What do the base ingredients in pancakes do? So here are the ingredients for "Dutch" pancakes (which are much like French crepes, quite flat):

Flour
Milk
Eggs
Pinch of salt

And for more "American" style I guess you also need:

Baking powder

All the various ingredients contribute differently to the end result: fluffyness, texture, flavour, baking time, etc. I'm trying to find out how they contribute, and I've tried to do so through experimenting, but my experiments are not "controlled" enough probably to find out.

Any tips for what these base ingredients do for the end result? I want to vary with quantities, knowing what I could expect when changing the relative quantities.

The range of possibilities with a basic pancake recipe is not very broad. There are additional things you can add of course, but the basic recipe is really basic.

Eggs are mostly protein. When you cook an egg, it goes from liquid (basically) to solid. The egg blended into the pancake batter will do the same. Pancakes are generally cooked pretty quickly over a fairly hot fire, and that quick heating makes the egg proteins lock up and stiffen. Think of the difference between making a fried egg and scrambled eggs: fried eggs should cook fast, while scrambled eggs cook slowly to keep the eggs from being rubbery. (The other pancake ingredients counter that rubbery toughness of fast-cooked eggs.)

Flour is mostly starch. Starch absorbs moisture (from the egg and the liquid). People started making things like pancakes because flour is relatively cheap and keeps well, and one egg can make a lot of flour-based pancakes and feed a lot more people than the egg alone.

The liquid (milk in your recipe, but other stuff works) is necessary to thin out the batter; we're still stretching that egg out. Without a liquid addition, you'd have a lump of thick dough. By keeping the pancake batter thin, you ensure that the batter poured onto the hot griddle will remain loose enough to spread out into the familiar flat disc, providing a large surface area for the egg protein to solidify.

The salt is there so that the pancake doesn't taste bland. That's an easy one to test. Most American pancake recipes also include some sugar or another sweetener.

American pancakes without some additional fat — melted butter or vegetable oil, usually — would not be liked by most Americans. The added fat makes the pancakes softer and richer. Using table cream or something instead of plain milk can work too, as would adding an extra egg yolk.

Baking powder is a mix of dry sodium bicarbonate and one or more acidic salts. The blend is (usually) designed so that some amount of gas is produced as soon as the powder is mixed with liquid, and more produced when the batter is heated.

Finally, besides the bill of ingredients, the process used to combine the ingredients is also important. Wheat flour has gluten in it, and too much mixing in liquid will form gigantic protein mega-molecules in your batter and result in disturbingly chewy pancakes. You want gluten development for bread, but not pancakes, muffins, and other "fluffy" baked goods.

Generally, dry ingredients (except granulated sugar) are pre-mixed separately from wet ingredients. The two are combined as the last step before cooking.

You also want some air in the pancakes (for American pancakes at least), and that's of course what the baking powder does. You can get even more air in by separating the eggs, using the yolks as a "wet" ingredient, and then whipping the egg whites into a soft foam. The foamed whites are then blended in when the wet and dry ingredients are combined. (Note that you don't want air in crepes, and that's the purpose of letting the batter sit for a few hours before cooking: it lets bubbles escape, bubbles formed in the blender or via the whisk used to prepare the batter.)

Milk also helps the pancakes brown.  Pancakes made without milk and egg are usually very pale.


How can I make Chinese Fried Rice like they do on the East Coast? I've been living in California for about 14 years and really miss the Chinese fried rice I would get at Chinese restaurants on the East Coast (Boston in specific).

The fried rice I get at Chinese restaurants in California is much lighter in color and flavor.  I thought adding more soy sauce would do the trick.  There's definitely something else in the mix.  The rice that I'm trying to emulate has more of a malty, savory taste to it.

My fried rice started getting closer to east coast restaurant style when I started doing a couple of new things:

Use Chinese 5 Spice Powder - Like Indian Garam Masala, this is a spice mixture that is so common in Chinese cooking that it's sold pre-mixed. I've started using it in a lot of my chinese cooking. It makes a big difference.
Add a bit more soy sauce - This seems to be where most of your coloring comes from, so judge by look.
Use some sesame oil - I find sesame oil provides a nice flavor element in asian dishes.
Use more oil while frying the rice - I use a mix of sesame and vegetable or canola. This makes it quite a lot greasier than I was making it, but it's closer to restaurant style.
Let the rice sit  while frying - Once the rice is in the wok, I don't stir it too much. This lets some of the rice on the bottom get a bit more fried than if you stir frequently.

Hope one of those helps.

It is molasses. I was told this by my fav chinese restaurant owner in Taunton Massachusetts (where I am from). My father likes it extra dark so he adds more molasses. It gives a sweeter flavor and dark brown. And they use pork rib meat with asso sauce (not spelling that right I am sure).


How long can I keep cannoli shells with no filling and how should I store them How long can I store cannoli shells with no filling?  What is the best way to do this?  I am traveling 5 days to my destination.

I’m assuming you mean just the shells unfilled. If you made the shells yourself, line a cardboard box with paper bag material (cut up some) then just lay them in. They’ll be fine for a couple of weeks, probably longer. If you bought them, don’t worry about it they last just as long if not longer.  Just leave them in their original container.

I found Saran wrapped individually helps.


How long can i keep home made caesar dressing? The dressing contains raw eggs, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, Worcestershire, mustard, salt and pepper. How long can I keep it in the fridge in a airtight container?

Up to 7 days (homemade mayo as well). Egg whites/yolks out of the egg (but not combined with the acid) can last 3-4 days refrigerated, and eggs in-shell are good for 2-4 weeks depending on processing.

Raw eggs last 2 to 4 days in the fridge but only 2 hours at room temp, so I would only make what will be used within 24 hours, just to be safe.


How do I add butter to a sponge cake? I made a Genoise following James Peterson's recipe in Baking, but without the optional butter.  I used an electric hand mixer. The cake came out fine, as in the picture.  The second time I decided to add the butter and the whole thing deflated.  What did I do wrong?  How do I add the butter to the batter?

Peterson's recipe calls for beating eggs and sugar for 20 minutes with a handheld to ribbon stage, folding in the flour with a spatula, and tempering the melted butter with 1/5 of the batter before mixing it to the rest.

In examining sponge cake recipes, I've noticed that some call for adding the melted butter with the flour.  Some call for adding it afterwards.

The important thing is to fold in that butter in a way that preserves the network of bubbles that was created while whipping your eggs (unsure if your recipe called for whipping whole eggs with sugar or yolks with sugar and egg whites separately, but both will be creating a bubble structure integral to letting your cake rise).  Ratio mentions that folding in flour helps to preserve that network (as long as you don't overhandle).

If you over handle while folding - and you may have tipped it over the line when adding butter - you will destroy that bubble network and your cake won't rise as you'd like.  It's also possible to under-handle, which will result in only a thin layer of sponge on top with a thick buttery cake underneath.

Butter and sugar are the first two ingredients in almost all my cakes. To get the best texture mix together and beat until almost white (if the sugar is white and very pale otherwise). This incorperates the maximum amount of air. I find the highest setting on my food mixer is perfect for this.


How do you organize your recipes? I am thinking of collecting and organizing recipes that turned out to be good.

The first thought I had is to write down the recipes in a word processor, print them out and collect them in a thin ring binder. My system would have only one recipe per page (including simple to complicated versions). I would make handwritten notes on the printed recipe whenever I feel the need to update it. Eventually, I would modify the recipe in the word processor if there are too many handwritten notes. This way, I would keep a clean and tidy recipe book for reference. What do you think?

How do you organize your recipes? What works best for you and what does not?

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

I organize my recipe in http://www.howdoeshedoit.com/recipes.php. Also to get good reviews and ratings of our recipe...


Do you have to refrigerate Pickles? So last weekend the wife and I got a huge jar of pickles at Costco.  The thing is bigger than a gallon of milk (the wife really loves her pickles).  There really isn't any room for it in the fridge, but no where on the jar does it say 'refrigerate after opening', but I've always kept them in the fridge (and so does everyone else I know).

I know that pickles use to be kept out of refrigeration in barrels and I realize that the salt in the brine should keep anything bad from happening, but does anyone actually keep their pickles at room temp? Are there downsides to this?

Thanks

Traditional fermented pickles were kept in barrels, but they're not the kind that you buy in a big jar at Costco. Those pickles have been briefly cooked in a brine, and should be refrigerated after you open the jar. The salt and vinegar should keep them safe for a while, but they will likely go bad at room temperature before you finish eating the whole jar.

As an anecdotal note, an office I used to work in kept one of these large jars of pickles around. After being open for a few years, they were clearly spoiled, and nobody would touch them.

Most commercial pickles also contain sodium benzoate, a preservative used in many acidic foods and sodas. What sodium benzoate does is reduce the chance of spoilage through the pickle vinegar absorbing benzoic acid. Chances are an opened jar of pickles stored outside of the fridge and in a cooler, dark location (eg, a kitchen cabinet) will last quite a while.


How do I cook shrimp in butter? I want to cook shrimp in butter. My problem in the past has been that the butter burns if it gets too hot but the shrimp remains fishy if the butter does not get hot enough. Any advice?

Use clarified butter.  It will handle considerably higher temperatures without burning/smoking.

I think adding some liquid oil like olive oil will prevent butter from foaming at higher temperatures. (or you can use some flavorless oils)


What is the benefit of a tinfoil packet? I see a lot of recipes for tinfoil packet meals: various vegetables or meats and aromatics wrapped in tinfoil and baked/roasted.  What is the benefit of roasting using a tinfoil packet compared to just roasting in a normal roasting pan?

The packet keeps in most of the moisture, and also changes the way the food is heated - less radiation and convection, more conduction. These two factors change the taste of the food. It gets better heated throughout, less browning, and on the whole, it is more similar to what cooks call "wet heat" than "dry heat" despite being in an oven. This is what makes "packaged" recipes culinary different from the same food, simply roasted. It used to be even more important back in the age of wood fired ovens, which gave much less even heat. Note that tinfoil is just one of the options - you can wrap in other inedible substances like banana leaves, or edible ones, like making dolmas or meat pies.

A second very important difference is the matter of presentation, taking a piece of wrapped food gets perceived differently than taking a few spoonfuls of roasted vegetables out of a pan. Many en papillote preparations are more aesthetically pleasing than the ones that use tinfoil, but even the foil ones are, if not prettier, at least different.

