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nsfnsb

Chineses dumplings - "stir the meat in one direction" - food science question - what is happening when you stir the meat in one direction? Hi! Lots of recipes for Chinese dumplings call for you to stir the ground meat in one direction continuously for awhile. I do it, and I can see that the texture changes. And I know that the end result is good, but I'm curious what is technically happening when you do this? I've seen some/heard that it aligns the meat fibers or emulsifies the fat or ... who knows? Can anyone explain the food science of this? What is actually happening? I know that usually recipes I see for Italian meatballs seem to warn you to handle the meat very little -- quite the opposite of what you are instructed to do with a Chinese dumpling meat filling. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!

The stirring in one direction is an old wives' tale/tradition to remind people to stir the mixture thoroughly in order to develop the correct texture. The science of it is that the action of manipulating the meat has real results. The mechanical process creates a sticky, cohesive filling. Its the difference between barely shoving meat together for the tender texture of a meatball vs. the other end of the spectrum, grinding meat for a snappy sausage. Mechanically working it starts to break down the protein structure, including one of the two major contracting filaments, the protein myosin, while squeezing out the trapped water. Myosin begins to coagulate at the relatively low temperature of 120ºF/50ºC which then leads to a more solid and firm texture in the end product. End result= dumplings work better with a stickier, developed filling.

hrxctg

The trend in toxic kitchen environments This is long but I believe in intelligent discussion, and that takes words. I promise you take the time to read mine I will read yours 🙂. If you really want to skip most of it the last two paragraphs sum it up pretty well starting at the asterisk. I wanted to pose a question to any other US cooks or chefs in this sub, only asking for US because I don’t know what the environment is like overseas but if you have input feel free. I first noticed it on the line but as a sous chef I can shut it down really quick and there aren’t any issues (as far as I know.) But then I started noticing it in culinary groups on a very popular social media app, you know the one, and I have seen a lot less of it here which is where I got the idea to ask it on this sub. Plus reddit tends to tolerate longer posts. See there seems to be this culture in kitchens developing where you need to have thick skin. Let me clarify, it’s always been like that, It’s a fast paced environment and things can quickly get heated on the line between two cooks. You have to be able to get called out and remake something you messed up and just move on. The general mood is you aren’t allowed to have your feelings hurt. However when it comes to learning the trade and getting better, I think there should be a little more acceptance. This doesn’t mean that during service I’m not going to say “what the hell is this? Do it over.” But I’ve started to see a kind of “bullying” trend towards newer cooks. Almost like a “I got treated like poo so now I’m going to do it to someone else.” Sort of thing. For example I’m in my 30s, let’s say I had never learned to ride a bicycle, then post a video of me riding for the first time in a bicycle groups and ask for tips. Maybe I even fall in the video. I already know that would be super embarrassing, but in the interest of improving I post it on a biking group because I like bikes and they all seem to know a lot about them, but in doing so basically get laughed out of the group and essentially canceled. May even say screw it and go back to driving or walking everywhere. I then have to remove my video and maybe lurk in the group to try and get tips.That’s what I see happen to new cooks in a lot of the groups on a regular basis even ones that are allegedly dedicated to helping others. *Laugh reacts, telling people to hang their chef coat up, making fun of them, then if the OP genuinely gets upset memes start popping up about how wimpy they are for getting their feelings hurt. My advice has been not to post in groups looking for guidance and just find a few good people you can reach out to for help, but all of these toxic chefs/cooks are all people that will be clocking into their job, this is their attitude and the culture they bring in with them. I typically call people out when I see them and try to offer something constructive to the OP, but just this last week someone all but gave up trying to improve over this weird bullying trend I’ve been seeing. Have you seen this type of behavior carry over into the real world? If so how have you dealt with it? Do you think it’s a leadership issue or just an attitude being popularized by hot head alcoholic celebrity chefs?*

