When to cook week old moose meat? I have obtained a large chunk of approximately week old moose meat that has been never stored in a freezer. I'm planning to eat it during the next week or two.

I cut it to 8 smaller steak-sized chunks, and cut 4 of those into small bits of which I'm going to make moose stew with carrots and onions. I'm just fried the small bits in my frying pan, and am currently making the stew in my pot.

The trouble is, I don't have a large frying pan or a large pot. I only have one small pot which I have free to use for the moose stew. The small bits of half of the moose meat fit in there with carrots and onions.

What should I do for the 4 other steak-sized chunks?

Should I just store them unfried in the refrigerator and cook when I need to, which will be approximately week from now? (Currently they are in the refrigerator, but I can always fry them in my frying pan that is free now.)
Should I fry them in my frying pan and store them in the refrigerator after frying them?

I want to maximize the amount of time the meat stays edible. If it stays edible for only one week from now, I have to eat moose meat every day. If it stays edible for two weeks, I can eat moose meat only every other day.

I of course theoretically have the option of just storing the rest in my freezer, but my freezer (or actually two freezers) are half full with frozen moose meat!

Do you know what part of the animal is included in your cuts?

If you intend to cook it all as stew meat, then I would advise to cut it now and freeze (wherever you can find space).

If you coat the steaks in salt, they will probably last a bit longer in the fridge without getting too smelly.

The only way I would recommend pre-cooking to extend life, is a roast, which should enable meat to last an extra week in the refrigerator. But, if your cuts of meat are not suitable to roasting, then that might be terrible to eat.

The final option - which is again, a waste of good moose meat - would be jerky. I can't advise on jerky techniques. Never made it.


Why are my beets not fermenting? My first attempt (RAW BEETS) - large mason jars, 2 tbsp sea salt, water up to 1" below lid.  After a week I opened the lid to "burp" the gas out, but there was nothing, no fizz, just dead beets in room temperature water.  I got sketched out and threw them out.

2nd try (COOKED BEETS)- I tried using 2 tbsp whey which I rendered from yogurt plus a tbsp of sea salt, after 3 days, same thing, no gas or fizz just warm salty dead beets.

My house is always at 70 degrees.

I am very disappointed. I have had great success with carrots in the past.

any insight would be appreciated.

You do not give the ratio of salt to liquid or salt to weight of your veggies so with that missing info I may (but do not think so) be wrong.  The only way they would not be fermenting is that you used too much salt and they are salt preserved instead of fermented preserved.  Still edible but entirely different tast plus they will be soft if this is the case.

Your ratio of salt to vegtables ought to be in the neighborhood of 1 to 3 tablespoons salt per quart of water. Or if you are doing shredded vegtables do not add water, add 1 1/3 tablespoon salt per lb of vegetable.

From personal experience: If I ever want to ferment a fruit or vegetable, I add the vegetable or fruit in with the same ingredients as you would for a pie, i.e. 1tbs lemon juice and 1/2 cup sugar and then I cook it for about an hour at around 200-250 C.
After that I let it go back to room temperature and then set it in the fridge for two days. It helps also if you cut the beets into a smaller size.


How does one break long bones for broth? When attempting to cook bone broths, what is the correct technique of breaking up long bones which do not fit inside the crock pot?

I can think of hammering or sawing off hand, but both seem to be rather messy techniques. Is there any good method to break off large bones (relatively) safely?

A normal hammer (one that is used for nails) will not suffice for breaking relatively strong bones, such as the leg bones.
Personal experience: I bought a pork knuckle, and attempted to break the bone with a hammer (600g head), and it resisted 5 minutes of straight hammering, despite the fact that the surface was significantly dented, and many bone fragments were scattered about the room.

A few online searches suggested that a sledgehammer would be required to break bones for broth.

In short, get the butcher to do it for you. You probably don't have the necessary equipment needed to smash bones.

Breaks bones for 'bone broth' method.

tools - heavy ROOFING hammer or sledgehammer used
for wedge for firewood.
tools - metal plate, wood sheet, rubber mat, concrete
patio floor. You may crack the patio floor.

Hammer Selection: Heavy, steel forged, NO wood handle,
roofing hammer. Use two hands. Try freeze in ice, then
boil in water. 3 or 5 cycles and then broth becomes
weak in taste. Sledgehammer is preferred.
It is better to buy expensive roofing hammer than
buy more than $60 chef knife.

procedure: wear safety goggles and use cardboard
box to contain flying fragments.
Freeze the bones solid in ICE.
some bones are not brittle, but after repeated
cycles will BECOME brittle or able to be broken.
2 hours cook bone broth.
remove bones. Soak in vinegar acid.
smash the bones while they are warm. optional.
cover in ice and freeze in freezer.
use plastic bag, tyvek bag, cloth to contain
flying bone fragments.  Only do this outside.
repeat 3 or 4 times. the slow heat and vinegar
cycles will soften bone structure.

summary results of $1. / pound turkey on sale.

buy the cheapest. do NOT get butterball of fake
fat injected
sharpen knife.
cook with two pots
separate meat, dark, white, debone and cool.
separate portions for freezing in freezer.
drink the broth or soup.
remove collagen and tendons from bones. Eat.
bone collections (lamb, pork feet, turkey)
use first procedure.
strain broth and remove the heavy fragments on bottom. Eat the fragments, if possible.

THIS SYSTEM works in Tampa, FL, USA. YMMV.
Used roofing hammers are available at thrift store.


Does dried milk powder retard yeast growth in bread making I have found that when using dried milk powder to soften the crumb on wholemeal loaves that the dough doesn't rise as well, even when using 25% strong white flour to increase the gluten.

Is this because of the milk powder?

Short answer, no.
Try souring the dough a small percentage to strengthen the gluten  -more elastic- which should help higher rising

The dried milk is amplifying the dough with casein protein and fat and removes some of the free water.
The yeast need the free water. Also the more fat to the dough, the less and slower rise you will notice.


Selling mini crème brûlées This may be a difficult question to answer but if you have any recommendations, I would greatly appreciate it.

I’m going to be opening up a small a home owned desert business and I would like to sell mini crème brûlée. It’s hard to keep the top crunchy and if you pre-torch it and leave it in the fridge the topping will be ruined.
I was thinking of torching them right before the customer picks an order up, but if they decide to put it in the fridge, when they go back to it and bite into it it’ll be really soggy. Or if they order a dozen of them for a party the next day, the next day the topping will be super soggy.

I was just wondering if there was a way to keep the crunchy sugar top crunchy for long-ish periods of time especially because the dessert itself needs to be refrigerated and can’t really be outside the fridge for too long. Please help!

The question you are asking has no technological solution - you cannot put caramel on something wet and preventing from becoming wet. So you are looking at logistical solutions, and you have basically listed them already.

For eating on premises, you keep the custard in the fridge and add the sugar and torch just before serving, as you mentioned. This is so well-suited and common, that I don't think anybody has had the need to develop any alternatives.

For eating later at home, there are two options. One is as you said - you caramelize when selling, and the buyer has to live with the choice between eating it soon or eating it later without a snappy crust. The second is the one used by supermarkets and mentioned in comments - you package coarse dry brown sugar separately, and the customer has the choice between producing a good caramel crust at home (which is time-consuming and not everybody has the needed tools) or eating a custard with sprinkled brown sugar that has not been actually caramelized into a crust.

A variation of the "package the sugar" along option is to package caramel along, either as a whole disc or ground into sugar-sized crystals. It doesn't require the customer to caramelize at home (so the tool and time drawbacks are eliminated), but it is clearly separate from the custard, making it less like real creme brulee.

All two (or three) solutions fall short of the ideal, but as far as I am aware, you can't do better than that. You can just choose which negative is the most acceptable for you and your customers.

Personally, I would experiment a few-times with:
Boiling sugar to different degrees close to "hard-crack" temperatures, pour into "discs" on parchment paper.
Place disc on top of crème brûlée and tape a piece of quality paper-towel (Viva) over them and refrigerate.
See how long they remain fresh looking.


What is the difference between a biscuit and a roll? Most restaurants in the US bring either biscuits or rolls to the table with your meal.

What is the difference between the two?

In the U.S. biscuits are made with chemical leavening, they use baking powder to cause them to rise.

Rolls (or dinner rolls) are yeast bread.

There are obviously other differences in the recipe(s) but baking powder vs. yeast is the essential difference.

While the two are visually characterized by their structure, one homogeneous and the other layered, those structures are dependent on the methods of leavening.

Rolls and biscuits were developed over time to optimize the combination of ingredients and technique.  Change either one and you would have something different.

A roll is alive with yeast that persists and continues to live after baking.
A kneaded roll made with chemical leavening would require much leavening be used. The flavor and texture would both be different. It would look more like swiss cheese than angle cake, be drier and have a bitter taste. After baking it would rapidly dehydrate.

A biscuit is the result of a chemical reaction that ceases when baking is complete.  If yeast were simply mixed into flour along with butter, the yeast would be unevenly isolated from contact with the carbohydrates that it digests and the oxygen it requires to produce CO2. It wouldn't rise nearly as much, or as evenly. After baking yeast would survive and continue to digest flour where it was exposed to air, and quickly mold.

So rolls and biscuits are different methods of combining ingredients with different leavenings.


Chicken in Tin Foil in the Oven: Any tips or advices on spices or wrapping? [I'm an amateur that experiments.]

I recently realized I like chicken wrapped in tin foil after using salt, pepper and oregano on it, in 250C for up to 2 hours.

Also, I used sliced lemon on parts of it [during cooking].

However, I wonder if any other spices would be suitable and if any other wrapping would be better.

I heard the roumor that tin foil is unhealthy compared to cooking paper but I don't know if it's correct.

If you're worried about the aluminum foil, you can always just use a covered casserole dish ... it might not hold all of the steam in, though.  (there are methods, like mixing a pough of flour and water, then using that to seal the lid on the pot).

Also, if you're worried, I'd just consider not using acids, like lemon; aluminum pots and pans react to acids, and I'd only assume aluminum foil would to.

You could also switch to parchment paper, which is the original for cooking 'en papillote' (in paper).

But 'better' is subjective -- easier to clean up (aluminum foil wins, I think), cheap (maybe the casserole dish, as it's reusable), more impressive (probably the parchment paper).