Then you get into edge cases like the problem of baking a lump of cheese without losing all the fat, and so on. But for most foods, open roasting is an option, and wrapped roasting gets done because it is a different option, not because it is how it has to be done.

A lot of foil packet preparations are done so the entire meal can be done on a grill.

It's much more convenient to do all the cooking with one device, rather than, say roasting vegetables in the oven and cooking meat outside on the grill.


Cause of foam in fried chicken pan? I made chicken katsu tonight following this recipe. I added peanut oil to the pan, let it get hot, then threw in my semi-frozen breaded chicken thighs. As you can see, I cooked them longer than called for because they hadn't totally defrosted yet. Surprisingly, they came out very moist and delicious!

Anyway, I noticed a foam forming in the pan about midway through cooking. I took the picture below at the very end when I was taking out the chicken, and the foam was still there. What's the cause of this?

Further editing about other causes of oil foaming

It never occurred to me to add reasons other than lecithin leaching into oil as a cause of foaming. I hope most people don't re-use their oil for frying more than a few times since it's harmful to a person's health which I'll explain a little. Since this site isn't about health but cooking, it'll be brief.

Frying, in itself, chemically changes oil. Water, plus other components in the food (what they are isn't listed), can cause 'soaps' to form, which causes foaming.

A second effect is oxidation leading to saponification. From Surfactant Science and Technology, page 261

  ...polyunsaturated acids such as linoleic and linolenic acids are particularly susceptible to oxidation, introducing peroxide and hydroxyl groups that enhance the amphiphilic character of the materials with the observed results.

(Amphiphilic means a molecule having one end that can attach to water and the other end to fats like soap does.)

Another contributing factor is oil polymerization. When fats are subjected to frying temperatures, they'll become polymerized. (Good for seasoning cast irons pans but but for our health.) Fats that at present high in polyunsaturated fatty acids are more prone to this. Polymerized fats are thicker (more viscous) and will tend to form more stable foams during frying. The more the same fat's been used for frying, the more polymerized it will be and therefore foam more.

I remember reading why food particles can also increase foaming but can't find it now. (Doesn't help I've had a headache for 2 days.)

While the saponification of frying oil (formation of 'soaps' though it's not the same type as soaps used in cleaning) might seem unpalatable, what's important is that using old oil that's been subjected to frying temperatures repeatedly causes free radicals to form. Most people understand their harmful effects. I'd suggest if your oil starts foaming and you didn't add lecithin to your oil, by intention or through leaching from egg-containing batter, discard it or recycle it at an appropriate depot.

Personal experience

I didn't think to include this but it may be of some value. I use liquid sunflower lecithin in baking and mix a small amount into regular oil specifically for greasing baking pans to allow baked goods to lift easily without sticking. I've occasionally added a little of this oil to a frying pan with regular oil for frying when I want a crispy exterior but absolutely no sticking of food to pan. At such times, the oil will foam if I add a bit too much. It's how I first learned of this. The more lecithin there was, the more the oil foamed. It's easily tested in your own kitchen.

Edited to include links

I actually thought  it was fairly well known that foaming when frying was caused by lecithin in the oil but it seems it isn't. Here are some links about this.

  ...frying a comestible in a frying medium which comprises an oil or fat and an amount of an emulsifier effective to foam the fat or oil during frying. The amount of fat or oil and emulsifier need be present in an amount effective to foam the fat or oil at a level sufficient to cook the comestible in the foaming frying medium. The emulsifier may be incorporated into the frying medium as part of a dry coating mix which is coated onto the comestible prior to frying.

  Appropriate emulsifiers include citric acid esters of mono and diglycerides, phosphated mono and diglycerides, sodium stearyl fumarate and sodium sulfo-acetate derivatives of mono and diglycerides. However, the preferred emulsifier is lecithin (a phospholipid). Lecithin is preferred due to its ability to sustain a desired level of foam for relatively long periods of time while preventing sticking and burning, as well as foaming without substantial splattering.

From Foam frying US 4188410 A

  The leaching of lecithin from egg yolk batters and/or doughnut mixes will cause foaming. Moreover phospholipids (lecithins) may cause darkening of the oil at higher frying temperature.

From the book Frying of Food: Oxidation, Nutrient and Non-Nutrient Antioxidants page 255

I'm also including the link that user110084 listed as it was one of the links I'd previously seen.

  During egg-frying, phospholipids of the egg migrated to the frying oil. As the results an increase of foaming tendency of the oils were observed. The higher the migration of phospholipids was, the higher the foaming tendency of the oil was. Added soya lecithin or egg yolk lecithin promoted the foaming tendency of oil during heating, ...

From Science of Cookery: Foaming Tendency of Frying Oil by Egg-frying

The foaming action is caused by two reactions working together - lecithin from the batter (containing a whole egg) migrating into the oil during frying and the vigorous bubbling of the oil as moisture present in the food is vaporized.

If you fry a piece of potato in oil, the oil also bubbles vigorously but the bubbles break when they reach the surface. Lecithin, found only in the yolk, not the white, serves to stabilize the bubbles of water vapour for a short while although they will break down after you've finished frying.

Vegetable oils all contain a certain amount of lecithin naturally. The amounts vary and I don't know how much. Lecithin helps prevent splattering when frying but very little is needed. I don't do deep-frying but I'd imagine if one were to fry something that contained water in pure mineral oil (not that it would be edible), it would splatter a lot.

Next time, if you were to use egg white only, you wouldn't find it foaming. If you save and strain your oil for frying again, it would still have enough the lecithin from the batter to foam again.

Its not water vapour..if it was, it would be spitting out viciously. Similarly, if it was the oil overheating, you would see it smoking. It's egg foam :D


For slow cooker meal prep should I freeze the vegetables separately from the meat and sauce? I have a new food saver vacuum sealer.  I want to seal up all the ingredients for a slow cooker meal.  Should I add the vegetables separately from the meat and sauce, or all in together?  I was concerned some vegetables should not be frozen (such as onions).

If you're doing a one step cook in the slow cooker, you can freeze everything together. If you want to brown any ingredients first you'll need to keep them separate. I do tend to, so I'd have a bag for any meat, a bag for veg that wants browning or softening (onions, carrots, pepperd etc.) and a bag or other container for the liquid part, with any veg that doesn't need an initial step (beans, sweetcorn, potatoes...)

Most slow cooked dishes freeze very well after cooking, so an alternative is to cook several portions at once, divide and freeze, microwaving when you want to eat them. These approaches aren't mutually exclusive of course.

i have been regularly stewing and freezing for convenient meals for a few years. judging from the way you ask your question, I will guess that you are referring to freezing after the stew is cooked. your question is whether to separate the veg from the meat and sauce before freezing.

short answer is: there is no need to as there are no difference in the results you get. I tried both ways to reach this conclusion. like you I had concerns about what can freeze well.

tip: I figured out that I want to leave out root vegetables like stew favorites of potatoes and carrots, until the day you want to eat the stew. cooked potatoes and carrots do not freeze well, results in a lousy texture.  So I only add in potatoes and carrots to cook on the day it is to be eaten.


Risk of eating potato skins with anti-germination treatment Most potatoes are given a chemical anti-germination treatment to stop them sprouting before we eat them.

With crispy potato skins and baked potatoes seen as a luxury, I wondered what research has been done on the health risks of eating potato skins and what government health advice says about this.

Obviously potatoes need to be washed first, to clean them and to remove residues of treatment. Should they be soaked first? I also realise that potatoes are safer when peeled.

Being told to wash, soak or peel potatoes makes me want to see hard research data or analysis on the food-safety of chemical anti-germination treatments for potatoes. Which is why I see this more as a biology question - where I originally entered this question - than a cooking one.

UPDATE I recently bought a bag of small potatoes which are promoted as "ready to cook in a microwave oven", though marked "With anti-germination treatment". The potatoes are in their skins, in a transparent bag which looks like cellophane. As the instructions on the bag do not mention washing the potatoes, I looked at the supplier's cooking instructions and was amazed that the video says "No need to peel them. They are ready to eat!" This seems to go against all logic.

The toxic stuff enters not only the skin, but even to 1 mm flesh.
Washing the potatoes is useless.
So, always peel your potato


"Odd" flavor in some white fish - how to predict? I am able to taste a flavor in some fish (usually white fish) that most other people do not (I also can smell the asparagus pee smell, and am a strong taster ... but not supertaster?... of bitter flavors). What I would like is a way to predict whether a given piece of fish will have the flavor, so I can avoid it. I don't think that I can detect it as a smell. I find it unpleasant, but not intolerable. It doesn't seem to be a result of spoiling. At a guess, I'd say I encounter it in less than 20 percent of white fish. It occurs across species, so I might find it in cod, haddock, halibut, sole, etc. If I'm cooking up some fillets from the supermarket, that flavor might be in one piece, but not the next. My wife and I will often swap portions if I detect it in mine, and she notices no difference, where to me it's as obvious as if I'd popped a chunk of 80% dark chocolate in with a bite of fish.  Not to imply that I dislike choco - I love it.

I don't ask everybody that I meet, so there might be others who detect this flavor, but I can't describe it, except... hmm... one-dimensional, the way a taste of metal would be one-dimensional... though it doesn't seem to be a metallic flavor either.

Anyway, would be obliged if somebody else knew what I meant, and especially if there's a way to tell if a piece of fish will be affected BEFORE I buy. Oh, and it's only in fish. No other food that I've encountered.  Not affected by method of cooking. Not affected by seasoning.   Anybody?

I have had this problem and thought it was the taste of tin-foil that I used to rolled up and put into the belly of the fish to stand it up in the oven. So, I was very interested to hear an interviewer on the radio 3RRR in melbourne, talking to a chef who mentioned fish, like Snapper, are susceptible to that metalic taste if they are caught and die too slowly. The slower they take to die, the more stress the fish goes through and the stress hormone accumulates in the flesh particularly around the belly. I think they said a pinker snapper is better than a pale one for taste.

My guess is the fish is contaminated. I just had cod that was bitter as hell and I cooked it plain. Its not supposed to taste this way. Maybe they are adding another preservative. Most of the people who think they are allergic to shrimp are not. They are allergic to sulfites which they put on the shrimp when they catch it to preserve it. A large percentage of the population is allergic to sulfites.


