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ygnpk9

Silly question from a silly fight Hi all. My wife made blueberry pancake batter. Only changes to a standard recipe were using sprouted whole wheat flour and a tiny amount of yogurt. When it came time to fry them on our non-stick pans we discovered we were out of canola oil. We usually use canola oil for pancakes since it's relatively flavorless. The options in the house were chosen foods avocado oil, terra d'elyssa EVOO, or butter (salted or unsalted) to lubricate the pans. Hehe. I suggested the avocado oil would have the least effect, or that she could lower the heat and use butter. Her reply was that I had lost my mind and she would use EVOO. Anything else would absolutely ruin her pancakes. What are your thoughts?

The fact that NEITHER of you want to use butter for pancakes indicates that you are both broken individuals who cannot be saved. Use butter, heathens.

kq2hih

Would it be bad etiquette to ask a restaurant for a recipe? There have been times where I’ve gone to restaurants and had some amazing dishes and being an avid home cook I want to recreate them at home since I can’t afford to eat out a lot. So today I was trying to recreate a parm crusted chicken dish from a restaurant that serves it with a killer pan sauce or gravy. I can’t come close to getting the sauce to taste right. Would it be rude to ask for a recipe for a sauce like that? I’m pretty anxious around people and don’t want to commit a faux pas if that is looked down upon in the restaurant industry.

It's just like asking out a potential romantic partner- not at all rude to ask, but if you get a "no" and kick up a fuss you'd be a total asshole. Many times those of us in the industry have no problem with people knowing our recipes because that's not the hard part- it really is more about the technique, reliably sourcing great ingredients, making everything from scratch even when a dish only calls for an ounce, and getting your mise en place set perfectly. If you take the recipe home and don't get good results, you'll come back because you know you don't have the chops. If you take the recipe home and get great results, you'll come back because you know exactly how much work we did to get it right, and having someone else do that for you is absolutely worth it. Either way we win- and we get to be gracious doing it.

x1xf7e

How do you grate the last part of the cheese? Whenever I grate, I get a small nub that's all flimsy and it just crumbles. Is there a trick to it? How can i get every last bit out of this cheese?

Just eat it

rgjgmr

How did this restaurant cut their carrots like this? Diagram inside. Was at Christmas dinner at this fancy restaurant. The sliced carrots that came with the trimmings was in this shape as suggested by the diagram B (in the link). Usually the edges of the sliced carrots are softened when it's cooked for long and moved around, as in a stew. But this carrot was like 80 percent cooked or maybe steamed, and definitely not in a gravy. How did they cut it in this shape with chamfered edges? They couldn't possibly have been cutting each and every piece with a knife. https://imgur.com/a/0QvJM6U

Ah, the ancient, sadistic French culinary tradition of tournage. The blessed craft of turning vegetables into seven sided footballs, a practice designed to torture culinary students into finger cramped insanity. And yes, it is usually done by hand and ask any ancient French chef to do it and they will execute them perfectly without even looking at their hands while doing so. Something that brings great shame to all who witness. I can still smell the mounds of turnips that I used to practice making into these bastard shapes with a bird's beak knife. The word “tournage” comes from the French verb tourner, which means “to turn.” To tourner, or “turn,” vegetables is to cut them into faceted-oval shapes — usually with seven sides — with blunt ends. While the shape is always the same, tournage cuts have varying names depending upon their length. "BCVCF"- Bouquetière- 3cm, Cocotte- 5cm, Vapeur- 6cm, Château- 7-ish cm and Fondante- massive. I am now having flashbacks to my culinary school finals. These are one of the traditional taillage cuts like julienne and brunoise that are uniform in French cuisine. They are uniform for several reasons- visual appeal, the same size for even cooking and so every cook in a kitchen makes them the exact same way. That said, in all my years as a chef, I think I have had tourned vegetable on maybe two menus. Its more about developing knife skills and discipline. If those carrots were done in a super traditional French way, they would have been cooked à l’étuvée. In a pan with butter, salt, water and sometimes a little sugar and then a parchment paper lid over the top so that they gently simmer and steam and develop a shiny glaze. I need to go lay down now.

l8xudb

Why do my burgers taste so different from restaurant ones? I believe I’m doing everything properly, I shape them into balls and press them down on a pan, not smash burgers though I just feel like they have a more even shape and usually are sized better, and I season them with salt ,pepper, garlic powder (I cook them in either cast iron or stainless steel) baste them with garlic thyme butter add cheese cover the pan so it can melt then I take it out and let it rest but for some reason it just doesn’t taste like the ones I get from a restaurant that taste so good, what am I doing wrong or can do better?

Your probably just underseasoning. Most home cooks underseason. If you want your food to taste professional you need to fry your taste buds by becoming a fellow chain smoking alcoholic like us, only then will you use the correct amount of butter and salt.

j10pvd

Did I just ruin this cast iron skillet before ever using it? I bought a pre-seasoned Lodge cast iron skillet. I briefly searched online for any tips or need-to-knows before first use of a cast iron skillet. One article I found suggested added a layer of seasoning anyways before first use just for good measure. Seemed easy and reasonable enough. It stated to heat the skillet on high until it starts to smoke, then rub oil into the pan and let cool. So I started heating the cast iron and started to wait for any smoking. No smoke happened at all, but a gray spot developed right in the center. Concerned, I removed the skillet from the heat and decided to rub oil in which caused the oil to smoke like hell, leaving that burned dark spot in the middle with the gray ring around it. https://imgur.com/a/BYtWjT4 Is it still good to use or am I going to have to re-season the whole thing now? Thanks.

Your pan is fine. it's basically impossible to ruin a cast iron pan. For some reason, Reddit think's that you need to go though some kind of elaborate process when, frankly, you're going to get exactly the kind of performance and non-stick you want/need by using the pan for days/weeks/years. Forget about 'seasoning from scratch' or whatever. Use you pan normally and if you can cook a little fatty food (like bacon) even better. When it's done, scrub it clean with hot water and a brush or sponge. Instead of drying it with a dish towel, stick it on the range and heat it up to dry it . When the water from rinsing it has steamed off and dried, wipe a little cooking oil on it with a paper towel while the pan is still hot and let it come down from temperature. Use this pan as your daily driver for basically everything and you'll have a no hastle non-stick surface before you know it.

jp7pur

Why is my chicken stock like jelly? I made chicken stock two days ago and it is almost exactly the texture of jelly. I left it in the fridge for these two days before I went to use it. It was cooled in a water bath before going in the fridge and has now gone slightly grey too. It tasted and looked fine before cooking. Thank you :).

You got the good stuff. The collagen from joints and skin. Its going to be richer than other stocks and absolutely delicious. Itll come back to normal texture when heated

tabc1i

Is it a bad idea to stab Chicken Strips to cook faster in a deep fryer? Currently my girlfriend is working a new job at a fancy Pub at a country club! I'm excited for her but today her manager who is a questionable cook asked her to stop stabbing chicken strips as the oil gets inside and ruins the chicken. My girlfriend saids she not only does this to cook them faster, but that it also cooks and gets the chicken tender in her opinion. She tends to stab the chicken during the cooking process, while it's sitting in the basket. Should she stop doing this? Or is her questionable manager just wrong? One of his reasons for not doing this is so that they have consistent chicken strips coming out of the kitchen. What should she do as she takes pride in being a good cook? To stab or not to stab?

Your GF is wrong, her manager is correct. Natural juices are now leaving the chicken and oil is taking it's place.

nk4dtw

Are we not supposed to wash mushrooms? I read somewhere online that we are not supposed to wash mushrooms but to wipe the dirt off with a cloth in order to clean them. Does anyone know why?

In an old Alton Brown Good Eats episode he soaked the mushroom at 3 different time lengths and weighed the before/after soaked mushrooms and the absorption is neglible. Wash away.

losqnc

Why is it safe to eat raw eggs in mayo or eggnog. But not on other things? I've wondering why is it ok to eat raw eggs in stuff like mayo, eggnog, hollandaise sauce, salad dressings or frosting. How come you don't get sick with salmonella? Yet it's a big no to eat raw cookie dough

1- The risk of Salmonella from raw eggs is extremely low, especially when combined with other antibiotic conditions (acidic mayos, alcoholic eggnogs, etc). 2- Raw cookie dough contains raw flour, which is considered on average to be more dangerous than raw eggs since there have been numerous e. Coli and Salmonella outbreaks related to raw flour. TL;DR raw flour is the issue not raw eggs.

gvlseo

What's the difference between using lime (green colored) and lemon (yellow colored) in my food? I honestly don't know why I should one or the other on my food.

Food science answer: They have very extensive volatile flavor differences. Both contain relatively the same concentration of citric acid in their juice, so there won't be much of an acidity difference. It comes down to the flavor that each brings. Lemons contain higher concentrations of "light" and "candylike" flavor compounds (aldehydes like citral and terpenes like pinene) which is why they are used more often to "lift" or " brighten" dishes, where lime has many more "heavy" and "floral" flavor compounds (like fenchyl alcohol and terpineol) that can complement and cut through many strong flavor profiles. Cuisine plays a huge part to be sure, but both play different roles in adding acidity to various dishes.

mzso6v

Cooking food to be eaten on an aeroplane! Hello, so my partner is a pilot and will be flying again shortly. I'm going to be cooking and baking for his meals. On board, he will have access to hot water, and an oven. Of course, altitude and air affect your taste, so I was wondering if anyone has any idea of how much extra salt/seasoning I should be using to taking this into account? I've done some googling but can't seem to find any tested formulas or advice. I know it's a pretty niche question so thanks in advance for any tips!

I worked for an executive jet catering company for a couple of years. My advice would be: -tomato sauces good, cream sauces bad -leave everything slightly underdone if you’ll be reheating on board. - spiced food is excellent. -add 10-15% more salt than you would at ground level -don’t have eggs -vinegar, lemon and lime are your best friends. -use a slice of butter on top of any meat or vegetables you’re going to reheat, it should melt over and keep everything moist

y9usmv

Any way to cook a Thanksgiving turkey but in the shape of a cube? Hear me out and apologies if this doesn't belong here. I am cooking the turkey for Friendsgiving this year and as a little fun gag we're doing a Minecraft theme where everything will be in cubes. I am trying to figure out a way to make the whole roasted turkey as square as possible without having to just shred the whole thing and then put it in a square mold. I'd like to keep the wings/legs intact, they are not necessary to also be square I think the body of the bird would be enough to get the point across. I was considering trying to shibari-style tie the Turkey (while raw) into a square and then cook but was unsure how effective that would be. Anybody have any experience shaping whole turkeys into non-turkey shapes?

debone the bird, find an appropriately sized cube mold. vac seal the bird into the cube, sous vide until cooked. chill the meat cube, and remove the meat from the cube. tie meat to retain shape, fry or roast until proper color is achieved. it's going to take days to accomplish and hopefully you have access to the correct machines.