As for spicing ... search for 'chicken en papillote' on any internet serch engine and you'll find lots of recipes.

Stuff with black pudding or haggis, wrap in parchment first, then tin foil, bake for 1 hour at 190c.


How can I light charcoal faster? I'm terribly impatient but I love cooking on a charcoal grill.  How can I get the charcoal ready faster?  Currently I have a chimney starter, I use lump charcoal and light some kind of paper under the chimney.  It takes about 25 minutes to get ready.

This bugged me for a long time, and I assumed that there were better ways.  And there are!  Mostly notably you want to introduce the coals to more of your friend, Mr. Oxygen!
Plight of firefighters everywhere and friend of blacksmiths, increased oxygen will start the coals much much faster.  Three easy ways to accomplish this:

Hairdryer!  Just hook up your hairdryer and blow it on the coals. Beware the ash and cinders that get blown about!  You'll still need the paper to light though.

Vacumm cleaner in reverse! My shopvac, for example, can be a blower and will put the hairdryer to shame in terms of volume.  Beware the ash and cinders that get blown about!  You'll still need the paper to light though.
Specialized bbq tools like this one.  They have that advantage of being heat proof and also starting the coals with super hot air, but the long term reliability and price have always kept me from purchasing.

Personally, the hairdryer is the easiest and shaves the time down to just a few minutes.

Pack some paper on the bottom tight. Take to an open area.  Dribble one cup of gasoline. Throw a match at it. 5 minutes good to go.


Induction unit makes buzzing sound I was fed up with the low quality electric hobs which are installed in my 1 meter wide "kitchen" (I forgot a crepe on the smaller one on the highest setting, and 25 min later it wasn't even browned, just dried a bit), so I recently bought a small induction cooking unit. It is a big improvement in terms of cooking convenience.

However, I noticed that with most cookware, it produces a strange buzzing sound. I don't mean the sound of the fan cooling the electronics. It produces a distinct fan-like sound, and I can clearly hear it when it works (it is self-regulated and doesn't blow all the time). But the buzzing occurs independently of the fan. It sounds like an old-fashioned phone, but not as loud and a bit muffled, as if the phone were under a duvet two rooms away. It definitely isn't supposed to be there (such as a warning buzzer). The device communicates its state primarily through a small number-outline display, and it also produces electronic beeping sounds to confirm the press of one of the touch sensors (really, who thought that this was a good interface for anything?! The thing is so unsuited for everyday use, they had to add annoying acoustic feedback because the normal tactile one is missing. But my accidental activation rate is still well above acceptable on all devices using it. [/rant]) and also to catch my attention if needed, such as when the overheating prevention mechanism turns the heat off. No buzzer of any kind is mentioned in the user's manual, and anyway it would be too 20th century to be included in this design.

The buzz isn't constant, it continues several seconds, then stops, then appears again, and so on. Sometimes it is completely missing. It seems to be dependent on the weight of the cookware. Once I cooked with an enamelled dutch oven, and I had no buzz at all. But with all other pieces of cookware I tried, I had the buzz. These include: a cheapish stainless steel pot, I think it has a plain thin stainless steel bottom; a good quality stainless steel pan with copper-sandwich bottom and mineral-based nonstick coating; a plain cast iron pan. I have noticed that the buzz seems to stop when I fill the cookware with enough food, and as the dutch oven weighs more than the other items, I think there might be a weight relation.

3-4 years ago I had access to another portable induction unit, and never heard such a buzz. That one was a vintage model from the mid 1970s. So if the buzz is normal for induction cooking today, why did they drop the non-buzzing technology used in this old piece?

I found an explanation on the Internet which claims that the buzz is caused by microscopic vibration of the layers of a sandwiched bottom. This cannot be the case, as the cast iron pan definitely has no sandwiched bottom, and yet it does generate the buzz.

Does anybody know what causes the buzz? Is it a malfunction of the induction unit, or is it normal to have it? And, because I find it somewhat annoying, do you have any ideas how to prevent it?

EDIT: I don't believe the explanations I have heard till now. "Poor sandwiched construction" is out of question, as it happens with a pan cast as a single piece. "Bottom vibrates against glass" sounds OK at first glance, but I put the pans on a thick fluffy cotton wool pad, and it didn't even reduce the buzz, so it couldn't be the reason. As for the fan - the sound is present before the fan switches on. Still, I am choosing an answer as the accepted one, because it tells me that it isn't a defect in my unit, and this is what I needed to know most.

As you probably know, induction burners produce an alternating magnetic field that induces a current in the cookware. This process can produce attractive and repulsive forces as well that cause vibrations.

The problem can be caused not only by poor sandwiched construction but by an uneven bottom surface, or loose parts or lids.

I have read that some people have successfully used silicon baking pads to dampen the sound.

This page has some useful information on the subject:

http://theinductionsite.com/proandcon.shtml

My cook top in brand new and came supplied with saucepans and frying pan, no buzzing, but bought a new wok, which has the buzz its to do with the pots you are using.  Smith and Noble is the brand that came with the cooktop.


Vacuum-packed cheese question (botulism) Vacuum-packed cheese, stored in refrigerator for awhile (2-3 weeks), then placed in freezer. Cheddar and Provolone.

Any risks, especially in regards to botulism...opinions sought. Never heard about botulism being a risk in vacuum-packed food until recently, and now am concerned and want to know about the cheese I stored in freezer if I can consider it well.

Thank you for opinions/information.

No, there's no risk. Cheese has too much salt and acidity to harbor botulism even at room temperature; there's practically no chance of it growing in the refrigerator even with low-acid food, and literally zero chance of it growing in the freezer on any food.

I don't think data is publicly available on individual botulism cases in the U.S. or worldwide, but aside from honey-related infant botulism, the vast majority of cases are reputed to be from improper home canning of low-acid foods (garlic, peppers, etc.), and that number is still very small. I don't think I've ever heard of a single case related to cheese.

Seriously, stop worrying about botulism unless you are either (a) caring for an infant or (b) canning your own foods at home.

Ok, a vacuume packed sealed package is not an open package  in the refrigerator constantly being exposed to the air. I love to burst your bubble, their is more about Swiss cheese and botulism than arguments againsts.


How long in fridge for sushi steaks? I ordered some sushi grade steaks online.  They came frozen, as they were shipped with dry ice to keep them nice and cold.  Frozen, I cut them into pieces and put them back in the freezer, taking out one chunk at a time and thawing in the fridge.

Sushi grade steaks do not need to be cooked, since they are kept frozen at temperatures where parasites cannot survive so there is no concern of the meats contaminating anything.

Once thawed, how long do I have to keep them in the fridge until they pose a health risk?

Since this might depend on the type of fish, I will leave the question open to all fish types.  However FYI I ordered yellow fin tuna (Ahi), yellowtail tuna (Hamachi), and salmon (Sake).  Also Capelin roe (Masago), and salmon roe (Ikura).

I have always made sure that I only defrost enough to meet the needs of the moment for sushi.  If you cut the blocks into 4 to 8 rolls worth, they should defrost under running water in just fifteen to twenty minutes, just about the time it takes me to do a batch of sushi rice.  That said, fish once defrosted will start to lose flavor immediately but will remain edible for 2 days.  Once it starts to smell, get rid of it immediately, and I would play it very safe on that "starts to smell" the faintest whiff should be enough to send it to the bin.

Some, but not all. Freezing may kill some of the present forms of bacteria. But for the most part, bacteria may simply freeze the growth state and then continue to grow once food has been thawed. A perfect and well known example of bacteria that cannot be killed through freezing is Salmonella.

The bacteria in your food belong to two criteria -
a) the "wanted" bacteria
b) the "unwanted" bacteria

However they both are bacteria - so the effect of the freezing will be proportionally same on both types. For the bacterial population (in your food) the freezing is a natural catastrophe ! A lot of them may get annihilated because of the severe shear pressures generated by water crystal formation.(Remember ice floats and therefore has more volume than water - for the same mass).

Some bacteria ( unwanted as well as wanted) will survive. That is because their "population" inside is quite huge to begin with. But they will find the going really tough - until the food is thawed ! But once thawed they will multiply quickly to recover populations. In fact this new generation ( according to Charles Darwin) will have more "freeze-hardy" bacteria among them !

Bacteria have been known to grow in extremely hostile conditions elsewhere on earth. Your frozen food hardly nears the "extreme" conditions they are known to survive in.


Why is there a watery run-off after cooking my bolognese? It's a fairly standard recipe with passata and wine, simmering on a low heat for a couple of hours.  After stirring and putting the bolognese onto the pasta, after a couple of minutes the sauce separates a watery run off onto the bottom of the plate.  The pasta is fully drained, and the bolognese seems good in the pot.  How can I reduce the wateryness, simply cook the bolognese for much longer?  I haven't wanted to risk drying it out/burning.

A few things that can help, if it's not an issue with fat like @Aaronut suggested:

Tomato paste.  Yes, I know it's a sacrelige, but it'll act as a thickener.
Take the pasta out before it's gotten to al dente, and finish cooking it in the sauce; the pasta will absorb any extra liquid, and help to thicken the sauce.
Do not rinse off the pasta after you drain it.  Way too many people do, and it washes off the starch that you want for the sauce to bind to the pasta properly, and may introduce extra water.

I have made pasta sauce from scratch with mince for decades and never had any water run off until......i bought the most expensive lean beef mince from an artisan farm and each time i put it on the plate a hell of a lot of water seeps out like magic....its like soup.   So the answer is but mince that has more fat content.


How to make soft popsicles Frozen juice or frozen punch freeze up as a solid block of ice.  I want them to be more like a sorbet or gelato, though still solid enough to hold the shape.

How might I make them softer?  Either aerated, or polycrystalline without having to "do anything" while it's in the freezer?

One thought is to somehow make it more syrupy so it will hold air long enough to stay there while freezing. Gelatin comes to mind, but I wonder if something better is advised?

The main factors are a gelling agent, alcohol, sugar and air/stirring.

