How long will bacon grease keep in the fridge?

Question

I kept all of the bacon grease from making bacon this weekend, and now I have a jar of solidified grease in the fridge. How long can I use this to impart bacony goodness to my fried vegetables before it goes bad?

Answer

Depends on how many solids and how much water you have in it. If you've rendered, filtered, and refined it, it should last a few weeks easy.

Note: my mother maintained it never EVER went bad, refrigerated or not. Lot of old time southern cooks will say the same, but they all go through it fast.

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Advice on meat cuts for German rouladen

Question

I've been trying to figure out the best cut of beef to use for a German rouladen recipe. From the butcher and Google searches I've seen advice ranging from slicing flank steak (how would that work?) to pounding out a top round steak. (The final slice needs to be about 1/4 of an inch thick and 3+ by 6+ inches long and wide.)

Could someone suggest a cut of meat and a process for arriving at right kind of slice? (I would like to avoid pounding/tenderizing if possible.)

Answer

The meat for rouladen is cut from the upper part of the hind legs of the cow, or Oberschale.

You definitely don't pound rouladen; pounded meat tends to re-contract somewhat under heat, and this unacceptable in this case. I don't know how to cut it that way at home. In Germany, the butcher sells the meat pre-cut to the correct size. I guess that he "peels" it from the cut with a sharp knife. As far as I remember, it isn't cut across the grain like steaks. And it has to be very thin, from memory I would say that 1/7 inch thickness is normal. On this site, you can see some close-ups of the raw meat, maybe the butcher can recognize how to cut it from that. (Don't worry about the text, the recipe is far from traditional. I only gave it as a good illustration of the raw cuts).

Also, rouladen are supposed to be tender. If possible, get veal. If not, young bull's meat is better than the normal beef used for steaks.

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What is the proper way to make a cup of mate?

Question

I've seen different videos on how to make a perfect cup of mate. After putting loose tea in the gourd, some people cover the gourd and shake it upside down, some people shake it on its side, some people don't shake it at all. This is all in an effort to move the smaller bits (after you've right the gourd back up) to the top, so that when you insert the bombilla (metal straw with tiny holes at the bottom), the smaller bits won't be sucked up.

What is the proper way?

Answer

The proper way:

1) Put the bombila into the gourd.

2) Put the mate in the gourd.

3) Invert, shake vigorously, revert.

4) Add a small amount of cold water (this isn't necessary--as I understand, this step helps to keep from burning the mate, which can also be accomplished by using water under 180*F), wait for a few minutes, until the mate absorbs the water.

5) Add hot water, drink.

6) Repeat step 5.

Don't move the bombila while drinking, as this will cause you to stir up little bits. Inverting and shaking isn't necessary if the mate is of high quality (low dust). You can make mate to low dust by putting it in a metal sieve and shaking. Save the dust and small leaves that fall out--they can be used to brew mate in a coffee pot.

It is also worth noting that you can brew mate in a coffee pot or a french press and achieve similar results, although the resulting beverage isn't quite the same as drinking from the bombila.

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Why does Béarnaise separate as opposed to crème brûlée or lemon curd?

Question

When making creme brulees in the oven, they are heated to something like 100° C, or over. When making bernaise, heating it like that is a sure way of making it separate.

As far as I've understood, it is the vinegar and the fat that separates, when the protein in the egg coagulates, and of course there is no vinegar in either creme brulee or lemon curd, but the protein still coagulates. Still, the result is silky smooth.

Why is this? All I have are guesses, and some small amount of culinary science to shed some light on this would be greatly appreciated.

Answer

I think that there are a few different concepts being conflated here - let's try to clear those up before getting to the heart of the matter.

First of all, acidity causes just about any dairy product to curdle. That is precisely how cheese is made. Acidity, salt, and heat are all catalysts in the curdling process. This does not, however, affect clarified butter, because curdling is a result of the milk proteins coagulating and binding to each other, and true clarified butter is just the butterfat - there is no milk protein left. Based on that, we can conclude that vinegar is definitely not the important factor, which is further evidenced by the fact that lemon curd will also have a fairly high acidity due to the citric acid in lemon juice.

Crème brûlée is also not heated to 100° C, or even close to it. Dairy products burn very quickly when they approach that temperature. Many recipes for crème brûlée or crème caramel - and IMO virtually all of the good ones - will have you use a bain-marie (water bath) for the express purpose of temperature control. Since egg yolks begin to coagulate at 63° C (145° F), a crème brûlée doesn't need to be heated much higher, although there are many recommendations for the optimal temperature that seem to average around 75° C (around 170° F). If you try boil a crème brûlée, it will almost certainly burn and quite possibly curdle too.

For this reason, I believe that at least part of the difference is simply in your perception of the heat. Ovens heat much more slowly than stoves. Béarnaise (or the very similar Hollandaise) doesn't get heated all the way to 75° C, but it does get heated up to around the 63° C coagulation temperature of egg yolks, which really isn't that far off. You might see the surface of your crème-whatevers sizzle a bit, but that doesn't mean the entire pastries are at the liquid's boiling point; if they were, they'd be ruined.

The rest of the difference is sort of what Bruce's explanation is saying, although I think he's got it backwards, and the reported Julia Child ratio is way off (it should be 2 egg yolks per 3-4 oz of butter, which is only 90-120 mL). The amount of egg yolk (which acts as an emulsifier) relative to fat or dairy is important, but in order for the answer to really make sense, it's also important to understand why.

Egg yolks and butter-fat compose an emulsion of proteins and fat. The fats don't do anything special in response to heat, but the proteins coagulate, and in the process they will try to bind to each other; given a generous enough amount of egg yolk emulsified with butter, if you (a) heat up the yolks past the coagulation temperature and (b) don't keep them extremely well-dispersed, you'll end up with buttery scrambled eggs.

When making crème brûlée - or any custard - you want full coagulation of the egg yolks, because the relatively small amount of protein-packed yolks (typically, anywhere from 10% to 20% of the heavy cream by weight, which is only 4-8% of the fat by weight) is easily dispersed, and the individual molecules can't get close enough to each other to coalesce; instead they form a semi-firm but sparse network around the fat, much like what a meringue does around air.

On the other hand, Béarnaise and Hollandaise are supposed to be sauces. You're trying to thicken but not coagulate the eggs - in other words, allow a very weak protein network to form. To make this partial coagulation have any noticeable effect on the sauce's consistency, you need (relatively speaking) substantially more protein - closer to 30% of the fat. This higher concentration of protein puts the protein molecules in much closer proximity; without constant dispersion (in the form of whisking) and low, slow heat, the proteins will quickly start to coagulate and coalesce, because there's nothing stopping the attraction. This causes flocculation or even outright coalescence of the emulsion, which is the point at which you get that nasty scrambled-egg consistency.

It's got nothing to do with fat:water and everything to do with protein:fat. Fat helps prevent the coagulation of proteins; this principle is applied everywhere including baking, where oil or butter is used to slow down gluten development from flour (not eggs) and keep baked goods from becoming tough and rubbery. The ingredients and cooking method are different in a custard, but the principle is the same.

Protein is the main character in egg-based sauces and in scrambled eggs; the main difference between the two (with custards being somewhere in between) is how much protein, how well dispersed it is, and how much it is allowed to coagulate. Sauces have more protein, less coagulation; custards have less protein with full coagulation.

The difference is not huge, but it's enough to tip the scales if you're not careful.

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Stirring butter toffee mixture while cooking

Question

When making toffee (equal parts sugar and butter, half-pinch of salt, water, vanilla) is it necessary to continually stir the mixture after it comes to a boil and the sugar has completely mixed in with the butter?

If it is not necessary, is it also not recommended? Or does it matter one way or the other?

Answer

I'm not sure it matters that much. In melting sugar for various candies, the reason for not stirring is so that you don't inadvertently cause the sugar to recrystalize. For toffee, that isn't a concern. I'd stir it at least enough to ensure it won't scorch, and not worry about it otherwise.

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Techniques for mixing bread dough with stand mixer

Question

Can anyone tell me what the best technique is for using a stand mixer to make bread dough?

I just got a stand mixer with a dough hook and have started using it for mixing and kneading bread dough. It seems that I have to add more flour than I would expect to get it to "pull away from the sides of the bowl".

What should I expect at the different stages? What determines how long should I mix/knead, is there a simple set time?

