I have used the flax method as detailed in the New York Times with good results.  I make a lot of chocolate chip cookies and I haven't found anyone that can really tell the difference.  Some claim to be able to tell but also say that it is just different and not better or worse.

2 tablespoons ground flax seed mixed with six tablespoons water (or 2 eggs)

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/replacing-eggs-with-flax/

Actually for cookies I typically use slightly less that 5 tablespoons of water.  This makes the cookies a bit thicker rather that thing.  Do what you like.


marinated vegetables on food dehydrators?

What about tofu? It can be "jerkyfied" pretty easily. For example: http://www.ehow.com/how_2128547_make-tofu-jerky.html


Identify a round kitchen tool with perforated and hinged metal leaves

It's a steamer basket.

If you pull the leaves apart it will look like this:

Then you put it into a saucepan like this:

You put water into the saucepan (the legs at the bottom keep the bottom of the basket clear of the water). Then you can use it for steaming vegetables, dumplings, etc. You put a lid onto the saucepan to keep the steam in.


Improving texture of yogurt based ice cream- stabiliser?

It looks like, you have very large ice crystals forming. One thing I’ve noticed in the recipe is the sugar content is rather on the lower-end. Around 80 g from the honey and 36 g from the coconut paste. Almost 10% by weight. Normally what you expect is 15-20%.
The amount of dissolved sugar in the base will help lowering the freezing point.

Before crystallization can begin, the temperature of the melt must decrease below the freezing point. When the melt is a solution, the solute lowers that freezing point to an extent based on the nature of the solute. Freezing point depression, being a colligative property, is based on the moles of solute present in solution, not on the mass. Therefore, a gram of glucose (with about double the number of moles of sucrose) would lower the freezing point more than a gram of sucrose. Proteins, being very large comparatively, have no measurable effect on freezing point.

I would double the sugar content with either invert sugar (which glucose + fructose) or as the paper above hints glucose.


When macerating apples to use in a pie, what should you do with the liquid?

On Serious Eats, Kenji Alt recommends precooking your apples (by a quick microwave or hot water bath) to set the pectin and prevent shrinking:

http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2011/10/the-food-labs-apple-pie-part-2-how-to-make-perfect-apple-pie-filling.html

Kenji is my favorite active practical food scientist, and a former recipe developer for Cooks Illustrated.


Yes, you can.

In fact, this is a specific technique known as a "coffee toddy" which is a good way to take liquid coffee camping with you if you don't want to take brewing equipment.  Some people even prefer coffee made this way to other methods of brewing.


Because of the process of producing CTC teas, they leaves have a hard, balled, granular appearance like the ones in the picture you linked.  The primary place to find such tea leaves is inside tea bags; pick up some Lipton sometime.  I've also found that orange pekoe teas tend to be frequently processed this way, even in higher grades.

This comparison of Sri Lanka Pekoe Grades lays it out more distinctly than anywhere else I can find; you can see there the same leaves, both processed orthodox, and via CTC.  The CTC has a "gravel" appearance that's hard to mistake for anything else.

Contrary to Harney & Sons marketing copy, CTC teas are not generally considered superior to Orthodox teas, but instead inferior.  The primary advantage of CTC teas for the drinker is a faster steep to produce a dark cup of tea (and hence why they are suited to tea bags).  However, the process is expected to prevent tasting any of the subtler flavors in a tea blend.


No, you need industrial machinery.

Part of the manufacturing process of producing Vegemite involves using a centrifuge to separate out the yeast cell membranes from the rest of the product. As a result, without access to such a centrifuge, it is not possible to make Vegemite.

Here is a description of the process I found through a Google search:

  Spent brewer's yeast is sieved to get rid of hop resins, and washed to remove bitter tastes. Then it is suspended in water at a temperature greater than 37 C with no nutrients: the yeast cells die, and vitamins and minerals leach out. Then the proteolytic (protein-splitting) enzymes take over, breaking the yeast proteins down into smaller water-soluble fragments, which also leach out. The yeast cell membrane is unruptured during this time, and can be removed by centrifuging. The clear light brown liquid is then concentrated under a vacuum to a thick paste (the vacuum helps preserve flavours and vitamin B1, thiamine). It is seasoned with salt, and a small proportion of celery and onion extracts to increase the palatability.


If you examine the ingredients on different brands of tinned coconut milk you can find percentages of coconut ranging (and I used the Tesco Supermarket website to get a sampling as they always list product ingredients) from 25% up to 72% and possibly higher. There will also be varying proportions of water, thickeners and emulsifiers such as Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum, Carrageenan, Carboxymethyl Cellulose, Polysorbate 60 and Locust Bean Gum.
Sometimes the coconut content is described as 'coconut extract', I have no idea what that means.
Products marketed as 'Light' will typically have more water than coconut.
It is possible that in markets outside the UK there are 'better' canned products available.
I get Creamed Coconut in block form, which is 100% coconut and can be grated into the dish as required, where you can add such liquid as you choose and the gratings melt into it as it heats. You can also get this in sachets if a whole block seems like it would be more than you need.


Marinade sauce bottle left open for longer than recommended - safe to use?

If it says keep refrigerated and you didn't, I wouldn't chance it. A lot of things need refrigerator temperatures to prevent nasty things from growing and keep them safe. There are also some things that are actually safe unrefrigerated but retain quality better when refrigerated, and will say "keep refrigerated" on the bottle, but you don't really know which is the case here.


What chemical(s) gives molasses its flavor so that it is used as an ingredient?

There is no single "molasses molecule". It's a complex flavor from a complex combination of chemicals. There is no "caramel molecule" either. It also contains several different types of sugar (mono- and disaccharides), which impart their own flavor and calories.

It will include residual sugars, all the types of molecules produced during caramelization, along with a wide varieties of proteins and miscellaneous not-sugar-things that are found in sugar cane juice. McGee lists a breakdown of 35% sucrose, 20% invert sugars, and 10% minerals (for blackstrap). There's also some water and other organic material, as that obviously does not add up to 100%.


Are there food products that are meant to have an aftertaste?

It likely matter how you qualify 'aftertaste'.

I was watching a documentary on artificial sweeteners, and they specifically mentioned that with sucrose, there's a period of time where you continue to sense it.  (I'm having difficulty finding what they called that variable, and what the time is for sucrose ... I want to say it was either 0.5 seconds or 1 second).  So they don't want the sweetness to disipate immediately, but they don't want to to hang around too long.

For chilies and hot dishes, people might talk about 'attack' vs. 'sustain'.  You can have a spicy dish that's initially powerful, or the ones where you can take a bite and it takes some time for you to get the impact of the heat.

I've used these two together to make deceptive drinks -- you load enough sugar into something that also has significant heat to it, and your mouth considers it to be overly sweet at first ... then after a minute, you start to notice the heat, and you go back for the sweet drink to cool it off, only compounding the problem.  (this was a high school/college trick ... I want to say that it involved grape juice concentrate, Tobasco, and Mt. Dew, with the occassional addition of Tang (mixed so it was just a fluid, not dilted to normal strength).

What we discuss as 'aftertaste' are typically unintended longer-lasting flavors that are covered up by other flavors initially, but continue to persist after the other flavors have disipated.   This is inherently different from flavor changing foods (typically candies), which typically use two different flavor compounds, one of which is encapsulated so that it releases after the other one.

And there are cases where we may want the lingering flavor, but it's assertive from the start -- mint is frequently used in this way.  That might still qualify as an 'aftertaste' though.  (although toothpaste isn't a food product)


Beef and veggies in crock pot turn out hard and tough

Try cooking on low instead of warm (or at a higher temperature, maybe 185-195F, with your fancy crock pot), and make sure you really got good stew meat.

I would expect the beef to have been reasonably tender after that long if it were the right kind of cut - certainly not inedibly tough, even if it weren't all the way done due to the lower temperature. But it's unfortunately possible that the beef for stew that you got isn't actually good for this purpose; sometimes stores will sell things under that label expecting (I guess) that people will cook them briefly in their stew. Make sure that what you buy has a lot of connective tissue that will break down as it cooks. See also What is the best cut of beef to use for stews?

If you did have a good cut of beef for long slow cooking, it's possible that 160F is still just too low (or that 11 hours isn't long enough) for the meat you got. See What is the lowest possible temperature for stewing meat? - apparently the collagen -> gelatin breakdown can happen even down to 130F, but it's much faster at higher temperatures.

It's likely that one way or another the low temperatures also messed with your vegetables. I'm not sure if that's actually hot enough to soften them. And for some vegetables, cooking them at a lower temperature for a while will cause them to stay firm even if they're subsequently cooked at a higher temperature!

There's a blurb about this in On Food and Cooking, which I'll find and add into my answer when I can. In the meantime, I found this in a Serious Eats article about carrots:

  Unlike meat proteins which are fully cooked anywhere between 140 and 165°F or so, vegetables contain pectin—a kind of glue that holds its cells together and keeps it firm. Pectin doesn't break down until 183°F, which means that no matter what vegetable you cook sous-vide, you have to set your water oven to at least 183°F if you would like the end results to be tender ...


First of all, you can make the chocolate pudding in a saucepan (using a chocolate pudding mix), bake the puff pastry by itself in the oven for a few minutes and then spoon the pudding in to the puff pastry to make a delicious chocolate tart.

By the way, you can also do the same with fruit, such as apples, cherries, blueberries. You can either make a homemade fruit filling or buy canned fruit filling.
Good luck!


Can a sourdough starter be kept alive if you live in a dry climate?

I moved from Monterey CA to Bullhead City AZ, a very arid climate. I brought my starter with me. The biggest change I had to make was using cling wrap and a rubber band around the jar. I didn’t do that in the beginning and I always had a dry skin across the top. This fixed my issue. My bread is just as great as before. I did also need to hydrate the dough a bit more. Otherwise it has been a success for me.


Is the un-moldy part of tomato paste still safe to eat?

