Like many crafts which originated in Japan, their sushi training more or less creates sushi artisans.  If you just want to make a snack, you'll have plenty of ability given a basic review of techniques.  You should focus your learning on understanding food-safety, getting the rice right, and making the roll not fall apart.  The rest is just levels of mastery which you need not approach in your kitchen in order to experiment and enjoy a good dish.


Puff pastry itself holds fine a couple days (and the raw dough can be kept frozen months!); it's normally very dry so there's very little difference between baked fresh and "old". As long as you don't burn it and don't make it soggy when reheating, the pastry will be fine. OTOH if you keep it on heat, it will start getting too dry and unpleasant in some 3 hours or so.

The meat stuffing is another thing you should worry about. 4h on very modest heat will dry it up badly.

Just bake everything ahead of time, leave in the open in room temperature or even refrigerate and reheat every batch before serving.


How to avoid excessive steam build up in oven

What settings does your oven offer? Usually an oven should have proper venting of excessive moisture. Are you maybe using a special "steaming" setting instead of regular heating? If it's a regular setting that you're using, your oven might have a technical problem with ventilation that a service mechanic might be able to fix.
As a meantime band-aid fix, you might want to quickly open your oven door ever so often to let out excessive steam. If this does nothing to reduce the amount of steam, it might indeed be a steaming setting that somehow traps or even injects moisture into your oven chamber.


Fudge not setting up-- any salvaging possible? Alternate uses?

It sounds like your fudge simply wasn't heated enough. Fudge is basically a superconcentrated syrup, and it sets when sugar dissolved in the water (from the butter and milk) comes out of solution as the mixture cools and forms crystals. Temperature is your proxy measurement for the concentration of sugar - if you don't hit the right temperature, the concentration will be off and your fudge won't set properly.

Here's a useful little article with some tips for fixing your fudge. Essentially, you want to cook the syrup right up to 237° to 239° F (that's 114° to 115° C) in order to get the proper concentration. I generally heat my syrup up to 235° F and let carry-over do the rest of the work. If it's overcooked (resulting in grainy fudge) or undercooked (resulting in poor setting) all you really need to do is add a bit of cream, reheat the fudge to the target temperature, and let it set again.


It's certainly safe in terms of food contact. See How does a Miracle Thaw work? - it's really just a sheet of metal. It's not very much different from just putting your food on a baking sheet. Just be sure to clean it between uses as you would with anything else that touched raw meat.

However, you do still have to be careful about general food safety: it's not safe to leave meat in the danger zone (40 to 140°F) for more than a couple hours. The miracle thaw speeds things along, but it doesn't change that. So if it makes your meat thaw enough in half an hour, awesome. If it still takes 6 hours, you need to find another safe thawing method to use instead.


Should I marinate or dry-brine a steak first?

The only reasonable thing to do if you must do both separately is to start with a nice long brine and finish with a relatively short marinade.
If you start with the marinade, you run too much risk of any lingering acid/enzyme destroying the proteins during the long brine that follows. There's also the chance that any flavor imparted by the marinade would end up drawn off or diluted by the brine.
That said, I think you're going about this in the wrong way. Brining is a great technique for thick pieces of meat—big bone-in cuts, whole birds, that sort of thing. The main purpose of the brine is to keep them from drying out over their longer cooking time.
Thinner cuts, including steaks, cook much faster and are less likely to dry out. They also don't need a very long brine to be ready to cook. If you're finding your steaks that you've salted for a full day are tough, it's possible you're dry brining them for too long.
Of course, this is all going to vary by cut and thickness, but the indicators to watch for with steak are that after you salt it, the surface becomes visibly wet for a while and then that visible wetness goes away. When it looks dry again, that's how you know that the salt has penetrated fully, because the osmotic pressure has changed enough to allow the juices to be pulled back into the meat. This should only take about 45 minutes at room temperature. If you really need or want to do this overnight or the day before, I would try to make sure you keep it refrigerated from the start of the brining period and don't take it out of the fridge too early.
Continuing to salt a steak past this point seems to get into the realm of curing or preservation. That's all well and good if you're making corned beef, but it seems like a waste of a steak if you ask me.
As far as getting the tenderness you want, other avenues to explore are buying different cuts, looking for another butcher that may be of a different quality, alternative cooking methods.
But if it's the case that you're already buying the right cuts from the right butchers and cooking them the right way, then maybe you'll get some additional benefit from a marinade—in which case I'd do it after brining.


The role of the gluten in an acid environment

The link you are looking for is the balance between structure provided by gluten and structure provided by starch.  When there is a lower percentage of gluten, starch has to remain intact to give the bread structure. So, when using a lower gluten flour to make bread you use more sourdough starter so that you can develop a higher level of acidity. This acidity reduces activity of the enzyme alpha amylase and leaves more of the starch intact.  Not developing significant acidity quickly enough will lead to a gummy dough that will collapse during baking.


The name or chemical compound responsible for a specific quality of some spices (numbness)

It could be eugenol that causes the numbing sensation you experience. Eugenol is common to cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, basil and bay leaf and is used in anesthetics & analgesics, among other things.


I don't know what kind of thousand layer cake you had in the restaurant but only ten layers don't sound like it was a Mille-feuille ("a thousand leaves"). A Mille-feuille is a french pastry that consists of three layers of puff pastry, alternating with two layers of pastry cream. That's basically the same thing as your suggestion with phyllo dough.

Assuming that one layer of puff pastry has about 80 layers, you "only" need to stack about 12 or 13 layers puff pastry (puff pastry is something ordinary in the groceries store, so you don't even have to make your own puff pastry). If you put some (butter) cream / custard / jam / whatever between each layer 12 layers should be sufficent. Voilà! A real Mille-feuille :) It's ~4 times taller than a regular Mille-feuille but certainly lower than 1000 or 500 stacked crêpes.


Is there any diminishing return on grinding spices for a "tea"?

If you're boiling them it isn't necessary to break them down at all unless time is a factor for you.

Nutmeg also works well boiled whole as you can see in many traditional hot beverage recipes.  However, if you want to be able to add all of the spices at once, grinding some of them is advisable.  Otherwise you'll have to add the spices to your mixture at different times to avoid flavor imbalances.

The finer that you grind the spices the quicker the volatile organic compounds will be released.  In this way you can control the strength of flavor in the final product if all of the spices are added at once.

I've not been able to find any reference to boiling a spice for an extended period changing the character of the flavor(just the potency) which makes sense for a spice since we usually eat the whole thing in ground form anyway.

The same does not apply to herbs.


I'm answering my own question because I did a bunch of stuff from a lot of resources, and collected valuable information that more people may use in the future when coming across this post.

I wanted to use household items. My flask is a stainless steel with some copper.

What I actually did:

Cleaned with a small amount of tap water, shaking it a little bit;
Boiled a glass of water, and a bottle of vinegar/water (50%/50%);
Cleaned the flask with the boiled water, them with the vinegar solution (50% of the flask, shaking it a little bit). Then cleaned again with the boiled water (50% of the flask), shaking it, them with the vinegar solution again, then with the boiled water (50%), then with boiled water again (this time 100%). I didn't emptied the flask from this last cleaning;
I let the water inside for 24h;
24h later, I opened the flask, and emptied it in a glass cup: there wasn't any solid particles, and the water didn't have any taste, so I believed it was ok to put some whiskey.

Maybe your flask is an old one, with leather, I don't know. In this case, I suggest you check these resources:

http://www.whiskywhiskywhisky.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4254

http://www.thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-knowledge-how/29045-cleaning-inside-antique-hip-flask.html

http://ask.metafilter.com/111820/Mildewsmelling-hip-flask-can-it-be-salvaged

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18080329


As long as you chill them quickly and properly you should be ok.

If I remember correctly, the fill must be at least at room temperature when you roll it in the cabbage leaves; and the leaves themselves will also be at room temperature.

So that will cool down nicely in the fridge without stay in the "danger zone" too long.


What to do with 10 liters Heinz BBQ sauce?

'Expiration' dates on anything that's not baby formula aren't.  They're 'best used by' or 'sell by', but many restaurants will get rid of it for liability issues.

Although it should be good for many months past that date, it'd be better stored refrigerated, and I suspect most people don't have the fridge space for that sort of thing.

What I'd recommend is finding a soup kitchen or similar near you and donating it.  They could slow cook chicken or pork  in it for a very easy meal, or even glaze and grill it.  If any of the churches near you do big dinners as fund raisers, that's another possibility.


I don't think you're doing anything wrong, I think the dough is just more slack than you're used to.  As @Jay noted, it can take some practice to work with a wet dough.  But once you do, you'll be rewarded with a much more open crumb and a better final product.  In my experience, I've found wetter dough and higher oven temps = better artisan bread (in general).

The recipe appears to assume the reader is familiar with the process, but does offer some hints.  She talks about scraping the dough out onto the work surface, then stretching-and-folding.

The recipe isn't as wet as the ciabatta I'm making below, but the process will be similar, so I hope this is helpful.  I start by putting a bed of flour down, then scraping the blob of wet dough out onto it.

Then comes the stretch-and-fold part, which is just as it sounds.  Using a wet pastry scraper and/or wet hands, just get under one edge, lift and pull it away, then plop it back on top of the main dough blob.  Then do the same with the other side.  Cover with plastic wrap and walk away.  There's no process of kneading like you're used to.  This photo is after a few stretch-and-folds at 20-minute intervals (I think!), and you can see the dough has started to smooth out and become cohesive.

By the time you're ready to shape, the dough should be a lot more cohesive and easier to deal with.  I folded mine into little slippers and put them on a couche to rise.

Add 500 degrees and a baking stone, and I'm rewarded with an open and gelatinized crumb, and a nice crisp crust.


I found a study done in Korea in 2010 that said pectin can replace shortening in cookies and therefore, they concluded other baked goods.  The ideal amount was 30% replacement saying the texture was actually better and the cookies were more moist.  They don't recommend going higher than 30% as a 40% difference changed the structural integrity in a "negative" way!  It looks really interesting!  Here is the website I found:
http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Pectin-rich-ingredients-show-fat-replacing-potential
Good Luck!


