Any benefit to buy high-quality meat for a mediocre cook? Quite honestly, I consider myself a mediocre cook as I am consistently able to make decent dishes. Nothing I ever make is fantastic and almost never terrible.

The question is this: will my cooking benefit from buying higher-quality meat even though my cooking skills are not fantastic? What improvements could I expect to see?

This is a great question, but not one that can be answered with "yes" or "no".

In some areas, it is known that the professional grade tools and ingredients require much skill to use well and so the general public is better off using consumer grade tools. (Try tasking the average office drone to create a report with Word or QuarkXpress and you'll see what I mean). But there is no such general rule in cooking. And yet, this does not mean that better quality meat will always make better quality food. It depends on the details of each situation.

First, what does "high quality meat" mean? A filet mignon is a prized cut, and costs much more than shank. But even the best cook cannot make a good stew out of filet mignon. So in the first place, you have to know which category of meat is suited for the dish you are making. Only within a given category will better meat produce better results.

Second, "quality" means different things to different people. A cooking beginner usually cannot recognize which meat will produce better results in the given category and goes by factors like price and store reputation to decide which meat must be better quality. This is not necessarily correlated to better taste. So, as a beginner, you can pick meat you believe to be better, but end up with worse results.

The combination of these two points means that you should be aware of the difference between a "better" cut and a higher-quality version of the same cut. A "better" cut is actually a different cut, so it's a substitution that usually won't guarantee a better result. But a higher-quality upgrade of the same cut is likely to make a dish better. So, you need the cooking skill to tell a given piece of meat will be a good substitution for your earlier choice (a higher-quality version) or not (it is simply a better cut). Also, if somebody is trying to sell you a different version, you need to be able to recognize its quality (marbling in steaks, color intensity in pork chops, etc.)

Third, you can certainly find many cases where the more refined dishes, which need rarer, prized cuts, require a lot of skill to pull off well. So, if you decide to buy the "better" meat - as in the filet mignon vs. shank example - and have enough knowledge to match the dish to it, your skill might not be sufficient to pull off the dish for that meat well, while it would have been sufficient to make a good dish of the type for which the cheaper meat was suited.

Fourth, for each dish, the relative influence of skill vs. ingredient quality will be different for the final dish quality. So, it is possible that for going from "horrible" to "kinda edible" you need to get some skill, no matter what meat you use, but the jump from "kinda edible" to "not that bad" requires better meat, not better skill.

It is impossible to list all possible situations, dishes and meat cuts and say for each where the end result quality is skill-limited and where it is ingredient-limited. I am afraid that you have to be an intermediate cook before you can recognize if a mediocre cook can improve his results by cooking a given dish with better ingredients.

I would say it would benefit you more.

A high end cook can better salvage lower end ingredients.

Higher quality meat can mean a lot of things.  Need to cook appropriate for the meat.

I would rather send a high end cook to market with $60 than a mediocre with $100.  Your question is vague.


How do I make liquid glucose from powdered glucose I recently decided to make something that required liquid glucose, 140g of it. No problem in general, but for some reason none of my usual suppliers had stock (even tried pharmacies). The closest I found was glucose powder.

Unfortunately, having no clue how to "re-hydrate" the powder to a liquid form, I experimented. :-)

I can safely say that 100g glucose powder was way to much as a substitute for 140g of liquid glucose (which I expected).

However, I was wondering if any of you had a convenient method of turning powdered glucose into the wonderfully thick and sticky liquid glucose, in case I ever find myself in that position.

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

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

I tried making my own glucose syrup, as there were no speciality baking shops in my vicinity.

I did it mixing:

35 g (2.5 tbsp) of water with
2 tsp fine sugar
1 tsp cornflour

You can adjust the amount of water used, by using a little more or a little less of it.


Sautéing vs Frying vs Caramelizing -- what's the difference? What's the difference between sautéing, frying, and caramelizing?

When I cook chopped onions in a pan with oil until they are brown and have a slightly sweet taste, which of the above is the correct term for what I am doing?

I've never really considered there to be a real difference between sautéing and frying. They both mean to cook in a hot pan with a little bit of fat. However there isn't a lot of consistency online. It doesn't look like there's any sort of definitive answer here. Some points of view:

They're the same, although frying might involve slightly more oil. The terms are essentially interchangeable. This is the top hit on a google search "sauteing frying" (although this question is on the first page!).
As Aaronut says, sautéing involves jumping the food while frying involves a little more oil and less flipping or stiring of the food. Here's another source for this definition. This definition makes a delineation between pan frying and shallow frying.
Frying is the same as shallow frying and involves partially submerging the food in oil. Food is normally breaded first. There's no distinction between frying and shallow frying. This is Martha Stewart's definition.

As you can see, it's really all over the map, and that was just from the first page of the google results. I think we're getting in to issues with language changing beneath us. However, I think the safest bet is probably that sautéing involves a lot of stirring,  frying doesn't, and I should consider refining my own definitions.

Caramelizing (which fortunately doesn't have any of the same confusion) is a process that happens during cooking when sugar oxidizes. There are many different ways that you can achieve this effect. One of the ways is to sauté or fry (depending on your definition) something until the water sweats out and the remaining sugar heats up.

So the answer is that you are caramelizing the onions by sautéing (or maybe frying) them.

In my opinion, "Frying" is the term used when using oil (canola, olive, corn, etc.). and "Sauteing" is the term used when using butter. The heat differences are valid points, but I believe it comes down to the type of fat used.


Does mayo "break"/decompose if you stop whisking then whisk the other way? Is is true or an urban legend that if you whisk the opposite way while making mayonnaise (after you've whisked in one direction for a while), the mixture will be "undone" into its components?

Welcome to the world of urban legends and old wives' tales.

Handmade mayonnaise can be a fickle thing to create if you don't work within the laws of physics and chemistry and don't achieve the desired emulsion. So like with other tricky processes, many "rules" have developed, that are more myth than method. (I was even told once to "always stir counter-clockwise"...)

If you think closely, it becomes obvious that an emulsion - for mayonnaise, tiny particles of oil suspended in water - is something completely different from tiny strands of something. One can not "unwind" or separate by stirring in the opposite direction.

My personal theory for the origin of the "don't change direction" rule is that if you constantly stir in one direction, you reach some kind of "flow state" and work in a steady rythm - the latter being far more important for a good whipping or stirring result than any direction. And that the rule predates the use of electric kitchen equipment, going back to the times where all whipping was done by hand.

its only a joke like sending your wife to the auto parts store for muffler bearing or the paint store for camouflage paint. some one just having fun with you.   loner


Is free-range chicken more flavourful? Free range chicken is generally a lot more expensive than battery farm chicken, but it's often claimed it is better tasting.

I'm curious if restaurants stick to this mantra and use free-range chicken, or if it's just psychological, and if there any benefits besides ethical ones.

Flavor in most meats is generally determined by a few things.

How the animal was raised and if it is of a particular heritage breed.
How it was treated over its lifetime (i.e. diet and environment).
When and how it is slaughtered.
How it is handled from the slaughterhouse to the butcher, was it properly stored, etc.

Also, how fatty the bird is and light to dark meat ratio will also determine flavor of the bird.

I definitely have tried a lot of different types of "free range", "organic", and/or "local" chickens out there and you basically get what you pay for in terms of meat quality and flavor. At my restaurant, we try to source best quality chickens — local, organic and free range, if possible — because it just tastes better and it coincides with our philosophy.  Properly cooking and seasoning the chicken will also help.

Personally, I would say that a free range chicken is more tasty than commercial chicken. I've done several chicken roasting using both free range chicken and commercial ones and I can truly say that the free range chicken is more tasty and meat is tender and juicy.


Baking cakes in the Microwave ovens as compared to Electric ovens Is there a difference in the output or in the procedure when baking cakes in the Microwave ovens as compared to Electric ovens?

What are the basic and crucial differences found among cakes baked in the above mentioned different equipments?

Question: If we run the microwave (which has a convection feature) on "grill and convection" mode only, does it become same as rectangular "Electric ovens"? Please explain why and how too.

Yes, there is a difference. You shouldn't be baking a cake (or anything else) in a microwave oven.

A microwave oven excites the water within your food. When you put in dough or batter, the excited water doesn't bind with the starch the way it does under normal heat, it escapes the starch, leaving you with a stone-hard piece of dough or batter.

There is something called "five-minutes microwave cake". I haven't tried it, but in the recipes floating around the interwebs it gets eaten while still hot (so probably before it has had the chance to get too hard). It also seems that there is a very small heat frame in which it gets OK. Bake it too much, and it will get hard, or burn. Bake it too little, and you end up with a mug of warm batter. It is also supposed to be a cupcake, I suspect that if you try to bake a bigger portion at once, there will be enough temperature difference in different zones of the batter to get underbaked, baked and hard portions all at once.

Bottom line: if you want to try for the fun of it, make a cupcake in the microwave, and watch your energy input (microwave watt setting and time) very closely, then eat immediately. You can find recipes all over the Web, e. g. on Instructables. If you want a real cake, don't bake in a microwave.

Ive just purchased a Russell Hobbs combi microwave. Im in the Uk.
I decided to bake a lemon drizzle cake. The recipe called for 175 gms each of sugar, butter and flour and 1 and half lemons. Zest only in the cake. The juice to be used in the drizzle mix with 80 gms of sugar, spooned over after cooking.
Temp 160 degs for 45 minutes. The mix was very stiff and I let it down slightly with a little milk.
Now we are talking about a combi microwave with a convection setting.
We are not talking about a sole purpose microwave oven. You cant use those as a regular oven In this mode the oven is supposed to become just like a standard convection oven. Since I find it difficult to manage a below waist oven on account of back problems I thought this would be an ideal way to cook at eye level. But it isnt.
160 degs in the combi is not the same as my oven and the cake took over an hour to cook. I had to keep resetting the controls and had to up the temp to 170 degrees. I'm  not impressed .
I would suggest that in recipes its important not to use the fan setting ( unless you have a super duper combi that does have a fan function and to check with an oven thermometer whether your temps are true. I'm sure it would be fine to use the oven for other baked dishes where temp is not so crucial.
Also very very important while you are learning your combi that you do not press the microwave or combi mode button you have anything metal in the oven! Or versa plastic containers in convection mode. Very few good cook books out there and the manufacturers dont include recipes to get you started.