Sugars may decrease the freezig point - add enough sugar and your ice remains soft-ish. Unfortunately this can mean your ice gets too sweet. So instead of using plain sugar, add some "inverted sugar": glucose syrup (aka corn syrup), which stays runny and doesn't crystalize.
You could even take it up a notch and use trehalose, which is basically two linked glucose molecules. It is used in ice-cream making to inhibit the formation of ice crystals. It tastes also less sweet than regular sugar, allowing for less sweet ice cream. Find an award-winning sample recipe here (further down). And if you really must have some hard science, a study on the use of trehalose in ice cream.
Alcohol has a low freezing point. But apart from the question whether you want to use it at all, you should note that you need a certain amount of ethanol to have a noticeable effect - high-proof alcohol and yes, you will taste it.
Glycerine (a sugar alcohol) helps keep ice cream soft.
Likewise the addition of gelling agents may inhibit the formation of ice crystals - locust bean gum is often used to replace eggs in custard-based ice cream and agar agar and pectin may serve a simmilar purpose.
And finally you can mechanically avoid / hinder the formation of large ice crystals by churning your juice first and freezing the slush instead of pouring the juice straight in the molds. The ice will still be rather hard, but not as much of a "solid icicle", especially if combined with one of the additives above.

If you have rock hard pops, just let them set out for a few minutes. They will develop desired texture.


Can I put frozen meat in a slow cooker? I was wondering if I can put meat directly from the freezer into a slow-cooker. I want to be able to put chicken in the slow-cooker without having to let it defrost for a whole day in the fridge.

It is possible?

Per the USDA guidelines, frozen chicken should not be cooked in a slow-cooker or a microwave. It can only safely be cooked in the oven or on the stovetop.

A similar warning is given for beef as well.

Who do you trust, the US govt, or a person who really cooks?

As long as the pot is covered, and the meat is not previously contaminated, this should be totally safe. Safer than, say, thawing meat in water, then grilling it. Or at least equally safe. There are other factors involved.

To minimize risk, I just thawed the meat in a microwave a little, but not enough for it to begin to brown on the outside. That seems to be a fair compromise.


What is the correct water to pasta ratio? I have heard one should use a lot of water when cooking pasta; how much water should I use?

This question was answered to some extent in another Pasta cooking question by Roux. This answer, which is basically just a link to a series of experiments by an MIT grad / Chef, dispels a number of myths about cooking pasta. For instance:

Water will return to a boil in the same amount of time regardless of how much is in the pot prior to pasta being added.
Pasta won't get sticky with smaller amounts of water. It only gets sticky because of reactions in the first few minutes of cooking, and the solution is to stir it. This is necessary even with lots of water.
You do not need a lot of water to cook pasta.
Water does not need to be boiling to cook pasta. It simply needs to be above 180°F/82°C.

Some really interesting stuff in the article that debunks quite a lot of kitchen lore about cooking pasta. I have tried this at home with great success.

So in answer to your specific question:

No, you do not need a lot of water, it simply has to cover the pasta.
The amount of salt is heavily dependent on the amount of pasta, the amount of water, and your own taste. You need to find a consistent way to cook pasta and then experiment.


Why is soaking water usually discarded when making plant milk? Most recipes that I see for soy and nut milks ask you to soak the seeds and discard the soaking water.

The only plant milk recipe I've used that keeps the soaking water (Scratch Soy Milk by Andrea Nguyen) turns out just fine.

I've also experimented with using the soaking water in almond milk, and this too is fine.

So why should I discard the soaking water? Is it just a matter of taste, or is there more to it?

Generally, we soak grains and pulses then throw away the soaking water. If we didn’t it would likely turn sour in a few days. Also soaking helps remove some of the phytic acid, therefore unlocking more nutrients. I suspect the phytic acid will be in the soaking water which we flush away. Phytic acid prevents absorption of a number of minerals.

It's to remove all "extras" that could gather surface.
As we know everything gather dust, bacteria and we don't know where it have been before. That standing water is perfect for all little things to thrive.

BUT your almonds for example have been pasteurized, but with what? The cheapest method is to use polyphenylene oxide.

All of the above stay in that water if you don't discard it. It's not for taste purpose but rather healthy reasons.

Also I discovered that when making aquafaba from soaked chickpeas using soaking water make foam turn to water in matter of minutes. When boiling them in new water foam is much better and usable.


Can I store suet or home-rendered tallow at room temperature for a year? This weekend I will be in possession of 100 lbs of beef suet (which I'll be getting from a butcher friend) and plan to render it into tallow. I can't even begin to imagine exactly what this amount of tallow will look like, but I'm absolutely certain I won't have nearly enough room in the fridge or freezer to store it.
I was told large quantities of rendered tallow can be stored at room temperature for up to or even a year; possibly longer if I keep it in my cool, dark basement.  Rendered fats never last long enough in our house to know for sure. Apparently canning isn't an option because the heated fat will keep the jar from sealing, but it will be fine in a well sealed glass (Mason-style) jar.
A quick Google search turns up some anecdotal evidence but I'd prefer some science.
Can I store my rendered tallow in well-sealed glass jars in the basement for up to (or over) a year? More importantly, why or why not?
I've been operating under the assumption that the rendered tallow will be safer to store for a long period of time. I just saw on StillTasty (which doesn't have a tallow entry unfortunately) that commercial suet can be stored for a year in the pantry, opened or unopened. That seems really strange to me - is that true?  I would expect fat to go rancid quickly in an opened container in the pantry. Is it because it's "commercial" suet? Is there anything I could do to my suet so I could store it unrendered?

Tallow does not need to be refrigerated and can last a year or longer. I would not worry greatly about decomposition, but oxidation can be a problem. Make sure to store it in an airtight container and you shouldn't have a problem.

Suet was used for pemmican 100s of years ago, I read in history books they found some that had sat dry in bags for over 25 years and was still good
Native Americans used this process for hundreds of years , Lewis and clark used Suet pemmican for a major food source for months on their long trip over years


Is it possible to remove the smell from rice mistakenly stored in a detergent box? By mistake I stored rice in a detergent box. I took it out for cooking, but it smells like detergent. What should I do? Is there any trick that can remove the detergent smell from rice, or is it not safe to use?

The simplest trick is to place all the contaminated rice in the detergent box in the nearest trash bin, then obtain new rice. When it comes to cheap food staples like rice it's not worth the risk of eating tainted product, specially with substances that can wreak havoc on your digestive system like detergents.

It smells like detergent because it has absorbed chemicals not designed to be eaten.
Trust your nose, which is warning you! and move on.

Why risk yours or somebody else's health for such little gain
(the saving of 2$) is your health worth so little - or the health of others?


How to peel chestnuts? The chestnuts on an open fire question reminded me: Is there a trick to peeling chestnuts easily? I always end up with bits of hairy skin stuck to the chestnuts (ick), and/or stuck under my fingernails (ouch). We usually roast them in the oven (after slitting them suitably, of course); is there a cooking method that results in easier peeling?

In case it matters, I'd want the chestnuts either for eating out of hand, or for making chestnut puree.

My experience has been that the freshest chestnuts can be peeled pretty easily if I do it while they're still hot (I usually roast them). This does mean that one's fingers can get burned, though! I wonder whether some of the recommended techniques for peeling garlic cloves would help with "sticky" chestnut-skins? [Choosing fresh chestnuts over moldy ones is a problem in itself; off to see if there's a question about that!]

I tried the uncut in microwave 30 seconds...a few worked a few blew up...but what a laugh we had doing it...I’ve researched and tried anything you can name but I think the answer is much simpler than that, I buy my stuff at supermarket and I think it’s just they are not fresh enough...I’ve seen people scoring the chestnut with a sharp knife I’ve had to use a a sharp knife and a hammer..my skins are rock hard..I’ve read the best place to buy them is Chinese supermarkets..so I’ll try that next...good luck all..


Buttermilk pancake mix is green? I like making buttermilk pancakes but usually the batter is too much for one day, after I put the mix in the refrigerator, the mix was a greenish color the next day. Does anyone know if this means it went bad or is this just a characteristic of buttermilk?

Mold doesn't grow that fast in a refrigerator overnight. I'd bet some ingredient reacted with your baking powder or baking soda. I've seen something similar before in three separate circumstances:

instant oatmeal that turned blue when mixed with iodine-treated water (day after day on a camping trip);
garlic mixed with yogurt turns blue when heated;
blueberry pancake batter turned green overnight.

This isn't normal. Sounds like it developed some sort of mold. I would definitely dump it. Whatever waste is incurred is nothing compared to the risk of making yourself sick.


Ingredients to Get Started with Indian Cuisine I'm interested in slowly getting started with Indian cooking and building up my store of spices. However, I generally don't have as much time to cook as I would like and really don't have enough space to go out and binge spend on cooking materials for Indian food.

What are the bare minimum ingredients / spices / etc that I would need, to make some tasty  dishes for a wide array of palettes (in case I can convince friends to try my cooking).

Indian foods uses a lot of spices. Almost in a level that you will find one new spice in every new recipe.

Still the most common spices AFIK are the follows in the decreasing order of frequency of use

Turmeric powder
Coriander powder
Cumin powder and seeds
Chili powder (You can replace with green chilies if you must)
Garam masala
Dried red chilies
Black peppers

Also asafoetida, fresh coriander leaf, whole cumin seeds, whole mustard seeds. Also, if you can get some ajowan, get it: While not useful in every recipe, it is really great in eg samosas and tikka marinades.

Also, these are very commonly used ingredients

Garlic
Ginger
Onion
Green chili peppers
Tomato
...
Cashew nuts for added thickening (as a paste of boiled cashew nuts) or whole as an ingredient (or both - cashew-thickened real korma with sundry vegetables, dried fruits, and whole cashews added is mind blowing - bring on the saffron too!).

Also always make some yogurt (Unflavored and unsweetened) available

Most common vegetables are

Cauliflower
Cabbage
Potato
Bell peppers (Green)
Red Kidney Beans

Most common grains are

Rice (Basmati rice is considered as delicacy)
Dal (Many varieties, but you might need mung bean, lentil, toor daal, urid dal )
Whole wheat flour and normal flour

Traditionaly different kind of oils are used but now a days mostly vegitable oil is used. You will also need ghee (Similar to clarified butter) to make some complex and rich dishes.

youssarian's list is great as far as my experience goes. as far as other ingredients go, lentils and rice (basmati) are usually very easy to get ahold of. start with that and some meats or tofu, and try some basic dal or other recipes. you'll be up to speed in no time!


Alternatives to roasting squash for soup? Premise that you can access merely an electric range, and can't access any functioning oven, not even a toaster one. Then what can you do in lieu of roasting your squash? Pan-fry or caramelize it in a cast-iron skillet?

