What can I do with soaked beans that I can't use right away?

Cook the beans.

Cook them low and slow.  Cook them now, or tomorrow, during your engagement.  I routinely cook black beans 12 hours overnight.  The longer you cook them the sweeter they will be.

Beans are one of those things that get better the day after.  Put the beans in the fridge after they are done and then you can eat them the day after tomorrow.   For breakfast!  Fry them in a pan and fry an egg in the middle of them.  That is what I ate for breakfast this morning (red beans, though).


Is a borosilicate glass pot safe to use on a gas burner stovetop?

I specifically would like to know if anyone has used a (verified)
  borosilicate glass pot on a gas burner stove top

I have used borosilicate glass vessels on a number of different heat sources, both in laboratory circumstances and on a standard home gas stove.

  and if it is safe for regular use, and by "regular use" I would
  specifically mean:

  Is it safe to take a chilled pot from the refrigerator to a full open flame?
  Is it safe to take a pot that has been on a full open flame (for an hour or so) to the bottom of the sink (risking a little cool water
  splash)?

Generally speaking, no.  I mean, it depends on what you mean by "safe" -- borosilicate glass is less likely to shatter in explosive ways compared to some other types of glass.  Glass vessels designed specifically for cooking are probably even less likely to fail in a way that is dangerous.

But will the vessel survive doing such things repeatedly over an extended period?  Probably not.  It may eventually crack.  Depending on how extreme the temperature difference exposed to, it may even break more violently.  But most likely, cooking vessels like this will simply fail by developing a crack (which will then leak contents).

  OR are there limiting factors, and if so, what are they?

I would consult the specific documentation that comes with any glass cooking vessel for guidelines appropriate to it.  (And in case this isn't clear, I would NOT recommend using borosilicate glass vessels on the stove top unless they are specifically designed for such use.  Even lab glassware will eventually crack if not used over an even heat source, which is why labs tend to use various heat diffusion devices when employing an open flame on a glass vessel.)

For example, the Pyrex company had a set of glass pots for stove top use called Flameware, which was discontinued (I believe) in the late 1970s.  Instructions can be found here, which state (among other things):

  Heat uniformly, using low to moderate flame [...] Do not heat when dry
  or cook to dryness.  [...]  Add water before food is put in dish and
  stir occasionally while boiling. [...] When dish is hot, avoid pouring
  in cold liquids. [...] Avoid setting dish on damp or cold surfaces.

All of these warnings have to do with avoiding stress created through rapid temperature changes, which will eventually cause a pot to fail.  Note these are warnings for a line of Pyrex specifically designed for stove top cooking.

For a standard producer of borosilicate glass for stove top use today, see JENA's Trendglas, whose products here are specifically designed for direct heat:

  The very even wall thickness ensures outstanding thermodynamic
  qualities so that our glass products can be placed directly on heat
  sources. [...] Our glass products [...] show a high resistance to
  sudden temperature changes with a temperature difference of
  140°C/284°F (three times as high as normal glass or lead crystal
  glass)

These glass products have instructions here.  And that document includes similar warnings to the Pyrex products discussed above:

  [...] Always use evenly distributed heat and never heat your Trendglas JENA product empty.  The heat source and the glass shall be
  heated together.
  Avoid sudden cooling, don't place the hot glass under cold water or on wet hot pads. [...]
  Only heat water-containing foods on the stove, never use it for heating solid foods or oily liquids.
  Make sure that the hob is not smaller than the bottom of the glass product. [...] When using a gas stove, we recommend using a gas stove
  grate.

Basically, glass is a substance that can crack from thermal shock.  No amount of engineering is going to make a glass vessel as durable and resistant to thermal shock as a metal pot.  That said, scientists use borosilicate glass all the time in complex procedures involving heating and cooling, and exploding glassware is rare unless you do something very stupid.  But cracks and failures of glassware that is used over and over for applications involving thermal stress and rapid temperature changes are also to be expected.

If you follow the manufacturer's instructions for your pot and take advice like that listed above (avoiding thermal stress, heating gradually, etc.), some glass pots can last for many years or decades.  And you may get away with occasionally forgetting and making a mistake.  But even if cracks don't appear immediately, those stresses can build up over time and eventually cause failure.

EDIT: After reading over some of the comments that have appeared, I wanted to incorporate some ideas and re-emphasize a point I stated above: I would NOT recommend using borosilicate glass vessels on the stove top unless they are specifically designed for such use.

Some of the answers on previous questions about borosilicate versions of Pyrex (still to be found, particularly outside the U.S.) say it may be possible to attempt to heat borosilicate containers (Pyrex or otherwise) on the stove top, but I would strongly advise against this unless it's actually a vessel labeled for stove top use or described in its instructions as appropriate for stove top use.

It's not just borosilicate glass itself that makes a pot or other vessel safe for the stove top.  Glass intended for use on the stove top usually has higher standards for production.  It is often more even and thinner (like lab glassware) than some other types of glass bakeware and kitchenware, as thicker glass will have a larger thermal gradient between the surface and interior that can make the glass vulnerable to fracture.  It may employ a somewhat different formulation of ingredients in the glass (to respond better to thermal stress, rather than to emphasize durability).  It may also have specific design features in terms of its shape and variance in thickness to account for the type of expansion that occurs during stovetop heating (i.e., heating from the bottom) vs. bakeware that will usually expand more at the top (because food inside will be cooler in the initial stages of baking, while the top of a glass baking dish may get hotter without food in direct contact with it).  And I'm sure there are other design features that make glass safer for stove top use.

User SiHa linked a video showing what can happen if borosilicate glassware is inappropriately heated.  That measuring cup is specifically labeled as not for stove top use, and it's not designed for that sort of stress.  A measuring cup is probably only expected to take the variation in temperature caused by things like introducing boiling water, not an open flame applied to it.  But also note that the catastrophic failure in that video (and mild explosion) likely happens due to two things:

the uneven heating of a blowtorch, which already inflicts a huge amount of stress even without the introduction of water; the third cup breaks even before they apply water to it
the thickness of the cup, which is designed to be durable and to resist breaking when handled roughly or dropped, not for heating; the thickness allows more energy to build up in the cup before fracture, leading to the explosive burst, rather than the more mild fracture than would likely occur in a thinner vessel

I don't mean to scare anyone too much here, only to emphasize the importance of only using glassware designed for direct heat on the stove top.  As I mentioned in my original answer above, when borosilicate glassware designed for direct heating fails, it is more likely to crack (perhaps crack a lot, but still simply crack into pieces) if handled appropriately.  That can create a mess, but it's usually not dangerous or explosive unless one does something stupid with it.


If the flour is self-rising flour, then it shouldn't be allowed to sit for too long. However, this wouldn't result in it being "impossible to pour" - it would just prevent the item(s) from rising properly when baked.

If I had to guess, I would point to the chocolate as the culprit. If your batter/dough recipe uses melted chocolate (as opposed to just cocoa powder) then it is almost certainly going to solidify again as it cools. In which case, you can simply heat it again (gently - you don't want cook the eggs!) to loosen it up a little before pouring it.


Amount of Chocolate-chips in a Chocolate-chip cookie?

Exactly 42 chocolate chips per 3/4 cup of batter.


What is it about milk that makes it go well with cookies?

I haven't been able to find any empirical data, but here are my theories:

Most cookies contain butter which has similar proteins as milk and the combination of the two resonates on that level. Soy milk does not share those protein profiles, so there is no sensory resonance.
Cookies are generally quite sweet and rich.  Milk helps blunt that sweetness by washing away some of the sugar and coating the tongue.  Many soy milks have  sweeter taste than dairy milk which would make the overall sweetness of the combination excessive.  (For comparison's sake does your roommate use soy milk on sweetened cereals or more neutral-tasting cereals? I would suspect the latter.)
In addition to the natural "grassy" flavors that soy milks can have, they may also have other flavorants like vanilla that make them less neutral flavored than dairy milk which competes with the flavor of the cookies.


Frozen and Unfrozen Chicken: what's the difference?