It’s perpetuated by hothead chefs and the fraternity idea that everyone has to undergo hazing. Fortunately there are significant improvements I’ve seen in the last couple decades since I started cooking professionally. In my own kitchen, we do not allow yelling, swearing, or publicly dressing-down other cooks. If someone makes a mistake you wait until after service and take them aside to talk about it. It does mean in some ways things are less efficient as prep cooks don’t have that fire under their ass to produce faster or get screamed at. But we more than make up for that in extremely low turnaround. Our cooks start with us and stay with is so we have great institutional knowledge which saves us a ton of effort in hiring and training. End of the day it works better for morale, morality, and the bottom line. I also think Gordon Ramsay in particular has a lot of blame on his shoulders for this. He saw the ratings that the shouty chef personality got him on TV and just went with it. The result is generations of cooks who think it’s acceptable to behave like an asshole to coworkers, and highly toxic, macho kitchens that make work unfairly difficult, especially for women and minorities. EDIT: Sorry, I wasn't clear. I didn't mean to imply that Ramsay started this. The abusive kitchen has existed for a LONG time (read Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, or Jacques Pepin's memoirs, E.G.), just that in the age of the celebrity chef, Ramsay became the poster child for the idea that you need to abuse your staff in order to get good results, and consequently, many young cooks these days think it's OK to behave that way because a guy like Gordon Ramsay has given them his blessing. He didn't create abusive chef culture, but he has historically gone out of his way to use his incredibly huge influence to perpetuate it, and it makes me sad to think of the number of young cooks who have had to face abusive, toxic work environments due to Ramsay's wide-reaching influence.

zu4p6t

How can I best accommodate someone preferring well done prime rib? The rest of us want med-rare. I have a 10lbs bone-in prime grade prime rib roast that I plan to cook with Kenji's reverse sear method. I've done it before to spectacular results. All my Christmas guests but 1 prefer med-rare meat. The person that prefers well-done has been very good to me through a hard time and I'd really like to try and get her meat well done without compromising the rest of the roast. I'm certain she won't complain if I can't but there has to be a way. I have a couple ideas but I just don't know what is best. Should I slice off 1 rib and roast separately? I've never done less than 2 ribs before...I'm sure you can slow roast a steak but is it as good? Or should I cook the whole thing to 125, pull the roast, rest it for 30 mins and then keep cooking her slice? I am doing the reverse sear, so I'm already planning to pull and rest the thing. Can anyone offer me some good advice on this?

I’ve never done it but I heard that some people have a pot of hot beef stock ready and simply rest the slice in it for a few minutes before serving to cook it further.

fra0b9

A free-range chicken has "vegetarian fed" on the label. Isn't this the opposite of free range? I thought free range, by definition, is allowed to forage in the allotted space and would therefore eat bugs and anything else it could get its beak on.

It means that the chicken is not fed animal products by the farmer, so no "added" animal-based feed.

fiicmr

Accidently added 2 sticks of butter to a cake recipe. It came out pretty good. Why wasn't it ruined? The box recipe called for 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup of oil, and 3 eggs. While I was preparing it I accidently added the 2 sticks of butter that was meant for the frosting. I was let down thinking I ruined the cake. It ended up being pretty decent. Why didn't all that extra butter completely destroy the cake?

People are saying “butter is good” and that’s absolutely true but I think the reason the cake came out fine (though I’m assuming a little oily) is because more butter = denser cake, not ruined cake. Brownies have a lot of fat and so does pound cake. Sponge cake has very little fat. Obviously there are other factors contributing to this (literally all the other ingredients), but I would hazard a guess that it’s mostly just the density that changes.

vplkio

Should a restaurant devein shrimp? So I don’t normally order shrimp out, it’s one of those things I just like better when I do it myself most of the time. With that said, I was on vacation (east coast beach town with a lot of tourist traps, and a lot of great eateries that sometimes overlapped) and we were at a pub for lunch. I really felt like shrimp cocktail and to be honest, it was all bar food type place so I didn’t expect a ton from the shrimp. Turns out they were awesome, nice big shrimp, cooked perfectly tender, all fully deveined cleanly and tail still on. Later that same day, we were out at a nicer place, great reputation, bit of a touristy place but still pretty highly rated even by locals. They had several “sister restaurants” in the same town, so whole not a chain, it had a bit of a corporate feel. They were out of what I wanted so I ordered a country boil style dish that was corn on the cob, shell fish, sausage, potatoes all steamed as tossed with old bay. It was as good as I expected it to be, but the shrimp all had giant black veins. They were shell on with legs, decent size and there was about 6 of them. I was a little grossed out by the vein but I ate some anyway and then attempted to devein the rest before I ate them (which I found very challenging on cooked shrimp). This experience in one day kind of mimicked what I feel like I’ve generally come to expect when ordering shrimp out. I have basically assumed that shrimp can be served deveined or not and both are perfectly okay. Is my assumption correct or should I have been upset that I was served shrimp with a vein?