I would take caution before consuming the sauce. It is possible that you may have killed mold however there could still be toxins. There are a lot of variables in these types of situations, such as whether or not those who are consuming the sauce have an allergy to mold. That is why a typical response is when in doubt, throw it out. I would say if you insist on keeping it taking a very small taste and give it about 30 minutes and see if you start developing a rash, throat starts feeling itchy / funny. But this can be extremely unsafe and I would advise against it.


Bottling and Storing Cold-Brewed Coffee?

Most cold-brew advocates that I have seen actually create a coffee concentrate, that they then dilute to drinking strength.

This article from The Nourishing Gourmet is typical in indicating that the concentrate can be held for about one week; the recipe at The Chow says 5 days.  Bon Appetit is an outlier claiming you can prepare the concentrate up to two weeks ahead of time.

The general consensus is clearly that you should be able to get through the work week, in any case.


By "it stays longer" do you mean that the egg stays good longer or the membrane/air pocket stays around longer?

I don't know why you would care about the air pocket so I'll go with the other.

Orientation is not going to noticeably affect egg quality. I don't use egg cartons. I store my eggs in plastic tubs (carefully). The eggs end up in a random orientation and there is no noticeable difference between any two eggs.

I have heard to people storing the eggs differently to center the yolks in preparation for boiling. This is purely a cosmetic thing.


Which Whole Wheat Breads can be crisped on the stove?

Any kind of bread can be toasted/grilled. The only things you really have to worry about are whether it has a flat surface to evenly cook and whether it's so crumbly it'll just fall apart. Anything you buy sliced will work, and anything you can cleanly slice will work.

Note that an electric stove is not the easiest way to toast bread, since it isn't designed to radiate heat. The easiest method is probably to butter the bread then put it butter side down in a pan, so the recipe you linked is fine, but plain bread is a bit iffy.


Should you add some salt to flour when baking?

Salt serves two primary purposes in baking:

To regulate yeast

Salt kills yeast. The addition of salt to a yeast leavened dough prevents the little beasties from growing completely out of control.

To enhance and mask specific flavors

Salt is almost a universal flavor enhancer. Virtually anything that tastes good, will taste better with salt. What typically comes as a surprise to people is that this holds true with sweet things too, particularly chocolate. The addition of even a tiny bit of salt can make a sweet dish significantly sweeter. It also serves to mask the taste of raw flour.

Update

Also according to Progressive Baker salt affects the strength and shelf life of baked goods.


I don't think you can any better than light brown soft sugar!
It has a similar taste, similar moisture content (though palm sugar varies hugely in moisture content from a thick honey texture to a solid block), similar color and caramelizes in a similar way.

An ever closer option is jaggery, which is almost identical to palm sugar, just made from sugar cane rather than palms. It is probably more difficult to get hold of though, and the difference is rarely noticeable in a finished dish, so I would say light brown sugar is your best option


Is sour cream in super markets made in the traditional way?

Years ago I worked for Daisy Brand Sour Cream, and during the tour of their facility, it was mentioned several times that they used the original method of making their sour cream that they've used for 100 years.  I saw the cream loaded from the trucks and into various large containers for making the sour cream.

Indeed, their web site seems to bear this out.

They are the only sour cream brand that I trust when I'm cooking professionally.


Does preparation of food change the nutritional content with respect to fat type?

The simple answer is no, you cannot convert monounsaturated/polyunsaturated fats into saturated fats through cooking alone.

Before I can even begin to answer in detail, I have to start by pointing out that "saturated" and "unsaturated" fat is already an oversimplification.  These are very rough classifications of fats and the chemical reality is far more nuanced.  I'd encourage you read the Wikipedia entry on Fatty acid for a relatively basic explanation.

Fatty acids are actually classified, chemically, in three different ways:

The existence of double bonds (CH=CH) somewhere in the molecular structure.  Fatty acids with double bounds are unsaturated.  Fatty acids with single bonds only are saturated.
The chain length (number of Carbon-Hydrogen groups).  Another distinguishing characteristic of saturated fatty acids is that they are generally (maybe always) long-chain. The reverse is not necessarily true, however; not all long-chain fatty acids are saturated.
The configuration, either cis or trans.  Trans fatty acids are not actually a different type of fat in the same sense as saturated vs. unsaturated; they are actually unsaturated fatty acids, just in a different configuration.

Although certain studies suggest that it is possible to create TFAs from edible oils with prolonged heat, it is also extremely difficult, to the extent that it's nearly impossible to do in meaningful quantities by accident.  I will refer you to this study of heat-induced cis/trans isomerization which says that after 8 hours of heating at 180° C, the researchers found up to 6.5 mg of trans isomers per 1.0 g of oil, which comes out to a grand total of 0.65% by mass.  This is practically nil as far as a home cook is concerned - these quantities only matter if you're doing commercial processing of vegetable oils, or maybe if you're using the oil for deep-frying and you reuse it dozens of times (far beyond what any experienced fry cook would recommend).

The study also says that edible oils (i.e. the ones you cook with) experienced less isomerization than other kinds.  So really, the amount of isomerization you're going to get (conversion of the "good" cis isomers to "bad" trans isomers) is minuscule and simply insignificant as far as mainstream baking or frying applications are concerned.  So forget about trans fats.

Can you create saturated fats?  That would effectively mean breaking down the double bonds into single bonds.  In order to do that, you need to add hydrogen (that's why saturated fatty acids are "saturated" - more hydrogen).

There's a name for this process, which you actually stumbled upon in your question.  It's called Hydrogenation.  It's adding hydrogen atoms to an unsaturated (double-bonded) fatty acid.

Hydrogenation requires a substrate (involving benzene or some other hydrocarbon), a hydrogen source (that's pure, dangerous, H2 gas), and a catalyst (heavy metal).  My guess is that your kitchen has none of those things, unless you're cooking in a chemistry lab.  So there is simply no chance for you to accidentally hydrogenate your oils.

What you really need to be more worried about with oils (unsaturated fats) is lipid peroxidation.  That's the oxidative breakdown and, eventually, rancidity of fats, and polyunsaturated fats are particularly prone to this.  Heat is a catalyst for peroxidation, so if you "burn" your oil (or other fats), you may end up creating the same sorts of free radicals normally associated with rancidity due to improper storage.  The long-term effect of these free radicals is not firmly established but the consensus seems to be that they aren't good for you in the long term (cancer risk and so on).

So don't worry about converting your oils when you cook with them.  It's practically impossible.  You should be more concerned with overheating them or letting them go rancid in storage.


I am assuming by "fluted knife", you mean what is sometimes called a granton or hollow edge knife, where there are indentations in the blade intended to reduce sticking or adhesion to the food:

Except in very specific circumstances, this feature makes very little difference, those circumstances being:

Carving large roasts
Cutting large and tough vegetables such as certain squashes

For most use, it simply doesn't matter.   In fact, the thickness of the blade tends to have more of an effect than the voids in most cases.

Except in the specific case of a slicing knife (which is a specialty knife that most beginning cooks have no need for; you have also in other questions indicated you are a vegetarian where this knife is primarily for slicing hams and other large roasts), this is not a feature I would look for:


How do I make liquid glucose from powdered glucose

Well, the answer is "it depends." This is pretty much the same as asking, "I have sugar, and I want sugar syrup. How much water do I add?" It depends on the concentration you're looking for. If you're looking for a 24% solution, it's 24 grams of glucose in 76 grams of water. A 30% solution is 30 grams of glucose in 70 grams of water, etc, etc.

Unless you have some chemical reason to avoid dextrin, you can just substitute corn syrup. The only reason they use glucose in Europe is because they don't have our superabundance of corn.


Can I season cast iron *without* using an oven?

Lodge claims their pans are pre-seasoned. It's a great company, but don't believe that pre-seasoned malarcky. Yes, they do treat the surface with oil, but not nearly enough. No worries though, you really only need a good seasoning layer on the bottom, cooking surface.

Scour the cooking surface of the pan thoroughly, then add a film of oil to the bottom of the pan and heat it on a burner. Move it around frequently to minimize hot spots. Let it get to smoking, allow to cool enough to touch, wipe it out, and then a add a bit more oil and smear it with a paper towel. Repeat 3 or 4 more times. Ignore the walls and handle of the pan for now, just thoroughly re-season the whole thing when you have access to an oven.

Opinions vary as to the best oil to use. My personal favorite is lard, flax seed is often highly recommended.

Read this question and answers for more info: What's the best way to season a cast iron skillet?

Congrats on your new pan. Cast iron is lovely, I have a set of skillets that belonged to my grandmother, my mother and now me. Cast iron takes some "getting to know" but once you know your pan you'll love it. BTW, except for the first time scouring, ideally your pan should never see soap or detergent. There is a lot of good info here about cast iron, just use the search engine to learn more.

EDIT: One more thing. All new cast iron pans are treated in some way before they are sold to prevent rust. In the case of Lodge, that treatment is a light seasoning with food grade oil. There is nothing that needs to be removed before first use. In fact the seasoning step I recommend here in not technically necessary, it just gets you to that black, old, almost-as-slick-as-teflon surface faster than repeated use alone. I only recommend scouring the cooking surface before you season the first time to give the factory surface a tiny bit of "roughening up", giving your first seasoning layer a bit of something to grip on to. So don't scour the whole pan, just the cooking surface. By the time you have access to an oven, the factory surface on the rest of the pan will already have developed some patina just from use, so you don't need to scour to season the rest of the pan, just oil the whole pan.

Some cast iron pans from other companies are not preseasoned, they're coated with wax or some other thing you don't want in your food See: Do all new cast iron pans and skillets have a protective coating on them, which must be removed? Those pans have to be scoured all over before first use. Ideally, then they would be seasoned in an oven before first use. If you had a pan like that, but no access to an oven, my advice to you would be the same accept that you would need to scour the whole pan, season the cooking surface and lightly oil the whole pan every time you heat it for the first several times, periodically thereafter.


A lot of types of bacteria (and sometimes other microbes) produce waste products that can taste "sour."  And soup/stock is a good growth medium for microbes, which is why most food safety organizations recommend only keeping soup for 3-4 days in the fridge.  Six days is past the point where the soup is still likely to be "fresh"; the sour taste is most likely spoilage of some sort.