Why does bread taste raw if you stop baking it and continue after it has cooled?

To understand this, you have to understand what happens to bread while you bake it.  I get all of my information from The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart.

First you need to gelatinze your starches (which make up 80% of the flour in your bread).  During gelatinization starch absorbs and traps as much liquid as it can hold then bursts, flooding the liquid with starch molecules and thickening the mixture.  This happens between 180 degrees F and 212 degrees F.  So the center of your bread has to reach 180 degrees F for this change to take place.  Otherwise the texture will always be a bit doughy.  This is probably the main cause of your problem.

Second you need to caramelize sugar on the crust.  This happens at 325 degrees F.  This will happen early, as your crust reaches nearly the temperature of your oven.

Third the proteins in your bread need to be denatures, coagulated, and roasted.  Proteins are tightly coiled molecules.  They denature (unwind and straighten) between 140 and 145 degrees F, then as temperatures rise they wrap themselves with each other to create tightly bound chains of proteins (coagulate).  After that the proteins roast to create a nice flavor.  If you bread didn't even get to 140 degrees F it won't be quite right.

For a hard crusty bread you should bake to 200 degrees F internally.  For a soft, enriched bread it must reach at least 180 degrees F.

After baking cooling is also important to avoid a doughy textures.  As long as the bread is above 160 degrees F it is still gelatinizing.  If you cut into it you'll mess up the process.  You need to let it cool down.  Not only are your starches settling but your bread is sweating (moisture is evaporating) and the taste is intensifying.

So the main key to avoiding rawness is gelatinzation, and the two steps are baking to 180 degrees F and letting it cool down past 160 degrees F before cutting (but ideally cooling to room temperature for optimum flavor).

Your second bake probably didn't get to 180 degrees F in the center, as you would've quite burned your crust by then.


What's the best way to store potatoes and maximize their shelf-life?

Best thing to do is to keep them out of the light in an cool dark dry place. I usually put them in a hessian bag to try and keep the moisture away.

Don't store them in the fridge or anywhere that gets direct sunlight.


Can red wine vinegar replace white wine vinegar?

Vinegar, in general, has distinct acidic characteristics that will affect a recipe; it's often used for this reason. For instance, in marinades, the acid is used to break down muscle fiber and help flavor penetrate. In Cevice, the acid component is used to "cook" the fish.

Additionally, the different types of vinegar have different flavor characteristics. I, personally, don't much like red wine vinegar as I find it kind of bland. I much prefer balsamic or champagne. So the question you really need to ask yourself is, "will the flavor of the red wine over the white wine adversely affect my dish?" You might ask the same question about the garlic.

So subbing one type of vinegar for another is fine if you're looking to replace the role of the acid in a recipe (also why you can sub lemon juice). Whether or not you feel the flavor can be substituted is really just a matter of personal preference. If you don't know ahead of time about the flavor, try it and find out for sure.

To specifically answer the flavor characteristic for your question, I'd say yes. Red wine is OK. As pointed out, swordfish is a hearty fish and should hold up fine. I probably wouldn't sub balsamic, would use champagne as a priority, would think long and hard about apple cider. If it was a lighter fish, I'd be much more wary about red wine.


Your egg whites were cooked by the alcohol in the extract. Cooked, in this case, means denaturing, which means unfolding the protein molecules. There are many ways to denature proteins. Acid, such as vinegar, will denature egg proteins, which is why some people suggest adding vinegar to the water to poach an egg (a practice I disagree with, but that's another subject).

Ceviche, as another example, is fish which is cooked (denatured) in acid (such as lime juice). Although heat is not used, the fish is still cooked. (Note: the acid will kill some bacteria but is not as effective as cooking with heat, so be sure to use fresh fish from a source you trust.)

This is similar to how burning means combining with oxygen, so you can burn metal (rust) without heat (most easily by adding water).


Is it safe to cook a steak that was left out (raw) for 7 hours?

It's perfectly safe to cook it, as long as you don't plan to eat it.  The exception is if the water was at or below fridge temperature to begin with.  When food temperature enters the "danger zone" of 40-140F/4-60C, there's a lag time of 2 hours before bacteria go into exponential replication.  Any longer, and the bacteria counts start to increase exponentially, doubling every 30 minutes to an hour.  With the bacteria counts, the risk of food poisoning increases exponentially.  7 hours is just beyond the pale.

Beyond the time/temperature problem, there are 3 things everyone needs to know about food safety:

You cannot smell pathogens, just rancidity/spoilage.  With spoilage, your food is definitely unsafe to eat, but it may be dangerous long before it smells "off."
Cooking to ~165F/74C kills pathogenic bacteria. Different agencies and foods have slightly different temperatures, but most are at or below this temperature.
Cooking will NOT destroy toxins bacteria produce, so heavy cooking is not a solution to meat left out too long.  Staphylococcus aureus ("Staph"), chlostridium botulinum ("botulism"), Escheria coli ("E. coli"), and chlostridium perfringens all produce toxic chemicals, which are not destroyed by cooking.

If it was a very expensive steak, I'd be tempted to cut off the exterior and cook it heavily for myself only (would never dare serve to another).  But, for a simple round steak?  Bin it and buy another, it's not worth the risk.


Is there anything but yeast in a packet of baker's yeast?

Since you mention grains, I assume you're talking about active dry or instant yeast. The short answer is that either way, you're seeing granules of yeast plus dead yeast cells and dried growth medium, with the ratio of each depending on the type.

The Wikipedia page on Baker's yeast has plenty of detail about the various types of yeast. Notably, it lists several stages of processing:

cream yeast - basically just yeast siphoned off, in liquid form. It's perishable enough that you can't generally buy it.
compressed yeast - essentially cream yeast with most of the liquid removed, most commonly sold in the form of cake yeast. It's still perishable, but lasts long enough to sell.
active dry yeast - fully dried, "coarse oblong granules of yeast, with live yeast cells encapsulated in a thick jacket of dry, dead cells with some growth medium".
instant yeast - similar to active dry, but smaller granules and more live yeast per volume. This makes it more perishable but easier to use. (On Food and Cooking mentions that it's "in the form of small porous rods that take up water more rapidly than granules.")


I've added sourdough starter to things like pancakes and waffles, but never hot cross buns. However I believe it would be very tasty as the sourdough would take some of the sweetness of the buns. I found this link about sourdough hot cross buns and thought it might be along the lines of what you were looking for https://sourdough.com/recipes/one-penny-two-penny


Sous vide topside beef- what went wrong?

Your process is in line with the practice of sous vide and cooking beef topside roast, which leads me to believe that the culprit is your particular cut of beef.  Did you purchase at a reputable butcher shop, or pick it up from the shelf of a grocer?  In either case, it might be worth a conversation with a knowledgeable butcher for some advice for next time.  In the mean time, maybe mince or grind the leftovers and use for a pasta filling like an agnolotti.


Making liquor with normal milk instead of UHT milk

This should be a comment but I have no reputation so I apologise if not much of help.

Anyway if you're trying to accomplish something like a cream-based liqueur, sure you can use normal milk.

I've prepared a Baileys-like liqueur with normal milk and uht crem and results were amazing!

The lifetime of the product was unaffected by the use of a fresh product (storage lifetime in fridge was something like 3 months due to alcohol and sugar added to the mix)


Can I substitute granulated sugar for caster sugar in Marzipan?

No, you can't do it. Marzipan has a smooth paste consistency. Granulated sugar is not suitable, you'd end up with a preferred mixture of sugar and ... almond crumbs? Without a grinding implement, you couldn't reduce the almonds to the needed consistency either.


You can get red jalapeños at some markets, but you're right, most places sell them when they're still green.

They sell them for the same reasons they sell green bell peppers, which includes:

some people prefer the milder, grassier notes (or just don't know better)
they're cheaper to produce (don't have to wait for them to ripen, reducing water use)
they store and ship better (as they're not ripe yet).
it lowers the risk of losing the harvest (due to weather, blight, etc. from waiting 'til they're fully ripe)
it reduces the number of field hands needed (as they're not trying to pick all peppers at the peak of ripeness)
if frees up the field for another planting.

In the case of hot peppers, it's more complex than the simple colored bell peppers -- the ripe peppers are often further processed (smoked or dried) and then sold under a different name:

chipotle == smoked & dried jalapeño
ancho == dried poblano
colorado == ripe anaheim


Nuts are much tastier when they are roasted. Dehydrating may be ok but it will not do the same thing for their flavor or texture.

Nuts have a lot of oil but there is not enough on their exterior for powders to stick to. Of course some of the powder would stick anyway- and with parmesan even more would when the cheese melted. If you are ok with a milder flavor and a lot of powder left in the bowl when you eat them then you could try to use less or no oil.

It is possible that you could make it work with some other liquid other than oil but oil tastes good and won't dry out. Additionally for spicy peanuts, capsaicin is soluble in fat so the oil will actually be intensified.

I don't know about an easier/less messy way because I don't consider this to be particularly difficult or messy. Just toss nuts with oil, then powder, spread on a pan and bake. Doesn't get much simpler than that.

Another alternative that has become popular is kettle roasted nuts.
The nuts are cooked in a large kettle with an agitator to keep them from settling and burning. Usually they also candied. The process is much stickier and flavorings adhere much better.

At home, oil popcorn poppers with agitators are available that can beautifully make kettle roasted nuts. Manual versions are sturdy and inexpensive.


Is there a reason you're not just baking a standard thickness and splitting it into layers?  This is going to give you more control.

If you have troubles moving the layers without breaking them, have a piece of cardboard handy (traditionally a cardboard cake round would be used by any would work) and after cutting the cake horizontally, lift up the edge of the top piece to slide the cardboard under and then proceed to push it all the way under the top layer before carefully removing the layer.  Proceed with the next layer.