Answer

Mixing bread with a stand mixer will normally take 10-12 minutes, depending on speed. A lot of this smaller mixers will tend to 'walk' if they are not anchored. Look for the dough to be smooth and supple, but not shiny. If it is shiny, and appears wet, it is over mixed. To start, it will look choppy and rough, sometimes you will have to pull all of the dough off of the hook and start up again, because it seems the dough will gravitate to the top of the hook and that part of the dough will not mix properly. This of course depends on the dough consistency to start with. Remember that a crusty bread dough will be stiffer, and a sweet dough will be soft, and should have a spot on the bottom that doesn't clear the bowl.

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Cleaning habanero oils off of tools

Question

I made some habanero salsa last night for the first time (my god, was it delicious) and took care to clean everything that was used. I figured I was good when I had no problems taking my contacts out afterwards. So, fast forward to this morning. The slap chop was still out to dry (stop having a boring pepper, stop having a boring life!) so I put it all away aand then found out the hard way when I went to put my contacts in that I did not in fact clean the tools well enough.

So, I've now got a slap chop, 2 knives and a cutting board which all need to be cleaned of the oils. What's the best way to do this? I can throw them all into the dishwasher at once if needed, none of the plastics should melt.

Answer

You have a few options, including what should have worked. Capsaicin will dissolve in high-proof alcohol, so if you have a bottle of 151 you might have a go with that. Vinegar can also be used to dissolve the oils. These are probably more effort and expenditure than they're worth though.

You were on the right track; soap should have worked. In all likelihood, due to the concentration of the oils you simply did not wash it sufficiently. It requires quite a few passes (especially if the cutting board is porous) of hot, hot water and suds. As it is fat soluble you can try cleaning more thoroughly with most any soap with a de-greasing agent.

Moving forward, I have heard tell of spraying with non-stick spray to ward away the oils. I haven't felt some inordinate compulsion to do this and cannot attest to its efficacy, however with a slap chop and its nook and crannies you may find it a suitable use case.

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By what method, other than heat, can I cause the alcohol in a liquid to evaporate?

Question

If boiling and other heat methods cause a deterioration of flavor, What is the fastest way of accelerating the evaporation rate of alcohol in a liquid like beer?

Answer

You could try ice distillation: Stick it in the freezer, and skim off the ice. Keep the ice, discard the liquid and melt the ice.

If you had a freezer that you could precisely control the temperature, I believe there are certain preferred target temperatures, but simply checking on it frequently in a standard freezer should do the trick.

The vacuum based suggestions also sound good, if you have appropriate equipment for that.

Basically, you're asking about distillation in reverse. Traditional distillation is primarily boiling, but there's also a few traditions (applejack, eisbock) involving ice distillation. In ice distillation they're after a higher alcohol product and keeping the liquid (discarding the ice), but I believe if you switch which part you keep you'll get the same results.

Much like any other distillation, you may need to run through the process multiple times to get the desired result.

With beer, the primary flavoring is from compounds extracted from hops, which react with oxygen to produce unpleasant flavors. By "unpleasant" I mean turning the bitter and tangy flavors into something more like wet cardboard. So depending on what you're doing you may also need to protect your beer from exposure to oxygen. I believe with beer the real enemy is oxygen, with heat or light accelerating the undesirable reactions.

Depending on the style of beer, esters and phenols may also be important to the flavor. In styles where those flavors are desired, it's typically a wide mix, and it's quite possible some of them will evaporate easier than alcohol or be harder to freeze.

Note that no distillation method is "perfect", with all distillation methods you'll have water and alcohol in both outputs of the process, you'll just have a greater amount of alcohol in the evaporated or unfrozen part and a lesser amount in the unevaporated or frozen part.

Note also that in the US any process for separating alcohol from something else is illegal at home.

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What makes a chewy brownie?

Question

I've tried many different brownie recipes and most of mine bake to a cake-like consistency. The brownie holy grail for me is crusty top chewy brownies. What can I add/remove/do that will make my brownies chewier?

Answer

One of the most important factors in achieving a fudgy, chewy brownie is cooking time. Essentially you should be slightly undercooking the brownies so they don't dry out in the middle.

Use the cooking times given in recipes as a guide only, because each oven will vary. 5-10 minutes before they 'should' be ready, start testing the centre of the brownies with a toothpick or cake tester: unlike a cake, you want a good amount of sticky crumbs on the skewer (but very little liquid batter). Remember that the cooking process will continue even once the brownies are out of the oven.

Another factor that contributes to chewiness is the sugars you use: adding some sticky, dense, dark sugar will help create a fudgy brownie. The brownie recipe I use, which is pretty damn good, uses 1.5 cups of granulated sugar and .5 cup of packed dark brown sugar.

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Why does strata have to come to room temperature before baking?

Question

I've made strata a few times before, usually for brunches where I have a number of guests coming over and don't want to spend all my time in the kitchen. I always follow instructions in the recipe; I assemble it the night before, refrigerate overnight, and then let it come to room temperature and bake it in the morning.

I've never had any problems, but I'm planning on making this for New Year's brunch that I'm hosting, and I got to thinking about why I need to let the strata come to room temperature before baking it. (Every recipe I've seen for strata says to let it sit on the counter for at least a half an hour.) I bake mine in a glass casserole dish, so I know that one reason for this is to avoid extreme temperature change that could cause the dish to shatter. However, is there any chemistry or physics reason for this - i.e., would baking it (in a disposable aluminum pan, for instance) straight out of the fridge impact the taste/texture?

Answer

My guess - and this is just a (somewhat educated) guess - is that it's just to promote more even cooking.

Since you're talking about a layered dish, some parts are definitely going to cook faster than others. If the entire dish starts from room temperature, as opposed to fridge temperature, then that means less time is required to cook it through. Less time and less heat required to cook means that all of the layers will be more likely to end up at similar internal temperatures - as opposed to having burned bread, liquefied cheese, or rubbery eggs (I'm not sure offhand which cooks the fastest).

Even if it's not an issue with the thermal capacities of your individual ingredients, you're also layering these each several times over, creating a very dense product, so there would still be a significant risk of the middle layers being undercooked, or the outer layers being overcooked.

You might be able to bake it straight out of the fridge; however, you would definitely have to increase the cooking time to account for the temperature difference, and there are a lot of variables that come into play which would affect how evenly it cooks: the intensity and location of your oven's heat source(s), the density of the casserole, the kind of baking dish you use - I probably wouldn't chance it, at least not when preparing this for other people.

You tend to see the same recommendation for anything particularly dense, such as a roast, or anything layered, such as a lasagna, and generally, you do want to follow those recommendations for the same reason. They cook rather poorly if you cook them from cold or frozen, leaving you with a charred surface and an only-mostly-cooked interior. It can still happen even if you start off at room temperature, but it's less likely and the effect tends to be less pronounced.

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My Baba Ghanoush is too watery

Question

I tried cooking Baba Ghanoush for the first time and though tasty I didn't quite get the expected results.

It was watery instead of creamy like the ones I had had.

I used equal parts of eggplant and tahini and a bit of lemon juice and garlic.

Now I wonder if I used too much eggplant or I didn't cook the eggplant enough as it was like a sponge full of water when I cut it.

How much time and at which temperature should I bake the eggplant? Or is there some external sign to know it's ready to be used for Baba ganoush? To me it looked and tasted "well done" as it was.

Answer

Sounds like you didn't roast sufficiently or not sufficiently hot. The outside should be really charred, and the inside will be not so watery.

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Painted Pony beans pate

Question

I'm going to make a pate using Painted Pony beans as a base. Plus I want to add roasted walnuts. But I don't know whether basil and garlic would be acceptable to put to the dish. Also what spices would you advice?

Thanks!

Answer

Well basil and garlic could fit well with the walnuts (think about pesto, basil, garlic, cheese and nuts).

With the bean paste... I don't know, I guess it depends what kind of tone you would like to give to the dish. Stated that the only way to know is to try, I would also try with nutmeg and, if you're brave, maybe even a pinch of cinnamon!

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How to get rids of flies and ants after you put cooked meals on the table?

Question

From my understanding, I tried using vinegar and draw a loop around my meals to prevent attracting the ants. As to prevent the flies, I use another plate to cover my meals. This can be a hard time for cleaning because of the need to clean the plates (that is used to cover the meals) and also the table with the vinegar.

Are there better ways?