57l4pg

Just hired at fancy restaurant; need advice TL;DR Just hired in a fancy restaurant, overwhelmed. Advice? I've been a cook since i was 15, everywhere from Wendy's to Dennys to iHop and more recently privately owned local restaurants that pay a bit more. I never took a job in my life unless it was for more than I was making before. So fast forward to now, I got hired at a pretty high end secret gem on the outskirts of a massive college town. Anyway the level of cooking I am doing now is just insane. I've always been a very good and very fast cook, but i am now dealing with professional chefs and incredible standards and pressure. Rant warning, The hardest part is probably remembering orders in order and in time, I've been doing it for 10 years but now everything has to be perfect built from scratch with raw ingredients. I mostly cook steaks and fish but then they want me to do Sautee which is what the chef does. Wtf? I mean im honored but i came from bullshit jobs. Any good chefs have solid advice?

Learn how to work quietly. Like I never thought about how important closing drawers and cooler doors lightly helps the equipment, as well as the things inside (an absentminded lowboy door slamming shut can shake your sauce out of a container and spill around your lowboy over the rest of your mis en place). And same with ovens, pots/pans, station mis en place, plates.... Basically if you're not supposed to make noise and are, you're increasing the risk of breaking or fucking something up. Also, work from one container to another, with a trash container. Like, one bowl for mushrooms, one for trimming and discards, and one to place product in. Keep your cutting board clean except the current focus. Fold your towels, stay clean. A folded towel is cleaner, more effective, takes up less room, etc. And keep your station as clean and organized as you can. And line sweeps show a chef you don't want to lean when you don't have something to do, as well as you care about the cleanliness of his kitchen. Sharpen your knives, and get nice ones. Show pride in what you're doing and what you use to do it. If someone has a dull ass Mercer or Shun that's been beaten to hell, I can assume they won't be caring much for whatever tasks those knives will be put to. NOTE this does not necessarily translate to knives make you better. I have indeed seen good knife work from terrible knives. So that's why I say sharpen your knives before you get a nice new set of Inox or Masamotos. Splurge after you learn to sharpen and maintain knives. Start reading cookbooks. Good ones, not Jaime Oliver's best 100 Fuck Ups or whatever. Phaidon is a fantastic publisher, with restaurants like Osteria Francescana and NoMa in their collection. But also, like just badass books about ingredients and tastes and butchering and yea. You'll learn to enjoy going through a cookbook and dissecting their creative processes and cooking methods. I suggest getting a copy of The French Laundry to begin with. Or Momofuku. Both are great starter books. The Fat Duck Cookbook is a much more advanced volume but it is oh so sweet. And maybe one day you can get a copy of elBulli or Modernist Cuisine when you've fallen in love with reading. Stage around. If you don't know what staging (stah-j / stah -jing) is, it's basically a tryout or short intern at a restaurant traditionally used as an interview, but also as a way to get around some kitchens. It's a great way to spend a day off for workaholics like 90% of our industry. And a lot of restaurants will honor your time in their kitchen with a few dishes to taste their menu. And you get a feel for other kitchens, chefs, teams, cuisines, etc. AND you can network, set up more stages at better restaurants, set up future jobs and relationships within the industry. Lastly, listen to everyone. That guy that's in the weeds every night and looks like a mess? Maybe what he tells you has some weight because he knows how he's messing up. Some of the best coaches were mediocre or even laughable players. A lot of the time everyone has sage wisdoms to share. When I train new cooks I usually try to help them beyond myself, so they start off as high off the ground as possible. If someone is giving you shit or calling you out, it's because they want to push you to be better. Take it in stride and be better, don't get offended.

nmzfiy

What does adding eggs one at a time do? Some recipes often say “add eggs one at time until combined” or similar wording. What does this actually do to the end result? Has anyone ever tested the difference between adding all the eggs and adding one at a time?

I used to have to make a batch of eclairs once a week at work. You boil the water, add the salt and butter, melt, stir in the flour, move it to a mixing bowl, add eggs slowly, then form, and bake. Easy. After I put in my 2 week notice I was showing someone else how to do the recipe. I explained that it's super simple, but finicky, so don't mess with the recipe or the method. So we get to the adding eggs one at a time stage. We have 64 eggs shelled and in a pitcher. She adds the first egg, no problem. 5 seconds later, she adds the second egg, no problem. Then she tipped the pitcher and poured in half the eggs, so about 30 or so all at once. The batter didn't have a chance to incorporate them, and became slippery. The blade for the paddle would slice through, followed by the raw egg, which would coat the strip of batter it just made with eggs, over and over again. After a few minutes of trying to get it to mix in, it looked like fat spaghetti noodles in a bowl of clearish gelatin. It did eventually mix in, but it took forever. And that batch of eclairs just didn't have the right mouth feel.

in2ofp

Why is the cream cheese at my local bagel place so much better than the supermarket version? It's lighter and less dense yet somehow creamier than when I buy a packet of cream cheese and try to spread it on a bagel. My theories: - very high quality cream cheese (any recommendations?) - they get it to room temp before using it: probably not the main factor, but might contribute - they whip it or churn it somehow: is it possible to do that at home? - it's mixed with another ingredient like butter.

Full fat cream cheese whipped in a stand mixer with heavy cream and salt.

jqcxwi

How can I purposely get clumps in my spaghetti Ok this is a weird one guys, but I have an autistic kid and his absolute favourite thing in the world to eat is 'spaghetti chunk'... so like you know when you boil the dried pasta and you get a little lump where some of the spaghetti has fused together? I dont know if I'm explaining this properly but anyway it's his birthday tomorrow and I really wanna make him a bowl of 'spaghetti chunk' and meatballs for his birthday meal (as we can't go out to celebrate due to lockdown) So yeah I know this is an odd question but how can I cook/prepare the pasta so I can give him a full bowl of chunks? I only have 2 300g packs so not enough for a load of trial and error. I was gonna snap it and cook it in as little water as possible but I really dont know if that will work. Sorry for bizarre question but my son would literally be beside himself with happiness if I were to cook him a big bowl of his goddamn chunks... Thanks in advance if anyone has any ideas lol

I find that I unintentionally produce this effect when I overcrowd the pasta in a pan and forget to agitate it while it is cooking. As the pasta softens it becomes sticky and holds to the neighboring pieces of pasta. Let it go like this long enough and it becomes irreversible, as the pasta fuses into clumps. Also, I am not sure that you want to risk it with the amount of pasta that you have at the moment, but another way to produce a variation on this is to par cook the pasta, cool it down, and then mix in some eggs and Parmesan for a spaghetti bake. When you bake this for a while - on a 9x13 baking dish, for example - the pasta becomes clumped together thanks to the binding affect of egg. Maybe something to try on down the line.

w4wfhr

[Rare Ingredient] My daughter really wants to forage for dragonflies for me to cook. Can anyone point me to a resource for how to humanely kill dragonflies so I can batter and fry them? First, I'm not kidding. I've searched extensively and the closest I've found to an answer was a possible suggestion to "freeze them." If I go that route, do I put them in a Ziploc and freeze them? A jar? A Tupperware? They're a bit small, so I think it would be tough to plunge a knife between their eyes as I might a lobster. I'm sorry. I know y'all don't normally do ingredient questions, but I know you've made exceptions in the past for either large quantities or rare ingredients. If anyone can point me towards a resource or a community I could ask, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

I read somewhere that it's not a good idea to eat wild caught insects because they carry all kinds of nasty parasites and pathogens. Works in a survival situation, but can be risky. Proceed with caution OP.

kc0rnf

Why do we leave the tails on shrimp? Especially in dishes that shouldn’t need our hands like noodle dishes. Sorry if this has been asked before... but for some reason it just makes me so mad that if I wanted shrimp fettuccine some places leave the tails on. Like wtf I don’t want to dig through fettuccine sauce to take the tail off. How much more man power is it to take the tails off for all shrimp dishes that don’t warrant it?

So my family was poor for a long time and scratched for every nice thing. Most of our clothes were hand-me-downs and I only ever had like 2 pairs of shoes. But one time my parents took us to a really nice restaurant (I think it was probably like a Ruby Tuesday's, but by our standards, it was a 5 star place) and my brother (around 12yo) decided he wanted to try shrimp. So he ordered a big bowl of shrimp alfredo and it came with their tails on. He didn't know any better and apparently none of us were paying attention to him, so he ate the whole bowl (because wasting food was a terrible thing in our family) with their tails on. In the end we asked how he liked it and he struggled to put on a grateful smile and said, "it was good, but it was crunchy and I think I have it stuck in my teeth." And that's when we finally realized he had eaten the tails. All the tails. Because we don't waste food.

p3f084

Is it rude to ask small businesses for their recipes? (Cakes) I run a business and it’s growing pretty well, but still considered a small business. We’re the first one to make it on our country (as far as we know) and we’d love to keep that edge. But at the same time, recipes of our product is posted all over online, not really hard to find. But the process of recipe testing the product was such a pain for us. It took us so much time and trial and error to get to this point, and we’re so proud that we finally got it down. Problem is, people have now started asking if we can share our recipe because “i want to start a business like this too”. I find it rude and odd, and idk if it’s okay that I feel this way. Other than baking, I cook a lot, and I wouldn’t mind sharing my chicken korma or garlic creamy pasta recipe to other people. But the recipe for our business? I kinda feel weird about it…. What do you guys think? :/ especially because the recipe is online, they can easily reference from that :(

When I worked at a bakery, it was our policy to politely decline any requests for recipes. Also, it's one thing if someone wants a recipe for their own home baking but for them to ask so they can open their own business? No way! Rude!

japhtz

600 lbs. of Green Tomaotes. Need I say more? My college just harvested \~600lbs of green tomatoes. Iʼd like the collective vision of reddit to help me gaze beyond just fried green tomatoes or 600lbs of pickles. Please enlighten me. Please help.