If they cake is a bit dry but not crunchy, moisten the cut surface by brushing with simple syrup on its own if you don't want any added flavor, or add a bit of a complementary-flavored liqueur to the syrup before moistening.


can you can in a instant pot pressure cooker? is so is there specifics

No, you cannot can in the Instant pot. They have been trying to bring out a new model which is also usable for canning, but last time I heard about it, they had trouble getting it to work for that. If you want to do pressure canning, you need an actual pressure canner.


Sauce made from butter and cream flakes/curdles

Tender means soft and not brown. Sour cream will curdle if the fat content is not high enough (if it is high, it is called creme fraiche, techniquelly) and if you cook it down too much on too hot heat. Next time, use higher fat content and cook on lower heat. Cream, sour cream and creme freche are not really substitutions, not techniquelly and not taste-wise.Mixing butter and sour cream will work, if you take your time and boil down with hardly any or no bubbles.


Using sous-vide oven to make stock or soup (no bags)

You certainly could.

I read the PDF manual online at the manufacturer's website, and it appears that this particular machine has no internal circulation device like a water jet or impeller (somehow, fan  doesn't seem like the right word under water).   It relies entirely on thermal convection to circulate the water bath.  In fact, it seems to have no moving parts whosoever. So there is no seal in the bath containment through which ingredients would leak out into any machinery, lowering lifespan.

According to the manual, the bath container is not removable, and the entire device should not be put under water. This means that cleaning it out effectively is not actually that convenient, at least to my mind.   Mild soap is permitted, and the bath is made of stainless steel so it could probably stand up to much harsher treatments--the manufacturer just doesn't expect you to need them.

Worst case, you have to spend time carefully cleaning the bath, then tediously transferring water in and out to rinse it.  I cannot see any way you would harm the device itself.

Still...

For the applications you have named, you don't need the precision temperature control this device provides.   You could do them just as easily in a traditional slow cooker (whose crock should be fully removable for cleaning), or in a normal stock pot on the cook top.

And they would be much easier to clean.  And you could brown the stock ingredients directly in a pot with the second method.

So just because you could do it, doesn't mean it is the best method available to you in my opinion.


How long should I cook a steak to make it medium rare?

This is a 'how long is a piece of string' question. The thickness of the meat, the thickness and material of the pan, your hob type and various other factors will all influence the cooking time. So it is impossible to give you a hard and fast answer.

The best solution is to simply remove time from the equation altogether. Invest in a quick read digital probe thermometer and measure the temperature! You want the steak to be 55-57C in the middle for medium rare. It will keep cooking while it rests, so take the steak off the heat when it hits about 53-54.


How do you bring ingredients to room temperature when its winter?

As long as you have the heat on in your house, it shouldn't be an issue really. But for butter and eggs, here are some answers:

Microwave the butter for a few seconds to soften it up; put the eggs in warm water until they come up to temperature.
Room temperature for butter just means relatively soft (spreadable, like it is when you don't refrigerate it). For eggs it just means not cold.
Not sure what the recipe is, but, as I just mentioned, room temperature butter is more malleable than cold butter. Eggs fluff better when they're warm (e.g. its more difficult to get peaks when whipping eggs if they're cold).


Is it feasible to cook a gourmet tasting menu in a home kitchen?

I agree it's quite believable. Most restaurant equipment is more about cooking in bulk than being particularly specialized things you can't get at home. So it's extra durable/stays sharp longer or is just big (like a fridge).

It really doesn't take much money to make good food though. A lot of the gadgets and gizmos that you see on TV can be replaced with 1 good knife kept sharp...and a lot of chefs prefer a knife for the control. For example I have a mandolin. It cuts my vegetables very rapidly and saves me a bunch of time when I make vegetable stew, which I make a lot-- but it doesn't cut my vegetables evenly, which in a gourmet restaurant could be a problem for presentation. (Actually I'm going to get rid of my mandolin soon, too. I've gotten faster with a knife by now from practice.)

Another thing to think about-- being a chef is a hard job. If you're a gourmet chef you're probably passionate about cooking, so it makes sense to spend money on that hobby for at home as well.


Make existing cheesecake recipe chocolate?

Some additional digging with more specific search terms turned up this recipe: http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/philadelphia-new-york-chocolate-cheesecake-52676.aspx which is effectively exactly what I suggested doing. The only difference is that the number of eggs used is decreased by one, and, of course, the recipe doesn't use any chocolate extract. So apparently I was on the right track :)

  5 pkg. (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
  1 cup sugar
  3 Tbsp. flour
  1 Tbsp. vanilla
  2 pkg. (4 oz. each) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, broken into pieces, melted, slightly cooled
  1 cup BREAKSTONE'S or KNUDSEN Sour Cream
  3 eggs

  Beat cream cheese, 1 cup sugar, the flour and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add melted chocolate and sour cream; mix well. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Pour over crust.
  Bake 1 hour 5 min. to 1 hour 10 min. or until center is almost set. Run knife around rim of pan to loosen cake; cool before removing rim of pan. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight. Store leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.


If the question is crispy skin, these related questions (1 and 2) provide a lot of tips and tricks to get what you want.  As you can see in this answer, the trick is to start at a lower temperature to render all the fat - you also want your chicken sitting on a rack or on top of vegetables so it's not sitting in the fat once it's rendered.  Towards the end of your cooking you want to turn up the heat to crisp up the skin after the fat has rendered.

Note that watery meat isn't good, but you do want to keep your meat moist, so you don't want to cook it so long at a high heat that it dries out.  Tender meat is greatly helped by using a brine.


I'm fairly certain the sugar, being hydroscopic, is drawing moisture out of the dough as well as the air and dissolving, which produces the sweat you've noticed. It doesn't help that kouign-amann dough is chilled before rolling with the sugar, which means you could have straight-up condensation happening as well. It's not just the metal pan, but the dough itself that's chilled.

I don't think you can avoid it-except by working very quickly once you've started rolling the sugar into your dough.

As to your texture being breadier, it's hard to say. It could be you need to do a couple more folds to get thinner layers. It could be that they're overproofing before you toss them in the oven. Or the ovens not hot enough maybe... Like I said, it's hard to say. But when I've made kouign-amann, they were very soft in the center, with crunchy outer layers and a salty caramel shell. So it's equally possibly that there is no problem. Breadiness is subjective after all.

One thing I do know is that if you want a more crisp pie crust, you can replace part of the butter with shortening or lard, both of which are lower moisture than butter. I don't know if it's even worth considering for kouign-amann, but it might be an interesting experiment anyway. A pie crust is different from a yeast bread obviously, so I'm really not sure what effect it would have overall, but my guess would be that the outer layers would be a hot flakier/crisper.


I often use a baking sheet. Not pretty, but it works. Combine with foil for a tighter seal.


How does the power setting on a microwave work?

The majority of microwaves cannot modulate their power output. The power setting in most microwaves simply turns the magnetron (microwave generator) off and in in cycles. So a power setting of .5 for 10 minutes would simply cycle the magnetron on and off every few seconds, with a total on time of 5 minutes. You can actually hear this occurring.

According to wikipedia, some newer microwaves can actually achieve a more or less constant level of reduced power using a technique called pulse-width modulation. I have never seen or used one of these though.

Microwave cooking is never very exact, so cooking something at 700 W vs 1000 W at .7 power would yield very different results. The only reliable way I've found in cooking things properly in different wattage microwave ovens is simple observation.


Don't clean it.

You have the same issue as in How to remove film from stainless steel pan. This is polymerised oil, the same stuff which is intentionally built on cast iron pans. The cleaning methods listed in the linked question will also work in your case.

But the catch is that they will also strip the teflon from your pan. So, unless you are completely sure that you can somehow clean the steel part only, without getting drops of abrasives and strong chemicals on the teflon, don't bother. It doesn't harm anything, and it surely isn't contaminating your food with anything. And if you do try something caustic on the strip, don't use it on the rim, because the strip is probably SS, but the pan's bowl is likely to be aluminium and will be corroded by many aggressive cleaning products.


First, ensure that you season your pan correctly.  Once your cast iron pan is seasoned; that is, a layers of oil have polymerized on the surface, cleaning it with soap and water is not a problem. While working to build up a good seasoning, you can clean by using salt as an abrasive and wiping out well.  Both of these methods will eliminate the possibility of flavor contamination.


how to avoid crystallization of powdered sugar

First, if you powdered it yourself, you should have added cornstarch, else it goes stone-hard quickly.

Second, you have to keep it away from moisture. The bottle would have to be closed tightly, and you have to use a perfectly dry bottle, not a just-washed one. If you live in tropical region or somewhere else with really high moisture, a bottle may not be a good container, try something wide mouthed from which you can break out the sugar if needed.

For the existing bottle, you might not need to discard it. Try soaking it in a larger water container overnight. With luck, it will dissolve the sugar enough to get it (partly?) out. The resulting sweet liquid can be boiled down to make simple syrup or caramel. You might need to boil it for a long time though, depending on the amount of water used.


How to stop frozen bananas making everything else in the freezer taste like banana?

Use about 3-4 boxes of Arm and Hammer Baking Soda, one on each shelf in the freezer and use better sealing freezer bags and not ziplock. I would suggest a machine that heat seals them. Good luck!


Szechuan fish soup ingredient -- what is it?

From your description, if it isn't tripe, then it is probably Bamboo Fungus.  This is often used in soup an other dishes and has a neutral flavor.  The texture can be from soft to slightly crunchy depending on the length of cooking.


Does Kombucha Tea spoil if left outside of refrigeration?

Seems as if it must be kept refrigerated. First I found that it ships refrigerated and has a somewhat short shelf life. Then, I found a picture of the label and it clearly states 'KEEP REFRIGERATED. - DO NOT SHAKE.'

Here's a link to the Amazon page where you can see a pic of the label.


How to keep pasta hot, yet not sticky in crock pot?

I've not personally tried this with larger quantities, but I have the best success keeping hot pasta non-sticky in smaller quantities (assuming you want to keep pasta and sauce wholly separate) when I do the following three things:

Cook in a large amount of water; this will keep the amount of starch in the water down to a bare minimum.
After draining, rinse off as much of the surface starch as you can; you might need to keep a separate pot of near-boiling water ready for this.
Add a small amount of whatever oil or fat the sauce is based on (olive oil, butter) to the pasta and mix it in.