Answer

Another option for covering plates to keep flies away is a mesh net: here's one example I found by using Google to search for flycover food. This won't come into contact with the food, unlike the plate you currently use or the newspaper @AnishaKaul suggests.

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How do you protect a pizza peel?

Question

I got a pizza peel that feels like it is just plain wood. How can I protect it? I thought I heard somewhere to use some sort of oil.

Answer

I don't do anything for my peels. I only wash them if they get sauce on them, and then only with hot water and a gentle sponging. Never soak them with water. If you want to add a bit of water resistance, you could use some cutting board oil (a.k.a. mineral oil) to add some protection.

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Suggestions for convenient and safe methods of transporting a few meals without a vehicle?

Question

I'd like to prepare a few meals for a cousin who recently gave birth. She lives about an hour and a half away, and I will be walking and taking public transportation to get there.

Does anyone have any suggestions or tips for convenient ways to tranport the food? I am looking for sturdy, easy to carry bags that will keep the food from sliding around and will keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold.

Answer

I think in general it is much safer to transport food cold (frozen, even) than hot. You can buy soft-sided insulated bags with straps - I see them in the grocery store - that should be ok for a trip of that length. I buy frozen food and then drive home for an hour with it, put it straight in the freezer, and would laugh at the thought of there being food-safety issues with that. So one approach is to make a lasagna, casserole, or the like in a disposable container, freeze it at home, take it to your relative's and put it in her freezer. Now she has a semi-quick (but at least easy) meal waiting for her.

(A side note from remembering my days with an infant: something that heats up FAST and can be eaten with one hand will be more useful than a serves-12-needs-a-fork-heats-for-an-hour option. In other words burritos (2 min in microwave, can eat while holding the baby) beat lasagna (60+ min in oven, you can forget and dry it out or burn it, then you need a plate and a knife and fork to eat it.) Samosas are good one-handers, too.)

If you want to take something that is ready-to-eat, you could use the same bag to keep hot food hot, but I would probably suggest heating it up again on arrival.

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Why does Angel Food Cake use a tube pan?

Question

I know from Can an Angel Food Cake recipe be converted to cupcakes that it is possible to make Angel Food Cake in a form other than a tube pan.

However, I'm wondering if there is a reason that Angel Food Cake is usually made in a tube pan. Is there an advantage to that shape? Other cakes are not usually made in a tube pan, so I'm wondering why that's the traditional shape for Angel Food Cake. Is there something about the nature of Angel Food Cake that requires the extra internal heat?

Answer

Structure is the main reason a tube pan is used for angel food cake. Angel food cake rises a lot, but does not have much of any gluten network or other means of supporting this structure. The egg whites can hold the air bubbles initially, but will lose them eventually. (Hence you should not delay baking after the batter is mixed, and you should treat the batter gently, spooning into the pan and taking care to not slam the pan around.) The tube pan helps because as the batter rises, it can "climb" the pan, sticking to the edges. This is also why angel food cake is left to cool upside-down in the pan for an unusually long time; it should not be removed from the pan until it is completely set. If it weren't for the tube, the center of the cake would not have anything strong to hold it up, so it would collapse. This is not an issue for cupcakes because they are so small.

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Is it true about a dull knife being more likely to cut you?

Question

I've heard people argue that a dull knife is more likely to cut you than a sharp one. The argument is that you are more likely to cut yourself by applying too much pressure with the dull knife. When too much pressure is applied, you jeopardize your control over the knife and it puts you in a position to cut yourself.

Is this true?

Answer

To my experience, the cutting "trajectory" (not sure if that's the right vocab) of a dull knife is less consistent and less controllable than a sharpened one, and is more subject to be influenced by the texture of the material being cut, especially cutting something hard, thick and fiber-ish such as carrot or big melon.

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Are Asian Pears Bitter? Mine Was

Question

I bought an Asian pear the other day and let it ripen for about a week since it was still very firm when I bought it. When I ate it, I found it to be very bitter and almost inedible because of its rotten taste. However, it looked fine, came from a good grocery store and was stored properly. I've never had one before, so I don't know if they are usually so bitter. Did I have a rare experience or are they usually so bitter?

I was so surprised because the sign at the store for the Asian pears said they were sweat, juicy and the most flavorful of pear varieties.

I looked online and found no mention of Asian pears being bitter, so I suspect it was just this one pear, but maybe I just didn't do enough research.

Answer

I think you got a bunk pear.

I've never had a bitter asian pear. The grocery store sign is correct; they are sweeter and juicier than other pears.

Unlike other pears, asian pears are typically picked when ripe. They also are supposed to be quite firm and crisp when ripe. You should be able to smell the sweetness of a ripe asian pear. Maybe your week "ripening" it spoiled it? Not sure what the conditions were, but it is strange because they have an excellent shelf life.

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What was wrong with using White Truffle Oil?

Question

On the show "Chopped", a contestant was running out of time to finish his entrée (using the mystery ingredients: gingersnaps, sweet potatoes, farina and turbot), and his dish did not have a sauce, so without any time to make one, the chef got a bottle of white truffle oil and dribbled a little amount on the plate.

The judges were horrified and screamed out "Noooo!" when he did this.

He got chopped.

What was so wrong with what he did with the white truffle oil?

Answer

It most likely contained artificial truffle flavoring (a synthetic agent such as 2,4-dithiapentane), and the judges were purists. Little to no real truffle flavor is used in truffle oils.

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How to make a frothy icing?

Question

I bought a tin of ready-made chocolate icing from the super market. But it's very dense and viscous while I prefer the more airy kind of icing the cakes from the bakery have. Can I do something to turn my icing into something like that?

Answer

Just to summarise the comments into an answer:

To lighten the icing, you can add air to it by whipping, either by hand or with an electric mixer. It will probably be easier to do that if you loosen it a little with some milk or cream.

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What types of sauces would pair well with boiled pork knuckles?

Question

I'm going to be boiling some pork knuckles. What type of sauce would be a good pairing?

I am guessing that because pork knuckles are fatty, the sauce should tend to be sour or pepper-ish to balance out the fatty taste?

Answer

One traditional accompaniment for pork is apple sauce. This follows the convention that a fruity sauce cuts through the fattiness of meat - duck a l'orange is another example.

Apple sauce is easy to make - just taking a cooking apple, chop it up, stew it down with a little water, then stir in some sugar and butter to taste.

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How to boil pork knuckle?

Question

My family would like to eat pork knuckle (ideally the Germany/Austrian style but not necessary as long as they taste fine). I looked up various receipt but most require an oven, which I don't have (No! I do not have an oven!). I also do not have large enough fry pan - just one small enough to cook up the gravy.

I do have a very large boiling pot though; so I wonder in what way can I cook the pork knuckle just by boiling it and still manage to make it tasty. Should I add salt, tomato sauce, oil or what sort of seasoning in the boiling water? And normally in what way and how long it takes to boil pork knuckle to tender?

Some has suggest to boil pork knuckle in Coca Cola to make it tender and taste...Any creative receipt is also welcome.

Answer

When I was a child every christmas day we would have ragout des pattes de cochon (pigs feet stew) With meatballs in it. It is definetly possible to cook pigs feet in a pot!

That being said, I have never done it myself. This looks like a good recipe, you can get a good idea of what to do.

http://www.food.com/recipe/rago-t-de-pattes-de-cochon-pork-stew-with-meatballs-398226

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What is freezer burn?

Question

What causes freezer burn?

How can I tell if meat has freezer burn?

Answer

Freezer burn is just the food being dehydrated. Most meat will change color, and it becomes very obvious if you defrost it. It's not unsafe: just yucky.

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Should chicken be cooked beforehand while making pizza?

Question

I was just wondering if I can arrange raw chicken on the pizza base and cook everything along or if I should cook the chicken first separately.

Answer

Cook the chicken ahead of time. I doubt your pizza cooking time and your chicken cooking time will be a perfect match, and it is more likely than anything that your chicken would be undercooked. That would not be good for anyone.

If you are worried about the chicken being dry on your pizza, you can try par-cooking the pieces instead of fully cooking them (though that may be a little dangerous, too), or you can add the cooked pieces to the pizza after it has begun baking.

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Searing after sous viding - what temperature?

Question

I just got a sous vide supreme for christmas and I am super excited to use it. Many of the recipes I have seen online suggest to sear the meat after cooking to provide a crust. No problem.