Roasted Acorn Squash and Apple Soup - Making Thyme for Health

  I find that acorn squash is a little bit harder to peel and chop so I decided to roast it instead of boil it in the pot. I know roasting it might sound like a lot of work but it’s actually pretty easy.

  After you slice of the top, you cut in half, clean out the seeds, rub it with a little bit of oil and then bake it in the oven face down on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for about 45 minutes.

Holiday Soup: Roasted Acorn Squash Soup with Sage and Sour Cream - Family Spice

  To make the flavors of this soup pop some more, I roasted the acorn squash instead of just sautéing them or boiling them in broth. I also added some carrots – hello, even more beta carotene! After the veggies were browned from roasting, I added it to my pot of sautéed onions and poured in some vegetable broth.

It is easy to create a little oven on your range top in a pan with a lid.

simply cook on low heat with a well-fitting lid on the pan (I use a glass lid so I can see the food).
if you want to steam the food for part or all of the cook, just add a little water to the pan
for the ultimate stove-top oven, put your food on a small rack to raise it off the pan's surface so it will get much less direct heat (see photo below).

If you want to caramelize the squash you can do so using options 1 or 3 above very easily.  Directly on the heat will be faster but more aggressive, and you'll probably want to use a little oil or other fat. Let it brown on one side and then turn it over. Depending on the thickness of the cut you may want to turn it more frequently so it cooks through tender by the time it's browned on both sides.

Put it on a rack on lower heat if you want a longer bake time, more gently like an oven. This is an especially good method if you want to bake it dry with no fat.

.

They cook fine in a microwave , little less time than a potato. Mine has an automatic for potatoes , that works well. Poke a few holes in the skin to let out steam .


Is cast iron cookware from China safe? I recently purchased a cast iron bread pan, and didn't see that it was made in China on the Amazon sales page. Oops. I saw it on the box and haven't opened it yet. I know there is a lot of concern when it comes to Chinese goods and heavy metals. I like heavy metal { \m/...(>.<)…\m/ }, but not in my food. So, is something like this safe? I Googled the question, but like with so many things it looks more like uninformed fear than anything else.

I should have spent a bit more time searching. One of the searched results that looked like a fear video was actually the opposite. Here is some stuff from that video and comments.

First: Lead boils at about half the temperature that iron melts. So even if you start out with a mix of lead and iron, it won't last long. Second:

  A bit of arithmetic: - Cast Iron Assay can expect Lead content to be 0.001 to 0.15%. (By weight or volume is not significant, see below) My 26.5 cm Chinese skillet, as yet unused (which is why I am researching) weighs 2.1 kg. At 0.15% that is a total lead content of 3.15g. Realistically, how much of that can ever get into the food? Cast iron density is around 6800 - 7800 kg/m3. At the higher figure this works out to a volume for my skillet of 2.1/7800 m^3 = 2.7 x 10^-4 m^3= 270cc. Ignoring the handle and sides, let us consider only the flat cooking surface diameter 20cm, and assume a depth of say 1mm available to leach the lead. Volume of a cylinder = pi r^2 x h = 3.14 x 10cm^2 x 0.1 = 31.4cc. Thus 31.4/270 x 100 = roughly 11.6%. 11.6/100x3.15 = 0.37g = 370μg of lead available. Lead toxicity is at about 10 μg/dL of blood. Average human blood volume is 500dL. So, if ALL the available lead in the pan was taken out AT ONCE, and you managed to absorb it ALL, just into your blood, , you would have a blood level of 370/500 = 0.74μg/dL, about 1/14th the toxic level, before your system kicked it out at around half per 30 days. Go figure.

--flamencoprof

So no, I don't need to worry.

edit: Hmm. The video's figures were wrong. Iron melts at about 1811K and lead boils at about 1749. Close but not quite. Still, from this source it seems that a typical blast furnace should still boil lead.

The melting point of lead (621°F), a boiling point of 3,164°F and starts to vaporize The point where Iron is ready to cast is 2300-2500.F doesn't come close to the point of stratification of the metals. It's all about the metal you start with in the first place. Chinese Cast Iron? Who knows


What are the best types of apples to use in Charosset? What are the best type of apples to use when making Charosset for Passover?

I'm torn between something more neutral like Gala vs something tart (which might work well with the sweetness of the rest of the dish).

Looking through recipes suggests a variety of apples.  Gala showed up the most, with Fuji in second, and McIntosh and Delicious tied for last.

If you want to go with the "source" of the recipe for Charoset, though, you'll want a sweet apple.  The recipe has its roots in Song of Solomon/Songs, and the verse that refers to the apples reads as:

  As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

So, for authenticity, go for a sweet apple, but Gala is the most mentioned apple in recipes online.

We make ours with McIntosh and it's so yummy!


How to tell if baked drumsticks are done? I have baked my chicken drumsticks for roughly 40 mins at approximately 420 F. I do not have a meat thermometer, so am looking for another way to determine its doneness. I did some research on this, and found that the juice should run clear; however, when I cut open my chicken, the juice that comes out is red.  Does it sound like my chicken is correctly cooked to a safe internal temperature?

There is a common misperception about redness in chicken and what it means when gauging the doneness of the chicken.

Fully cooked chicken can leak juices that are tinged with red, and fully cooked chicken can have pink meat and/or redness in the joints or bones!

From the USDA:

  The pink color in safely cooked chicken may be due to the hemoglobin in tissues which can form a heat-stable color. Smoking or grilling may also cause this reaction, which occurs more in young birds.

The acidity in the tissues can case a similar effect in the myoglobin.

From an unnamed research assistant at a major chicken processor speaking to Meathead Goldwyn at AmazingRibs.com:

  "When the muscle is high in pH [low in acid] it takes a much higher temperature to denature the myoglobin. The meat may need to be 170 to 180°F before the myoglobin in breasts is denatured sufficiently to see clear juices. The drumstick and thigh have higher levels of myoglobin and they require an even higher internal temperature to denature it.

Red or purple bones and adjacent meat are caused by modern chicken manufacturing that can produce chickens big enough to slaughter at an age much younger than used to be the norm:

  Darkening around bones occurs primarily in young broiler-fryers. Since their bones have not calcified completely, pigment from the bone marrow can seep through the porous bones. Freezing can also contribute to this seepage. When the chicken is cooked, the pigment turns dark. It's perfectly safe to eat chicken meat that turns dark during cooking.

-USDA

Furthermore, chicken that has not reached a safe temperature can have meat that looks done and juices that run clear!

  If the muscle pH is low then the myoglobin is denatured at a lower cooked temperature. This means that one might potentially see clear juices at 150 to 160°F and this is not safe.

-AmazingRibs.com

According to the same source, the PH of the muscle tissue can be affected by the chicken's genetics or pre-slaughter stress. That and the fact the source doesn't want to be named causes unpleasant images to appear in my mind. But I digress...

In my experience, dark meat is best cooked to the point that it has begun to shrink away from the bone; which is way past the point of it having reached a safe temperature. Therefore laxity is better test of doneness than color for dark meat. Another way to describe that is that the joints between the thigh and the body and the thigh and the drumstick move freely.

To be considered safe, chicken must be cooked to or above 165 °F (73.9 °C). Chicken breasts are (IMHO) best right at that temperature. Getting good at hitting that temperature takes some practice.  White meat is much more sensitive than dark meat to overcooking, so testing frequently with an accurate thermometer is really the only way to go until you have the considerable experience necessary to accurately gauge the meat's doneness without the thermometer.

Drumsticks are very unlikely to be undercooked after having been baked at 425°F (218°C) for 40 minutes. Watch for meat that has begun to shrink from the bone. You should be at or beyond that point already, which as I have shown, is a far better indicator of doneness than color. Of course, an accurate thermometer is always your safest bet.

if still red, cook them some more!

Chicken, especially drumsticks can handle being cooked a little bit too much.

Anecdotal,
I cooked drumsticks last week, and left them about 1 hour (full pan of drumsticks); at about 40 minutes, I started pocking them to see how cooked they were, how easily the meat separated from the bones.


Chiffon cake constantly has an unfilled bottom Not sure why this keeps happening. I read that mixing the yolks is critical and I mix until the color becomes whiter.

In the oven it grows very tall roughly 20 minutes after start, but starts collapsing after that. Once taken from the oven and put upside down it still collapses onto itself and becomes at roughly the same height as the pan

This will happen if you grease your cake pan or if the cake isn't allowed to fully cool before being removed from the pan. Another possible culprit is overbeating your egg whites.

Egg foam cakes, like chiffon, blow up with steam as they bake. The tube pan gives them more surface area both so they bake in the middle and also to give them more to cling to.

After they bake the cake is inverted until the egg proteins set. If not inverted, the cake will collapse as the steam escapes. A good rule of thumb is about an hour rest but the cake should be nearly room temperature.

If the tube pan is greased then the cake will not adhere near the end of cooking or through the inversion rest period.

The consistency of the egg whites is also important. If the whites are overbeaten they will lose some of their elasticity and give up their steam when they are stretched too far. Chiffon cake recipe do call for firm peaks, that is if you pull your beaters out the resultant peaks don't droop. But if you beat much past that phase the whites can get fragile.

Keep in mind that you should expect the cake to shrink slightly from it's max height when the steam is hot, but nothing like the collapse in your photo.

I don't believe that over or under beating the egg yolks would have caused the behavior you were seeing.

Decrese this recipe´s eggs and see what happens, sometimes too many whites will cause a huge rise than fall. Sometimes I´ve heard this happens with the wrong size pan as well but I think this is more unlikely.


Failed chocolate sponge I'm new to bakery and I can bake chiffon and angel food cake alright, but everytime(3 times) I bake chocolate sponge, I always end up with something with good moisture but super stiff. What could I have done wrong and how can I make the cake more tender in texture? Thanks!

My recipe: 3 eggs, 40g butter, 40g(in egg white)+20g(in yolk) sugar, 60g flour, 20g cocoa powder for a 8-inch square baking pan. 170°C, 10min.

And what I did:

Separate the egg white and yolk, whip the white until there's a curly spike when I pick up the wisk. During the whipping process, pour in the 40g of sugar.

Add 20g sugar to the yolk and stir until the mixture gets a bit pale.