Yes, there is a clear difference in never-frozen vs. defrosted meat.

The cell plasma in your chicken freezes in the freezer, turning into ice crystals. Since cell plasma is over 90% water, it expands instead of shrinking in the 0 to -4°C range. The crystals cut the cell walls. When you defrost the meat and cook it, the cell plasma flows out into the pan, leaving you with dried out meat. This is the first, major problem with freezing, and occurs even when the meat is frozen for a very short time.

If you keep meat stored frozen for longer time, there are two other effects. The unavoidable one is rancidity. The cell plasma in frozen meat has a high mineral concentration, and given time, it will oxidize the fat in meat, changing its taste for the worse. The avoidable one is freezer burn - it occurs if the meat is not wrapped properly in the freezer. Freezer-burned meat is really unpleasant to eat, most people throw out affected parts.

Of course, this is not the only factor affecting meat quality. SAJ14SAJ's comment is true in the sense that bad meat (from mass-produced young animals grown in bad conditions) will not have much taste of its own, and even if you prevent it from drying out, it still won't be as nice as good meat. But what is more pertinent in this case is that the cooking process can more impact on drying out than a freezing-defrosting cycle. If you cook defrosted meat carefully, you will minimize the dryness effect. It won't be the perfect morsel, but it can still taste pretty well. On the other hand, if you have never-frozen meat and overcook it, it can get to shoe-leather consistency, so that you lose all advantages from non-freezing.

References: McGee on Food and Cooking, p.146 (reputable, dead-paper book) or http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/sausage-making/freezing-meat - (random Google hit, one click away).


Emergency Coffee via Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans?

It probably would not damage anything, but you would end up with rather a mess to clean up, probably, and not a very good product.

The chocolate would melt slowly, maybe clog the filter.  It might overflow hot, sticky coffee chocolate liquid all over.

The candy is also probably old enough since it was roasted that it wouldn't brew excellent coffee, even if it wasn't chocolate coated.

Eat them as candy--you will at least get your caffeine fix that way!  You will have energy to go out and get some coffee.


Yes, you absolutely can (Lindt dark chocolate bars work just fine).

Whether you can temper chocolate is simply a matter of whether there's enough cocoa butter (the fat that is actually crystallizing during the tempering process). You will want to have at least ~30% cocoa butter by mass if you want to temper the chocolate, but even 20% will work.

When you see a chocolate bar that says something like, "70% cocoa," that is the sum of the fat (cocoa butter) and non-fat parts (cocoa solids) of the cacao bean. That 70% might be divided between 30% fat and 40% cacao, for example, which is definitely sufficient for tempering.

If you want to know if a particular bar can be used for tempering, here's a quick test:

Read the label, and see if the primary fat is real cocoa butter
Make sure that the bar is at least 30% fat by mass

Small warning: different chocolates have different tempering curves. This is why dark, milk, and white chocolates generally have slightly different tempering curves. If you have a good, instant-read thermometer, it will help in the process of learning how to temper your chocolate of choice.


Can alcohol bottles (especially liquor) be stored on their side?

Beer bottles should be stored upright.  This is to minimize contact (and hence oxidization) between the beer and bottle cap, and (for unfiltered beers) to keep any sludge on the bottom of the bottles.  (How To Store Beer)

Wine should be stored (mostly) on its side.  This keeps the cork moist; and a dry cork can shrink and allow too much air into the wine bottle.  (Storage of wine)  But note that:

  Champagne and other sparkling wines tend to age better if they are kept upright.

The rules for liquor aren't as defined, but it should generally be stored upright.  (Taming Your Liquor Cabinet).  It's stored that way at the factory, and it's shipped and displayed that way.  Also for many "fancy" bottle types, the bottle won't even sit properly on its side.  Also, alcohol in liquor can leak through - or even break down - whatever material is used for the cap.  But it's generally safe to store liquor bottles horizontally in the freezer for a time.  It depends a lot on the specific bottle and cap in use.


How to know if blackberries are safe to eat?

As soon as you get them home, inspect for damaged berries & discard any that are not perfect. Wash the rest in a colander or sieve under cold running water. Drain well.

Spread on dry paper towel for 30 mins to fully drain & dry, then put them in a new box with paper towel under & over - don't seal them with a snap lid.

Place in the fridge, in the salad crisper if you have one.

Life-span should now be more like a week.

The rapid spread of mould is from possibly just one single damaged berry. If they are touching & sweating, that can spread like wildfire. If they are clean, dry & cold, in air that can circulate around them, then you should be fine.
You could possibly be OK eating ones from the opposite side of the original punnet, but I wouldn't really. Safe rather than sorry, so do the preventative work first.

If it happens again even after you took proper care, pick a new store, or complain at the first one - though bear in mind that even with care, they are still fragile & won't last forever. Your sign of end-of-life when clean & dry should be shrinkage, they will eventually start to dry out & look wrinkled, rather than mould.

From comments under the OP [1] - it's possible that the mould spores are in the fridge not in the berries. The berries, if damaged in any way, simply provide a suitable breeding ground.
I'd recommend a fridge-sanitisation day. My method will prevent fast cross-contamination, but won't kill existing spores.

[1] "It's very strange since this problem started only in the last 2 months. I don't know if the grocery store is continuously selling moldy berries or not"


Partial answer here: Water temperature has a definite influence, a few recipes use boiling water, and I found the chapati made that way excellent. What boiling water will do:

(definitely) inhibit formation of long gluten strands, so you get a texture that bites through more easily (that effect is drastic - try making seitan from a dough that has been mixed with boiling water...). This is a well known method for some types of chinese pancakes and wrappers, too.
(likely) partially cook the flour so you can get away with a short time on the griddle, without drying the bread out too much.


How to make butter and sugar mixture into a breadcrumb consistency?

Use chilled butter and don't touch it with your fingers unless you can be really fast about it, you don't want the butter to start to melt. Use a fork, a couple of knives or ideally a pastry cutter to cut up the butter and coat the cold little pieces of butter with the sugar.

You can even use a cheese grater to grate the frozen butter and toss the grated butter with the sugar.


How do eggs relate to the texture of the cake?

I'll take a stab at this broad question, because I think it deserves at least an attempt at a general answer.

Eggs are very important to the texture of many cakes, but as noted in comments, the effects of changing the amount of eggs are really dependent on the type of cake.  To generalize:

For cakes that are intended to be light in texture already, the quantity of eggs is generally pretty well calibrated to maximize lightness -- adding or subtracting a significant amount of egg is unlikely to improve the texture.
For dense cakes, the exact amount of eggs is frequently more about richness and flavor than creating a precise texture.  However, shifting the number of eggs appreciably could change baking time and how the cake sets.

Unbeaten eggs are (as the question notes) mostly for binding, rather than lightness.  They also provide a richness to the flavor and can soften the texture.  Yolks alone (or using more yolks than whites) are also often used for richness, as in very dense or velvety cakes (like flourless chocolate cakes).  Whites even unbeaten will bulk up the cake a bit and can help support the cake's structure through earlier coagulation during baking.  However, having more unbeaten eggs doesn't necessarily mean a "lighter" or "denser" cake: that will depend more on the other proportions of ingredients and how high the cake rises before the eggs coagulate.

Beaten eggs are generally used to add lightness.  Beaten whites provide the most lift and lightness (as in angel food cakes).  Beaten whole eggs or beaten yolks can also contribute something to lightness, particularly when they are beaten together with something else to stabilize them (most commonly sugar) and/or heated gently until they become "ribbon-like" and thick (but not so hot as to coagulate).  Often whites and yolks are added separately, with the beaten whites sometimes folded in toward the end to add extra lightness.  In general, the foam from whole eggs is a lot less stable, so whole eggs are frequently beaten into recipes after the primary bubbles are created (e.g., through creaming butter with sugar, or other possible methods).

So, in general, it's not so much that "more eggs" means lighter or denser or whatever -- it really depends on the detailed mixing methods and how the eggs are used.