As for the question of why the airtight container was different from the open one: it could be that the open container absorbed more microbes that were floating around in the air, or it could be that the open container allowed more oxygen for certain types of microbes to grow better, or both.

Bottom line: when soup turns "sour" unexpectedly, it's probably time to throw it out.


Please see the excerpt below from this  site . All of the recipes I've seen for anko recommend changing the water but this is the only explanation I've found.

  Amy Escobar MARCH 12, 2014, 3:13 PM

  Hey Nami, do you know why the boiling water is emptied and then refilled? Cooking With Dog uses the same method and I don’t know the reason.

  REPLY

  Nami MARCH 14, 2014, 12:52 AM
  Hi Amy! Thank you for asking the question.

  Traditional method usually includes a process of emptying water for 1-2 times. The reason is to remove impurities (we call it “aku” – English translation is “scum” – not sure if that’s the right word) from the azuki beans. They taste bitter and you don’t want to cook with them, so we get rid of it by changing the water. Some people do once, some do twice, but you don’t want to lose too much of azuki flavor, so I believe one time is good. Hope this helps.


when baking vegan lemon drizzle cake, should the soya milk be sweetened or unsweetened, fresh or longlife?

I've never had a problem w/ the long-life stuff.  (the 'fresh' stuff is likely also long-life, but people think of it more like milk when they see it in the coolers).   I actually prefer the unchilled stuff, as it's available in smaller containers so less likely to go off if I don't use it all up in time.

Sweetened will be closer to the sweetness of cow's milk, which might make substitutions easier if you're converting a recipe yourself.  If you're working from a recipe that calls for soy milk, just go with your own preference.


What is the English name of these sea snails?

Ốc bông = tiger moon snail (hotdeal.vn, Google images) or in Latin: Notocochlis tigrina (Wikipedia)

Ốc tỏi = Japanese bonnet snail (Facebook, Wild Fact Sheets, images, more images) or in Latin: Semicassis bisulcata (Wikipedia). Ốc tỏi is sometimes refered to as "garlic snail" (Hong Hai, Cooky), but this is obviously different from garlic glass snail, which is a land snail (Wikipedia).

Here on Facebook are Vietnamese/English translations for more than 100 types of seafood, including Ốc bông and Ốc tỏi.


This is quite common and pretty harmless. The scratches you see don't go very deep, nor are they very wide. My All-Clad saute pan is nearing 10 years old and has a ton of micro-scratches on the interior. It still performs beautifully.

That said, the scratches can grab onto proteins and cause sticking. However, this is simple to prevent with both oil and proper pan preheating.

When a pan is preheated properly the metal expands, essentially closing all of the micro-scratches. This prevents the proteins from grabbing onto them and getting stuck. You obviously need oil/fat to assist with this as well.

To properly heat a pan to the appropriate temperature I suggest using the water drop method. If you put a cold pan on heat and drip a drop of water onto it, the water will sit there for several seconds then boil away. As the pan gets warmer this will happen more quickly, fizzling away in a second or so. Once the scratches start to close something weird happens.

First, the drop of water will break into a few mini drops which scoot around the pan as they evaporate. This is a sign that you are almost there. When the drop of water stays whole (mostly) and scoots around the pan like a mercury ball, this is the perfect temperature. I the water instantly vaporizes on contact, you've gone way too far and need to let the pan cool down. At this point you should add your oil/fat, swirl it around, and immediately add your food. (Make sure the mercury ball of water is gone before adding oil).

Also note that the mercury-ball phase is definitely too hot for unclarified butter, and may be too hot for some extra-virgin olive oils. They may instantly smoke upon adding.

Again, it's important to have your oil and ingredients in place (mise en place) before you start. It's quite easy to skyrocket past the mercury-ball phase if you have to open your oil, pour, and then season your ingredients.


Modern ovens have holes in the back for things like thermostats and ignitors. Yes, you should be concerned. Not so much about the steam but it does indicate you have some sort of hole in the back of the oven or it's not properly vented. The holes for thermostats and ignitors (gas ovens) should be filled in with insulation so normally there shouldn't be a lot of venting from the back of the oven.

The bigger concern is flame potentially coming out the back, especially with broiling or convection.

The steam itself is only going to come from whatever you're cooking. Obviously there's no plumbing associated with an oven.

The back panel should be hot just by being close to the oven. Water should not be condensing on it.

I make bread and I will often throw literally big ladles full of water into the hot oven. I have to be careful not to burn my face off from the steam but I don't see any water condensation outside the oven. My bigger problem is shattering the glass in the oven door or the glass lenses oven the oven light bulbs if I accidentally splash water on the glass.


How do I make my sourdough bread dough stretchy and not have it tear?

Your recipe is to blame.

Your dough is stiff and tears because it isn't wet enough.  While different types of flour do absorb different quantities of water, I think most of the issues you're experiencing are due to the ambiguousness of the recipe and instructions you're using.  Most sourdough recipes yield dough around 80% hydration (the weight of water/the weight of flour).  The  recipe you've cited relies on the starter providing all the hydration for the dough.  Doing the math, following the feeding instructions, you would have a starter that is 55% hydration. Adding all the flour called for in the dough recipe, you would end up with a dough that is about 45% hydration... stiffer than bagels (50-55%).

While it is possible to make dough that doesn't have any added water, it is not common, especially with such a stiff starter. Also, the volume of flour would be much smaller than the volume of starter.

Try using a tried and true recipe that doesn't rely on the starter to provide all of the hydration.

Don't worry so much about gluten production and how sugar or fat will affect it.  Small amounts of these enrichments, like those in the recipe you linked to, will soften the interior of the bread and help the crust brown nicely.  Just look at brioche if you want an example of how far you can push enrichment and still get a well structured bread.


Dough grows moldy in the fridge after several days. While it might keep 40 hours, it's more secure in the freezer.

Depending on what you want to make with it, it might be better to work it from cold or from warm. If it is better from cold (e.g. pie crust, pierogi should behave similarly), freezer is perfect. If it is better from warm, you'll have to plan for sufficient time to unfreeze and let it warm up. In this case, the fridge might be better despite some mold risk.


Create a patè by mixing it with a good store bought mayo (or cream cheese), scallions and parsley. Or drop directly into a big bowl of pasta with some fresh tomatoes&basil and let the steam do it's job.

I don't know, but usually that's how I eat tuna.


How long to cook at turkey for at low temperature in a convection oven?

I've never cooked anything that low and slow in a convection oven.
But a cursory lookabout led me to this Sysco chart,
https://impacweb.cbord.com/reportsets/~common/Cooking%20Times%20For%20Convection%20Oven.pdf
There is a section for whole turkey 16 to 20lbs, 275-300F, for 4-5 hours.
But more importantly a note at the bottom states,
"For menu items not listed, use recommended time and temperature for conventional oven but reduce the temperature setting by 25-50 degrees F and reduce the total bake/roast time by approximately 10 to 15 percent."
So if I were you using that recipe, I'd do 420F for 40 minutes, then 140F for 45m/lb, adjusting the time and temp by intermittent temperature checks.
Looking at a couple more sites and conversions those numbers from Sysco appear to fall in line. That's if the oven goes that low I'd imagine, 140F is pretty low.


Packaged cereal such as corn flakes, raisin bran, or the Toasty O's in your picture is "ready-to-eat" — you can eat it dry, right out of the box if you wish, although many people enjoy adding some kind of milk (cows milk, soy milk, almond milk, etc.).

I don't think it would taste very good just mushed up with water. If that's all I had, I'd eat the cereal dry and drink the water separately — you can easily try it yourself and see what appeals to you.

Other cereals like oatmeal and wheat farina usually taste better when cooked, though you could eat dry oatmeal if you wanted.


Can multiple slabs of ribs be baked at once?

If the oven is large enough, you can bake as many slabs as will comfortably fit on one tray or oven rack without any adjustments.

If you need to seriously cut the total baking time, you could use even two trays at the same time, but in this case, you need to make sure the ribs get enough heat from all sides, which means swapping trays and turning the ribs occasionally and probably baking for a bit longer - I'd guess fifteen to thirty minutes - to compensate for the less-than-ideal heat exposure. I'd leave the temperature setting unchanged unless you notice excess or too little browning halfway to the parbaking.

Not part of your question, but probably worth mentioning, as I assume you will be serving the ribs to many people:

Whatever method you finally choose, note that such a large amount of ribs that will be ready for further processing will need some extra actions to ensure all the meat stays safe and not in the danger zone for more than two hours. So you might want to think about either keeping your meat hot (above 140F/60C) or cooling it down quickly (below 40F / 4C). Find more details and useful links in our canonical post.


Are large veins in a rhubarb leaf safe to eat?

It's an old source (1922), but divides the rhubarb into "leaf stalks", "prominent veins," and "leaves." It states that the leaf stalks are the only edible portion.(1)

In addition, oxalates are in all parts of the plant. But only specifically stated to be in lower quantities in the stalk (2). In fact, people susceptible to kidney stones can be advised to avoid even rhubarb stalks (4). Cooking the leaves can actually INCREASE the toxicity. (3)

Logic would dictate that the veins, being the transition point from stalks to leaves would have a value in between the values in the stalks and leaves. Thus safety indicates one should avoid eating them.

Sources:
1: https://books.google.com/books?id=_GDXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false
2: http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/poison
3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhubarb
4: http://www.healwithfood.org/health-benefits/rhubarb-stalks.php


ok, some kind of weird internet zeitgeist going on, but Instructables.com had a post up this morning on how to make your own: http://www.instructables.com/id/Pop-Rocks/

now you can make your own!


How do you separate whole chicken skin from the breast (for basting) without ripping it?

I'd say experience ?

You need to try it a few times to get the feel of the skin and the meat and how much pressure is needed to separate the skin from the meat.

Try putting more pressure on the meat itself and not on the skin (hard to describe).

The quality of the chicken is also important, most supermarket chicken have crappy skin and will break easily.

If you try on a good free-range chicken, the skin will be sturdier (personal experience, here).


I have left my cast iron pan on the heat for 2 1/2 hrs. How do I stop the release of black on paper towel and when first cooked onions?