Add 40g of melted butter into the mixture and stir until the mixture is smooth. Pour 1/3 of the egg white foam into the yolk-butter mixture. Mix carefully as not to deflate the egg white. When mixed well, pour in the other 2/3 of egg white and mix.

Add in the flour & cocoa powder. Bake in preheated oven.

Sponge and pound cakes contain fat. Therefore, they are not usually made with pure egg leavening. Egg leavening relies on a protein-based foam (whipped eggwhites), and fat deflates protein-based foams and/or prevents them from "curing" at high temperatures.

If you found a sponge cake recipe without chemical leavening, this is a sign for a bad recipe. The best would be to search for a better recipe, especially if you are a beginner baker. Troubleshooting baking recipes is an advanced skill which requires both experience and theoretical knowledge - certainly attainable for the average home baker, but unnecessarily hard for beginners. With the tons of recipes available at your fingertips for free, it makes more sense to search for a better one. It will give you correct ratios and temperatures and save you failures and frustration.

And a small pedantic part: what you are making here is not a sponge cake, but a pound cake. They have the same ingredients, but sponge cakes are made using the creaming method, while pound cakes use melted butter. The upside: both of them are tasty :)

try using a recipe without flour. or you could be over mixing the batter activating the gluten. or try another recipe!


My pepper sauce looks unsafe I canned some pepper sauce. It had peppers and green tomatoes. After 3 days of being refrigerated , the peppers are floating on top and has blobs of cloudy material stuck to the peppers. The tomatoes are on the bottom.
I am wondering if adding olive oil has caused this and are they safe

Cloudy material will be fungus growing in the culture. It is not safe to eat.
Where the contamination has come from is impossible to work out, there are several steps in the canning process during which a failure in the step could result in the canning not being sterile and growing something.

Contamination is also likely if you placed hot or warm food in the fridge. Was the canned sauce room temperature?


Difference between scones and biscuit? What are the basic differences between scones, biscuits, tea-biscuits, muffins ? I know that cookie is the american word for the british biscuit..

Or is there any other difference?

Scones (UK usage) are a quick bread, usually moderately sweet.  They are baked on a sheet pan, sometimes sliced into wedges,sometimes cut into rounds or other shapes.  They are similar to, but sweeter than American style biscuits.

Biscuits (UK usage) or cookies (US usage) are very small, flat cake-like confections, usually rich in butter and sugar.  They are also baked on sheet pans, in individual portions typically only a couple of inches across (although sizes vary widely).  They come in a myriad varieties and flavors.

Typical flavorings are vanilla, chocolate, nuts, citrus.  Some of the simpler varieties allow the butter flavor to come through.
Biscuit (US usage) or tea biscuit (UK usage, one variant) are a type of quick bread charactarized by flat, flaky layers.  They are typically cut in rounds a couple of inches across, and tend to be about an inch tall.  They are usually only very lightly sweetened if sweetened at all.

Tea biscuit (UK usage, another variant) or teacake are biscuits or cookies traditionally served with tea.  They tend to be fairly neutral in flavor.

Muffins (UK usage) or English muffins (US usage) are small yeast-raised breads which are griddled in rings, rather than baked in an oven.  They tend to be a couple of inches across, and about half an inch tall.   They are often split and served toasted.

Muffins (US usage) or American Muffins (UK usage) are a quick bread, usually moderately sweet, baked in single serving portions in muffin tins (the same pans used for cupcakes).

Why add to the nightmare by dragging in Muffins.
Scones, Tea biscuits and American biscuits all had the same origin it seems.

Scones are a tad denser than tea biscuits I think, with Scones being the mother of all of them.

Tea biscuits and American biscuits (Southern style), are similar. American biscuits (Southern style), due to influence of commercialization (Fast food places), became more lighter and fluffier (and unhealthier), and are eaten at lunch and dinner, instead of breakfast.

In Canada (Ontario) we have both Scones and Tea biscuits, but no southern type biscuits, you have to go to Popeye's to get that. Sometimes the tea biscuit also looks like scones, a with raisins or baked with cheese in the batter. In Canada, scones are generally triangular, and that's how you tell the difference. New England and Canada still have/ make the original tea biscuit.


How do I avoid carrot slices rolling away? When you slice carrots, the slices tend to roll away. This previous question did mention this as part of a broader issue, but didn't focus on it enough to get answers that specifically address rolling. Sharp knives and a fluid rocking/orbital motion don't really help with this; the slices will still stick to the blade, then tend to roll when they fall.

So how do you keep sliced carrots (or any other small, round, and hard things) from rolling away as you slice them?

(I know cutting them in half works, but let's say I want to avoid that: round slices look nice.)

One option is to cut the carrots slightly diagonally instead of perfectly square. The resulting pieces are not perfectly cylindrical, but they tend to tipping instead of rolling all over the cutting board. (Note that this method only works if the diameter of the carrot is substantially larger than the thickness of a piece.)

It may be because you have peeled them. Did you know the relative majority of nutrients is in the skin, it is the most important part of the carrot. When it comes down to it, you don't ever really have to peel carrots. The friction is greater with the skin still on they don't roll far. As long as you wash and scrub them well to remove dirt and any debris, unpeeled carrots are perfectly safe (and delicious) to eat. Here are five instances that prove it, stock, roasted, stewed, pureed, juiced. But of course cooking also destroys a lot of the goodness. I also have a cutting board guard to stop any strays. I like cinnammon with cooked carrots, but most of all I like them raw with peanut butter. I have left some out for the Easter bunny.


Why season the bottom or handle of a cast iron / carbon steel pan? I hear a lot of advice to season the entire pan, including the handle and bottom of the pan along with the inside. Is this really necessary, and if so, what purpose does it provide?

It helps keep the pan clean.

I know in my cooking, there's always a chance of something dripping, something splashing, few drops running down the side, which might need wiping up with a damp towel or can just be ignored (and left there).  not to mention the possibility of moisture in the air.  And unseasoned metal can rust.

The first pan I had, I seasoned just the cooking surface... and after a few months, when I was cleaning something, I noticed the bottom had started rusting - not much, just bits of subtle discoloration, but enough that I noticed it.  Probably, if left a long time or in moister circumstances, that rust might get quite bad, perhaps leaving rust flakes or compromising the structure of the pan.

So the handle might get some spatters of whatever is cooking, or your hand might not be quite clean, and the moisture can start eating into it.  Or a few drops might end up on the outside of the pan to run down to the bottom, or end up on top of the stove coil or any surface the pan might rest on - when serving or moving pots.  Cleaning up such spatters, or generally cleaning the pan, might easily leave behind a little moisture.  And add the possibility of moisture pulled from the air - humidity, steam, whatever - and an unseasoned surface will slowly start to pick up rust.

I don't think it needs as much seasoning as the rest of the pan, since there's less exposure and less wear on these surfaces.  And obviously you can use the pan for quite a while before it becomes noticeable, much less an actual problem - but a layer of seasoning just to waterproof it a bit seemed like a good idea after I saw the bottom of that pan.

Cast iron is very porous. Used oil soaks into it, blocking those pores. Carbon steel has been hammered or stamped, closing the pores. So you season cast iron for a surface lubricant, and so food does not stick.

You do not wash cast iron with detergent because that will remove the oil in the pores.  Cast iron with salt on it rusts very fast.

Seasoning cast iron gives a hard finish. On steel, the oil is just a surface lube so food won't stick. Both cast iron and carbon steel will rust.


Kids Lunch box - suggestion for fruit smoothie packaging Could you suggest how to package a home made fruit smoothie to make it appealing to young children. The kids seem to love fruit tubes by innocent in their lunch boxes as they are colourful, easy to open and drink from.

How could I pack a home made smoothie to make it equally attractive?

You could use a plastic syringe (without the needle obviously), which can usually be found at cake stores and such.

Where I come from there's a chocolate shop that sells plastic syringes filled with chocolate for kids.

On the other hand, the extended plunger may take up too much room. In that case, maybe a test-tube sort of thing with a plastic top to seal it. I've seen them around, but wouldn't know where to find them.

These work fine, packaging is edible too


Why does bacon curl? When frying bacon in the pan, it tends to curl. What causes this? Is there a way to slow down that process itself?

As the bacon cooks the meat reduces in size faster than the fat does.

Since they are cut into strips this causes the fat to bunch up or even coil if the bacon isn't flipped enough.

The fat will eventually reduce as well when it renders but not enough to straighten out the poor bacon.

Somebody once told me it was the saltpeter in it that made bacon curl. I don't know, but he was a butcher.


How much salt does pasta absorb compared to rice? Apparently if you cook both pasta or rice in salty water both will absorb salt.  It seems to me the salt changes the taste of the pasta more than it changes the taste of rice though I could be wrong, so I would imagine pasta absorbs more salt.

Which of the two would absorb more salt and how much more salt would be absorbed?  I'm looking to make more saltier pasta or rice by way of absorpton rather than sprinkling salt at the end.

If we assume that neither has any significant salt to start with and you cook them in equally salty water then to a good approximation they will absorb salt in proportion to the water they absorb.

White rice apparently absorbs twice its weight in water, while for pasta the figure is more like 1.1-1.4 times. That would suggest that rice absorbs more salt than pasta does. The effect on the flavour may not be quite the same as the effect on the concentration.

If you're trying to get add much salt in as possible, you need to start with as much as possible dissolved in your water.

When I cook rice, I put a little salt in the pot, and all of that salt goes into the rice. But with pasta, I put a whole bunch of salt in the pot, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't affect the taste of the resulting cooked noodles much at all. Because I drain most of it off along with the excess water after the noodles are done.

The statement in your question (that salt changes the taste of the pasta more than that of the rice) sounds backwards to me. Unless it was just an error of wording, it sounds like you are (perhaps?) boiling your rice in a whole big pot of water, and draining it at the end. I know some people do make rice that way. If that is your practice, you might try another rice cooking technique in which the rice is cooked in only a small amount of water - and no draining....or use a rice cooker. If you use a method like that, plus a little experimentation (physical chemistry not needed), I'm pretty sure you could get your rice as salty as you like by adding reasonable amounts of salt, and all of it would stay with the rice.

Now for pasta, yes, you do need to drain the water at the end. Maybe someone else can provide technique for more salt absorption while cooking pasta. However, I'm not sure I get the difference between cooking-in the salt and just sprinkling it on at the end. Because the noodles are wet and contain lots of water (when done, even if al dente), won't the salt that you sprinkle on also be absorbed into the pasta??