When eggs are used for lightness (for example, when whites are beaten separately and folded in), the addition of another egg or two may sometimes be useful for increasing lightness, while removing some egg will likely make the cake more dense (and somewhat less rich).  But again, this really depends on the exact composition of the cake already.  For most recipes, there is often a "sweet spot" where the right amount of eggs will stabilize the structure and keep the cake light, whereas less might result in a denser and drier texture with a tougher crumb (more like a sweet bread than a cake, or perhaps more crumbly given the low gluten content of many cakes), and more will provide no further benefit and will eventually begin to weigh the cake down (and will start to create a noticeable "eggy" flavor).

By adding even more eggs, eventually the cake texture will begin to change significantly as it becomes more dense.  Without sufficient flour to balance the eggs, eventually the cake will have a custard-like texture and flavor, first likely resembling "French toast" and then with a huge excess of eggs becoming essentially a custard OR developing curds and clumps of egg protein and becoming more of an odd "baked omelet" (depending on proportions of other ingredients).

A final factor is balancing other leaveners and moisture if adding or reducing eggs, since a final contribution of eggs is simply their liquid content.  Significantly reducing eggs will impact the moisture of the cake and in extreme cases could result in a heavy dry crumbly mass or a wet mess that won't set.  The thickness of the batter is also generally calibrated to the amount of leavening (e.g., baking powder).  Too much leavening in a thin batter, and the bubbles will be too big and will rise to the top of the batter and burst.  Too little leavening, and the cake will never rise.  Either way, you could end up with a dense final product if things are out of balance.


Joe's comment is correct.

If you haven't canned them as long as the recommendation then you can't have confidence that they will be safe for a long period at room temperature.

Your options are to try again or treat them as not shelf stable.

The downside with trying to can them again is that the food is likely to be hopelessly overcooked. For something like potatoes, I don't know how much of a difference that will make as they will be thoroughly cooked anyway from the first time. If the potatoes have broken down into a mush, I would not recommend this strategy. The canning recipes are tested against food in a particular state. Potato chunks in liquid would conduct heat differently than mashed potatoes.

There is also the downside that you will have to use new lids which is an added expense, albeit small.

If you treat them as not shelf stable- simply put the jars in the fridge and use them soon as you would any leftover, cooked, potatoes. Realistically speaking, I believe you will find that they will last a long time in the fridge as they would have been sterilized- just not to a high enough confidence level.


My applesauce has fermented, is it safe to bake with?

It sounds like it's fermented, and more harmful bacteria or mold could definitely have grown without being visible.

So it's not safe, in that there's definitely some risk. It's hard to evaluate exactly how risky it is. It sounds like you're already routinely taking risks by eating iffy food that's not obviously rotten or moldy, so you certainly could choose to take that risk here. I'd really advise against it, though.

Remember, food poisoning isn't just about stomachaches. If you end up in the hospital, it's going to cost you a lot more than a replacement jar of applesauce.

As a side note, applesauce generally requires refrigeration. The jar you have almost certainly says "refrigerate after opening." So it may not be a good choice for an egg substitute. You might want to look into actually shelf-stable substitutes. If applesauce is working for you, flax (or chia) or mashed banana might be good options. Flax and chia are totally shelf-stable, and while bananas don't last forever you can at least buy them as you need them.


Are refried beans supposed to be slimy and nasty smelling?

Soaking beans is a normal practice. While 36 to 48 hours is unusually long, they normally shouldn't spoil in this time.

Assuming that your beans did indeed spoil, there are different explanations possible.

you misunderstood the recipe and used canned beans instead of dry beans. You can use canned beans for refried beans, but then you have to leave out the soaking and cooking steps.
you added something to the beans which bacteria could feed on, for example sugar. While a recipe which recommends this would be an incredibly dumb recipe, there are all kinds of recipes out there, and maybe your paper just printed a bad recipe without testing it.
you somehow created favorable conditions for bacterial growth. I am not sure if this can happen, but maybe leaving beans out for that long can lead to spoilage if other factors come into play, for example a very hot kitchen.

If the beans were really spoiled, but you didn't do any of the things above, it is very probable that it was a fluke. Try again, and you can reduce the soaking time. 12 to 24 hours is normal for beans.

It is also possible that your beans weren't spoiled. When beans are soaked, they can produce both slime and froth. This is a perfectly normal chemical reaction caused by complex molecules found in the beans, and it is not a sign of spoilage. A really strong stink will indeed mean that they were spoiled. But if you are not accustomed to soaking beans, maybe you assumed that something is wrong when you saw the slime, sniffed the beans and noticed their normal smell. It is faint, and to my nose it isn't offensive, but it is different from the smell of cooked beans, so maybe you associated it with "not normal" and therefore classified it as "nasty". I can't tell if that happened or not as I can't smell your beans, but if it happened, don't worry. There are lots of things in the kitchen which seem strange the first time. As for throwing out rotten-smelling food, I'd say better safe than sorry.


What can a half-ripe jackfruit be used for?

You can make chips and halwa from half-ripe/ripe jack fruit,its famous snack in Indian states
 Even though the process of making chips is time consuming,the taste is explainable First step is to open the raw fruit then chop off the middle stem and pull out the the jack fruit ,then deseed it and slice into thin slices

Ingredients for chips.

Jack fruit- 1 medium size

Oil- 1kg

Salt-to taste

Method of preparation

· Remove fleshy part of Jack fruit from the seeds and slice them into long strips.
· Deep fry in oil.
· Sprinkle some salt water in the oil
· Deep fry till it turns yellow and crisp
· When the chips are done keep the fried chips In an air tight container

For jackfruit halwa :

Ingredients for Halwa

Half Ripe jack fruit- 1 medium size

Jaggery-1 kg

Ghee-1 cup

Cardamom powder-1 tbs

Dried ginger powder-1 tsp

Sugar-2 tbs(for sprinkling on the top when Halwa is done.)

Method of preparation.

· Clean and deseed the jack fruit.
· Grind them coarsely using a mixer grinder
· Heat jaggery along with 1/2 cup water to form a syrup.Strain the syrup for impurities and keep aside
· Heat a thick bottomed vessel(usually uruli, but anything would do) add ¼ cup ghee, and the jack fruit paste along with the jaggery syrup and cook on medium heat , stirring continuously. Do not increase the heat,to prevent it from sticking to the vessel. Add 1 tsp of ghee,whenever it starts to stick probably in every 15 minutes. …(Use a long handled ladle with a flat end so that our hands will be safe from the hot splutters, when the pulp boils and bubbles over ). Continue the process,until it turns dark brown colored and starts to come from the edges ,Add cardamom powder and dry ginger powder and stir for some more time to get thick and tight Halwa.
Transfer the Halwa into a plate and mark with a knife to our desired shape. Sprinkle sugar over it and Allow it to cool naturally
After cooling take out the Halwa and keep it in an airtight container.

Cook Time

Prep time: 30 min

Cook time: 1 hour 30 min

Ready in: 2 hours

Yields: 2kg

Hope it helps.


Most molds are harmless, especially if you heated it properly which you should have had done when you popped the kernels. Don't worry and relax first of all. If you do feel sick or if it would put you at ease then go see a medical professional and explain what happened. But overall you should be fine.

P.S. Oils like truffle oil lose their scent, aroma and overall taste when heated too high so most things like truffle popcorn go to waste; just get truffle oil and add it to popped popcorn. Be sure to see that the oil is mainly truffle. (most truffle oils have lots of additives.)

If you meant pre-popped...
Again, most molds are fine and it's good that you threw away any odd bits.


Condensation between parchment paper and cake pan

Assuming your cake came out well and not overly wet (though I appreciate this is a particularly moist cake/batter), I'm going to guess that this was just because of poor airflow when cooling.
Did you cool the whole pan on a wire rack as suggested? If not, that would be the first thing I tried to fix this. This could help the cake cool faster, allowing less opportunity for condensation.
But some other things to try could include:

Taking the cake out of the pan as soon as it's set enough to move, and letting it cool further on a wire rack. I appreciate part of this cake's appeal is how beautifully soft it looks though, so I imagine this may not be an easy thing to do!
If you baked in a springform pan, could you take the sides off the pan sooner to allow for better airflow?
The third thing is I wonder whether the double layer of baking paper is having an impact here? This may be hurting airflow even further and trapping more moisture.