Making cake icing look professionally smooth So you've got a nice, flat-topped cake after learning on Seasoned Advice how to eliminate doming and now you wish to ice it as perfectly smooth as you see it sometimes done commercially: no ridges with a even sheen.

Any secrets beyond patience and an artistic flair?

I already use a long, flat icing spatula.

Professionals ice on a turntable. Turntables for home use are affordable, and make icing much easier.

Your spatula should reach to about the centre of the cake when held steady and comfortable. As @rfusca suggests, heating it for buttercream is a good idea. You can also wet it for other icings, to make it glide smoothly.

For the icing process itself, start with the top of the cake. Apply a generous amount of icing; you will be thinning it out with the spatula, not smearing it right and left to get an even thickness. Hold the spatula to an angle to the cake, tip at the centre, and rotate the turntable. Let excess icing drop to the side of the cake. When you have done the top, smear icing thick on the side, hold the spatula vertically, the edge at 45° to the cake side surface, and again turn the turntable. When you have finished, you will have raised icing on the edge of the cake. To finish the cake, smooth these edges.

To do this, you need enough icing. "The professional chef" recommends 340 g (12 oz) for a 20 cm (8 in) cake and 454 g (1 lb) for a 25 cm (10 in) cake.

This all assumes buttercream icing or other spreadable icings such as ones based on whipped cream or creme fraiche. It is somewhat tougher for semi-liquid glazes such as ganache.

Use a paper towel to smooth out icing.  Trust me, google it!!!


Sous vide without plastic bags? I really like the idea of cooking steak using sous vide. However, I am very wary of heating food up together with plastic, and then eating the food, as I believe that at high temperatures, chemicals from the plastic will leech into the food. *

Is there an alternative to plastic bags for sous vide?

The requirements for the new type of container must be that it is airtight, waterproof, and of course able to withstand heat.

Call me paranoid, but I do believe this to be the case - and I do not want to ingest these chemicals

First of all, I agree with the others that there is no harm done by plastic bags for sous vide. I have read a statement by the manufacturer that brand-name Ziploc bags don't release anything below 76°C. If you think how much a lawsuit could cost them if the information turned out to be wrong, I trust that they are telling the truth. For other brands, you may have to do some research about safe temperatures.

If you are still unconvinced, your choice of material is very limited. You say it must be airtight and waterproof; I'll add that it must be pliable, so it can cover an irregular steak shape perfectly, without leaving air pockets, and it must somehow be able to create a seal. Also, it must not release any harmful chemicals by itself.

About the only thing that fulfills all criteria would be a wax with a high melting point, like carnauba wax. You could paint the steak with the melted wax, or, probably better, you could soak a piece of gauze in the melted wax and wrap the steak in it, pressing out any air bubbles. Then let it cool and set before cooking. The downside: not only is the food grade wax difficult to source for private people, it also can end up costing quite a bit.

Another option would be silicone, like the one used for baking pans. Unlike plastic, food grade silicone does not contain any chemicals which could leak - the medical sector uses the same stuff for prostethics and implants; it is safe to have it inside your body, so it is definitely safe to cook your food in it. The problem is that you'll need a sealable bag made of silicone, and I don't know if anybody manufactures such bags.

You might consider very tightly wrapping the meat in a caul (not necessarily an amniotic caul, a peritoneum should do nicely) and binding it, but I don't know where you can get cauls. Maybe you can ask a butcher. Also, it probably won't be 100% watertight (but still enough to keep the tasty juices in the steak where they belong, instead of having them flow out into the water).

If you are willing to relax your rules a bit, you can solve the problem much easier. I think you will agree that whatever hypothetical substance might leak from a plastic bag, it cannot travel far through a solid medium. So a steak wrapped in something protective and then sealed in a plastic bag should be safe - you just discard both the plastic bag and the presumably contaminated protective substance. Yes, it is possible that meat juices that have come in contact with the plastic bag end up on the steak, but the possible contamination should be hundreds of times less than if direct contact is allowed between the plastic and the meat.

If you can live with this option, the usual insulators used in the kitchen should do. They are plant leaves - I'd use grape leaves, but you can use practically anything that is big enough - and batters, like tempura batter (breading leaves an irregularly shaped surface, so I won't consider it here, you'll end up with lots of miniature air pockets). If using a batter, you will want to first set it in a pan with very hot oil, just hold it there long enough to set the batter, but not enough to warm the meat on the inside above the sous vide temperature. Both of these options wont't function on their own, as they won't create a sealed waterproof barrier. But combined with a plastic bag and later discarded, they should be a good solution. The leaves will also add a nice taste of their own.

I'll remind you of the old ways: batter, clay and salt dough used in a similar way to duck skin.


Why did my Turkey Stock turn into gelatin? We took our left-over turkey carcass and parts and simmered them for a few hours with water in a pot with some herbs and veggies.  After removing the solids, and separating the fat, we placed it in the fridge to be frozen the next day.  When we pulled it out, the entire bowl - not just the top - was completely gelatinous.  It is truly like Jello.

Is this OK?  Why did this happen?

We plan to vacuum seal and freeze it if safe.

If your stock turns to jelly in the fridge, it means you did it right!

Simmering the bones breaks down the collagen and turns it into gelatin; that's the very essence of stock-making.  The gelatin is exactly what you want from the stock; at low temperatures it has a very jelly-like consistency, but at higher temperatures it melts and provides a very rich texture.

The more you reduce the stock, the more gelatinous it will become, so if it turned out stiffer than you expected, it's probably because you let a lot of water evaporate.  Typically, when making stock, you use a very low simmer; just a few bubbles per minute.  Any more than that and your stock will reduce.

But reducing is perfectly OK, and many cooks will reduce an entire pot of stock down to a few tablespoons; it's like bullion, only without all the salt and preservatives.  Heavily-reduced stock is called glace de viande and is often used to give a sauce or dish a little bit of extra kick, imparting a powerful meat flavour.  But you probably didn't reduce it that much.

If you're finding it to be too concentrated or gelatinous, even at higher temperatures, you can feel free to dilute it.  For soups or sauces you can probably dilute it 1 for 1, but taste as you go along just to make sure you're not watering it down too much.

When only the top layer of a stock solidifies in the refrigerator, it is probably fat, which you should skim off and discard (or reserve).  The rest is your actual stock, and in your case it sounds delicious.

Also, since you mention vacuum-sealing - I prefer to use covered ice cube trays for freezing stock.  That lets you portion it out much more easily than a big solid blob.

Gelatin comes from bones - it is the most flavorful part of the stock and solidifies at relatively high temperatures.


How to thin chocolate for dipping How do you make chocolate thin enough to dip strawberries?
If I make it thin enough to dip (with butter) will that affect allowing it to set-up and harden?
I saw another question about the thickness but nothing about hardening.

How do you make chocolate thin enough to dip strawberries?

Melt it. I'm not trying to be funny here -- you should have no problem dipping strawberries or pretty much anything else (that's solid) in melted chocolate. When candy makers coat things in chocolate, that's all they're using -- they don't add anything to make the chocolate thinner. If you're really having trouble in this respect, then perhaps your chocolate isn't fully melted, or perhaps it's something other than real chocolate.

If you want the chocolate to be "tempered" when it hardens/dries/crystalizes, you're going to have to read up on tempering and be pretty careful with the temperature (but you'll end up with a superior product if you do).

  If I make it thin enough to dip (with butter) will that affect
  allowing it to set-up and harden?

Yes, that will definitely affect the way the chocolate sets up. When chocolate hardens, the cocoa butter contained in the chocolate forms crystals. The crystals can actually take several different forms, and only one of those forms makes for the best appearance and hardness. That's why you temper chocolate, btw. Adding other substances, particularly another fat, will affect or prevent that crystallization process.

adding just a little melted wax works fine for me, and helps it set up when it cools. I do this particularly for dark chocolate, which is really too thick for dipping.


What is the right consistency for ghee? Some of ghee I find in stores has liquid on top (with some solids floating about), while in other brands it is completely solid (both jars are stored at the same temperature). Also, the latter ghee (that doesn't split into a liquid layer on top) is often twice as expensive as the former.

So, what is the "right" texture/consistency for ghee? Are the more "solid" brands just better at filtering out the usual water and protein? Or, are there really some components of butterfat itself that melt at lower temperatures, only to get filtered out by the more "solid" ghee brands?

Ghee is suppose to be 100% butter fat. The water has since been boiled off. If it has a liquid portion at room temperature this is either they did not remove all the water and solids that floated to the surface or an additive liquid or preservative did not set right (Most likely). I would avoid it if possible. If not, use your nose and make sure it is not gone rancid.

When making ghee the solids [milk fats, salt] darken and go to the bottom and pure butterfat is poured off. There should not be liquids of any kind in pure ghee. It's not pure.


How to minimise sugar in meringue My wife just complained that she can't eat my meringue because they have too much sugar in them. She suggested I cook them with less sugar. However, without sugar the meringue won't work right. What is the minimum ratio of egg white to sugar required to get a stable meringue.

Technically, the minimum ratio of sugar is zero. You can definitely create a stable meringue without any sugar at all, although you'll have to mind your conditions and preparation - use a spotlessly-clean bowl, room-temperature egg whites (separated when chilled), initially foamed up on low speed with an acid such as vinegar or cream of tartar, superfine sugar (if you're using any at all) added very slowly after the soft peak stage, and a starch (e.g. corn starch or icing sugar) at the end for added stability.

The main problem, of course, is that as you allude to, when you bake it you'll basically end up with dried-out egg. It won't have any flavour at all. If you're just reducing the sugar then maybe this isn't a problem. If you're trying to eliminate the sugar entirely or almost entirely then you need to replace it with something - generally, a savory bomb, like very old cheese (for example Reggiano and chives), or very dark chocolate if it must be a dessert.