What do "virgin" and "extra virgin" mean in regards to olive oil? I have seen the terms "virgin" and "extra virgin" on bottles of olive oil. What do these terms mean, and how do they affect the flavor and cooking properties of the oil?

In the US, "extra virgin" isn't a legally protected term - some of the stuff sold as EVOO here would never, ever pass as it elsewhere.

From Wikipedia:

Extra-virgin olive oil comes from virgin oil production only, contains no more than 0.8% acidity, and is judged to have a superior taste. Extra Virgin olive oil accounts for less than 10% of oil in many producing countries. It is used on salads, added at the table to soups and stews and for dipping.
Virgin olive oil comes from virgin oil production only, has an acidity less than 2%, and is judged to have a good taste.
Pure olive oil. Oils labeled as Pure olive oil or Olive oil are usually a blend of refined and virgin production oil.

Cooking-wise, the extra virgin stuff is best used in situations where it won't be highly heated. Salad dressings, dipping oils, finishing a dish, etc. are where it shines.

Depends. Extra virgin could mean first press of the olive. Of good quality. A light pressing.   To mash the olives. Next the pits are removed. Then a repress of the meat for oil. Virgin oil. Next the pits are pressed. for dark oil. Next all is thrown together & repressed for the dregs. But today it is done different It has to do with acid content & color, smell. Centrifuges are used today.


Lots of water coming out of chicken breasts when cooking in pan. Why? When I cook chicken breasts in a pan, a lot of water comes out of them.

I've seen this answer: My chicken breasts release a lot of fluid when cooked. How do I prevent this?

where some people suggest that this has to do with the quality of the chicken and that certain producers/supermarkets will actually "pump" their chickens full of water.

However, what i don't understand is that I'm buying those from Whole Foods and that they are supposedly air chilled (which someone in the above-quoted answer suggests getting), so shouldn't they be high quality?

Is the reality that even WF is scamming its customers by pumping chickens full of water? Is their chicken just not that high quality?

If that's the case, where can you possibly get good chicken? (Serious question if you know a place, I live in Cambridge MA, US)

Liquid naturally comes out of all meats as they cook. If you're using high heat and a frying pan, you don't really notice it because it evaporates quickly. That brown stuff you see in a frying pan after cooking meat on high heat are the evaporated juices.

If you're baking them at around 350 F, you'll also notice water being released. This is amplified if you overcrowd the cooking vessel. You don't see it in a whole roasted chicken or roast beef for example because the liquid coming out caramelizes and creates those lovely browned bits to make a sauce or gravy.

I doubt that WF is selling water and phosphate tumbled chicken breasts.

all meats contain water. but it is not in the best interest of supermarkets to advertise dud meat. most meats are sold per kg and if the phosphate/water content is say 7% in a $10 chicken then there is a "healthy" profit to be made. most chicken in the western world is high volume poor care chicken where the consumer is of low to middle income, on the run, barely meeting bills and an easy target for businesses to make massive profits.  I will not start with injected pork, beef and mutton.
the price of meat is inversely proportional to the amount of contaminants.


How Long Can I Store Seasoned, Vacuum Sealed Chicken I'm trying to optimize making food for the week and one of the things I want to do is season chicken breast with salt/pepper/herbs/etc in advance and vacuum seal them individually so I can just drop them into a sous vide water bath and cook them on demand.

So, my question: how long can I store chicken (or steak) vacuum sealed after seasoning it, but before cooking it?  Or is it better to just cook the meat all at once and store it for the week in a cooked state and then reheat as needed.

Since you're cooking by sous-vide anyway, why don't you put the vacuum sealed, seasoned chicken breasts in the freezer? You just put the still frozen packs into the circulator a half-hour or 45 minutes sooner. Then you will always have a no-muss no-fuss dinner at the ready.

Here's a YouTube video of exactly that.

Season differently and vacuum seal several family packs at once! Save money and hassle.

For frozen boneless chicken breasts, figure 141F to 148F (60.5C to 63.9) for 2+ hours, longer for bigger pieces. (I like 147F)

You can do the same thing with steak, don't raise the temperature, just add some time at your preferred temperature.

The general consensus is that about a week should be safe for vacuum sealed chicken.

I would say though, that the sealing and preservation method is not the bottleneck here. Should the chicken be totally free of contaminants and packaged in a sterile environment you should be able to store the meat until it naturally decomposes. On the other hand, if you are packing the raw meat at home I would even be careful about going a whole week.

On a sidenote: why use fillets of breast when the thigh meat is much more tasty?


Why are certain fruit & veg bought in UK supermarkets tasteless? I have been to Italy, Greece & Turkey. Fruit & Veg in these places tastes amazing! So much flavour, really awesome!

In the UK when I buy the same fruit or veg, it is absolutely tasteless, it is just crunchy water!

Why is this? I used to think it was because there was very little Sun here. However, many of the fruit & veg in question come from Spain! A place with a lot of sunshine! Something else must be in play!

I am talking about melons & watermelons, grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers, plums, peaches, oranges and much more!

Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

PS. Places I shop at are Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, Asda, Sainsburys.

Non-native and out of season fruits and vegetables that are available in northern countries (e.g. UK, Canada) need to be shipped from far away and will be picked before they are naturally ripe (under the normal sun and heat and getting nutrients from the soil).

They will ripen in controlled environments (UV lights, maybe controlled atmosphere and temperature) to be able to be ripen on time during the long transit to be ready when they are put on shelves in your local stores.

In the UK, it is currently the high season for strawberries (I assume it is the same time as in Québec); compare locally-grown strawberries to imported strawberries and compare the flavour and aromas.

(anecdotal) A quick tip when buying imported fruits (and vegetables); keep them outside of the fridge as much as possible, and if planning to eat soon, place them in the sun for a little while and the flavours will get better.

Very simple. Fruit and vegetables grown out of season are grown in poly tunnels or green houses. These produce beautifully looking fruit and veg with no taste whatsoever. The Netherlands are famous for growing most of their fruit in greenhouses and are the worst culprits. Because people in the UK now want to eat what they want to eat all year round, regardless of season, the UK is following suit, now growing strawberries (even!) in polytunnels with the result that early season they are tasteless - but cheap to produce and sell!


What vegetables oils are safe to use at high temperatures (350, maybe 400 F) , say, stir fry or pan-frying chicken/fish? I've read in a number books that at high temperatures vegetable oils oxidize.

Also, some vegetable oils (I have heard) are processed at high temperatures so they may already be in the same state as the above.

What vegetable oils are suitable for high temperature cooking?

Actual oxidation of the oils is a major contributor to rancidity, which would render the oil extremely unpalatable and therefore unsuitable for cooking.

The efficacy of oil at higher temperatures is related to its smoke point, which Wikipedia defines as:

  the temperature at which, under defined conditions, enough volatile compounds emerge from the oil that a bluish smoke becomes clearly visible

In general you want to use oils below their smoke point, or just barely at it.

The smoke point for different culinary fats depends on their composition, and the amount of refining and removing of impurities within.

Some oils which offer superior performance at high smoke points include:

Peanut - 450 F / 232 C
Grapeseed - 420 F / 216 C
Avocado - 375 F / 190 C

You also generally want to choose a refined, neutrally flavored oil for most such applications.

For more data, please see the linked Wikipedia article, or the compilation at the Good Eats fan pages.

Update:  for a good treatise on cooking with fat or oil, see the series in progress at Serious Eats:

Cooking Fats 101: What Makes Fats and Oils Essential to Cooking
Cooking Fats 101: What's a Smoke Point and Why Does it Matter?

Seems like safflower oil or light olive oil are best.  Beyond that, "refined" is better than "unrefined" as far as smoke point.

I looked at a few sites:

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

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/good-bad-cooking-oils-9051.html

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/50/Smoke-Points-of-Various-Fats


Why does my ricotta cheese go bad in a few days? No matter if I buy my ricotta by weight or by package it goes bad (funky smell, the puddle of cheese water gets grainy, some yellow tint on the sides of the cheese, losing its mellow sweet taste) within 2-3 days. I know it could have a fridge life of 1 to 2 weeks - why is it not the case with me?

Pasteurized ricotta should last 2-4 weeks in the fridge, unpastuerized 1-2 weeks.

So, A Few Possibilities:

Your fridge is way too warm, like close to room temperature.  Ricotta will spoil if left out at room temperature or warmer in a few days.  Have you checked fridge temp?  Where in the fridge are you storing the ricotta?

You have a lot of spoiled milk bacteria in your fridge.  If you've had dairy products go "off" many times in your fridge (or only once, but you spilled it), and not cleaned it, then you may have cultures of dairy-eating bacteria living in your fridge.  Do other dairy products spoil quickly for you?

Your ricotta vendor is contaminated.  If you've been getting all of this ricotta from the same store or the same maker, it's possible that their equipment/storage is contaminated.  Try a different source/store.

You are buying ricotta which is already old. When was this ricotta made?  How close is it to the expiration date when you buy it?

Strain/drain it when you bring it home, and leave it in an airtight sealed clean container.


What kind of coffee grinder is best? I need to get a coffee grinder.  What kind is best?  I have heard that burr mills are better; are they worth the extra cost?  Which ones last longer?

Update: I ended up getting a Hario hand grinder.

The folks at America's Test Kitchen did a review of coffee grinders and found that the burr mills didn't result in superior consistency to blade grinders.

They found that if you stop grinding every now and then and shake the coffee grinder and grind for a total of 25-30 seconds, you get the best results.

From the video review:

  "Lots of people said that these blade
  grinders chop the beans unevenly. They
  also said they heat up the beans more
  because of the friction and that
  degraded the flavor of coffee. I had
  dozens of people tasting this coffee
  and no one picked up flavor
  differences between the blade-ground
  and the burr-ground. There were
  differences in the body but not the
  flavor... and we found a way to use
  the blade grinders to match that
  body.

From the text review:

  "We found we could improve the evenness of the blade grind either by grinding in short, quick bursts, with stops in between to shake the grinder to redistribute the grounds, or by shaking the grinder as it ground, much as you would a martini in a cocktail shaker."

Their favorite was the Capresso Cool Grind, Model 501.

They did note that you will need a burr grinder for espresso.