What temperature to cook a pork tenderloin at? What temperature do you normally cook a pork tenderloin at?  I was searching on the internet and saw anywhere from 325°F (165°C) to 450°F (230°C) and couldn't seem to find a good answer.

Also, does it depend on how long you want to cook it or in how you prepare it before cooking?

Despite the currently accepted answer, there is no single best method to cook pork tenderloin.  The main issue is getting it to a final internal temperature of about 145 F to 155 F (63 C to 68 C) depending on your preferences.  If cooked to well done (above about 165 F, 74 C), it will be tough and rubbery as it has very little internal fat or collagen.

The actual temperature you cook it at can vary considerably depending on the method.  In all cases, you want to check the internal temperature with an instant read thermometer.

In all cases, a resting period (which empirically allows more of the juices to be retained) of about 5-10 minutes is a good idea before serving or slicing.

The method advised in the current accepted answer is certainly effective, and can be delicious, but any method which gets the pork to the desired internal temperature without overcooking it will also work.

This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, including:

Pan roasting. Pan searing and then finishing in a moderate oven (about 350 F, 175 C although there is flexibility here if you have other dishes to finish) is certainly one very effective method for cooking a pork tenderloin, but any method that brings it to the desired temperature will work.
Roasting then searing.  The reverse technique, which may give more tender results, would be to cook it in a slow oven (95 C) until it reaches the desired internal temperature, and then pan sear it for browning and deliciousness—the initial cooking dries the surface and allows the sear to develop flavor rapidly with minimal over cooking of the exterior.
Grilling, first searing then indirect.  While more difficult to control, this idea can be applied on the grill:  sear the tenderloin over the hot part of the coals until it has a nice golden crust, then move it to indirect heat to cook through to the desired temperature.  On a grill, controlling the absolute temperature is more difficult so I am not mentioning them, although you can take the oven method temperatures as a guide.
Sous-vide. Some modernists might suggest putting it in a sous-vide water bath at 145 F (63 C)  or even 135 F (57 C) for 2 1/2 to three hours (or until convenient to serve, although Yossarian recommends no more than 4 hours for lean meats like pork tenderloin to prevent it becoming mushy), and then finishing it with a torch or by pan searing.  This allows complete control of the final internal temperature, but makes the final sear more difficult as the exterior is not dried.
Sauteed medallions. Pork tenderloin is also often cut into medallions and then sauteed, which promotes considerable fond, allows a nice pan sauce, and makes for a nice presentation.  Medallions are thin, and so more difficult to measure the temperature of directly with an instant read thermometer, but with experience (to avoid overcooking), this is another extremely effective technique.

145 F may well break down collagen but does it kill the nasty little Trichinella spiralis that pigs can harbor. Thiat is why 205F for pork came into being because that ensured the little horrors were killed.


Does lime juice make jalapeños less spicy? I make guacamole with a whole jalapeño and the last time it was hard to mash so I poured lots of lime juice in this time. It was hardly spicy at all. Did the extra lime juice make it less spicy?

Lime juice isn't going to make it less spicy, if anything I've found it accentuates the spiciness a bit although I'm not sure of the mechanism. It could be that the acidity frees up more capsaicin  compounds (what makes hot food hot), or wakes up your taste buds more.

Most likely you have simply added a weak jalapeno. Peppers of the same variety can vary in heat strength quite a bit depending on the where and how it was grown, although you'll get weak and strong peppers from the same plant. You can make up for the lack of spice by adding more jalapeno or a bit of hot chili powder.

According to articles and blogs, acidic ingredients actually do reduce the heat of spicy oils from peppers. Here's one link:

https://foodal.com/knowledge/herbs-spices/turn-down-the-heat/


How can you judge when a non-stick pan is the correct temperature for pan frying? With stainless steel pans you can perform a water test to see if the pan is the correct temperature for frying but how do you tell with a non-stick pan?

You shouldn't heat a non stick pan without the oil, because it is too easy to overheat it and ruin the coating.

So, I put oil inside first, and tell by the state of the oil. It smells, looks and flows different when it is hot enough. You can also learn to judge if there is sufficient heat when you hold your palm at a given distance above the pan, but in my experience, you learn to judge by the oil before you have gotten good enough to keep the same distance and to distinguish "enough" from "not enough" heat.

If you don't have enough experience to know when the oil is ready, you have to do it repeatedly until you learn it. It takes a few less-than-great meals if you do it purely by trial and error, and goes better if you use an infrared thermometer. You can also try floating cubes of stale white bread and watch their browning behavior, but I find this method too involved logistically - you have to have the bread, cut it, then deal with messy pieces of oily bread, and end up with slowly charring crumbles in your pan.

i spit in the pan. my mom taught me that. my father sometimes called her "Annie Spit in the Griddle." ;o)

with good quality butter, i can tell the pan is ready when the butter stops forming oxygen bubbles.


Sodastream loses carbonation when adding syrup I have a sodastream, and for the most part it makes great carbonated water. However, any time I try to use the flavoring syrups, my drink becomes completely flat. I do follow the instructions and only carbonate water (no pumping bubbles with the syrup already mixed in).

I've tried all techniques I could think of: stirring syrup into fizzy water, pouring fizzy water over syrup, pumping syrup into fizzy water without mixing. Basically, if I don't stir, all the syrup goes to the bottom of the glass, and if I do stir, the bubbles are gone. I've tried refrigerating the syrup, room temp, warming it. The best technique I have come up with so far is to add a little bit of carbonated water, pour in the syrup, mix that up, and then add the rest of the carbonated water. I like to believe this "loosens" the syrup so it mixes into cold water a bit better. However, even with this technique, the drink is flat.

Does anyone else experience this? Anyone have suggestions?

The solubility of carbon dioxide in water is a function of several factors. The most important are time, temperature, pressure, and composition.

In order to maximize your carbonation, ensure everything is as cold as possible. The colder the liquid, the more CO2 you can dissolve in the liquid.
Secondly, you will need high pressure. The higher the pressure the more CO2. For example, if you leave an open bottle of carbonated water on your table, it will go flat. If you cap the bottle, it will maintain carbonation, but also build up pressure in the bottle. The higher the pressure, the higher the carbonation. Any "other gasses", like atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen in the bottle will effectively reduce the "partial pressure" of CO2, so you should remove that.
Pure water is easy to carbonate. Once you start adding "stuff" to it, it becomes more difficult. Soda concentrate contains flavors and sugar, all of which hinder the ability of CO2 to dissolve into the the liquid.
It takes time for the system to reach equilibrium. If one just pressurizes a bottle with CO2, it can take quite a while for it to actually dissolve into the liquid. Increasing the contact between liquid and gas (the surface area) speeds up the dissolution.

I don't know how a sodastream works, so if my suggestions can't be exactly duplicated, let me know. Can you add CO2 to the bottle without opening up to the atmosphere?
The best process would be to, first, ensure everything is cold, and mix everything together. Pressurize the bottle with CO2. Cap it to maintain pressure and shake...a lot. Purge the pressure to remove any oxygen and nitrogen, and repressureize. Close the bottle and shake again and you'll notice the pressure decrease as the CO2 dissolves (squeeze the bottle). Top off the pressure and keep shaking and squeezing and repeat until it stays pressurized. Allow any foam to subside, and make sure there are no bubbles on the wall of the bottle before opening.

I make a lot of soda, but use a large cylinder of CO2 and Carbonator Caps, which screw on standard plastic soda bottles. With this I can make anything from 12 ounce to 2 liters at a time.

It has something to do with the ice. The ice that my refrigerator makes always flattens my drinks. However, using store-bought ice keeps them carbonated. It might have something to do with the impurities in our tap water reacting to an ingredient(s) in the syrup.


heavy cream and half-and-half substitute I am trying to make ice cream and it calls for 3 cups half-and-half and 1 cup heavy cream.

I don't have either but I do have one gal of 2% milk

If I can make some half-and-half and heavy cream out of it that would be awesome or if you know a good substitute for both that would be nice too!

UPDATE :
Full recipe

"Ingredients

3 cups half-and-half

1 cup heavy cream

8 large egg yolks

9 ounces vanilla sugar

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Place the half-and-half and the heavy cream into a medium saucepan, over medium heat. Bring the mixture just to a simmer, stirring occasionally, and remove from the heat.

In a medium mixing bowl whisk the egg yolks until they lighten in color. Gradually add the sugar and whisk to combine. Temper the cream mixture into the eggs and sugar by gradually adding small amounts, until about a third of the cream mixture has been added. Pour in the remainder and return the entire mixture to the saucepan and place over low heat. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon and reaches 170 to 175 degrees F. Pour the mixture into a container and allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Stir in the vanilla extract. Place the mixture into the refrigerator and once it is cool enough not to form condensation on the lid, cover and store for 4 to 8 hours or until the temperature reaches 40 degrees F or below.

Pour into an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer's directions. This should take approximately 25 to 35 minutes. Serve as is for soft serve or freeze for another 3 to 4 hours to allow the ice cream to harden.

Recipe courtesy of Alton Brown, 2005
"

edit

i don't want a full substitute like almond milk and coconut cream
i can use butter ect

Cream has a high fat content, fat adds elasticity, flavor and a smooth mouth feel to ice cream. You can use 2% milk in ice cream instead of cream and it will work, however it will not have many of the desirable properties you get from cream. It will be harder and taste "weak" for lack of a better term.

If you want to make a lower fat ice cream then you can make up for the lack of milk fat somewhat by using more egg yolks and adding stabilizers like xanthan gum, guar gum, etc. See my answer to this question for a bit more detail on gums in ice cream.

It is possible to make a cream substitute by mixing 1/3 cup melted unsalted butter with 3/4 cup milk, but this would only work for recipes where the emulsion of fat in the liquid is not required - all you will get from this is milk with fat floating around in it. This may work in some baking applications, but it won't whip and it won't make ice cream you'd want to eat.


Iranian Sweet Dish consisting of Lamb Paste I am trying to identify a dish I had a while ago while traveling in Iran. It was in Isfahan, and none of the languages I speak seemed particularly common with the locals, so I only got patchy details in addition to the actual experience of the dish.
The dish:

was served in a shallow plate, for dipping/scooping.
had a paste-like consistency, somewhat similar to hummus, but less chunky, more rope-y, and much more homogeneous.
was mainly sweet, with a slight hint of savoury taste and saffron.
was yellow-to-orange in color, I assume on account of saffron spicing.
was made (primarily or mainly) of lamb (I double-checked with the serving staff as well as other patrons).