To do that, just grate or finely chop the strong/savory elements, whip the eggs up to the shiny peak stage, and fold in the shavings at the very end. The meringue will hold up.

But again, and I'm going to repeat myself here - you don't need a lot of sugar for stability. You can easily halve the sugar measurement for a traditional meringue recipe and still have it come out OK (albeit less tasty) - especially if you make one of the more stable meringue types, such as an Italian meringue where the sugar is combined as boiling sugar syrup. But you don't have to do that; simply reducing the sugar is fine if you're careful.

You could always use brown sugar. Just dump everything in and whip it up. Make sure the equipment is spotlessly clean though. Brown sugar generally gives the meringue a caramel/toffee like flavour but it's richer and far less sweeter than a normal meringue.


How long do you let a steak from the fridge come up to temperature, and when do you salt it? Before cooking a steak, you're supposed to let it sit out at room temperature. You're also supposed to salt it. What is the proper timing for these steps? How long do you let the steak come up to temperature, and how long before you cook it do you salt it?

In this thread, Lorenzo notes that steaks may end up raw in the center if you only leave 'em out for 10-15 minutes to come up to temperature. I recommend 30 mins, but it will probably vary on what room temperature actually is for you.

From Weber's Way To Grill, which recommends salting right when you take them out of the fridge, here's Mr. Purviance's take on why you should consider salting early:

  It's true that salt draws moisture toward itself, but over the course of 20 to 30 minutes that's a good thing, because the salt begins to dissolve into that little bit of moisture. When the steak hits the hot grate... [you] create a delicious crust. Any moisture you might lose is well worth the flavor of that crust.

You can season a steak over night. I leave mine in fridge a few days before grilling.


How can you prepare turnips to make them less bitter? I peeled and quarted turnips, then roasted with carrots and onions in olive oil and maple syrup, but the turnips were really bitter. Is there a way to roast them (or even another cooking method) to remove that bitterness? How long should they be roasted?

Or do I simply need to pick a better batch of turnips?

Yeah, maybe you just had some bitter turnips.  It sounds like you did all the right things to hide the bitterness.

If you want to try a different cooking method, I tend to like turnip boiled and mashed.  If the turnip is old (and likely bitter) you can add an apple.  I've also read that you can stir in baking soda after the turnips have boiled to remove the bitterness. You would then need to rinse thoroughly. I've never tried this however.

My granny used to put a slice of white bread on top after they were nearly done, let it sit two or three minutes and remove. I don't remember any bitterness.


Shiny side or not for foil? Does it make any difference when you wrap food with aluminum foil for grilling or baking or making a steam pouch whether you put the shiny side in or the shiny side out?

I've seen at least one answer to a questiong about grilling that made mention of this.

I've been told that the shiny side should go on the inside for cooking, and the outside for freezing.  In other words, do you want to reflect the heat into the food, or away from the food?

However, common sense (which fails very often) tells me that with the temperature ranges involved, any benefit is marginal, if it exists at all.

The only time it might matter, is if you were trying to warm something up in the sun.  Then it might make a difference.

EDIT:  From The Straight Dope:

  The truth is that the shiny side is
  not treated with a dangerous chemical.
  Mineral oil is used as a lubricant
  during the rolling process, some trace
  of which may remain on the finished
  foil--but it's not dangerous. The
  shiny side is shiny because of the way
  foil is made. During the last pass
  through the rolling mill, a double
  thickness of foil is run between the
  rollers. The side of each sheet that
  comes in contact with the polished
  steel rollers comes out shiny. The
  other side has a matte finish.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1135/should-a-baking-potato-be-wrapped-in-foil-shiny-side-in-or-shiny-side-out

ALSO

  The official word from the Reynolds
  aluminum people is as follows: "It
  makes little difference which side of
  the Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil you
  use--both sides do the same fine job
  of cooking, freezing, and storing
  food. There is a slight difference in
  the reflectivity of the two sides, but
  it is so slight that laboratory
  instruments are required to measure
  it."

I  think  with  the  foil's shiny  side outside  the  food  cooks  a  bit  later  because  it  reflects  heat  away  from  the  food


Homemade yogurt & flavours - Keeping it thick I am getting a really thick yogurt with fresh whole milk + cultures.
What I do is:

get the milk (3,8% fat) boiling (95°C)
keep heating the milk, lowering the temperature to 85/90°C for ten minutes
Cool the milk down to 40°C
Add cultures and mix properly
Store the milk for 9Hrs in a recycled Easiyo thermos with hot water wrapped in a pile

Simply perfect

One day I have tried to add jam and sugar during step 2, however the yogurt didn't get thick at at all, although it had a perfect taste.
Conclusion: adding flavors may conflict with bacteria development.

So the question is, from your experience, what flavors and how much sugar can be added to yogurt allowing a proper thick yogurt? I have personally added vanilla powder at step 2

Share your experience!

Creating the right environment for bacterial fermentation

Yogurt is made using a few different bacteria which excel at digesting the lactose in milk at warm temperatures. Each of those factors (culture, temperature, composition of milk,) is important in creating an ideal environment for bacterial fermentation.

You would not try fermenting yogurt using yeast or a bacterial culture different from yogurt starter, and you wouldn't expect the yogurt to ferment if you held it your refrigerator instead of a warm thermos. The composition of the milk is equally important. If you change a major component of the milk, such as by adding sugar, some fermentation may happen but the result will not be what you expect.

"Live active culture" vs. actively culturing

There is a difference between bacteria that is "alive" or "active" and bacteria that is currently doing something.

Imagine dry baking yeast in a canister. The yeast is alive, but inert. It's not in an environment where it can do anything. Add moisture and carbohydrates for it to act on, and it goes nuts. Put that dough in the refrigerator, and it slows way down. Until you cook the yeast it doesn't "die" or "deactivate" it just has various states of activity depending on its environment.

The yogurt culture is alive when you add it to the milk, alive when you're done incubating it, alive when you add sugar, and alive when you eat it, But it can't turn milk into yogurt unless you give it a very precise environment -- the right culture, the right temperature, the right environment in the milk, including the right amount of sugar.

Recently made some with half and half instead of whole milk. Added sweetened condensed milk before processing. And vanilla.  Turned out so thick when I turned it upside down it didn’t even budge.  So already sweetened then.    Used 1 qt half and half. 2 Tablespoons of plain yogurt as a starter. Half a can of sweetened condensed milk and vanilla. Probably a Tablespoon, maybe two.  (I hate measuring). I put it in jars in my instapot on yogurt setting for 11 hours and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Or tastebuds. Fantastic.


What's a good substitute for onion for someone with an onion allergy? I am an allium lover with a strong allergy to all alliums. It is technically a sensitivity, as it isn't an instant reaction, but spending an hour in the bathroom because of one stray piece of red onion warrants a scarier word then "sensitivity". For those not familiar with plant taxonomy, alliums are the plant family that holds garlic, onions, chives, and leeks.

My allergy is progressively getting stronger and I can no longer lie to myself. I need a good substitute for that fantastic allium taste. Right now I can still eat garlic in reasonable amounts (thank god), but red onions are out, and everything else from white onions to leeks is somewhere in between. Any and all preparations of allium trigger the allergy, so no onion powder.

I am desperately looking for a non-allium onion substitute. My hope and dream is something that tastes like onion but isn't an allium. I would accept any strongly flavoured class of plants to switch addictions to.

The perfect solution to you - Use the Indian spice called "Asafoetida" or "Hing". It gives a taste which is very much like Onion and Garlic - In fact, stricter practitioners of Hinduism are not allowed to eat onion and garlic (as supposedly they cause mental agitation). Thus, traditional Hindu (Vedic) cooking uses Asafoetida as a subsitute for onion in Indian recipes which almost invariably call for the use of onions.

The spice gives off a slightly funky smell (I like it, but most people describe it as bad), but tastes great. It is easily available in powdered form in Indian grocery stores - and usually comes in small containters such as this:

It has a VERY strong taste, so put a very small amount of it - about a 1/4 of a teaspoon for a dish that's meant or 4 people. Usually in Indian cooking it is quickly fried to get rid of the "raw" taste. I am not sure how well it tastes in salads, you'd have to experiment with it.

Try Bear Garlic. It is a green grass-like herb that tastes and smells great like alliums.


How can I "cheat" on dough maturation? I found a good balance between leavening and maturation while using my favourite flour, my oven and my sourdough starter, the only problem is that the whole process, from mixing the ingredients and producing a baked dough/focaccia requires more than 24h, about 1 day and a half.

I know at least 2 ways of "cheating" on the leavening, with some fructose/easy to digest sugar or a warmer temperature, but maturation is harder, it looks like there is no real answer or shortcut to that.

My main problem here is to shorten the amount of time required while getting the same or a really similar result.

The easiest method, and most common in a commercial setting, would be to add a small amount of yeast in addition to the sourdough starter. You will probably have to reformulate a bit, as the dough will mature faster leaving the starter less time to develop flavor. This is usually overcome by also increasing the proportion of starter (and adjusting the final dough's hydration based on the hydration of your starter).

For instance, if your original recipe included 30% starter (in baker's math), the faster version might have 40% starter and .5% yeast. If you use a liquid starter, you may then cut the water by 5% or so, and if you use a solid starter no further adjustment may be needed.

You didn't specified the preparation steps of your recipe, so I don't know if you already doing what I'm going to suggest. It's from Max Berstein's post on Serious Eats and I don't know if this tip will work with sourdough starter:
Mix first only flour and water, nothing more, until all flour is incorporated and let it rest for at least 15 minutes. Them you add the yeast and salt, knead until all ingredients are incorporated.
From my (small) experience, I found this to make the dough rising more efficient, in only a few hours the dough doubled the size. If you didn't do this already, give it a try.
The reasons for not adding salt and yeast at the beginning:

Although salt strengthens our gluten network overall, it's also very water-hungry. If we added salt to our autolyse, it would compete with our proteins and starches for water, causing them to take longer to hydrate. While this wouldn't be a disaster, we've already committed ourselves to a five-hour project here, so why make it harder on ourselves?
And as for the yeast, its job is to ferment our flour, causing the bread to rise and develop flavor. But on a chemical level, mixing—and autolysing, in particular—isn't about flavor. It's about structure. Were we to put our yeast in during our autolyse, it would start belching out gas. When we begin our kneading steps later, we would just end up pounding this gas back out. In short, the yeast just doesn't have a job to do during the autolyse.