As cheap as possible. I have a $5 grinder from 3 years ago that I still use several times per week. All you need it to do is grind beans. You can spend $20-40 on one, but it will still just grind beans. It will not be exponentially better than a $5-10 one.


I have difficulty finding "ANGOSTURA" bitters, is there any substitute? My preferred pre-dinner drink is the Manathan, but I have difficulties finding ANGOSTURA bitters.

Is there anything else that I could use instead of it?

You could try Peychaud's Bitters (difficult to find), Fernet-Branca, orange bitters or other types of bitters.  Worcestershire sauce may also be used as a substitute but works well in savory dishes. I wouldn't recommend it for a Manhattan.

Or, if you're very ambitious you can try to make your own bitters, although the ingredient list is somewhat intimidating! Good luck!

http://spiritsandcocktails.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/how-to-make-bitters/

a Manhattan is whiskey and sweet vermouth.  I've never put bitters in a Manhattan is my 25 years of bar tending.  I do use them in Whisky old fashioneds, though.


Corned Beef Brisket left out I purchased a Corned Beef Brisket from the store and forgot to put it in the refrigerator. It was sealed. The package was cool in the morning. Is it safe to still use?

...Ditch It! Why Risk getting Sick and having the "Trots" complete with Chills!


Thawed frozen fresh strawberries, can i refreeze them I left fresh strawberries, which I cleaned and froze, on the counter to thaw for 5 hrs by mistake. They mostly thawed. I want to know if I can refreeze them. I use them to blend them up in a meal replacement shake. They are less than a week old.

Refreeze them if you aren't using right away

Your strawberries started out well below freezing point of water. Home freezers operate at close to 0 F. Cooling is a function of temperature difference between substance and surroundings. Your strawberries are in no danger, unless they were absolutely covered in bacteria before freezing, like you had rubbed rotten halibut on them for some reason.

Any texture will be changed with freezing and blending, so don't worry about that.

I like frozen fruit in smoothies, as it gives thick texture without ice addition.

As far as I'm concerned if it was left out for more than 2 hours in room temperature you have the chance of it growing bacteria. You can freeze them again but to kill those bacteria you'll have to cook them which will make them taste terrible. If I was you, I would eat one or split it in the middle to see how bad they really are. Otherwise you can put them in the fridge and keep them there until you would like to use them.


How deeply will the flavors in a brine penetrate chicken? I'm not asking about salt or "juiciness". I think there is enough evidence here and elsewhere to answer that question with "pretty deep, or all the way to the bone". My question concerns spices and other flavorings in the brine. I want to know not only how far the flavors can go, but also what qualities in specific flavorings help those flavorings penetrate more deeply, and why?

There is yet another question within my answer. I hope that someone can shed more light on the subject. I'll happily accept an answer that clarifies things, even if it debunks my hypothesis as to "why".

I am answering this question, but I am not going to accept this answer, at least not without further research and/or experimentation and editing this answer to reflect that. I am hoping that somebody with a greater knowledge of chemistry and the nature of brining can add to or even credibly contradict the science of what I am saying here. My conclusions are based on the evidence from one experiment. My theory as to "why" barely actually reaches the level of "hypothesis".

THE EXPERIMENT

Making the Brine

For this experiment, I wanted a very strongly flavored brine with a lot of different flavors. I filled a stock pot with water, brought it to a boil and added whole spices in a concentration four times as high as I used in a recent pho (star anise, cinnamon stick, cloves, fennel, broken open cardamon pods). I let that simmer for a few hours and set it on the porch overnight to cool.

The next morning I strained the flavored water and made a 5% salt brine (10 cups flavored water to 4 ounces kosher salt or 3 liters water to 150 grams salt) and included 4 ounces of brown sugar. I brought that to a simmer and proceeded to add just about everything flavorful I had that wouldn't clash. Finely chopped preserved lemon, a full third cup of Ras el Hanout, lots of harissa, lots of grated ginger, an entire head of crushed garlic, about a half cup of dried minced onion (I knew I'd find a use for that) and enough cayenne and red pepper flakes to make the brine about three times as hot as a good hot and sour soup. After adding all that the brine actually measured 12.5 cups so I added another ounce of salt. I'm sure that brought the brine up a little over 5%, but fine for this experiment. I simmered the whole mess for an hour, then set it outside again to cool overnight.

Another poster had shown me pictures of a cross-section of meat that had been brined in a brine that had been colored. That photo was intended to show that the brine barely penetrated the meat. Indeed the color was only visible in the outer few millimeters of meat. That inspired me to do the same, I added two bottles of food coloring to the brine. (A funny aside - I bought food coloring for this experiment. My intention was to use a perfectly appetizing red/orange. I didn't realize that boxes of food coloring came in other than standard colors. I got home with "neon", giving me the options of purple, pink, blue and green. That's why my chicken you'll see in later pictures is fuchsia.)

Brining and Cooking and the Chicken

I used a completely defrosted, 6lb, Foster Farms Chicken. I submerged the chicken in the brine and also lifted the skin as much as I could to get the brine under the skin. I got as much brine as I could under the skin, but I took care to not pierce the meat.

I left the chicken submerged in the brine for 36 hours, refrigerated, flipping and pouring brine under the skin every few hours. Upon removing the chicken from the brine, I rinsed it thoroughly including under the skin, patted it dry with paper towels, and left it uncovered in the fridge for 12 hours to air-dry. I put it on my "set-it-and-forget-it" rotisserie, basting for the last 15 minutes in Mr Yoshida's. Would you believe it? It was one of the best chickens I've ever made! But that's beside the point.

RESULTS

I carved the chicken in layers. I washed the knife after every slice to be sure that I wouldn't carry flavors with the knife. Once the bird was carved, I asked a friend to join me in the tasting. We started tasting at the very inner layer and moved out. At each layer, I asked him what he was tasting but I didn't tell him what I was tasting until we were done. While it was in no way over salted, salt was evident to both of us all the way to the bone. Neither one of us were sure about sugar, it kind of seemed a little sweetened, but if it was it was just too subtle to say for sure. The outer-most layer below the skin was the furthest "in" either of us could sense heat or any other specific flavors other than the salt and possibly sugar already mentioned - with one flavor exception which I'll cover in just a moment. The skin and outermost layer were deliciously flavored, the rest of the chicken was also very good, very juicy.

As you can see in the above picture, the food coloring didn't penetrate at all. I don't think it even would have penetrated the skin if I hadn't separated the skin from the meat to get the brine in-between. That surprised me a bit, especially since I had seen the results of a colored brine on pork, and the color at least penetrated a few millimeters.

Beyond the salt and possibly sugar, there was one very subtle flavor and effect that I noticed in every slice, all the way to the bone. I couldn't put a name to it, so I asked this question a while ago: The name or chemical compound responsible for a specific quality of some spices (numbness) Very quickly, AllisonR gave me the answer I needed. It was eugenol that I was sensing all the way through the chicken. My friend/guinea pig said that he sensed it too, but only after I specifically asked him. Further research into eugenol confirmed something else that I was thinking. Beyond the effect of a subtle numbness, eugenol has its own mild aroma and flavor. That leads me to a theory...

MY THEORY (and a question within an answer)

How the salt in brine penetrates meat has been covered here ad nauseam, so I'm not even going to touch upon that. What I will address is the flavors beyond salt that can be added to brine, as many chefs advocate.

If brine can carry flavors with it into the interior of the meat, why didn't the food coloring penetrate? One of my colors was made of Red 40, AKA Allura Red AC. The molecular formula of Red 40 is C18H14N2Na2O8S2. Blue 1 was another of my colors, molecular formula C37H34N2Na2O9S3. The other colors in my box were Red 3 and Yellow 5. They are similarly huge molecules.

As I said earlier, my brine was very spicy hot. There was some heat evident in the skin of my chicken and the outer layer of meat. Interior of that, there was no heat in the chicken. The molecular formula of capsaicin is C18H27NO3. Now that molecule isn't as huge as the food coloring molecules, but it is still a pretty big molecule.

Of all of the flavorful "stuff" I put into my brine at very concentrated levels, there was only one flavor/effect beyond the salt and (possibly) sugar that I could perceive deep into the meat. That flavor/effect has been identified as coming from eugenol. The molecular formula of eugenol is C10H12O2.

Relative to the food coloring and capsaicin, eugenol is a small molecule, and eugenol was perceptible in my chicken all the way to the bone.

The molar masses of the relevant molecules are: Sodium chloride: 58.44 g mol−1, Sucrose: 342.30 g/mol, Red 40: 496.42 g mol−1, Capsaicin: 305.41 g mol−1, Eugenol: 164.20 g/mol

So my question within an answer is this: Can the size of the molecules explain why most flavors don't seem to penetrate and food coloring definitely does NOT penetrate chicken, but eugenol does?

CONCLUSION

I will continue almost always to brine poultry (and pork for that matter). There is no question to me that brining improves the texture and flavor of the meat. The fact that I could absolutely sense the eugenol in my brine all the way to bone of the chicken concretely supports the idea that brine does, in fact, deeply penetrate poultry. There are advocates here for dry-brining and I'll certainly give that a shot.

Considering the huge variety and the strength of the concentration of flavors in my brine, it is significant to me that none of the flavors (besides the eugenol) seemed to penetrate the chicken. I am now convinced that adding flavor to the brine is a waste. In the future, I will save my spices, fruits and garlic for rubbing the chicken, basting the chicken and adding to sauces. They do nothing for the brine. The one exception seems to be eugenol, and that is a nice (if very mild) flavor, so spices high in eugenol might be worthwhile in brine.

I will continue the search. If my theory that small molecules can travel with the brine is correct, maybe there are other small molecules that can be responsible for nice flavors in chicken. But the straight 5% salt solution seems to be what matters. If I find another flavor that actually flavors the chicken, I will update this post.

using vacuum will help in opening the flesh and this will allow the brine to travel deeper


Why does flatbread have to be microwaved / cooked / toasted? I was eating at a Subway restaurant the other day and they asked if I would like my flatbread toasted... I responded with a "No thanks."

They said, "Well technically the flatbread still HAS to be toasted, so would you like the meat toasted ?"

In confusion, I asked, "Why? I would prefer it un-toasted."

They said, "We are required to toast all flatbread, as it releases some chemical... or something."