Just some ideas! Besides a batter being too wet, poor airflow seemed to be the main culprit of condensation building up on the bottom of a cake that I could find, so seems like a good place to start troubleshooting. Good luck next time - the recipe looks delicious.


Is it possible to do slow cook things using a sous vide machine?

Sous vide cooking is often at low temperatures, for long periods of time. But, you lose out on things like evaporation which can be essential for slow cooked meals or certain types of flavor development. You can't do things like stir food in a sous vide setup easily. So you have to be careful with what recipes you convert to sous vide; some will be easier and better if you don't use sous vide.

People do use mason jars for sous vide cooking, e.g. to make cheesecakes/custards. But most things are done in plastic bags (ziploc freezer or vacuum bags).

If you'd like a setup that can sous vide and slow cook and you have an oven, you could buy a dutch oven and a sous vide circulator to put in it (e.g. something like Joule since it sticks to the bottom of the dish magnetically). For slow cooking, put the stuff in the dutch oven, leave the dutch oven covered but open by a crack and stick it in a low oven (225 F ish). For sous vide, put water in the dutch oven, put the circulator in and go. As The Food Lab states in their pressure cookers > slow cookers article, the dutch oven setup described prior will often give you better flavor development and is not necessarily any worse than slow cookers on the safety front. You also have versatility, e.g. you can increase the temperature to 300 F make a slow cooked tomato sauce and take advantage of the maillard reaction better and things like that.

Alternatively, just buy a slow cooker if you really want a slow cooker -- they're super cheap, particularly if you look at yard sales (likely under 10 dollars). The price will be basically negligible next to your sous vide circulator. Then buy whatever circulator you want and use it in an appropriate container.


What factors lead to rich crema on espresso?

Crema is a food foam.  For crema to form and survive long enough for us to enjoy the espresso, something needs to hold the bubbles of the foam together.  In most food foams proteins help hold up the bubbles, but in crema it is a mixture of proteins and oils. This makes it hard to predict what makes good crema.  From practice, good crema comes from:

Enough pressure and well timed extraction
Fresh grind with a good grain size distribution
Darker roasts

There are also tradeoffs between stability of the crema and the amount of crema produced. The two don't seem to go together.  The crema also should have bubbles that pop and sprinkle the coffee aromatics into the air and our noses (like champagne).  The higher pressure extraction helps extract and emulsify the oils (about 0.1g ends up in one shot).  The darker roasts help with the Maillard reaction which creates the still unknown molecules that give crema its color and volume.


I would cream together the butter and sugar then add marzipan, eggs and flour in that order


At least in theory what you're proposing should work, however I wouldn't mix sodium hydroxide, calcium chloride, water and corn all in one pot as you seem to be suggesting. I'm not chemistry expert, but as I understand it sodium hydroxide and calcium chloride react easily when dissolved in water to form calcium hydroxide and sodium chloride. Having corn in the mix won't help the process so you'd be better off doing it as a separate step. Since calcium hydroxide doesn't dissolve in water very well, most of it will precipitate out making it fairly easy to separate out. Doing it this way you can make sure the sodium hydroxide doesn't end up reacting with the corn instead of the calcium chloride.

However making calcium chloride a home is something I've never tried myself, and I doubt anyone else here has either. There could easily be important considerations that I'm not aware of.
So it probably would be a good idea to ask on Chemistry Stack Exchange about how to best go about producing calcium hydroxide from sodium hydroxide and calcium chloride. That is, assuming such a question is on-topic there, though from a quick check it looks like it should be.

There is however one important consideration that I can mention, one that I'm sure you already aware of, and that's the fact sodium hydroxide (aka caustic soda) is a pretty dangerous chemical. For that reason alone, I think Rick's answer is the correct one. Just buy food grade calcium hydroxide. When sold as pickling lime it's not at all hard to find online. During the fall you might be able it in local stores sold along with other seasonal canning-related goods. Another possible local source might be an aquarium store or club, as food grade calcium hydroxide is apparently used by aquarium owners as a cheaper substitute for aquarium specific products.


It is related to air current. A draft is a localised current of air, usually indoors, the kind that might leak through a door left ajar.

Bread recipes advise using a draft free place for rising A) to prevent poorly covered dough from drying out and B) to make sure the temperature remains warm enough for the quick rise most simple recipes call for.


What are the basics and options of brining meat, for example chicken?

I suggest reading this Cook's Illustrated - The Basics of Brining (PDF) article. I use their basic brine all the time.

This article taught me two cool things I didn't know about brining.

Adjust the amount of sugar & salt downward for high heat applications.

Decreasing the amount of sugar ensures that the exterior of the meat doesn't burn. Prior     to learning this I had a few "issues" with this mishap

Air drying chicken and turkey in the fridge after brining allows the skin to dry out, enabling it to crisp nicely when cooked.

If you aren't familiar with Cook's Illustrated, they bill themselves as America's Test Kitchen. They will take a recipe and beat on it with dozens or more variations tweaking and analyzing it as they go, until they come up with the "ideal" something or other. In this case, it's brining.

With this as a base you have a lot of opportunity for experimentation. I usually add very hearty aromatic spices to mine. Some possible additions and substitutions:

Whole peppercorns
Ancho chiles
Whole Allspice
Cinnamon
Cloves
Candied Ginger
Brown sugar in place of sugar
Substituting some vegetable stock for water **Use the lowest sodium stock possible, and adjust salt accordingly. I don't have a hard-and-fast rule here, but I tend to go with about 20% less salt than the "basic", more or less.

Another thing addressed by this article is what meats should and shouldn't be brined. The short version is lean mild meats are suitable for brining, fatty meats or those often cooked rare/med-rare do not benefit.

Suitable

Cornish Hen
Chicken
Turkey
Pork
Some seafood

Whole side of salmon (grill roasted or smoked)
Shrimp

Unsuitable

Beef
Lamb
Goose
Duck


Veggie Burger local to Tulancingo, Mexico

We call those sandwiches guajolotes [*]; they are specific to to Tulancingo.

  One of the typical foods of the Tulancingo region are los guajolotes: buns (similar to a white bread baguette) are halved, filled with refried beans, cheese enchiladas, onions, and salsa. Guajolotes may also sometimes include meat, such as: shredded chicken, ham, sausage, or other delicacies. The assembled sandwich is then pan-fried in butter or oil. [**]

Here is a youtube video of one being made.

* Direct translation: turkeys
** Roughly translated from wikipedia: Tulancingo de Bravo


Is it OK to marinate chicken and pork together?

Don't worry about the pork contaminating the chicken, but rather vice versa. A good rule of thumb with chicken is to treat it as a biohazardius contaminant. Because it is. Salmonella is present IN chicken meat, unlike other meats where you will only find microbes on the surface. Your marinade doesn't seem particularly inhospitable to pathogen growth, so cross contamination would be a nontrivial concern. OK, if you overcook your pork chops as some insist on doing, it shouldn't be much of a concern. However, may as well be safe and split the marinade between two ziploc bags. It's a small effort to mitigate risk.


Your dough should be fairly flexible by the time you are ready to stretch it.  I regularly make Neapolitan style pizza, and use a long ferment. It sounds like you are on the right track, and your photo looks like a good start.
Each time you manipulate the dough the gluten structure tightens and the dough becomes more difficult to shape. I would recommend that your next step be portioning.  That looks like enough for one or two pizzas.  So, step two is creating balls of dough.  Then let those rest at least 30 minutes, but up to a couple of hours.
Next, when shaping, work as gently, but as quickly as possible.  Do not use a rolling pin, as this will keep you from having a crust that is puffier than the center, if you are making Neapolitan style.  Begin on a well floured board and use your hands.  There is some technique here, and you probably will want to find some videos to help. By the time I get to this point, with proper resting, my dough springs back a little, but not that much.  It readily holds its shape.  I begin on the board, then lift and use my fists to stretch the dough into shape.  That took some practice.
If you are making pan style, a rolling pin will not be helpful here either.  Instead, begin to stretch the dough a little, then place the dough in a well-oiled pan, well ahead of when you want to top it.  Gently use your fingers to spread the dough.  When it begins to spring back, set it aside.  Allow it to relax, then repeat after 10 to 15 minutes.  Some styles allow for another rise in the pan before topping and baking.
In general, pizza dough always wants to spring back some, but allowing the gluten to relax and learning to work quickly will help.  You should certainly be able to get to a point where it is not an issue.