My question is about doneness - If I want a medium rare steak, I would cook it to 125-130. With a sous vide and an after bath sear - should I still cook it to 125, or should I cook it to 115 and let the pan finish cooking it?

Thoughts?

Thanks

Answer

The searing applied after sous-viding should not be enough to alter the temperature of the meat notably. All you're trying to do with the sear is create the flavorful crust on the outside of a piece of meat via the Malliard reaction, not accomplish any cooking of the interior of the meat itself. This is best done by applying very high heat for a very short amount time, usually just a few seconds. Some like doing this via pan-searing or on a very hot grill, but I usually use a high-powered blowtorch. The important thing is that you not sear for so long that interior of the meat has a chance to notice. A perfectly sous-vided piece of meat should be a uniform color throughout, except for a heavily seared crust. There shouldn't be any gray band of over-cooked meat under the crust. Avoiding that is why you're sous-viding in the first place.

Also, I find 125-130 to be a touch on the rare side. For a good medium rare, 133-135 gives me better results.

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When is it necessary to put foil over a pie's crust?

Question

In the past, when I have made pumpkin pie, I have never put foil around the edge of the crust of the pie. Yesterday, I baked a pie with someone else, and they insisted that the foil was necessary to prevent the pie crust from burning. I have noticed the a lot of recipes for pies other than pumpkin (frequently covered pies like strawberry-rhubarb) explicitly call for aluminum foil on the crust.

When does a pie crust need to be covered in foil while baking?

Answer

Generally speaking, when the length of the cooking time required to cook the filling correctly is such that the crust would burn if it wasn't covered.

It is usually more necessary when you have blind-baked the crust, but I must say I've cooked a lot of pies in my time and never covered the crust because I'm always careful to par-bake the crust just enough to seal it and no more.

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Can brownie dough sit?

Question

I've been making brownies lately, and my last brownie turned out like dwarf bread. As the recipe and the oven/time haven't changed, my guess is that the preparation went wrong.

I mixed all the ingredients, (just like always) and then walked away to have lunch. After lunch, I tried to pour the batter in the mold, but it was impossible to pour.

Is my analysis correct and, more importantly, is there anything that can be done if the batter does have to sit for a while? Can it be gently heated?

Edit Chocolate & Margarine gently heated together. Sugar and Eggs beaten. Mixed together. Added flour & hazelnut.

Answer

If the flour is self-rising flour, then it shouldn't be allowed to sit for too long. However, this wouldn't result in it being "impossible to pour" - it would just prevent the item(s) from rising properly when baked.

If I had to guess, I would point to the chocolate as the culprit. If your batter/dough recipe uses melted chocolate (as opposed to just cocoa powder) then it is almost certainly going to solidify again as it cools. In which case, you can simply heat it again (gently - you don't want cook the eggs!) to loosen it up a little before pouring it.

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How long can I leave a freshly baked cheesecake out before it goes in the refrigerator?

Question

We just baked a cheesecake and are heading over to family's house for the rest of the evening. Is it ok to leave the cheesecake out for 6 hours or so before being refrigerated?

Answer

Referring to the quotes from the below links;

• “Baked cheesecake should be refrigerated as soon as it is cool or it may develop harmful bacteria from heat resistant spores.” http://www.canfightbac.org/cpcfse/en/cookwell/ask/dairy/#2085

• “Foods made with eggs and milk such as pumpkin pie, custard pie and cheesecake, must first be safely baked to a safe minimum internal temperature of 160 °F. Then, they must be refrigerated after baking. Eggs and milk have high protein and moisture content and when these baked products are left at room temperature, conditions are ripe for bacteria to multiply. It's not necessary to refrigerate most other cakes, cookies or breads unless they have a perishable filling or frosting.” http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/Hotline_Answers_Panic_Button_Questions/index.asp

When to throw it out; a quote from the link below;

“Refrigerator Foods When to Save and When to Throw It Out
FOOD..................... Held above 40 °F for over 2 hours
Cheesecake............ Discard http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/keeping_food_safe_during_an_emergency/index.asp

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What makes a souffle rise?

Question

A successful souffle is usually one that rises high above its own vessel. What active ingredients / parts of a souffle (regardless of the type of souffle) typically makes it lift or rise?

Answer

Short answer: Steam.

Long answer: Proteins in egg whites are almost uniquely suited to making foams of tiny bubbles, then stretching like a web of bungee cords as the water inside these bubbles turns to steam in the oven. Therefore, the critical element in making your souffle rise is the skill with which you whip the whites into a foam to the correct degree (just to stiff peaks, not over-whipped), followed by integrating (folding) that foam into the dense, flavor-filled base. There are a few tricks for augmenting the rise -- e.g., using a pinch of tartaric acid in the whites, using a copper bowl -- but if your technique is poor, these things won't make enough of a difference.

Alton Brown ("Good Eats" TV show) has an excellent program explaining the whole thing, including some basic chemistry, available free on YouTube: Part 1 Part 2

By the way, you said that a successful souffle must rise above the vessel. While rising high is a major goal, I would not limit success to that event. Last night, I made chocolate souffle that only crested the vessel a little ways (not the ideal "double the volume"), but each bite was still ethereal and decadent at the same time. Everyone's plate was clean. THAT, to me, is a successful souffle.

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Are fungal toxins a significant problem in coffee, and if so, can they be avoided?

Question

I stumbled across this blogpost which claims that coffee is awesome for our bodies but only if it doesn't have mycotoxins (toxins generated by fungi).

To quote them:

One study showed that 91.7% of green coffee beans were contaminated with mold. This is before they were processed, which allows even more mold to grow. Another study showed 52% of green coffee beans and almost 50 percent of brewed coffees are moldy. Coffee is easily one of the largest sources of mycotoxins in the food supply.

They conveniently sell coffee beans that underwent a different process and don't have mycotoxins, so I have to wonder if this is a real problem and if there are ways to avoid it besides buying from them.

Perhaps buying green beans and processing them somehow so the fungi are washed away?

Answer

Time to apply a bit of healthy skepticism here:

The blog post:

• Is (so far) the first and only one I've ever seen stating mold to be a practical problem in coffee - in the sense of being present in a high enough quantity to matter (mold grows everywhere).
• Uses all kinds of weasel words to describe symptoms ("edgy", "cranky", "useless mentally").
• Describes symptoms that are well in line with plain old caffeine withdrawal.
• Frequently links to other blog posts on the same site, most of which are "top 10 ways" and "top 5 reasons" fluff pieces.
• Manages to cite and thoroughly misuse two studies: one from 1995, and another from 2003. Both are about Ochratoxin A (OA), which isn't even the biggest risk; Aflatoxin is. (More on these later).
• Advertises a fairly expensive product, sold by the same author.

The author:

• Is, according to his LinkedIn profile (which I refuse to link here), the VP of Cloud Security at Trend Micro - a Silicon Valley tech company. Neither he nor his employer has any experience in human biology or nutrition.
• Makes all sorts of fantastical claims about himself: "He upgraded his brain by >20 IQ points, lowered his biological age, and lost 100 lbs without using calories or exercise."
• Has an entire page of testimonials, which he frequently cites as "evidence".
• Has an entire site dedicated to product-peddling, including the ubiquitous six-second abs (yes, that's hyperbole) and even a $60 "earthing mat", if you can believe that. Go ahead, see for yourself.
• Has the following highly-encouraging and no doubt legally-required disclaimers on the product site (all in tiny print at the bottom, of course):

  _{The statements made on this website have not been evaluated by the FDA (U.S. Food & Drug Administration). Our products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.}

  _{The information provided by this website or this company is not a substitute for a face-to-face consultation with your physician, and should not be construed as individual medical advice. The testimonials on this website are individual cases and do not guarantee that you will get the same results.}

• Is, in short, not much different from every other con artist and MLM out there on the web selling colon cleansers and magnetic bracelets; he just likes to use technobabble instead of conventional pseudoscience, hoping to woo the geeks out there who don't fall for the usual snake oil.