Fully clean it
The residue is burnt seasoning (fats) that you haven't fully removed yet. It takes a surprising amount of effort, but this article describes how to completely strip your pan so that you can re-season it.


Remove anything you suspect might affect flavour negatively (or, more simply, strain the whole caboodle), then reduce to concentrate flavour.

For fish broth, you shouldn't simmer the fish bones / heads for more than half an hour and I assume a similar rule applies for shrimp.


Soaked chia seeds do not swell as expected

It is possible that the seeds did not look like they had swelled. While the seed itself looks like its size stays about the same, the "swelling" really comes from the fiber soaking up liquid, forming a gelatinous "blob" around each seed pod.

And how much they swell will also depend on how much liquid they're soaking in. This is a time-lapse video of chia seeds swelling as they soak in water.

But always better safe than sorry: If you don't feel comfortable eating what you've made because you don't think it reacted properly, discard it and try again with a different batch. The more you experiment with chia seeds, the more you'll know what behavior to expect from them.


What is the difference between cracked wheat and wheatgerm?

Cracked wheat is a whole wheat berry that has been crushed or cut into smaller pieces.

Wheat germ is a very small part (1.5 to 2.5%) of a whole wheat berry. It is rich in protein and dense with nutrients. It's hard to overstate how much wheat germ is a nutrition powerhouse. It has more protein than most meats (28%), contains more potassium and iron than any other food, and also is packed with riboflavin, calcium, zinc, magnesium, as well as vitamins A, B1, B3, and E.


Can you add alcohol to chocolate being tempered?

There are two issues, both of which make this a bad idea:

You temper chocolate to give it a hard, snappy texture.  Adding any liquid would be counter-productive to this goal.
All normal alcohol has some percentage of water in it (as much as 60%, for example, for a typical vodka).  Small quantities of water will make chocolate seize turning into a grainy, paste-like mess.

If you really want to flavor chocolate that is to be tempered, you should use a pure essential oil.  These have no water, and are used in very small quantities.

Still, the better bet is to flavor the filling or other ingredients in whatever you are making.


Cored tomatoes measured before or after coring?

Generally, assuming a recipe in English, if you see the word order "3 pounds of tomatoes, cored" you should assume that you start with three pounds, and then core them. If you see "3 pounds of cored tomatoes", it suggests you should weigh them after coring.

However, the first is still rather imprecise, as the amount of impact from coring could depend on the size and variety of tomatoes, and how severely you cut. The second instruction would be slightly less imprecise, though variables like the amount of skin on each tomato will depend on their size. So, if I were writing a recipe, I'm not sure I would choose the first wording unless I also specified a size grade of tomatoes.

If the recipe was carefully tested, it probably was carefully tested based on the ingredients available in the region the author was from at a specific point in time. I read about a historical recipe for that started with "3 ears of corn" or something along that line, and the cookbook author who rediscovered the recipe quickly realized that the size of 1980s ears of corn was much larger than 1800s-era ears of corn. So keep in mind that a recipe is going to leave a lot of knowledge unspoken and dependent on context that may not match yours. If you feel the recipe was light on tomatoes, use more next time. Eventually it will be your recipe, rather than the author's.


I have experimented with both chicken and beef stock (homemade) in bread, as a substitute for water. I would not call the results a 'failure', good loaves of bread did result, but I could not say they were any 'better' (or even different) than if I had not used the stock. The 'expected' flavor did not come through, though I did see a slight discoloration.

There are others who seem to concur with this:
http://101sweetpastry.com/french-bread-boule/
While others still report mixed results: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17864/use-broth-dough
And still more who will swear by it: https://juditbakes.com/2014/07/25/chicken-stock-bread/

With worst thing that could happen being nothing special, I'll echo the sentiments from that second link:

  I know some people hate to risk even the possibility of wasting food,
  but, face it, the cost of the ingredients for a loaf of bread is
  minimal. And if you enjoy a good experiment, there is never a waste of
  labor involved even if things go wrong.

With that in mind I will say the three day 'ferment' does give me pause for concern. I would personally start with something that offers a faster rise, but that all depends on how much 'risk' your willing to take. If your fridge is hovering at around 34°F (2°C) the risk should be minimal.


Name of the sauce/salad eaten with roast dinners up north UK

I believe you are referring to coleslaw - it's actually cabbage rather than lettuce, and is considered a side-dish. It's often served with chips (French Fries here in the US) as an accompaniment to hot and cold roast meats as well as batter-fried dishes such as chicken, clams or fish. Coleslaw dressing can be creamy or vinegary in the US, and it's largely a regional difference - in Southern Cuisine, coleslaw dressing is primarily vinegar, northern recipes call for mayo or sour cream. Reviewing some recipes online, in the UK it appears that coleslaw tends to have both creamy and vinegary components to the dressing.


Is it necessary to add vegetables to slow cooker pot roast?

If you're doing it as a pot roast, the vegetables are mainly there to deliver flavour (unlike in a stew, where they're a major part of the dish). Sometimes they're eaten, sometimes discarded (which seems like a waste to me, so I would choose vegetables I'd want to eat).  They take on a role similar to stock or a flavoured rub or oil when roasting in an oven.

On that basis you can generally omit them. One thing to watch out for though is that the vegetables can be used to lift the joint slightly, so it doesn't sit in a pool of fat*. In that case you'd want to replace them with something inert, or use them but discard them.

If you then find that the meat wants a little more flavour, you can always add a little of a suitable herb and some black peppercorns, to be discarded.

* Note that the term "pot roast" is used broadly, sometimes adding significant amounts of liquid  and sometimes not. I don't know if this is a regional thing, but my answer is meant to cover both types.


How to tell if preserved chillis are still good?

Alcohol is a disinfectant, so any bacteria sitting around for a month in vodka have been thoroughly killed...

The only thing to worry about is that if some of the chillies were not completely submerged all of the time, you might have a slight problem.  The symptoms to look for is discolouring: look for brown / black spots / extremities.

If not: no worries: they're still good.


Substitute for coating ramekin in a chocolate soufflé.

Yes, you can coat the buttered edges of the ramekin in anything you like that will withstand the heat during the cooking process.  Chopped Nuts, cocoa, flour, whatever you wish to go with your chocolate souffle.


In the Russian teacake recipes I have seen, there are four main ingredients:

flour
butter
nuts
powdered sugar

If you cannot get your cookies to bind, you need to add more butter (the only ingredient with moisture). If you are refrigerating your dough, make sure to cover it so it does not dry out.


Even portions means same weight: a scale is the tool of choice here.

Bakers that want equal sized products just weigh the individual portions, then proceed from there.

The shaping / rolling of chapatis was already discussed in this Seasoned Advice post. Or you could use a press1 to shape them.

If you are thinking of a larger scale of production, there are hydraulic chapati presses1 or even (semi-)automatic machines1 on the market, that shape chapatis of the same thickness out of equal sized (= weighed!) portions.

1 No affiliation or recommendation, just random samples from the Internet!


Virginia Creeper can be toxic if eaten. Both the leaves and berries should be considered poisonous and not eaten.

According to poison.org:

  Although they are pretty, Virginia creeper and wisteria can be harmful if they are chewed or swallowed. Both plants can cause mouth pain, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea and should not be eaten.

Both the berries and leaves contain oxalate. While not everyone may have a severe reaction, it's difficult to predict when a reaction may happen, and thus it's best to never eat Virgina creeper.

Since you mention rhubarb in your question, rhubarb contains oxalate in it's leaves at toxic levels, only the rhubarb stalks are safe to eat. Rhubarb stalks do still have oxalate, but at lower concentrations, reducing the chance of illness or death.


Brewing coffee concentrate using both hot and cold methods - Freezing concentrate

I think this will give you some very disgusting coffee. By doing both a high temperature and a long extraction, you will get the worst of both worlds.

High temperature extractions can get some great flavors out of coffee by forcing out a lot of the caramelized sugars, but usually they also use a very quick extraction to avoid also pulling out the bitter flavors.

Cold brewing works by remaining below the temperature that the bitter compounds are most easily extracted at and using a long extraction time to get out the most of everything else.

By using a high temperature and a long time, you'll get most of the sugar out, but you'll also very efficiently extract all the bitter compounds in your coffee.

I would think your best bet for something like this would be to just use a standard cold brew method. Let the grounds sit in room temperature water from 12-24 hours, strain it through cloth (I like using a clean old t-shirt), and then refrigerate your concentrate. I also know people who have frozen the concentrate in ice cube trays to use in blended drinks, so it should freeze well too.


Any good substitutes for tamarind in Beef Rendang?

Tamarind gives a sour and slightly molasses note to food, including rendang. To replicate it, you thus need something sour, like lemon juice, and a dark sugar flavour, like black treacle, molasses, or dark brown sugar.

For your recipe I would add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of dark brown sugar.


What are these white spots in my bread dough?

It's impossible to say what it is - but I am quite sure what it isn't. I have never seen or heard of a pathogen (mold or otherwise) which is able to build visible colonies during such a short time at room temperature, especially in the presence of yeast. And your yeast was not dead - the dough rising proves it.
This is almost sure some ingredient not being mixed well. There are a few alternative explanations such as you covering the bowl with a nonpermeable lid and having enough condensation to drop onto the dough surface, or maybe (and we are getting into really weird/rare territory here) the vegan substitutes acting in unusual ways and managing to clump somehow. I would bake and eat - it is one of the exceptions where I can't connect this unusual photo to the "when in doubt, throw it out" rule.


Restaurants--especially large scale catering and buffets--almost always bake bacon.

It is extremely effective, and very easy.

Lay the bacon out on rimmed sheet pans, in a single layer.  For extra crispiness, use a rack, but cleaning the racks is not fun.

Bake at 350-400 F (I give a temperature range since you may be using the oven for other items) for approximately 20-30 minutes (depending on temperature, thickness of bacon, and desired level of crispiness).

If you didn't use a rack, remove the bacon to paper towels to soak up the excess grease.

The bacon will be very flat and very uniform, and can get very crispy.