Shrimp should be deveined. The poop toob often will contain sand. If you do not plan to devein your shrimp, look for purged shrimp. Unfortunately most fish mongers don't know if their shrimp are purged or not, but you can tell if you look closely at the shrimp if their bodies are translucent enough. If most of the shrimp have dark heavy poop chutes, they're not purged. Purging is a process where live caught shrimp are kept in circulated water for something like 12hrs. The hold period gives the shrimp time to poo which saves you from having to devein.

rm39yc

Can I use white unsalted butter instead of yellow unsalted butter in a cake mix ? So I am from India and here in grocery stores I mainly find yellow salted butter, if I go to a dairy they have white butter which is made from fresh milk and cream and is unsalted, so can i use this white butter in a cake mix? How will the it affect the texture of the cake ?

Color of the butter isn't related to the fat content. It's related to the cow's diet. White means it's low in beta-carotene. Yellow means it's high in beta-carotene. Beta-carotene comes from some grasses and flowers, or beta-carotene rich pasture. During summer, the butter tends to be more yellow as the cows are pasturing. During winter, it tends to be more white as the cows are fed grain. Depending on where you are in the world, you'll find brands adding food colouring to achieve the yellow color, as their cows never goes out to pasture at any point of the year.

q95n25

Is there a secret to peeling the first papery layer of an onion? I feel like an idiot asking this question with as many years cooking as I have. I chop the bottom off my onion and trim the top (I leave the stem section in tact but remove the hairy stuff so it doesn't get in my food). I then chop the onion in half. Then I peel the skin off. Some onions are nice, they have hearty skin that peels right off. Other onions are the demon spawn and have paper thin layers that are fastened together with super glue. I pick and peel and get that skin under my fingernails where it cuts me. I get so sick of it I just peel the entire next layer of onion off and pretend it was all one layer. This is the way? So say we all? Or is there some trick to that infernal thin fused together layer?

You’re fine and not alone. Just go straight to peeling that extra layer off. Onions are cheap enough it’s not worth the hassle to get it exact. Also sometimes that extra layer is kinda dried out anyway.

kntxa8

I accidentally used Chinese “nutmeg” (草果) in my eggnog. I bought a pack labeled NUTMEG 草果 at a Chinese grocery store, which externally look like whole nutmeg seeds. However the inside is more crumbly than I expected, and when I looked up the characters it appears to actually be Lanxangia tsaoko. Wikipedia says this is used medicinally and also in cooking. Meanwhile I’ve got eggnog chilling in the fridge with a teaspoon of this grated in it. Should I still drink it?

Worst case just pour more liquor into it until all other flavors are covered.

oqmgw8

How to fry an egg, with runny yolk, but without that slimy egg white on top of the yolk? I really like sunny side up eggs on my food, but I always end up with a thin layer of slimy egg white that I would prefer to not have there. Any techniques to not have this or is it that the cheap eggs i buy is just low quality? Sorry for average English skills.

Use a spoon to baste it with the oil or butter in the pan. This gets it hot on top without having to wait for it to cook through.

eta5lw

Weird Situation: I run the high schools cooking club but don’t have access to the kitchen until an hour after we leave school, what can I do? Basically in our schools building we have two separate schools, a junior high which gets out at 3:00 and a high school that gets out at 2:14. We can’t get into the kitchen until the junior high all leaves so about 3:10. I’m trying to look for ways or recipes that takes up that time before needing the kitchen. So I was wondering if you wonderful people had recipes that took up like 20-30 minutes of prep time before needing a kitchen, any ideas of things I can teach before (like knife skills), or just any ideas of how I can fill some time up? Any and all ideas are greatly appreciated

Culinary background. It's a fantastic lead in. Give an explanation for the cuisine you're prepping, why the ingredients are used, where it comes from. Cultural appreciation is a huge part of understanding the food you're making. What's the history of the dish? Try some fun facts about the ingredients, common pitfalls to avoid, hints or suggestions for troubleshooting common issues, flavor profiles (i.e. what goes well with what). You'll not only not need the kitchen for this, but it also allows people to ask questions beforehand.

g7gq1o

Mom wants a cheesy Mexican rice she had at Taco Viva. Some chain place 40 years ago Was wondering if the internet could help me recreate this recipe as best as possible. Any help is greatly appreciated