Cast iron pan flaking My cast iron pan has started to give off tiny black flakes after 3 months of use.  Are these dangerous in any way?  Are we ingesting iron?  There are patches on the skillet that are now a little lighter than their surrounding areas.

That is just the seasoning - the nonstick carbon that is formed after years of use - coming off. If big pieces are dropping in your food or you are freaked out by it, simply give your pan a good scrubbing with some steel wool and soap then re-season it.

To season the pan:

Take a paper towel and soak a bit of oil into it
Coat the inside of the pan with oil
Put in a 250F over for about an hour
Repeat each day until it has a nice shiny non-stick coating once again

Remember not to wash the pan with soapy water if you want the pan to stay non-stick. If there are bits of food in it from frying or such. Scrub it out with hot water and some coarse kosher salt, just nothing like steel wool, non-stick safe scrubbers are OK.

Adam

Wash it as much as you want. The non stick isn't going to come out unless you let it rust. Wash it, heat it on high, put some oil in it, and put it away. Nuff said.


How does soaking liver in milk work? Soaking liver in milk is said to be a common technique that supposedly helps to remove impurities, softens flavour, and tenderises the liver.

I tried it, and the liver turned out alright, but it got me wondering: how does this work? What's the chemistry behind it? Exactly what's happening between the milk and the liver?

Is it the acid in the milk tenderising the liver? That would mean I could soak liver in a marinade based on lemon juice or vinegar? (It doesn't seem like a terrific idea)

Or is there something else involved? I searched around, but nothing I found seemed terribly exact.

My knowledge about the phenomenon itself is limited but I did see it mentioned in "Modernist Cuisine" (Nathan Myhrvold, p. 147)

  Many recipes for foie gras, liver, sweetbreads, and other offal include a soaking step before cooking. For kidneys,
  this step serves a very simple purpose: to remove any trace of the animal's bodily fluids. Recipes often call for
  soaking foie gras, liver, and sweetbreads in milk. It is often said that milk improves the taste, purges blood, lightens
  the color, or affects some other property of the meat. We were skeptical, so we tried several experiments. With
  a mild-flavored organ meat like foie gras, we could taste a difference, but, frankly, in our tests, we prefer the taste
  of water-soaked to milk-soaked foie gras. With stronger-flavored organ meats, there is even less of a difference than
  with foie gras. So our suggestion is to simply soak the meat in water.

So, there you have it.

I could be wrong but my reasoning is that heme iron - the type of iron in chicken liver - is not destroyed by milk. Milk is virtually pH neutral when liver is soaked in it it softens the texture and neutralizes any residual urine. All water does is wet your liver making one use more paper towels to pat the liver down and absorb the excess water.


Why is my pickled red cabbage so pale? Forgive me, but this is a very particular question:
I love having pickled red cabbage at Turkish restaurants; it's delicious and the color is always a beautiful deep magenta (see picture below). Yet every time I try to make it at home, it comes out a sad, pale white-pinkish hue (see 2nd picture). I massage the cabbage with salt, let it sit for at least half an hour, and then add a brine of salt, sugar, and about a 3:1 ratio of red wine vinegar to water. Does anyone know where I'm going wrong?
Thank you very much
çok teşekkür ederim

Are you heating the brine first to dissolve the sugar and salt?
I've always heated the sugar and salt in water, poured that over the cabbage while still hot, then add the vinegar (I use white vinegar at room temperature) and mix well.
This heating and quick "cooling" should lock in the color.

Maybe the temperature needs to be somewhat below 100 degrees C, and then the first answer holds true also, at least for green foods like broccoli. Surely for red cabbage it's the same.


How to prevent the chicken breasts from drying out One of the methods I use to cook chicken in general and especially chicken breast is as follows:

put the chicken into a frying pan. Pour 1/2 a cup of water and let it cook on medium heat for as long as two or three tablespoons of water remains. I use small portions of onion to get rid of its bad smell.

The problem with this method is always get a dry meat. What method gives me a moist and juicy meat so that it melts in the mouth?

The reason why your meat is dry has less to do with whether you cook in liquid and more to do with the temperature you cook the meat to. The proteins in meat will squeeze out the water in them as you increase the temperature you cook them at. If you are cooking your breasts in boiling water then that can result in meat that is cooked far above well done. Here is a link that relates moisture loss in meat vs cooking temp:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/03/how-to-sous-vide-steak.html

This link is for beef but the basic principle applies to chicken as well.

Water is able to transfer heat much more efficiently then air given a similar temperature. This means that your chicken is ironically getting overcooked because of the water you added. A standard technique people use to cook small cuts of meat is to brown both sides at a high temperature and then lower the temp to cook the inside without over cooking the outside. Next time just try to cook without water and just lower the temp instead. Flip the meat often to ensure even cooking.

If you want truly "melt in your mouth" chicken you will need something with a bit more fat. Chicken breast is very lean protein and at best can be "juicy" but that is it. Chicken legs and thighs however are higher in fat content and have collagen which can result in very tender chicken. The legs and thighs can also be cooked to a much higher temperature without drying out as much as chicken breast. Consider cooking dark meat for tender chicken.

Simply cover your chicken breasts with streaky bacon. The salt in the bacon and also the fat from the bacon will keep the meat juicy.


Is it safe to leave butter at room temperature? Is it safe to leave butter at room temperature? If so, for how long is it safe to keep it out?

Try a butter crock. This will keep your butter fresh at room temperature for a fairly long time (weeks, not days).

With the increased corporate production of our food stuffs, we are seeing an uptick in foodborne illness and changing/mutations of infective bacteria. Listeria in butter is an area of concern that is increasing and it is controlled through time and temperature control. Cooking is not a control measure for Listeria. Refrigerate your butter people! This is not "the good old days" anymore in regards to foods.


Can I make pickled eggs that don't require refrigeration? This time of year I have a ton of extra eggs. In the winter I have fewer. I have, therefore, been experimenting with egg preservation techniques.

I like pickled eggs a lot. They aren't very versatile so they can't be my only preservation solution but they are tasty and interesting.

Unfortunately, pickled egg recipes always say that the product must be refrigerated. This prevents me from storing the eggs until winter as I do not have that much fridge space.

The brine is fairly acidic and very salty. Why do they have to be refrigerated?

What do I have to do to make my pickled eggs shelf stable?

Seems this is very common in Britain, where I come from, so google.co.uk did the business!

The recipe here allows storing in a cool, dark cupboard for up to six months, and it recommends leaving the eggs at least a month: http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/food/recipes/pickled-eggs

This one looks good, and I like the instructions for eating!
http://www.pubbuddy.co.uk/pickled_egg_recipe_kitchen.php

Vinegar is a natural preservative. I don't see how it would spoil.


Should a [Ceramic] mug be left covered or uncovered during the tea bag steeping process? I make tea by submerging a tea-bag in a ceramic mug, covering the mug for about 5 minutes, and then removing the tea bag.

My question is: Is it advantageous to cover the mug during the steeping process, or should I leave the mug uncovered while it is steeping?

This seems like a case where a very simple A/B comparison will give you the answer for your own personal preference. Just use two identical mugs and do everything else the same except cover one and not the other. If you really want to make it official, put a mark on the bottom of one mug and then have someone else randomize them while you look away. (p.s. not sure why this question is getting negative votes, it seems fine to me).

I think covering it only keeps it a little warmer and does nothing to change the flavor (that I've noticed), but in regards to the above comment about using boiling water to make your tea, I must, wholeheartedly, disagree. Black Tea should be brewed at 200°F and Green Tea at anywhere from 170°F-180°F (Although I prefer it at 190°F). I don't know of any tea that should be boiled unless you prefer your tea quite bitter.


Tramontina lid stuck to pot Loved my tramontina 3 piece induction system from Costco until this happened.  Was boiling some eggs as I do every morning and had done for 9 days in a row with this system.  This morning I might have had the temperature a little higher but not much more. When the water came to a rolling boil I put 2 eggs in. When it was time to pull them out I shut off the cooktop and went to pull off the lid, but I couldn't because it was stuck. I thought that maybe it needed to cool down so I left it alone now 12 hours. However the lid is still stuck to the pot. I do not wish to force it. I have even held it upside down as pictured.

It seems really unlikely it somehow rusted shut or anything like that while you were boiling, so it seems most likely that there's just a partial vacuum inside. While boiling, it'd have been full of hot air and steam, and now that's all cooled down, and the steam has condensed, so it could shrink down you end up with low pressure inside sucking the lid down. It's a bit surprising that the seal is good enough to hold the pressure for this long, though!

In any case, if that's it, assuming there's still liquid in it, I'd try just heating it again. That would increase the pressure inside, hopefully back up to normal, enough to let you get the lid off. I'd also try twisting and angling it, because if that's it, all you need is a tiny opening to equalize pressure.

If this does turn out to have been the issue, you could probably avoid it in the future by opening the lid immediately when it's done.

Carefully slide a single edge razor blade inbetween the lid and pot and it will release.


How do you convert a cake recipe to make brownies? I'm wondering how to convert a cake recipe to make brownies. My intention is to use this recipe for Mexican Chocolate Cake With Mascarpone Frosting. The cake part calls for the following ingredients:

1 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 3/4 cups flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 Tablespoons vanilla

How can I convert that into a brownie recipe?

I'm thinking more oil/butter and less water would work, but I'm not sure of the ratios. I imagine I'd probably also cook brownies for a shorter amount of time.

What determines a cake's fluffiness and a brownie's dense chocolatey awesomeness? Is there a general formula you can follow for converting cake to brownies? (Since this question is about conversion, I suppose it could also apply to a boxed cake mix in case I'm too lazy to go to the store.)