Camping stove to supplement an electric hob

Camping stoves are generally not safe for indoor use. They can produce fumes or carbon monoxide that would be fine outdoors, but dangerous indoors. Check the warning labels before buying anything to use inside.

As for the actual cooking, I don't think that you'll get the results that you expect.

My experience includes an MSR Whisperlite International backpacking stove (white gas), and Coleman two-burner stoves in both white gas and propane variants. Anecdotally, the backpacking stove has limited control, while the two-burner stoves don't quite have the oomph of a real gas stove.

The Coleman links that I provided indicate that the white gas stove has burners that put out 7,500 and 6,500 BTU, while the propane stove puts out 10,000 btu on both burners. Using the REI-provided time for boiling water, I calculated that the backpacking stove puts out about 4,500 BTU (and other backpacking stoves indicate similar times, regardless of fuel).

By comparison, my consumer-grade natural gas-powered kitchen stove has two burners that put out 15,500 BTU, one that puts out 9,500, and one (the simmer burner) that puts out 5,000. Viking offers normal burners up to 18,000 BTU, and a wok burner of 27,000.

However, white gas stoves aren't okay indoors. They're fine while they're burning, but lighting them is a bit dramatic, and once you shut them off they'll put out half-burned fumes for several minutes.

Similarly, propane camping stoves usually put off too much carbon monoxide to be safe indoors.


How long to defrost 11 1bs. of chicken in the fridge?

To a first approximation, heat exchange occurs on the surface of an object, and then the heat must conduct through the object. So, again, continuing the approximation, the time for something to heat (or cool) completely depends on how thick it is.

Other things that matter a good deal are: the temperature difference (the colder your fridge, the longer it'll take); the amount of airflow (moving = faster); and finally how fast the air gives up heat. (You can't change how fast the air does, but you can defrost under cold running water instead, water gives up heat much better than air).

How cold your freezer is doesn't actually matter that much. This is because water's transition from solid to liquid actually takes a lot of energy; it dwarfs any difference from a -5F freezer v. a +5F freezer. (Also why ice cools so well.)

So, if you have frozen them in a thin layer, and your fridge is close to 40F (the hottest it should be, for safety reasons), it'll defrost fairly quickly. Probably within an hour or two.

If you have a 11 lb block of chicken, it'll take a long time, I'd suggest looking up turkey defrosting times for comparison. 11 lb block of chicken in a 34F fridge would take days.

Remember that since defrosting in the fridge keeps the kebobs out of the "danger zone" for the entire time, you can safely hold the defrosted kebobs in the fridge for a day or two. So if they defrost a day before you need them, it's not a problem.


How can I get rid of as much oil from my schnitzel after deep-frying it?

Heat your oil to 375 F (190 C).  Use a oil or candy thermometer to make sure you maintain that temp.  Fry your schnitzel.  Once cooked, make sure to drain by holding over the pan...or use a basket or skimmer to shake excess oil from the cooked schnitzel.  Remove as much excess oil this way as possible.  Move to absorbent paper.  The combination of the right temperature, and removing excess surface oil will help greatly.


Can Fresh unboiled egg pasta be used for lasagna?

Like Bob said, surely boiling some noodles is way less of a bother than breaking out the pasta machine?

If you really want to make fresh pasta, I don't see any reason you couldn't use it for lasagna without boiling it - the reason one boils dry noodles is because it's hard to get them to soften in the time it takes to bake the lasagna. But just like when cooking fresh noodles, you need to be careful not to overcook it, so make sure all your fillings are fully cooked before you start layering. It also should be perfectly fine to not cut the noodles into strips - the reason dried noodles come that way is for easier handling.

It is possible to make lasagna using dried lasagna noodles without boiling them first, but you need to add more water and bake it longer. A search for "no-boil lasagna" will turn up scores of recipes.


How to prepare rice in rice cooker so it won't become sticky or clumpy, like Indian takeout in the US?

First, use basmati rice.  Then, rinse your rice very well.  Place rice in bowl, fill with cold water, drain, repeat until the water runs clear. I find that using the correct variety of rice, combined with good rinsing, helps keep the long grains separate.


How to get cheese melted without burning grilled cheese

Try using a different cheese that melts better; try Gouda, Gruyère, Jalsberg or similar. Most Swiss cheese melts well.


Yes, you would remove the peas from the pods.  Chocolate and Zucchini shows how to do it efficiently.

And no, the pods are not normally eaten, although according to The Splendid Table you can.


Baking Dark Chocolate in Cookies Without Burning Them

Dark chocolate is actually more heat resistant than other kinds. Milk chocolate can scorch at 115° F / 46° C or higher; semi-sweet can have problems at 125° F / 52° C or so. It's mainly the dark chocolate that can withstand temperatures as high as 140° F / 60° C.

I think there are two misconceptions to clear up here, those being:

Baking at 350° F does not mean you are raising the internal temperature to anywhere even close to 350° F. Even yeast breads are not baked to an internal temperature higher than around 200° F, and it's much lower for soft breads and especially cookies. It's hard to find much data on the recommended internal temperature for cookies, but I'd estimate it to be around 160° F simply for food safety reasons.
Just because a food can burn above a certain temperature, does not mean that it will happen immediately. Just as heating oil slightly above its smoke point does not immediately result in flames and rancid taste, heating chocolate above the aforementioned temperatures will not immediately cause it to scorch. What it means is that chocolate can be sustained in a melted state indefinitely at lower temperatures, but raising the temperature further will cause it to eventually scorch. The higher the temperature, the less time it will take.

These "scorching" temperatures are mainly cautions against direct stovetop or microwave heating; with these methods it is easy to get the temperature very high, very fast. When you bake cookies, you are applying very slow, gradual heat; if the temperature of the chips even gets as high as 140° F, it won't stay that high for very long. It's not enough to burn, and that is why even milk chocolate or white chocolate chips tend to do fine in cookies.

So just bake them, and don't worry. The cookies themselves will probably scorch before the chocolate does.

P.S. As SAJ14SAJ writes in the comments, this assumes that you bake the cookies on some kind of insulating material like parchment or a baking mat. There is a risk of burning if you bake them directly on a metal tray and the chocolate comes into direct contact with it, as it will then heat up very quickly to approximately the same temperature as the tray. So don't do that - if you use a metal tray or cookie sheet, make sure there's something between that and your cookies. They bake from the ambient heat in the oven, and don't really need direct heat from the tray.


Should rice be washed with hot water or cold water?

It is usually recommended that basmati and jasmine not be rinsed because they are not overly starchy and the taste is better unrinsed. American style short grain rice and japanese rice is usually rinsed to provide a cleaner flavor, but this can also wash away some of the vitamin fortification. Do not rinse risotto rice, since the starchiness is important to the dish.

When you do rinse rice, the purpose is to clean it and reduce the starch, but not to cook it, so cold water is probably best, but it likely does not matter much.

In the end, rinsing or not is not terribly noticeable, and mostly comes down to taste. You will definitely see both sides argued well. To me, this usually means either way is fine.


What's the difference between gazpacho and normal soups?

Gazpacho is possibly Spain's most famous chilled soup. The main difference aside form the temperature is that it's raw, meaning that the soup is not actually cooked it's just blended and chopped vegetables and occasionally bread. There is nothing inherently wrong with heating up gazpacho but it would lose its fresh texture and flavour which is why it's chilled and according to Wikipedia was popular with labourers who used it to:

  "cool off during the summer and to use available ingredients such as fresh vegetables and stale bread"

The main reason you couldn't just chill a normal soup and call it gazpacho is because gazpacho is made up of by no means just tomato. It contains tomatoes, a bit of garlic, cucumber, occasionally bread, some vinegar for tang and a drizzle of olive oil at the end.

If you wanted to make it your own (after all you're the chef!) you could add some Tabasco, bell peppers, spring onions or croutons at the end, basically anything you might find in a salsa dip. Use your common sense for what not to add but even in Spain they have variations that are not at all like what I would think of as gazpacho: in La Mancha they use it like a stew and add game (usually rabbit) and even wild mushrooms!

Hope this helps and gives you some inspiration, if you want a recipe a quick search on Google gives a multitude of results.


What did I do to make the chocolate bloom like this?

My best guess is that the chocolate was too hot.  It may have worked on your test because it was small and thin, and therefore cooled quickly.  In the larger molds, it stayed too warm and you got the wrong kind of crystals from the cocoa butter.

You want the keep the chocolate as close to 88 °F (~ 32 °C) as you can get.  What I typically do is microwave 3/4 of the chocolate at 50% power until it's pretty much melted (just a few stubborn bits remaining), then add the other 1/4 of the chocolate and stir to melt.  Sometimes it has to go back in the microwave to completely melt the last 1/4, but only about 5 seconds at a time.  Very short bursts.


What is the difference between a Dutch Pot (Dutchie) and a Potjie?

I cannot speak for the Caribbean version but a traditional South African Potjie is more like a cauldron that a pot. It has three legs so as to be able to stand on its own.

Conventional wisdom dictates that you would not use a potjie in an oven seeing as that hurts the pot. Another differences is in the size. You get the standard number 3 Potjie that is the most common and then also the number two pots and the number one.

The number one pot is truly fantastic to use.


Generally, no. The reason recipes get advertised as "refrigerator pickles" is that they don't fulfill the requirements for being shelf-stable after canning. If you want shelf-stable pickles, follow a standard recipe which includes canning instructions, not a recipe for refrigerator pickles.


Chicken didn't retain flavour from marinade

The scientific foundation for this answer is in the fantastic post pointed out in the comments here.

How can I better ensure that the flavour seeps into the meat more
uniformly?

Basically there are two parts to this problem, as pointed out by the other post - one part is the composition of your flavor components that you want to penetrate the meat, and as discussed at length in the original post, more lipossoluble molecules and smaller molecules penetrate the meat better; the other one is the surface area to volume ratio of your chicken, for the molecules that will have more difficulty in reaching the deep confines of the chicken, so in that case, the smaller pieces of chicken you use, the better.

This is essentially the scientific foundation for why wings and legs are more flavorful than breast, especially when it is a whole chicken.