How can I make a BBQ sauce from my dry rub?

You haven't given us much information to go on here, but I'm assuming your dry rub is a mixture of dried spices and possibly sugar.

If that's the case, I would fry some onions and garlic and add the spices (not the sugar, which will burn) to them while they soften. Then I would add the usual BBQ sauce staples - ketchup, vinegar, some water, and the sugar before simmering for a while to reduce and thicken. Put through a blender and sieve and you're good to go - if your spice rub is distinctive enough, it should translate through into a sauce well.

If there is a particular flavour that makes your dry rub stand out, you could add another 'version' of it to the sauce to emphasise it - for example, if you have fennel seeds in your rub, you could add a shot of aniseed liqueur like Pernod to the sauce, or if you have orange zest in the rub, use orange juice instead of water.


Why did my ginger garlic paste have a bitter aftertaste?

I see three possibilities based on what you've said:

the germ of the garlic. The germ, or new sprout of the garlic, should be removed before cooking. If your garlic had started to sprout and especially if you left in the germ, this is a possible cause of the bitterness.
acid. Cooking garlic in an acid environment can cause chemical changes in the garlic, such as turning blue-green or bitter -- as in your picture. Ginger and onions might even be enough to trigger this, or other components of the dish.
over-cooking the garlic. Though you said you were careful with heat, it's easy to burn garlic just enough to make it bitter.


What is the difference between Clam Chowder and New England style?

There are several major varieties of clam chowder, which you can find enumerated on the Wikipedia page. New England clam chowder is characterized by a dairy base, usually with some sort of salt pork or bacon, and potatoes.

Note:  the term chowder basically just means soup or stew, usually with seafood of some sort--very different dishes may go by the name.


When adding eggs to scratch cake batter, why are you supposed to add them one at a time?

The key thing here is a substance called Lecithin and it is found in your Incredible, Edible Egg!
Doing the adding of the egg one-by-one, plus a few other things are...

in the service of creating a stable emulsion of liquid and fat in the batter. When this is done correctly, the cake will have a springy, even crumb, great flavor, and light texture. If the batter is not properly emulsified, the resulting cake can be uneven and flat, flavorless, and have a heavy texture. It's even possible for the cake to "fall" or sink into itself when baking.
An emulsion is the suspension of small globules of one liquid in a second liquid with which the first will not mix, such as oil and vinegar. To create an emulsion, we slowly add eggs to the butter mixture, one at a time, beating rapidly to suspend the water from the butter and egg whites in the fats from the butter and egg yolks. Lecithin, an emulsifier found in eggs, helps to stabilize the emulsion, as does aeration from steady, rapid beating.
Adding the eggs slowly makes it easier disperse the liquid, and promote even suspension of liquid in fat.

So to recap, liquid and fat do not mix together. The egg has Lecithin that acts like a bond that keeps those 2 together. By flooding the mixture with the substance that will act like a binder (egg), you actually make it harder for all the water in the butter / eggs to bind to the fat in the butter / eggs.
Picture of Emulsion

Take note that in this picture, the oil to make the mayonnaise was added too fast in the failed picture. Take a look at thesproatingseed.com link below for even more information on emulsion!
This answer was made possible by SeriousEats.com, IOANA.BLOG, and TheSproutingSeed.com


Is cooking beans or any other food in metal cans safe?

The interior of modern cans are a heat resistant plastic (remember they pressure cook the cans at the factory), and will be fine for heating liquid things

Just don't try using it to fry stuff!


Do I really need pastry flour in my molasses cookie recipe?

Pastry flour is a lower protein flour than the regular flour. From here

  the protein content of any given type
  of flour determines how tender,
  strong, elastic, stretchy, pliable,
  etc., the dough is that you make with
  it, and also the texture of the
  finished bread, waffle, cookie,
  croissant, etc.

So basically using regular flour rather than using the pastry flour might mean that your cookies will be denser.

If you don't have pastry flour you can always google substitutes. That what I do if I don't have something. I saved money by not buying another flour by just adding cornstarch to the regular flour I already had.


Can I "re-caramelize" meat after a failed braising attempt?

I gave it a shot! I took the oxtails out and seared them in a cast iron pan underneath the broiler in my oven. Once they were pretty much blackened on all sides, I dropped in a bit of the stew and simmered it down very briefly using residual heat from the cast iron. It was a surprise how quickly it infused with the caramel flavor from the meat. I added the reduction and meat back to the original stew and it has a decent, robust flavor like I'd hoped. Not ideal, but a good way to compensate for expenses in "cutting corners".

The one downside is that my "fast braise" in the cast iron seemed to have diminished the seasoning slightly. I rinsed and wiped the pan dry then coated with some oil and put it back under the broiler briefly.


When to add fresh basil to a tomato sauce?

Fresh herbs should, generally, be added closer to the end of a recipe. Dried herbs should be added fairly early on during the cooking process so that they have time to "develop" and more fully release their flavors. Fresh herbs and spices, however, will generally have more subtle flavors, and they are usually best used for seasoning at the very end of the recipe, rather than actual cooking. You can check out more details about how to use different kinds of spices in this article.

For your specific case, I would say to definitely add the basil in at the end—maybe five or ten minutes before the sauce is finished, as you said. It may even be a good idea to remove the pot from your heat source after you have added the basil so that the herbs can infuse their flavor without actually cooking into the sauce. You have to be careful not to cook too much of the flavor out with fresh herbs. If they simmer too long with the rest of the dish the subtle flavors can be easily overpowered by other ingredients.


Even given a standardized recipe and method, cooking times are always only a guideline.  Quality recipes always give you a test for knowing when the product is done.

The reason for this is that there are many uncontrolled (at least from the recipe author's point of view) such as, in the case of ribs:

Exact dimensions of the ribs
Natural variation in the composition of the ribs
Starting temperature
Variation in your particular oven

That said, the variable most controlling over the time it takes to cook ribs, given a standard recipe and method, is the thickness of the set of ribs.   A longer strip of ribs (btw, the full set of ribs on one side is called a slab of ribs—country ribs are not normally sold this way) doesn't make much difference, as the heat will penetrate through the thinnest dimension.

Ribs are a complex food to cook as they benefit from low-and-slow cooking methods, which allow the touch connective tissue of the ribs (collagen) to slowly convert to unctuous gelatin.  This conversion is temperature dependent, taking many, many many hours at around 140 F, but happening in an hour or two at 180 F.

Note also that country style ribs are a different cut than back ribs (the baby variety come from a younger, smaller animal).  Country style ribs are cut with a lot of meat on the bone.

In practical recipes, the amount of time this takes will depend on the exact cooking method such as braising, roasting, or barbequing.

Recipe request themselves are off-topic here at Seasoned Advise, but you can find many recipes easily by googling "country rib recipe".  Indivdual recipes will give you a guideline for a basic cooking time related to the method used in that recipe, and a test or condition for knowing when they are done.

For example, this recipe for braised ribs from the Food Network suggests an estimated cooking time of 1 1/2 hour braising, and tells you that they are done when when the meat is tender (which you would test by poking with a fork, or just trying some).

An alternate method, as suggested in this recipe from Cooks.com is to roast the ribs in the oven.  They use three-stage method where the ribs are covered in foil in the middle stage, but the total cooking time is about 3 1/4 hours.  They carefully describe how you know when the ribs are done: "the meat should just about fall off the bone.".

