Heinz started making products in the 1870's and was bottling and selling vinegar in the 1880's, so probably ordinary white vinegar or possibly malt vinegar (depending on recipe) would work well.


What are the differences between spice paste and spice powder? Which should be preferred over the other for what reasons?

Consider what the "no cheating" version of the ingredient is, and get the closest thing to that, that's convenient enough for you.

For things like garlic, ginger, etc., the "no-cheating" version is to get the fresh ingredients and crush/grate them - what you end up with is a paste. The paste you can buy in jars is this stuff, with preservatives added to make them last. Some flavour will be lost.

To make powder, the paste is dried, and more flavour is lost. But the powder will keep for a long time in the cupboard.

Note that some spices take on different, desirable flavours when processed. Paprika powder has its own properties when compared to fresh paprika peppers. You'd use fresh ginger in many curries, powdered ginger in many cakes, candied ginger in some other sweet dishes. Recipes will specify what to use.

For things like black pepper, cumin, turmeric, coriander seeds, the "no-cheating" version is to get whole seeds, roast them and grind them in a spice grinder or a pestle and mortar. So buying the ready-ground version is only one step away from the ideal. Try grinding your own at least once. The extra depth and complexity of flavour is striking. But for convenience, ready-ground spices are fine.

"Roasting", for small quantities of whole dry spice, involves briefly heating them on a hot dry pan. It brings out spice flavours you don't get from just frying or boiling the spice. Of course, it's optional.

Ground spices have a shorter shelf life than whole dry spices. If you open a jar of powdered spice and it doesn't have a strong aroma, throw it away -- you might as well use dust. Whole spices have the aroma "locked away", to be released when you grind.

To make a paste, these are sometimes mixed with wet ingredients (like garlic and ginger), water and oil. That's the basis of the jars of "spice mix" you can buy in supermarkets. It's also the first step in many curry recipes -- grind your spices, mix with oil to make a paste, and gently fry before adding the onions.


What to do if bread dough became hard in the refrigerator

I presume that you meant a fridge, rather than a freezer.

Fridges are by design pretty dry, and the best is to cover the dough with some cling film or some other impermeable barrier. (The wet cloth will dry up pretty fast.)

The dry caked surface is just dried up dough, and can be worked back into the rest. (It may need a little bit more liquids, but not much.)


I am firmly in the "stuffing is evil" camp... but lets take that as read :-)

If you absolutely must have in the bird stuffing, here is a link to a (I hope legal) excerpt of Alton Brown's Good Eats, showing his technique for doing turkey with stuffing:

http://www.aol.com/video/alton-browns-turkey-with-stuffing/444711017/

He uses a food-safe cotton bag, and pre-cooks the stuffing in the microwave.  Then, he uses what looks like a flexible plastic cutting board to guide the bag of stuffing into the turkey.

The summary of his technique is that the stuffing is partially pre-cooked, so that it is hot when it goes into the bird, and comes up to temperature together.

. . .

In the abstract, independent of the pre-cook the stuffing method aluded to above:

The temperature of the inner surface of the cavity is going to be essentially equal to the temp. of the outer surface of the stuffing. Since neither is in contact with any of the heating modalities in the oven (radiation from the hot oven walls, conduction from air contact, convection from circulating hot air), that interface will only heat by conduction through the outer turkey. You want cooked stuffing without overcooking the turkey--that is tricky. But the short answer is yes, the stuffing prevents the turkey from getting convection/conduction heat on the inside.

To assess the temperature at the inside of the turkey, take the temperature of the stuffing, at the edge of the cavity. It will be safe at approximately 155 F (there is some variance depending on your assessment of risk, and which source you look at). This only indicates the turkey is safe, not the center of the stuffing, which you should also check.


Expiration dates vs. "Best before" dates?

Here is a fairly extensive and generally accepted write-up http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/do-food-expiration-dates-matter

The only federally mandated expiration date in the US is infant formula, but some states do have others especially on dairy.  Most of the labeling in the US is through voluntary programs, while some are strictly marketing gimmicks like beer "born on" dates.  In general, most of the regulations are metered out by state, not federal rules and can mean slightly different things in different states.  For example, milk is generally considered still usable for 5 to 7 days after the labeled date.  But that date may be different in different states.  In most places, sell by date is in the 21 to 28 day range from pasteurization.  Montana though, the rule it 12 days, which would mean on the surface that milk should last an additional week or two past the label date in Montana.  Not necessarily though, as in Montana the milk may be allowed to sit in storage for longer before it is pasteurized.  Eggs in some states may get a 21 day sell by date while other states are 28 days or more and different states have very different rules on how those eggs are handled.  Having been licensed in one state for eggs myself, I can tell you their rules included any egg collected in that state had to be labeled for 28 days from collection, but if the egg was from out of state no labeling laws were applied at all, the egg could be of any age.  Yeah, how crazy was that rule?  It allowed old eggs from other states to be blindly dumped into that state.

In most states, as long as it has been correctly stored, most food is still fine beyond the label dates, though quality will be dropping more rapidly after that date.  Many states do however have regulations stating that items beyond those dates cannot be sold or even donated after the date in some categories of foods even if the food would still be considered good.


Not a website (and I am not affiliated with Amazon or the authors), but the Flavor Bible can help with herbs and much more.  I use if frequently in the kitchen. http://www.amazon.com/The-Flavor-Bible-Creativity-Imaginative/dp/0316118400


Is there a way to grate a block of cheese entirely without hurting one's fingers or knuckles?

By the wording of the question, I'm pretty sure you're using one of those pyramidal graters or a "sheet" grater.

That's great for getting the "bulk", but if you want to grate a small amount of cheese (or the last bit of a large amount, if you don't want to just eat it) then you really need to get yourself a rotary grater.  They're more commonly used for fine/hard cheeses such as Parmesan, but most half-decent ones will come with a "coarse" blade that can be used for cheddar, mozzarella and so on.

Rotary graters all have a plate at the top that lets you push the cheese down onto the blade.  Higher-quality graters will give you slightly better results; the $10 cheap ones tend to leave a mush at the bottom that's hard to grate, even if you squeeze really hard, but that's easily remedied with a small wooden block or really any object at all to put between the top plate and the cheese you're trying to grate.


How do I avoid a burnt underlayer with pressure cookers?

When we use a pressure cooker, we do so with separate pans inside the cooker - flat round tins, in our case - that can be kept off the bottom by adding something underneath.  Or stack up cook several things at the same time, if the size allows.

I recall seeing these largish round metal rings like an inch high that I think were for that, or (inverted) small steel plate or bowl.  Since there's no (or little) direct contact the bottom doesn't overcook. I imagine some kind of rack or other insert would also work.


In the midwest we have a few restaurant chains that serve torpedo sandwiches, aka gondolas---if they're similar to what you describe, they use sugar in the dough. You can find Avanti's bread recipes online; my family usually adds more sugar than what's called for.


Is it possible to heatproof (insulate) stainless steel pot handles?

There are a variety of heat resistant silicon accessories that will serve your purpose.
Here a couple from Amazon.com*

Duncan-2-Piece-Short-Handle-Holde
JAZ Innovations Cool Touch Lid Handle Cover

Not an endorsement of either Amazon or these products.


How to get moist goo in layers of chelsea buns

Traditional recipes don't seem to aim for goo, and most of the ones you can buy aren't gooey (UK, limited sample of sources). You can try increasing the quantity of spiced, sugared butter (or even mixing a little milk and/or egg in with it) but you may be better off adapting that aspect of another recipe that is supposed to be gooey. You ought to be able to find a cinnamon roll recipe (for example) that states it has such a filling, but swap the cinnamon in the filling for mixed spice. I've been thinking more about this, and about pains au raisin, which tend to have your goo in them. According to Wikipedia they use crème pâtissière.

From my limited experience making Chelsea buns, adjusting the cooking time/temperature won't help - you still want even the middle ones to be cooked through.


Not that I can imagine. Many of the recipes I use call for making doughs in a food processor and the first step is often "sifting" the flour by pulsing it a couple of times either alone or with the leavening agents.

This shouldn't hurt your flour, particularly if your recipe calls for sifting your flour.

I do recommend that you consider measuring your flour by weight (if you are able), if the chunks are too big to give you a good volumetric measurement before processing, especially if you're making a recipe that's generally "picky" about flour amounts or specifically calls for "pre-sifted" volume measurements. Processing the flour will likely aerate it somewhat and may throw your volumetric measurements off slightly. Weight measurements shouldn't be effected by this.

If the chunks are small (1/2 inch/1 cm), you  may be able to get a good volume measurement before you process the flour.

Consider coming back and letting us know how it goes!


How much of "wasabi" is actually wasabi in the United States?

The vast majority of wasabi in the US is mostly horseradish.

Some brands like this one, contain no wasabi at all. That one is the #1 seller on Amazon.

Other brands, including this one, contain a small amount of wasabi, presumably just so they can put wasabi on the list of ingredients. Incidentally, that brand is made in Japan.

Real wasabi can be found without too much trouble. This brand is in the powdered form, you can also get it in a tube. I understand that real wasabi loses its heat very quickly after being grated, which may explain why I actually prefer the fake stuff. I've tried real wasabi in a tube, and I found it disappointingly mild. If I ever see a fresh wasabi stem I will buy it just to satisfy my curiosity. (Originally I called it "wasabi root", the wiki article linked to in the OP tells me it's actually a stem. Hmmm, learn something new every day.)

I have read that most of the wasabi in Japanese sushi bars is the same stuff we get here. Even in Japan, real wasabi is the exception, not the rule.

You bring up an interesting point about the legality of labeling a product "wasabi" when it doesn't contain any real wasabi. Our labeling laws usually wouldn't allow that. My guess is that it's a loophole just for wasabi, maybe written especially for Japanese exporters.

HA! There is even an on-line petition to ban the practice of labeling horseradish "wasabi".


According to Still Tasty, 10-12 months, refrigerated.

To prevent odors, it should be left sealed in its original packaging, or put into an airtight container such as freezer bag (the freezer ones are better sealed and less permeable than the regular zip lock type bag).