How do I prevent "spotty" flavouring in the future?

Either change the composition of your marinade (this one is very water soluble and has a lot of big flavor molecules) or cut your chicken in smaller pieces (so the surface area to volume ratio is better).

If you want to change the composition of your marinade to include more oil-soluble substances, I advise you to use buttermilk as a liquid, since it has a larger oil-to-water ratio and it will be a better solvent for your additional spices and ingredients. For a suggestion on the ingredients, the chili family in general contains capsaicin which is liposoluble and gives the spicy kick; black pepper, anise, cloves and nutmeg all contain eugenol, which is a small molecule and also has a good solubility in fat and gives the aromatic aspect; you can also use roasted sesame oil for the smokey depth and an Asian-like feel.

Would poking the chicken, just to break the skin, have helped?

If it is just breaking the skin, not really. What really helps is injecting, so you get more surface for your brine to permeate the chicken.


I have been making cinnamon rolls professionally for 10 years. I have done both traditional cinnamon rolls and gluten-free cinnamon rolls, and the only time xanthan gum was included was in the dough for the gluten-free rolls. Normally the inside is gooey because the butter and sugar (and some moisture that the sugar pulls out of the dough) combine and form what is basically a heavy syrup inside the roll (cinnamon also contains/releases some gums of its own, but their effect is probably negligible due to the short cooking time). Xanthan gum would function to make sort of a sauce of your smear, but there really shouldn't even be enough moisture there for the gum to absorb.

If you're having trouble with the smear sinking out of the roll as they cook, you can try using less butter in your smear, or just using sugar and cinnamon and only brushing the exterior with butter. Butter melting will cause separation between the layers, whereas the sugar cooking will stick them together. A far out option would be to include some powdered sugar to help soak up the extra moisture (but again, just don't include extra moisture!). Xanthan gum shouldn't be necessary at all unless you're making a recipe specifically to be frozen raw or trying to make a separate caramel sauce (which still shouldn't need it!)

Since the question now appears to be specifically about Cinnabon cinnamon rolls, according to one of their spokespeople, they don't include xanthan gum. They do include both invert sugar, which helps to keep sugar syrups smooth and is very gooey on it's own, and modified corn starch, which is a thickener and gelling agent. A lot of ingredients in a commercial product, like Cinnabon, are only there for ease of handling such large quantities and to help ensure consistency in freezing, thawing, shipping, etc. For instance, if you were going to mass produce dough and freeze it, you'd need azodicarbonamide to keep your dough supple. Making dough at home or in a restaurant, there would be no advantage to using it. As such, the usage level is usually between .25% and .5% for most gums, but the usage would be based more on how long the dough is frozen, how quickly it's frozen, etc rather than a ratio with other ingredients.


Which Type of Japanese Green Tea Has the Highest Amount of Caffeine?

From what I've read, caffeine content can be variable even within varieties. There are possibly seasonal variations, variations in harvesting and processing technique, variations in the original plants... Psychological effects (e.g. what smells perky to you) might be just as strong, and steeping for 10 minutes instead of 5 might make as much difference as any choice of variant. So take any answer with a grain of salt, and don't be afraid to simply go with what seems to subjectively work best for you.

That said, gyokuro is supposed to be stronger than other sencha teas, and I believe compared to other Japanese green teas as well. (I found similar information elsewhere; it's not just wikipedia.)


I've started keeping mine on a wiki. Google Docs would probably be a great alternative for someone who doesn't want to set up a server somewhere.


How much food for a tasting event? How big of samples?

Do you perchance have the time to do a "dry run" with some friends? You may find it useful to initiate a series of platings with structured feedback questions that can be answered easily (yes/no, on a scale of 1-4 rate X...), and maybe a free response if you feel like it. Serve in the environment closest to where people will eventually be eating the food(outside ?) Change one "thing" or variable each time you present your quartet. For example:

Series 1- This will be your "control" plate.  Present this with no frills...or like you had to whip up 30 extras on the fly

Series 2- Variable to change: portion size/shape (increase/decrease/change shape)

Ask: Did you want more? (Y/N)
       Could you fit all this in your mouth at once? (Y/N) What were your initial impressions?

Series 3-Variable to change: plating time prior to consumption (+2 minutes)

Ask: Is this food at a pleasant temperature?  Was it too hot/cold? Did you notice any textural/color/flavor changes 2 minutes/5 minutes after it was plated?

I'm sure you get the picture.  My thoughts are that small mock-release could provide you with some fast and practical information. I would hate to realize that the portion size/presentation adversely impacted consumer experience, or that some other delicate service nuance could throw off your culinary compositions.  Good luck.


The question is "what is language and why the people cannot stick to one original name?" ;)

What could be find under "white/sweet cumin" is actually aniseed (and sometimes it's called green cumin). What is "green cumin" is dill seeds.

The way to go is to look for latin name or the look of it. What could be more troublesome is difference between Roman Cumin and Persian Cumin (very, very very often treated as same thing). Roman cumin is much more mild than Persian (or sometimes even called Turkish) one.

White cumin might be regular cumin just looking "whiteish" because of the place of origin but might also be aniseed but it could be lost in translation of the recipe.


Your instinct to avoid eating them was spot on. As you probably already know, any type of float, even slight, and you're better off chucking them in the bin.

As for the chalaza, it certainly can be more prominent in some eggs but if you see mottled discolouration inside the yolk that's not attached to it, that can indicate:

  Worming drugs and compounds piperazine, dibutyltin dilaurate and citrate;
  The anticoccidial drug Nicarbazin;
  Certain antioxidants such as gallic acid and tannic acid;
  Feeding hens raw soybean meal;
  Calcium deficiency in the hens' diet;
  Thin egg shells;
  Can be hereditary.

source: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/common-egg-quality-problems.65923/

As for the pink discolouration:

  "Pink or iridescent egg white (albumen) indicates spoilage due to Pseudomonas bacteria. Some of these microorganisms—which produce a greenish, fluorescent, water-soluble pigment—are harmful to humans."
  source: https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/egg-products-preparation/shell-eggs-from-farm-to-table/ct_index


How is this machine used? (for, I think, peeling the skin from the tomatoes)

That's a manually operated Food Mill/Ricer/Puree-Maker.

The Wikipedia Article for Food Mill shows a pic of the same model you have and from that article:

  Uses of a food mill include removing the seeds from cooked tomatoes,
  removing pulp or larger pieces from foods (creating apple jelly or any
  type of purée), and making mashed potatoes or
  spätzle.

It's not likely that you could uses this for peeling the skin from tomatoes though.


How to keep edible cookie dough soft after refrigerated?

Since most recipes use butter, I'm going to guess that's what you're using.

Think about butter in the fridge... what's it like? It's hard. Stiff.

Well, that's why your dough is getting hard. So, you have a couple of solutions.

Replace the butter with a fat that's softer when cold instead of using butter. Perhaps coconut oil?
Portion the dough before you put it into the fridge and let your portion warm back up to room temperature before eating it.

For me, I'd go with option two because I'd be worried about the texture when the cookies were warm, which would be much softer than they are currently, and I'd be worried about changing the flavor. If you're using the dough in something really cold - like ice cream - then option 1 would probably be fine for your needs.


How to whip up a small quantity of Italian meringue?

Grab a bowl, put a folded towel under it in the way the bowl becomes tilted. This will make it easy to whip, because the whites will concentrate in just one side of the bowl (thank you, gravity!); you also won`t have to use one hand to hold the bowl. With one hand free, you can pour the sugar syrup.

Jamie Oliver has a YouTube video doing some aioli this way. You just need to practice, and for me the most difficult thing is to whip it by hand without injuring your wrist.


How do you keep dehydrated broth (powder) from clumping?

The clumping is a result of air and moisture entering the container with the substance. This especially happens if you pour the mix directly from the container over a hot dish - the steam enters and immediately clumps the spices. What you can do is to transfer your mix into a new dry and airtight container. Hope this helps :)


How do you fry a fat, uneven salmon filet?

Bake it in the oven instead.

Start in a frying pan to sear the skin and put in a pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes.

Be careful to get the fish out of the fridge for 10, 20 minutes before cooking it so that its temperature is not too cold so that it cooks more evenly.

Can't you slice the filet to make 2 1-in filet ?


What exactly do all the extra modes on my oven do?

Okay, both of the answers from Greybeard and Manu have part of it.  I know this is an old question, but I assume others with fancy ovens may wonder about such settings too.  Let's put it all together.