The facts and studies:

• The largest sample tested was just 60 samples of beans, and was tested from only one source (Brazil). This is fine for individual studies, but in the real world there are hundreds (thousands?) of sources from many different countries. It's safe to say that the current studies don't even come close to testing all of the coffee from around the world.
• Both OA studies found an incidence rate of approximately 50% for the OA-producing mold, at wildly different concentrations (minimum 0.2 ppb in one study, maximum 7.8 ppb in another). If this tells me anything at all, it's that you should probably vary your source if you want to minimize your risk.
• Neither the FDA nor the EFSA actually have a legal limit for OA, but the EFSA "suggests" a limit of 8 µg/kg, which means that even the worst samples are below the very conservative legal limit.
• One study actually tested the incidence of OA in brewed coffee, not just the beans, and found a maximum of 7.8 ppb in the brew (that's 7.8 µg per 1 kg of ground coffee).
  • For reference, there's an EFSA directive recommending an intake of no more than 120 ng/kg (body weight) per week, which comes out to 8.4 µg/day for a 150 lb/70 kg individual, or 1.2 µg/day.
  • Based on the worst contamination of brewed coffee (7.8 µg/kg), doing the math, you'd have to consume the brew from 150 g of ground coffee per day. That's about half a standard-sized tin of coffee. Per day. If you drink that much coffee, shame on you.
• The 3rd study (the one rumtscho linked to, not cited by the blogger/con artist) looked at Aflatoxin, not Ochratoxin, which actually is regulated by the FDA at a maximum of 20 ppb. This study also showed approximately a 50% incidence rate after roasting, with the highest concentration of AT being 16 µg/kg for decaf (less with caffeine). So that means with any random cup of coffee you have up to a 50% chance of consuming an amount of AT that's still well below the FDA limit - that's very nearly zero risk.
• None of the studies test the rate of mold growth on beans while in storage under various conditions (temperature, humidity, etc.), so we can't comment on what happens in storage. So I guess if you want to really be on the safe side, only buy as much coffee as you think you can use in a week or two.

Conclusion:

Don't believe everything that people tell you - especially people with something to sell. Unless you're drinking gallons of coffee a day, brewed coffee is perfectly safe.

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How to make chocolate fondant?

Question

I am willing to add a 2-3mm thick chocolate fondant coating to my home made biscuits. I believe this is very common, but I have no idea how to do this.

The fondant should be pretty solid (not liquid or fluffy), opaque and should not melt at room temperature.

Thank you for any suggestion!

Answer

You can't really substitute marshmallows in that recipe. I have had some luck with the following procedure:

1. Get a good quality chocolate of the flavour you would like to use. Do not try chocolates with 70% cocoa solids or more. They are good for some things, but not for this.

2. Melt it in a double boiler. Do not make the chocolate boil or heat it directly (some can do that but most people end up with burned chocolate). Remove it from the heat.

3. Fold in 2 spoons of glycose syrup (for regular nonmilky chocolate) and mix fast. Let it cool and when it gets close to room temperature, put it in the fridge. For darker chocolates, use a bit more glucose and less for lighter chocolates.

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Topping bread with poppy seeds or sesame seeds

Question

Should the seeds be sprinkled over the dough before baking, or will they burn?

Should they be soaked first to prevent burning?

Should a wash (cornstarch?) be used to stick them to the dough?

Anything else I need to know?

Answer

You should sprinkle them onto the dough before baking. They shouldn't burn, but they will toast and release some tasty oils. You don't need to soak them either.

Using a wash depends on the wetness of your dough. If it's fairly wet, you'll probably be fine. If it's a drier, more stable dough, use a simple egg wash, which will help the seeds stick and give a nice glossy finish to the top of your loaf.

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Is food with hair in it (or food which had hair in it) safe to eat?

Question

Occasionally I'll find a hair in my food. If I find one in say a restaurant, I won't eat my food, but I can't just throw out an entire platter of food if at home where my own grandma worked hard to cook it for me. In that case, I'll generally pick the hair out and continue eating (at least in that case I know where the hair has been).

If a hair falls into food in preparation, is the food still safe to serve/eat once the hair is removed? What are the potential hazards of serving food with a hair still in it?

Answer

-- Hair is a protein mostly keratin

Keratin refers to a family of fibrous structural proteins. Keratin is the key of structural material making up the outer layer of human skin. It is also the key structural component of hair and nails.

There's nothing special about it as a protein, so as long as it doesn't wrap around your tonsils and get stuck in your throat, or contain dyes, hairspray etc. it's safe to eat. However, the long stringy nature of the stuff can cause problems if you eat too much of it.

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How do you reduce a cream sauce?

Question

My wife made a cream based sauce last night and the recipe said to "reduce" it. The cream sauce was comprised of some white wine, couple cups of heavy cream and chicken broth (my wife substituted water for the broth)

I looked up how to reduce a sauce, and it basically said to heat it up til most of the liquid evaporates and the sauce gets thicker. Makes sense, but the website I was on said that the liquid should simmer on low heat while reducing. I was doing this but it was taking forever and was still very thin (~30 minutes). I cranked up the heat to high and that sped things up, but I'm wondering what the proper way to do it is.

Should she not have added water? Was there something else we missed? Or does it really take that long to reduce a cream sauce?

Answer

The simple answer is: You reduce a cream sauce the same way you reduce any other sauce, by simmering it until a certain amount of liquid is gone, just like the instructions said. You have to be careful about temperature though, because milk (or cream) can burn at high temperatures, and then your sauce is ruined. You should keep it to a low or at most medium simmer.

Cream sauces normally tend to thicken extremely fast, so the long cooking time is almost certainly due to watering it down. I don't think the water was necessary at all; the chicken broth was probably for flavouring, and although "broth" is a somewhat nebulous term, one would normally expect a broth to contain at least some amount of gelatin, which will cause the sauce to thicken substantially when it cools if you reduce it a lot. Water doesn't, so you've added no flavour and thinned out the sauce.

Basically, you (or your wife) added water for no other purpose than to try to evaporate it later. Water generally doesn't go in a cream sauce. If you don't have chicken broth or can't use it, I would either substitute more wine or just leave it out completely. Usually the only time you substitute water for broth is if it's actually the base of your sauce.

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How long should a 4-5 pound rib roast take in an infrared cooker?

Question

I'm going to attempt to cook a 4-5 pound rib roast in an infrared cooker. Specifically, a Big Easy Infrared Turkey Fryer.

Everything I've read says that it's done when it's done. I understand the sentiment there, but I would like to know an approximate time so that I can have other foods prepared to hit the table at the same time.

How do I estimate how long this will take?

Answer

I'd use the recipe they have on their site for pork shoulder as a guideline, since it's very similar in terms of size and shape to a beef roast (just not as heavy).

They estimate 10 minutes per pound, which is more or less consistent with the per-side estimate of most broiler recipes (which is very similar to infrared cooking).

So start with an estimate of 40-50 minutes but do what they recommend and monitor the temperature very carefully.

I have to point out that 4-5 pounds is very heavy/large for high-heat cooking methods like broiling or grilling (or infrared); it's not the same as infrared "frying" a turkey or a leg of lamb which has a very high surface area/weight ratio. Steaks would no doubt come out great this way but larger roasts respond better to roasting, so don't be too surprised if your roast starts to get seriously charred on the outside before it's sufficiently cooked on the inside.

You might want to consider starting with smaller, 2-3 lb roasts, and move up the weight next time if those come out perfectly. Based on their claims, it should take roughly the same amount of time for one large item vs. two smaller items anyway.

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What causes lemons to be bitter when cooked and how to avoid it?

Question

I know that the bitter taste in lemons is due to the rind (the white part), but I don't understand why there are recipes where it's ok and others where the taste is just terrible.

I recently experimented by mixing curry with limes and lemons. I cut the lemons and placed the slices over chicken thighs that I cooked in the oven. At one point I tasted it and the flavour was good but the meat was slightly uncooked. I left it for another 30 min and when I took it out it was really bitter, so much that there was just a hint of curry.

So, is it time dependant then? Does the cooking method (direct heat, wet heat) have any influence? Can it be avoided by taking out the lemons at a determined point? I love the "citrusy" flavour, specially with chicken and fish, but never seem to get it right. Thanks for any help.

Answer

You can try a few things.

1. Use just the zest from the peel, and then slice and remove the pith and use just the inside.
2. Pre-boil the lemon peels, then add them to your main dish.
3. Remove the lemons before the bitterness gets too strong (i.e. when you tasted the dish the first time) but while there's still a strong taste.

This works because the citrus oils (which are a major primary flavor contributor) are just in the top layer of the peels, while the acid is in the inside. The pith is just plain bitter.

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What is the easiest way to shred chicken?

Question

Usually I will just cook it and then tear it to pieces using two forks, but this is still pretty time consuming. Are there any secret ways to easily do this?