There are really two methods.  The roasting method, where the nuts are roasted, then placed in a kitchen towel, and the skins are rubbed off.  The second is the blanching method, where you blanch for 2 - 3 minutes, then rub the skins off.  I've had more success with the roasting method.  However, it does take some time, and you will have some stubborn ones, where the skin does not come off easily.  In either case, I would not use paper towel, but a more sturdy, cloth towel. You may not get every one completely clean.


Cooking with papaya seeds - what does heating them do?

Clear answer: Nothing interesting food wise. I have lived in Asia between papaya trees for 10 years, and I have never seen them used. I tried drying them, brining, in vinegar, nope. They are inedible. Just like the papaya leaves. The only use is producing more papayas,


Is it safe to use raw mushrooms to flavor a broth?

In Norway lots of people still pick their own mushrooms and the Norwegian safety rules for mushrooms picked in the wild do not apply to Champignons you buy in a supermarket in 99.99999% of all cases. ¹

Note ¹: Unless something went horribly wrong in the food supply chain.


How to preserve and ship home made mayonnaise

Nope. The only way you can really preserve things at home for room temperature storage is by canning in a boiling water bath or pressure cooker, and the heat from that will break the emulsion of your mayonnaise, completely ruining it. On top of this, mayonnaise will also tend to break at room temperature, so it won't work even if you make it safe.

Commercial mayonnaise uses pasteurized ingredients (in particular the eggs), and presumably the manufacturing process takes additional steps to avoid recontamination before it gets sealed up in jars. It also has additional stabilizers to keep it from breaking while sitting around at room temperature. The result is apparently shelf-stable, but even if you add emulsifiers/stabilizers to yours and get it to not break during shipping, I would be really hesitant to assume you've gotten it as bacteria-proof as the commercial stuff.


6 hour cooling contradicts 2/4 hour food use rule

The reference that was posted is from an Australian agency, so there is your explanation - you are comparing different standards.

There is not some natural border between "safe" and "unsafe" foods. You can see "safe" as more of a certificate, like the CE certificates for electronics - it means that a regulation body has defined conditions under which the food is considered "good enough" for eating. What is "good enough" depends on their risk aversion, the mathematical model they use for bacterial growth, the history of food poisoning outbreaks in their country, and many other factors.

So it is perfectly normal to end up with different food safety rules around the world. Food which has been cooled by that rule will be safe by Australian standards and unsafe by FDA standards.

If you work at a food business, you have to follow the standards of your own country. If you are a home cook, you can choose for yourself which ones to follow, if any.


It should be reasonably dense, firm and only a little sticky on the outside - a bit like modelling clay. You should be able to knead it easily and cut shapes out of it without too much trouble.

The absorptive potential of flour varies by brand and even batch, so recipes involving it always require a little improvisation - in this case it sounds like you need a bit more.


One thing that hasn't been mentioned -- Corelle.

It's not completely unbreakable (and much like Pyrex, when it goes, it goes like what nico mentioned -- little tiny shards everywhere).

Supposedly, it loses its resilience to breaking over time, so newer plates are less likely to break when dropped as older ones, so this is one case where buying at a yard sale might not be best.

I don't know how the durability compares to Pyrex plates, but it looks more 'dinnerware-like' to start.


Will seeds effectively sprout after blending and leaving them in water?

It´s very likely that the blending will destroy the germ/embryo in the seed and also will separate it from the endosperm which delivers the required energy for the sprouting. So the seed will not sprout anymore when blended. But you could consider to let the seeds sprout first and then blend the sprouts.


what difference does slow cooking onions with/without broth make?

The issue is caramelization-- by cooking onions fairly slowly for a long period of time you can bring out the natural sweetness of the onions and caramelize the natural sugars present in the vegetable.  Onion soup (assuming you mean a French onion soup kind of onion soup) starts with caramelized onions and then adds broth, simmers, tops with bread/croutons and cheese, and bakes til bubbly and browned for a delicious soup that is rich, lightly sweet, and sometimes a little salty.

Making onion soup in a slow cooker is usually done for convenience, as the process of caramelizing the onions can be time consuming and requires frequent stirring (so it isn't idle time as with a crock pot or slow cooker).  This process is important for the richer, sweeter flavor it imparts to the soup.

The camp that adds onions alone to the pot and cooks for a while before adding broth is attempting to caramelize the onions, albeit in a more hands-off way, which would give a soup that is very close to the traditional method.

The recipes that simply add raw onions and broth immediately are forgoing the depth of flavor provided by caramelizing the onions first-- unless they have indicated that the onions should be caramelized before being added to the slow cooker, there's just no way to replicate that flavor, so soups that start this way will have a less developed (not necessarily weaker-- but probably closer to raw onion than sweet caramelized onion) onion flavor.

Personally, I find the broth-later versions to give a better result, richer and with more flavor.


Why does coconut milk separate when it is placed in the fridge?

Coconut milk is made of different components, like water, fat, minerals and protein. All those components have a different mass and when let sit in the fridge for some time, the components with higher mass (protein) tend to sink to the bottom as they are pulled by gravity and the components with lower mass float to the top (water, fat).

The same happens with regular cow milk, which is the reason cow milk is being homogenized to prevent the fat from floating to the top. The reason is that apparently people don't like it when fat floats on top of their milk.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homogenization_(chemistry) for reference:

  One of the oldest applications of homogenization is in milk
  processing. It is normally preceded by "standardization" (the mixing
  of several different milking herds and/or dairies to produce a more
  consistent raw milk prior to processing and to prevent, reduce and
  delay natural separation of cream from the rest of the emulsion). The
  fat in milk normally separates from the water and collects at the top.
  Homogenization breaks the fat into smaller sizes so it no longer
  separates, allowing the sale of non-separating milk at any fat
  specification.


Chocolate bars - Actual shelflife vs expiration date

If we're referring to plain chocolate bars, I say go for it.  Plain chocolate (unsweetened, milk, or dark) lasts, if unopened, for years.  The most that will happen is that the outside turns whitish in color, but this does not affect taste or quality.  If there is any sort of filling, though, I, personally, would not eat it more than a month or two past the expiration date.


While frying the cheese garlic bread on a frying pan, can a silver foil prevent the base of bread from burning?

The foil will heat up to the same temperature as the pan, so no. You need to use a lower temperature to fry the bread if it turns black before it's cooked through.


How long is yogurt good after the best by date?

Yogurt was originally a food preservation vehicle.

It is quite acidic and if unopened and refrigerated it can stay good for a very long time.
The pasteurized, inoculated, milk is allowed to ferment in the container.
Foreign bacteria don't have much chance to get in and if they do the yogurt culture crowds them out and the acidity kills them.
Greek yogurt, with its lower moisture level, stays good even longer.

I have had very old yogurt from time to time (months past the expiration) and it has only ever gone bad in one of two ways:
Either it went moldy or the yogurt's own bacteria was allowed to work for too long and the yogurt was too sour and not creamy anymore.

If the yogurt isn't moldy then it is probably fine. If it has continued to ferment then it will be more sour and possibly broken but not unsafe.


Should I delay adding barley when making vegetable barley soup?

It depends on how long the soup cooks for and whether you soak the barley or not. If the soup is going to cook for a couple of hours, you can just add unsoaked barley with everything else. Or you can soak the barley and add it towards the end of cooking.

If the soup is going to be cooked relatively quickly, you should soak the barley and add it with everything else. Soaked barley (soaked for a couple of hours) needs to be cooked for about 30 minutes.

It also depends on how soft you like the barley to be. Some people like it to near-disintegrate, some prefer it a little al dente.


Should pizza be firm enough to be held by the crust?

Speaking as an Italian, both Neapolitan-style pizza (thicker crust on the border) and rest-of-ITaly-style pizza will have a thin center that will normally bend when cut or held; the more so if there are lots of toppings. It shouldn't really disintegrate, that may be an indication of a bad knife, too.

Normally bending dough isn't a problem because you can fold the slice:


To what extent are dimpled pans interchangeable?

There were five dishes mentioned in that post:

Poffertjes
Dutch pancake puffs.
Small, shallow impressions.
Æbleskiver
Danish pancake balls.
Large, deep (half-spherical) impressions.
Takoyaki
Japanese octopus pancake balls.
Small, deep (half-spherical) impressions with a lip around the edge.
Kanom Krok
Thai coconut pancake snack.
Small, (various depths) impressions
Paddu
Indian lentil & rice ?balls?.
Deep impressions (various sizes), w/ matching lid.

I have tried my hand at making Kanom Krok in a poffertjes pan, and it came out well.  I found that they were a bit too oniony for my taste if I added a pinch of green onion to each side, but it worked out well if I only did it to one of the halves.  (don't leave it out, or it's too overwhelmingly sweet).  If the indentations had been deeper, there would have been more batter, and thus it might've needed two pinches of onion.

You simply cannot make æbleskiver or takoyaki on anything that isn't half spherical — you're not simply flipping it over (like poffertjes & paddu) or joining two halves together — you need to roll it as you're making it.  Æbleskiver can end up with a hollow inside them (that you can fill with apples or such), while takoyaki are often made by flooding the whole pan, and then rolling that extra bit from the top into the sphere so it doesn't have as significant of a void.

You could probably make æbleskiver on a takoyaki pan, but the size difference will mean that you make need a different viscosity and heat to properly set the outside while leaving the inside liquid enough to flow back down to seal the sphere.  Takoyaki in an æbleskiver pan might be more difficult — the larger holes might prevent you from cooking the center through properly.

You can use an æbleskiver pan to make poffertjes, but it's a pain.  Basically, you just put a little bit in the bottom of each one, and then flip it.  You'll still get the right sized puff, because the æbleskiver indentations are much larger (typically 7 per pan vs. 19 for roughly the same diameter).  Not only would it be slower from having less indentations, but it's much harder to get in there to flip.  It'd be like using a Dutch oven to make an omelette — it might technically work, but it's really not the right tool for the job.

If you really had to, it'd almost be easier to make poffertjes on a griddle — just use a squeeze bottle so that you can more easily control the size of the puffs.  It'll be a bit different, but it's better than only making 7 per batch.

I wouldn't make poffertjes on a takoyaki pan — you'd have to make really, really tiny ones, or you'd have to fill it so far that I'd have concerns about the middle cooking properly.