ROAST - note that for this oven, ROAST is a convection setting.  Although the manual doesn't state this explicitly, generally convection ovens with a ROAST setting combine heat from the convection element along with the top and bottom heating elements that would normally be activated on a non-convection BAKE setting.  The difference is that convection BAKE usually employs only the heating element near the fan (the convection element) to avoid excessive browning for baked goods and such.  Thus, in convection BAKE, the heat is primarily transferred only via air circulation.  But in convection ROAST there is radiant heat from the top and bottom elements as well, which will help to brown meats and such.  (For the record, BROIL under convection will typically employ the top heating element as well as the convection fan element, but no bottom element.)
EASY CONVECT - this one is explained clearly in the manual.  Or, well, maybe it's not explained clearly, but the explanation there implies what it does.  Essentially, you need to make adjustments when cooking via convection compared to traditional baking.  The air circulation can cause the surface of foods to heat up faster, which may lead to excessive browning (e.g., for many baked goods) or excessive drying out (e.g., for meats in some circumstances).  Normally, you need to convert a recipe from "standard" non-circulating air to "convection" yourself, usually by adjusting the temperature down (often by 25-50 degrees F) and sometimes decreasing cook time.  This oven allows you to simply enter the type of food you have -- MEATS, BAKED GOODS, or OTHER (which includes convenience frozen foods) -- and then enter the typical temperature and time you'd use for a standard recipe with a normal non-convection oven.  In this case, apparently the oven won't listen to you, but instead will do some magical math conversion that decreases the time and temp to try to approximate the way you should cook the dish using convection.  (For example, you tell your oven to bake at 350F for 30 minutes, and it instead chooses to back at 325F for 20 minutes.)  So rather than guessing on how to convert a recipe from "standard bake" to convection, you can let your oven guess for you!  Easy!  (Apparently...)
SLOW COOK - This one is the hardest to find clear info on, because these settings tend to do different things in different ovens.  This review of a Kitchenaid oven (which may be the model OP has) with the SLOW COOK setting claims it "keeps food just above the keep-warm temperature, providing an alternative to a countertop slow cooker."  I believe the clue here is in mentioning the KEEP WARM feature.  You see, most modern ovens have a minimum temperature of about 170F, because lower temperatures will not heat food fast enough to prevent food poisoning (and can allow it to remain in the danger zone below 130F for far too long).  Apparently the KEEP WARM setting on some Kitchenaid ovens however can go as low as 145F.  (Note in the manual that these settings come with a big warning about food poisoning when using them.)  The important thing is that these fancy Kitchenaid ovens are capable of lower heat settings.  Anyhow, one complaint about oven SLOW COOK settings compared to crock pots is that they often heat too quickly, and the food thus spends too much time at a high temperature.  My guess from the description in the above review is that these ovens in SLOW COOK mode attempt to avoid this problem by gradually increasing the temperature over a longer time span.  Another possibility is that I've seen some ovens even disable the possibility of temperatures lower than 200F or even 225F (again, likely to prevent food poisoning).  I can't find any specs on Kitchenaid ovens that state the "normal" temperature range allowed for the BAKE setting, but it's possible that they only allow very low temperatures (as low as 170F) to be entered specifically for the SLOW COOK setting, ensuring that people are consciously employing it and supposedly following the manual's recommendations for time and temperature for safety.  (I had a fancy slow cooker a few years back -- might have even been a Kitchenaid, but I can't recall -- that wouldn't even allow you to set it on "Low" with a time less than 8 hours, likely for similar legal liability reasons.)


You're close.  In actual fact, however, most of the commercial soy sauces and other Chinese sauces you buy are not fermented at all; they're acid-hydrolyzed.

Fermented soy sauce (or other soy-based sauces) are actually translucent and fairly light in colour.  But fermentation takes months, so manufacturers hydrolyze instead.  The process is completely chemical, and involves boiling the beans in a strong acid and then neutralizing with a strong base (normally, hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide).

This process makes a much stronger, glutamate-heavy sauce than natural fermentation.  It also produces a much darker colour.  That's why so many of the sauces you see are dark.

Some of the sauces aren't actually hydrolyzed or fermented but will contain artificial colour, if you look at the ingredients.  I guess the manufacturers figure that consumers are so used to the dark colour that they would be suspicious if it wasn't there.

Here is a picture of naturally brewed soy sauce:

Compare to the commercial hydrolyzed kind:

Some brands, like Kikkoman, claim to be naturally-brewed, but the colour suggests otherwise; either they do something to speed up the fermentation process or they're adding colouring.

Note: As requested, I've updated the original image to one I found of a bowl of what certainly appears to be the hydrolyzed kind, in order to give an "apples to apples" comparison.  However, it's hard to find a picture of a bowl of soy sauce that tells you which brand it is, other than the Kikkoman, whose origin is questionable.

For the sake of completeness, there is also one other reason why soy sauce might be very dark (other than actual "dark soy sauce" which contains molasses), which is that the sauce might actually be from black soybeans.  Those are not common, however, and unless a sauce specifically says that it is from black soybeans, it probably is not.


If I am blending parsley for soup, can I use the parsley whole or should I still remove the stems?

There is a lot of flavor in parsley stems, as is true of most "soft" herbs.  In my kitchen, if it is soft/palatable, I use it.


Soaked red split lentils overnight for tadka dal. Proportion water to boil them in by weight? Any way to prevent the foam-up?

I cook red lentils in two ways: an excess of water and drain, or top up the water until they're done. In the latter case add any stock/wine etc. at the beginning, then top up with water from the kettle as necessary. This works for anything from lentil and tomato soup to dhal. It reduces foaming but doesn't eliminate it completely, turning the heat down to a low simmer and using a large pan are the best ways to prevent the foam escaping. I usually use a lid which helps a lot by reducing evaporation, but I tend to be quite a hands-on cook so topping up suits me.

Red lentils don't need soaking, by the way (not that it does any harm).


Large mesh cheesecloth? Straining pulp (not juice) from plums for jam

I use nylon straining bags for making wine. You can get them in various sizes at homebrew stores. (for example: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/nylon-straining-bag-18-x-32-coarse-mesh.html) I'm sure they'd do the trick for what you need. Although this may only work for passing juice, you might inquire at your local homebrew store if they have a slightly larger mesh size.


In pressure canning, the USDA says:

  Air trapped in a pressure canner lowers the temperature obtained for a given pressure (for example, 10 or 15 pounds pressure) and results in underprocessing. To be safe, USDA recommends that all pressure canners must be vented 10 minutes before they are pressurized.

Which might be where your dad borrowed that idea from. The effect in that case is more from the air taking up space that should be filled with steam, and preventing it from being filled with steam (rather, being filled with a steam/air mixture), making the transfer of heat from steam to jars less effective.


Does handling a lot of flour cause fingernails to break?

If this has never happened before and only seems to be an issue with your fingernails (versus excessive dryness in other skin or areas) I'd say it's either:

a. Flour will absorb moisture from your hands if you're spending a lot of time handmixing or kneading.

b. You're probably washing your hands a lot to remove the flour (and other food particles) and excessive washing with hot water and soap will also dry out your hands.

There are moisturizers that you can purchase specifically to help with your nails. Might not hurt to apply those after you're done with your baking for the day. Also try wearing a thin glove that will allow you to manipulate the dough but keep your hands from being directly in the flour and food. If neither of these things help, you'll want to see a doctor.


A book I have (Thai Food by David Thompson - a fantastic book, by the way) suggests washing pork and even blanching in boiling water for any dishes involving boiling/stewing/poaching, as it creates a clearer broth with a clearer flavour (author's words, not mine).

I have found I am less likely to get scum and surface impurities in the dish as it cooks.


Nope, Jamon Serrano should not smell bad. It can be normal for it to have mold on the very outer surface, which is generally harmless and can just be scrubbed off, but a foul smell means that there is something wrong. I'm afraid your ham is trash.


Raw fish pieces have stuck to each other in freezer. How to take out few pieces of fish without disturbing other pieces?

The only best option is complete thaw to get them in good shape and in one piece, but that is not an option for you.

Next one up is the quick and sloppy method. But it will distroy the shape of the fish, hence the name.

My tip: Wrap the pieces of fish in a cling film/kitchen foil individually next time before freezing. That will most certainly allow you to take a few pieces out without thawing or using knife/wedge etc.


How to tell if sausage package swollen or just taut

If you can tell us, "They smell fine" then you have since opened the package. It is not uncommon for air to be trapped in those plastic wrap trays. Since we can't see or smell it the only way to answer your question is: "Is $4.00 worth of sausage worth a few extra trips to the bathroom?" If it smells 'ok' then it is unlikely to be 'dangerous' ... but only you can make that call.


Yes, you should have let the dough come to room temperature before baking.  Also, you might try pre-heating the Dutch oven so that it is really hot before adding in your loaves.


The theory is to pasteurize them sous-vide at 57ºC for 1:15'. You must be able to control the temperature, so specialized equipment is needed (ronner or similar).

The resulting egg has a different texture than ordinary (and I believe it tastes more 'yolky').

I've kept homemade mayo for more than two weeks without problem (off smell / taste).

Custards are heated, so no pasteurized eggs are needed, just like hollandaise sauce.


Low tech strategies for keeping food warm

A couple options spring to mind.

One way is, as ChrisH mentions, simple insulation, using layers of straw and blankets would be the most portable options.  I also recall that during that time items could be kept warm by burying them, or using an earthen oven to trap heat and keep something warm for hours, but these will tend not to be portable :)

To seal a pot containing said food, you can make a simple dough and use it to seal a lid on to a pot - this will keep moisture trapped, keeping the food from drying out, as well as keeping some more heat in (from steam, instead of letting it out).  Sealed pots were not really common in medieval times, metal pots would not be common or portable enough to use like this, but the basic principle was used, they would have food sealed in crusts.  In this case, the crust would be broken into and the contents just spooned out, since many of the crusts, especially for larger dishes, were thick and tough, and might even be scorched on the outside from long or repeated cooking, not very tasty.  They were not intended to be eaten as part of the dish, they might be used for breadcrumbs in a later dish or given away, as the crust would need to be sturdy, thick, able to seal the contents from air, and able to withstand the reheating process, and so the crust wouldn't need, or want, to be tender or flavorful or even part of the dish in its own right.

Another thing you might try, in addition to insulation, would be to store and add heat either while traveling or afterwards - something like a hot water bottle, though at that level of technology it would more likely be hot rocks, which would work to keep the food warm.  Depending on the insulation, method of travel, and dish involved they could even let the dish continue cooking while it traveled - something like stew or beans would be better for this, or really any dishes with extended cooking times.  If you have enough rocks (enough thermal mass) in a very well-insulated container, they could stay hot for hours, likely enough to warm the food once you're ready to set up.  You could try adding water to them once the food's set up over them, this would let the heat transfer quickly through steam or boiling water.  Transporting hot rocks, etc, with the food container will keep everything hot longer, transporting them separately will mean the food won't keep cooking while in transit, for more delicate dishes.


What makes fleur de sel different from regular salt?

I'm not 100% sure but I found this site that explains what fleur de sel is. It says that

  Like other sea salts, fleur de sel is harvested by evaporating sea water. However, to harvest fleur de sel, workers gently skim the top layer of the sea salt from partially evaporated pools, before it sinks to the bottom again. These salt crystals are very fine, light, and delicate, and must be handled with care and exposed to minimal moisture, or they will clump again.

It looks like you are reproducing how fleur de sel is made, through boiling the water which is the equivalent to "evaporating sea water".


Cutting windows into a premade gingerbread

Very, very carefully.