Note:  I haven't tried these particular recipes; they only serve as examples.

The bottom line is, ribs are generally done when they are quite tender, which you can easily tell by poking them with a fork or trying them.  How long this takes will depend on what method you used, the size of your ribs, and a myriad other factors, but will be on the order usually of 2-3 hours.


How to keep a lunch box fresh for more than 2 hours?

For a great answer on safety and temperature, see this answer.

For your lunch, you could get an reusable ice pack to keep your food chilled.

You could also separate the ingredients that need to stay chilled from those that don't and mix them just prior to eating.


what table material is electric oven safe to place on to?

Same problem here. I went to the hardware store and bought a nice, wide ceramic tile in the flooring section.  I put some dollar-store felt feet on the underside to prevent scratching, so I can put it anywhere. That is what I set under my little oven when I use it, and it has given me no problems in five years.


How can I make use of an underripe mango

If you have a WHOLE, UNCUT green mango, you can ripen it on the counter.  To speed this process, the mango may be place in a paper or partially-sealed plastic bag; this will help retain the ethylene gas fruits emit, which speeds ripening.

Once cut, you'll have to put your mango to use. Fortunately, green mangoes are a prized part of Southeast-Asian cooking, where their tartness is used to add tang to savory dishes!  In this use, green mangoes are often combined with salt, chili peppers, sometimes lime juice, and sometimes soy or fish sauces.  Coconut milk is another common flavor combination, for example coconut rice topped with green mango preserves.

In particular, Thai cuisine makes an extensive use of green mangoes.  For an example, look at this green mango salad recipe.  In India, they may be sliced and topped with salt and lime juice, or pickled, or incorporated into a delicious green mango chutney.  Indians also grind dried green mango into amchur, a sour powder used in curries and other dishes.

Central American cuisine also includes green mangoes, and they serve it sliced with salt, vinegar, pepper, and hot sauce.  Topping with toasted pumpkin seeds is also common.

:Edit:
The one common thread here is that green mangoes are generally used in savory, not sweet dishes.  This is because the flavor of under-ripe mango is quite different from that of ripe ones. This different flavor works best with salty and spicy combinations, with (brown) sugar as a secondary, background note, not as a dominant flavor.  I would particularly discourage combining green mango with milk, unless you want the acid to curdle it into curds and whey.


First off, the blender should not be damaged by the shells; if it is, it should have been replaced anyway. The mass of the shells is simply not enough to damage the blender in any significant way.

I would not, however, recommend eating the product, for a few reasons:

You cannot be confident that the egg shell has been completely pulverised. At some point, the blades stop chopping the shell, and simply spins it around
Whenever using egg shells for presentation, they should be thoroughly cleaned and sterilized, because you don't know what is coating it. You may very conceivably contract diseases from bacteria on the shell.


How can I add salt and get it to permeate throughout chocolate?

You can't. Salt is water-soluble, and chocolate is made out of starch suspended in fat, without water. You cannot dissolve the salt in the fat.

Adding small amounts of a liquid in which the salt is dissolved will also not help, as it will curdle the chocolate. At least it will certainly happen with water. Alcohol can have some chance of working, as it dissolves both polar and nonpolar compounds, but you will need pure (96% medical) ethanol, not an alcoholic drink. I think this is quite impractical even if it works, but you may want to experiment with it. A commenter who has tried it notes that not even alcohol will work.

The closest you could do at home is to make a ganache with either cream (standard) or water, and dissolve the salt in the water phase before making it. The least amount you can have is 20% water (if using cream or another liquid, you have to adjust for its solid content so you end up with 20% water in total). This will give you a creamy ganache, and quite concentrated, but not a chocolate bar.

The only other thing I can think of is to go the way you already did - retemper chocolate and adding salt while melted - but you will not have it dissolve. What you can change is to grind it into a fine powder first, so you don't feel the grains as much. But it will still be grains suspended in the chocolate, not salt dissolved throughout the chocolate.


Does it matter if I make waffles in a frying pan?

Sounds like your question is actually whether you can make pancakes with waffle batter. You can certainly give it a try, especially since you already made the batter. Not sure exactly how the texture will turn out, but the ratios are pretty similar to pancake batter so they'll probably be good enough you'll be happy eating them.

They won't be waffles, though. Waffles are defined by their shape, which allows them to cook from both sides at once, getting all the surfaces nice and brown, with plenty of extra surface area from all the holes. If you don't have a waffle iron, you're not going to be able to make them.


Cooling cooked onions before adding to raw mince

I don't buy his reasoning, though I don't know for sure. So, if someone knows better, I am happy to be corrected. However, I do have two theories:  1.  I suppose it is possible that the heat from the onion will start melting the fat in the ground meat...but would that keep it from holding together?  I doubt it. Plus, that looked like a fairly lean mixture.   2.  I could see cooling the onion as a safety precaution, in the event the burger wasn't going to be cooked right away.  I think this is a much more plausible reason to cool burger additions.


How can I minimize "stringing" of cheddar cheese

Use more mature cheese.
Cheddar runs the gamut from very young, mild, melts like mozzarella in strings, right up to so mature it has salt crystals in it & is crunchy, which barely melts at all.
Most supermarkets [at least in the UK] carry mild, medium, mature, extra mature & vintage. Specialist cheddars then run even further, to 'crunchy', or 'crackly'.
Try at least one if not two categories older. Vintage is probably too mature for a chilli & would be a tad grainy if you try to melt it.
In the UK - I don't know about anywhere else - there is a rough guide to cheese maturity marked on the pack. This is a simple & quite broad numbering system, from 1 being the mildest to 5 being the strongest. It is not necessarily directly related to the age of the cheese, but there is a reasonable correlation between the two.
From comments:
In the US aged cheddar is called 'sharp', the more aged it gets the more superlatives they add to the name, like super sharp, super extra sharp, etc
and… as we're getting some rather preposterous claims in comments about cheese ages, let me point out that cheese is not wine or whisky. You don't generally mature it for years unless you want something very specialist [& not coincidentally very expensive.]
UK Cheddar ages, approximately.
Mild is typically about 3 months of age, medium matured is 5 to 6 months old, mature is around 9 months, Extra Mature around 15 months and Vintage is usually 18 months or more.
Anything older than that is getting into specialist territory.


What determines the shape-holding ability of cookies?

Cookies really only spread out because of their fat content: when it gets warm it flows, and if it flows too much before the glutens start binding to give it structure, you get flat cookie. So, in this case, if the dough is colder at the start the fat stays stable longer, and lets the cookie set up.

You can try experimenting with your fats: maybe butter instead of crisco, or vice versa. Lot of vegan types will roll in some banana to counteract the lack of eggs and animal fats. Or you could maybe add some more egg?


Vegetarian replacement for pork mince in Chinese style stir fry

It seems like you are primarily interested in reproducing the umami of the meat.  Tofu does in fact have glutamic acids that will add to the umami; just make sure to thoroughly dry the tofu (extracting as much liquid as possible) before use.  In addition, you can use minced mushrooms, as Stephie mentioned in the comments.  You can also experiment with adding Bragg's Liquid Aminos, since it has a lot of umami but has less than half the sodium of soy sauce.

Keep in mind, though, that the meat in the original recipe is also relied upon for its fat; tofu does have some fat, but not as much as meat, and it's unlikely to render out during the initial fry.  Therefore, I would suggest adding 7 grams of fat (e.g., vegetable oil) for every 100g of meat you are replacing.


What is safe/GMP prescribed limit of Sodium Benzoate in nacho dough?

I suspect it will depend a bit on where you live. However the limit in the USA is proscribed at 0.1% for foods, this is likely similar to the limits for most "western" countries.

This information was found by searching the FDA website for "sodium benzoate" and is found in statute here


Using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) for salting fish

A cursory internet and pubmed search did not yield any historical/traditional/cultural food-ties to this quaternary ammonium salt compound for me.  Personally, I would not feel comfortable using this in a home setting because it can be toxic in small quantities.