As for the paddu — I've never made it, but it seems to me that it could likely be done it any of the deeper indentation pans, provided you had a good way to cover it to let it steam.  It's quite likely that a poffertjes pan would make for too thin of paddu, as you wouldn't get the expected contrast between interior & crust.

So, to summarize (partially assumptions):

Poffertjes pan: kanom krok
Æbleskiver pan: poffertjes (but it'd be a bit of a pain), paddu (if you can lid it)
Takoyaki pan: aebleskiver (but really small, might be a pain), paddu (if you can lid it)
Kanom Krok pan: poffertjes, paddu (if deep enough & can lid it)
Paddu pan: poffertjes (might be a slight pain), Kanom krok
(Griddle): poffertjes (if using a squeeze bottle & thick-ish batter, but they'll be sub-par)


Why do some creams/fats whip better than others?

Cream itself is a colloid made up of butterfat & water. That colloid is uniquely suited to have the air incorporated to create whipped cream.

The chemistry of whipping cream is more complex than just "fat + air = whipped cream". If you're trying to whip olive oil or lard into "whipped cream" then each fat will have some unique additional steps to make it hold the structure.

For example, adding a dash of acid and an egg yolk (which contains lecithin, an emulsifier) to olive oil will help create a colloid when whipped. In this case, the resultant colloid isn't whipped cream though--it's mayonnaise.


Boiling eggs on an electric or gas stove: why the boiling time difference?

Is there a difference in altitude between where you live now and where you used to live? The heat of a gas and an electric stove should be the same, but boiling temperature differs. The higher the altitude, the lower the boiling point, since it's a factor of air pressure. (More explanations from Wikipedia.)

Water only boils at 100C at sea level. This site can calculate it for you.


Making Subway-like salads at home w/ zero work

Fast home made salads are possible with a few different but just as tasty ingredients. Some things to try that you can buy pre-prepared

You can buy catering bags of ham and salami pre-chopped for pizza making purposes. Freeze in small portion bags suitable for a few days, and take one out of the freezer and put in fridge every few days as required
Roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds (substitute for cold cuts)
Anchovies or sardines
Sprouts
Sun dried tomatoes, some suppliers have pre-chopped (they keep fine in fridge)
You can buy pre-sliced onions, but usually only in 5Kg+ catering sized bags, They do freeze OK
Many other veges are available pre-chopped and frozen for cooking purposes, many of these will be great in a salad

If you make the salad in the morning to take to work the frozen parts would keep it fresh for a while, so no need to defrost them. Sort of like an internal, edible ice pack :-)


Why can't I get my new Misto Olive Oil Sprayer to spray?

The soaking in hot water is typically to deal with oil that's congealed inside the mister after use.   Soap shouldn't have the same problem unless you were using bar soap.

There are two main things that can go wrong :

The vessel won't pressurize
The pressurized vessel won't spray.

First, we need to figure out which one it is.  To check pressurization:

Fill the container half-full with liquid (oil or water).  There might be a 'max fill' line (I haven't used a misto in over a decade), but if there is, you'd likely need a flashlight to see it well.
Reassemble the mister.
Make sure the ring around the top is tightened down well.  After it spins down freely, you want to try to get it another quarter turn or so.
Put the top on, and pump it up about 10 times.

After the first few pumps, you shouldn't hear any hissing.  If it's hissing after 10 pumps, it's a sign that it's likely not holding sufficient pressure to spray well (or spray at all)

Pump it about 30 more times.

If things are working correctly, it should get harder to pump after a while.
Towards the end, you should hear a bit of hissing after each pump.  You can stop when this happens.  It's a sign that the pump is pressurized, and the safety valve is working.

Remove the top and slowly unscrew the ring.

You should hear a hiss once you've loosened it enough to let air escape.
If you do not hear a hiss, the vessel isn't holding air.  Repeat the process, but try to crank down the ring a bit harder, and try to pump 60 times this time (and make sure they're complete strokes).
If it's still not pressurizing the second time, you can take a look at the gasket attaching the pump portion to the bottom.  Check for any damage or bumpiness that would prevent a good seal.

If the vessel did hiss, re-tighten the ring and pump it back up to the same level as the last time.
Remove the top, point the nozzle towards something that you don't mind getting wet or oily, and press the button down.

The button should actually move some.  If it doesn't, that's a problem.  There might be something physically obstructing it that can be removed through scraping or cutting, but be careful.
If the button moves, but nothing comes out ... loosen the ring again.  If there's hissing, it means that there's a blockage somewhere in the spray mechanism.

You could try taking a pin and making sure  the business end of the nozzle is clear.  If you can pull the nozzle from the stem (which I can't on mine), you can also make sure it looks okay inside where it attaches to the pump part, and there's nothing in the tube coming from the pump.
You can also try looking for blockages in the feed tube that gets inserted into the liquid to be sprayed.  (which also can't be done on mine, as there's a filter at the bottom to reduce the chance of blockages)

If none of that works, you'll have to look into returning it as defective.


How do you make the green beans served at Din Tai Fung?

I think the problem lies in that the beans are not water blanched, but rather oil blanched.  The technique is called "dry frying", and is a traditional Sichuan cooking method.  The oil temp is kept low to dry out the inside while cooking the outside of the food.  After the dry frying you can then stir fry the food.  This technique should give you the required look and texture to the food.  Hope this helps.


I'm going to only answer the bit about oils in cooking, rather than all the uses of oil in the kitchen.

When frying or sautéing, oil acts in several capacities:

First, and most critically, the oil in a pan conducts heat from the hot pan to the food being cooked. The oil greatly increases the surface are of the food in contact with heat, rather than have just the bits directly in contact with the pan get hot.
The oil prevents (sort of) food from sticking to the pan or pot.
The oil (indeed any type of fat), is an important flavour carrier. It makes food taste better by bringing out the flavours.
Oil facilitates the Maillard reaction, which is how we get the lovely fried crust on the outer surface of fried foods.


How long is too long to cook meatballs in sauce?

That long time in the crock-pot sounds bad to begin with. Ground meat should be just cooked to a safe temperature -- any more and it will lose moisture and get tough.

The bitterness could come from prolonged exposure to the acidic tomato sauce. If you've ever made ground taco meat and over-seasoned it with lemon or lime juice, it will often taste bitter or astringent.


You'll be 100% fine, as long as you store it like you would store any other raw products, same rules pretty much apply, but you can probably get a few more days of life out of it because of the higher con


How long and how can I hold meringue before macaronage?

I suspect you'll be fine. I often do simple unfilled baked meringue cookies and at least some of the recipes suggest letting them stand for several hours before baking. I've tried it both ways and notice little difference - but assuming your macaron cookie part includes a substantial amount of sugar, my evidence says it should be very stable for the course of a couple of hours.


Why use citric acid and sodium hexametaphosphate in cheese sauce?

Citric acid and sodium hexametaphosphate are often used in processed cheese as emulsifier. These kinds of salts improve the protein's swelling capacity and emulsification and thus inhibits the leakage of water or fat from the product (forms metal complexes). Some salts are also acid buffers. 1 In this wikipedia article  (in German, but chemical names are quite similiar to the Engish ones) is a list of possible substitutes of citric acid and sodium hexametaphosphate. Or just look here (in English) for E 325, E 326, E 327, E 331, E 332, E 333, E 339, E 340, E 341, E 450, E 451, E 452.

The receipe of the cheese sauce has the same ingredients of common processed cheese2.

1  Source: Wikipedia: Schmelzsalz. My bad attempt to translate this article :-\
2 "Processed cheese [...] is a food product made from cheese (and sometimes other, unfermented, dairy by-product ingredients); plus emulsifiers [note from me: the mentioned salts], saturated vegetable oils, extra salt, food colorings, and/or whey [note from me: or watery liquids like water or milk] or sugar. "


One has to juice wheat grass and consume raw if you want to get any health benefits and nutrients out of the superfood. Smoothies, ice creams and other beverages are good places to start consuming wheat grass juice. Freezing any plant or animal food will cause the cells in the food to expand and burst so it is best to drink any fresh juice right away before oxidation takes place and to not freeze or keep left overs.


Why doesn't my Lemon Posset thicken? What am I most likely doing wrong?

It sounds like your problem is most likely lack of acid. The acid is what causes possets to thicken. That could happen because the lemons aren't acidic enough (maybe the ones you had the first time were more sour). Re-reading your recipe, I notice that there's a second, simpler potential cause: your recipe simply asks for the juice of 1-2 lemons, and you might just have smaller lemons, or drier ones without as much juice.

For comparison, I've successfully made this lime and lemon posset, which uses 5 tablespoons of lemon and lime juice for 2.25 cups of cream. That'd scale to 42 mL of lemon/lime juice for your recipe. If you think you simply didn't have as much juice as before, or that the volume was less than that, I'd start by simply using more lemon juice.

If that's not the problem, and your lemons are for some reason less acidic, then the main option is still to use more lemon juice. Ideally you'd concentrate it, though, so that you don't end up with a smaller fraction of cream in the recipe. You can juice more lemons, then reduce the juice on the stove down to the original volume. (An easier option would be to add extra citric acid to your lemon juice, if you happen to have it.)

(Much of this was said in the comments, but I went ahead and made it an answer - please don't accept it unless you verify it though!)


How to remove a smokey/ charcoal taste from food?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't think there is anything you can do to remove that flavor. It sounds like what is often described as "scorched" flavor. In restaurants, that is well known as the one flavor you can't mask, you just have to dump the whole batch and move on. You can feel free to take a shot at masking it with acid (lemon, vinegar, ...), salt, sugar, and spices, but I don't think it is going to work.


Frankly it should work fine.  As good or better than the mixer.  You probably won't need to do much by hand.  If you follow directions for food processor kneading for other doughs, then you should be totally good.  Do a windowpane test and a rest if needed.