YOU GOT: Plant em: Shove em in dirt and see what happens SOUP: You got, tomato basil (equal parts weight tomato and basil and a bit of cream), tomato leek (leeks in stovepot, medium high until lightly caramelized, then 20 min on medium low with 0.5 cup of veggie stock covered. Then, make tomato soup and add leeks), tomato southwestern (corn, tomatoes, corn chips, salt, lime, beans and ground beef if you want) ROASTED TOMATOES: Shove em in the oven wrapped tightly in aluminum foil at 450 for 35 minutes, until just blackened STUFFED TOMATOES: Do roasted tomatoes but shove some other stuff in em. Rice, beans, children if you're feeling spooky SALSA: 2 tomatoes, half a jalapeno, half tablespoon of fine salt, large pinch of flaky salt, half an onion, garlic bits, whatever else goes in salsa ROASTED SALSA: same but roast it, and then add some more savory and smoky ingredients, like corn, corn chips, bacon, chipotle powder, paprika, smoked flaky salt HOT SAUZE: look up joshua weissman hot sauce on youtube and follow the recipe but use completely different peppers. A mix of cherry bombs (15%), poblanos (35%), jalapenos (10%), habaneros (5%), and buffer peppers (35%) os good. Instead of a pound and a half, ferment only a pound, and then replace the other half pound with tomatoes. You can also just make the recipe like normal except you happened to put in 3 tomatoes and changed nothing else. It's a robust recipe. ITALIANS: fill a giant saucepot with butter and tomatoes. Use a stick of butter per baby's volume of tomatoes (about 10 tomatoes). For every two babies' volume of tomatoes (about 15-20), add one onion that you washed but did not peel, and you chopped directly in half and did nothing else to. Add a bucket of salt and then bring to a simmer while stirring. After 20 minutes taste it to see how acidic it is, and add sugar to reduce acidity until it tastes good. You can also roast these tomatoes first, which I would recommend because you have green tomatoes SMOOTHIE: Like original v8, but just as bad. Fill your blender with tomatoes. Roasted might be better. Then, squeeze out a quarter of a lime for each tomato you put in, maybe a bit less. Add a bit of salt and a lot of hot sauce. Blend. Serve to people in the 80's and tell them that they are supposed to enjoy it. TOMATO REDUCTION: Take a tomato and blend it, then cook until it's pasty and weird. put a dollop on a plate and move it around with a spoon to make your food look fancy. FISH DISH: Fry up some cheap fish fillet with salt, pepper, lemon pepper, and sadness, until just blackened. Chop up a tomato on top, keeping the juices so they sizzle when they touch the hot fish and mix with the lemon that you squirted on earlier. PS you shouldve done that earlier. It should sizzle too. Call it salsa verde or something. AN ENTIRE PIG: Slowly roast an entire pig on an authentic hawaiian grill for 12 full hours while dancing and saluting the sun and the earth's bounty. When nearly finished, place a single tomato inside the pig's mouth to finish. Repeat until all 600lb are used up. POWDER AND THEN CHIPS: If you know more than I do about tortilla chip making, you can try to make a powder out of reduced and dehydrated green tomatoes, and then mix the powder with the corn flour when making tortilla chips. Should be tasty. FRIENDS: Make more friends, and then tell them that for a small entry fee, they too can share with their friends the great bounty of the green tomato, sold at a great deal vs. other competitors, exclusive offer, not a pyramid scheme. ​ Good luck!

nnjfb1

Why is washing a pan in water straight away bad while deglazing isn’t? Everywhere I read says you shouldn’t take a hot frypan off the stove and wash it in water straight away because it’s bad for the pans. But how is this any different from deglazing with liquid?

Engineer here. Heat and temperature are two separate things. Temperature is what you think it is and heat is temperature times mass. When you deglaze, you have the same temperature differential as dipping the pan in a giant body of cold water, but not the same heat differential because the mass of the pan vs the tiny bit of liquid you put in it is overwhelming and the liquid just heats up quickly and the pan only cools down at a rate relatively equal and opposite the heat it takes the heat the water. When you dunk the pan in the water, the water has a comparable mass to the pan so the pan cools down at a rate that puts it at a risk for warping.

f7o689

What do Michelin star chefs do differently with vegetables? I recently had the opportunity to eat at Septime, and I was blown away with the endive that was served (https://imgur.com/a/FWx55eM). I couldn't really figure out how they prepared it, other than that it had some char marks visible. So in an attempt to duplicate the dish, I bought some Belgian endive, drizzled a little bit of olive oil on it, and charred it for about 45 seconds on a 450 F cast iron skillet. And predictably, it tasted nothing like the one at Septime. Surely the chefs at these restaurants are not preparing vegetables in the same ways that people cook them at home, but... what are they doing different then? There's only so many things you can do with vegetables: char, sous vide, roast, sauté, etc. I'm also getting most of my vegetables from the local farmers markets in SF, so I wouldn't think vegetable quality itself is the issue. Anyone know what these places are doing differently?

To me, that looks like poached endive in fat, drained and patted dry then was them charred over hot coals or in a broiler. Septime's style is very simple but his flavors come from his sauces. The way he balances his flavors is pretty amazing.

kn1t08

Boiled stock for risotto, dipped ladle and IT EXPLODED. I had cranked the burner and it was boiling a bit more violently then intended. Killed the heat, dunked the ladle and it immediately and violently bubbled up a truly insane amount - bubbling several inches up and around the ladle and dumping about a cup+ of liquid into the burner pan area. Any idea what that was about?? Never seen anything like it.

When materials undergo a phase change, the points at which the molecules go from one phase to another happen at "nucleation points." They're the points where it takes the least amount of energy to change phases, often pointed bits on the surfaces of the container. For example, beer glasses and champagne flutes are sometimes laser etched so the bubbles will form on the etching, instead of the sides of the glass. When your stock was boiling vigorously, there was a ton of excess energy in the liquid, so really, any nucleation sites will work, not just the ones on the bottom of the pot where the heat source is. You added the ladle, which has a bunch of nucleation sites. This caused a chaotic chain reaction that would have settled down after a few seconds, even if you didn't turn down the heat. Source: I cook and have degrees in physics and materials science.

xlvnme

Do spices actually expire? Most dried spices have a super long shelf life, but I am cooking at my parents house this weekend and some of their spices are years past the expiration date. I’m trying to figure out if they have actually gone bad and will make everyone sick, have lost all their flavor, or are fine to use. I’m trying to avoid driving down with a ton of spices or having to buy more than since they are pricey if I can help it.

When we talk about expiration in food, there are 2 types of expiration: food safety expiration (typically worded "use by") and food quality expiration (typically worded "best before") Most spices don't have a "food safety" expiration as they're, genetically speaking, not hospitable to bacteria and fungus which is what usually make people sick. They're even used as preservatives. What they do have is a "food quality" expiration, because they have volatile compounds that will disperse into the air (making the spice lose potency) and oxidize (making the spice taste off / rancid / lose color). That happens quicker when they're in powder form. Another thing that can happen is they can absorb moisture and cake into a super hard disk inside your jar, sometimes "melt" (usually things like bouillon cubes, premix and the occasional onion / garlic powder are prone to melting) In your case, I recommend going through the cabinet and tossing everything that looks obviously moldy. Then do a color / sniff / taste test (IN THAT ORDER) of the test and see if it's still good / useable

gzzd9f

How do you taste your food constantly and remain sanitary and not have a thousand dirty spoons? When I'm cooking for myself I taste the food almost constantly it's the only way I'm able to control how it comes out, but if I'm cooking for other people I either have to use lots of spoons or just not taste it so much which means the food doesn't turn out anywhere near as good. How the heck do I do this? Thanks sorry

Use your cooking utensils to transfer the taste portion to a small dish and then just use the same spoon. Don't cross contaminate by touching, drop or pour the portion onto the dish. I have small 1.5 ounce sauce cups that I drop a taste into and then dump it (like a shot) into my mouth. I use the same sauce cup the entire time. You can also use a small 1/4 cup measuring cup similarly.

uyoub1

When preheating an oven, I often see directions say "preheat the oven to 400 for 10 minutes". When my oven "dings" to let me know it's reached 400, do I need to let it sit for 10 min at that temperature or can I just put the food in? I've had trouble googling the answer to this.

Alton Brown says that an oven that's just come up to temperature will lose more heat when you open the door to out the food in than an oven that's been at temperature for a while. The walls, shelves etc will retain more heat. So if the temperature is critical then wait

y25ozn

A question about Mexican rice I haven't seen addressed yet I've already searched through a million and one reddit posts and YouTube tutorials made by sweet old Mexican grandmothers, and I swear I'm still not getting it right. It's not that I'm not following the recipes correctly. The ones I've tried have all been delicious - they're just not what I'm looking for. What I'm trying for and failing to replicate is the particular and uniquely straightforward taste of Mexican rice from a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. The rice they serve there doesn't even remotely taste tomatoey - hell, the only flavors I can really identify are: - salt - MSG - garlic I can detect almost nothing else. The rice is colored orange and based on the texture, it was likely toasted/fried in oil prior to cooking. The rice itself seems to be enriched parboiled long grain. There are no little bits of vegetables or onions in it - it's just the rice. Maybe Sazón was used, but my rice seems to be missing something when I just make it with Sazón. Any ideas?

Knorr Caldo de Tomate

ukd70e

Cat peed on pizza stone. I bought a pizza stone and left it on the counter. Minutes later my cat peed on it. I've cleaned it with water and a brush, but just now I put it in the oven and it reeks horrendous. Does anybody have experience with something similar, can I remove the stench, or is it ready for the trash can?

Definitely throw it out. A cat peed on my family’s pizza stone a decade+ ago and no one noticed. We had people over for dinner and my mom preheated the stone in the oven. The whole house reeked of cat urine.

wfliug

How do restaurants make their scrambled eggs so soft ??? When I get scrambled eggs eating out they’re very soft and moist and delicious and my own never turn out like that. Clearly I am missing a key step !

Scrambled eggs continue to cook after they are removed from the stove. Taking them off when they look done to too late. I take them off when they look slightly wet on top. The cooking that occurs from latent heat with give you that softness you want.

l9smfj

What are other examples of "secret" spices like nutmeg in Mac and cheese? I have seen nutmeg in a regular bechamel, but never saw it in Mac n cheese until today. What are other examples of nuanced little spices or "secret" ingredients used in common dishes in the industry?

Dark cocoa powder in chili

u3t8nd

Why is a binder necessary for meatballs but not burgers? Is it simply because a sphere is more difficult to uphold, or does the binder double as a textural/flavor component?

Everybody here is wrong and I am here to bring joy and wisdom to you. Meatballs don't need binder, but they benefit from it. Imagine you're an old Italian nonna. Meat is spendy. Real spendy. You're not super wealthy. (Even today Italian per capita gdp is significantly less than Mississippi's). Your meat is often not the best quality. So what do you do with it? You stretch it. How? You add stuff that's cheaper - vegetables and, of course, bread. Bread is cheap. And then something magic happens: this makes the meatball better. Rather than a hamburger puck floating in red sauce, the meatball itself becomes lighter and tenderer (because bread and vegetables) and just better. And that's why meatballs use bread.

kholxz

Flour Moths I've never dealt with flour moths before, but we have tons fluttering around in our kitchen and it's disgusting. My roommate and I have very different ideas of how our kitchen should be kept. She says she is used to flour moths from her experience. Any advice would be much appreciated! Are these moths harmful?

Oh, please don't get used to it. They don't just live in flour, they live in chocolate and nuts and all kinds of things. They form webs and have little maggots and are NOT normal. Throw away anything contaminated, seal everything not visibly contaminated, clean everything, and watch for new moths so you can repeat if needed.

y0jo2k

Beer in chili at a school function So here’s my problem, I’m tasked with providing a chili for a chili cook off contest at our sons school. I have a competition winning recipe that is amazing that I’ve been using for 20 years but here’s where the dilemma comes in….. It includes a small amount of beer, and it really makes a difference. It took many many tries of using different beer until I found the best one for it. So I’m a little worried about putting it in since it’s a school function, even though it’s being cooked out over a period of 4hrs. But my competitiveness and pride in the countless hours and years I put in to perfect this recipe says to not alter it at all. Thoughts?