Brownies are typically dense and less fluffy compared to cake.  What you want to do is to make the cake recipe more dense to make it more like brownies. Here are a few factors that would effect density/fluffyness.

Number of eggs: Adding more eggs will make the cake more dense
Preparation of eggs:  Beating the eggs will cause the cake to be more fluffy since you are introducing more air into the mixture. You should stir them lightly with a fork (not beat/whisk them) until just liquefied, to avoid a fluffy cakelike texture.
Addition of baking powder.  Most cake recipes call for baking powder while many brownie recipes do not.

I suggest reviewing some brownie recipes and the comments to get a feel for a good starting point for the cake recipe modifications.

Omit the baking soda and baking powder, switch butter to oil, cut the flour in half, and double the cocoa.


Is it safe to leave a broth simmering overnight on an electric stove? I am trying to cook bone broth in a pot on an electric stove like this one  and it needs to simmer for at least a day (so the stove is set to a low temperature). Is it safe to leave the stove unattended like this overnight? Assuming, of course, that there is enough water in the broth such that it won't all evaporate overnight. I know that a crock pot would be ideal for this but I don't have one (or the means to get one right now) and at this point the broth has already been simmering for a few hours.

Is it safe?  That depends on a lot of factors.  Generally, no.  It isn't.  A blog post from the Healthy Home Economist has the opinion of a firefighter:

One gal mentioned that her husband was a firefighter and that leaving
a stockpot simmering overnight or while they were out of the house was
completely out of the question.

Source.
The NFPA says the same, as this informational PDF sheet illustrates.
Since you cannot get a crock pot my only other suggestion is to simmer your bone broth in the oven.  If your pot is oven safe and you trust your oven's ability to keep a steady low temperature, then try it in there.
If you plan on making bone broth more often, a crock pot is a great investment and if you check out your local Goodwill or Salvation Army store you might find an older but still perfectly usable model for an excellent price.  It would also allow you to slow cook your broth overnight safely (and uses less electricity to do it).

I would never, ever trust an electric stove. I put a side of corned beef in a large stock pot to cook it slow and then went to bed. When I woke the next morning I was chocking on smoke. The house was so thick with smoke I could't see two feet in front of me. After getting my daughters out of the house I took a deep breath and ran in to turn off the stove. The electric coil was glowing red hot as though I had the dial set to high. I will never, ever trust an electric stove again.


How does the baking time change if I scale up a cake recipe? I have recipes for chocolate cake, Maderia cake, lemon drizzle and champagne cake.

I want to increase the ingredients to make a bigger cake. Do I still use the same baking time and temperature?

The following rule of thumb comes from week 6 in a Harvard University physics course called "Science and Cooking". I took it as a MOOC in the website edx (https://www.edx.org/node/8086).

And the rule is: double the thickness, quadruple the time. If it takes a minute to cook the first outer 0.5cm of the cake, it will take four minutes to cook the first whole cm.

So if you double your cake's size, try to start with multiplying the time by four, without raising the temperature. If the change is smaller, then it might take some rough calculations. But that's the general rule.

Here's the video of the specific part of the lesson that regards discusses the matter: https://youtu.be/fqyVZ5Ifmio

For baking the temperature always remains the same, while regarding the time, we always have this grand tip: Set the temperature and toothpick check every 5-10 minutes... You will be ready


How do I save my curry with too much of a raw onion smell? I was cooking for a party and ground my raw onions, added to oil and then added meat. Now the curry is sweet and smells like raw onion. How do I save this curry so I can use it for the party?

Don't grind the onion too fine. Just chop it fine.

Now if it is done add some oil and put it on low heat till it starts to taste better.

The taste of the raw onion can be nullified by salt, vinegar, lemon, tomato, sugar depending upon the recipe you are making. All of them could never be used in the same recipe but i believe that at least you can use one of them. Depending upon the type of the onion, I am not so specific about the type. You can peel them, cut them in half and then put them in water with few drops of vinegar for a bit.

I usually prefer to cook onion first but in chillies we prefer raw right...?

I hope this helps....


What is the best USDA rated beef best for stew in a pressure cooker? We all appreciate how delicious USDA Prime beef tastes, but there is a point where the pressure cooker will do just as well with a lower quality.  Should I go for USDA 'Choice', or should I buy the cheapest or 'Select' grade and save money?  Thx

So, understand that MANY recipes were developed to make poor choices of food products chew and taste much better.

Stew is one of these that allows a tougher cut of meat and some older veg stored in the root cellar to be made tender and tasty.

However, all other things being equal, no matter why a recipe was developed, using the highest quality of meats and veg will always produce a superior product.

So the best beef meat to get for a stew would be prime grade beef, and fresh veg is the best to use for the best flavors and textures.

One more however though. There are diminishing returns on goodness versus price. You don't need prime beef for stew. It will be amazing, but is it worth spending $40 for the beef rather than $20? That's up to you and whether you want to 5 star your stew that was really designed to make halfway inedible stuff decent to eat.

I just checked my America's Test Kitchen pressure cooker cook book, which I consider the gold standard.

  ...cuts from the shoulder and boneless shortribs could both work since they have  plenty of intramuscular fat and collagen to keep the meat moist. We use shortribs here since they are easy to cut into even size pieces.

When shopping, I wouldn't get hung up on grade. I'd buy short ribs or shoulder meat of any grade.

They also add: even if you trim the ribs well, there will be some fat on the surface of the stwe, use a large spoon to skim it off.


Why do we use so much water to cook spaghetti? Every time I cook spaghetti in a regular pot, I get the feeling that I could save litres of water if the pot had been created with spaghetti cooking in mind. This is especially true when I only need 1-2 portions. Cooking smaller pasta is more efficient.

Is there a culinary reason for using so much water? Do professional kitchens use a better method?

A tall thin pot is a hazard as it can be tipped over all too easily

The book says use lots of water to ensure even cooking and to stop the pasta sticking. But regular stirring will solve this problem too

Just use less water in a regular pot and feed the pasta into the boiling water. It takes about 30 seconds for long spaghetti to soften enough for it to fit into a regular pot. It cooks just fine WITHOUT breaking it up if you give it a quick stir after a minute, and then every couple of minutes or so

If you know your stove temperature and spaghetti type, it will only take a couple of goes to work out the least amount of water you can use. I use about 1 l of boiling water for three adult servings of spaghetti in a medium domestic pot. With the lid half on it is cooked to a firm bite point in less than 8 minutes, and the water just covers the spaghetti when finished

The more water the better circulation which lessens the chance of the pasta getting tangled and unevenly cooked.


Is it safe to recook partially cooked steak the next day? I prepared one steak too many yesterday.

One of the steaks went into the oven (from about room temperature) for 7 minutes, but then we never pan seared it after.

We let it cool, and it's been in the fridge.

Is it safe now to fully cook the partially cooked steak? I'm not sure that the 7 minutes did much to "cook" it (at 370)

If so, what's the best way to now cook it?

Thanks!

you can reheat it in a frying pan, or... if it's not raw inside, slice it for steak salad or sandwiches.  not bad.


Canning with candles I am not sure about the right terminology as I am not a native speaker, but is it possible to conserve solid food in a jar with a candle?

Boiling is used to decrease air and for the food to be well conserved it must not have much oxygen. The food is suffocating. A tea candle placed inside will suck the air too and will extinguish when there is no sufficient air inside.

The short answer is: No.

The more elaborate answer is that certain bacteria are anaerobic and food needs to be heat treated to ensure it can be safely stored. Especial mention: Clostridium botulinum which leaves deadly toxins.

The tealight inside the jar will not produce the heat needed for pasteurization.

It comes down to how hot you can get the can get the jar with a candle.

If your food contains water, then it will only heat above 100° C if it is under pressure, which means you'll need to seal the jar.  Maybe, the jar is strong enough that its internal temperature could reach 120° C.  If so, then maintaining that temperature for a while would kill all the microbes, and the food would be preserved.

On the other hand, maybe the pressure inside the jar would cause it to explode before the desired temperature was reached.

On the other other hand, maybe the jar would radiate heat too quickly--and absorb heat from the candle too slowly--so that it would never reach 120° C.  You might be able to work around this by building some kind of reflective insulating enclosure for the jar, but it would be difficult to properly insulate it without also cutting off the air to the candle.

So the answer is maybe but I wouldn't recommend it.


Does anyone know the name of the knife this ice cream seller is using? Here is an example of the knife being used.
ASMR - Energy Ice Cream Rolls Oreo | How To Make An Energy Drink Out Of Ice Cream || Chinese Food

Notice it is similar but like a cleaver. I have also been trying to find the name of this, but the closest I found was a Japanese menkiri.
Hope someone can answer this.
PS: it is similar to the knife that was used by BanBan from one piece anime, which was asked by another user.
What kind of cooking knife is this?
Updates:
I just found a clearer view of the knife at 3:58 in the video in the youtube link. Basically, it is like a cleaver, without the handle jutting out, but part of the blade it self.

It should look something like this:
I tried to use google image search, using this image, to find but no luck.

PS: The photo above is photoshop of what I think the cleaver looks like.

I also believe the style of knife you're looking for is called an "ulu" though the OP pix look to be a ulu cleaver.
Here is an ulu more similar to the OP pix: https://www.kitchenknivesonline.com/products/12-ulu-chef-knife-walnut

Might be a effort saving knife.

Or a Ulu knife, as you have noted in the other question. This one is a GH5074 Gil Hibben Knives Legacy Ulu Knife.


Can evaporated milk be converted to "regular" milk? I've got a recipe that calls for 2 1/2 cups whole milk, but I don't drink whole milk all that often and if I buy any it'll just end up spoiling in the fridge before I can use it all.

Canned evaporated milk, on the other hand, lasts a lot longer and from what I understand its just regular milk with ~60% of the water taken out of it. With that in mind, would I be able to convert evaporated milk into "regular" milk for use in cooking just by adding an equal amount of water?

Yes, you could certainly reconstitute evaporated milk by adding water.