To my knowledge, ammoniac is used in agriculture (with pesticides and as an industrial equipment "cleaner") in salt form, it can be also be seen as a gas.  Please remember, the industrial applications for NH4Cl are implemented in conjunction with other stringent  regulations. The end consumer contact level of NH4Cl cannot exceed 48ppm in the US.

Being able to test the end product for NH4Cl residues requires lab equipment and an understanding of how to run liquid chromatography-tandem mass spec, or other specialized tests.

NH4Cl is also administered as part of medical treatments for metabolic alkalosis(acid-base balance issues), and is primarily absorbed in the GI tract.  Patients undergoing treatments using NH4Cl are very closely supervised in the hospital because of the potent effect is has on the human system.   Check out the pubchem site on this chemical.  Look at the side effects of overdoses, they are NOT FUN. It really takes less than you think.  http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/summary/summary.cgi?cid=25517#x332

I fear that if you used this to cure meat or in a way that leaves more than 48ppm in the final product, that you may begin to experience serious health complications.

You also mention in your question that you like the taste of salty licorice/liquorice?, and the wiki source does say that it is used as a flavoring agent in liquorice...but there is no mention of the final concentration of this compound in the candy.  If the anstringency/tounge numbing is what you are after, USE SOMETHING ELSE. Honestly, I would tell anyone I care about to NOT USE QUATERNARY AMMONIUM SALTS AT HOME, IN FOOD PRODUCTS.

Perhaps incorporating karela (bitter melon) in a brine?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_chloride


What are vegan ways to change or neutralize the taste of textured vegetable protein (TVP)?

Some might object that this is "not answering the question" but:

If you find that TVP tastes objectionable, try moving on to a felafel recipe (instead of using TVP) if you are looking for a protein rich vegan "patty." (Yes, you can make felafel pattys rather than balls. And you can bake them.) Pretty close to "use soaked, ground/chopped beans/peas/lentlls rather than TVP" in your current approach/recipe. Instead of trying to cover up a flavor you object to, start with a different flavor.

I have used many different types of dry beans or split peas, soaked overnight, coarsely ground or food processed, and turned them into baked pattys. So far they all worked, though of course the taste and color vary between using green split peas, yellow ones, or chickpeas, etc. And can vary further with other vegetable/fruit additions (apple and onion work well, for me.)

I have not used kidney beans and I suppose they might be a poor idea with the toxin that has to be boiled strongly to inactivate it.


In general, the stickiness of rice can be reduced by removing some of the starch by pre-soaking and/or washing the rice.  For sushi rice, chewiness can be increased by reducing the amount of cooking water.

For what do you use oil?  I don't believe that is a traditional ingredient in sushi rice.


Should I rinse chicken livers before cooking them?

You should prepare the chicken livers by trimming away any fat, sinew, etc. You shouldn't need to rinse them, but it's OK to do so. Just be aware any time you are washing chicken or chicken parts that the bacteria can get all over your sink and kitchen, so I generally just confine to the cutting board and then wash it with warm, soapy water or put into dishwasher.


Could you use other liquors than vodka in pie dough?

Yes.  We use apple jack in apple pie crust, which is a hard liquor with a sweet apple flavor.  (As I recall, we took this idea from Alton Brown in an Apple Pie episode.)  The apple jack provides the same benefit for flaky crust, and more apple flavor.


Xanthan is not necessarily a substitute for flour.  We would need to know what your recipe is to give you the best answer.  Xanthan increases viscosity when at rest, but thins when stirred (shear thinning).  It is most often used to stabilize emulsions. It also reduces syneresis (the weeping of liquid from gels or purees.  It can be used as a binder in gluten free recipes.  There are a range of concentrations depending on the desired effect, but they generally don't go over 1.5% of the weight of the total recipe.


Substituting canned pumpkin for fresh pumpkin?

As André Soltner is basing his recipe from recollections of growing up in Alsace, it may be that it was not the garden pumpkin, as it's known and which resembles the large US variety most familiar as decoration.

Several of the many grown in the Alsation region might be better suited to soups and other recipes.

The Hokkaido, similar to Hubbard, has a very hard outer skin, and very dark orange flesh (image courtesy of Wikipedia).

The Muskat-kürbis has bright orange flesh, and is used as a vegetable and for soups, in desserts, as well as being made into jam (image from Kostenlose).

As canned pumpkin is denser, it may give you the result you're looking for in the NYTimes recipe.


Why did the bottom of my stainless steel pan burn during seasoning?

The capacity of the pan to store heat is much smaller than for oil or water. Without anything in the pan, the temperature of the pans surface goes up very high quickly. The color change is done by chemical reaction on the surface, thus removal can be done with chemical reagents and/or scrubbing that effected material off the pan.


How to Make Nutella Icing without Powdered Sugar

A simple alternative would be to make a ganache flavored with Frangelico or another hazelnut liqueur. This has the advantage of having much less sugar, and probably better overall flavor, than an even-more-sweetened Nutella, assuming you start with a reasonably dark chocolate. All you do is boil cream, and pour it over a similar quantity by weight of chopped chocolate, into which you've added a healthy splash of hazelnut liqueur (or the liqueur can go into the cream as you bring it to a boil; either way works in my experience). Then stir vigorously until all the chocolate is smoothed out. You can pour it over while the mixture is still moderately warm and refrigerate it with the cheesecake. It will not be Nutella, but from experience it will be good, and evoke the same basic flavors.

Alternatively, most cheesecakes I am familiar with aren't topped with an icing, but a mixture of say cream or sour cream and other ingredients, sometimes added in the last few minutes of baking. These usually spread out reasonably well. You could consider softening the nutella in the microwave and mixing with a bit of cream, which will be a sort of less heavy ganache.


The obvious downside is safety: each time you go through a heating and cooling cycle, your food will spend time in the danger zone. It's hard to guess exactly how long, but if it's a large volume and it takes an hour to cool to 40F and 15 minutes to heat back up to 140F, and you use the conservative end of the safe time range (2 hours) you might have a problem. You could partially alleviate this by using an ice bath to chill faster.

If you can avoid the safety issue, in terms of the resulting broth, it sounds fine though.

That said, slow cookers are awesome, they're not too expensive, and that'd solve your problem with much less effort.


You have to heed the difference between two meanings of "frozen" here. In the kitchen, we frequently use "frozen" in sense 1), cooled to less than 0 Celsius, so that the water in the food (most food contains water) freezes to ice. Sense 2) is roughly consistent with what physicists describe as a phase change: a compound which has changed from its liquid to its solid phase. In this sense, alcohol freezes at -114 C, sunflower oil freezes at -17 C and coconut oil freezes at +24 C. A cook is more likely to say "solidify" instead of "freeze" in this case, but it does look and feel like freezing, so sometimes people use that word too, or can even think that if it happened, it automatically also implies freezing in the first sense.

I highly doubt that your mayo froze in the first sense. But as you see from my examples in the second sense, two things can have the same behavior at different temperatures, for example coconut oil at 24 C behaves the same way that sunflower oil behaves at -17 C. It is plausible that you created an emulsified mixture that, at the temperature of your fridge (which is probably in the +0.5 to +10 C range depending on your local food safety rules and propensity to follow them) superficially behaves similarly to how cream based air-whipped emulsions behave at -6 C to produce ice cream. That is, you got the same texture as you had frozen whipped cream, no matter the temperature of your fridge.

It is also normal for emulsions to break after freezing and thawing. So that would explain the separation you saw after taking it out again.

I cannot say exactly what single part of your recipe "caused" it, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was an interaction of many factors at once. To prevent it, you could try variations like using a mixing device which adds less air to the mixture, or reducing the speed if available, using no egg whites, using less acid, using no olive oil, and using a different temperature during whipping. It will be a matter of trial and error to find which one measure (or combination of them) is sufficient for you to prevent the problem. And of course, they all come with their own consequences, so if you discover more than one way to prevent the solidifying-separation cycle, you have to make your own choice which one to use.


Does boiling water deactivate malt enzymes?