So there is a Taco Viva history page and it even has a copy of the menu. Looking at that, the only rice is just a generic Mexican rice cooked with a sofrito base, and there was probably a little cheese mixed in. Now, there are a lot of recipes for this kind of thing. Some of them are just, like, rice with salsa and cheese mixed in, which is probably heresy to anyone who had an abuela that made Spanish rice from scratch. But it might be an accurate approximation of a side dish from a Florida fast food chain in the 80s. If, instead, you want to make a home-cooking version from scratch, here is a recipe you could follow.

u9zmfb

Boiling water for pasta starting from hot water instead of cold water? A friend sent me a video of someone about to boil some pasta from water that started from hot water. Then some Italian guy started freaking out saying it should always start from cold water and even threw out the water and started over. At first i thought this is dumb, there shouldn't be any difference if it ends up boiling anyways. Sounds just like some elitism or super strict tradition that shouldn't he relevant anymore. He didn't even bother explaining why when asked. Then again, sometimes what might seem like common sense may be wrong so is there actually any validity to this? Is it just because we didnt have hot water dispensers back then?

The main concern here should be whether your pipes are old enough to have used lead solder. Hot water leaches more lead out of lead solder than cold water. In the US, if your home was built after about 1970, it used lead-free solder. If earlier, you shouldn't drink or cook with hot water, and you should let your cold water run for 10 seconds or so to let water that has set in your homes pipes flow out.

siukay

Cinnamon buns in slow cooker were kind of terrible Got a recipe in a culinary magazine for cinnamon buns in the slow cooker. The result was a very long (2.5hr) cook and in the end a tough, bland bun. I had made a mistake on the yeast which was a bit old I think because the buns didn’t expand as they should have using the oven, but I don’t think that was the only problem. Any ideas what went wrong?

Honestly, using a slow cooker. Cinnamon buns are a baked food that’s normally cooked in a dry, relatively-high heat environment. By using a slow cooker, you’re cooking them in a wet, relatively low-heat environment instead. The dough is just going to react differently.

nwn416

Tipping at Michelin star restaurant in Germany, what is the norm ? A while ago, I went to a 1-star Michelin starred restaurant to have dinner at a family style restaurant in Mannheim, Germany. The bill was around €180, and so I asked the waiter to round it up to €200, guessing that should be enough(10% tip). But she began asking me if everything was fine directly afterwards in a concerned manner, leaving me to believe that I may have tipped less than I should have. The food was better than average but not mind-blowing and the service was good. I didn't really express any disappointment while being there. Was it a misunderstanding ? Or didn't I tip enough ? I've been living in Germany for 4 years now, I do speak an intermediate level German. But this was my first visit to a restaurant of this caliber. And it kind of threw me off guard, feeling the experience was all too pretentious.

German here: That was a completely appropriate tip. We usually round up, rarely by more than 10% There is also a rule of thumb that a tip at a higher class place should be made of paper and not metal, but you also got that covered

kl4uq2

Can I use watered down half & half in place of milk in a casserole recipe? It is a breakfast casserole with eggs, sausage, bread, and 1.5 cups of milk. Of course I forgot to buy milk! I have half & half leftover from another recipe. Can I water it down to use in my casserole?

Yep. You can even just use it un-watered-down for a richer result.

ejro2b

What is the name for a chocolate chip cookie without chocolate chips? I know that sounds like a dumb joke setup, but seriously. Is there a name for the type of cookie recipe we use traditionally for chocolate chip but WITHOUT adding the chips?

I call it a brown sugar cookie. I sell them this way in my catering side hustle.

qjez5t

Thanksgiving menu for LARGE group. What ingredients can be/are best prepped in advance? So for the past 4 years my wife and I, because of our combined culinary prowess, get tapped by our coworkers to cook the Thanksgiving meal (holidays off are rare). We've both worked at the same job for years but on different teams. My current team is significantly smaller (3 guys) versus hers (50-60) so I'll be prepping and cooking for her team again this year. There are some support staff that will be there as well, so I'm essentially cooking for 75+ people. I have access to a "commercial style" kitchen, but I do most of the prep in the 3 days leading up to Thanksgiving day. Only problem is I average about 2 hours of sleep per night when cooking for these events, then cooking for 6-8 hours the day of. I don't think my body could take it this year since I'm on blood pressure meds and can't chug energy drinks and espresso like I used to. I'm going to be prepping, cooking, and freezing whatever I can in advance (already starting the soup cause I already know it freezes well). This is the menu I've created for this year's festivities ​ This is my menu for my Facility's Thanksgiving Dinner (edited/redacted for doxx purposes) ​ So my question is what Veg and other items, based on this menu, do you think could be prepped safely 2-3 weeks in advance? Does stale cornbread freeze/thaw well? How long will rough chopped bell peppers keep before losing their fresh crunch? Shallots? ​ I make the prime rib sous-vide (Pan sear, then sous vide @ 133 degrees for 8 hours, then charcoal grill finish). Could this be Seared, sous vide, then frozen/refrigerated after quick chilling in an ice bath? ​ Does red wine jus/demi freeze well? ​ Any expertise on this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