The outcome would give you similar but not identical results as fresh milk, due to the change in flavor the milk underwent while being cooked down to the evaporated state:  it will retain the slightly cooked, caramelized flavor.  This may or many not have a significant effect on a given recipe.

Milk also freezes, and still is suitable for most cooking purposes, should you choose to do so.

Finally, if you use milk very rarely, unless you are making a dairy dominated recipe like custard or cream soup, you may not have to use milk at all.  Water or another liquid might perform similarly or well enough—it depends on the specific application.

I put 2-12 oz. cans of evaporated milk in a half gal jug and fill with water. Chill for a couple hours. Tastes great on cereal, coffee or after Peanut Butter and Jelly. Good yield at 1 to 2.5 ratio. Stores and travels well in can. Works just as good with ice and water on the go. Hardly use regular milk anymore.


Adding too much flour to bread dough in Kitchenaid Stand Mixer? I own a Kitchenaid Artisan Stand Mixer and everytime I try to use the dough hooks to make bread, I always end up using WAYY more flour than the recipe calls for.

For example, I was trying to make bread using this recipe that calls for:

1 cup water
1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp yeast
1/2 tbsp salt
2 1/8 cups all purpose flour

After mixing all the ingredients together using the paddle attachment and everything is clumping together, I switch to the dough hook. After a bit of kneading, I probably add close to 1/2 more cup of flour because I see a bunch of dough sticking to the bottom of the bowl. Even when I lift my attachment up, I can see the dough drooping down. I just keep adding more flour until it doesn't stick to the bottom, at which point I feel like I added close to a cup extra of All purpose flour (Robin hood flour). I'm worried that this will make my dough too dense and I don't know what to do. I knead it on speed 3 for about 10 mins and then for another 15 until I can see the dough hold its shape. Am I doing something wrong?

I agree with rumtscho that your dough is probably way too wet, but I'd like to make a few other points as well:

You don't necessarily need to add extra flour just because your dough is sticking to the bottom of your bowl. And definitely don't add any flour until your dough is fairly smooth (unless you already have a feel for the recipe). The flour will absorb a lot of water as you work the dough, so dough that seems way too wet after one minute of kneading may be fine after six.

Also, I've found that with the hook design in the Kitchenaid, dough frequently sticks to the bottom even with proper hydration. Just use a scraper to turn your dough out of your bowl and give it a fold to make sure that there isn't an underworked spot on the bottom.

I agree with the others in that sticking to the bottom isn't necessarily a problem

... but you're almost always going to want to add extra flour to dough being made in a mixer.

It's probably not a 1/2 c for smaller batches, but more like 1/8 to 1/4 cup.

The issue is that if you had been kneading this by hand, you'd have floured the bench as you went, and slowly work in more flour than in the recipe.  If you're doing this by machine, you won't end up doing that, so I'll add some extra to compensate ... but I stop when it's pulling away from the sides of the bowl.  If it's still sticking a lot to the bottom, I'll take a dough scraper, loosen it from the bottom, then restart the mixer to see how it behaves and if it needs more flour.

And make sure to read any notes in the recipe about what consistency you're looking for -- I have a couple of breads that go into loaf pans, unkneaded, and are closer to a batter than a dough.


a good substitute for pineapple when cooking a ham I want to make a Dr. Pepper glazed ham, which calls for pineapple juice. Unfortunately, my child is allergic to pineapple. What can I use to replace the pineapple juice and pineapple bits on the ham?

Pineapple brings a touch of acidity, sweetness, and general fruitiness.  I am going to assume you would have been using canned pineapple, so the enzymatic action is not really a factor (and it would be stopped as part of the cooking process).  It is also hearty enough in texture to stand up to the baking.

For the juice, I would recommend basic orange juice, perhaps cut with a little extra lime juice for complexity and acidity.  For a fruit garnish, peaches (frozen or canned since it is not peach season) should work quite well.

If you can find good mango, that would also work very well.

This application is very flexible and forgiving.  With the soda, and the cherries, you could even omit the pineapple part entirely, and still have a good outcome.

Mix soda, mustard and brown sugar together. Throw in cloves or allspice to taste.
Another option is to use cherry preserves with lemon juice and lemon zest, brown sugar, cinnamon and a dash of salt.
You could also use apricots. They are great to replace with pineapple.

In general: take out stuff, add stuff, make it your own.


What is the benefit of Pressure Cooking (other than faster cooking)? What are some of the benefits of a Pressure Cooker over a Slow Cooker (crock pot) besides that it's much faster, less nutrient loss (maybe) and less heat in the kitchen?

I do not know that there are any benefits aside from what you have already mentioned. Pressure cooking is a technique, like using the slow cooker. It is similar to a debate on broiling vs. pan-searing. They both do something similar in slightly different ways.

The only other (and totally subjective) advantage I have seen, since I primarily use the pressure cooker for stocks, is better gelatin extraction from the bones and tendons with the pressure cooker. My stocks are thicker than the old-school "simmer it all day" approach, but it may just be I'm getting better at making stock since I gave up using anything but a pressure cooker for stock years ago. Therefore my case series is a retrospective review and subject to inherent biases from the study methodology.

Pressure cooking preserves more nutrients, especially heat sensitive nutrients,it uses less heat and the heat is used more efficiently which is why you have a shorter cooking time.

Here is 1995 study:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7792260

Basically,

Boiling food had up to a 60% loss of nutrients. Roasting and steaming 10% - 50% loss in nutrients. Pressure cooking  5% - 10% loss in nutrients.


What makes a good vessel for storing sourdough starter? I was going to buy the King Arthur set of starter + crock, but the crock is on backorder, so I plan to instead locally source a vessel for the starter. What should I look for? Should I find a similar crock? A jar of some kind?

ETA: More specifically, what should I be looking for? Size? Materials? Lid type? I read elsewhere that I don't want an airtight seal; I'm looking for more advice like that.

Admittedly I have only stored my starter in a glass jar, but I wouldn't want anything else.

You should look for a size that is neither too large, nor too small. It should comfortably hold your sourdough starter when you are simply feeding it - I usually store 200g of starter, at 100% hydration (100g flour, 100g water) or thereabouts. However, when actually making sourdough starter you make more - perhaps 400g or so, depending on how much bread you are making, plus you want to have something left to restart your bread. A typical recipe might call for 20% starter, so 200g for a kilo loaf. The other solution is to of course have two separate jars, and only use both when doubling for bread.

When I say it must be able to hold that much, I mean that it will have to hold it fully risen, which means around 2x to 2.5x of the original size. In addition, narrow and high is better than low and wide, since it makes it easier to tell how much it rises.

Also, you will want a wide opening, so that you can easily clean it.

As for covering it, I just use a sheet of plastic. Just take care not to get it gooey. It will hold in the moisture so the sourdough doesn't dry out, but won't trap the carbon dioxide.

Good luck

If you have the kind of sourdough starter that doesn't require extra yeast, do not use glass, as it can explode.  I use a crock with a spring-loaded lid. Have had my starter for over 40 years.


How to make cookies without using greaseproof paper or a baking tin? I don't have greaseproof paper nor a baking tin and I'm baking cookies. What should I do?

You should use what you have available as long as it is flat. Thin is good, if you have no cookie sheets you could use any thin-bottomed pans you have (thick bottoms take too long to get up to temperature, leading to inconsistent results). A layer of tin foil will work in lieu of greaseproof paper in most cases, shiny side towards the cookie.

Grease a baking tray with some butter or lard


Differences between gel and gelatine Are they physically different? If so, what is the difference, between a gel and gelatine, or it's proccesses  gelation and gelling (gelatinization. gelatinisation)?

A gel is any liquid (usually) or gaseous medium suspended in a solid three-dimensional mesh which entraps the medium so that it does not flow.

By way of (somewhat flawed analogy) think of a giant role of bubble wrap.  Its mostly air.  But the plastic keeps the air from flowing at a large scale.

Gels can range from very soft to very hard.  New modern aero-gels have fascinating properties.

Gelatin is a protein formed when collagen (a connective protein in animals) is heated under moist conditions.  Gelatin forms cross-linked networks exceedingly well, and therefore is a wonderful gelling agent.

The name has also taken to mean the gel created from gelatin and a water-based liquid like stock or sugary flavored water. You may have guessed by now that gels in general take their name from gelatin.

So the specific answer to the first part of your question is:  gels are the general category, and gelatin (in the second sense) is a specific kind of gel.

I have never heard the term gellification.  The only verb I am familiar with is to gel.  The process is gelatinization or (more familiar to me), just gelling.

In those links in Wikipedia for gel, gelatin, collagen, and areogel you will find out much more.

Gelatinization means the starch grains swelling, releasing the starch molecules, which then cross link to thicken the liquid. The gel forms, trapping water between chains of starch. It is a heating process. Gelation is a cooling process as the gel sets.


What is the best ingredient to add to a normal French toast recipe to make it taste pumpkin flavored? I'm just wondering. I like experimenting with French toast recipes. What is the best ingredient to add to a normal French toast recipe to make it taste pumpkin flavored?

Not meaning this as a snippy answer at all, but I would say: pumpkin.

I would suggest substitute pumpkin bread and continue as normal.  This one I have done before.  It is a heavier French Toast (or eggy bread, pain perdu or many other names around the world), but turned out quite nice in my opinion.

Another option would be a stuffed version with pumpkin as the stuffing.  And also coming to mind would be a pumpkin butter or compote topping on a recipe you already use.


When baking, is it better to use a gas or electric oven? I'm looking for an oven and wanted to know if there is any difference between a gas or electric oven when it comes to baking things like cakes, biscuits and scones?

For baking cakes and breads it is important to control the humidity in the oven. In early stages of baking one typically needs the humidity to remain in the baking chamber, which is hard to do with a gas oven.  Two of the bakeries near my house use electric ovens with brick lined baking chambers; the other uses gas.

Expansion

Gas and electric ovens can be built to bake the same way if cost is not an issue.  Most home gas ovens will circulate the combustion products (mainly water vapor and carbon dioxide) in the cooking chamber.  As the flames burn, combustion products need to be vented out of the baking chamber.  Electric ovens also need vents in the baking chamber to help maintain the pressure as the air inside expands.