Answer

Once it's cooled down some, I switch to using my hands ... expecially as it helps to find any bones, globs of fat, etc. I find it goes much faster, particularly if you're dealing with anything other than boneless breast meat.

... but it shreds easiest while it's still warm, so if I'm doing a fair bit, I'll break a bit apart using forks, let that cool, break some more apart with a fork, then shread the first bit before it cools too much, repeat. (so basically, I have one set broken down somewhat to cool faster while I'm shreding an already-cooled off bit).

update as justkt mentioned, the cooking method matters -- roasting and other high heat methods are going to cook the outside faster than the inside. I typically poach my chicken if I'm going to be shreding it -- bring water to a boil, add chicken, bring back to a boil, turn to low, then leave for an hour or two ... the low temp gets it all nice and tender, while the boiling kills surface bacteria.

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How can I quickly save a tasteless curry?

Question

I made a curry last night for this evenings meal.

The main components of it are aubergines, yoghurt, ginger, tumeric, cumin and chilli.

After cooking it I tasted it and it is sadly quite tasteless. I think the mistake I made is having too much aubergine for the quantity of spices I put with it.

I won't have much time from when I get home tonight to fix the curry before we eat it.

What's the best thing to do?

Is it safe to just dump a load of raw gingerand spices in or is there a better way?

Edit

It is (supposed to be) an indian curry. It is based on a recipe for a lamb curry. I replaced the lamb with aubergines (without paying too much attention to quantities...)

Answer

Indian curry traditionally has - in addition to the ginger, turmeric, cumin and chili (I assume you mean chili powder) that you used - a generous amount of garam masala, coriander powder, and garlic.

Sometimes you'll see "curry powder" used in recipes instead of garam masala; they are similar but not exactly the same.

Either one of these would be fine, and arguably the most important missing ingredient here. I'm not even sure you could legitimately call it a curry without one of the above.

Depending on your spice tolerance, you might need to add more chili powder as well.

Note that most spices in a curry will need to be heated before they'll really release their aromas (and therefore flavour), so you can't just add them cold, and I definitely don't think you'd want the taste of raw garlic/ginger in your curry, even if it is presently tasteless. Give it a good simmer after adding some garlic (powder is fine) and garam masala or curry powder and you might be able to salvage it.

Or you could try heating the new spices dry, for a very short time, to give them a bit of a head start aroma-wise; just be very careful not to burn them.

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How to cook cubed fish for a fish taco (tortilla)

Question

Today someone at work described eating a delicious halibut taco. I've never had one before but it sounds awesome, so I'm going to try to make one some time this week (but since I have a lot of salmon in stock, I'm going to make it with salmon instead of halibut). I'd rather not grind the fish - ground fish does not sound like something that's too interesting to eat. So, I was thinking I'll just cut the fish into cubes, and fry them up, then throw the cooked cubes into a tortilla, roll up with some sauce, and serve (to myself). If it turns out good it would be a great recipe to share with friends and family.

However this is not something I've done before. I know fish breaks apart quite easily when cut into small bits, so is it even possible to preserve "fish-cubes" in a frying pan or will all the little cubes break into a flaky mess? Or, maybe it would be better to cook the whole fish first and then dice it afterwards?

If anyone has any advice or suggestions on how to create awesome fish-cubes (or just any general advice about how to prepare a salmon for a fish taco) please let me know.

Answer

Don't cut it up before cooking, do it after cooking. This is a common issue with many Mexican style recipes

Coat the fish with your spice mix, and cook as desired. When done, cut into cubes/chunks or flake onto your tortilla

Usually thinner fillets work best for this style in regards to surface area exposed to spices etc

Do the same for beef tortilla, spice and cook a steak, then slice it up thin and add it to your tortilla

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Cookies called monte cows?

Question

A family member recently inherited a recipe for some simple but delicious crumbly cookies from her grandmother. They consist of flour, sugar, and canola oil with cinnamon on top.

The grandmother in question calls them "monte cows". No one knows the correct pronunciation, meaning or origin of the name. Does something by a similar name exist? What is it really called and why?

Answer

The way my French boyfriend and French roommate (both with Spanish grandmothers) pronounce the name, it does sound like "Monte Cows," or "monte cailloux." As far as I have been explained this cookie have resulted from a mix ofMuslim/Ottoman cuisine and Spanish cuisine; it's definitely not French. It is also affectionately referred to as a "poor person's cookie" because of its super-simple ingredients.

The recipe is a simple ratio of 3:2:1 -- 3 parts flour, two parts sugar, one part oil (we've used canola or peanut, both work well). We've used measuring cups or just regular mugs or even small bowls and it has worked every time. If they're a tiny bit dry and crumble too easily when you're shaping them, adding a tiny bit more oil helps keep everything together. Cinnamon sprinkled on top is great, and I tried adding a tiny half-teaspoon of almond extract once.

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For a baking beginner, what cake icing you recommend?

Question

I am a beginner in cooking/baking.
I have tried a couple of cake and muffin recipes, the simple ones turn into a hard crust after a while.

There are good ones that need temperature measurements and are complicated for me to make like "Cake Decorating: How to Make Buttercream Icing" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9xIxBbocYI

Is there a simpler one that a novice can make, for general cake or muffin icing?

Answer

Buttercream is pretty simple, start with room temperature butter, beat it until it's white, slowly add icing sugar, add small amounts of milk as needed to keep the consistency right.

For each 1/4 cup (1 stick) of butter, use about 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar (sifted) and 3 Tbsp of milk. You can do it in a mixer, a food processor, or just use a bowl and a whisk. I used a whisk a few days ago when I realized my large stand mixer is overkill for the small amount of icing I wanted and I found that microwaving the icing for about 10 seconds helped me stir in the sugar when it was getting too thick.

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In what way is kosher chicken different from brined chicken in terms of salt absorbtion?

Question

Ideally I want all parts of my chicken to absorb a good amount of salt. I think brining is best but somebody has suggested kosher chicken. How is kosher salted differently and will all parts of kosher chicken be salted to the point where it is plump and juicy as you get when brining?

Thanks

Answer

I explained several of the differences in my answer to Brining a kosher bird and also discussed some issues relating to salt consistency in a much earlier answer to Chicken comes out salty... occasionally.

To make a long story short, kashering is a long process with many steps, but the part you're concerned with is similar to the "dry brining" technique some people are fond of using for Thanksgiving turkeys. The meat is salted directly - no water is used - and it is left to rest for a much shorter period, about 1 hour, before finally being rinsed and packed.

Kosher meat isn't "juicy" like brined meat at all; in fact, all other things being equal, it will come out much drier and tougher than unkosher meat, because in the process of drawing out blood (the reason for salting in kashering), a good deal of moisture is drawn out as well. Brining adds moisture to the tune of about 10%; kashering takes moisture away by a similar amount.

Aside from drying out, the only culinary differences you'll find with kosher birds (or other meat) are (a) less blood, uric acid, and other "undesirable" components, and (b) they are naturally saltier than unkosher birds. However, because the kashering process has nothing to do with flavouring, you can't expect any kind of consistency, and it's not uncommon to find that some parts are much saltier than other parts coming from the same bird.

Kosher birds are going to absorb roughly the same amount of salt and water from a brine. The difference is that because they've already been salted, you run the risk of over-brining to the point of being inedibly salty. That's the whole story.

If you want flavourful and moist then get a regular bird and brine it. If you care more about flavour and want to save some time (at a significant cost premium) then go ahead and use a kosher bird, no brine. You can brine a kosher bird (see first link in this answer) but you're going to have to do a little experimenting to get it right - and if you're going to brine anyway, then why bother spending the extra money on kosher meat?

Don't pay any mind to the oft-repeated claims that kosher birds are "pre-brined" or similar nonsense. The inherent saltiness of a kosher bird is significant but also incidental and thus inherently unreliable.

_{(Please also note: Assuming this is a follow-up to your previous question, none of this is going to make the slightest bit of difference if you're just going to plop the chicken parts into a pot of boiling or poaching water. If you're making broth, then you flavour the broth, not the meat.)}

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How can I make my Hot chocolate thicker?

Question

I've been trying to make a thicker hot chocolate and I'm not sure what to add without taking away from the flavor of the chocolate. Usually what I do is boil the milk, and then I add chocolate baking powder and shaved chocolate.