You may want to look into quick bread recipes instead.
Examples of quick breads include muffins, scones, coffee cakes — often made sweet, but savory versions certainly exist. The primary difference is whether or not there's any sugar, and what sort of additional flavors are mixed in (such as fruits or chocolate in  sweet quick breads, cheese or meat or herbs in savory quick breads).
There are quite a lot of "basic quick bread" recipes available, and so I'll let you search on your own rather than post links which may go dead. Just make sure you look for a version that involves oil (and milk/buttermilk) instead of butter; some sweet sponge cake recipes get texture impacts from creaming butter and sugar together, which you couldn't do without sugar.


I don't think it is close to either cous-cous or rice. It is less starchy than both. Also, it has a unique mouthfeel when you chew on it, because the tiny grains (1 mm or less) pop under your teeth.

I would try getting the real thing in a whole food store or an organic store, or also online. If you can't find it, in these stores, but can get other exotic grains, you can try quinoa or millet.

If you really can't get anything uncommon, I would use durum semolina. Wash it before cooking and cook it with fat to reduce the starch. Also, I would maybe cook it in more water than needed and remove excess water after it has been cooked and cooled, so your semolina grains don't form a creamy pudding.

Maybe tapioca pearls of the extra-small variety can work too, I am not sure because I haven't tried using them and don't know what their final texture is.

You will notice that, when suggesting replacements, I am most worried about texture. The reason is that the flavor of amaranth is very faint and bland. It is best used as a base for other, strong flavors. So you can use anything with the right texture, the flavor in the dish should come from spices and other components.


What is the thin, colorless film that remains after making oatmeal?

Finely ground oatmeal forms a colloid in water. When that dries at the surface, you get a skin. Colloidal oatmeal feels a little odd in the mouth, but is perfectly edible. It's been used medically to treat skin irritation at least back to the 1800's.


Should I rinse canned beans before using them?

I finally found what I'm looking for, from the University of Michigan - some actual data on the subject!

They say that rinsing canned beans can reduce the amount of sodium by half, and also reduces the amount of complex sugars which humans can't digest (but the bacteria in our intestines can, with uncomfortable results!)

It appears that draining the fluid is likely to improve the flavor and texture of the resulting food by concentrating the flavor of the beans -- unless you're following a soup recipe that specifically suggests retaining the liquid to thicken the soup.

I still haven't found any information about what healthy nutrients might be lost by rinsing the beans, but the general consensus seems to be that it rinsing will do more good than harm in almost all cases.


Am I supposed to eat frozen cherries directly

Frozen berries as noted elsewhere have a mushier texture than fresh, so perhaps aren't great for eating in the hand; but they are excellent to pair with plain yogurt.  My wife eats plain yogurt with cherries or blueberries directly out of the freezer, not fully thawed, all the time.  She usually microwaves them briefly to take the chill off and partially thaw them, but I don't believe she fully thaws them.

Smoothies are the other main use I have for frozen berries, they go directly in and make the smoothie nice and cold.

Fully frozen cherries would be too hard to eat really, you could suck on them I guess but that seems like a stretch.


I would suggest putting the cake on the lowest shelf your oven has and put a second oven rack above it then put a baking sheet or hotel tray on the upper rack to block direct radiation. If you have an oven steel or pizza stone, you can put that under your cake while you're preheating to help with the bake (leaving it in). It will hold a lot of heat and make the cook more even.


Caffettiera (Moka Pot) is not making coffee properly

You may have a broken or loose gasket. Separate the two main parts of the caffettiera and check underneath the top part. There should be a large rubber gasket. Over time this gasket gets harder and develops cracks: these cracks let steam and cofee out and prevent the necessary working pressure to build up. If this is your problem, you will notice that the caffettiera hisses and sputters but no coffee comes up.

You should describe what kind of noises your caffettiera is making. On an other tack, are you sure the fire is big/hot enough? If the caffettiera is really large (like, a 16 cups one) and the burner is too small it may be that the pot never gets hot enough to boil.

Lastly, it may be that the caffettiera is so clogged up that water/coffee cannot go through. This would be unusual, and I assume that you have already checked that.


Why is the texture of the pasta in a store-bought pasta salad different to the texture of pasta I've cooked at home?

Expanded from the comments...

Use properly salted water when cooking the pasta.

Slightly undercook the pasta a little bit; the pasta will continue to cook as you prepare the salad.

Do not rinse the pasta.

Mix the ingredients while the pasta are hot; they will absorb more flavour; I would try to season the pasta before adding oil; since oil will tend to coat the pasta and will block the seasoning from being absorbed.

Use a little bit more salt and spices than usual (cold dishes need more "punch".

Good luck and have fun experimenting.


You can do something based on freeze-concentrating:

Partially freeze it until ice crystals form
Strain the ice off.

The liquid will contain much of the alcohol and alcohol-soluble flavour compounds, along with some water.
The ice will be mainly water with water-soluble flavour compounds and sugars.  There will be alcohol in it, which will be lost.
Up to now this is just freeze distillation (more properly called fractional freezing).

Melt the ice and reduce it as much as possible.
Recombine with the alcoholic liquid.

I've tested some of the process, with some success.

In the following, all temperatures were measured with a very cheap IR (infrared) thermometer; they're probably fairly consistent on the same materials, but not very accurate (as these thermometers make assumptions about the emissivity of the sample.

I froze a small plastic container of about 50ml of rum: 40% ABV, "Negrita" brand (French), that's been on my shelf for years.  With the freezer turned up to maximum and left closed overnight, the coils, on which the rum was sitting, were down to -36°C.  The rum was frozen into slush rather than  solid.  This is more than cold enough to freeze 40% ABV according to this table of freezing points. Starting from anything but the weakest rum you'll need quite a cold freezer or to be in contact with the coils.  The rum was warming rather fast after I got it out of the freezer, so I didn't get a temperature measurement before straining it. I put it in a tea strainer to drip and collected about the first half (estimated, nearer 2/3 in the end) in one glass (sample 1), before letting the rest melt in another glass (sample 2).  Sample 1 was darker in colour and smelt more strongly of rum.

Then I tried to test the flash point.  Both samples, and a sample taken directly from the bottle (sample 3), were warmed in a water bath, before I tried to ignite some on a teaspoon (which had also been warmed in the same bath and dried).  Below 24°C nothing much happened.  At 24°C a flame followed my lighter flame around the teaspoon without ever really catching, on sample 1 only.  At 28°C I saw the same behaviour, also on sample 3.

At 36°C (I wanted an intermediate temperature but added too much hot to my water bath). Sample 1 ignited, as did sample 3.  Sample 2 displayed the flame-following behaviour that the other samples did at lower temperatures.  This doesn't match the flash points listed at my second link, which I blame on the IR thermometer not being ideal for measuring the temperature of a little rum in a glass (but I didn't have enough for a dipping thermometer); also flash points are notorious for being hard to measure. On further reading I was closer than I thought -- the flame-following behaviour approximated the flash point, but of course the lighter warmed the surface.

By this point I was running out of samples so had to stop (when definitely not ignited I could return them to the glasses, but once ignited I didn't risk it).

But clearly sample 1 was a little more alcoholic than the original, while sample 2 was less alcoholic.

However it was disappointing that I didn't get nice big ice crystals that I could easily strain off.  I also didn't have enough to try a reduction.

Note that commercial spiced rum often starts weaker (35%ABV) than I had, so you may get better freezing.

I no longer think it's worth repeating the process as the freeze isn't very good. Beyond the point I reached you'd probably need to reduce the lot and add a high-strength spirit (such as overproof rum) to get the concentration back up to what you want.

Measuring the alcohol content by flash point is tricky. Larger quantities would help as you could use a dipping thermometer (a medical thermometer might be good around this range). Measuring by density would be affected by dissolved sugar (assumed). This is done in homebrewing, but ABV (alcohol by volume) is generally calculated the change from the input density, which is dominated by sugar. The very driest wines have a density slightly but measurably less than that of water.


How can I make a mayo/ketchup-based sauce come out with a consistent color?

I would think the main factor in the colouration, assuming you use the same amount of ketchup each time, is the colour of the egg yolks.

There is a specified range of yolk colours, specified on a yolk colour fan (PDF). The colour varies depending on the amount of caretonoids in the feed the chickens have eaten. Most chicken farms will supplement the feed with supplemental caretonoids in order to avoid pale yolks.

As eggs from the supermarket will likely vary widely in source, and thus feed, supplements and colour, it may be worthwhile to find a local, small-scale farm where you can ask the farmer about feed and supplements. If the chickens are truly free range, they may well eat a lot of insects, which also contributes to a rich orange yolk.


What happened, when I boiled this pot dry?

The first photo is of mineral deposits left behind when you boiled your water away. If you water is really hard (full of minerals) you may get these even in normal use. Barkeeper's Friend cleaner and some hard work can remove it.

The second photo is showing that you actually managed to clean the dark oxidation off some of the bottom, but not all of it. When copper is really clean (free of oxidation) it's quite bright and pinkish or orange. The way your pot was before, it had a fairly even layer of oxidation, which makes the copper brown. You could either clean it all the way--again, barkeeper's friend is a good bet--or leave it and it will soon be brown again.

The last one I'm just guessing about. I think it is probably mineral deposits too, if there was water underneath the pot, or if if boiled over. I do not know if something like Barkeeper's Friend would be appropriate for your cooker, though. It could also be oxidation or staining from the pot--something on the pot that burned off and left a residue or discolored the surface. It's also possible that the hot pot actually damaged the surface, in which case the discoloration may be permanent.

In any case, your pot is not damaged if the bottom is still flat (sometimes overheated pots warp). Cleaning it will make it look nicer, but none of the things you're seeing are likely to have an impact on how it cooks.


water in egg shell when cracking open to cook

A number of things can result in watery albumen.  Older birds especially of high lay breeds like hybrids used in battery farms are more prone to it especially as they get older.  These are often also associated with thin, very fragile shells.  If the egg is stored at too high of temperature, or as mentioned in comments, too low, the albumen can become watery as well.  Rough handling of eggs can cause some breakdown which can display as runny whites as well. In especially warm weather, I have seen it with free range chickens simply because they are drinking so much to stay cool.  The most pronounced cause though tends to be age and it can be especially noticeable if the egg is both old and stored at too high a temperature.