I found it hard to believe given the taste and appearance, but after making sure everybody agreed on the fact that it was meat, both the consistency and the slight savoury taste made more sense. I don't know if it's eaten as dessert by the locals, but I would certainly think of it as dessert. It was very sweet.
Do you know:

what this dish is called?
how exactly it is made?

As confirmed in comments, the dish is khoresht mast.
According to this recipe and this video, the main ingredients seem to be lamb or beef neck, yoghurt, sugar, saffron, rosewater, and garnishes of pistachios and barberries.

The lamb/beef is simmered with onion and turmeric then mashed and blended, and mixed with an egg yolk, yoghurt, and sugar. This is gently heated, to which saffron water and and (optionally) rosewater are now added. The mixture is then chilled, garnished, and served cool. The video explains everything quite well.

From your description, I believe what you ate was Khoresht Mast.
There is a picture of the dish on this page.


What is Bosnian black honey? In Bosnia and Herzegovina, I bought some black honey that someone was selling on the roadside in unlabeled jars. It was the most delicious honey I've ever had. It tasted like caramel but also like honey. It was very dark, almost black. It was less viscous than typical honey.

I tried finding it on the internet, and someone said it might be forest honey, but I found two imported European forest honey products, and they were not the honey for which I was looking.

Can you help me find that delicious honey? I'm curious what it's called and where I can buy it in the US.

It is honeydew honey. It is not made from nectar, but from tree parasite secretions. It has a quite different taste from regular flower/nectar honey, and it is much darker. Sometimes it is also called forest honey.

Wikipedia has a paragraph on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey#Honeydew_honey

There is a slim possibility that it is not a real honey at all, but pine honey, which is actually a jelly made from pine flowers/leaves (it uses the fresh tips where the needles are very soft). It is used as a bee honey substitute, not a fruit jelly substitute, and the name also includes the word "honey", so there is a chance for miscommunication, especially if a language barrier is present. But I think you'd have described the taste differently. It is also a richer taste than normal honey, but a bit sharper, not caramel-like mellow, and the pine resin aroma is discernible.

If it is very dark in colour and has a bit of a bitter taste, it could be a garden sage (Salvia officinalis) honey.

cheers!


What cultures can be added to pasteurized milk to allow it to clabber like raw milk? I have a dairy cow, and when I leave its raw milk on the counter for a couple of days, I end up with clabber (also called clabbered milk). However, I am not willing to take the risk of consuming non-pasteurized milk products during a global health pandemic. I want to try out some recipes that use uncooked clabber. And since there are cultures that can be added to pasteurized milk to make kefir, yogurt, and cheeses, I thought surely there must be some that can be added to make clabber! Alas, I have not been able to find any information on this.
What specific bacterial, fungal, or yeast cultures can be added to pasteurized milk to create clabber?

I have made something like a yoghurt using just kefir and pasteurized milk. One of the two bottles was in equilibrium. Sour and with bubbles. Not so lucky though with the other bottle as it was more like yeast in taste.


What's the origin of the name of the "Chinese Cookie" found in Jewish deli's in the US? At a classic Los Angeles Deli for lunch yesterday, I snagged my usual take-out guilty pleasure for later: a fresh-baked Chinese Cookie. This is a four or five inch diameter short-bread cookie with a dollop of chocolate frosting in the center. They appear to be a standard fare at every Deli I've visited.

The thing is, although it is unquestionably a cookie, there isn't anything obviously Chinese about it. So, why the name?

Update: Here's a link to a kosher supplier's product page for their version of this cookie.

It is something I've only found in Jewish Deli's. Yesterday it was Langers across from MacArthur Park, but I've also had them from Cantor's on Fairfax, Brent's up in the Valley, and Billy's in Glendale.

The ingredients label on the wrapper of yesterday's says eggs, cake flour, sugar, shortening, baking powder, baking soda, chocolate.

The recipe for Jewish Deli "Chinese Cookies" seems awfully similar to the recipe for Chinese almond biscuits, except that the lard is replaced with shortening (to keep it Kosher) and chocolate is added.  A recipe for Chinese almond biscuits was printed as a "standard Chinese cookie" in The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook as early as 1984, and this exact same recipe was reprinted in From Lokshen to Lo Mein: The Jewish Love Affair with Chinese Food.  Given that love affair with Chinese food, I am guessing that at some point in time a cook at a deli decided to recreate the beloved Chinese recipe, either due to his or her own love of the baked good or by request.

I know a Jewish guy who owned and operated a Chinese restaurant in the 1970s (staffed with Cantonese cooks), so the intercultural culinary collaboration is a definite possibility.  (Almond biscuits are very popular in Hong Kong, which is the epicenter of Cantonese cuisine.)  A Glatt Kosher Israeli-style restaurant close to where I used to work recently converted to a Glatt Kosher Chinese-style restaurant (under the same management, and likely with the same cooks)!

Edit (more speculation): If the "Chinese cookie" is in fact a descendant of the almond biscuit, it may have been originally motivated by its almond content: It wouldn't be hard to replace the small amount of wheat flour in the recipe with something like almond flour, thus making the cookies Kosher for Passover.

Edit (even more speculation): About 95% of the ethnic Chinese are lactose intolerant.  Therefore, almost all Chinese confections are dairy-free.  If you think about it, there aren't many Western cookie recipes that don't call for some form of dairy.  The laws of kashrut prohibit eating meat alongside dairy in a single meal.  In other words, if someone who keeps kosher were to eat a meal with meat, he or she would then have to follow it with a non-dairy desert.  Therefore, Jewish delis may have adapted a Chinese cookie recipe to provide non-dairy desert options for their kosher clientele.

There is not reason for them being called Chinese Cookies. It is just a name. It is just a cookie. (a good one apparently)


How do I care for a carbon steel knife? I recently purchased a Dexter-Russell carbon steel Chinese cleaver, because they're supposed to be amazingly useful.

I'm used to caring for good stainless steel knives, but don't know what special things I should do for carbon steel.  So far, I always wash and dry it immediately after use, and do normal honing/sharpening.

The problem is that after a week or two of use, it is developing spots of rust, deepening to slight pitting.  The rust appears as an orange sheen, and does not disappear readily with scrubbing.

Is this slight rusting normal with use, and will it turn into the patina I've seen on other people's carbon steel cutlery?  What else does one need to do to care for a carbon steel?  I've heard something about oiling and am not sure how that works...

Picture of of edge below, to demonstrate:

Wipe your blade along the flats with a clean, damp towel (or sponge) - set upon the counter or cutting board - frequently when cutting acidic items like onions, tomatoes or fruit. Japanese sushi chefs will have a wet kitchen towel folded into a neat pad on a lower corner of their cutting board for this purpose. When you are done with one cutting chore and not yet ready to move on to the next or wash the knife, wipe with the damp towel, and then with a dry one similarly folded. Do not delay washing the knife once you're done using it. Wash and dry it before the meal, not after.
Work on your knife's patina. It's a layer of mottled gray oxidized metal that develops on your blade, but will protect the steel from full blown rust or pitting. Gray is good, rust is murder. You can force a patina (search online for "mustard patina" or "hot vinegar patina" for various schools of thought on the topic), or encourage it to develop naturally - the easiest way to do the latter is to scrub your blade with baking soda and a disposable kitchen scouring towel (like a Scotch Brite cloth) to remove stains after washing the knife - be sure to watch your fingers, and rinse and dry when done. After a few weeks or months of this, the metal will dull, and dark stains will come off in the wash rather than requiring to be scrubbed off. This is the patina at work. Japanese chefs will often scrub their knives to a mirror finish nightly with a scouring powder and rust-eraser rather than let a patina form - but this is a lot of work, and can damage the blade if done improperly. Many European and American chefs find patina appealing aesthetically - the mark of a quality knife used well.
Wash the knife with warm soapy water using a dish-mop or a sponge-on-a-stick now popular in the cleaning aisle of most grocery stores, and rinse briefly but completely. Do not use a dishwasher, or immerse the knife entire into the dishwater. Dry carefully with a towel - folding the towel on the counter, and pulling the flats and spine of the blade across to dry, and then move to the handle, holding the blade securely at the spine, before storing.
If possible, store the knife away from sources of humidity: the sink, dishwasher and cooktop. A drawer block in a drawer with a few silica gel packets would be ideal. If the knife isn't used frequently, a very light oiling with mineral oil (available over the counter from any pharmacy) will keep it from rusting. Barely dampen a paper napkin with the oil, and brush lightly over the knife, wiping away any excess with a paper towel. Some wood handles (non-stabilized olivewood and walnut especially) are better off with occasional oiling as well.
Steel the blade frequently using a ceramic hone to take advantage of the edge-holding ability of carbon steel. Asian knives are typically sharpened briefly on very high-grit stones in lieu of steeling before use, due to asymmetrical or highly acute edge geometry - most cleavers, gyutos and santokus may be steeled on a ceramic hone, though. Check with the manufacturer or reseller.

Buy a Misto Olive oil sprayer and fill it with food grade mineral oil, vegatable oil or olive oil. Make sure the knives are dry. Apply a small amount of oil to the blade and smooth it out with your finger. One pump is usually more than enough to cover both sides of the blade. The sprayer is under $10 on ebay or Amazon.


How can I make omelettes look better? I'm working on a sort of high protein+carbohydrate omelette that I can prepare in batch, dump into containers, and take with me when I'm on the go.

I've devised a sweet potato + egg recipe that goes something like this:

Boil sweet potatoes
Peel sweet potatoes
Put sweet potatoes in blender with eggs
Blend
Dump into pan, cook while stirring

So far so good.  Here's the problem:  The sweet potatoes and eggs both turn brown, giving the end result an unappealing look.

Is there a way to alter the recipe so that it is aesthetically more pleasing?

It sounds like this is more like scrambled eggs instead of an omelet. It does sound tasty, but I can understand your issue with the coloration.

If you're using orange sweet potatoes, that is likely the biggest cause of the coloration issues. Eggs themselves usually stay yellow when cooked, though they may turn brown if cooked and then left to cool and wait around for a while. (I don't normally do that, so I can't really say.) I have a couple possible solutions:

1) As Catija suggests, you can try using white sweet potatoes. They have a similar flavor, though a somewhat different nutritional profile. Still very good for you.