This is all assuming it is completely unacceptable to sauce the pasta ahead of time.

Good luck!


Baking in drinking glasses -- heat vs. logo paint, other issues

What you want to do has been done successfully. There is a video and instructions here:

Guinness Cake baked in Guinness glasses

I believe the greatest risk of thermal shock would come when you remove the cakes from the oven. Do not take the glasses out of the baking pan and place on a cool counter top (doing this can break some heat safe glass).  Cool in the baking pan on a cooling rack or on a pot holder/towel.

As far as the painted logo on the glass, if it is commercailly produced, the logo would have been heat processed/baked on, so the heat in your oven should not be a problem.


Better kinds of knives for elderly persons?

Being in that age group & my wife also;

Steel;
I prefer high carbon steel to hold an edge,
 whether high carbon stainless or not.

Edge shape;
I shape the blade and sharpen the cutting edge myself,
 it's the only way to control the quality.
Highly polished for smooth nonstick cutting.
Sharp enough to not feel it, if accidentally cutting yourself.
When young I liked symmetrical convex edge,
 as I've lived and learned,
I now prefer one side flat, and the other convex,
 because they track straight while cutting.

Cross section angle;
Very keen for all knifes.
Large angle for meat cleaver.

Knife profile & size;
Sharp serrations on stake knifes (4” blade).
Wavy serrations on bread knife (13.5” blade, very long).
Slightly curve edge on vegetable cleaver (6.5” blade, 1mm thick).
Slightly curve edge  on oriental kitchen knife (6.5” blade, 2mm thick, 3” deep).
Several chef knifes (8” blade).
Mezzaluna curve on a ulu knife (6.5” blade, 1mm thick).

Full tang whenever possible.
End grain cutting board.
Smooth sharpening steel (no ridges),
 I want to remove any wire edge, not create one.
Chicago Cutlery standard riveted wooden handle,
 with no burs or tang overhang.
Blade taper, I have found Messer is great.
Only my wife gets to cut with my knifes.


I think de-glazing the cast iron pan would be a good solution.

After the meat is cooked, remove it from the cast iron pan, and with the pan still on the heat, add a small amount of liquid. Just about enough to cover the bottom of the pan 1/4 inch. Then scrape the bottom with wooden spoon to get up all that goodness stuck to the bottom.
Add this to your sauce to get the meat flavor into it.

Liquids you can use include: wine, stock, water, beer, probably a lot of other stuff. And the type of liquid to use would depend on the dish and personal preference.


Do extracts add sweetness or just the flavor?

I think you're conflating syrups and extracts.

Extracts are some flavoring oil plus alcohol.

For example, Vanilla Extract:

  Vanilla extract is a solution containing the flavor compound vanillin as the primary ingredient. Pure vanilla extract is made by macerating and percolating vanilla beans in a solution of ethyl alcohol and water. In the United States, in order for a vanilla extract to be called pure, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires that the solution contains a minimum of 35% alcohol and 100g of vanilla beans per litre (13.35 ounces per gallon).

There's no sugar in extracts, it's just flavoring... very concentrated flavoring... with a bit of alcohol. It generally comes in very small bottles though large bottles are available for commercial uses.

If you want sweetness and the flavor, try flavored syrups (like they use in coffee bars to make lattes)... but only in beverages and other similar recipes.  You can't use these instead of sugar and extract in baking.


Is it safe to eat butter that have mold on the surface?

You could theoretically salvage the butter, but it really boils down to mold type. Melting and filtrating the butter will get rid of the mold and create ghee. But filtration will not remove aflatoxins that some types of molds produce.


Scones should really be mixed very minimally, in order to avoid developing the gluten structure.  Over mixing will result in less crumbly end product.  So, in this instance I would not recommend a stand mixer.  Instead, just mix by hand.


The recipe looks a like a gluten free chocolate lava cake. If that is the intended consistency you're looking for then yes by all means that substitution WILL work! Maybe play around with the amount of flour as well.

The main worry is the texture; if you want a gooey pudding you'd get in a pudding cup or mousse (unlike their photo) you may end up with more of a cake-like outcome if you do it with flour. Finely ground almonds/almond flour doesn't bond the same and is less gummy because of it. I would try to do something like coconut flour or something if possible.

The flavour will also obviously be affected from lack of the nutty slightly maraschino cherry-esque taste the almond would have added. If you wanted to work around that I personally would add a smallest dash of amaretto or have had used another nut flour or something like hazelnut to go in another direction.


What is the difference between wildflower honey and Acacia honey?

Different types of honey come from bees gathering nectar (and some incidental pollen) from different types of flowers. Acacia honey comes from acacia flowers, clover honey from clover. Wildflower honey comes from bees gathering from an unknown mix of flowers, when the supplier doesn't have control over or knowledge of what flowers contributed to the honey -- assume a variety of species local to wherever the honey comes from.

Truly "wild" honey comes from bees that are not kept in a hive, and is an unreliable source at best since you have to find a wild swarm; it's unusual to find that sold commercially.

Raw honey isn't heated or pasteurized.

Which one is "best" is really a matter of personal taste and preference. The different flowers result in different flavor profiles. (An amateur beekeeper friend of mine feeds his bees sugar water to help them live through the winter, and the "honey" resulting from that was extremely bland. The flowers are really key to get flavor.)

Tasting different varieties is the best way to see what you like!


You can do anything with charcoal.

One trick that we used to do when we were camping was to line a cardboard box with foil. Several metal grates or skewers would be stabbed into the box walls and a grate with a few coals hung near the bottom.

We would use it to bake bread and pizzas. To control the temperature use more or fewer coals.

As long as you are building things- another option to consider is solar oven.
They consist of an insulated container, a transparent window, and a reflector. There are a great many models to choose from. Some of the more permanent models can get above 350F as long as there is direct sunlight.

This model was just one of top results from Google but it is a typical design:


Custard surface has tiny pockmarks when I use fruit pulp

The acid in the fruit is denaturing the egg proteins, creating this texture.

You cannot reuse the same ratios and temperatures for simple custard and for fruit custard. Find a different recipe which is explicitly made to work with fruit.


They advice against scaling, because cooking a batch twice as large will take more than twice as long. Nothing terrible will happen if you scale a recipe, but you will likely spend hours waiting by the stove for your fudge to reach the correct temperature. It's faster to just cook several small batches one after the other, or making several in parallell in different pots.


How does butter remain edible for so long without refrigeration?

Actually, the question should be "why do other dairy products spoil so fast?"

If I remember correctly, the spoilage of milk is caused primarily by lactose, which breaks down into lactic acid over time due to the presence of Lactobacillus bacteria, which thrive in that environment.

Butter is mostly fat, and fat does not go bad (it does eventually, but not in the same way or at the same rate - see below) - lactose and sugars together, on the other hand, go bad quite fast.  That is also why cream lasts longer than whole milk, and whole milk lasts longer than skim milk.  It is also the reason why lactose-free milk seems to last forever - there's nothing to break down, nothing for the bacteria to feed on.

When butter does go bad, it's generally not even for the same reason - it's simply due to oxidation which causes rancidity, similar to a typical vegetable oil.

In short, butter lasts so long with or without refrigeration because proportionally speaking, it doesn't have as much of the lactose that causes other dairy products to go bad.


For any plain steel; carbon steel, cast iron etc, but not stainless or non-stick

Remove previous bad seasonings, or on a new pan remove containments and manufacturing residues

Check the pan surface for any metal protrusions, usually a quick scrape with a hard metal spatula will remove these, if not, consider other methods to remove them. You should be able to run your palm over the surface without cutting yourself

I use a steel scourer pad and some dish soap and scrub it hard and thoroughly. Then heat on a stove or in an oven till it stops smoking. Best to do this outside if you can. Scrub clean again

Polymerise with high temperature oil

Use the highest temp oil you have in kitchen. I don't think it makes any difference which one you use

Apply a light coating and heat until it starts to fully smoke, let it cool a bit, then apply another layer, repeat until you get bored, or the pan is black

Finish by heating a complete layer of salt, until the salt has fully discoloured. The salt will have absorbed the non-polymerised oil from pan surface

When cool, the surface of the pan should be shiny black, and smooth to the touch. Any sticky bits need more work, any metal protrusions need to be removed

After the pan is uses to cook anything, wash it out with water and soap using a brush, oil very lightly, and re-heat until smoke starts
For Soft sticky things like eggs, do the salt treatment again, just before cooking the eggs


Ground beef burger patties turn gray not brown

Brown meat tastes good - Anne Burrell

Of course you know this, the browning of the meat is a result of the Maillard Reaction, if you are not getting this result you are probably not cooking at a high enough temperature.

  Temperatures need to be high to bring about the Maillard reaction, but
  as long as the food is very wet, its temperature won’t climb above the
  boiling point of water. At atmospheric pressure, only high-heat
  cooking techniques can dry out the food enough to raise the
  temperature sufficiently. It’s not the water that stops the reaction,
  but rather the low boiling point...

Too hot, however, and you end up with a patty that is raw in the middle and crusty on the outside. To counter this there are two separate techniques I will use (depending on the weather...)

In fair weather (using my grill outside) I will heat one side of the grill to "High" and the other side to a medium temperature. First I will 'sear' the burger patty on the High side (both sides of the patty) then move the burger to the medium side, where it can finish more slowly and thoroughly. You can do this in reverse if you like.
In inclement weather (using my oven's broiler) placing the oven rack on the highest setting preheat a cast iron skillet under the broiler for 5 minutes. Place your patties in the skillet and return it to the broiler for 3-5 minutes per side (+/- your patty thickness). Because the broiler is acting on the TOP of the patty rather then the bottom the juices flow away allowing for a quicker maillard reaction. When done set your skillet on the stove top (cool) for a few minutes to let the meat rest and reabsorb some of the juices that should be in the pan at this point. (note: cheese should only be added in the last minute of this technique)

You can accomplish similar results using a pan on the stove top, but I prefer either of these methods.