Answer

Spanish hot chocolate and Italian cioccolata fiorentina both use cornstarch as a thickening agent. Both are used more for dipping or sipping (churros in the former case), however you could easily just use less cornstarch to make it more 'drinkable'.

Try a teaspoon of cornstarch, mixed with a little cold water, added to the milk when you boil it.

As Kate Gregory suggests, you could also use full-fat milk, or loads of shaved chocolate.

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Substituting glucose syrup for glucose

Question

I've noticed that many pate de fruit recipies call for a small amount of glucose in addition to sugar. My local store didn't have any glucose, but I have glucose syrup around. Can I use glucose syrup in place of glucose (I'm assuming they mean the dry kind)? If so, what ratio should I use?

As an example, this is one recipe: http://trissalicious.com/2010/02/25/family-gems/

This question isn't specific to that recipe, though. Most pate de fruit recipes seem to call for glucose.

Answer

In boiled syrup candies like this one, glucose is often used as an insurance policy to keep all the rest of the sucrose in the recipe from crystallizing. The dissimilar sugar molecules in the solution interfere with the sucrose crystallization and they instead form smaller crystals and the candy has a smoother texture.

You can easily use glucose syrup in this recipe. As it adds a little water you will have to boil the syrup a little longer to reach the desired concentration (and thus temperature.)

As far as the ratio- You can look at the label of your syrup to see the glucose content and use that as a starting point but don't worry about being too exact in your conversion. As the glucose is simply for interference small variations aren't going to make much of a difference. Often when I am making candies like this I will just eyeball a tablespoon or two depending on how much candy I am making.

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What is the difference between kosher salt and unprocessed sea salt?

Question

I have read that the difference between sea salt and kosher salt is that sea salt is generally processed in that it has minerals added to it which were lossed during the evaporation process while kosher does not.
Somebody also told me sea salt is inefficient for brining and it contains impurities I have also read that unprocessed sea salt and kosher salt is the same thing.

I am using saxa sea salt which on the box says is 100% natural and has no ingredients added. This being the case is it the same as kosher salt or not?

**

Thank you for your answer. I would like to add a related question. You said sea salt does not stick very well to meat during brining. Does this point apply to dry brining only or does it apply to brining in a water solution where the salt is dissolved?

Answer

Kosher salt is pure, like table salt, but without any iodine and (usually) without any anti-caking agents.

Kosher salt crystals are also coarse, but flat, which makes them easy to dissolve or season/coat meat.

Unprocessed sea salt is simply coarse; the shape of the crystals (whole or ground) does not stick to meat particularly well and the impurities make it harder to dissolve properly in water. It doesn't usually have minerals added (unless it's a really cheap kind possibly made from pre-iodized table salt), it just doesn't have minerals removed like table salt.

Kosher salt and sea salt are definitely not the same thing. Kosher salt can come from seawater, like sea salt, but the "kosher" part is all about the size and shape of the crystals, not their source.

Sea salt is not a good idea for brining. It's expensive and inefficient, and by the time the meat is cooked, any distinctness of flavour will have completely disappeared. Some of the minerals may even burn, depending on the cooking method.

Instead, use kosher salt or table salt for brining and add sea salt as a seasoning afterward if you want. Using sea salt for cooking, brining, or other preparation is simply wasting it.

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How long in fridge for sushi steaks?

Question

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

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

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

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

Answer

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

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How to re-melt bitter chocolate?

Question

I melted bitter chocolate (40%) via bain-marie to make chocolate-covered strawberries. As the melted chocolate dried out before I finished dipping all the strawberries, I tried to melt the rest again with the same method but it became sort of muddy and dry. (I didn’t have any problem with milk chocolate.)

What could be done (other than repeating the process with small amounts) to "re-melt" it without losing the bitter taste?

Answer

Chocolate is a sol, consisting of solid particles suspended in cocoa butter. It is something similar to a hard emulsion. And it can separate just the way a liquid emulsion does (think mayonnaise). This happens when you melt the cocoa butter completely, so the solid particles separate from the fat. If it happens to a chocolate bar, your chocolate looks grey. If it happens to a bowl of melted chocolate, the chocolate seizes the way you describe it. This happens with both milk and dark chocolate. If you haven't experienced it with milk chocolate before, you either had luck, or your milk chocolate was of a lesser quality than the dark one and contained non-cocoa fats and/or emulsifiers, which change the behavior of the sol.

The only way to prevent seizing is to work within the correct temperature zone, which is extremely narrow (2-3°C). Even as an experienced confiseur, it is extremely hard to judge it intuitively. If you insist on trying to watch the chocolate and guess when it is OK, you will have inconsistent results, with a seizing once every few tries.

What you need is to get a candy thermometer. Keep it in the chocolate and, whenever the temperature nears the danger zone, put the inner bain marie vessel in a basin of cold water you keep near the stove for this purpose. It will cool rapidly and stay tempered. It isn't a problem if you cool it off so much it hardens again; you can remelt chocolate as often as you want as long as you never exceed the seizing temerature.

And now for the numbers. All kinds of chocolate (milk, white, bitter) harden at 27°C. Between 27°C and 30°C, they are soft, but unworkable, because they are too viscous (hold unpacked chocolate pieces in your hand for a while to see what I mean). The workable zone is 30°C to 32°C for milk (and white) chocolate, and 30°C to 33°C for dark chocolate. Above this, your cocoa fat melts and the chocolate seizes. So, keep an eye at the thermometer, as you see, the zones are narrow.

Edit: I just noticed that you call 40% "bitter". This is a very low cocoa percentage, and I wouldn't let it go up to 33°C. The numbers for "bitter" are probably safe for 70% cocoa and above.

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How to keep fresh-squeezed fruit juice?

Question

Is there any way to keep fresh-squeezed fruit juice (especially apple or orange) for at least one week without losing taste and vitamins in it? Would a jar with a tight lid be useful?

Answer

Some quick research indicates there are enzymes in freshly-squeezed juice that will degrade it fairly rapidly, and that they can be deactivated by heat. Of course, that also changes the flavor (especially since you're not going to be able to quickly heat and cool it, as it apparently only takes 30 seconds, but any method doable in a home kitchen will keep it hot much longer than that). So heat-deactivation is out.

Even commercially-produced (that is, both pasteurized and enzyme-deactivated) juice is only supposed to keep 6 days in the fridge, so that's out.

Your best bet, then, is to freeze it. According to the University of California's Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Publication 8199, you can freeze in clean glass jars or rigid plastic freeze containers. They also note that navel oranges (and their juice) do not freeze well—they will become bitter.

Well, either that, or store the fruit instead, and only juice it as needed.

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What ingredient(s) do you add to your meat to help to reduce (bad) bacterias in your digestive system?

Question

From what I know, adding lemon juice to your cooked meat can help to reduce bad bacterias when you eat your cooked meat as it reduce the toxins. So, beside adding lemon juice, are there other ingredient(s) that one can add to his/her meat?

UPDATES

According to our conversation in the comments, canning food is the 100% bacterias-free solution.

UPDATES

It is noted that there is no way to make cooked meat 100% bacterias-free.

Answer

Meats that have been properly stored (refrigerated for short-term storage of up to several days, frozen or canned for long-term storage) and cooked to safe internal temperatures should be free of harmful levels of bacteria, bacterial toxins, and parasites. From the USDA FS&IS "Is It Done Yet?" brochure:

• Cook all raw beef, pork, lamb and veal steaks, chops, and roasts to a minimum internal temperature of 145 °F as measured with a food thermometer before removing meat from the heat source. For safety and quality, allow meat to rest for at least three minutes before carving or consuming. For reasons of personal preference, consumers may choose to cook meat to higher temperatures.
• Cook all raw ground beef, pork, lamb, and veal to an internal temperature of 160 °F as measured with a food thermometer.
• Cook all poultry to a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 °F as measured with a food thermometer.

The USDA site has a wealth of information on food safety, including proper storage and special considerations for at-risk populations (e.g., diabetes, cancer, HIIV/AIDS, organ transplant recipients).

Other concerns are probably best addressed with a health-care professional.

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Does resting the dough for a long time reduce the need to knead the bread?

Question

In this article by Chef Michael Smith, he mentions a recipe where leaving the dough to rest for 18 hours removes the need to knead the bread. Is this a viable substitute? I've tried the recipe and found that the bread was more dense then a properly kneaded dough.

Answer

Kneading does two things. First it mixes all the ingredients uniformly. You have to do this no matter what, but you only really have to do it enough to mix the ingredients.