A bit of beer in a chili recipe doesn't make it bad for kids. The alcohol will cook off after a few hours, leaving just the flavor. It's not like you're serving up a rum-soaked cake. Besides, who needs to know anyway? It's your secret chili recipe that you don't need to disclose.

zly4b0

When nice restaurants cook with wine (beef bourguignon, chicken piccata, etc), do they use nice wine or the cheap stuff? I've always wondered if my favorite French restaurant is using barefoot cab to braise the meats, hence the term "cooking wine"

Nah, they’re certainly not using anything fancy. Boxed wine is quite popular in commercial kitchens of all calibers

fdydm5

Why are tomato based pies not a thing? Think of a savoury pie... What are you thinking? Chicken pie? Beef pie? Veg pie? A creamy mushroom pie? A cheese pie even? These are all pretty popular, normal pies. Now, tomato based dishes are extremely common. So why are tomato based pies not a thing? Thanks

Hi, pizza. (Especially deep dish)

ahw2as

Why did our mother die? There’s only 4 of us doing everything top to bottom in our small restaurant and we’ve been consistently and correctly maintaining our mother for our house made sourdough for almost 2 1/2 years straight. Tuesday it suddenly dies and we’ve tried what feels like everything in our combined knowledge to rework our starter and ferment a new mother but nothing seems to work. Never had this problem our methods have proven to be successful 100% of the time until just now. Why did the mother die and what are we missing about rebuilding our starter and mother for our bread?

I was not interpreting the correct kind of “mother” when I started reading this, lol 😂.

g16qd7

Is there a difference between coconut milk you can buy in the supermarket fridges near the regular milk, and canned coconut milk you buy near all the spices, curry pastes, etc? Tried googling the answer and I'm coming up blank!

The coconut milk used for milk substitute is usually way more dilute and feels watered down to the point where I can't really tell for sure if it has coconut in it (I grew up in a region that uses coconut milk for cooking rather heavily, so the dilute ones meant for drinking are kind of an oddity to me). The canned coconut milk is richer and creamier, which is what normally results from pressing grated coconut flesh. There's another level to this that is coconut cream, which is even more thick. As far as usage goes, do not cook with the drinking-grade coconut milk because it will be disappointing since it's basically white water, and it's not advisable to drink the canned coconut milk because it will be way too rich.

qat5m1

I'm looking for a dessert with the softness of cheesecake and the crunchiness of potato chips Now, I know what you're thinking: what in the heck kind of nutty idea is that? But, I thought about: what if you combine a soft, more creamy, sweet dessert (like cheesecake) with something as crunchy as potato chips (not necessarily salty though) in one dessert like cake or something of that nature? I'm sadly no innovator in the kitchen, I don't have enough culinary background to make something like that on my own or even know what ingredients to use, nor have I ever heard of a dessert like that (I spent a good while googling for something that would fit my description but to no avail). Does anyone know of anything that could be similar to what I described? I imagined the crunchy part would be thin, maybe flaky, but not quite like puff pastry, I presume... And lastly, I hope I'm not breaking any rules. I read that we should avoid asking for recipes, but I hope it's specific (and bizarre) enough of a question that it's alright to ask! And that it doesn't count as brainstorming, this is... a bit confusing, not going to lie. But I don't wish to offend anyone and of course I'll go ask in another sub if this is not the right place.

You should eat a cannoli.

k7oy9o

What are the differences in ingredients / restaurant food supply sources between low end, middle range, and high end dining establishments?

I have been in restaurant food supplies for 18 years and worked for 6 different suppliers. I don't think I even know where to begin with debunking all the misinformation in this thread already. This is a much more huge and complex question than most people realize. Even the high end dining establishments with two very similar menus can have two completely different sourcing strategies. There are some kitchens that do so many things completely from scratch but I think people would be surprised to find out how many items come premade in high end kitchens as well. Take for example something as completely simple as French Fries. I can walk into a kitchen that serves $40-$50 entrees and find a box of frozen Lamb Weston french fries that are hand cut with skin on and been properly washed, blanched and frozen. I can also walk into a low end kitchen and find a Lamb Weston box of french fries but those are scraps from cuts that have just been frozen. Same manufacturer, same plant, same machine, it just a different french fry that gets boxed. Fewer than 5% of restaurants cut their own french fries and given the quality of the more expensive frozen fries, there isn't always a reason to. You would be surprised at how far food science has come and what items are coming from premade and frozen. There are different tiers of frozen though. You will find a freezer in every higher end restaurant. Fewer than 1% of restaurants use no frozen items. I see a lot of misinformation on produce supply as well. The small independent produce supplier has the same box of Mann's lettuce as the big boys. Farms want to most stable supplier to offer them contracts on their supply. So often times the first pick of the fields go to the big guys. In fact US Foods and SYSCO both have employees that go to farms and pick what fields they want their supply to come from. Plus they have their own distribution so often the produce makes it onto a truck within 48 hours of being harvested. The small guys have to wait for the rest of the fields to be shipped to terminal markets and buy from whole sale suppliers there often meaning they hold product longer. Also smaller suppliers do not have food safety measures in place. The reason to go with a produce specific company for higher end restaurants is that they offer more specialty items, can make up for poor quality by doing 2nd runs same day and offer more delivery days. All of this could relate to meat as well. Frozen gets a bad rap but often times chefs prefer some things frozen. Take green peas for example. They can be frozen at peak of freshness whereas most fresh that comes in is hard to keep from getting too soft, so most chefs buy frozen even in scratch kitchens. Bread can very well be another example. Bread can be frozen at peak freshness and thawed and resume at near the same state. A lot of bakery suppliers offer shelf stable bread that is several days old. I have worked for a bakery that does fresh daily bread but how many restaurants get daily deliveries? We may have baked fresh every day but if we deliver a load and it's 3 days until the next delivery you are eating 3-4 day old bread at your higher end restaurant. Just throwing out another random example is Hollandaise sauce. Medium to higher end restaurants that do brunch don't always find a benefit of doing their own hollandaise. You'd be surprised at how many buy it in jugs. However, that really expensive shelf stable hollandaise is not the same hollandaise the small diner is buying. Yes you can tell the small diner doesn't make their own hollandaise because it's chalky and not rich. The higher end if very hard to tell. A common cutting tactic among food distributers is have chefs blind taste test high end pre made products vs their own and it's always surprising how many they cannot find a quality difference. The main point is there are different tiers of premade and quality food. People have a perception of how medium to high end restaurants source and I think you'd be very surprised to go look at the back of house boxes. Last note is when I'm talking about higher end restaurants I am talking of restaurants with $30-$50 entrees and not Michelin star places. Those are a different beast. Like I said in the beginning there are differences among EVERY restaurant. I can walk you into a place with less than $10 entrees that is all made from scratch and I can walk you into a $30 entrée place that is majority premade higher end products. Ok really last note now. COVID caused a lot of restaurants to throw out large amounts of inventory and lay off staff so many have no one to prep products now so even more than before is sourcing higher end quality premade and frozen products. EDIT: thinking about it, we often discuss with chefs what truly counts as "from scratch". Less than 100 years ago every chef and even home cook knew how to make cheese. How many restaurants make their own cheese now. I don't know of a single one. If you had a chef from 100 years ago walk into a kitchen today and see chefs using a prepacked cheese, even if it's higher end, they would scoff that they aren't really making their own. However, if a chef adds it to a dish today and the rest is made themselves, they are considered to still have done it from scratch. Take milled flour as well. There used to be so many local mills because flour used to go bad quickly! So you had to have it milled close to homes. Flour today has additives in it to make it shelf stable. Virtually every kitchen in the world uses this shelf stable flour with additives and no one bats an eye. Pastry and cakes and anything else made with it is still from scratch but yet if we got a piece of meat or sauce with additives in there we would scoff. The point is the industry has continually moved towards products that a short time ago would be considered not fresh or from scratch. The industry is continually moving there and some restaurants are more ahead of the curve than others. I think some of the things we scoff at restaurants for not doing themselves right now will be common place before the end of most of our lives.

qgcra8

Why did a lime destroy my chili? I'm a pretty good home cook and have been at it for quite awhile, so I like to think I generally know what I'm doing. About once a year I have a complete and total failure and last week's chili was one of the absolute worst. I've been trying to move away from tomato based chili and use rehydrated chiles. What I did was toast them in a cast iron pan for a few seconds, let them sit in boiled water until they are rehydrated, take the seeds and stems out and use a hand blender on them. The rest of my chili was pretty standard Tex-Mex and nothing fancy - black beans, kidney beans, onion, cumin, salt, chili powder, and extra water. It was missing something and I've read that rather than add more salt to add something acidic. I thought that lime is often in Tex-Mex so I squeezed half of one in it and then tossed the squeezed half into the pot. I cannot express how disgusting it was. My daughter was brave and tried it and she had to spit it out. It got dumped, but I can't get over how bad it was. Do chiles and lime not go together? Did I use too much lime? Now I'm terrified to add an acid to anything that doesn't specifically tell me to use it.

100% the problem is that you added entire fruit (skin, rind, pith) into the chili and didn't just use the juice. Have you ever tried to eat the skin/rind of a citrus?

e76s1x

Found this unusual lump in my lamb leg. Should I be concerned? I got this grass-fed leg of lamb today, and while eating I found this hard yellow-ish pale lump. It's firm all the way through, and immediately wigged out thinking it could be parasite related. Out of all the steaks and roasts I've ever eaten rare, I've never seen anything like this. Should I be concerned and running for the worm pills, or do I need a briefing on sheep anatomy? Pictures: imgur.com/a/JoGqYuQ

Public health veterinarian here! This is likely an abscess from either an injection site infection or from a lil bug called Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis (RARELY zoonotic, def not when cooked). Either way, sheep and cattle are great at walling off buggos so it t e c h n i c a l l y could be safe to eat, but tbh, if it was me, I would not :) Edit: ty for the silver!!! Edit #2: OMG my first gold! Praise be

w4g8c5

How do I hold asparagus so it doesn’t get soggy when I have to serve it later in the day? I am going over to my sister’s house for dinner later today, and I told her I would bring asparagus. The only problem is she lives about a half hour away, and I don’t want the asparagus to get soggy before I get there. Is it best to just make the asparagus at her house, or is there a way to keep it crunchy? I normally roast the vegetable in the oven with some Parmesan.

Pick a different preparation. Braised asparagus is incredible and reheats really well. There’s a recipe in my book and on serious eats. You can also blanch and shock it and serve it cold with a nice fresh herb mayonnaise. Those would be my first two suggestions.

oplahi

how is it that foods like instant ramen or mcdonalds are viewed as "sodium bombs" but don't taste unpalatably salty? if i think a big mac is just salty enough for my tastes, and i make a burger at home the same size as a big mac that is also just salty enough for my tastes, why's the big mac worse? basically, i don't get why so many foods are seen as salt bombs when they don't taste (to most people, anyway) unpalatably salty. are there other sodium agents at play that are preservatives or something that contribute to the sodium but not the saltiness?