2) Try shredding the potatoes instead of blending them with the eggs. This is probably the solution I would try first. Shredding will avoid mixing the colors to the extent that blending does, and still allows the potato to spread throughout the omelet/scramble. If you do this, I would shred the potato first (peel if you want, though the peel has a lot of nutrients in it), cook the shreds (options: baking, sauteing in a little oil or butter, or microwaving - you can try boiling, but it would be more like parboiling as the shreds would only need a minute or two in the water to cook). Then you can just stir the shreds in with the eggs (no blending) and cook.

3) Slice the potatoes, cook (can cook in the same manner as the shreds, though times will obviously differ), cook the eggs like you would a traditional omelet and layer the egg with the potatoes in your dish.

Here are a couple resources discussing the different type of sweet potatoes available so you can figure out what would work best for your purpose:

http://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-yams-and-sweet-potatoes-word-of-mouth-211176

Paleo/Primal site (I'm not Paleo, but the site has good images of the different types of sweet potatoes): http://www.marksdailyapple.com/difference-yams-sweet-potatoes/

How about blending the potatoes with only half of the eggs?  If you are maxing a scramble you can pour one in first, wait for it to coagulate a little, and then add the rest.  If you are making an omelette you pour the eggs sans potato first, wait for it to harden, and then pour the sweet potato eggs on top.


How do I make home-made Vietnamese or thai rice noodles? In Vietnam, fresh noodles are easy to find, however in Australia, the nearest substitute seems to be plain (and dry) rice vermicelli noodles, which do not have the same flavour or texture, the fresh noodles have a fresh flavour that has a subtle texture, quite unlike dried vermicelli noodles.

I want to make the perfect Vietnamese noodle, however, the first step for me is knowing the name and any suggestions that will help me obtain this noodle!

So, I would like to know what these noodles are typically called (perhaps in Viet or Thai language), and/or any tips or other suggestions that will allow me to find a recipe.

The only thing I can point out is that these are thin noodles, and are not like soba.

To make noodle like Vietnamese, it is not so difficult.
You need to put the rice into the water for few hours, grin the portion you prefer.
The important thing, you need a steam spot with a page of silk on the top so that the steam go es up from the spot to the surface of the silk, cooking the noodle.

Actually, making noodle needs more visual material than reading, it is more effective

Vietnam Tours - promote the cuisine of Vietnam


Cheeses similar to queso fresco Queso fresco is one of my most frequently purchased cheeses; among other things I like it crumbled over salads. I do like a lot of common salad cheeses - crumbly goat cheeses, blue cheeses, and feta - but I often want something more mild.

Unfortunately, queso fresco is not quite so common in stores away from Texas. Are there any common similar cheeses that are more widely available? The best my searches have come up with is "mild feta", but I'm hoping for something a bit better, since in my experience it can be a bit hard to identify mild enough feta in the store, and it's also more commonly sold already crumbled and more expensive.

I use paneer and queso fresco interchangeably. They are produced using pretty much the same technique.

It is also really easy to make it yourself.
How do you make paneer?

I'd like to suggest Bocconcini Cheese, a fresh mild cheese that doesn't detract from the flavour of a recipe.


How do you put out a grease fire? I recently had a grease fire - the pan caught on fire from a little fat that spilled over the skillet. Is there a safe, quick way to put out a fire like this?

Steps to put out a grease fire

Turn off source of heat (burner / element)
Do NOT pour water on it
let me say that again, Do NOT pour water on it
Attempt to remove all oxygen from the flame. You can cover with another pot, or baking pan
If you can't cover it, dump baking soda on it. (lots of it)
Secret step number 6, if all else fails, use a fire extinguisher

First of all try to stay calm so you can make sound decisions. I had a pan of bacon grease spill all over the bottom of my oven so i turned it off and figured it would burn off....that is until it started to get too big for comfort. Meanwhile, i quickly drenched and totally saturated several kitchen rags and towels, and carefully opened oven. With oven mittens i quickly removed the racks and without the racks in the way, took each corner of the kitchen towel and tried to lay it evenly over the bottom of the oven. Did that with two staurated towels and the fire went out instantly. I then removed towels and after my heart rate went back to normal, i turned the oven back on andmonitored that the fire would not come back. All was good. No fire came back.


What is the difference between "vanilla" and "Mexican vanilla" Some ice cream around here is marketed as the flavor "Mexican vanilla".

It seems sweeter and has obvious vanilla seeds (or something that looks similar). Is there a type of vanilla pod that is uniquely Mexican? Or does the flavor mean "vanilla in a Mexican style" and refer to some technique?

There are several distinct species of the vanilla orchid used for food flavouring, the most common being vanilla planifolia, vanilla tahitiensis and vanilla pompona (in that order).

Vanilla planifolia is usually marketed as "Bourbon vanilla", most of which is grown in Indonesia and Madagascar. The same species is also grown in Mexico, but they have decided to call it "Mexican vanilla", which is purely a marketing designation. At least the Mexicans claim their vanilla to be of superior quality, but the vanilla extracts sold in Mexico are often stretched with tonka bean extract, which has a similar taste and aroma to vanilla, but contains coumarin, which is banned as a food additive by the US Food & Drug Administration. Other countries have less strict regulations, often only regulating a maximum coumarin content.

The differences of things like these are often the price. Calling it something special just means that they then can get people to pay more. The quality needed usually depends on how it will be used. If it will be buried in a recipe then use anything but if it will be one of the stars of the dish then use the one you like best.


What is the difference between a Jus, Sauce and a Gravy? I've just booked my Christmas meal. This included Sausage, mashed potatoes and an Onion Jus. Why Jus and not Gravy?

Begs the question,  What is the difference between a Jus, Sauce and a Gravy?

What’s the difference between gravy, jus, sauce and coulis?

  Will says...

  •    'Gravy is made from the juices of oven roast meat, thickend with
  a starch such as corn flour.

  •    Jus is made from the same juices
  that has been refined and condensed to get a clear liquid naturally
  thickened.

  •    Sauce could be made from the same juices with other
  ingredients added such as wines or spirits to compliment the food.
  Sauces can be served hot or cold.

  •    Coulis is a thin fruit or
  vegetable purée, used as a sauce. If the purée is too thick, you can
  add some water and sometimes sugar'.

Source: http://www.41portlandplace.com/news/116/send-head-chef-will-carvalho-your-questions-about-the-kitchen

My personal feeling for sauces is they can be made from anything. Parsnips, Mushrooms, Celeriac etc when 'Gravy' and 'Jus' must have Meat juices as their base.

On menu's you'll often see 'Gravy' on pub menu's where they aren't trying to sound to posh, probably using some sort of packet mix. Jus' on French style menu's OR people trying too hard. Finally you'll see something like "Beef and Juniper Sauce" on my menu and many others because... Gravy sounds too common and Jus sounds too poncy.

My instinct is that one puts a sauce ON something, but a gravy is what one cooks the food IN.  Same basic concept, but nuanced.  I'm also curious if an au jus with herbs and veggies - onion, sweet pepper, tomatoes - would still be considered au jus or be converted to a gravy or sauce.


How can I make crispy chips? I made potato chips by following this recipe, but they didn't come out crispy.
What is the accurate temperature for frying chips?

Note (from Jefromi): my best guess based on the comments is that the OP didn't use this recipe, but rather fried thin potato slices in a deep-fryer at 180C, in an unknown oil, for an  unknown amount of time. If this is enough to let you answer, just go for it.

Speaking as a Brit - we are a nation of chip lovers :)

Use an oil which can cope with the high temperature such as groundnut. For that proper chip experience (* heart attack alert *) add some beef dripping or lard. I add a small amount to give the chips a nice flavour.
Whilst heating the oil regulary dip a chip in the oil. When it starts to bubble then it's time to cook. If the oil is too cold the chips will absorb it and they'll go soggy. (This is easier to achieve with a traditional chip pan or I prefer a deep saucepan).
For the perfect chip the potato variety is important but this is personal taste. Last seasons reds will make dark delicious chips but I prefer new potatoes which make a crisper lighter coloured chip. (The potato variety also affects the colour when cooked).
Finally, drain on kitchen paper and a sprinkle of salt.


Cooks Illustrated recipe too Salty The other night I made the "Bejing-Style Meat Sauce and Noodles" from the most recent (May-June 2018) issue of Cooks Illustrated. Usually their recipes come out quite good, even if they are often a bit involved.

I've done Asian-style food before but it is not something I do a lot. It's a basic recipe where you brown some ground pork, add some scallions, garlic and mushrooms (ground up in a food processor) to the mix and once browned add the sauce:

5 Tbsp red miso paste
5 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbsp hoisin sauce
1 Tbsp molasses
1/2 cup water

I've never cooked with miso before but everything else is familiar. Unfortunately the resultant sauce, especially when cooked down a bit as the recipe calls for is just much to salty. Not to the point of being inedible but still just too much.

Wondering if anyone has some thoughts on what to do with this sauce mixture to lessen  or dilute the saltiness without losing the umami that the sauce ingredients provide?

The first thing that caught my eye was the soy sauce. However, I think the real culprit here is the miso.

From Wikipedia:

  Typically, miso is salty, but its flavor and aroma depend on various factors in the ingredients and fermentation process. Different varieties of miso have been described as salty, sweet, earthy, fruity, and savory.

About red miso, from the same article:

  Akamiso (赤味噌) or red miso is aged, sometimes for more than one year. Therefore, due to the Maillard reaction, the color changes gradually from white to red or black, thus giving it the name red miso. Characteristics of the flavor are saltiness and some astringency with umami. It is often a much stronger-tasting miso. Factors in the depth of color are the formula of the soybeans and the quantity used. Generally, steamed soybeans are more deeply colored than boiled soybeans.

(Emphasis mine.)