How should I use lime leaves when making Thai green curry?

Kaffir Lime Leaves are using in Thai and Indian cooking in two ways:

They may be added whole to a recipe (such as a soup) and behave like bay leaves; diners take them out and don't eat them.
They can be ground fine as part of a spice paste and make the flavoring base for the recipe.

There are a few recipes which use slivered kaffir lime leaves, but they are extremely fibrous and can't really be eaten unless ground down to a paste.


Teflon* is black therefore all Teflon pans are black.

Other things are other colours, aluminium, copper, steel, so the outside may vary, but if it's Teflon-coated… it's gonna be black inside.

*Other non-stick coatings are available;)
Ceramic can be white, there's a stone/copper one which is brown/orange or grey speckled, anodised aluminium is dark grey.


How do people make fried onions as an ingredient as opposed to a snack? Should I coat them with flour, milk, and spices?

You might want to look up recipes for "Bawang Goreng", which are Indonesian fried shallots, which should also work for onions.  It's basically just thinly sliced shallots, deep fried until golden, and then drained.
You can buy containers of them at many international grocery stores.
If you're going to make them yourself, I would highly recommend purchasing a mandoline if you don't already have one.  This allows you to slice the onions very thinly (needed to make sure they dry out fully before they burn), and a consistent thickness (so they all cook in about the same time, and you don't have part of your batch burning before the rest are done).


While a similar question to this one, as @Athanasius points out, I think this question is different enough for a re-visit!

The short story: Though it doesn't require immediate refrigeration, it's best to keep simple syrup tightly sealed and in the refrigerator; it will last longer. Even so, using it within a week to 10 days is best; it might last a month, but best not to keep it for longer. It will eventually grow mold or perhaps other nasties.

References: Some people say to use within about a week (e.g., Morgenthaler). These people say it will last more like a few weeks or a month (e.g., Food Republic; the kitchn; Kitchen Riffs).

Slightly longer story: a 1:1 sucrose/water simple syrup won't crystallise at refrigerator temperatures (even at nearly freezing, this ratio is nowhere near saturated; reference). That is, there's no disadvantage to storing simple syrup in the refrigerator. In contrast, stronger mixtures like honey may sugar. As an aside, measuring 1:1 by-weight or by-volume are similar result; sugar measures lighter per volume by about 15%.

Stronger syrups (e.g., 2 parts or more of sucrose, 1 part water) will have greater resistance to critters because of the preservative properties of sugar. An anecdotal experiment was done by  alcademics showing increased "freshness" time with increased sugar concentration.

Still, however, this is not canning; you'll eventually get mold or other critters. Since it's not necessary to boil simple syrup to mix (since sucrose is so soluble in water), so (depending on how you make the simple syrup) you're not getting the full effect of sterilization of the storage vessel nor the foodstuff (e.g., as you would with canning jams).


When using melted butter, is rendering (clarifying) always preferable?

Essentially clarified butter is butter that has all it's water and milk solids removed. All that is left is butterfat.

Pros and Cons of Clarified/Rendered butter:

Pros:

It can be stored longer than regular butter
It has a higher smoke point so can be heated higher without burning
Does contain negligible lactose for those lactose-intolerant

Cons:

Effort. It requires so time to melt the butter, boil off the water, filter out the milk fat, and resolidify the butter again.
Taste. Because the milk solids are filtered out, it has a milder "butter" taste than unclarified butter. Of course it will still be much more rich and buttery compared to regular vegetable oil.

With this information in mind, I will leave it to yourself to decide when you should and should not use clarified butter.


Are any corn products in the United States made from nixtamalized corn?

Masa Harina is nixtamalized corn flour, as is anything made from it.  So, most corn tortillas you can buy are, as are premade tamales, sopes, etc.  While you may come across varieties made from non-treated corn flour (be suspicious of anything bright yellow), most are treated.  Corn/tortilla chips are a little bit more of a mixed bag; some are made from corn flour and some from masa, and it's pretty hard to tell from the labeling which is which.
Hominy is also nixtamalized, as are grits, and any product made from/with grits (no, grits and polenta are not the same thing).  There's another kind of masa, called masarepa, which is used to make arepas.  This isn't an exhaustive list, but should be sufficient to show that yes, we are eating nixtamalized corn in the United States.


Yes*
*However, you may find the results from using seitan only disappointing.
In my trials so far, I was able to build a fond with seitan. It tasted primarily of toasted bread, and burned easily. While my memories of other fond-forming foods (meat, alliums, mushrooms) are hazy, I am pretty sure that they produced more fond and had more complex flavors in practice.
Experiment Details
Materials
All described experiments were run using the same commercially-prepared seitan product (Outdated US text data here, official site here) in all trials.
Factors specific to this product that may differ from seitan made at home or by other brands:

The oil present in the prepared seitan may influence fond formation
Flavorings (kombu, soy sauce) may make significant contributions to savory flavors
Other recipes may have additional, fond-forming carbohydrates (added sugar, onion and other aromatics, etc.)

One 8 oz pacakge was used per trial.
Results
For the first trial, I tried browning large pieces in a single batch. Most of the seitan did not stick to the pan at all, lifting easily even after considerable amounts of time (~1 minute) left unattended. Only a small amount of fond formed in the center of the pan, where most sticking occurred. The fond was cooked until quite dark. After deglazing and reducing, the result was a few teaspoons of smoky and charred liquid with a significant savory component.
For the second trial, the seitan was first chopped into smaller pieces (about 0.5cm x 0.5cm x 1cm) before browning. As before, all pieces were cooked in a single batch. Less oil was added to the pan, and there was more sticking in this trial. More fond seemed to form, again primarly in places where the seitan pieces stuck to the pan. The fond was cooked to a lighter color than it was in the firsts trial, and the result of deglazing and reducing was primarily savory with burnt and smoky components.
For the third trial, the seitan was chopped into smaller pieces before cooking. In this trial, a two-batch approach was attempted. The behavior of the first batch was similar to the behavior observed in the second trial. The fond left in the pan by the first batch seemed to develop undesired charred flavors despite the addition of the relatively moist fond of the second batch.
Additional Comments
It seems that seitan does not release that much water when pan-fried, and the water it does release is not enough to re-integrate fond with unbrowned seitan. You may get better results by finely chopping, shredding, or grinding the seitan and browning as much as possible in a single batch.
Aside: "[sticking] to the bottom [instead of] creating a good fond"
In my personal experience with seitan (and other foods), "sticking to the bottom" is highly correlated with fond production. This correlation was most dramatic when cooking larger pieces of seitan; large pieces that did stick (usually in areas with less oil) would leave fond in the pan, while pieces that did not stick would crisp up but leave no perceptible amount of fond.
While I was unable to find a single authoritative source that outright claims that fond is solely or primarily produced by food sticking to a pan, many sources appear to be consistent with that claim. Selected quotes from articles:
Serious Eats

All the tasty browned bits left behind after searing meat are called fond...
Because I want to encrust the bottom of the pan with a golden crackly fond...

The Kitchn

In both cases, small particles of the food being cooked will stick to the bottom of the pan ... This is what is called the fond.

Cooking for Engineers

Fond is the highly flavorful, browned bits of meat stuck to the bottom of a pan after sautéing.


Using cueritos (Pork Rinds) for ground beef

Sure. You want to grind the cueritos with leaner meat to make a higher fat ground meat? There is no reason that wouldn't work. You might find it necessary to remove the very outer skin, but I'd try a small batch without taking that step. The grinding might eliminate any textural problems (or it might not, so try a little bit first).


How long should I bake the pizza in a microwave oven?

Convection simply moves air around to heat evenly. I don't suggest cooking pizza in a microwave oven at all. If you don't want to use a conventional oven I would suggest trying to cook the pizza on a cast iron skillet instead. The secret to pizza is to cook as hot and quickly as possible, both top and bottom. This is more difficult to achieve in a pan, but if you're using store-bought pizza I would try cooking at a lower temperature with a lid on the pan to create a mini oven. If you have a blowtorch you can cook at a high temp and torch the top. Remember that cast iron heats really unevenly, so in either case leave the pan on the stove for a while to heat to temp evenly before you start the cook.


What is the name of the middle eastern salad containing Tomato and Cucumber?

Not too surprisingly given where you found it, it's called an Israeli Salad in most parts of the world.

In Israel, it's just called a chopped salad or (according to the wiki article - I never personally encountered this) an Arab salad.


Why is water added to the egg wash of challah bread?

If anything, for egg washes in general, it might be more common to add water (or milk or cream) than not.

Thinning the wash makes it easier to brush on an even, not-too-thick layer. It also tends to get you a more golden color, less dark brown.


Poor honing on a blade that was already in true can reduce the sharpness, as you have discovered.  This happens if your angle is off, and you knock the edge of the microscopic burrs or teeth over, presenting a duller cutting surface.

It is likely that proper honing will correct this, although it may never be quite as perfect as the blade fresh from the whetstone or factory.

In any case, you will not do any permanent harm to your blade with a honing steel (short of using it as a bludgeon), because absolute worst case, you can always have your knife resharpened, or do it yourself.   This may be somewhat inconvenient or costly, but is much less expensive than replacing a blade.


Cocoa butter sauce for beverages that doesn't resolidify

I think you may be looking for "white chocolate" rather than pure cocoa butter. Cocoa butter doesn't have a huge amount of flavor; it's added to things largely for its texture. At the very least it generally needs sugar and vanilla.

Ghirardelli and Torani both make white chocolate sauces. Is that what you're after? You can make your own by dissolving white chocolate in sweetened condensed milk, which is dense enough that you don't need an emulsifier if you grate it finely and stir.

I'd use this recipe as a starting point. (Omit the coffee powder)
http://www.food.com/recipe/white-chocolate-mocha-syrup-recipe-376916


Does a splatter screen prevent grease build up in kitchen?