Steam is essential in the initial stages of baking for good crust formation in breads and crack-free cake surfaces. The oven cavity can hold much more steam than released from the gas combustion and it is my inference that the steam content of an electric oven will be higher  (I cannot find published steam measurements inside ovens). After the dough expansion, the vapor coming off of the dough or batter needs to removed quickly for browning and for the inside to cook well.  The constant flow in a gas oven makes it better at that. In an electric oven a peep or two during the last baking stages will handle excess moisture.

Two bakeries near my house use electric ovens, the other, which makes excellent French baguettes, uses a gas oven.  The baker there has had both electric and gas ovens and he prefers the caramelization of the gas oven.  But note that he can handle the moisture problem with the steam injector of his professional gas oven.  He also noted that using gas ovens require skill as they have temperature and moisture quirks.

Recipes may be adapted to either gas or electric ovens.  In the US the majority of recipes are designed for the electric oven (they're more popular).

I grew up with a gas oven and also had a gas oven for the first 25 years of adulthood.  we recently moved into a house with a gas range and I assumed the oven was also gas.  The oven has been wonky since we moved in - things cook way faster than the time in recipes, things burn way too easily - same recipes and same baking pans I've used for years. I have to really watch everything I bake - it's maddening.  After 1 1/2 years in this house, we just realized it's an electric oven.  UGH.  I do not like it.  I probably can't find a wall oven in 30" to replace it.

I would go back to a gas oven in a heartbeat. You can always leave something in for a few extra minutes if needed when baking, but you can't undo an overbaked, burned item.


How do I cook any recipe with frozen eggplant? Four days ago I cut the ends off of a one pound eggplant, sliced it lengthwise, spread 1/4 tsp. of salt on each half, and left at room temperature (approx 65 degrees) for five hours.  Then I soaked up the liquid and brushed off each piece with paper towels.  At that point, I placed both pieces in a zip-close freezer (gallon) bag.  Now, do I thaw completely before using?  Thaw partially?  Cook straight from the freezer?  Any help would be appreciated!

If the slices are thin, you could bake/roast straight from frozen. I do believe the texture will be quite soft so use a parchment lined sheet if you wish to roast it. I like to brush a bit of miso mixed with honey on roasted eggplants.

Another option would be to lay it into a lasagna. I think this option is the most appealing. I wouldn't bother to thaw it if your slices are under half an inch thick.

If you sliced it only in half, such that you have two "boat" shaped halves, I would thaw it fully first. It'll take a while to thaw in such large pieces. Baba ganoush would be a good option in this case.

First of all you must thaw the eggplant completely.  Dry it off.  Then fry it up but since I am not supposed to give you a receipe, I would fry up onions, garlic, red peppers and other colors, anaheim chili peppers, all very soft, and some other veges you think may go good with this like carrots and celery and once that is done chop up the in nice cubes of the eggplants, fry them up till tender, add tomatoes or stewed tomatoes, more garlic, salt and pepper, a touch of jalapeno or chili flakes, then let everything on low and slow for about an hour, a little parsley and you should have something very delicious.  Next time don't freeze the eggplant and I do hope this all turns out very tasty for you.  You can also put on some plain yogurt on top mixed with some dill or mint, not both or even garlic.  Fry in canola oil only, eat hot or cold.


What do soybeans taste like? I've read about the beneficial use of soybean in the food industry, so I wonder what it tastes like? How can it be explained?

Does soybean taste like regular beans? Also, what's the difference in its processed forms, such as soymilk?

I can get soy beans in two varieties here: As dried beans and as edamame.

Edamame is a particular type of soybean that is harvested when it is still young. The pods are cooked (usually boiled or steamed) and then served with salt. The beans are popped from the pod and eaten. The pod is discarded.

Edamame is sweet and a little grassy because it is young.

Dried soy beans can be cooked like any other bean. Their hulls tend to come free and have an unpleasant texture so it is nice to skim most of them off. The flavor is good but not unique. It tastes like a normal white bean. The raw beans have a very strong "beany" flavor but cooked beans should not.

Soymilk is made from dried soybeans. The beans or the milk are cooked to remove the very strong beany flavor. The finished milk does have a hint of sweetness and bean but not strong at all.

Tofu, made from soymilk, tastes the same as the milk. Besides being sweet and a little beany, it can be a little nutty tasting. It can get chalky if it isn't fresh.

All of these soybean preparations are very bland. They tastes fresh and clean but there shouldn't be any overly strong flavors. Strong flavors in these products are often a sign that the product is past its prime.

Some soybean preparations ferment the beans. These have a wide range of flavors and textures.

One cannot say what the taste is although if you ever consumed Kikoman's sauce it has that flavor. Not dissimilar to Worcester sauce although not as savory either.

It has a slight bread sort of taste. Like if you liquidized it (the medium whole wheat sort) and put a bit of lemon into it

Soy has been used in both non and fermented forms. There is no need to use it if you are not vegan or have an issue with dairy.

If you are not sure about soy and want a non dairy milk there are still many options such as almond milk. If you don't like that there are milks made from many nuts all with different flavors and some very close to real milk which will blend with food the same way and also be a source of calcium as well as many nuts contain some.


Does "1 lime leaf" mean a pair of leaves, or half a pair? I love lime leaves. In fact, I bought a lime tree so that I can have them all the time without making a grocery run. The leaves look like this:

I have some very nice recipes that call for them but even my French/Cambodian cookbook with the amazing illustrated ingredient encyclopedia does not clear up one thing:
Is that three leaves or six?
I'm in the middle of making a paste right now that calls for five "lime leaves" and so, according to my usual habit, I'm going to go and pluck 5 leaves off the tree... Which means, I'll have 10 leaf segments. Or will I have 10 leaves?
The taste is so nice that I've never had the feeling I was doubling the amount called for. Still, I'm curious—is there some widespread agreement, or even better, an authoritative source regarding what is "1 leaf?"

Note: It has come to my attention that one of the common names for the lime leaves common to Southeast Asian cuisine carries a strongly offensive connotation. For more information, I recommend reading this article on The Plate blog from National Geographic, which provides links to several other worthy articles on the subject. I have removed or replaced this terminology from the question and would recommend that users choose to do the same in their comments and answers.

What does "1 leaf" mean?

Since there does not seem to be a clear consensus, this answer will attempt to weigh both positions.

For the sake of clarity, in this answer:

Digits (1, 2, etc.) refer to the number indicated in the ingredient list;
"Full leaf" means two attached segments, as they grow from the tree;
"Half leaf" means one segment (attached or detached).

Evidence-based arguments

This section presents sources that address the meaning of "1 leaf" either explicitly or implicitly. The most explicit sources so far tend to fall into the "half leaf" camp.

1 leaf means "full"

fourwindsgrowers.com:

  The leaves are double-lobed and the top leaflets are slightly pointed.
  The leaflet attached below is broadened on its upper edge. The size of
  the leaves can vary quite a bit, from less than an inch to several
  inches long. The medium to large size, more mature leaves are darker
  in color and usually preferred for cooking.

This excerpt is attributed on the above website to a book titled It Rains Fishes: Legends, Traditions and the Joys of Thai Cooking by Kasma Loha-unchit (Pomegranate Artbooks, 1995). See also: thaifoodandtravel.com (below, in the "unclear" section).

1 leaf means "half"

foodsubs.com:

  [The leaves] look as if two glossy, dark green leaves were
  joined together end to end, forming a figure-eight pattern.  Most Thai
  recipes count each double leaf as two separate leaves.

mvcitrus.org.au:

  The leaves ... are a dark green color with a
  glossy sheen. They come in two parts: the top leaflet is lightly
  pointed at its tip and is attached to another leaflet beneath that is
  broader on its upper edge. The size of the leaves can vary quite a
  bit, from less than an inch to several inches long. ... In recipes
  that call for them, estimate the number to use according to their
  size, with the average single leaflet (detached from its double) of
  about two inches long and an inch wide equaling one leaf.

Unclear

thaitable.com:

  A leaf has two connecting leaves which I call ‘double leaves’.

Sounds like this one is in both camps at the same time. Each leaf is two leaves—very zen.
importfood.com:

  lime leaves grow in doubles. Sizes vary, but the average
  individual leaf is approx 2" long.

This site indicates that there are ~25-30 individual fresh leaves per dry ounce. May need to contact the seller and/or take independent measurements to determine confidently which camp this falls into.
cooksinfo.com:

  The leaves are a dark, glossy green and look like two leaves stuck
  together tip to tip; they are often described as being "double-lobed"
  or "double-leaves." Each separate leaf is about 2 inches long (5 cm.)

This could go either way; "[they] look like two" implies "but are actually one," yet the phrase "separate leaf" implies the opposite. Length cited agrees with above, but this could just mean they have a common source (or one is taken from the other).
thaifoodandtravel.com:

  The dark green leaves come in double form – a more pointed top leaf
  joined to a more rounded bottom leaf.

The zen approach again. Note: This is written by the author of the book mentioned in the Four Winds Growers entry, above.
theepicentre.com:

  They come in two parts: the top leaflet is lightly
  pointed at its tip and is attached to another leaflet beneath that is
  broader on its upper edge. The size of the leaves can vary quite a
  bit, from less than an inch to several inches long.

specialtyproduce.com:

  The leaves grow in pairs from stem to stem. Sizes can vary from leaf
  to leaf, though they each have a teaspoon shape with pointed ends that
  can also be sharp, certainly a natural defense mechanism.

I was inclined at first to put this in the "half" camp based on "the leaves grow in pairs." However, "they each have a teaspoon shape with pointed ends" gives me pause because the "half" at the stem is typically rounded or cardioid in shape. So the "each" there sounds like it refers to each "full" leaf. The "half" at the stem has no sharp tip, being attached at either end to something else.
boxedupchef.com:

No quote, but interesting to note that this is the first source I've come across that shows an image of the leaves separated into two "halves." Even the sources above that are explicitly in the "half" camp show images of the conjoined "full" leaf.