Sodium is in ingredients other than the “salt” that you think of as a seasoning. MSG and preservatives that are common in processed foods are different types of sodium. Sodium chloride, the stuff that tastes “salty” is only one ingredient contributing to overall sodium content. When you’re cooking from scratch at home you don’t really need to worry about how much salt you add because it will become “too salty” before the overall sodium levels reach that of processed foods.

wa82jl

Why can't you eat shellfish that didn't open during cooking? I've tried to look this up, and find conflicting information. Is this just an old wives tail?

Generally because it's assumed the critter was already dead when it went into the pot, and might have been dead for some time. When a creature dies, microorganisms move in, and while cooking to temperature will kill the microorganisms, often times their waste products are toxic and heat won't do anything about that. It is those toxins that make you sick. That and once you have ever had food poisoning you will make sure you never, ever get it again.

wp4w28

This one sauce blew my mine but I cannot figure out what it is. I'm going to get straight to the point. I had a seafood dish which came with a special white sauce and the chef refused to share the recipe with me. He was telling the story about how a french writer gave him this specific recipe so I automatically assumed it must be one of the french sauces. He only gave me two ingredients which were cream and basil and said "no" to vinegar and lemon when I asked. I am assuming he didnt wanna give away too much and that why he said no because the sauce was definitely vinegary and paired incredibly well with the shrimps. Does anyone have any idea what it might be? I want to impress some friends so I MUST find the recipe. I guessed mousselini or bearnaise but they seem to be more yellow.

Unrelated but perhaps helpful. In reverse engineering a famous local recipe, a group of people called the place over a period of months, and pretended to be allergic to various things in order to find out what was and was not in the recipe. Took a while, but it worked!

lmaw8t

Is there a garlic supply problem or something? I feel like I've had terrible luck with garlic for the last like 3 years. Almost always a green stem in the cloves, or just going brown fast. I also feel like I'm noticing more green in youtube chefs' garlic now. But maybe I'm just looking for it. Has something happened to garlic suppliers, or is there some kind of issue? I guess it doesn't help that I've been having groceries delivered and can't pick out my garlic, but the skin seems tight enough on the ones I've been getting so I don't know that I could do much better. It's getting kind of frustrating, I feel like we're throwing away garlic all the time. Don't get me wrong, I use it if there's a thing line of green in it, but often they're just totally overtaken really fast. Any ideas? Am I crazy? I feel like I didn't used to have this problem.

The thing I always see seems like bad handling, the outer cloves will have dents or divots and those spots go brown first. Like something in processing or handling is too rough on them. Also just a lot of garlic going around the past few years with a few decent sized cloves and a whoooole bunch of tiny cloves that are annoying to use. Oftentimes they'll look like one normal sized clove until the paper comes off and surprise, it's like three tiny cloves in a trench coat.

revw2h

Why do a lot of chefs sprinkle salt instead of grinding it? When I season my food, I always just use the salt grinder and I've never really felt the need to deviate from this method. Yet in cooking videos, chefs always seem to grab pinches of salt from a ramekin or bowl. At first glance this seems like unnecessary work, but clearly they're successful and know far more than I do, so what am I missing?

Pinching makes it easy to get a lot of salt quickly, and also to have a very easy idea of how much salt you’re using. Grinding is slower and harder to measure. Plus, grinding provides no culinary benefit (it’s not like freshly grinding spices, there aren’t volatile aromatics in the salt that are retained better in larger crystals).

j49z5t

Why aren't there more spices? Most recipes use the same 20-30 spices. Why aren't there more spices? - Nutmeg and mace are the pit of a fruit. Why don't we use every other fruit pits as spices? - Cumin seeds, coriander seeds, dill seeds, mustard seeds, are just the seeds of some plants. Why don't we use the seeds of other plants as spices? - Cloves and saffron are just flower. Why aren't all flowers used as spices? There are millions of different pits, seeds, flowers, barks, leaves, dried fruits and dehydrated vegetables that could be used as spices. Why are the same handful of spices used pretty much everywhere?

There's lots of spices and spice blends. I'd start looking at international cuisines and see how they are utilized by various regions with different ingredients, preparation methods, etc. As a general rule "if no cuisines use it it's probably poison"

u0hjyy

How to go about handing my recipe over to a possibly large company? I’ve been a pastry chef for a long time specializing in gluten/dairy free, for friends and family and people who hear about me, not a business runner. A millionaire friend of mine is starting a company around a specific gluten free item and they asked me to invent a receipt for them because they couldn’t figure it out. I said yes not thinking if id be able to either because it’s a very hard one to get right esp. gf. But I did it and it’s great. Now I have no idea what to expect or what to ask for when sharing the recipe

You should also contact a lawyer specializing in intellectual property rights. Even if just for a paid consultation.

ftcuyv

Suggestions for Culinary School type exercises for a home cook? I'm a semi-competent home cook, and now that there's nothing else to do I'd kind of like to use the time to expand my repertoire. Is there a good website or cookbook that takes home cooks through a basic culinary school syllabus? I'm thinking along the lines of "this week we're making dishes that all use veloute-derived sauces" or "here are the basic stocks you should be able to make." Something that's structured to give a tour of the basic stuff every chef should know.

This was effectively my Culinary Foundations 1/2 class: Buy a massive bag of carrots, potatoes, and onions, and get chopping. Download and print a knife cuts guide. Learn large dice, then cut that into medium and small. Cut batons, cut that into small dice. Cut julienne, cut that into brunoise. Make sure your knife is sharp as all fuck. Go \*slow\* and be super precise at first. Make them perfect, don't go for speed. You'll get faster over time. Practice this literally like 15-30 minutes per day every day (or more if you like), because that's how you get good. That's how I spent the first few months of culinary school. Learn how to emulsify a vinaigrette from scratch. Make mayonnaise from scratch. Make stock, and then learn to make the mother sauces (Instant pot is fucking fabulous for this, by the way...it's good to learn how to make a chicken stock from scratch once and skim it and stuff, but honestly if you have the IP don't bother after that, and don't bother making beef or veal stock without one). learn how to make consomme. Move onto making the perfect seared airline chicken breast and steak. Key if you're cooking at home though is to dry the meat in the fridge uncovered overnight, you get a much better crust that way. Learn how to make a pan sauce from the pan you've cooked your meats in. Learn to poach chicken and fish in a flavorful broth. Learn to make great polenta, rice, rice pilaf, and a couple other grains of your choice. Learn how to properly blanch veggies and finish them in a nice buttery sauce. Learn how to make a roast. Learn how to braise (in school we made a cartouche--a braising lid out of parchment paper) Practice some basic plating. Everyone has different styles, so spend some time googling around and see what you like. Cutting meats on a bias and trimming veggies on a bias makes things hecka fancy looking and takes no extra time. LEARN HOW TO SEASON WITH SALT PROPERLY. If you're not sure, keep adding more and more and tasting every single fucking thing every step of the way until it's too much. Most of the time people don't realize how much salt things need. ​ Most importantly though--learn the food science. Culinary school didn't teach as much of this as I would have liked, but it's so goddamn important to know if you want to be able to get very good. Otherwise you're just repeating what you've practiced, and that might not be the best approach if you don't understand why what you're doing is great. I always like to call Serious Eats my second culinary school for this reason.

kem42k

We salt the water water when we make pasta to season it. How come I never see recipes calling for other seasoning or even garlic in the pasta water to flavor it? It seems to me that garlic would work well, no?

Many flavor compounds, including those in garlic, are fat soluble, and therefore would not transfer to the pasta in the water. Salt is water soluble, so the flavor makes its way in. You could try it with other water soluble aromatics - maybe bay leaves, for example, but you'd need a ton to really make a noticeable difference

kkqge4

Can you ACTUALLY tell the differences between authentic Parmesan Reggiano and good/well-aged/well produced other types of Parmesan? A super thin wedge of reggiano is about $12 for me and a larger wedge of American made 24 months aged Parmesan costs about half as much. I bet there is a minute difference but can you ACTUALLY tell them apart at this point? With both being well produced?

Yes, I have done side-by-side blind taste tests. Yes, you can tell them apart. Costco is your best bet for good, authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano. It's $12.49/lb and it's a huge wedge that will last for months in your fridge.

vo5ffk

How do big restaurants and take-away places not 'overcrowd' the pan? Overcrowding the pan is terrible when frying literally anything that requires heat, so if I'm cooking for more than just me and my SO, I'll usually end up frying in batches. E.g. when I'm stir frying chicken for let's say 10 people, I literally end up stir frying 3 or 4 times. How do bigger restaurants, for example a local chinese restaurant or a takeaway do this during peak hours? I can only imagine they need to produce a lot of chicken fast. How do they do this without overcrowding the pan?

They have wok burners that have like 5 times the output of your home stove.

lr8nak

Kneading dough in water until water runs clear, then frying? Is there a name for this technique? A friend showed me a strange video/gif recipe for what looks like some type of bannock--hoping AskCulinary could shed some light on what's happening: It's a flour and water dough that's kneaded to come together into a fairly dry-looking smooth ball, then placed in a bucket of water and kneaded/stretched until the water runs clear. Then the dough is seasoned, knotted, and pan fried. I'm curious if this is a real technique (as opposed to internet hijinks) and what it is called because I'd like to learn more about it and perhaps find a legitimate recipe to try

You've made seitan. Tons of recipes out there.

jetgkk

Is mixing spices before putting them on the food better than just sprinkling them one by one? When cooking for eg. meat I put all of the spices I intend on using in a tiny jar and give them a good shake, then I pour it over the meat. I think that way the spices are evenly spread out, but my mom thinks it's redundant- she first uses salt, then pepper, then other spices one by one. Is there a difference or is one method better than the other?