I use a splatter screen any time I sauté or deep fry.  I like the Cuisipro 13" screen.  It's all steel, has metal feet on the rim so grease doesn't get on the counter when you put it aside, you can hand wash or just toss in the dishwasher. Mine is also sturdy enough to use as a makeshift cooling rack.


What makes breads different from one another?

I think it is "all of the above"

including oven type, flour type, yeast type, water ...

In the case of Barbari bread, it seems, in most recipes that I have seen, to have extra flavoring like sesame seed.


How do the ingredients in baking powder work?

Baking powder is like a fast-acting yeast; it is used to infuse air into baking mixtures by way of carbon dioxide bubbles, created by a base reacting to an acid. Baking power is made of three different parts:

An acid
A base
A filler

All three need to be dry powders that can be mixed together, common ingredients are cream of tartar (acid), baking soda (base) and corn starch (filler). The role of the acid and the base are to combine together to produce carbon dioxide bubbles when reacting with water or other liquids. The filler helps keep the baking powder dry, so that it remains free-flowing and so that the base and acid don't get moist and interact in the container.

Resources:

This article explains the reaction process in further detail: http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/baking-powder.htm
This piece  provides further insight on different types of baking powder, it's history, substitutes, etc.: http://m.cooksinfo.com/edible.nsf/MobilePages/baking-powder


What is the difference between kidney beans, navy beans, and black turtle beans?

Here's a chart showing soaking and cooking times for different kinds of beans. Note that your "black turtle beans" are the same as the "black beans" on the chart.

Kidney Beans: soak 6-8 hours, simmer 60 minutes
Navy Beans: soak 6-8 hours, simmer 45-60 minutes
Black (Turtle) Beans: soak 4 hours, simmer 60-90 minutes

In practice, beans can be soaked for longer than the listed times, really as long as is convenient to you. I usually soak mine overnight on the counter if I'm sure I'll cook them the next day. If I'm not sure whether I'll get around to cooking them the next day, I soak them in the fridge and leave them there for up to several days.
Actual bean cook time can vary somewhat depending on how old the beans are. So in practice, you should expect to cook them for at least the minimum recommended time. After they've simmered for that length of time, spoon out a couple of beans and test for doneness. You can test them by biting them (if they're soft, they're cooked; if they're hard they're not). Or blow on the hot beans; the skin on cooked beans will usually crack open and roll back.
Yes, different varieties of beans taste different. Navy beans have a fairly neutral taste. Kidney beans and black turtle beans each have their own distinctive taste.


In general, when a recipe says 'discard,' it means that the part to be discarded is not to be used in the scope of the recipe.  I see no reason why you couldn't save the beef fat for other recipes, it can be refrigerated for about a week or frozen for 2-3 months.

See this answer for tips on using the reserved fat.  The sinew I would probably just toss.  If you have enough saved, you could put it with animal bones to make stock, as the collagen in the sinew will break down into gelatin, but for me, it's not enough benefit to justify saving all those little bits and storing them.


Both thicker and thinner can work as long as you roll it out evenly.

In my experience, rolling it thinner makes it feel more like "real" wheat dough. However that way it feels more like flatbread than proper pizza crust.


Why does salt enhance the flavor of food?

Our brains are wired to consider food more palatable if the dedicated taste receptors (one of the six basic tastes) for salt are triggered. And in a non-urban world, salt/sodium is a valuable nutrient; the fact we might have it too readily available in the developed world doesn't change that we would DIE on a zero-sodium diet (mind that animal products like meat aren't zero-sodium, and that herbivores tend to love licking salt where they find it!). So our brains have a good evolutionary reason to like salt.

Also, salt actively interferes (negatively) with another basic taste receptor - the receptor for bitterness (which can mean poison both in nature and in the developed world, or at least something we have no use for, eg an alkali). Most aromatic food (think green vegetables or spices) is bitter, and salt both attenuates that perception and balances it making the combined food still desirable for our brain. You end up with an even more palatable food since you can use an aromatic (desirable) and shut out the bitterness (not always desirable) response.

Umami is a different basic taste, probably related to the presence of protein (glutamate, inosinate, guanylate... trigger it - these are amino acids or salts thereof, and an indicator of easily-digestible protein presence).


American cheese availability and utility

American cheese isn't real cheese, but a processed cheese product made partially from cheese, but with loads of extra stuff added in to make it pliable and melt easily. The "American Cheese" you see in the ingredients is the real cheese part of it, although the American part of it is probably for marketing purposes.

It's not a substitute for cheddar or other cheese from a flavor, texture, or melting point perspective, although it can be used in many of the same things. If you want a cheese that tastes good then use real cheese, if you want something that looks and tastes a bit like cheese and melts quickly and evenly use american cheese.


I just skip the sautéing for peaches entirely. The primary benefit of sautéing the apples is to make sure that they are tender by the time baking completes, which isn't necessary for a fruit that's already soft.


Can excess salt in a cured gammon joint be removed after it has been roasted?

The best way to remove salt is by soaking it in non-salted water for several hours before cooking it. Theoretically, you could do the same thing after cooking but I would advise against it. Soaking cooked meat in water will likely result in an unpleasant waterlogged texture. I would instead suggest serving it with sides and sauces that are deliberately undersalted (or even cooked completely without salt). That way, the meal as a whole will even out and not be too salty.


How long can you keep chocolate, and what is the best way to store it?

Regardless of type, all chocolate should be stored in a cool and low humidity (dry) place away from direct sunlight. It would be best to seal it in an air-tight container, because, as ElendiTheTall said, the cocoa butter in it will absorb flavors.

Dark chocolate will last for years. Milk and white chocolate will last for a much shorter time (a few months), because of their milk content.

Improperly stored chocolate will develop bloom, which shows as a white or grey streaking or spotting on the surface. The spotting or streaking is cocoa butter fat separating and is a sign that the chocolate's temper has been lost. This kind of chocolate is still suitable for any application where the chocolate will be fully melted (most baking). It can even be used as the base (non-seed) chocolate for tempering with the seeding method, but it should not be used for other candy making.


Where should heat comes from when baking brownies?

Fan ovens are generally regarded as 10% hotter than regular ovens, so I would suggest fan only, dropping the oven thermostat setting down by that amount than your recipe dictates. Fan mode will give you a more even, consistent temperature throughout the whole oven, whereas the different elements (and non-fan mode) will bring different results.

Using the top and bottom elements will concentrate the heat at the top and bottom of the oven respectively, and will also affect the texture of the top and bottom of whatever you are cooking. Non-fan may lead to hot-spots or the heat concentrating around the elements.

I find turning all the elements on at first to quickly preheat the oven, then switching to fan gives good results, but I have a very large 90cm single oven.

https://hummingbirdbakery.com/blogs/hummingbird-bakery-blog/oven-temperatures-and-baking-explained


Is there a "common" ratio for dumplings and added water when adding to a soup/stew recipe?

I have long since given up on trying to do this, because it varies according to stew/soup and according to dumpling. I have taken a different approach. Set aside some meat stock or broth, add water and bouillon or gravy mix for flavor, and cook your dumplings in that until they are almost done and don't soak up much liquid anymore. Then transfer them to the stew for the last few minutes, to take on the flavor of the stew.


When you put the dough into the banneton do you shape the dough to develop a surface tension? I have found that makes the major difference when I make sourdough bread. Here is the site I got a lot of info on shaping from.  https://www.theperfectloaf.com/guides/shaping-a-boule/


Roasting rack? I'm stumped as to what this is....Help! :)

The rack on the right looks just like a rack to hold tacos. See the below image:


What sauce can I just to de-sweeten a cheesecake?

I'd make a simple raspberry coulis by blending fresh raspberries with a little water in a blender, with perhaps a touch of sugar depending on their natural sweetness, then passing the results through a sieve to remove the pips. No need to get fancy, the cheesecake is the main event!


Is "sealing in the flavor" an actual thing?

Searing on a grill to "seal in juices" has largely been disproven.  Meat loses juice at roughly the same speed regardless of searing the meat first.  Searing does produce the Maillard reaction and caramelization which enhances flavor; however, searing first doesn't produce better results.  A test performed by Alton Brown in 2008 demonstrated that searing at the end of the cooking process loses less water than searing at the beginning.  For more information see this link.

For the Alton Brown results see this link (video).


Sunflower oil reaching smoke point on medium temperature. Is this normal?

I assume you're cooking steak when you say "meat." Cooking steak to a safe temperature isn't just related to the temperature of your pan. It's also related to how long you cook it and what cooking method you use. If you use a really hot pan for the entire time your steak will be overcooked on the outside by the time the inside is medium rare (save for thin cuts of meat).

When you sear meat you want to do it on a really high temperature for a short amount of time (just long enough to develop the crust) to maximize browning and minimize the gray bar between the outside of the meat and the inside, which is normally cooked medium rare. Some smoking of oil is normal at this high temperature. However, be careful not to leave the oil at too high a temperature for too long or it will catch on fire.

Note: it's  best  to keep a lid that fits the pan close at hand along with a towel or pot holder. If the pan catches on fire, do not panic! Immediately cover the pan with the lid and then take it off the heat. Bring the lid toward the pan from the side at an angle (shielding your hand from the flame) and then cover completely.

There are many methods for cooking steak in a pan. Some people sear in cast iron and then put the pan and steak in an oven to finish more gently. Some cook in the oven first then finish in a hot pan (this is called reverse searing). The advantage to this method is that the outside of the meat is dry and already hot so it will brown better and faster.

Sunflower oil has a relatively high smoke point (450°F), so it's a good oil to use.


Are all snails edible? I get in my garden snails up to 10 cm long, and very fat

My gut feel is that cultivated "Escargot" is a good thing and I would be risk-averse.  However, This article begs to differ and supports your thinking.


What consistency should flan have when it is removed from the oven?

It will firm up a little bit during chilling, but not much. It is certainly supposed to be firm enough to keep its shape on its own when taken out.

If you have baked creme caramel or cheesecake, then try to get it to a similar consistency as these. If you haven't, you may want to use a roast thermometer. The final temperature (assuming a traditional flan without starch or flour) should fall in the 85-90 Celsius range.