There are two quick tests on age of an egg, either of which are always accurate for commercial eggs because there are ways to cheat these tests.  Easiest is put the egg in water.  If it lies flat, it should be fresh.  If it stands upright, it is getting old and if it floats, I won't say it is bad, but it is certainly old and could be.  The 2nd way is to shine a light through the egg.  This is called candling because it used to be done with candles.  Use a small flashlight of similar and cover the edges so you do not see the light directly, only what goes through, and use a dark room.  At the rounder end you should see an empty area which is an air cell.  The older the egg, the bigger the air cell and you may see a line where the air cell has grown.  The shell is porous, and water evaporates out which increases the size of the air cell with age, but as it ages the albumen also loses some of its structure and looks more watery when cracked.  The air cell size increase is what also caused the standing up, and then floating in water.  These can be cheated by producers who do things to shells to make then less porous or storing them in high humidity to reduce the evaporation rate.

It is possible, but unlikely that it actually is water as well.  In most places in the US at least it is not legal to actually submerse eggs while cleaning them though.  The egg is porous, so if submersed, especially if the water is colder than the egg, the egg can draw in water, so this is not allowed.  It can be done against these rules, or by accident, and these rules are not true in all countries.  I would be surprised it that was the case for you though.


Oversalted and too matured kimchi (like sauerkraut)?

I have quite a bit of experience making homemade kimchee.
There are two distinct stages, for me, where salt is used. The first is the initial salting/wilting phase.  The cabbage leaves are heavily salted and left to sit, some recipes call for pressing under weight, others do not.
Then there is the "stuffing" that flavors the kimchee - chives, scallion, garlic, salted shrimps (if you use them), hot pepper powder, etc, along with..... some salt.
Before the cabbage is stuffed with or mixed with the "stuffing," there is another step.
The cabbage gets pressed to get excess water out, then thoroughly rinsed to get all that salt off, and drained of excess water.  THEN the stuffing goes in and the kimchee is allowed to ferment/pickle.
I suspect that you aren't rinsing away the original salt you use to draw the moisture out from the cabbage and jump-start the pickling process.
So.... now you have well-aged kimchee that is a lot more sour than the normal "eating" kimchee.  What to do?
One fantastic dish that requires over-soured kimchee is the kimchee stew, aka Kimchee Chigae.  Traditional recipes call are made with kimchee, scallion, sesame oil, tofu, and pork belly.  Since Koreans have a particular passion for Spam, my mom always made it for us with spam instead of pork belly. If you're worried about the salt level, you can give it a little bit of a rinse, since the hot and the sour is what's needed for the stew.
If the kimchee is particularly salty, then you would not want to substitute Spam for unsmoked, uncured pork belly. You might also want to hold off adding soy sauce until the end (recipes usually call for a little bit) and reduce the amount or use a low-sodium variety (never, ever thought I'd recommend that), after tasting it. I always eat the stew mixed with a lot of rice, so a little bit strong or salty is not a major issue.
Just Google "kimchee chigae recipe." Also, I'd strongly advise cooking outdoors or at least in a well-ventilated kitchen.  Simmering a kimchee stew is obviously going to come with a certain amount of odor.


What is the English name for chleb bez maki?

Chleb bez mąki means literally in polish "bread without flour", you may find hundreds of recipes in the web. They are breads based in whole grains, oatmeal, etc...

Chleb bez mąki


Well; boneless wings cover a wide breadth of different styles; so no one size fits all answer.

Breaded breast meat or chicken tenderloin breaded; probably the higher end version.
The hotdog of chicken; chopped up leftovers formed into shape and breaded.  Basically a big chicken nugget with more texture to meat.
Plethora of a mixture of above

Ironically they usually don't contain any chicken wing meat.


My kids love a similar recipe, but they also like them softer. What I do is reducing the second baking time by half.
Be aware that the shelf life of the biscotti is also reduced! ... Not a problem in my case since they don't survive more than two days ...
Edit
Some history:

Though modern biscotti are associated with the Tuscan region of Italy, the popular Italian cookie traces its origins to Roman times. The word biscotto derives from “bis,” Latin for twice, and “coctum” or baked (which became “cotto,” or cooked). The Roman biscotti were more about convenience food for travelers rather than a pleasurable treat for leisurely diners. Unleavened, finger-shaped wafers were baked first to cook them, then a second time to completely dry them out, making them durable for travel and nourishment for the long journeys—Pliny boasted that they would be edible for centuries. Biscotti were a staple of the diet of the Roman Legions.
After the fall of the Roman Empire in 455 C.E, the country was repeatedly sacked by the Visigoths, the Vandals and others. The people did their best to survive; there was no culinary development. But with the Renaissance, cuisine also flowered. Biscotti re-emerged in Tuscany, credited to a Tuscan baker who served them with the local sweet wine. Their dry, crunchy texture was deemed to be the perfect medium to soak up the wine (and how much more flavorful than dunking a donut in coffee!). Centuries later, many still agree that dipping biscotti into Vin Santo is a perfect way to end a meal, or to while away an hour at a café.


How to cook for a diabetic without making the other guests suffer

I think the best solution is to avoid pre-mixing or pre-saucing anything. If you bring out a big bowl of pasta tossed (or topped) with sauce, the only way to get sauce is to eat pasta. Imagine instead you bring out:

a big bowl of pasta, perhaps tossed with a little oil to keep it from sticking
a bowl of brown rice
marinara sauce
alfredo sauce
olive-oil-grilled veggies (cauliflower, carrots, eggplant...)
grilled lean meat (chicken breast?)
mashed potatoes
a nice loaf of bread
a big green salad

Some people can have pasta and sauce. Some people can have meat and sauce. Some people can declare marinara sauce to be as close to a vegetable as they want, while others can eat veggies with rice or pasta and ignore the meat. If your alfredo is vegetarian and your marinara is vegan, you're covering a great deal of ground - diabetic, non-gluten, vegetarian, vegan - with one feast.

Personally I would avoid gluten-free pasta, or any kind of substitutions that are supposed to resemble something else. In a big dinner, you want to make it easy for people to know whether to avoid something or eat it. You also don't want people saying things like "ew, no, this is the fake pasta, please pass me the good stuff!" and making the person with a special diet feel bad.


What causes some fish to get texture like mashed potato suddenly?

You have already diagnosed both your problem and the solution. Your intended cooking method is to poach the fish in ghee, you are not poaching it (for poaching, you will have to immerse it in a generous amount of liquid, in this case ghee) and thus it overheats.
You should either accept that this dish takes several kilograms of butter, or choose a different preparation method for large fish. What you cannot do is take away what makes the method work (the ghee) and then still expect it to work.


I'm assuming you're asking why food is often served hot, not why food is often cooked.  Cooking can obviously have a major transformation on food.  While people often debate whether cold pizza is better than hot pizza, I haven't heard anyone arguing uncooked pizza is the best.

The main reason why foods are often served hot is because higher temperatures  increase our perception of taste.  However since this increase not uniform across different compounds it can also alter the balance of tastes increasing some more than others, possibly creating a better or worse overall flavour. Temperature can affect how the texture of foods is perceived and even the amount of pain felt when eating spicy hot foods.

Probably the easiest way to test this yourself is would be to compare either soup or coffee served hot as normal and cooled down in a refrigerator. You should notice when served cold the soup has less flavour, and the coffee is noticeably less bitter.

Another thing to try would be beer.  It's hard not to notice the difference between an ice cold beer and a room temperature one.  While most people prefer their beer as cold as possible, the recommended temperature for craft and specialty beers is often somewhere in the cool range. That's so you actually taste the beer you spent more money on.


let them sit in a sunny window with southern exposure until they get a little soft. Then put them in a paper bag for a couple of days and they should be edible


What is the difference between toffee and caramel?

In short, Butter. Toffee has Butter, caramel does not.
Of course there are lots of variations,  and there are some candies called 'Caramels', which may in fact be hard toffees.  The softness or hardness of a toffee depends on the amount of fat added, and the temperature to which the sugar is raised.

Strictly speaking, though, caramel is either 'dry' (pure white sugar), or 'wet' (white sugar and water), heated until it is browns, more or less, to taste, and stopped before burning.


Chinese chicken balls - should the chicken be precooked?

I think this is a heavily westernized version of, em, Chinese "chicken balls" (鸡球 ji qiu). The more authentic version comes without the thick batter; instead it's just slightly coated with potato starch. Also, they're not served directly as a dish, but instead used as an intermediate ingredient; you can make, for example, kung pao chicken balls, sweet and sour chicken balls, or spicy chicken balls. (That should explain the lack of batter.)
But in any case, no, you should definitely not precook the chicken. With or without the batter, the deep frying is enough to cook the chicken. If your chicken is precooked, then it is going to become overcooked.


Marinara sauce with too much oregano and tomato paste

I think your best bet will be to simply increase the volume of the sauce by adding more whole tomatoes... for ease a can of tomatoes of some sort, either whole (peeled), diced, or crushed; or if you prefer, use fresh tomatoes, which will require some more work. Either way, you may want to strain out the seeds if you don't like them.

You may have to increase some of the other flavors, too, but I think the only way you'll balance the oregano/tomato paste flavors is to simply make more of the sauce. You can always freeze it if you don't think you'll be able to use it all.

How much you need will really depend on how much sauce you already have. If it's a single jar of prepared sauce, you'll probably be fine with a small amount like a 14.5 oz can or if you have more, you may need to go with two of them.


I lose the flavor of basil when I make pesto sauce

I don't have a definite answer, but here are a few thoughts on things that might help.

First, are you drying the basil after washing it?  Shake out the extra water, and pat it dry, maybe let it sit for a bit to evaporate.  The extra water will dilute the pesto a bit, and not be good for the flavor - and if you think the problem might be too much water in the basil, no need to make it worse with extra water on the surface.

Also, are you adding basil stems?  Depending on your variety of plant and the steps you take in your recipe, the soft stems or tips might have more flavor that you're loosing by leaving out, or more plant matter to dilute your basil paste if you leave them in.  Taste the stems, and check your process, and consider if it would help to take the stems out/leave them in once and see if that helps.

Also, it might help to check your salt content.  Some pesto recipes use salt, others use salty cheese, I don't know what your recipe calls for - but salt brings flavors out, and one symptom of under-salting is "watery" flavor, so you might just need a bit more.  Adding salt might help your basil paste taste like "basil" instead of "grass".