When I run up against these projects/parties, I have a system that works well for the "proficient home cook" operating at the edge of practical capacity. I am in my 60's and was raised to use this method by a mother who was taught by her mother, so it is definitely a pen and paper thing for me. You need a "buying" and a "making" list, which you will merge into a time line, with due regard for tasks that can be nested or efficiently sequenced. For each dish, make a list of components, right down to "grams/ounces/volume/preferred unit of measurement" pepper and precision about salt style; this keeps you from assuming you have plenty of Kosher salt because you always do. I like to put each dish on a separate piece of paper, with the ingredients in a column to the left, the steps in a second column, and the maximum do ahead time for that step to have maximum quality in the right hand column. Combine all of your ingredients/quantity for each recipe onto a shopping list - 3 celery sribs here, 7 there, 30 over yonder add up. Make a tick mark by each as you add it to the list so you can double check that you didn't miss any ingredient. You now have your shopping list. Take your list of steps for each recipe and check for duplicates, because you can make 5 pounds of beurre manie or roux if that's your style, with very little more effort than 1 pound - and a great deal less than making and cleaning up from 1 pound five times. Similarly sitting down to chop 20 pounds of onions yields one clean up, rather than doing each dish's separately. You are looking for those groupings of steps. For each step, decide how far in advance it can be done for good quality, given your equipment/facilities. You can do a roux a month or two ahead and stick it in the freezer, so long as you can keep it airtight. Same deal with your herbed butter. Your flavored honey (as I imagine the recipe-YMMV) will be fine for several weeks at room temp and safe as houses in the fridge. You can grate your cheeses several days ahead, but be very aware to use clean tools that will not invite an unexpected mold to the party now that so much surface area is exposed. If you are using a sodium citrate sauce, it will tolerate reheating without breaking, so the sauce can be moved back in time. I am not telling you what you should do, because I am not looking at your recipes and facilities; I am just saying how I would begin with that menu The granularity you are looking for. Once you have your shopping list and your steps list, make your master time line. Shop as early as possible, given your storage, for stuff, but also be aware that if you have a 25 mile drive for some stuff, it should only happen once, so try to time that trip around the ingredient that must be purchased latest. Also consider sending a helper for that drive. If you have several steps that can be done at near the same time, sequence them to fit into one session or to build in logical order. For instance if you are making a stock for your dressing, try to organize a cooking session so that you can use all of the veg trimmings that are suitable in the stock. Most veg sauteed in fat for a sauce/dressing/soup can be cooked and happily frozen for several weeks. Given your obvious skills, all you really need is to know how to take a bird's eye snap shot of the preparation time line. You end up with tasks by 11/15,but also with a Monday/Tuesday work sheet, a Wednesday morning/afternoon worksheet, and a by the hour or minute "day of" work sheet. Because everything is broken down into steps, you can let a wandering volunteer "help" or flag past due tasks back and forth in the kitchen if something is hanging. Looking at your menu, your turkey (fully thawed) is hitting the brine 18 hours before you start smoking it and headed from the smoker to the table shortly thereafter. I do not know your plan for the sage sausage and herbed butter, but the raw ingredients can be combined today and frozen with no loss of quality. Charring the beans is last minute, but prepping and blanching them can be 3 or 4 days out. The way I am thinking of your soup, the butternut squash could be roasted and pureed today, while the leeks were washed and then sauteed and frozen with the browned butter. The pepper can go in with the fatty parts, but an onion cream is open to interpretation about what you are planning. If your interpretation of the chorizo stuffing is what I am imagining, I would mix all the cooked dry stuff - cornbread, sautéed veg, sausage and seasoning anytime now and stick it in the freezer. Thaw it the night before then mix it with stock (then taste for seasoning) and eggs immediately before baking on Thanksgiving. I am a little obsessive about my food, so I take a couple of tablespoons after the egg is in and nuke it, just to be sure the flavor is spot on. Quantities that are larger than my usual work are not seasoned well by my muscle memory of how much of what, so a final quality check is a good thing. Reheating sous vide is stupid easy. ... like I felt I was easily the stupidest cook ever when I sorted it out. Take your bag out of the rig just shy of done (the metric depends on the cut) and chill it with reasonable speed for the dish. For prime rib, I would do the ice bath. Pork butt heading to carnitas can sit in the fridge. Chef Steps explains it better than I am likely to, given the quantities involved which I have not had first hand experience doing. My mother didn't teach me this (she was the waxed paper and foil with paper tape generation), but I have determined that for me, for one off events, several sizes of good quality ziplocks and a sharpie make life a lot better. Label everything with what it is and what it is to be used for in which dish - no such thing as too much information on the bag. Lay them flat for quick cooling if hot and corral them together when safely chilled. Cambros or deli containers work well if you have them. Organize the storage "like to like" and stay as much on top of the storage lay out as much as you do clean up. HTH. Feel free to ask me to clarify anything I have failed to make understandable. The way of life to which I was raised had any number of problems, but it did train its daughters how to feed 500 out of the home kitchens - and how to feed them much better with commercial facilities to borrow.