Although that's rather tongue in cheek, it's true: slowly and carefully is the key approach. The quicker you try to move, the rougher the shape you produce. You also significantly increase the chance of breakage.

Make an initial rough hole at the center point of your eventual window area, and then cut out to finish the edges. A serrated knife used with a slow, steady sawing motion should work.

Luckily, if you do end up with lopsided, misshapen, or unexpected results, icing and candy decoration can help hide the mistakes :)


Which cooking device allows flexible temperature programming?

You can easily (and very accurately) do this with an immersion circulator, such as Joule or Anova.  In fact, your application is an excellent one for what has become known as cooking "sous vide."


Is it okay to keep opened loose leaf tea packages in the freezer?

There's a lot of disagreement on this question online, much of it uninformed.  There are also a lot of assumptions that seem to go along with the question of freezing.

First of all, despite warnings on many tea websites, let's be clear that tea producers and shippers frequently keep tea refrigerated or frozen for long-term storage.  It's true that in those cases, we're talking about vacuum-sealed containers often with nitrogen gas or some other way of lowering moisture.  Moisture is an enemy of loose-leaf tea.  So the question is not whether or not you can store teas in a freezer: obviously, major tea sellers do sometimes.  The question is how to do it properly.

Some would claim it's impossible.  Some reasons:

freezing will harm the cell structure and damage the tea
you'll get too much condensation, which will degrade the tea
you'll get freezer burn from freeze/thaw cycles
odors from the freezer will permeate your tea

The first thing is a bit true, which is why major Asian tea producers (to my knowledge) tend to go with storage around 5C or so.  But the trade-off (as with much frozen food) is that you get the tea to last a lot longer in the freezer than at room temperature or in the fridge.  So yes, keeping tea in the freezer is probably not as good as serving it fresh from the package in the first few weeks or even few months.  But for longer-term storage, the freezer will keep the quality higher than storage at higher temperatures.

As for the other concerns, most of them have to do with poor storage containers and methods, not freezing itself.  You will want to store tea in a container with as much air removed as possible.  So some sort of sealing bag that can conform to the amount of tea is probably better than a rigid container.  On the other hand, you need a completely sealed container to keep odors, etc. out, so if necessary, you might try a sealed bag inside of a more rigid sealed container for an extra layer of protection (if you're not confident in the seal of the bag you're using).  Freezer burn is unique to freezing, but it can be mitigated by the same precautions, as well as storing tea deeper in the freezer where it is not as likely to experience freeze/thaw cycles (as opposed to on the door).

For obvious reasons related to the above, you shouldn't store tea intended for daily use in the freezer.  Pulling the container in and out of the freezer will expose the tea repeatedly to warm, humid air, which will lead to degradation.  Your plan to keep the long-term bulk storage in the freezer, while keeping smaller quantities at higher temperature is good one.

Nevertheless, most sites assume you'll store your tea improperly, in which case freezing is probably not a good option.  But you don't need to go to extremes with commercial packaging to make freezing viable.  Here's a page with some actual experimental data about storing green teas at various temperatures, and they didn't use nitrogen/low oxygen/special low moisture packaging for freezing or anything.  They found freezing green tea was best for long storage, refrigeration was also good but changed the tea a bit, and room temperature tea degraded most over time.  (In several searches, I was unable to find any similar experiment that showed significant problems with freezing, as long as packaging was sufficient.)

Also keep in mind the guidelines listed there (and elsewhere) for warming up frozen tea.  If you pull a container out of the freezer and open it up, moisture will rush in along with the humid air and condense on the tea leaves, which can cause them to degrade.  Instead, it's best to wait a day or so (depending on size of bulk container) for tea to come up to room temperature, then use the tea.  Ideally, it would be best to perhaps store frozen tea in individual packages with the amount you would want to thaw each time.  (Even individual airtight bags inside a larger even more airtight container could work.)

If you don't want to go to that trouble, you'll have to play off the advantages/disadvantages of how to remove the tea from the bulk container.  If you open it up without letting the whole bulk package thaw, the moist air each time will contribute to problems.  But if you do let it completely thaw, the tea will undergo more freeze/thaw cycles, which will also harm it over time.  If you're relatively quick with removing tea and are sure to get as much air out as possible before returning to the freezer, I'd probably go with the former method (not thawing the whole package), rather than make the tea undergo more temperature fluctuations.

However, with all this in mind, I'd probably start by following the procedure you tend to use with your refrigerated tea that you're currently happy with.

Oh, lastly regarding oxidation: although I couldn't find any good sources on this quickly, my guess is that black teas compared to other teas will be more stable if stored in the freezer, just as they are at room temperature.  With greens, oxidation will be a lot slower in the freezer than at room temperature (or even in the fridge).  As long as you avoid freeze/thaw cycles as much as possible, as well as keep excess air/moisture out, it should allow your tea to stay fresh much longer.


If the sugar is just damp -not wet beach sand- tip it through a sieve/strainer gently enough to catch the clumps. These lumps can be air-dried in a shallow layer (not humid conditions) then once again into a strainer and rubbed through to separate. Or just enjoy the homemade 'cubes' with your tea.


Can agar-agar be used in fondant icing in place of gelatin?

Yes, there are several vegetarian fondant recipes using agar. Most tend to substitute it for gelatin in equal amounts.

Keep in mind two things:

Agar has a much higher melting point and sets firmer than gelatin, so the resulting icing will be less "melty".
The hydration process is completely different from gelatin. It doesn't bloom; it needs to be dispersed in cold/warm water and then heated all the way up to 90° C with constant agitation.

I'd recommend that you include the glycerin in any agar-based fondant recipes - they'll make it a lot easier to work with. Some gelatin recipes leave it out but IME you need it more for agar.


Why is grocery store celery trimmed of its leaves?

You did not disclose your location, but here are some reasons:

It is an opportunity taken by the producer to increase the price. They can sell the product as-is, or process it further and sell it for more (ex. whole onions vs diced onions, the diced onions will be more expensive for the same amount). Sure they need to spend a little more time fabricating it, but they can also sell it for higher profit margins. This is called value added.
Where you live, celery leaves are simply not used as an ingredient. Before you went to Asia, did you ever hear of people adding celery leaves in their food? I've worked in restaurants for five years, and indeed we always cut the leaves off and threw them away. We didn't need to use it. Not once did we have a recipe that called for it.
It is the part of the celery that spoils the fastest. Even if the rest of the celery is fine and all you need to do is cut off the leaves, it is harder for the provider to sell celery with leaves that brown quickly versus selling celery without.


I take a piece of aluminum foil, crumple it up then smooth it out somewhat still leaving slight concave and convex angles for the fries to crisp evenly without the need of flipping halfway through baking.


Short answer: no, there's no standard scale.

First of all, I'm pretty sure it's common enough for stoves of varying power to use the same range of numbers. I see an awful lot of stoves that go up to 10 in the US, and I'm quite confident they're not all the same.

Second, the real property of a stove is its power output, not its temperature. You can clearly see this if you go look at gas stoves - they're described in units of power (BTUs in the US, hooray). The temperature resulting from a given power will depend greatly on what you're cooking. A burner with nothing on it will have a much higher temperature than one with a heavy pot of boiling water on it. To a lesser degree, the temperature will also depend on the environment - a cooler room with some air circulation will keep the burner a bit cooler than a warm room with still air.

So, if you really want to know what you're getting, you have to look up the power output of the stove - or failing that, maybe try to measure it yourself.


You get better through concentration and lack of distractions. Just as you shouldn't eat while watching TV. You'll miss all the flavors.
Sit back. Take small samples. Let it lay or slosh around in your mouth for a while--several seconds at least. Think about what you taste and feel.
Soon you will find those one-tone flavors have a background to them or a subtle second or third flavor coming out of nowhere.
After a while, you'll start noticing those underlying flavors every time you use that ingredient and notice it missing when you have a not-so-good variety.


Yes, certainly, but it won't do as much good as you might expect. It takes a surprisingly large amount of meat to add significant beef flavor to beef stock.

If you want to go ahead, be sure to brown the extra meat, to get maximum umami flavor out of it. (You will want to brown the bones, too; I'd roast them in the oven.) Another way to add extra beef flavor is to throw in some ground beef, which has the nice benefit of giving up its flavor quickly.

But it might be better to throw it all in a gallon ziplock and stick it in the freezer. Keep accumulating bones, then make a potful of stock all at once. (You can keep them for months, or even longer. The biggest worry of freezing meat is freezer burn, which isn't a problem if you're just making stock.)


What made my veggie scrap broth turn very bitter?

Both the broccoli stem and the lemon are likely culprits - they probably accentuate each other in a bad way. The lemon (pith) will definitely add a bitter taste on its own - as Spagirl mentioned, the zest and the juice are the non-bitter parts that you would add if you wanted lemon flavor without the bitterness. The broccoli stems are surely not helping either, though - I have added broccoli stems to broth and it was inedibly bitter. Everybody has different bitterness acceptability thresholds, and these thresholds can be shifted for various foods. It's possible you're more accepting of broccoli bitterness on its own than I am, but when combined with the lemon bitterness, it may bring it past your tolerable level. Or perhaps you added too many this time, or the broccoli was more bitter than your previous batch.

I would definitely recommend eliminating the lemon pith from future recipes to be safe, and recognizing that different heads of broccoli can have differing bitterness strengths depending on growing conditions, and act accordingly (See links below). Everything else on your ingredient list are non-bittering soup ingredients (barring food that has gone bad). Fennel, carrots, and sugar snaps sweeten broths, and onions and scallions flavor them (without making them bitter).

Link that explains that broccoli grown in hot and dry conditions appears to taste more bitter: https://qr.ae/TDDHbt

And you could blanch the broccoli stems (in case they're a bitter batch) before adding them to a broth: https://www.livestrong.com/article/476765-how-to-remove-bitterness-from-cooked-broccoli/

Edit to add: if you want to use up lemon peels, you can toss them with sugar to make a non-heated, non-bitter lemon syrup. It's incredibly useful and one of the best kitchen discoveries I've made:

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/03/fresh-lemon-syrup-recipe.html