As an Indian, I think I can add a little bit or a lot of depth to the discussion. We treat spices very differently compared to most cuisines. First of all, know what you want to do with the spices and what you want them to do for you. Same spice can give you very different flavours depending on how you treat it. For example, coriander seeds, toasted and ground, when added to fat and cooked at low temperature will impart an earthiness but smoke it high and it'll give you a smoky flavor. Toast it and cook it whole and you'll get a slightly different aroma with texture. And so on and so forth. Another example is fennel seeds. Toast it, grind it and add in a sauce on top. It'll give you a sweet cool aromatic finish on the palate. Compare that to fennel powder that is crushed without toasting. The sweetness of latter is more natural and not that concentrated. Compare still to fennel powder added during cooking process in a dish like roghan josh. The flavor is more complicated and hard. Similarly, prosciutto uses fennel powder at times as far as I'm aware but curing makes it taste very different. So on and so forth. So to sum it up, you've to learn to cook with spices. Figure out which ones you like the most and figure out which profiles you want to emphasize while cooking certain foods. That'll help you understand different stages at which you can add spices. To give you an idea, here are different ways to add spices to your food. 1. Toast them, grind to a mix - you can use this mix as a seasoning or a rub for marinade. 2. Add powdered or whole spices (procured from stores) to sauces with fat, sauté them to release aroma and cook sauce to finish. Examples include cloves, bay leaf, cilantro seeds etc. 3. Add spices before finishing to infuse the sauce with aromatics. Good example is saffron. Another is nutmeg or mace. Cooked too long, these spices will lose aroma. Cooked too little they can be too strong to be palatable. 4. Add spices as finish. Examples include cumin powder, saffron (used correctly), cardamom, cinnamon etc. There's a lot more to be said about spices. For example, grinding (in grinder) versus pulverising (in mortar pestle) and other minor considerations that become very prominent in traditional cuisines that use spices heavily. Edit- Thanks for the response. I didn't know you guys would appreciate it so much. You might find a more detailed explanation on spices more interesting. comment on spices

hhdyvj

Did I just accidentally make vegan aioli? I was working on a quick vinaigrette dressing for some subs, and it consisted of: oil, garlic, red wine vinegar and some fresh herbs. I decided to use my hand blender to buzz up the garlic and herbs and mix everything, and at the last second decided to sprinkle in some xanthan gum to keep it emulsified. After about 2 seconds of blending on high speed, it turned white and basically became an eggless mayonnaise. It’s still emulsified this morning, and tastes just like aioli. Did the xanthan gum somehow replace the egg yolk (or whole egg and squirt of Dijon) that I would normally use to make mayo?

Garlic alone is capable of forming a thick emulsion with oil. The most traditional version of aioli doesn’t have any egg (which is part of why people sometimes get grumpy about garlic mayo being called aioli)

njifl6

Everything I read insists that you must rest a grilled steak for 10 min, but then the steak isn't hot when j eat it. I've experimented with tin foil the resting meat but I find it tends to further cook it, maybe even steaming it, ruining the crust I worked so hard on. Please help. Should I rest in a low temp oven, rest for less time...?

Rest for less time, and use a warm plate, but also, the "rest" is the time starting the second the steak leaves the grill and ending the second your knife hits the steak. If you pay close attention, you may find that your rest clock is starting a couple minutes after you actually pull it (once you've dealt with shutting off the grill, etc.), and that when it ends you're still gathering utensils, serving up side dishes, pouring a drink, etc. Meaning your "10 minute" rest has effectively become 15 or 20 minutes. I personally don't really time the rest at all - it's just the couple of minutes from the time the meat comes off the heat until I'm actually sitting down to eat it.

z4jr9a

Why are people frying turkey whole? Why not just cut it up first into smaller pieces before frying? I'm seeing video recipes online of frying a turkey and all of them do so whole, but is that really necessary? Why not just cut up the bird into smaller pieces before frying them especially since turkey is a much larger bird and some households may not have a large enough container to fry the whole bird in? Does frying the turkey whole make it better than frying it up piece by piece? I'm asking because I come from a country that doesn't have turkeys.

Same reason people roast them whole; they want that symbolic “centerpiece” to their thanksgiving meal.

oebqvq

Demystifying the "how spicy would you like it on a scale of 1-5?" question at American Thai restaurants? When American Thai restaurants ask "How spicy would you like your food - on a scale of 1-5?", **what are they doing to adjust the spice level?** Is it as simple as shaking more red pepper flakes into a 4 vs a 2? Or maybe cooking the food in spicier cooking oil for a 3 vs a 1? Is there some "special" spicy oil/sauce that's used for maximum-heat 5's? Thanks very much!

Hi I am a Thai chef and can probably answer this question decently. In your run of the mill restaurant it is likely just how much dried pepper they use which is a damn shame. I eat hot food but some places will ruin a dish by just making it dry with the amount of pepper flakes they put on it. Truthfully, you can almost always order a 3 or 2 and it will be fine. Not disgustingly unbalanced but also not missing the heat. Now for the more detailed answer. In thai food they don't use chili oil very often. It exists as a product of China but they don't use it nearly at all. Some regional foods are hotter than others and it can determine which type of chili is used. Some use dried, some use less spicy but fresh peppers. Eastern Thai (also called Issan Thai) is the hottest regional cuisine but northern Thai is genrally not that spicy by comparison. I don't believe in artificially scaling heat. Thai food is all about balance of flavor with heat being a key component. Not all thai food it naturally hot. Some is disturbingly spicy. Next time you go to your local spot, don't order pad thai or massaman curry or something normal like that. Instead try something like; Laap/Larb/Laab/Meat Salad with stick rice Kra Prao (or something pronounced like kapow) Or my favorite, Khao Soi Laap is a mixed bag on how its made but when done well, it's the absolute best. Edit; I'm glad this helped lots of people it seems. I love Thai food and think we only scratch the surface of it in the US so the more i can do to share my interest the better. Feel free to DM me if you have questions.

wcqg23

Why are the eggs in eggs benedict specifically poached? Is there something about them being in boiling water vs. fried over easy/medium that makes them taste better?

IMO because hollandaise is such an unctuous fat bomb, the last thing the dish needs is to have the eggs cooked in butter or oil. In addition, the poached eggs are just softer and break into the whole dish more beautifully than hacking through a fried egg. Poached eggs also fit nicely on an english muffin.

s34c35

Do I need to stabilize my whipping cream if I'm a chocolate mousse? I always stabilize my whipping cream when working with it. I want to make an eggless chocolate mousse. It will be my first time making and any tips are welcome :)

It doesn't matter if you're a person or a chocolate mousse, you don't need to stabilize the whip cream. It does help, however, if you plan to make in advance. Pure whip cream and chocolate will start to split in the fridge after a day or so -- you'll see it get more 'wet'. Make it, chill it, eat it, you'll be fine.

fqo8gu

Are there different cuts of meat in different cultures or does everyone basically butcher the same way?

Yes, different cultures have different cuts of meat, however they mostly all follow the same patterns because the musculoskeletal structure of the animals doesn't change. A good example of this would be the differences in American (US) style butchery and Spanish butchery. The primal cuts are pretty much the same with some debate as to where the major cuts should be made however the sub primal get broken down very differently. Two major factors that affect the subprimal cuts are intended use and cutting equipment. In more industrialized societies you see more of what would be called square cutting, where a butcher breaks the primal down into more uniform cuts based on where it is easiest to cut through the bones with a band saw. In countries with a longer tradition of butchery/charcuterie you see more of what would be called seam butchery where primals are broken down into muscle groups and individual muscles with as little use of a band saw as possible. There are also regional differences in the names given to certain cuts which can lead to confusion as well.

h968ox

Why does the taste of sesame oil overpower dishes when I cook at home vs ordering from a restaurant? I love all kinds of Asian style foods, so I attempt to cook many of them. In case it matters, I attempt a lot more Korean dishes. Most use sesame oil, which always overpowers the dish and it’s all I taste. I never notice this when I order from restaurants. I started replacing sesame oil with vegetable oil in my recipes, but I’m curious if I’m doing something wrong with the sesame oil.

There are 2 kinds of sesame oil - regular and toasted. Regular is light-colored (like canola or vegetable oil), has a pretty neutral flavor, and is commonly used as a cooking oil. Toasted is dark brown, has a strong flavor, and is generally used in very small amounts as a finishing flavor. My guess is you’re using toasted sesame oil as a cooking oil which means you’d have to be using too much.

xg5mc3

BBQ pizza sauce -- Would it be offensive to just add jarred sauce to a homemade pizza sauce? BBQ pizza sauce seems to have a massive amount of ingredients, but Stubb's makes one of my favorite BBQ sauces, so I figure I could omit the sugar from Kenji's pizza sauce recipe and add some BBQ to taste? Going for a BBQ-feta-onion type pizza. Thoughts appreciated. Thanks!

I mean, you're making a BBQ pizza, not some kind of super authentic wood-fired Neapolitan pizza, so you really have the freedom to do whatever you want. Go for it.

hkm3q6

Butter in vanilla cupcakes vs. oil in chocolate cupcakes? Why do most recipes I see for chocolate cupcakes use oil as the fat when vanilla cupcakes use butter? I can’t find a reliable chocolate cake/cupcake online that uses butter and I feel like oil-based batters feel too much like a muffin to me. If anyone has any insight into this phenomenon or a recipe they’d like to share, I would appreciate it greatly!

Notice that oil is liquid at room temperature, while butter is semi-solid. Oil provides more of a moist mouthfeel than butter in baked goods. However, oil is also flavourless (assuming a neutral oil of course), while butter has that rich flavour that is so important in cooking. Vanilla cakes have a very subtle flavour, hence the flavour from butter is very important. On the other hand, chocolate overpowers the flavour of butter, so it's possible to substitute it out for oil for its moistness without noticing much loss of flavour. Outside of just the ingredients themselves, there's also the mixing methods. A butter-based cake is usually mixed by the creaming method, where the butter and sugar(s) are creamed together. This isn't simply to just combine the two ingredients, but also to create small air cells within the butter that will allow for additional leavening during baking. This process is known as "mechanical leavening", since you're creating leavening from mechanical mixing. Here's an article from Stella Parks that goes further in-depth on how it works. If oil is used instead of butter, then you won't get the leavening from the creaming process, so you end up with a denser product. This is probably why the oil-based batters you've had feel more like a muffin.

c9uwiw

How do Michelin Star restaurants make a profit? I’m a chef, worked in some nice restaurants, but have never worked in a Michelin star restaurant. Any time I see Michelin star restaurants I always see huge staffs (like 10-15 cooks minimum, not including FOH), they’re constantly posting renovations and decor updates on instagram, massively expensive premium ingredients, like the costs go on and on. I understand that the cost of eating there is pricey, but surely it can’t be enough to make up for all those costs? Outside sponsorships?

i have to imagine they make absolutely absurd margins on the wine side.

g1vnef

What's the deal with kosher salt in American recipes? Why does the salt have to be kosher? You don't mention kosher pepper, kosher flour, kosher vegetable oil etc. What's the deal? Does a rabbi bless it or something?

My understanding is that the salt was used for "koshering meat" (pulling out the blood, Leviticus 7:26). It's not actually manufactured under any religious guidelines, and is really just a flaked salt without iodine.

ecuyuv

I’ve just bought a live 1kg lobster to cook tonight. Is resting it in the freezer the best way to put him to ‘sleep’ before boiling? Also, how long would I boil it for?

Cognitive dissonance strong with this thread. Yes, ripping a lobster in half sounds brutal but it’s the only way to sever all the nerve connections as quickly as possible. First of all, the “brain” you’re referring to is a large clump of ganglia. Their nervous system is not centralized. If you’ve pierced behind the head you’ve managed to make the lobster die a slow and painful death with a pierced heart and nervous clump while all you’ve accomplished is making you feel good about yourself. Every Michelin starred chef I’ve worked for agrees that grabbing the torso and tail with a dish towel and twisted fast and hard is the quickest way to instantly kill a lobster. But wanna hear a secret? They don’t really care about the feelings of overpriced sea bugs and will prepare them according to what’s best for the recipe. I mean how can we baby sand cockroaches when we eat factory farmed meat...

p0v8j9

Is gelato in Italy just regular ice cream? In America, when we get gelato it’s usually a denser version of ice cream. On a trip to Italy I went to a famous gelato store and noticed the density was the same as regular ice cream in America. I don’t know if there’s different types there like Americans with their soft serve, gelato, or whipped.