I was wondering, given your comment on seeing a lot of water on the cutting board from the basil, if you might be losing flavor from the basil juice when cutting.  Preparing the basil on the cutting board seems the method most likely to have this problem, but even if using the mortar, if you crush ingredients separately then mix in a different container, you might be losing some of the flavor in juices.  On the other hand, most blender recipes (and some mortar and pestle ones) make the pesto in one container, which means the flavor should still be in the mix and not lost- so that might not be the problem, or at least not the only problem.

If the basil is just too mild for your tastes, or has a higher water/flavor oil concentration than you'd like, you might be able to address this by letting the basil dry a little, maybe till wilting, before making pesto to concentrate the flavor a bit.  You might also consider adding some dried basil to strengthen the flavor - I would think completely dried basil would not give the right consistency, but a mix of fresh paste and dried flakes might give the flavor profile you're looking for.

If the basil tastes like the basil you expect when you take a leaf and taste, and grass after it's made into paste, then the flavor must lost somewhere along the way - then you can look at your process and guess where the flavor is going (like sap left on the cutting board, or whatever).  If you taste the leaf and find it doesn't taste basil-y enough to begin with, then it might just be you prefer a stronger basil or a different variety, and doctoring your basil paste with flakes (or even other herbs/spices) might be the only way to get the pesto you want if no other basil varieties are available to you locally.


Reason for thickness of pepper\eggplant paste

It's a combination of the fruits fiber makeup as well as how much pectin is the fruit. High pectin fruits will jelly easily which is helping to thicken your paste along with the fibrous part of the fruits.


Flavour combinations - structural analysis

I picked up The Flavour Thesaurus at the weekend.  It is organised much like Roget's Thesaurus, and for each flavour has entries for several flavours that work well with it.  Many entries have either recipes or suggestions.  There is an ample index for cross-referencing.  One thing to note is that the entries are written in quite a familiar style, some may find this annoying, but I thought that many of them hit the mark.


Failed pan sauce didn't thicken and tasted far too much of wine

The biggest reason your sauce didn't thicken is that you didn't have much of anything at all in the pan that will gelatinize and help trap the water molecules present in the sauce.  Starches (flour, cornstarch) will provide some of this, as will a liquid like stock that contains some dissolved collagens.  But wine and water by themselves will have very little thickening power.  At minimum, you'll want to add a teaspoon or two of cornstarch to your wine/water mix and shake in a covered vessel - this is called a slurry and will thicken fairly quickly, but you need to be careful not to overcook it.

For a more traditional (and in my opinion, much tastier) pan sauce, try the following steps:

First, make sure that you pour off any excess oil - you want no more than about a tablespoon or so left in the pan, less if you're adding butter.

Second, heat the pan by itself for a few moments, which will help dissolve the fond (little flavorful brown bits left in the pan) during the next steps.  If you want to add your onions, this would be the time to do so.

At this point, if you want a really thick sauce, add your butter, and sprinkle in a very small amount (no more than the amount of butter you've added) of regular flour.  Whisk this well for about a minute until it seems to thin slightly.  What you're doing here is creating a quick roux that will help thicken the final mixture.  You can skip this step if you like.

Next, carefully add your wine and wait a moment to help burn off some of the alcohol flavor.  Whisk or stir with a fork for few seconds to help dissolve the flavorful fond.  Then, add stock - this is very advisable especially if you didn't create a roux.  Stock both has more flavor than water and (especially with meat stocks) contains collagen, producing a more velvety-tasting final sauce.  Store-bought stocks are fine, and are a great pantry item to keep around; you don't have to make your own.

At this point, stir in your other flavorings (herbs, etc.) and reduce the sauce over medium-low heat until you're happy with the texture.  A good way of checking is to dip in a spoon, flip it over, and run your finger across the back.  If the sauce doesn't fill in the track left by your finger, it's good to go.


I'm actually surprised that there is :

Celebrating Croissants: 40 Fabulous Fillings for National Croissant Day - Ideal for a Bistro Breakfast or Light Lunch

Your other option might be to go for a more generic one on French pastries:

Bake Like a French Pastry Chef: Delectable Cakes, Perfect Tarts, Flaky Croissants, and More

I'm not familiar with either of these, but the second one reads like a text book ... glossary of terms, explanation of ingredients, step by step instructions, and lots of pictures.  (although 'Look Inside' didn't take me to the puff pastry or croissant chapters, and Amazon didn't OCR the book, so text searching won't work).  The first one Amazon doesn't have a scan of, so I have no idea how much detail it might have in it.


How can I make herbs easy to remove from a Crock-Pot?

You are looking for what is called a bouquet garni which is essentially a bundle of herbs tied together for easy removal.

There are three basic ways to do it:

For herbs like thyme or sage which are on twigs, simply tie together the twigs with some food-safe string.
Wrap the bundle of herbs in cheese cloth, and and tie together
Use a tea ball type device to hold the herbs.

When the dish is done cooking, you can then remove the herbs all in one go simply by removing the bouqet garni.


Is slow cooking in an oven safe with long cooking times

In general, the issue is how long the food spends at the middle temperatures, warmer than refrigeration, and not as hot as truely safe cooking temperatures, the so called "danger zone" from 40-140 F, 4-60 C.

While an over simplification, pathogens do not grow well outside of the danger zone because it is so cold that they are inactive, or so hot that they are distressed or killed.

Slow cooking, done properly, is safe because the time spent moving through the danger zone to the safety of temperatures above about 140 F / 60 C is minimized, thus minimizing the opportunity for any pathogens to grow and create toxins; then, at temperatures above the threshold (if held for several minutes), most pathogens are killed.   (Do not take this to mean food is "sterilized" as spores can remain, that can become active later.)

Foods are not cooked to a single temperature to be considered safe.  Instead, there is a combination of time and temperature at which they are considered safe, assuming no other problems existed.   This is mere seconds at 165 F / 74 C, but perhaps half an hour (going by memory, so don't take this as gospel) at 135 F / 57 C.

Still, general audience food safety recommendations suggest temperatures of 160 F / 71 C because the 99.9% kill time at that temperature is only a few seconds--it doesn't require careful monitoring or timing, and so is a simple rule to follow.

275 F / 135 C (I see you edited the question) is definitely a temperature range for slow roasting that is safe when done properly.

135 F / 57 C is possible, but on the borderline, although it would require very precise control not usually available in an oven; this is more the realm of sous-vide cooking techniques.  It also requires longer periods held at temperature, and so is not a method for casual cooks.

100 F is not safe.  It is well into the temperatures at which food is being incubated so the pathogens have a cozy environment for growth.


Is there a difference between a lot of yeast and rising a short time vs little yeast and rising a long time?

Yes, there is a lot of difference. In principle, having food prepared under different conditions while keeping some total variable the same, tend to have different outcomes - having the same outcome would be the exception, not the rule.
Yeast colonies live and metabolise differently under different circumstances - imagine how people live in the Icelandic countryside and in Hong Kong, something similar happens to your yeast.
What is most pertinent to the taste are some compounds which get built in hot, overcrowded conditions (a quick rise), but not in the slow ones. These are most notably ammonia and thiols, and some people experience them as too harsh in taste. Also, if you do a low and slow rise, you get a tiny bit of lactic and acetic acid formation, as in sourdough. During a slow rise, the texture also changes, with extra gluten formation through autolyse.
The current trend is for artisan breads to do slow rises and to have the flavor profile from retarded doughs. Quickly risen breads have a homemade quality to them, and are not perceived as very refined. It is up to you which one you prefer.


Figs are climateric fruits that is, they will continue to ripen after being picked from the tree (because they will start releasing ehtylene). However, contrary to other climateric fruits (such as bananas) this only works if the fruit is picked in the later stage of its developement.
From: Regulatory mechanisms of ethylene biosynthesis in response to various stimuli during maturation and ripening in fig fruit (Ficus carica L.). - Owino et al., Plant Physiol Biochem. - 2006

The fig is a climacteric fruit and treatment with ethylene in the later part of stage II stimulates growth, accelerates the onset of the rise in respiration, induces ethylene production and promotes ripening. A typical respiration climacteric is not displayed by fruit harvested before the natural initiation of ripening on the tree. However fruit in which ripening had been initiated on the tree gave a normal climacteric rise and ripened fully after detachment from the tree. Thus in many aspects the fig behaves as a typical climacteric fruit, but as a result of its growth pattern, the ethylene production preceding ripening occur during a phase of active cell expansion.

What many people suggest, is to put some olive oil on the eye of the fig. I have never done it, but apparently you only need a very small amount around the eye to hasten ripening.
Here are two links to forums explaining this fig-oiling technique 1, 2
Apparently this will speed up a lot the ripening of the fruits (although some people seem to report they are less sweet).
This works because olive oil will increase the release of ethylene from figs.
From the same paper I cited above:

It has been known since the 3rd Century BC that a drop of olive oil applied to the ostiole (a process termed as Oleification) of the fig fruit stimulates growth and leads to uniform ripening of fruits. The application of several vegetable oils such as rape seed oil, sesame oil, soybean oil, camellia oil and linseed oil also had similar effects as the olive oil whereas animal oil stimulated fruit ripening but the effect was less than that of the vegetable oils. It was also observed that refined olive oil was more effective in accelerating maturation of the fig fruit as compared to unrefined olive oil or other vegetable oils.
[...]
A transient induction of ethylene was observed in fruit treated with olive oil, with ethylene production increasing a day after treatment and later declining


Why is a head of cabbage green, yet it appears white when chopped for cole slaw?

There is a transition in color between the outer cabbage leaves and the inner ones. A few on the outside are green, but they become significantly paler as you move towards the inside of the cabbage (see cross-section at right below). Also, the outermost leaves may be removed and discarded before the cabbage is processed (they're most likely to have dirt, blemishes, insects, etc. from growing outside).

Since most of the cabbage's volume is in the inner white leaves, the majority of chopped or sliced cabbage will look white. (Adding white dressing in a coleslaw will lighten things up even more, masking pale green leaf shreds.)

There are also varieties of cabbage that are whiter than others (e.g. white cabbage), which will appear even paler. But even red cabbage has some white on the inside!