Yes, heating to boiling temperature will destroy amylase.
Depending on the ratio, the goal of that recipe may be to destroy the enzymes, to gel the starch, or to help the enzymes be most effective. It’s not uncommon for particularly old and traditional recipes to use a combination of boiling water, ice-cold water, and room-temperature ingredients to reach a particular temperature, as the ratio of inputs will determine the final temperature pretty accurately without a need for a thermometer. If the water to malt/grain ratio is about 1:1 by mass, that would put the enzymes at their optimum temperature for converting starch to sugar. If it’s a lot more water than malt/grain (again, by mass) then the purpose is more likely to deactivate the enzymes and/or gel the starch.


slow cooker pot roast with carrots and potatoes

If it's a joint of pork, you shouldn't - they have to be cooked on high to get a high enough internal temperature.

For other meats most of my books say you should roughly double the time if cooking on low, so 10-12 hours, with the lower end assuming a good preheat on high and browning the ingredients first. But there's no need to set a timer. A stew will keep well indefinitely on low, and this will stop it cooling down too much if you're delayed.


Chickpea flour (gram flour, besan) is very useful in Indian cookery.

The most common use in the West is probably for making bhajis and pakora.  The most popular of which are Onion Bhajis, very popular in the UK.  They are essentially an spiced onion fritter, shaped in either discs or balls.  Any vegetables can be used to make pakora (which is essentially the same thing) or bhajis, but spinach (sag pakora), aubergine (us eggplant, brinjal bhaji), potato (aloo pakora) or cauliflower (gobi pakora) are the most common, sometimes in combination.

Gram flour is also used for making poppadoms (also papad, papadum, a crisp fried pancake, served as an accompaniment to meals with chutney.

One of the more commonly seen uses is in chevda (sometimes chivda), or as we call it in the UK usually Bombay Mix (I believe it is called Punjabi Mix in the US).  A mixture of dried savoury snacks, coated in spice.  One of the primary ingredients is sev, a dried noodle made from gram flour.  Mixtures predominantly composed of sev are called sev mamra.

There are also a number of Indian sweets made with besan.

Besan Barfi (barfi is something akin to fudge, made with condensed milk):

Besan Ladoo (little sweet balls):

NB. You can use it as an egg substitute in vegan cookery, but soya flour works better for the same purpose and, in my opinion, has less associated flavour.


I believe you're talking about edible rice paper. I know it is used in popular Asian candys, such as the White Rabbit Creamy Candy which was a childhood favorite of mine and I've also used rice paper while making a candy dessert called Turrones de casuy, a Filipino nougat candy which is wrapped in rice paper sheet. You can order from Amazon or here for variety.


Why did my chocolate chip banana bread split?

Two thoughts:

First, baking powders are typically double-acting leaveners, where gas is created in two phases: (1) when mixed with wet ingredients, and (2) when heated. By you mixing the baking powder early, it had more time during this first phase, thus giving your bread more rise before it went in the oven.

Second, as @Joe described, the cracking results from the crust setting before the leavening is done. Since your bread had extra leavening on this batch, the amount of rise may not have been able to keep up with the timing of the crust setting.

If you decided that you want to continue mixing the baking powder early, you could try either: (1) covering the bread dish with foil for part of the baking time, which might help slow down the crust setting (since moisture released from the surface would be trapped and keep the crust soft), thus making it more forgiving to the extra leavening; or (2) you could reduce the amount of baking powder or just finish mixing it all very quickly.


No it does not; you can put it in raw and it will cook with the red beans.

I prepare it every year by:

Soak red beans in cold water over night;

fry off the diced salt pork, onion, green pepper, celery and garlic in the pot I will use to make the red beans;

add the beans and liquid and cook till tender & serve over rice.

Your could also prepare this dish without frying the salt pork first, just stick it in the pot with the beans.

One warning:  Salt pork is salty, really really salty.  If your recipe tells you to use two pounds of smoked hock, don't use that much salt pork - would advise using 1/8 or less as much salt pork as you would use smoked pork.


Hondashi isn't really a substitute for the bonito flakes. It is a concentrate to make dashi...sort of like a bullion cube.  It is made of msg, salt, sugar, yeast, and dried bonito.  In general, one would use about a teaspoon to a cup of water to make dashi.  If you are beginning with prepared dashi, and looking for more umami, I might just add a bit at a time (1/4 tsp) and taste until you are satisfied.  Alternately, you don't need bonito to make dashi.  It can be as simple as kombu and water.  So, this might, in part, depend on your use.


Are there any variable temperature electric kettle which boil water before letting temperature drop to the desired temperature?

There are some appliances that do what you're asking for, but they're not exactly kettles.  They have a reservoir of water that gets heated, and then they hold that temperature, and they have a button to dispense hot water as needed.  Most have an option to boil the water first.

As best I can tell from looking at them on amazon, they're labeled as "Water boiler and heater", but you might also try "hot water dispenser"

They're rather useful if you drink a lot of tea through the day ... you can fill them up in the morning, and then you'll have hot water at your preferred temperature when you're ready for your next cup.


Is Himalayan pink salt the same as the pink salt used for curing?

No, these are completely different products.

As you indicate, so called "pink salt" is a mixture of sodium chloride (regular salt) and sodium nitrate (or sodium nitrite) for curing meats, tinted pink to distinguish it from regular table salt.  it allows relatively accurate small batch curing, as in home sausage making.

Himalayan pink salt is a naturally mined rock salt, whose impurities can tint it a variety of colors, including pinkish, from iron oxide.

Hawaiian pink salt is another naturally harvested salt whose red clay impurities tint it a pink color.


How do I distribute pastry in a tube pan?

I'm going to take a wild guess at what's happening, based on what I know of thermodynamics, (but I could be wrong about the whole thing)

When a cakes and bread bakes, it bakes from the outside ... as it forms a crust, it can no longer rise.  (for yeast breads, this is why we slash the top, so it can get a little extra rise out of it)

With a cake, as the sides set, it'll continue to rise in the middle, creating a domed top.  With a metal tube pan, the heat from the outside of the pan conducts to the middle of the pan, so the middle will set shortly after the outside.

...

With the silicone pan, you've actually got an insulator ... the heat's not going to conduct to the inside, so it's going to be able to rise longer than around the inside -- basically, the domed cake, but you've got something for it to stick to, so it doesn't fall back down as it sets.

As I don't think the issue is distribution of the batter, I'd recommend trying other techniques to reduce the domedness of the cake -- cook it at a lower temperature (try 25F / 15C lower) for a longer time.  You can't remove the problem entirely, but you might be able to reduce it.

I'd also look at the instructions that might've come with the pan -- it's possible that they have reommendations on how to deal with the problem.  (and it's possible that this might not be as significant a problem in convection ovens, but replacing your whole oven for a set of pans is kinda silly)


What are the principal components of coconut taste, and how do they differ between fresh and stale coconuts?

I don't have more than a basic knowledge of chemistry and the information I have I translated from a German book on spices and seasoning. All errors are therefore mine. The book is basically a description of a huge amount of spices, herbs and other seasonings, as well as a description of the chemistry involved which leads to the taste.

The difference in taste between coconut milk (if canned, as I assume) and fresh coconut water is easily explained. Canned coconut milk is basically a purée of coconut flesh mixed with water, which is why it has a different taste. Sadly, the book did not contain information on whether or how the flavour compounds (is that the correct word?) differ from coconut flesh to coconut water.

The book gives the following flavour compounds as responsible for the taste:

δ-Octalactone described as tasting creamy and of caramel

γ-Octalactone sweet and fatty

2-Nonanone fruity, sweet and earthy

Limonene lemon and turpentine

Responsible for the smell are the following (I have no idea what the letters and number in the parenthesis are supposed to mean, I'll simply include them):

10% Caprylic acid (C 8:0)

10% Decanoic acid (C 10:0)

50% Lauric acid (C 12:0)

15% Myristic acid (C 14:0)

10% Palmitic acid (C 16:0)

5% Oleic acid (C 18:1)

I hope this helps somehow.