No, it's not the same. Gelato is made with less fat and contains fewer ice crystals. Interestingly, Rome recently started cracking down on subpar gelato. If too many ice crystals are found, the shop can face a fine up to $15,000 Source

m4uvku

What do you do with soup you intend to eat across 3 days? Why? When I make soup, it's usually enough for 9 portions, which we tend to eat for 3 consecutive evenings. I normally just let the pot cool down for a couple of hours, often on the kitchen balcony, store in fridge until the next day, then just before dinner, I bring the soup to a boil to kill anything that may have developed in it. Repeat for day 3. Recently I read this is a terrible idea, you should never reheat soup multiple times, you shouldn't store it in the original pot, etc. Something about harmful bacteria developing in a certain temperature range when heating/cooling (though, as far as I've read, those do get killed if you boil the soup, so I'm confused) Do people really pack it in 6 different containers, and then microwave it one at a time, and that's better? Or split it into 2 smaller pots, and reheat one each evening? I'd like to hear what you do, but mainly I'm trying to understand why, if it's beyond convenience.

No one else seems to be biting on the actual food safety issue at hand, so I’m going to address one aspect. You mentioned that you “bring the soup to a boil to kill off anything that may have developed in it.” With food poisoning the concern isn’t always that you’ll be infected with live bacteria. There is also the issue that when food sits out in the “danger zone” bacteria can infect it, then multiply and *release waste products* that are toxic and that can’t be destroyed by heat. This is the risk that you run by repeated heating and cooling the same dish. Personally I would divide it into 3 separate portions that you can reheat rather than going to the trouble of making one portion per person, since it seems you’ll be reheating them at the same time anyway.

feuyeh

In the very high end fine-dining/michelin star restaurants, do the chefs measure out their spices exactly (quarter tsp of this, half a tbsp of that) to get every dish perfect, or do they tend to eyeball it and just add a little more if needed after tasting? I can imagine that since every dish needs to be at an extremely high standard they'd want to ensure that every iteration of the dish leaving the kitchen needs to be pretty much the same, but is it more reliable for the chefs to measure out ingredients exactly or to add and taste?

The thing is even the ingredients vary subtly in flavour or intensity. There are standard recipes but the the seasoned chefs typically eye ball it then taste later and adjust. Junior chefs, like myself, have to follow the recipe exact then get a seasoned chef to taste it. Then the juniors taste it to try and lock on to the correct taste profile. A senior chef told me your taste profiling develops with experience and practice just like any other muscle or skill and it's best to not to try and rush it. It will come eventually but it takes time.

ji35ai

Are there "movements" in the history of the culinary arts, as there is in music, painting, etc? There seem to be certain dishes and ingredients that are in vogue for a time and then fall out of fashion, but nothing like the difference between, baroque classical and country western, or realism and surrealism. Is it that there's simply less room for experimentation and improvisation in the culinary arts? Are the culinary arts limited by the number of ingredients and possible combinations or methods of preparation in a way that other arts aren't? We're able, and can afford, to take big risks and push boundaries in "art for art's sake", but at the end of the day we *need* our food to be edible at least most of the time; it's an art that also needs to be *functional*. It's interesting to think about the artistic drive and how it manifests in all the different areas of life, and what it means for our most basic, human nature and behavior that they exist balanced on this spectrum between art and functionality. What are your thoughts?

Yes, there have been plenty of movements since the onset of 'haute cuisine'. There was the transition from French style dining (where the cooks would create an impressive "display" table for each course that was laden with food, and the diners would stay seated while the tables were taken in and out of the room) to Russian style dining (courses served pre-plated), the huuuuge shift to nouvelle cuisine, which lost a lot of the heavy sauces and extremely fatty, dense dishes in favor of lighter, fresher plates that is still a very persistent aesthetic today. More recently, there was the food truck fad, the fusion fad, the molecular gastronomy fad, the farm to table movement, the nose to tail movement, etc etc etc. Right now the world is very focused on environmentally sound methods of eating, like minimizing waste and re-using things - to the point where it's a useless aesthetic in most restaurants (think about all the trendy restaurants that use mason jars for their cocktails - the idea obviously is that they're rustically re-using those jars and that's what they're trying to imply about their food, but the reality of course is that they buy those new and solely for the purpose of containing drinks). The culinary world, like the art world, is still an extension and reflection of the society and culture in which it's created.

nc6gml

why do chefs make their pans catch fire 1. is it purely for show or there's actually something that you get ..

It depends on what's cooking. Flambéing is just a part of cooking with high levels of alcohol. As for accidentally setting pans on fire that can easily happen when the flames gets too high in a pan heavy with oil or grease. People here can act like a true chef would never do that, but these people have never had to watch 12 burners while trying to fit enough food for 50 simultaneous customers on a Saturday night with a full house. It happens, you put the fire out and 99 times out of 100 nothing is ruined. And if it is ruined chances are it was ruined well before the pan caught on fire.

ojjds5

Why are green peppers or toppings other than onions generally not considered normal to put on a Philly Cheesesteak? So I've seen this a lot around Reddit and the internet; someone makes a cheesesteak with peppers or mushrooms then someone comments "well it has x ingredient therefore it's not a philly". My thing is many cheesesteak joints in Philadelphia offer toppings other than grilled onions. For example: Chubby's, Dalessandros, Steve's Prince of Steaks, John's Roast Pork. If it's not really a thing..then why do they offer other toppings?

Some people are overly concerned with finding the 'most authentic' and original version of a foodstuff, then deifying it and gatekeeping other people's enjoyment of it. No food is authentic, everything has developed through cross pollination and evolution of tastes. If it tastes good on it to you, that's all that matters. (Obviously there's a threshold- if you serve me roast pork with applesauce in a bun and tell me it's a cheesesteak I'll be disappointed. Where exactly that threshold lies is down to your own personal interpretation, not for someone else to tell you)

sddex2

I'm roasting a chicken tonight but can't really be bothered to make stock afterwards as it's quite late already, can I put the carcass in the fridge overnight and make the stock tomorrow? The title covers it mostly I think.

I freeze carcasses to make stock later all the time.

ws1hr1

What is the point of salting your pasta water if you’re just going to sauce it later? I’ve always salted my pasta water and today I thought about why. Any pasta I make is either in a red sauce, cream sauce, olive oil and garlic or butter and Parmesan. Only one of those options doesn’t contain salt.

Because if you don't salt the pasta water you'll have a lovely sauce served over flavorless filler. Try a taste test using the same sauce with a little bit of unsalted pasta and you'll notice how bland it is by comparison.

zt549u

Are you supposed to eat the rind of Brie cheese? I never thought about it as I’ve always ate it. Just want to confirm.

Like everyone is saying, yes, but if it's crappy brie or too cold it won't be enjoyable. Super cheapo brie rinds can have a sort of ammonia taste, and if it's right out of the fridge the mouthfeel won't be pleasant. But a nice wedge that's been sitting out and is getting all Salvador Dali on you??? Eat that shit

rkyyu5

Indian food (dals, curries etc) always tasting bland, spiceless and watery no matter how many aromatics I shove in. I can simmer a 2 serving curry for 2 hours with 1 aniseed star, 1 cinnamon stick, 3 cloves, 3 green cardamom, 1 black cardamom, 1 tejpat , 2 curry leaves, 1 inch ginger, 3 garlic cloves, a whole onion and I literally only taste watered down tomatoes. Do you think it might just be my dumbass taste buds?. I go through spices fast and am constantly buying fresh ones, so I don't think it is a symptom of stale spices.

Salt!!!

nrjxpt

Taste Fatigue Hi! So I suffer from taste fatigue (fun radiation times and then three years of healing later...). Last night I was at a fancy restaurant, and the chef said he can cook around it -- and damn if he didn't tweak the dish so that it was amazing throughout my whole meal! I wanted to ask him what he did, but they were swamped when I left. Does anyone here have any ideas? I'm super grateful to have recovered some taste, but would love to be able to try and recreate what he did at home!

I would probably email the resto and let them know what great chef they have and that it really made your night. You could probably ask for some tips from him and that way they could respond accordingly, and management would know what a great experience he gave you too. Sorry, i dont have any ideas other than that but good luck and i hope you get to taste fully again sometime soon!

uvvkpg

Why use mushroom powder, marmite, soy sauce, etc? I'm wondering because isn't it the same as adding MSG? Is it because of the umami synergy?

Why use honey, maple syrup, etc. and not just sugar? Why use lime juice, lemon juice, balsamic and not just vinegar? Yes the main "taste" of all of the ingredients listed is umami the same way all the ingredients I listed are mainly sweet/sour but of course they all differ in texture, flavor profile, reaction to heat, some of these options are vegan, etc.

qq6phs

Citrus juice, rather than vinegar, seems to be the preferred source of acidity in drink recipes across cultures. Why? Was that always the case? Vinegar can be made out of just about any grain or fruit, whereas citrus juice requires specific fruit that doesn't grow everywhere. But I've never seen a vinegarade, a vinegar margarita, a vinegar soda, a vinegar shandy, vinegar-spiked mulled wine... Why have I hit middle age and rarely seen drinks with vinegar in them, other than niche health drinks or "drinking vinegars"? Was it always so?

Lemon and lime taste better

nxenio

What should I throw out if I will be gone for 2 months? I am going to be away from my (Mexican Caribbean, so very hot and humid) apartment for the months of July and August. Obviously I will clean my fridge of perishables but I've never left food products for so long, and I don't know if it'll be fine, especially in this climate, or I should resign myself to tossing everything and starting over when I get back. For example: soy sauce, multiple types of oil (sesame oil lives in the fridge, the rest on my counter), flour (I assume since I keep these in sealed containers it should be fine?), vanilla extract, sugar in sealed/unopened bags, baking powder, reduced stock in ice cube trays in the freezer, etc. (If this is the wrong sub for this kind of question I apologize.)

Adding to say if you want an easy check to see if the power did go out while you're gone, stick a small bag of ice cubes in the freezer. if they're a lumpy mess, or a clump of ice when you return, you'll at least know there was an outage and to check your stuff accordingly

u5mxtg

Is adding "starchy" pasta water to pasta dishes to thicken and make the sauce cling to the pasta a myth? I add the pasta water to my pasta dishes sometimes and sometimes I add just normal water. I notice no difference either way in the end products. Has anyone actually made any side to side tests for comparison? It seems like one of those things chefs say that they heard from their teacher but havent tested or confirmed and isnt actually true. I have heard some people say to boil the pasta in a small sauce pan so there will be larger content of starch to pasta, but the people who came up with this idea that it helps to thicken the sauce are italians who tell you to use a large amount of water for your pasta, a big pot to let the pasta room to swim. I have used smaller amount of water also but didnt notice any difference.