The base ingredients for miso can vary widely. Also from the Wikipedia article:

  The ingredients used to produce miso may include any mix of soybeans, barley, rice, buckwheat, millet, rye, wheat, hemp seed, and cycad, among others. Lately, producers in other countries have also begun selling miso made from chickpeas, corn, azuki beans, amaranth, and quinoa. Fermentation time ranges from as little as five days to several years. The wide variety of Japanese miso is difficult to
  classify, but is commonly done by grain type, color, taste, and background.

  mugi (麦): barley
  tsubu (粒): whole wheat/barley
  genmai (玄米): brown rice
  moromi (醪): chunky, healthy (kōji is unblended)
  nanban (南蛮): mixed with hot chili pepper for dipping sauce
  taima (大麻): hemp seed
  sobamugi (蕎麦): buckwheat
  hadakamugi (裸麦): Highland barley
  nari (蘇鉄): made from cycad pulp, Buddhist temple diet
  gokoku (五穀): "five-grain": soy, wheat, barley, proso millet, and foxtail millet

I would try a different variety or a mixture of more than one. An example from the Wikipedia article:

  Chougou (調合) or 'Awase' (合わせ) miso, or "mixed miso" comes in many types, because it is a mixture or compound of other varieties of miso. This may improve the weak points of each type of miso. For example, mame miso is very salty, but when combined with kome miso the finished product has a mild taste.

Do a little research and find one or more varieties of miso that suit your taste.

One option that should'nt ruin the taste/umami is to put a half a potato in and let it heat at a low temp for a bit. Potatoes naturally soak up salt and when you remove the potato, the salt will go with it.


What causes the sugar to turn grainy after I have cooked it for a glaze or cooking it with butter for carmelizing? I tried several times to cook the glaze for a strawberry glaze pie and the sugar, water, and cornstarch would thicken but then the sugar would turn grainy.  I have also tried to boil water, sugar, and butter to make a carmel type sauce to pour over corn curls and it thickens and seems to be fine but then turns grainy right after I take it off the stove.

It sounds like your syrups are crystallizing on you.

For a smooth glaze or caramel, you want tiny little sugar crystals. When you heat your sugar and water mixture, after a certain temperature the water becomes super-saturated with the sugar.

After this super-saturation point, things get dicey. If the solution is disturbed--say by stirring, or an undissolved sugar crystal or other foreign particle getting into the solution--the sugar can rapidly come out of solution and form big crystals. This could be why your confections are grainy.

There are a lot of resources online that have the science behind it and suggestions on preventing it (example, example, example). To summarize a few:

Always use a clean pot or pan.
Make sure the sugar is completely dissolved before it comes to a boil
Dip a pastry brush in water to wash away any sugar that sticks to the side of the pot or pan as the sugar heats.
Combine the sugar with a little water (it should have the consistency of wet sand) before cooking.
Avoid stirring the sugar when it comes to a simmer.
Cover the pan loosely with a lid or baking sheet.
Add a little acid (such as a touch of lemon juice) or corn syrup to the sugar-water mixture before cooking

When you add milk to the cooked brown sugar and butter mixture, add SLOWLY while stirring constantly. Adding cold milk too suddenly causes the sugar to crystallize. A simple solution. This is what works for me always!


What makes oil stick to the pan so bad that it is so difficult to wash out? My parents went out of town for a bit and so I had to fend for myself with cooking!  I made some chicken and some quesadillas on a particular pan.  However, my parents got back and my mom is astounded to find the pan all dirty with oil still sticking to the pan.  I washed it with soap, so why is it still sticking???  It is like it is embedded into the pan.  Not sure what happened!  Anybody knows?  I am also unsure about the type of pan it is.  At this rate, I'll be buying new pans every so and so months if I lived alone.  :(  I wonder if it has anything to do with cooking food in a not so high temperature?

As I understand it, when you combine high heat and vegetable oil you get a fairly stable polymer (much like a plastic or resin).  The polymer bonds with the surface (which is porous), and results in robust surface. This is what we use to season cast iron cookware, but it's less desirable on stainless and other lighter coloured hardware.

You can prevent the coating from forming by never allowing he oil to maintain a high temperature for long periods by itself.  Keeping food in contact with the pan will both help keep the temperature down, and reduce the chance of the oil bonding with the steel.

Cleaning the oil off once it's formed is usually pretty simple: add water (or soda water) and heat for 10-15 minutes. Often the oil will wipe out (or need mild scrubbing with an appropriate scrubbing pad).  You should not have to use steel wool (or a caustic cleaner), both of which can damage the smooth surface of many pans.

Use a baking soda paste to clean the baking tray.


Using white wine in the cooking Once I was in an italian restaurant where you could see the chefs cooking. My friend ordered a a pasta whose sauce was made of vegetables red meat and white wine. As far as I could remember he cooked the vegetables and meat in a wok pot and then basically "deglaze" the pot with no more than what I would assume a half cup of white wine then I think he added paste and mixed altogether. In the end it tasted very aromatic as if he boiled away the alcohol from a whole bottle of wine and added the remaining grape essence to the pasta.

I tried the same process I cooked the vegetables, occasionally adding a spoon of white wine then added meat and whenever the pot was hot enough to boil a spoon of wine instantaneously I added a spoonful of wine again. I preferred this method because I did not have a wok pot and strong enough fire. In the end I ended up using a cup of white wine which gave little to no taste to the food at all.

So what am I doing wrong, is it the choice of wine that makes the dish very aromatic or choice of cooking method?

Update: After alot of tries I have seen that Moscato wine gives the most flavor to the food as the wine itself is very aromatic and sweet. For two portions of food I use one glass of it and a spoon of balsamic vinegar to balance the sweetness. In spanish dishes it is also used for bean and meat stews which I have also seen to be very nice.

There are several things that come together to produce the overall flavor profile of the dish, not all of them having anything to do with the wine.  Traditional factors such as good spicing, blooming the spices, browning ingredients and so forth continue to have a huge affect.

Deglazing with some wine adds the following:

Acidity.  Wine is an acid food product, and this brightness can enhance the overall flavor of the dish.
Sweetness.  Wine can also be sweet, which acts as a flavor enhancer.
Fruitiness.  The fruity qualities of the wine may compliment the other flavors of the dish.
Alcohol.  The alcohol in the wine will not completely evaporate.  Some will remain, helping to dissolve and make volatile some flavor components which are ot soluble in either water or fats (this is especially true in tomato based dishes).  This can give foods cooked with alcohol an extra depth of flavor.

The first and last of these affects probably have the most profound affect on your dish.

Adding the wine in dribs and drabs probably doesn't help, but in the end you need to use enough wine to have a good effect on your dish.  Even though it will be reduced, it is still an ingredient, and you need to have enough to matter.

I do suggest adding it all at once, and letting it boil away; this should work quite well.

The quality of wine you use also matters.  You want a wine that tastes decent, even as a beverage.  My personal preference for cooking is a Chardonnay, but I don't think that preference is universal.

I keep a bottle of white vermouth for cooking savory dishes. It is a reliable dry wine with herbal tastes. I regard it as an ingredient rather than a wine or beverage.

It avoids the risk of getting a wine which is too sweet or  too thin tasting.

It also comes with a screw top and lasts  a long  time on the kitchen counter.


Keep milk (or milk alternative) for a day without a fridge I like to drink my coffee with milk, but my new place of work has no refrigerator I can use. Is there any milk or milk-substitute I can use that will not taste funny around 15 o'clock, when I remove it from my home fridge at 8?

What if I buy 1L of long-lasting milk and bring in ca 100ml in a airtight container a day for coffee, will that be OK?
Maybe a substitute like almond, soy, rice or oatmilk will keep better? Will it taste good?
Another option I can see is powder milk, but that does seems like a hassle.

Bonus points for minimal amount of waste.

I would invest in a small thermos bottle, about the size of what you need for one day. They are not only designed to keep hot food hot, they can also keep cold food cold. Choose a size that will be as full as possible when you start, it will keep better.

This is what the small B&B we‘re currently staying at supplies to their guests. If it’s good for an early morning tea, it’ll be good for afternoon coffee as well:

If you want to go all the way, you can pre-chill the container, then fill it with well-chilled milk from your home fridge. You could even freeze some milk as ice cubes, if you find that it doesn’t stay cold enough until the end of your work day or your last coffee break. Store the thermos away from heat sources and not in warm sunlight, of course.

Note that you also have the “two-hours in the danger zone” buffer and that “unsafe” doesn’t automatically mean “spoiled”. Especially when the milk is still quite cold and only shortly after the two-hour window the risk for a healthy adult should be small. No recommendation, just a thought.

Switching to milk alternatives won’t change anything where food safety is concerned.

There is no problem. Most of supermarkets stores milk in the outside of fridge. Milk shouldn't contact sunlight. You have to store it without sunlight


Which type of oil/fat should I use for deep frying? I just got my first ever deep fryer yesterday. Looking round in the shops, I found that I can get bottled frying oil, or a white solid block type of fat which I've never used before, I guess it may be lard (but I'm not sure this is the right word, as I'm not a native speaker).

In terms of handling, is there any benefit of using the solid stuff over frying oil or sunflower oil? (For example, I'm not sure if the white stuff would get solid again when cooled ...)

For the very best tasting fries, onion rings and battered fish are fried in fat made from rendered beef fat. When I was a cook we rendered down a thousand pounds of beef fat a week, it took days to do. But it made the very best tasting savory deep fried foods. The burning temperature is lowish, so food needs to be cooked at 325 and changed more often. It's not good for things like doughnuts.

I'm not a fan of Canola, I find it often has a taste which I don't like. I don't use peanut mostly due to habit, too many people I've run into with allergies. I can't find rendered beef fat and I'm not going to render it at home.

At home I use a mixture of Sunflower and lard, about 1 part to 3 parts. The sunflower oil makes it easier to handle when filtering through a very fine mesh sieve (more liquid at a lower temperature) after use, then I put it in an old olive oil can which I refrigerate between uses. I leave out overnight before I use it then warm in hot water to pour it out. I don't usually use more then once a month. The more crumbs and batter bits you filter out the longer the fat will remain good. So filter, and don't pour the last bit into the can.

Refrigerated the oil mix doesn't go bad before it becomes no good to use. I get well over a years use. I love sunflower oil, it has almost no taste at all and a high smoke temp. It is pricey.

Lard does not contain any trans fats at all.It is also 45% Saturated fat and the rest is Monosaturated and polyunsaturated fats.

Lard is best brought to heating point for the first time and a couple of slices of bread "fried" for a few minutes without frying anything else . Then let it cool down and go hard again. The next time you use it the smell will have gone and the chips will brown nicely.