Is less quality cream used in salted butter?

There is no such thing as "lower quality cream" although there are variations in taste.

All milk has a slightly different water to fat ratio. In general, animal milk is 80% water, 5% protein and 5% fat.

Cream is the fatty part of milk skimmed off. Cream will typically be 35% fat (though in different cultures it varies from 20% to 75%). Cream also has some protein, and the rest being water

Farmers are paid for the milk solids (protein and fat), not by the volume of milk produced. Therefore quality milk is often referred to by how high the solids level is, not how flavoursome it is. Hygiene and storage conditions are usually government mandated, and follow international guidelines, especially if the manufacturer ever wants to export the product

Butter is cream churned to remove most of the water and protein. Butter in most countries must have 80% or more fat content to be called butter. The water and protein by-product is called whey, and is processed into other products

The 1% to 2% salt added is a preservative and a commonly desired flavouring, regardless of the "quality" of the cream.

You can buy unsalted butter, just keep it in the freezer for long term storage. Freezing butter has no noticeable effect on it.


Counteract the negative effects of spicy ingedients with other ingredients

There's nothing you can put into the food that will neutralize the spice after you eat it. The only way to avoid the infamous "ring of fire" is to add less spice to begin with. One way you can do this is by removing the seeds. Some of the heat from chilis comes from the seeds, however it doesn't all get extracted from the cooking. After you eat the chili the seeds keep producing capsaicin, meaning your insides get more spice than your mouth. If you de-seed the chilis you need to use more as you lose some of the heat, but you'll get the full force when you eat the food. You can also use chili powder for most of the heat, and then whole or chopped chilis for decoration and texture as the capsaicins from the powder will be more fully extracted by the cooking process.

Some people drink yogurt based drinks (mango lassis and such) to counteract chili. This can calm the heat in your mouth and some people get some relief from the internal symptoms as well, however it's different for everyone and YMMV.

Still, there's only so much you can do, if you like really spicy food you have to be willing to pay the piper.


How to see if cast iron cookware is enameled?

We're going to do all of our analysis on the back side, so we don't mess up any cooking surface:

if it's rusted : not enameled (or possibly damaged enamel)
if it's greasy, clean w/ hot soapy water and a scrubbing pad, just in the middle of the pan.
if it's any color other than black, brown, bare metal or orange-brown : enameled
look for a model number, then look it up online

... that should get you though 99% 90%  of the cases ...  if that still doesn't help:

run your fingers over the cleaned surface
if it's rough : not enameled (or someone polished the surface ... which is rare, but not impossible; also beware of more recent 'satin enamel', but that's typically an interior treatment)
if there's signs of crazing (tiny cracks all over the place; not sure how obvious it'd be w/ black enamel) : enameled

If you're still not sure after that, I guess post a picture, close up of the cleaned back side, with good lighting.


The racks are probably chromed, so you should not have to season them.

I'd remove them from the oven and give them a good wipe with clear water to remove and residues that the self-cleaning cycle might put on them (especially if you you cleaning products).

And also wipe clean the channels where the racks slide in the oven (on each side)


Why add vodka to batter for frying fish?

According to this article about Blumenthal's method, which also explains the other ingredient/method choices: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/dining/07curious.html

The key to the Fat Duck batter is the alcohol, which does a couple of
very useful things. It dissolves some of the gluten proteins in the
wheat flour, so no elastic network forms and the crust doesn’t get
tough. (You’ll notice when you combine the ingredients that the mix
becomes mushy rather than sticky.) Alcohol also reduces the amount of
water that the starch granules can absorb, and boils off faster than
water, so the batter dries out, crisps and browns quickly, before the
delicate fish inside overcooks. The crispness lasts through the meal,
and revives well the next day in a hot oven.


Retain chilli powder taste till end of cooking

2 probable causes

you did not put enough chili powder.
the chili powder is stale.

Some chili powder are not "spicy hot", taste some before adding it to your curry.


My Candy Apple is too brittle, how to prevent?

As already suggested, maybe you should try for Soft Crack instead of hard crack.
If you are unable to rely on the thermometer just try a cold water test. Drop some hot candy in to iced water. Stop cooking after the hard ball stage. As soon as it will form pliable threads.
See

https://www.instructables.com/id/Candy-Making-without-a-Thermometer-Cold-Water-Tes/
https://www.thespruceeats.com/making-candy-without-a-candy-thermometer-520309

These tests show what happens as the candy cools, and so predict what the final candy will be like. Even if your mix needs a different temperature from the 302 F you are aiming for it should work.
Make a note of what the indicated temperature is on your thermometer, and if the candy apples are ok then on future batches just use that thermometer and that temperature.


Yes, they can be, but you'll want to prick each one with a sharp knife once or twice to prevent them from bursting. Once that is done, put them into a small freezer-safe storage bag, remove as much air as possible from the bag, and seal it. They keep reasonably well for about six months without tasting "burnt," but they tend to be a tad mushy upon defrosting.

I always thought the mushiness factor had to do with length of freezing time, but since you asked, I did a bit of research. Apparently, what makes chilies turn to mush actually has to do with how quickly they initially freeze:

  The undesirable mushy end product that comes from freezing fruits and vegetables isn't from the act of freezing itself, but from how you freeze. Your ordinary freezer, or even deep freezer, freezes food slowly. Chilies have water in their membranes, and as they slowly freeze, it forms jagged ice crystals that pierce and puncture the membrane, so that when you defrost it, you're left with a leaky and "tenderized" result. The solution to this problem is easy … faster freezing. If the water doesn't have time to form jagged ice, you won't have a mushy membrane.

Happy Living (from which I pulled the above quotation) has an article about how to safely use dry ice to freeze chilies quickly. (I'll probably keep going the way I always have and accept the mushiness, but if you want to freeze a lot of chilies for a variety of applications, the dry-ice method looks promising.)


Is there a technique for glacé (glazing) that could speed up the process?

you might try forcing whatever it is into the cherries.  This can be done under pressure, which you might be able to do it using a fizzgizz? or maybe with a creamer, or simply by vacuum packing the cherries with the soaking liquid.  once vacuum packed you might be able to put in a pressure cooker to increase the pressure, but I'm not sure what the heat would do to the cherries.

EDIT:  having read the recipe, I'm not sure any of this would work.


Why do egg white cartons warn that pasteurized egg whites shouldn't be used for whipping or meringue?

Egg white foams are a delicate thing.  They are easy to do, but also easy to mess up, and many things will do so. Here (Wayback Machine) is a blog that addresses many of the common or less so do's and don'ts of foams and tests them to see if the writer agrees with them effecting things.  Items addressed are should eggs be new or old, at room temp, when to add sugar, and if pasteurized eggs work.  For them, pasteurized was fine.

The general idea behind not using pasteurized as I understand it:  For quality foams, the proteins in the egg white must unfold correctly during beating.  In the process of heating the egg for pasteurization, the protein may well be chemically or physically altered and the ability to unfold it correctly for a foam might be reduced.  In their test, it worked fine, just as it seems to have for you.  But, at best, it may not be as consistent or forgiving.  If you are slightly off on another aspect, say whipping speed, it may increase the odds of failure.  Also, you may have gotten a batch of eggs that were pasteurized at an optimum temp, while another batch might have been done at a few degrees higher and affected the protein strands more and that batch might fail. I personally would consider it one more factor that might increase failure rates, might increase the need to add cream of tartar or lemon, might fail with sugar, etc.

Just opinion, but if it works for you, go for it, but expect that maybe some times it won't.


Is there a drink that's analogous to coffee but made with cocoa beans?

You certainly could brew a drink from pure cocoa powder. It'll be pretty bitter, though; if you don't like unsweetened chocolate you might not like it much, though. So you'll most likely end up adding dairy and sugar, and ending up with hot cocoa.

It won't ever be exactly the same process though. In both cases there's a lot of processing of the beans, and the details differ. But most importantly, while with coffee you can buy and use whole beans, you wouldn't do that with cacao. Cacao beans contain a large amount of fat, so if you want cocoa powder, part of the processing is separating out cocoa solids (which can become cocoa powder) and cocoa butter. If you don't separate them, you end up with a thick paste called chocolate liquor. So you're never going to see whole roasted cacao beans.

But if you're willing to set aside all those differences, I suppose hot cocoa is analogous to coffee, if that means anything.


Most chicken (or turkey) stock recipes are meant to be fairly neutral in flavor so they can be used in almost any dish.  In many culinary traditions, especially those of European tradition, black pepper is appropriate in almost any savory dish.

Cloves are an extremely strong and aggressive flavor, which is not traditional in these cuisines.

While you could certainly use it in your stock, it would give that warm clove aroma, and you would then want to use the stock only in dishes where that is appropriate.

Instead, I would stick to neutral flavors, and if you want clove flavoring, do it when preparing the final dish, not he fundamental stock.   You can simmer enough stock for the whatever dish you are making with a few cloves while you are doing your prep on the dish to infuse it, if needed.


What's the best method for making iced coffee?

Do you like it cold-brewed? The absolute best thing to do from my perspective is to stir half a cup of grounds into a quart of water and let sit overnight; you can then filter it using your french press or a regular plastic filter the next day to get a low-acid coffee concentrate. Mix one part of this with 1-2 parts of water (hot or cold, adjust for strength) to get coffee. The concentrate keeps well in the fridge too.

The only problem is that the coffee you get will be very low acid; if you like your iced coffee more acidic, this won't help. For my palate it's great, but YMMV.


How old is a chicken when it's time to be cooked?

They can be as young as 8 weeks, and up to a year or more. The preferred cooking method changes with age. Here is a handy chart of the ages/weights/options.


How to know if a recipe is acidic enough for storage/bottling?

Excellent question! I understand wanting to experiment with your own recipe. I hate following recipes and would much rather develop my own.