Yes this has been tested and is not a myth. SeriousEats have tested this. https://www.seriouseats.com/does-pasta-water-really-make-difference

epok44

Why is it easier for a Japanese restaurant to get a 4.5+ star rating than a Thai place? I adore Thai food. But I've noticed that even my very favorite Thai spots usually get a max of 4.4 stars on Google. It's very difficult for them to break that barrier. By contrast, I've eaten at very well-rated Japanese places. And people seem more generous with their ratings for Japanese food. I was wondering why that is? My current theories: I know there's a 'culinary register' where certain cuisines are considered upper-class and others not so upper class, and I think Japanese food would be considered more upper class than Thai (both a recent history as an Empire, the expense of the ingredients and how difficult it is to make, and the portion sizes), and I wonder where that plays into it.

Online reviews such as from Google and Yelp have lots of variability. A lot of Asian restaurants in general have very swingy reviews because people with and without an understanding of the cultures will read things very differently. For example, many great "hole in the wall" places get bad reviews from non-Asian eaters because of "bad service" - when the service is excellent... for Asian food values. Deliver food when it's ready, piping hot, and clear away dirty dishes, bringing the check quickly - these are signs of efficient and great service at many Asian restaurants, but they can be off-putting to people accustomed to European dining, where you bring all plates out at once, course the meal, and let diners take their time before clearing the table or bringing the bill. There is also a lot of hype around Japanese food - especially Americanized sushi (mayo, massive rolls, lots of fried ingredients and spicy sauces) - so many restaurants (smartly) focus on presentation, which gets higher reviews from people who are looking for an experience, rather than an appreciation of traditional, quality Japanese food, which would seem bland and unexciting to many used to nontraditional versions. I always look at who is reviewing (what kinds of places they tend to like) and what they're saying about the place before weighting what they say. I also check the menu to see what is being served - is it really Americanized, does it look like it appeals to the party crowd? - to give context to what kind of place it is. Because of all these factors, it really won't make sense to compare ethnicity of restaurants and the reviews they get - different types of people go to these places, and the people rating have very diverse standards for what they're looking for.

dsrqd6

Why is puff pastry the universally accepted prepackaged ingredient that is not considered "cheating" at cooking?

Not much difference in quality premade versus making it from scratch or it’s just not worth the time. There are plenty of other things that fall into this category as well. Condiments and such. Like, could you make your own mustard? Yeah but you’re not going to.

lg9d40

I'm Mark Bittman, and I believe that food matters: Ask me anything you want about food! I was born and raised in NYC, and worked as a cabbie, a daycare teacher, a truck driver, and a traveling salesman before I started writing about food in 1980. After writing How to Cook Everything (1998), I became aware that food was about more than recipes and fun, and started writing about its global importance. Both my latest book, Animal, Vegetable, Junk and my brand new initiative, The Bittman Project, are about the path from farming to social justice to cooking to eating: Food is everything! Proof: https://i.redd.it/j5kfu5gfzbe61.jpg

Mark! I just wanted to let you know how much you have helped me in my life...for real. I was depressed, lost, and even suicidal. I had dropped out of University, and had no idea what to do with my life. My father saw this, and bought me your book, "How to Cook Everything", and something just "popped" in me. I devoured your book, completely. I read that book like a novel, and over the next six months I did almost nothing but cook your book. Finally, I realized how much "food matters", and decided to go to culinary school. I graduated top of my class, moved all over the country (Canada) to continue to cook, learn, and grow. I eventually went on to become a Chef, and ran one of the premiere wineries in Southern Ontario. That was over ten years ago, and I still tell people that nothing has changed my life more than your beautiful and perfect book. Thank you so much Mark, you truly saved my life, and are a wonderful person to look up to. Keep doing what you do Sir!

wmthmx

Why is celery almost always included in mirepoix? Onions are onions, they go in practically every soup or sauce. Carrots bring sweetness to balance the onions. Why is celery almost always included? What about these three ingredients make it such a standard for aromatics?

It adds a mineral taste that completes the base with its moderate amounts of sodium potassium and magnesium.

ew92zp

What’s that fancy way to cut whole potatoes called? For French dishes? They kind of look like a jewel? Describing it on google isn’t pulling anything up. Someone on here once told me (on a nuked alt, or I’d dig) that the best way to pan fry whole potatoes was to cut them into this special shape so the entire thing cooks evenly. I’m making the potatoes sautéed in butter from Mastering the Art of French Cooking on Saturday for a lunch party, and I wanted to start prep today. In the past, I cut the potatoes into the oval the recipe suggests, but there always seems to be a side or two of each potato that gets browner than others (and I thought I’d be fancier, honestly). But I can’t remember the name of it, much less how to do it. Thanks! Edit: if my memory is faulty and this isn’t a way to sauté potatoes, let me know, too!

Tournage is the act of turning vegetables into a ridiculous shape of consistent size for even cooking, a pleasing look for the eye and so every chef in the kitchen makes them the same damn way over and over again. Traditionally seven sides and blunt ends. The specific name depends on the size. Bouquetière- 3cm, Cocotte- 5cm, Vapeur- 6cm, Château- 7.5 cm and Fondante- huge. And yes, I can recite this verbatim a decade after it was drilled into my cranium.

luk2kg

What is the product that lots of inexpensive breakfast places use on their grill in place of butter? I don't really know what margarine tastes like, so it could be that, but a couple times a year I end up getting breakfast at a small local place that serves cheap food (like 4.99 for a breakfast platter). Every item that comes off the grill has the same wierd aftertaste, almost an acrid bitter flavor.

Liquid margarine. The place you go to is probably not cleaning their flat top very well.

s8o9up

The taste of certain food items has completely changed for me. Has this ever happened to you? Any ideas on what caused it? I’ve noticed over the last few months that the taste and smell of certain food items has completely changed for me. It’s hard to describe the sensation of taste sometimes, but I know my brain is telling me different things when eating certain things. I think I’ve narrowed it down to things I cook or sauté primarily in olive oil. Green peppers and onions when sautéed in olive oil taste and smell completely different than they did before. When I cook eggs in olive oil, they also taste different. The smell has changed as well. Has this every happened to any of you? Any idea on the cause? Thanks!

Bad oil or Covid. My buddy can’t drink coffee anymore and used to love it

mddvtb

Who uses curly parsley, when flat-leafed is as available, and why? Aside from the authenticity argument, under what circumstances would anyone choose curly parsley over flat-leafed? Is it just me who thinks flat-leafed is near universally superior? What dishes would you recommend to demonstrate curly parsely's worth?

As a chef, I can tell you curly parsley is 1000% easier to finely chop

l1ee1g

Is this Korean gochujang? https://i.imgur.com/ze9a8EB.jpg I was looking for gochujang to making a few Korean dishes but this was all I could find at my local grocery store. Thanks!

Yup. A few tips to look for Korean groceries: the tubs of various sauces are generally color-coded. Red for gochujang, tan for doenjang, green for ssamjang, etc. additionally Korean language is easy to identify by looking for circles as characteristic shapes of the letters. As a non-Korean married into a Korean family, these are a few starter tips that helped me create a hybrid pantry which includes both our cultures. Furthermore, the same brand Sempio makes really delicious soy sauce for future reference. I like the one in the orange packaging for general purpose.

gt5ffs

my dad gave me 12 pounds of dried of dried cherries.... What do I do with them? Someone my dad knew had waaaaaaaay too many dried cherries and was giving them out. I said I'd take some of them but now have no idea what to do with them. I put some in wild rice but now what? Especially looking for non desert ideas.

You are living a life I can only dream of. If I had 12 pounds of dried cherries I would eat 12 pounds of dried cherries and die happy. Anyways, they are great in granola, fruitcakes, chicha morada, and chocolate bark. You can also make something like this, or rice pudding.

mvj4dw

Maybe the wrong place to ask, but how did indian food become hot and spicy when chili peppers are from the new world? Are dishes that involve hot peppers a relatively new invention in relation to the history of India or did they take over for a different plant that once provided heat?

Here's an interesting interview with a botanist/historian about this exact topic. https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2018/07/11/how-chili-peppers-conquered-the-world-or-at-least-most-of-it

z2nsap

Halal help My son's best friend Muslim and eats Halal. They have requested tacos (the north american version, not the authentic one). I have purchased halal meat for them, but I don't want to make any mistakes as this is the first time he has had a friend over for dinner. Other than insuring that the meat is halal and there is no booze, are there any other details I should be aware of? I am a professional sous chef, so I can handle pretty much anything that needs doing, I just don't feel confident of my knowledge of Halal cooking. Thanks!

No booze. No pork product at all. You should be fine with that.

ufbptw

Why do a lot of stir-fries have you fry the garlic and ginger in the beginning while in western cooking they are generally some of the last ingredients to be added? Pretty much every recipe I've seen in stir-fries frying the aromatics, most of the time garlic and ginger, at the begging, and then they add the hardier vegetables and ingredients like onions and carrots. In Western cooking when frying anything you either dump the garlic with every other vegetable or only at the end after they soften.

When sweating aromatics you'll add garlic last as to not burn it. The same applies while stir-frying although it gets added first. It's to flavor the wok's oil. You almost immediately add other ingredients to cool the oil and stop the garlic from burning.

fufgcu

I’ve somehow misplaced my bottle of peppercorns. I’m not ready to go out for groceries and my area is currently having a burst of new COVID cases. What can I use instead? I have most basic spices I’d say, I’m out of a couple things. I do not have white pepper at the moment. Thanks!!

You could just not use it... Pepper makes most dishes better but very few are ruined without it

o8xea7

What’s the quickest way to make caramelized onion? Making caramelized onion is extremely time consuming. Are there any tricks to make this process easier and faster?

There really aren't many short cuts when developing the flavour. But, some tips from a chef who has made hundred of pounds of them while working for a french onion soup obsessed Ukrainian head chef/crazy person..... * Slice the onion thin, more surface area, quicker cook time. * Salt early to help it break down and release moisture. * Regularly deglaze the pan thru out the process, as fond builds up, add a little stock or even just water and take a flat wooden spatula to it. * Large pan over large burner so they are spread thin, more contact area.

m4g1e5

Please don't shame me. Frozen meat question: So I was cleaning out my freezer and discovered a frozen lamb leg (no bone) that had been in there for probably a year or... Or more... I don't remember buying it. The expiration date on it said June 2020. I put it in the fridge to defrost thinking that it'd probably be freezer burnt, but might as well try it. It was in my fridge, sealed, for a little less than a week. I cut the package open today and a whole bunch of red juice came out (myoglobin?). The meat didn't appear to be freezer burnt and it doesn't smell bad. It's a little more slimy than I had expected, but that probably the juices. Anyway, how likely is it that the meat is bad? I hate wasting meat, and I especially love lamb, and it is not cheap. Can I try cooking this? Or is it going to give me food poisoning?

No shame. If it smells fine go for it. It would be crazy to waste good food and lamb is expensive.