Storing cooked food in ziploc I am planning to go on an outdoors day trip with no way to heat up food.

Is it safe to heat up a packaged, fully cooked sausage in the early morning (4:00 AM) and wrap it with bread and store it in a plastic ziploc bag for consumption in the afternoon (2:00 pm)? (around 10 hours)

I am ok with eating cold food.

Considering the time of 10 hours in a food without being in the fridge, that can be in danger zone (of bacteria reproduction), so i would recommend you to prepare your lunch a few hours about 2-4 earlier to avoid bacteria reproduction as posible, if the temperature in where you live its cold rather than warm, that can help to maintain a little bit more. if you cant prepare it less late until time of consumption, then it will get some ugly smell in the sausage rather than the bread (if the bread has moisture on it then it will too) tho you can still eat it, but likely or not it will upset your stomach a little.


How to make and keep long grain organic brown rice tender I am trying to meal prep brown rice. The brand I have bought, with no particular thought other than calories/carb amounts is this Long Grain Brown Rice 365 Whole Foods brand. The way I cook the rice is put in about 2 cups of rice and 2.5 cups water/broth mixture into my instant pot. I then pressure cook for 15 minutes. Occasionally I have also added spices to the rice/water mixture before cooking. I then immediately transfer to a container and store it in the fridge. To reheat, I just put in the microwave for 2 minutes.

The problem is that the reheated brown rice is firm and unpleasant. I feel like I am eating pebbles. I know brown rice will be naturally firmer than white rice but there should be a way to make it palatable. I read somewhere that long grain brown rice contains more of something that when refrigerated causes it to crystallize, so short-grain/medium-grain rice is better. In addition to that, what else can I do to make the rice come out as soft as possible and maintain that even when reheated?

I know that most people here probably cook rice on the stovetop but I would really prefer to use the instant pot because it's extremely convenient and I don't have much time to cook other than a few hours on Sunday.

When reheating any kind of rice, you will need to add water to it (with white rice, just covering the container with a damp paper towel works). However, brown rice does not reheat well at all; and from personal experience it is exactly how you describe it. So what we do when we cook rice for our meals, is we throw it in the rice cooker as we shower and get ready for the day to limit moisture loss as over the course of a day or night in a fridge.

However, when it comes to cooking it the first time, the easiest way is to use an actual rice cooker. The one I have has a separate setting for White, Brown (short and long grain) and steam (like for veggies). It was not expensive (like 40CAD). If you have a preference for the convenience of an Instapot, that would be my recommendation. You can add spices, herbs and other flavouring agents into it as well (just do it after you add the water and rice so it staying on top to remove when it's cooked, no one likes eating star anise by accident lol).

I cook brown rice in manual mode for 20 to 25 minutes with 1:3 rice to water ratio. I also add a table spoon of butter.


Why isn't "pasta" water salted in Chinese cuisine? I'm American-born Chinese and my parents never salt the water in which they boil noodles and there's never been an issue - at least with my palate - with seasoning or the texture of the noodles w.r.t. clumping or sticking together. I don't think I've seen the water for ramen seasoned either.

Another related question is that another "rule" for finishing pasta in the sauce doesn't seem to carry over to Chinese cooking either, e.g. neither dan dan mian(担担面) nor zhajiangmian(炸醬麵) is cooked in the sauce but rather you have to mix it up when served.

Thanks and happy thanksgiving :) !

All the Chinese noodles that I have ever cooked were made from salted dough, while Italian dried pasta was made from unsalted dough. Hence the difference in cooking methods.

As per Wikipedia:

  Unlike many Western noodles and pastas, Chinese noodles made from wheat flour are usually made from salted dough and therefore do not require the addition of salt to the liquid in which they are boiled.

I would say it's because the sauces are salty on their own so you don't need to "coat" the noodle in salt for taste while boiling. As (correct me if I'm wrong) in Asian cuisine the noodles are rather neutral in taste absorb spices from fat in sauce.

The increased boiling point for salted water, in my opinion, is only usable when making thick noodles or ones that carry on room temperature. So putting them in boiling water won't lower the temperature below 90C degrees (if the water is salted and have temp over 100C).

Third thing are eggs. It's a mix of two previous ones, so you need the salt to bring the flavour of the egg noodles and be sure you boil them in high temperature to cook the eggs.


Differences between coffee made with french press or espresso machine? I've liked coffee for years and I'm thinking on buying a espresso machine. Before that, I want to know why the coffee seems more tasty when it is done that way than with a french press or a drip coffee maker and what are the pros and cons of a espresso machine. Thanks!

To answer the second part of your question ('the pros and cons of an espressomachine'):

Pros:
 - Taste. If done right, you will capture much more of the coffeebean in your cup.
 - Milk foaming. Most espresso machines have the possibility to froth milk for cappuccinos or lattes. Look up 'latte art' on Google Images for some inspiration :-)
 - Process. The making of coffee becomes an enjoyable ritual with shiny machines, hot water and steam.
 - hobby: there is an enormous amount of ustensils, tools, cups, coffees, online forums etc. to discover for enhancing your espresso.

Cons:
 - Taste! as much more taste ends up in your espresso cup, you will also taste the defects much better (bad or stale coffee, badly grind, wrong water temperature etc.) will give you a sour or bitter cup.
 - Technique. It takes practice to prepare a good espresso (except if you opt for a machine that takes coffee pads - but your choice of coffees will be limited and often not fresh).
 - Cost. Espresso machines (good ones) are costly. And it doesn't stop there. To make really tasty espresso you might want to grind the beans yourself, so you'll need a grinder that can grind fine enough for espresso. After that you might start to suffer from upgraditis...
 - Room on the kitchencounter. An espresso machine can take up quite some space.

Hope this helps!

French Press is not an espresso coffee machine. I find a detail explanation here.

The expresso coffee maker uses steamed water to extract coffee taste and flavor in a very short time under high pressure, which a french press style coffee maker can't do. As a results, flavor and taste as well as crema are totally not the same.


How do I keep the rice cooker from boiling over? I am having epic rice-cooker failure here.

I measure out the amount of rice suggested by the little cup thingy. I rinse it with a bowl and a strainer until the water is clear while rinsing. Then I put the rice in and fill it to the appropriate line in my Rice Cooker with fresh water. After cooking for a little while, it immediately begins to boil over and nasty bubbles start popping out of the little hole in the top, dumping yucky, sticky water all over the place.

The Rice, when all is said and done, is alright but it's a hell of a mess! What am I doing wrong?

I've heard that adding a little olive oil (any kind) can help with bubbling over.

Otherwise if you don't get any answers, consider that your rice cooker might be broken. If you get that far, try to borrow someone else's and repeat your method.

When simmering/steaming rice of any type the rice/water ratio is always 1:1 plus more water for evaporation loss

Your evaporation loss can generally only be determined by trial and error

The evaporation loss amount is fixed for the type of rice, cooking vessel/machine, and temperature used

If you cook 1 cup of rice with 1.5 cups of water, then you can cook 2 cups of the same rice and same method with 2.5 cups of water. This is 1 cup of water per cup of rice, plus 0.5 cups for evaporation loss). If you use 3 cups of water you will have left over water, and in a machine probably overflow

Many packets of rice actually say this, they just don't spell it out why, so many people think it's a miss-print and just multiply the rice/water ratio for 1 cup of rice


Does keeping a fridge/freezer full significantly help energy efficiency? This is one of those statements I frequently encounter, but I've never really seen evidence to support it.  The advice often goes even further to say that if your fridge/freezer is relatively empty, you should add something (e.g., bottles of water).

Such statements have appeared here too, as in answers to this question, this question, this question, and most recently this question.

I'm assuming that there may be some minor energy savings in some circumstances, but is it significant enough to actually care about?  Moreover, is it enough to offset the energy lost in, for example, cooling or freezing water (or other things) just to fill up the fridge?

Note: I've been doing some of my own research and was going to post it in the question, but I think it will be more appropriate to provide what I've found in an answer below.  However, if anyone has reliable sources that give a different answer (and preferably actual measurements or studies to back it up), I'm very interested.

EDIT: After writing my answer, I just found this, where Cecil Adams argues strongly in favor of the full-fridge hypothesis.  I rarely disagree with Cecil, and he makes reference to a number of studies, though no citations.  So I'm interested if someone can point to some of these studies.

SUMMARY: Unless I'm missing something here or you're doing very odd things with your refrigerator, you'd at most save a couple dollars per year by keeping your fridge/freezer full.  Moreover, stocking up on water (or other things) to fill up fridge/freezer space won't save you much at all unless you're keeping it stored there for a VERY long time, since it costs so much energy to cool the water in the first place.

There are valid reasons to do this:

if you need to survive intermittent power outages (as TFD notes), having a lot of ice or food in the fridge will keep it cool longer
a larger amount of food in the fridge/freezer will make it easier to chill or freeze new food more rapidly, which may sometimes aid in food safety/preservation
similarly, having more food may help to minimize small temperature fluctuations when opening the door frequently, again perhaps aiding in food safety/quality in some cases
if you have a very inefficient fridge that cools unevenly or is not well-insulated, having more food will prevent as much cycling on and off (though packing a fridge too full can also prevent it from cycling correctly)

All of these are perhaps good reasons to have a mild preference for keeping the fridge a little more full.  But, from an energy perspective, there isn't a rationale for deliberately filling your fridge with excess food/water, since the energy required to cool any solids or liquids is usually many, many times the amount needed to cool air.

Also, if your main concern is cold air "falling out" of the fridge when the door is open, I'd suggest filling it with empty containers that have only air in them.  They'll give you the benefit of not losing that excess cold air, but without the energy expenditure to cool a liquid you don't need to.  (But again, the likely benefit is probably a couple dollars per year at most.)

Details below.

I tried searching for some reliable stats, and though I find many, many sources which make this claim, I don't generally see actual numbers regarding energy savings or even a theoretical calculation to support the logic of the practice.

In fact, it sometimes seems to appear on "myths" lists of energy groups, such as here:

  MYTH: You can save energy by keeping your fridge full, closing it quickly, and regularly cleaning the coils.

  Actually, all three of these actions are not worth your trouble. In
  the study done by Balsnik it was found:

Total use from ALL fridge door openings adds up to <50 kWh/yr, or about $5.
Putting water bottles in your fridge to keep it full adds up to <0.1 kWh/yr.
Cleaning coils – no actual savings found.