Can anyone clear up what they may be referring to?  Does flatbread (non-homemade) HAVE to be toasted / cooked / microwaved ?

Edit:

  Ingredients: Enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine
  mononitrate (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), folic acid, malted
  barley flour), water, soybean oil, yeast, contains 2% or less of
  nonfat dry milk, salt, wheat gluten, sugar, dough conditioner (acacia
  gum, guar gum, ascorbic acid, L- cysteine, enzymes), calcium
  propionate, baking powder (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium
  bicarbonate, corn starch, monocalcium phosphate), and sodium stearoyl
  lactylate.

Most likely the flatbread is not very pliable when cold. I believe that Subway forces the heating of the flatbread to keep it from splitting when they fold it.

Some restaurants may prefer to toast fladbreads slightly in order to serve hot, but unfortunately the chef in question here seems to be either not too good at explaining things in English, or may have just tried to convince the customer that the toasting requirement was something serious.


My olive oil didn't solidify in the fridge. Is it fake? After reading about scandals involving adulterated (and sometimes fake) olive oil, I decided to test a bottle of Bertolli olive oil. Bertolli in particular has been sued for selling fake olive oil, and successfully fended off the case by claiming their suppliers defrauded them.

The bottle had about an ounce left in it. I placed it in the fridge for about 11 hours, and it's still liquid. From my understanding, olive oil should solidify in the fridge. Is this conclusive proof that the oil was not real olive oil?

How liquid was it when you say liquid? Our kitchen is very cold in winter and may very well get to fridge temperature at night time and the olive oil gets white balls of solidified oil in it, and then goes very sludgy, making it difficult to pour, if not impossible. But it doesn't exactly solidify. So it depends on whether you mean it is completely liquid like normal or not.

This website implies that most oils should be unpourable by 35F (1.7C), which is the lowest temperature for a fridge (i.e. any particular fridge or part of a fridge may be slightly warmer than this):
http://www.oliveoilsource.com/page/freezing-olive-oil
(This same information is found on a multitude of sites, so I do not believe this is the original source)

However, it also says that olive oils may be "winterized" which means they do not clump or cloud, even at 32F/0C. This is so they can be used in salad dressings, etc, that are stored in the fridge. So you would need to find out if your olive oil had been so treated. I am not sure if this process is just used for oil sold for commercial use or not.

YOU MUST LEAVE IN BELOW 40 FOR AT LEAST 24HRS. HALF THAT TIME IS NOT ENOUGH.


Why does KitchenAid recommend against using the Dough Hook on Speed 1? KitchenAid's manual for the stand mixer contains several warnings not to use the dough hook on any speed other than 2. While lots of websites explain how high speeds can overheat the dough, what can go wrong at low speeds?

A KitchenAid  mixer does not have adjustable gearing; at low speeds it’s being run at low power. If run at low power with a viscous, resistant load like bread dough it can end up stalling, either continuously or repeatedly during the knead. This can overheat the motor and reduce its lifetime.

Simple, the motor of this mixer, when using the dough hook, will be overloaded at any other setting but 2. (They are not concerned about the temperature of your dough)
Bottom line, this machine is underpowered for this job.


At what pressure is whipped cream stored in a can? Whipped cream is often sold in pressurized cans. At what pressure is the cream stored in such a can when it is new? Thank you!

"... (50 bar of pressure) per charger."

according to http://creativewhip.com/isi-charging-system/


How was the usage of yeast for bread discovered? From where did people get the yeast for their bread??

The first yeast was "just there" - in the environment, everywhere. People discovered very early on that leaving the dough (or just a flour-water slurry) out would lead to it getting "sour" and "bubbly", thus leavening the bread: What we today call sourdough is in fact a mixture of yeasts and bacteria (lactobacillae).

The origins of bread-making are so ancient that everything said about them must be pure speculation. (M.G. Gaenzle: Encyclopedia of Food Microbiology)

Early sources are the Bible (-> the explicit demand for of "unleavened" or "unsoured" bread during Passover suggesting that otherwise was the norm) and sources from Ancient Egypt.
The "modern" yeast that was explicitly added was mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis historia as a foam skimmed from beer:

In Gaul and Spain, where they make a drink by steeping corn in the way
that has been already described - they employ the foam which
thickens upon the surface as a leaven: hence it is that the bread in
those countries is lighter than that made elsewhere.
Source: The Natural History, Chapter 12: Wheat. Pliny the Elder.
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and
Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

Sources from the 18th century describe how the yeast from the brewing process (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) was used for baking, leading to the "specialized strains" of bakers' yeast cultivated separately when the brewers switched to bottom-fermenting yeast (S. pastorianus) in the 19th century, which preferred cooler temperatures and was not as easy to harvest as the top-fermenting types.
The use of separately cultivated yeast allowed to bake "milder" breads than the sourdough types with their typical acidic undertones but is restricted to certain flour types.

It's from before history.

Cool fact I read in a brewing book:  Brewers used to keep a "magic wand" that was used to stir the wort (sugary water).  This wand had the brewer's yeast on it and inoculated the wort with yeast to ferment it into beer.  This is part of the origin of the magic wand.

Bakers, brewers, krauts, and yogurts would have had similar experiences with their tools (mixers, vessels, etc) harboring the yeast needed to make the fermentations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beer#Early_beers


How long will corm vegetables last in a refrigerator and should they be wrapped? How long can corm vegetables - celeriac (celery root), turnips, and swedes (rutabagas) - be kept in a refrigerator? And should they be wrapped? I usually buy them wrapped in sealed plastic. If aiming to store them for as long as possible, should I leave it on, replace it with cloth or greaseproof paper, or perhaps store the vegetables unwrapped?

how long is long ?

They are fine for couple of weeks if stored in a cool place with good amount of humidity.

"These are dependent on ideal storage conditions of 32 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 95-percent humidity."


What's the point of long/complex sourdough feeding techniques? About a year ago, a friend taught me how she makes her sourdough bread and gave me a portion of her starter.  It works great and makes fantastic loaves.  I've started to look at other recipes online and in various books (e.g. Flour, Water, Salt) to better understand how different types of sourdough breads are made and I've realized that the splitting/feeding of the starter in my recipe is quite a radical departure from every other Levain/sourdough-starter recipe I've found.  Otherwise, it seems to be the standard high-hydration (78%-80%), autolyse (2 hr), bake-in-a-dutch-oven approach that's so common these days.

Specifics:

I typically only have time to bake once a week, so I store my
sourdough culture in a glass jar in the fridge.
For most of the past year, when preparing my dough I would simply
take the starter out of the fridge, split it, and dissolve both
portions directly in warm water (~90 F).
The starter would then get some flour and be put back in the fridge
(100g starter, 100g water, 100g flour).
The portion for the bread would simply have the flour and salt added,
autolyzed with occasional folding, divided and allowed to rise
overnight (~12 hours).

In contrast to this simple approach of dissolving the starter directly in water and then adding the flour for autolysing, every other recipe I've found seems to require a 12 or 24 hour pre-feeding routine that involves feeding the starter first, then discarding most of this newly fed starter before adding this "revived" starter to the water/flour before either a long bulk fermentation or a long rise time.  Or some even require multiple feedings...

Why do people spend so much time and energy on long drawn out pre-feeding routines?  My approach obviously works - the bread rises just fine, the crumb is fantastic (that's mostly due to autolyse and cooking in a dutch oven), it develops a nice flavor and a little sourness over the 12 hour rise time (especially if it's a cold night).

What am I missing?  Better flavor?  I can seen an argument for getting the culture more active this way, but I don't see much difference between that and simply allowing my culture to warm up to room temperature. In fact, I've started letting my culture warm up before splitting it this past month, as well as leaving the newly fed cut at room temperature for several hours before sticking it back in the fridge - however, I haven't noticed any difference in flavor nor in how long it takes to rise, etc.

Absent a definitive answer here, I'm going to take a stab at this based on some experience I had with difficult sourdough starters.  Note that I make a lot of sourdough items but do not do any kind of multi-stage prefeeding ritual.

Sourdough is a culture of multiple types of bacteria and wild yeast.  Sometimes wild yeasts do not reproduce rapidly or produce as much carbon dioxide (for leavening) as commercial yeasts.  I've definitely had the problem before with a starter that it wouldn't produce anything other than a superdense bread, no matter how long the dough rise.

Most of us keep our starters in the fridge (unless we run commercial bakeries).  Thing is, at fridge temperatures, the bacterial culture will grow, albeit slowly, but the yeast will hardly reproduce at all, and will produce no carbon dioxide. So, when you take it out of the fridge, if you use the culture immediately you may have an imbalance of active bacteria but sleepy yeast (this is some inexpert armchair biology here, so a big pinch of kosher salt with it).

You are solving this via the use of 90F water.  I solve it by proofing a sponge for 7-12 hours.  However, there are clearly sourdough aficionados who feel that this is not sufficient to restore the yeast to full strength and that it needs more time and feeding.  The feed, split, and discard routine I believe comes from commercial bakeries that never refrigerate their starters because they use it every day; it is the advice given in the Berkeley Cheese Board's cookbook, for example.  Doing this over 36 hours or so could be assumed to get the sourdough into the same state it would have been for a sourdough kept constantly at room temperature and rotated every 24 hours, allowing you to use the exact same rising times/temps as they would use.

Now, back to my all-natural wild yeast starter that wouldn't rise very well.  I did not try feed-and-split for 36 hours; maybe that would have made it rise adequately and is the reason for this technique.  Instead, I started the starter-making process over and got a better strain of yeast the second time.

I have seen little difference between feeding a starter and making the dough for bread, they both require added flour and water. Taking a starter right out of the fridge and making dough, however, may give you the results you want, but letting it warm up and feeding once or twice before baking assures the best condition so the yeast in the dough during the proofing or riseng stages can eat the sugars and starches in the wheat, which releases the nutrients for better digestion. And people who are gluten intollerant can eat sourdough bread because the gluten is alaready predigested, unless it has sleepy yeast in it that isn't doing everything it should. This is only one reason for feeding after refrigerating before baking. Another reason is baking with and maintaining sourdough starters requires time. Things go more slowly than with baker's yeast, which is fast rising but short lived. My information about gluten intolerance is found on several sites, especially at TraditionalCooking and here: https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/can-celiacs-eat-true-sourdough-bread/