If you keep kneading beyond the mixing stage, you are applying energy (which equals heat) to the yeast which makes it ferment, generating the tiny bubbles which make bread fluffy.

The yeast will ferment on its own, but kneading just accelerates that process.

Historically, dough was proved (left in a hot humid place) for about 18 hours allowing it to rise slowly in order to make bread.

In 1961 a process was developed in England called the Chorleywood Process. Essentially you work the heck out of the dough with high-speed mixers. The extra few minutes of high energy mixing applies heat to the yeast, which dramatically reduces the fermentation period required, allowing you to make bread much more quickly... at factory-type speeds. Factories can make bread in a couple of hours instead of having to prepare dough one day and bake it the next.

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Substituting glucose for glucose syrup

Question

I've noticed that many pate de fruit recipies call for a small amount of glucose in addition to sugar. My local store didn't have any glucose, but I have glucose syrup around. Can I use glucose syrup in place of glucose (I'm assuming they mean the dry kind)? If so, what ratio should I use?

As an example, this is one recipe: http://trissalicious.com/2010/02/25/family-gems/

This question isn't specific to that recipe, though. Most pate de fruit recipes seem to call for glucose.

Thanks!

Answer

In boiled syrup candies like this one, glucose is often used as an insurance policy to keep all the rest of the sucrose in the recipe from crystallizing. The dissimilar sugar molecules in the solution interfere with the sucrose crystallization and they instead form smaller crystals and the candy has a smoother texture.

You can easily use glucose syrup in this recipe. As it adds a little water you will have to boil the syrup a little longer to reach the desired concentration (and thus temperature.)

As far as the ratio- You can look at the label of your syrup to see the glucose content and use that as a starting point but don't worry about being too exact in your conversion. As the glucose is simply for interference small variations aren't going to make much of a difference. Often when I am making candies like this I will just eyeball a tablespoon or two depending on how much candy I am making.

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Why you shouldn't use soap to clean a pizza stone? or some pans and pots?

Question

I was reading answers to this question How do I season my new pizza stone? and many people advised not to use soap on a pizza stone, I don't have a pizza stone but I have read similar advice for some pots and pans,

My question is why you can't use soap to clean this stuff, is it just unnecessary (because a pizza stone is always in the oven and every thing on it will burn) or there is a reason NOT to do it?

Answer

Some cookware are 'cured'. Mostly cast iron pots and pans. I never heard of a pizza stone being cured, so I'm guessing this is to avoid eating soap. Other than that, I wouldn't know.

Cast iron gets cured for two reasons: 1. Create a non-stick layer 2. Avoid oxidation. Neither of these reasons apply to stones (or do they?)

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Is there a table that shows the cooking temperature and the duration for different meat types and its bones?

Question

Just wondering if there is a table (similar to the one below - including a example) that can shows the cooking temperature and the duration to cook different types of meat (and/or its bones) in different style?

============================================================================================
| Temperature (Celsius) | Min. Cooking Period (Minutes) | Meat / Bones        | Styles     |
============================================================================================
| 150                   | 25                            | Steak               | Grill      |
============================================================================================

Answer

A table like you're asking for can't actually exist: doneness depends on the internal temperature and hold time of the food, not the oven temperature; your table is missing some columns.

So, there are a couple variables you're not accounting for—the biggest one being the shape and size of the meat. A ½" thick steak will cook much quicker than a 1" thick steak. The other one is the starting temperature—a steak that has been left to warm for an hour before cooking will cook quicker than one straight from the fridge. You could, I suppose build a table for all variations of size (steaks go from maybe ¼ through 2"), initial temperature, and desired doneness, but that'd be a large chart, just for a steak (and it'd be different for a T-bone or porterhouse due to the bone).

More reasonably, you could just use a food thermometer. Then you only need to worry about the temperature for desired doneness.

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Is it OK to marinate chicken and pork together?

Question

I just want to minimize dishes taken to a BBQ--marinating pork chops in a lemon/herb/olive-oil baste along with some chicken skewers. Is there anything to worry about with trichonosis when preparing pork in same dish with other meats at room temperature? I can't imagine it's a problem, but you never know...

Answer

Don't worry about the pork contaminating the chicken, but rather vice versa. A good rule of thumb with chicken is to treat it as a biohazardius contaminant. Because it is. Salmonella is present IN chicken meat, unlike other meats where you will only find microbes on the surface. Your marinade doesn't seem particularly inhospitable to pathogen growth, so cross contamination would be a nontrivial concern. OK, if you overcook your pork chops as some insist on doing, it shouldn't be much of a concern. However, may as well be safe and split the marinade between two ziploc bags. It's a small effort to mitigate risk.

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If you freeze and later melt egg whites would they still be suitable to whip

Question

I read all the very useful answers to this question
Can raw eggs be frozen?

But my question is a bit different:

When making anything that needs whipped egg whites, the condition (cleanness/pusity) of utensile and the egg whites is essential. I wanted to know if I freeze egg whites would I be able to melt and whip them later?

Answer

Yes, quite well -- I have personally made successful angel food cakes with frozen whites -- but if volume matters, they will not quite reach the maximal height of fresh whites (say, loss of 5-10%), and achieving peaks will take a little longer whipping time than normal.

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Cooking an egg without oil or butter

Question

I like scrambled and fried eggs but the butter or oil probably add unnecessary calories. How can I fry an egg with no butter? I tried in a Teflon pan but it was a mess.

Answer

Well, frying means to cook in oil, so technically you can't. Fat also is delicious, so you'll lose something in the process besides just calories.

If you are using teflon, ceramic, or some other non-stick, don't bring the heat up too much. Scrambling your eggs with milk will make them more fluffy, and I bet less likely to stick. Use (sigh) PAM or another aerosolized cooking spray. Or just 'wipe' the pan with an oiled paper towel. It would impart minimal calories.

It's sad, but microwaving eggs will cook them without adding calories (or anything else). You can also make absolutely delicious eggs by soft-boiling them, which adds nothing at all.

My more general advice is to learn to love a little fat and to consume a variety of fresh, unprocessed foods which taste great. It's much healthier in the long run than just cutting away at a number. Better to go for some walks/runs/lifts then sacrifice flavor. And fat leads to fullness, which leads to less wasted calories on junk later in the day.

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What's an inexpensive substitute for Port wine?

Question

Is there a good substitute for port? It's for a slow cooked pork loin recipe. I'm not concerned about the alcohol, but I would like to keep the cost down.

Answer

Decent port is not necessarily expensive; you may find yourself spending more on the meat. For example, Sandeman's Founders Reserve 750 ml runs about US$15 before taxes, Dow's Fine Tawny 750 ml is about US$13, and Graham's Six Grapes Ruby 750 ml is about US$8 (and this is just the start of the list). These are, perhaps, not the connoisseur's choices, but they are hardly undrinkable. Depending on the laws where you live, you (or your favorite wine shop) can order any of these online from a variety of sources.

Port has a unique character that is not easy to replicate with any other wine or fortified wine. If you are trying to replicate a result, do not substitute. If you really want something else that will serve the same role even if it will taste different, I would look to a Madeira, a cream sherry, or sweet Marsala (depending on your tastes).

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Mayonnaise substitute in cake batter

Question

My wife's chicken cake recipe calls for mayonnaise as one of the batter ingredients. In my opinion, mayonnaise is completely unsuitable for high-temperature processing (as in baking), but I was unable to come up with a substitute for it.

So, my question is, what can we put into cake batter instead of mayonnaise?

Update:

I think mayonnaise is unsuitable for baking because it is an emulsion which separates into its ingredients when heated, emulsifying agents used in a commercial mayo are not particularly healthy, and mayonnaise does not taste any good when it is broken into its components.

The components of the batter are: 6 table spoons of flour, 3 eggs, 200gram mayo, 200gram sour cream.

The components of the filling are: chopped prepared chicken meat, chopped sauteed onions, boiled eggs, etc.

Answer

Many cake batters call for mayonnaise. It makes for moister cakes. Using mayonnaise instead of its constituent ingredients adds convenience as well as extra emulsifiers. It is true that mayonnaise doesn't handle high heat on its own but it doesn't have to. It is part of a batter that will set.

If you really don't trust the recipe- the mayonnaise can be replaced with egg yolks that have oil whipped into them to form an emulsion. You can add a little vinegar for flavor. :)

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