You can't just warm the milk and add it, but you could warm the mac and cheese mix and stir the milk in to combine. You'd want to transfer it to a bowl to do that, then back into the baking dish. You should be fine.


What is the name of this chicken soup dish?

It sounds like Hungarian Chicken Paprikash.  Basically is just Hungarian chicken and dumplings.  Really tasty though.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&pwst=1&&sa=X&ei=PFVxTITfIcH58AaHlemMBg&ved=0CBYQvwUoAQ&q=hungarian+chicken+paprikash&spell=1


I know this will sound disappointing, but I don't that you will ever find a non-trivial answer to the question.
First, what sticks is the sauce. Once it is made into a sauce, it is physically a single entity, no longer separable into tomato, basil, etc. Of course, it is not all of the sauce that sticks, for example the water is no longer there, and as somebody else mentioned, the red pigments like the lycopene are there - but it is practically impossible to sit down with a list and check off, "hemicellulose is present, sucrose is present but much smaller percentages than in the original, the eugenol is completely missing", but if somebody could, and would, do it, there would be no more precise a name for that wild mixture than "sauce residue".
The second part of your answer is the why. The problem is, surface physics is complicated, and the physics of something as wildly complex as sauce much more so. An expert materials scientist with access to enough samples of the pan, the sauce, a well-equipped lab and enough time could probably find out, and have some answer like, "the starch particles in this sauce are not as round as in others" or "this sauce uses powdered tomatoes grow d to the exact size to get stuck to this particular coating after they've been hydrated in sauce, then heated". Or sounding else of that kind. But without the experimentation, it is impossible to find out.


Is it best to slice roast meat if eating the next day?

Leave it uncut, if you slice it now your slices will dry out more.


If the restaurant or bar is using a margarita mix, they frequently contain additional syrups and stabilizing gums or starches which add body to the drinks. It could also be that the high powered blenders frequently used in bars will be better at creating a smoother and thicker texture, or a more 'emulsified' slush.

If you want to try making it thicker at home, the agave nectar is a good start. You could also try adding very small amounts of food gums, like guar gum or gum arabic. It may also help to chill all of your ingredients thoroughly before blending to keep it as frozen as possible.


Accidentally omitted salt from my gingerbread cookies... what should I do?

Salt is primarily a flavor enhancer in cookies. It's unlikely that omitting it will affect the recipe greatly. I know people who regularly omit salt with no problems.

Bake the cookies! Don't waste the ingredients. You probably won't notice a huge change in flavor.

As a note, you're unlikely to get an even incorporation adding it at this point, so don't try that. You'll either end up with tough dough from overworking it or salty pockets if you don't.


How do I clean off bread stuck to a non-flat / patterened cast iron pan?

You should not use metal on cast iron or may damage the seasoning. It is best to clean it while still hot with a brush to get into the grooves and never use dish soap. Some coarse salt can help get rid of burnt on areas. Then reheat and coat with a bit of oil to protect the coating/seasoning. Patterned cast iron is difficult to season and may take more time developing a good seasoning.


WWGD? (What would Grandma do). To avoid uneven seasoning, best to wash it all off as much as you can and start the seasoning process all over again.


One job as an an apprentice baker in Germany was to prepare the butter for the next day's croissants by mixing in 10% flour by weight. This was to make it more pliable and less likely to break through the dough layers.

that was our pastry butter at any rate


How to get a open crumb bread without a starter

I haven't tried it as I don't have access to active dried yeast rather than the instant or bread machine variety, but I can't see why a no-knead dough method would not give you the results you want.

You would have to prove the yeast first by adding it to warm water rather than adding it to the dry ingredients which is the method I use.

Using regular and bread flour I have had great results with a proofing time of up to 18 hours. In the baguettes I have baked the result has been quite light, with holes up to 1 cm in diameter. If you baked your loaf using this method in a Dutch oven instead, you would get a different consistency due to the trapped steam. Either way, the long proofing time will give you quite an airy loaf.


Store bought Mayonnaise is too vinegary?

You cannot. I hate vinegar too, and can assure you, there is no way to remove the taste. If dilution works for you, do it, it doesn't matter what you use. If you really can't stand the taste, dilution won't matter, then you have to throw out the bottle.

"It doesn't matter what you use" means that there is no specific thing to mix in which will be better at "removing" the vinegar smell than some other thing. This is because you are not removing or changing anything about the smell, you are simply diluting - if you mix 50/50 with the filler, the mixture will only smell of vinegar half as strong. Which filler you use matters very much for the overall taste impression, it can happen that you dislike the new combination much more than you dislike pure vinegar. We can't tell you which combinations will make it better for you and which worse, it is a matter of personal taste.


According to  this article from Wikipedia , your debate points 1 & 2 could both be correct.

  Butterscotch is a type of confectionery whose primary ingredients are brown sugar and butter, although other ingredients such as corn syrup, cream, vanilla, and salt are part of some recipes. According to "Housewife's Corner" in an 1848 newspaper, the real recipe for "making Doncaster butterscotch is one pound of butter, one pound of sugar and a quarter of a pound of treacle, boiled together."

While I have never seen any recipe or reference that included adding liquor to butterscotch, and I wouldn't personally consider it essential, it's not too much of a stretch to think that someone has done it.


I cooked thousands of poached eggs during my culinary career, and have never seen one float. And it really does not need to anyway. What is the point? If you want to keep all the whites together, try adding a tsp of so of vinegar and using the freshest eggs you can buy. To keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pas, I use a rubber spatula and lift them off the bottom after a minute of cooking. As with all egg cooking, keep the temperature low. For poached eggs this means just a few tiny bubbles in the water.


How do I deal with silverskin in a steak without trimming away all the fat?

A good Sirloin (New York Strip steak) has a reasonable marble of fat, so you should not have to worry about edge fat

If you like your fat, pull/trim the silverskin and fat off and render the fat in a medium hot pan BEFORE putting the steak in. When enough fat has melted for your taste, cook the steak in the fat at the temperature and time you like

Add fresh herbs or garlic to the rendering fat for extra zing!


I use 1/2 cup shortening and 1/2 cup butter in baking chocolate chips cookies but they always fall flat

Maybe you need to buy a new box of baking soda or baking powder?
Baking soda & baking powder can & do lose 'oomph' over time.

Otherwise try chilling the dough for at least 4 hours before baking.
Chilling the dough usually helps butter/shortening based cookies hold their form a tad bit better.


Does the choice of peppers affect the 'flavor of the heat'?

The heat is the same; all peppers contain capsaicin. The Scoville scale defines heat in terms of capsaicin content. Use the peppers that have the flavor you want, and make it as hot as you want, and you'll be set.

And the flavor besides heat is definitely concentrated in the flesh, so you shouldn't notice any real difference in pepper flavor either.


What vegetables hold up well for making vegetarian pot pie?

What do you mean by hold up well? Structurally? Carrots and peas are rather common in a traditional chicken pot pie. Cauliflower is probably way too delicate to hold up well, also it's too mildly flavored to serve as a primary flavor.

I would suggest trying some heartier root vegetables or starches. Potatoes, squash, zucchini are some good possibilities. I'd also add some onion and celery for a better flavor punch.


To answer my own question, after experiencing, once cooked, the brik stays crisp for over a week.


How to keep baked meringue from shrinking away from pie crust?

Meringue will shrink when it's cooked, there's no way to avoid that.
There are two common options for dealing with that:

A very thick layer, such that as it shrinks, it's still big enough. (Think of the pies that have a two inch thick slab of meringue)
Less connected, more complex shapes, such that as they shrink, they don't all add up to a change that pulls it apart (think of pies with many nicely formed dollups like https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/02/d8/43/02d84386535246553b3f4e8463e3047e.jpg )


What damage is caused to kefir when it comes into contact with metal?

The damage is not so much as to the kefir but to the consumer of the kefir if it was made in a reactive metal. Kefir, being acidic, should not be in aluminum, brass, iron or copper as they react to acid. Stainless steel is preferred because it is inert to the milk kefir is made from. However, when first made stainless was unknown.

Unless you have a real goat skin, about the best thing to make kefir in is glass. The "grains" are really a mix of yeasts and bacteria, and those can live in as much as a very light scratch in plastic. For this reason you should use glass to ferment it, and you can use a stainless spoon to stir.


Is it possible to cook millets without having to grind it into a powder?

Millet in general is perfectly cookable as a whole grain. It functions pretty interchangeably with other grains and pseudograins, except where you need very specific qualities (e.g. you probably won't be able to make sushi out of it because you can't get the right amount of stickiness).

I don't know about Ragi specifically, as opposed to the generic food sold as just "millet", but I don't see any reason for it to behave differently. In the worst case, just give it a try - there is little reason to think it could fail.


Is it safe to cook raw meat (beef) and veggies in the same pan?

As long as you cook the meat thoroughly (i.e. if it reaches a safe temperature), most pathogens should be dead and it doesn't matter in which order you put the vegetables and the meat in. However, the order does matter if you don't want to have your garlic or onions burned while the meat is undercooked or raw vegetables while the meat is overcooking.


The thickening agent in your recipe is flour. If you want to have thinner sauce then you need to add less flour when cooking the garlic. If a total of 6 to 7.5 Tbsp of flour is too much then maybe you should try adding a total of 4 Tbsp.


Oven semi-baked semi-fried potatoes starting from raw (for the lazy cook)

Restaurants usually pre-cook (either parboil or parfry) their potatoes and freeze them in serving portions.
I would just parboil the potato wedges, then coat with oil and put in oven until golden brown (or just brown-ish).
When baking potatoes, I prefer using a metal pan sheet instead of a glass bakeware.


Are the citrus seeds necessary when making marmalade?

Without seeing the recipe and procedure, it is hard to say if the seeds are necessary, there are many recipes for Seville orange marmalade that don't call for the seeds, and some that do. There is a good chance that they aren't essential to the recipe, that being said:

There is pectin in the seeds of citrus, but there is no need to grind or chop them for it to be released. Tying them in a cheesecloth bag, that would be easy to remove after cooking, would be fine.

(If the recipe uses added pectin, then the seeds shouldn't be needed at all.)