Practical arguments

This section discusses why (and when) one or the other interpretation might be more appropriate, practically speaking.

1 leaf means "full"

"Half leaves" do not occur by themselves; only "full leaves" grow on the tree, so each one/single leaf must be this "full leaf."
"Full leaves" vary less in size than "half leaves" because they always contain one "half" from the branch side (usually smaller) and one "half" from the tip side (usually larger).
Using "full leaves" when cooking imparts a more intense flavor to the dish, which may be particularly important when using frozen or dried leaves (avoids under-seasoning the dish if you read the recipe incorrectly).
Thinking in terms of "full leaves" when writing a recipe ensures that at worst, the reader will use less of the ingredient than is called for, which may do less harm than using more than is called for.
In some trees, especially very young trees, the "half" on the branch side is so small as to be almost entirely stem; it would not make sense to refer to this "half" as "1 leaf" since it has no practical use.

1 leaf means "half"

Each "half" is distinct, shaped more like a typical leaf than the "full" pair, and easily separated from its neighbor.
The most explicit sources give "half" as the common meaning of "1 leaf," so using this meaning may be the quickest way to be understood most of the time by people who are already familiar with the ingredient.
Using "half leaves" when cooking imparts a less intense flavor to the dish, which may be particularly important when using fresh leaves (avoids potentially overpowering the dish if you read the recipe incorrectly).

A better terminology?

I would encourage anyone who shares or writes a recipe calling for lime leaves to clarify exactly how to measure "1 leaf" or to avoid using the term "leaf" at all. Weight measure would be ideal in many cases but can be impractical, depending on the rest of the ingredients in the recipe (and how much time you care to devote to measurement). Some alternatives include:

This recipe uses "stem" instead of "leaf," which is more precise in that two "half leaves" and one "full leaf" both share a single stem.
This recipe refers to both "leaves" and "pairs" to make the quantity explicit.

I see three leaves there. Citrus leaves are compound leaves. They all look like that, but the kafir lime just has a larger lower section of the leaf than other citrus.


How to Harvest and Prepare Prickly Pear Pads Without Getting Poked I enjoy eating Prickly Pear Cactus pads, but I can't figure out how to harvest and prepare them without filling my fingers with tiny hairs. I have asked around and looked online and found sites such as this, among which, the common theme seems to be to burn the spines off.

I do not really have fire available to me very much, so does anyone know any other good ways to get out the flesh of the pad without getting pricked?

Please note: This question is about Prickly Pear Fruits I am asking about the Pads.

At grocery stores in our area they prepare cactus pads for sale in-house. I haven't sat and watched them for hours but it seems that the process involves a pair of gloves and a knife. The gloves are generally the cloth gloves with rubberized palms/fingers and the knife is a chef's knife.
This image shows the process I usually see them following, though they're using a much larger knife in the store... admittedly, they do it on a daily basis, so it might be good to start with a smaller knife:

click for source
This image is from what looks like a nice guide on preparing cactus pads.
The steps are pretty simple:

VERY IMPORTANT TIP: Use kitchen tongs to hold the nopales or, better yet, wear gloves to protect your hands from the thorns. Once you are familiar working with cactus paddles then you can try to clean them without gloves.

Place the cactus paddle on your cutting board and, using a sharp knife, trim off the edge. Scrape the spines, thorns or eyes, running your knife from back to front until completely clean. Turn the cactus paddles and do the same on the other side.

Other sites seem to echo this process, so it seems pretty universal. One site even recommends replacing the knife with a spoon, which is less likely to dig into the cactus pad, particularly if it's convex.

First, choose young tender paddles that have only green nubs -prickles not yet poking through.


How can I rescue overproofed bread? If I make a loaf and slow proof it in the refrigerator, I find that sometimes it will collapse in the middle. I know this is happening because there is a large air pocket in the cling film above the bread.

Is there anything I can do to rescue a loaf once this has happened? The objective is to let it rise overnight so that I can bake it first thing in the morning without having to knock it back and do a second rise.

Normally, you would not be doing a final proof overnight—that is, the proof that you have done to form the loaf.  Instead, you would do the first ferment or proof overnight, then form the loaf, let it have its final proof, and then bake it.

The dough won't be wasted, but you don't want to bake a formed loaf that has over-proofed and fallen.  This is because the gluten network will have collapsed and you will have a very poor structure and strange texture.  You will need to reknead the dough, form the loaf, and reproof it:

Per The Fresh Loaf, you can almost certainly just punch the dough down, and let it proof again.  It may actually have an improved flavor.

Cook's Illustrated concurs:

Using your fingertips, gently punch down the over-proofed dough and reshape it into a ball, then allow it to proof again for the recommended amount of time although it warns your final loaf may be about 20% smaller.

No problem...Punch it down,knead it and it it doesnt rise add a 1/4 tea spoon of sugar and yeast to it, and knead it again. cover and let proof.


Why did my caramel come out grainy? I made caramel on my induction cooktop. The temperature was correct, but the caramel texture is grainy, like all of the sugar didn't dissolve properly. Do I need a different thermometer? I used a Wilton clip-on stainless steel mercury thermometer. Or does the cooking time need to be adjusted?

The recipe I am using is: 1cup butter,2 1/4cup brown sugar, dash salt,1cup light corn syrup,1can sweetened condensed milk,1teaspoon vanilla. Melt butter in heavy 3 qt. saucepan. Add brown sugar and salt. Stir until thoroughly combined. Stir in corn syrup and mix well. Gradually add milk stirring constantly. Cook and stir over med. heat until candy reaches 245F remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour into 9x9 pan. Let set 24 hours. Cut into squares, wrap in wax paper.

I am close to sea-level.

I noticed that you're stirring constantly. Generally with candy you want to stir as little as possible, since it causes sugar crystals to form in the syrup. In addition to making the candy grainier, they reduce the overall lifespan- even after the candy has cooled the (larger) crystals will continue to grow, causing the candy to slowly revert back into flavoured sugar.

Once the sugar is fully dissolved, you want to disturb it as little as possible. You will still have to do some stirring, otherwise the milk solids will burn. It'll help a bit to mix in the corn syrup at the same time as the sugar. Corn syrup is an invert sugar, meaning it gets in the way of crystallization and slows it down. If your caramel is still coming out grainy, try adding half a teaspoon of lemon juice. Your candy will be slightly gummier, but the acid in the lemon will inhibit crystallization and reduce the graininess.

I own a bakery and made Caramel weekly. I finally purchased an induction burner for the back of the bakery so as to not have to carry boiling sugar down a long corridor. First my staff and then myself experienced repeated failures, i.e. graininess every time we used the induction burner. We finally went back to the gas range and everything went perfectly well. Not once was it possible to reproduce the smooth dark, rich caramel we used at the bakery when using the induction burner. I wish I knew why, I used the same pot, the same technique, same temperature, and ingredients. A mystery till this day but also a very dependable result- unusable grainy mess. I hope you find your answer. If you had previous success making caramel, and changed nothing other than the induction burner it may well be something with the way an induction burning heats the sugar crystals not anything you did incorrectly. I can only speak to my own experience but I will never attempt caramel with an induction burner again. I hope this helps.


Does addition of tomato puree make the oil component of sauce less lubricating? I believe the oil component of a sauce of a pasta sauce, for example is the critical lubricating factor. It is here that herbs and spices will get infused.  Wherever the oil goes thereafter so will the flavor from herbs and spices.

When you add tomato puree, the puree itself cannot get absorbed by the oil so significant bits of non oil mixed puree will exist in the final sauce. This will not absorb the flavors of the herbs and spices, so there isn't an equal distribution of herbs and spices throughout the sauce.

Is this correct, or would you say a sauce such as dolmio, or homemade has the oil mixed with and well distributed in the tomato?  Put another way I don't think herbs/spices are soluble in pureed tomatoes, so I don't expect a good distribution of the flavour throughout the puree.

I think you're getting a little caught up on minutiae.

True, oil & water [or tomato purée] don't mix - however, oils & water can be emulsified. In other words you can create a mixture that appears to be a single liquid - like a solution -  even though one is actually suspended in the other rather than being permanently intermixed.

You can 'fix' this emulation in a pasta sauce by adding a little cornflour [or any starch] a couple of minutes before the end. It effectively binds the two together, certainly for longer than it takes to eat it; and in fact semi-permanently in food terms.
Some people [including me] don't like to do this because it removes the glossy sheen that the oil imparts to the sauce, & though it certainly helps adhesion to the pasta, makes for a slightly more homogeneous look to the sauce itself.

Whether you use any type of starch binder at the end or not, so long as you have your actual water quantity low enough by the time it's served that it doesn't drain through to the plate [allowing for a little last-minute absorption by the pasta itself] then your sauce to all intents & purposes will be 'a single entity', with the oil & water sufficiently mixed that no-one is going to spot it isn't actually a solution, but an emulsion.

The flavours will balance, no matter which component each herb or spice is technically dissolved in.

I understand what you're asking. You see, the trick with tomato based gravies is to fry it long enough. If you do not Fry it completely then the answer to your question would simply be yes, but if you fry it long enough on low heat and take it off a few seconds before the oil separates then you will not face this issue and it will also release the natural MSG from the tomatoes in your sauce.

[Tomato paste is the basis of most curries in Indian cooking. We usually temper very little quantity of hot oil with a combination of ginger/garlic/onion/chilli paste and then add the tomato paste. Physically and chemically at this stage it is not much different from pasta sauce. However tomato paste is cooked way longer in Indian cooking than it is done for pasta. Sometimes when we dont habe enough time we do not fry it long enough and the difference in flavor is very noticeable, viz. it is way less umami. Ideally, we keep it frying untill the oil separates from the paste which happens once all the water is evaporated and there are only tomato solids left in the oil base. You can see this effect in any tomato or onion paste based Indian curry reciepe video for eg. Gravy Paneer.

For the purpose of pasta it is not desirable to fry it completly till the oil separates in the aforementioned manner but to take it off just before it is about to separate.]

In simple terms, the more you fry tomato paste the more flavorfull it will become.