Virginia Tech has a PDF file that I consider invaluable to download at Boiling Water Bath Canning. In the downloaded file it says

  Only high-acid food with a pH of 4.6 or less can be processed using the boiling water bath method. This is because only high-acid foods  prevent the growth of spores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum which can't be killed by boiling. Foods with a pH more than 4.6 allow the spores to grow.

Everything that a home canner would need to learn and know how to successfully can using a boiling water bath method is included in this 15 page file. It even includes jam and jellies and some information on fermenting foods with advice about possible problems.


Why don't my muffins rise and develop tops properly?

There are many reasons why muffins might not rise as expected; I'll list the ones I know of in order of probability:

Over-mixing the batter.  You'll know that you've done this if the muffins also turn out tough and chewy.  This prevents rising because the gluten network is too tight to expand around the gas bubbles.
Under-mixing the batter.  You have to develop some gluten, otherwise there's nothing to trap the gas bubbles and the muffins will just deflate before they get any rise.  It's a lot easier to over-mix than under-mix, but if you drastically under-mix and don't even bother to get all the dry ingredients wet, then you won't get any leavening action at all.
Not enough leavening agent. This can happen with unsifted flour (sifting also helps incorporate air), using the wrong type of flour (especially if the recipe calls for self-raising), or using old or improperly-stored flour or baking soda/powder.  You should be able to see some bubbling action before you pop the muffins in the oven; if you don't, you might have this problem.
Improper substitution of baking soda for baking powder.  A lot of people think these are the same, but they aren't.  Both use sodium bicarbonate, which is what produces the CO2 bubbles but needs an acid in order to do it.  Baking soda is intended to be used with mixtures that are already acidic; baking powder has an built-in acidifier, usually cream of tartar, which reacts with the water as soon as you incorporate it.  If you ever substitute baking soda for baking powder, you need to add cream of tartar or some other acid/acidifier.
Not resting the batter, or resting too long.  If you use double-action baking powder (the norm, e.g. Magic brand) then you are supposed to rest for 5-10 minutes to allow for the first action.  If you use single-action baking powder, you must get those muffins into the oven right away or they'll start to collapse.
Finally, and this might be stating the obvious - not filling the tins enough.  It's possible that the muffins are rising just fine, but they're not supposed to double in size like bread or triple like pastries; you should be filling the tins at least 3/4 of the way up if you want tops.


As a consumer in the UK, how can I choose well marbled beef?

With online meat shopping in the UK you have to go with the reputation of the source, there's no grading system which you can refer to. Top end butchers and grocery stores carry top end beef, and most of the time you do get what you pay for. Many supermarket chains have premium labels, ie Tesco Finest and Sainsbury's Taste The Difference, which are definitely much better than their regular stuff, but I think the best mainstream grocery store premium brand for meat is Coop.

At the end of the day there's no substitute for getting your own eyes on the meat you are buying, so I would recommend you try local butcher shops. There's still plenty of them around in the UK, and the quality varies dramatically. There are some that will pawn off legs of lamb that are about to turn, and others which control their entire supply chain and have some of the best meat in the world. You just have to try a few and see.


Difference between old fashioned and quick oats?

Old fashioned oats are rolled whole-grain oat kernels. In quick oats, on the other hand, the oat kernel is first cut into smaller pieces before being rolled. This makes it much easier for quick oats to absorb water than an old fashioned oat. You can visibly see the size difference.

For baking quick oats can be used in place of old fashioned oats. However, if a recipe calls for quick oats, you may not get expected results using old fashioned oats. Typically, a recipe that calls explicitly for quick oats generally has too short a cooking time for regular oats to fully cook (e.g. pancakes).

Another thing altogether is instant oats. Do not substitute these in any recipe. Instant oats are parboiled, dried, and often has sugar and salt added.

Nutritionally, quick and old-fashioned oats are identical.


If this what you are looking for?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_extraction

There are a couple of graphs in there to help you get your ratio right (and I assume you will need to experiment on your side).

IMO, heating the coffee solution to evaporate the water will result in the degradation of the coffee; maybe render it overly bitter.


Is it a good idea to clean bacon with water before putting it into the pan to remove some salt?

The answer to this is no - the salt in bacon is not generally on the surface, it is impregnated into the meat to cure it. Because of the cellular nature of meat, the diffusion of salts out of the meat is quite slow; washing it in water before or during cooking will not remove substantial amounts of the salt. Having said that, you can lower the salt content of cured meats by soaking them in water for several hours (or boiling when you make stock). How much salt these processes remove depends on the meat type, the salt content, and how much water you are putting them into.

There is some salt in the brine that is often packaged with wet-cured bacon. This would be best removed by blotting with a paper towel; you could rinse, then blot dry. Using water and then placing directly in the pan will affect the cooking process, so that you end up with flabby unappealing bacon.

If you are worried about your salt (usually sodium) intake - try cutting out the bacon, apart from on special occasions. A general lower salt intake will be what you need to aim for - slow reduction in amounts added to cooking or switching to potassium based salts can keep flavors similar to what you are used to.

If it is a matter of taste, @rumtscho has pointed out that frying results in saltier tasting bacon. This may be because the salt is concentrated by evaporation or loss of water within the bacon or because of flavor changes associated with cooking.


Why non-flavored variant is usually vanilla?

Why Vanilla???

Vanilla is a rich and powerful flavor, with over 200 flavor compounds besides the basic vanillin.  Due to its complexity and neutral flavor, it can be combined with a plethora of other flavors without conflicting.  It just provides a good neutral base to build on.  The vanilla also enriches the products if they are combined with additional flavorings, adding body and depth to the final result.

Ok, so Vanilla makes sense, but why add ANY flavoring?

On their own, sweet products may not have much flavor (remember, ice cream is just milk, sugar, and cream).  Vanilla gives them a little flavor as a starting point.  It also masks any unpleasant flavors present as a result of ingredients.  For example, truly unflavored yogurt has a  fairly strong lactic acid flavor of its own; this is something where you can get a TRULY unflavored yogurt and see what I mean.   It's a whole different animal, and brings to mind that it's simply soured milk. Carbonated water similarly has a fairly unpleasant bite to it when no flavoring is added, as a result of the carbon dioxide reacting with water to produce carbonic acid.

Why can't I find stuff without ANY flavoring?

You can, if you know where to look!  The truly unflavored products are generally used differently than their vanilla-flavored "unflavored" counterparts.  Club soda / seltzer water is simply unflavored soda, and is stored with the stuff for mixed drinks, since that's where it is normally used. Unflavored yogurt is used in cooking savory Mediterranean dishes, and may be to the side of the flavored yogurts.  As the comment mentions, unflavored ice cream is available as sweet cream.

I can't think of any other normally-vanilla flavored products, but if you can come up with some, I can probably find them for you under a different name.


You don't mention covering your pot, so I'm assuming you left it uncovered for the duration. If that's the case, you boiled all your liquid off. Next time you can try using a lid, that should slow the evaporation of water from your pot and leave you with some stock still in the pot. Even if the pot was covered, though, "a couple of hours" is a pretty long time for something that only had enough water to cover-- no lid seals perfectly.  Some evaporation is always to be expected, so you probably needed a little more water to start, or to have topped off the pot at some point.

You may be able to reuse your chicken pieces and vegetables, but I wouldn't. You mention using chicken breasts. If your aim is to produce a flavorful stock, this is the wrong part of the chicken to use.

Meat is typically used in broths, which can be flavorful, but chicken breasts are notoriously bland even when cooked whole. Stocks are typically made with bones and very little meat. Rendering the flavor and gelatin from the bones gives a rich stock using much cheaper cuts (or even scraps, if you have a recently roasted bird).  Price may or may not be a factor for you, but the result is usually far superior when using an appropriate ratio of bones:water.

In your case your chicken breast is like so dry and overcooked at this point that there's not really any flavor left to impart to a stock/broth. You may have slightly better luck with the plant matter, but I doubt it.


Is there a special reason why dry rubs are meant to work with grilling over other cooking methods?

Well, if you deep-fried something with a dry rub:

all the oil-soluble flavors would dissolve into the fry oil. You lose your flavor, and also probably greatly shorten the life of the oil. (How long you can use it before it starts smoking and/or imparts a bad flavor).
a lot of the rub would wind up falling off and making mess at the bottom of the pot/fryer. (A fryer with a cold zone at the bottom would probably be OK, but most things you're using at home to fry isn't going to be — will surely start burning on the bottom of the fryer). Compare to how in a smoker or grill, if some falls of, its not really a problem.
BBQ dry rubs are often fairly sugar-heavy, would probably brown way too fast and ultimately it'd either burn or you'd have to pull the food out before it was cooked through.

If instead you mean pan-fry, shallow-fry, etc., then the latter two will still happen.

You can use a dry rub with other cooking techniques: for example, roasting in a moderate to low oven or slow-cooking in a crock pot. (The amount you use, especially in a crock pot, would be different). Ideally, with all these low-and-slow cooking methods, the flavor from the rub has a chance to penetrate; it wouldn't with a fast method like frying.

And even with fast cooking methods, you can do something similar; e.g., salt and pepper on meat before throwing it in the saute pan is sort of a dry rub. And when pan-frying, it's pretty common to put spices in the breading or binder.


How to check if a vegetable is bitter without eating it

For cucumbers in particular, it's quite interesting.
Commercial growers use F1 hybrid varieties that produce only female flowers, and grow them in green houses or polytunnels, or under netting.
The reason for this is that in many cucumber varieties, the fruit from pollinated flowers is bitter; from unpollinated flowers it isn't. Picking reasonably early and ensuring even watering also helps.
When growing traditional and outdoor varieties you can remove the male flowers (identifiable by the stalk behind them) to avoid pollination, or buy all-female F1 varieties - but neither approach will help if there are male flowers growing nearby.


Not recommended, sterno as it is known in the catering business is proven to be poisonous if consumed.  Although the less fortunate have been known to drink the stuff to get drunk (another practice that I don't recommend).
IMO the only purpose of a sterno or Choice Ethanol Gel Chafing Dish Fuel, as you put it, is for... exactly that: chafing dishes.