning occur mostly when people gather their own mushrooms and mis-identify them, (or buy from someone who gathers wild mushrooms and has erred with identification,) or, more rarely - when one allows mushrooms to go bad.


What is the best way to catch wild yeast for sourdough?

There are two schools of thought as to where wild yeast comes from for a sourdough starter. One is that is in the air, the other that it is present in flour.

Having made a few starters myself and trying different methods, I am of the opinion that the latter is more likely. I have had just as much success with starters I have simply mixed and put in a sealed jar as with the ones I have walked around the kitchen, vigorously stirring with my hands and so on.

You can maximise your chances of having plenty of yeast in your flour by buying organic, as there will have been no chemical treatments which might destroy the yeasts, but any decent flour should have more than enough yeast naturally present to make a starter with.

Yeast, however, is just one aspect of sourdough - you are also looking to cultivate various Lactobacillus species which produce lactic and acetic acid, which is what makes sourdough sour. These are everywhere and so there is no problem with finding them.

However, there are also 'bad' bacteria species that can make your starter go bad. To minimise the chances of this bad bacteria multiplying, it's a good idea to lower the pH of your starter, and for this reason I have had much more success with starters that use pineapple juice. Follow the recipe in this blog, replacing the water on days 1 and 2 with normal, unsweetened pineapple juice, and you'll be on your way.


This in general can be unsafe, because the temperature of the warm water will be in the danger zone. That means that you'll be holding the surface of the food in the danger zone for the duration of the defrosting. Since you don't want to hold food in the danger zone for more than a couple hours, and that's cumulative over the whole process from fridge to eating, this additional time can easily take you from safe to unsafe.

If it's a really small piece like a thin filet it might only take 15 minutes, so it'd be fine, still easy not to go over two hours in the danger zone. If it's very big, though, it could start to be an issue. You can mitigate this some with warm running water or a circulator, but that only goes so far. And in either case you have to be very careful to keep track and make sure the defrosting is fast enough.

Cool running water, on the other hand, is a recommended method. It still works quite quickly, and if the food does enter the danger zone it's at least on the low end of it, so it's not quite so risky.


How long can I leave an uncooked steak out?

Even if you just pull them out for about 30 minutes once you get home that will be better than not letting sit out at all.   The main benefit is that it will cook easier and you'll have a natural gradation  from brown to pink on the inside rather than the gray color that often occurs.  I myself don't typically pull meat out an hour before cooking it.

But

As long as they haven't previously been sitting out for an extended period of time, most likely you'll be ok for 1 1/2 hours since the steaks will be cold when set out.  Make sure that they remain tightly wrapped/covered to minimize exposure to air.


Why does leftover pizza dough make terrible bread?

I'd say your problem is that the yeast has exhausted the food in the dough before you even get the leftover dough in the fridge. When you pull it out the next morning, the yeast does nothing or very little because there are no more sugars left for it to eat. And not only will this prevent rising, it will also limit browning because it's at least partly the sugars that brown in the oven.

You could work some more flour (and water, to maintain hydration) into your dough as yeast food--maybe even a little sugar if you want--and then rise/form/rise and bake. But at that point you're doing what @tmow suggests--just using your pizza dough as a starter for new bread.


What are the consequences of failing to strain my pastry cream?

Unless you left vanilla pods or something like that in the cream you'll be fine and the taste won't be affected, only the mouthfeel. Straining it makes it smoother and removes anything you didn't intend to be in the final product.


Light green squash-like ingredient in Indonesian cuisine

i've had gado-gado, and may other traditional indonesian salad dishes, i'm not 100% sure but could it be this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chayote


How to tenderize bell pepper skin / peel

You can't. If you want a pepper puree, you have to remove the skins mechanically. Else you get a puree with "scales" of skin inside.

You also mention making a stew out of the peppers. The skins are normally not removed for a stew, just eaten along. Many people prefer to not add the pepper at the beginning, but only to throw it in for the last 15 minutes, so it doesn't overcook. This results in pepper pieces which are crisper overall, so it might not be to your taste.

If you absolutely need a stew in which the pepper is soft but there are no skins, you can probably char the pepper and peel it first, then cut up the peeled pepper and use it in the stew. But if you put it in as early as the meat, it will probably disintegrate and not be recognizable as pieces any more. If that's your goal, you can save a lot of work by mixing into your liquid ready made ljutenica (which has more vegetables and a more complex flavor profile) or pure bell pepper paste, if you can get it.


Deep frying corn kernels starts busting/exploding in oil

It sounds to me like you are accidentally making popcorn, which is a result of hot gasses building up inside the hull of the kernel. Fresh kernels typically have a tougher hull than frozen or canned, both of which use methods that weaken the hull. Freezing the corn causes growing ice crystals to damage cells. Canned corn is boiled, which both seals the can and cooks the corn, softening it.
Here's some things you can do to fix your problems:
Boil the corn
Boiling would solve your popping problem, as the pre-cooked corn's hull would be soft, enough to release the moisture from inside, or only just split rather than have the entire kernel pop. It would also fix the issue with the cornstarch not adhering to the kernels, as the softer (and now wet) corn would be more prone to releasing it's inner moisture.

Boil the fresh corn for 3 - 4 minutes or until soft
Transfer corn into a colander or a sieve to remove excess water. Excess water might cause the cornstarch to clump together.

Freeze the corn
Freezing the corn beforehand would also soften it, just make sure to fully defrost and drain the corn (see above).
Fry the corn on a lower temperature
Your oil might just be too hot, causing the higher moisture inside to cook and expand faster than the husk, which could cause popping.


What are the white tendrils at the bottom of these garlic cloves?

Those are garlic roots, no reason to worry.

If you plan to use these cloves, note that they are about to leave the dormant stage and start to sprout, so make sure you remove the green sprout in the middle of the clove. It is rather likely to have turned bitter now.

I found this video on youtube, which shows the roots forming on a garlic clove; in a rather early stage you can clearly see the little stubs your garlic has.


Nope, no problem with that at all. Toast away!


Why do steamed avocados taste like eggs?

It boils down to chemical make up.  Avocados, like egg yolks, contain a decent amount of fats, carotenoids, and sulfurous compounds.  Avocados are one of the most concentrated fruit sources of fats and fatty acids.  Both egg yolks and avocados contain carotenoid phytochemicals like lutein, zeaxathanin, and a-carotene. In avocados the sulphur is mostly in the form of glutathione, would likely break down into its cysteine during steaming.  Cysteine is one of the primary sulphur sources in eggs as well.

http://www.avocado.org/new-research-from-ucla-shows-california-avocados-contribute-additional-beneficial-carotenoids-2