Anything, including a 'neutral' flavor, is going to change the flavor, even if all it does is reduce the 'intensity'. So what you need to find is what is an 'acceptable' change.

With this in mind I suggest your best 'first choice' would be to warm your dressing slightly. Place the container or mixing bowl into a warm water bath. You are not trying to 'cook' or make it 'hot' just warm enough to thin it out without actually changing the flavor profile.

If that doesn't work for you then you might consider adding something to the mix.

The most likely thing you can do is alter the existing ratio to favor the 'thinner' ingredients. More Buttermilk, less mayo or sour cream.
Your second 'best' option would be to seek an thinning agent that does not distort the existing flavor profile 'too much'. Best candidate would probably be heavy cream or soft butter.
If neither of those options produces an acceptable result you might look for a different thinner such as an oil (olive, soy, canola) or another dairy (milk, low-fat or whole)


Can rasam, a South Indian recipe, be boiled at high temperatures?

Yea, you should not. The principle behind Rasam is the same as the principle behind the soup. You want the liquid to be infused with the optimum flavour from the masala, tomatoes, pepper etc. Beyond that it begins to lose its characteristic taste. Even rasam that has been heated repeatedly, tastes much worse than one that has been heated just once. If you make Rasam with whole peppers like in my place, the spiciness become unbearable if you boil it too much.


If anything that is actually part of the microwave caught fire, of course you should replace it.
(Theoretically you could have it repaired by someone knowledgeable, but repairing a microwave is not cost effective.)

Continuing to use damaged electrical equipment is asking for a fire or damage to your electrical systems.

There is no such thing as a 'one off' fire that you can neglect.


How can I determine canning processing times?

In answer to your second part, no. If something is not acidic enough for water canning it seems it doesn't matter how long you process it, it isn't safe. This is the reasoning all the cookbooks I've read provide for adding a teaspoon of lemon juice to each pint of tomatoes.

I would therefore use this strategy:

get things to the right pH for water or pressure canning as a separate first step. (Fruit will generally be ok, tomatoes need lemon juice, pickles will be ok, etc)
check the processing time for pints and quarts of various things (jams, fruit, pickles etc) and look for the pattern: is it consistently 25% more time, or 5 extra minutes? Work out the pattern.
repeat for hot vs cold pack: do you halve the time, or subtract 10 minutes, or what?

Now armed with a hot-pack pints recipe, you can adjust it for cold-pack quarts or vice versa. You should also, in poring through these recipes and charts, have come to understand various categories (fruit, jam, pickles, nonpickled vegetables etc) and be familiar with what times they need. Then faced with a chutney, conserve, or pickle that isn't on anybody's list, you should be able to choose what category it most likely belongs to, and safely pick a time for it.


How can I clean frozen (raw) chicken juice out of my freezer?

It seems that your concern is just that the chicken will defrost before you can finish cleaning the freezer. It won't. Just put the chicken and anything else from the freezer that you want to save in the fridge. Wipe the inside of the empty freezer down with warm soapy water. You can also add bleach in the concentration of 1 TBS per gallon (16ml to 4 liters) to water to disinfect, at that concentration you don't need to rinse. The whole process should take less than 10 minutes. Wrap the chicken a bit better this time, and replace the contents of the freezer. Start to finish, it should only take 10 minutes or so. Even if you don't have room in the fridge, your freezer contents won't defrost on the counter if you hurry.

If you need to defrost, that's a different story. Your best bet then would be to borrow a friend's freezer or use a cooler. You can speed up the process of defrosting with rubbing alcohol. Since manual defrosting would require unplugging the unit, you'll want to move as quickly as you can to protect the contents of the refrigerator, if it's a single unit.


How can I remove mold stains from a pan?

I use bleach to remove mold and mildew stains from my bathroom and while the process would be gross, I would think that once thoroughly washed the bleach wouldn't cause any harmful effects to the pan or to future snacking humans.


A dacquoise isn't so much baked as it is dried. Usually this is done for an hour or more at a temperature below 300F. If you have problems with the top drying too quickly and leaving the bottom unset, you can get a simple spray bottle and mist the top with water toward the beginning of the baking time to slow it down. Also, I notice that the picture is using a silpat, I don't know if that was just for illustration, but while silpats are wonderful, they do tend to slow the cooking on the underside of whatever is on them.


What is the difference between doughnut and krapfen?

There doesn't appear to be any difference. Wikipedia says "In English-speaking countries, Berliners are usually called doughnuts and are usually filled with jam, jelly, custard or whipped cream", and this page says "The English translation of krapfen is cruller or doughnut". There are so many variations of filling, topping, shape and so forth that it is hard to establish a single identity anyhow.


Are you sure tilapia steak can be eaten medium rare?

I'm 100% sure that tilapia must not be eaten half cooked. Half cooked fish has a lot of bacterial such as bacterial bathogens, parasite, natural toxin etc.

Please be careful because tilapia isn't a sushi grade fish. All tilapia in japanese cuisine or any cuisine in the world must be fully cooked.

Anyways, assumingly you wanted your tilapia steak to be fully cooked and nicely seared, there's a few ways my mom would do and other chef would usually do.

Usually, my mom would score the the fish and then place it on a large sifter and allow any excess water in the fish to dripped out. At the mean time, this will allow the temperature of the fish to be brought down to room temperature so it will be cooked evenly.
When you are about to cook the fish, tap the surface of the fish with kitchen towel and coat an extremely thin layer of corn starch. The corn starch helps to soak up any "leftover" water you missed out as well as giving the fish a pleasant crisp when fried.
Heat your pan with your oil until you see mild smoke omitting from the pan. Please do not let the pan smoke till you could see grey colored smoke as this shows that the pan is way too hot to cook the fish as fish are often more delicate compared to meat. Alternatively, you can use a wooden chopstick and place it on top of the oil and once you see bubbles at the tip of the chopstick, the temperate of the oil is ready.
Place your fish down and DO NOT FLIP IT. Flipping it would cause the meat to stick to the pan and fall apart. Flip it when you start seeing a brownish shade at the bottom of your fish and do it the same of the other side. Do sear the skin as fish skin are always nice when it's light and crispy.


How can I make my (American style) pancakes light and spongy?

I can't say for sure what is wrong, but here's a few possibilities:

Your mix is too runny: if you have a batter that's too thin then it will spread out too far on the pan, if it's too thin you will get a rubbery pancake. It doesn't take much liquid to get too thin, a couple of tablespoons of milk make make the difference between just right and too thick. If you overrun you can always add just a bit of flour
Your mix is too thick: if your batter is too thick then it will be to stodgy to rise well. You'll get a taller pancake but it won't open up
Over-mixing: flour has protein in it called gluten, and developed gluten is what makes bread stretchy. Gluten is developed by working it in the presence of moisture, causing gluten strands to uncoil and interlock. Gluten development is good for bread but bad for pancakes risen by baking soda or powder. If you over-mix your pancake batter you will develop the gluten in it, so it's best to do it by hand for as short a time as possible. Don't worry about eliminating all lumps
pan too hot: if you have the wrong pan temperature it's easy to overcook your pancakes. If it's too hot it will overcook the outside before the inside is done
pan too cool: If it is too cool then you won't get as much lift, or you lose lift because the batter doesn't set quickly enough to hold in the air, and then you have a close texture. You will also need to cook it longer to get it done, getting a rubber mat instead of a light and fluffy pancake
Not enough baking powder: Your recipe calls for 4 tsp of baking powder for 3 cups of flour. The non-buttermilk recipe I use would call for 5 tsp. Probably not enough to make the difference between rubbery and fluffy but you never know.

Like others in the comments I also recommend buttermilk for your pancakes as it gives better color, flavor and texture. You can make good pancakes without it for sure, but if I have it available I will always use it.


Sauteing in butter is not really all that different from sauteing in any other oil: it just takes an awareness of the smoke point, and avoiding it.  Consider investing in an IR thermometer that can tell you exactly the temperature of the pan (with or without the oil) so you can heat the pan to exactly the right point.  For butter, that is about 350°F, which is not all that much lower than other oils - including EVOO, for example.

One suggestion is to do as the French do (who sauté in butter all the time!) and use clarified butter, which removes the solids from the butter.  It's easy to do, and significantly raises the smoke point (as those solids start smoking much earlier than the oil does).  Clarified butter has a smoke point of 450°F, as high as peanut oil.  You don't even have to go to the extreme that the linked recipe does in clarifying; simply spooning out the bits you can easily see will often be sufficient.  You can clarify butter and then refrigerate or freeze it, if you want to do it in large batches.

Second, use a pan that retains heat well - a heavier pan.  That will allow you to cook at a lower temperature effectively.  A thinner pan will have more hot spots, which lead to smoke sooner.

Third, make sure you're cooking the right amount of food in the right order.  Don't crowd the pan too much.  I've sauteed mushrooms and similar with no problem in butter; steaming shouldn't be an issue if you have the right amount of food in the pan at once.  If you overload it, though, you do end up cooking too slowly and unevenly, and steaming or just mushing your food.

Fourth, salt is your friend when it comes to moisture.  If you're cooking something very moist, salt it before cooking it (but after chopping it), give it a bit of time (5-10 minutes at least).  This will let the salt remove some of the moisture, particularly from the outside.  Then, wipe off the excess salt and the excess moisture with a cloth or paper towel before sauteing.  (Don't give it a long time as eventually the moisture goes back in, and your food gets too salty.)  This works well for me with things like eggplant or zucchini - remove some moisture, then saute - as well as the thicker mushrooms (like portobello or white mushrooms).


The website specifically says :

  All of our salame are cured and naturally aged. Other salumi items like our Mortadella are spiced and cooked in the Italian tradition.

The problem is that there are two classifications of meat that only vary by a letter:

Salami (the plural of salame) are cured, air-dried meats.  They can be stored at room temperature (at least before you cut into them), and would be fine to eat raw.
Salumi (the plural of salume) is a larger classification of salted meats, that includes not only salami but also cooked or raw products, such as mortadela and pancetta.  The cooked products (eg, mortadela) would be fine to eat as-is.

Pancetta is salt and spice-cured pork belly, is still raw, and should be cooked before eating.