Or from this document (on ultralow temperature freezers' efficiency):

  URBAN LEGEND?
  A full freezer takes less energy to operate: An
  ostensible reason for this idea is that the thermal mass takes longer
  to warm up, so the compressor doesn’t have to work as hard. Think
  about it: while the contents take longer to warm up, it also takes
  longer to cool down so the compressor works just as long every day.
  The fundamental insulating factors of wall thickness and gasket
  integrity do not change with a full or empty freezer, so why should it
  make a difference to heat transfer? While cycle frequency will go
  down, cycle duration will go up. The heat entering the cabinet will
  not change. There is a nominal power spike at the beginning of each
  compressor cycle, so more cycles could plausibly increase energy use a
  little bit. Data has not been widely shared, so it remains in urban
  legend status for now.

The logic of this last reference seems to address the question of whether an unopened freezer/refrigerator will be more efficient when it is full (as is sometimes claimed -- that the fridge will have to "work less hard" somehow).  Obviously that doesn't make much sense, as this quote notes.

However, to judge this accurately, we'd need to take into account what happens when you open the fridge/freezer.  Here's a report from an energy-savings group that tried a number of tests (including opening the door for various amounts of time).  They concluded that top freezer models of fridges did use less energy when full, though they note in their analysis that it doesn't include the additional energy required to cool the extra food in the first place.  But once that food is cool and the fridge is full, there is some energy benefit for top freezers.  (How much is unknown, since their graphs don't have numbers.)  For other types of freezer models, the results of the tests were mixed, so there was no clear benefit of an empty vs. full fridge.  Their conclusion: "So our advice is to not worry about keeping the fridge full, and focus more on keeping the door closed."

For a theoretical perspective on fridge opening, let's try some reasonable assumptions:

The average fridge size in the U.S. is around 20 ft3.  If we assume that the fridge isn't packed full and half of the air present is replaced by room temperature air when the door is opened, that would be roughly 10 ft3, or about 0.28 m3.

Using stats from here, we can calculate that cooling that 10 ft3 of air down by 20°C (e.g., from "room temperature" of about 25°C to 5°C) would require about 6.8 kJ of energy, or 0.0019 kWh.  For a freezer of similar size, the temperature of the air would likely have to be lowered about 40°C, rather than 20°C, so these numbers would be doubled.

If we open the fridge door 20 times per day, over a year that would add up to about 13.8 kWh for a fridge with 10 ft3 of empty space, or 27.5 kWh for a freezer with a similar amount of empty space.  The stats in the first quotation above estimate 50 kWh/yr for all fridge door openings, so the numbers seem to be in the right ballpark.  Basically, it costs a couple dollars every year in energy loss for opening the fridge.

Now, suppose we instead loaded up that 10 ft3 with water instead of air.  (This is a ridiculously large amount of water, but I'm using it to keep the occupied volume the same for a comparison.)

The amount of energy required to cool water from room temperature can be calculated similarly from these numbers.  Cooling 10 ft3 of water by 20°C would require approximately 23,000 kJ.  Freezing it to -15°C from 25°C would require about 120,000 kJ.  (This number is significantly higher, due to the excess energy required to turn liquid water into solid ice.)  The effect of adding large amounts of water was shown clearly in the study mentioned above, where the addition of 150 lbs. of room temperature water caused the fridge to spike to about 65°F and take almost a day and a half to return to normal temperature.

To put these numbers in a more useful form:

You'd have to cool down air in the fridge about 3500 times to "pay for" the amount of energy expended cooling the same volume of water.
You'd have to cool down air in the freezer about 9000 times to "pay for" the amount of energy expended in freezing the same volume of water.

UPDATE: As Joe rightly points out in comments, I assumed dry air here to simplify the calculations.  But real kitchen air will be moist, and its effect is not insignificant.  (I assumed the error would be less than 50% or so, but under reasonable assumptions, it's probably off by a factor of 1.5-3, depending on your kitchen humidity and how humid your fridge is.)

Anyhow, assuming we start with a relative humidity of 50% in the kitchen at 25°C, and we assume the refrigerator cools to 5°C in the fridge and -15°C in the freezer while maintaining 50% relative humidity at those temperatures (which would obviously require water vapor removal), here are some updated stats:

- You'd have to cool down air in the fridge about 1800 times to "pay for" the amount of energy expended cooling the same volume of water.

- You'd have to cool down air in the freezer about 5500 times to "pay for" the amount of energy expended in freezing the same volume of water.

[See calculations below for details.]

Basically, depending on how often you open your fridge and the room temperature, you will probably need to refrigerate water for at least several months before seeing any energy savings (at all).  You'd likely need to keep (the same) water frozen for at least a year to get any energy savings.  Even then, for reasonable quantities of water (e.g., a few gallons), it's unlikely that you'd save more than a few dollars per year in energy costs (and likely less).

A final note about full fridges: even supposing you manage to save a few cents per year with a full fridge, my practical experience tells me that I hold the door open much longer when the fridge is full than when it's nearly empty, since I often need to move stuff around or take things out temporarily to get things in the back.  So would this theoretical savings ever actually materialize?  I don't know.

For those who are interested, here is the "work" for the calculations above.  I assume a volume of 10 ft3 = ~0.28 m3.  Note that various approximations were used here to get a "ballpark" figure -- in particular, densities and specific heats were assumed to be constant over the temperature range, which might introduce a 5-10% error for the air calculations, and much less for the water calculations.

(1) Cooling (dry) air by 20°C

0.28 m3 of air × density of 1.205 kg/m3 at 20°C from table = 0.337 kg
0.337 kg × 20°C [same as 20 K] × specific heat of 1.005 kJ/(kg K) = 6.8 kJ
6.8 kJ ÷ 3600 = 0.0019 kWh

(2) Cooling (dry) air by 40°C

Same weight of initial air
0.337 kg × 40°C × 1.005 kJ/(kg K) = 13.6 kJ

(3) Cooling water from 25°C to 5°C

Same volume of 0.28 m3
0.28 m3 × density of about 1000 kg/m3 = 280 kg
280 kg × 20°C × specific heat of 4.18 kJ/(kg K) from table = 23400 kJ
NOTE: Obviously one cannot and should not fill a home fridge with ~600 lbs. of water, but I used the same volume here to make the energy required for comparable volumes, since it's asserted that replacing air by an equivalent volume of water will make a difference.

(4) Cooling water from 25°C to -15°C

Ice is less dense than water, so to achieve a final volume of 10 m^3, we must start with less water.
0.28 m3 × density of ice of 916.8 kg/m3 = 256 kg
Cool to 0C: 256 kg × 25°C × specific heat 4.18 kJ/(kg K) = 26800 kJ
Freeze: 256 kg × heat of freezing 334 kJ/kg = 85700 kJ
Cool ice to -15°C: 256 kg × 15°C × specific heat of ice 2.108 kJ/(kg K) = 8100 kJ
Total cooling energy: 120,700 kJ

(5) Cooling similar amount of water to air in fridge = 23400 kJ ÷ 6.78 kJ = about 3450 times greater

(6) Cooling similar amount of water to air in freezer = 120700 kJ ÷ 13.6 kJ = about 8900 times greater

(7) Cooling air at 50% relative humidity by 20°C:

We get weight fractions of water vapor in air at 50% humidity from a Mollier diagram.  Here x at humidity of 0.5 is about 0.0098 kg/kg at 25°C and about 0.0026 kg/kg at 5°C.
We then follow the calculation of enthalpy (H) of moist air as found at Joe's link here.
At 25°C: H = (1.005 kJ/kg°C)(25°C) + (0.0098 kg/kg)[(1.84 kJ/kg°C)(25°C)+(2501 kJ/kg)] = 50.1 kJ/kg
At 5°C: H = (1.005 kJ/kg°C)(5°C) + (0.0026 kg/kg)[(1.84 kJ/kg°C)(5°C)+(2501 kJ/kg)] = 11.6 kJ/kg
Delta H (change in enthalpy) = 50.1 - 11.6 = 38.5 kJ/kg
Moist air is slightly less dense than dry air: using figures from here, moist air is about 1.199 kg/m3 at 20°C.
Mass of air using above volume assumption of 0.28 m3 is 0.336 kg
Energy required to cool = change in enthalpy × mass = 38.5 kJ/kg × 0.336 kg = 12.9 kJ
Note that various numbers here may vary slightly over the temperature change, but as in Joe's link, we can assume they're constant enough that it won't affect the final answer by more than a few percent.

(8) Cooling air from 25°C to -15°C in freezer

Using the Mollier diagram linked above, we get a weight fraction of approximately 0.00055 kg/kg for 50% humidity at -15°C
Use similar calculations to above
H at -15°C = -13.7 kJ/kg
delta H from 25°C to -15°C = 63.8 kJ/kg
using mass and density as above, the total energy required to cool is = 21.4 kJ

(9) We calculate the ratios as above, ending up with 1800 times more energy to cool an equivalent volume of water in fridge, and 5600 times more energy to freeze it.

(10) Relative humidity can vary in both the kitchen and fridge, so these calculations should only be taken as a ballpark figure, perhaps varying by a factor of 2-3 in either direction in extreme cases.  Regardless, the amount of energy needed to cool even moist air is insignificant compared to that required to cool any liquid or solid food.

Filling the empty space in a refrigerator to make it run more 'efficient' or to save money is just not correct.  Think of it this way, your driving a semi truck, is it cheaper to run full or empty.  Empty space or full space will be cooled by the refrigerator just the same, it is much cheaper to cool empty space (air).  It is as simple as that.


Culinary term for frying in water (without oil)? Is there a culinary term describing "frying in about 4mm of water" in a frying pan without oil (with this technique, if water evaporates you just keep adding more from a glass, keeping it shallow).

If the veggies are barely submerged, you're effectively steaming.  It is not as pure a method as actually raising them slightly above the (I presume very rapidly boiling) water, but if you keep them moving enough, the result is going to be more similar than it would be to be boiling/poaching/simmering.

In case you are unaware, you can get very inexpensive steamer baskets that fit into any size pan.  This is a pretty effective way to cook vegetables.  It also means you can cover the pan and not have to keep everything moving.  If you have layers of veggies in the steamer you may want to rotate them around occasionally.