go3f1w

Has anyone ever cooked pasta in seawater? I've seen several times the instruction that "your pasta water should be as salty as the sea", but was wondering if anyone has ever actually taken a pot of seawater to cook their pasta in? I'd imagine it might be worth filtering for cleanliness to take out large bits of whatever, depending on where the water is drawn from, but would it be too salty for cooking and render the pasta inedible?

I’ve used seawater for cooking on a boat to conserve fresh water. Straight seawater is too strong for pasta. Cutting it about one to one works though.

tkvdsa

Is there a name for eggs that have been cooked sunny side up but covered so the top turns white? My parents always cooked them this way and called them generically "fried eggs". They usually come out with a consistency like over easy or over medium. I have called them "cloudy side up" when I prepare them at home. I want to be able to order them this way at a restaurant but I end up just ordering over medium to not confuse anyone. I would provide pictures, but it doesn't look like that is allowed in this sub.

Well I know I'm calling them cloudy side up from here on out.

j903kk

Why can a packaged frozen meal have a ton of sodium in it and not taste unbearably salty? If I put anywhere near as much salt in my cooking as processed foods have, it would taste oversalted as hell. For example I recently ate a frozen meal and afterwards saw it had 80% my daily sodium. I'm just curious how it's possible to use so much salt and it doesn't taste overly salty.

There are other additives besides salt that contain sodium. These additives are often flavor enhancers or preservatives.

gdv48q

Cooked a whole chicken with potatoes, onions and carrots in a dutch oven. Can I achieve the same taste by doing it again without the meat ? The chicken is good, it was a really average one so I didn't expect anything crazy. But the vegetables have one of the deepest taste I was ever able to achieve. They are slightly caramelized, and taste like heaven food. I can't stop eating them. I put some spices on the chicken and browned it before adding the vegetables (potatoes onions and carrots) and a cup of chicken stock. I added some white whine after 1 hour because why not and after one more hour, the miracle had happened and it was ready. So could I throw my vegs in my Dutch oven with a cup of stock, a little bit of oil and some spices and expect the same result? Would they caramelize the same way? I'm dying to make this again!

Probably not exactly, but you can likely experiment with a few things that might move you in the right direction. The chicken is adding a few things: 1. Umami flavor. To replace this, you probably want to add at least one umami-heavy ingredient, like some tomato paste or marmite. 2. Gelatin. The fact that you described the veggies as caramelized indicates that most of the water in the pan evaporated and you got some nice browning. In meats, it's mainly proteins that are browning; in vegetables it's mainly sugars. That sort of sticky browning flavor might be in part due to browning of the gelatin that comes out of the chicken as it cooks. So maybe bloom some unflavored gelatin in your chicken stock before using it, so there will be proteins that can brown. 3. Fat. The chicken skin renders and releases schmaltz. There's no other flavor quite like schmaltz, but you can replace it with another fat that will serve the same function for browning purposes and add a flavor of its own. I would *not* go with something totally neutral like canola oil...if you're gonna add fat, might as well go with something that will add good flavor like olive oil, butter, or ghee. 4. Water. The chicken will release some moisture as it cooks. You may find that you need to increase the amount of chicken stock you use if you aren't using the meat. I think adding wine is a good move because it adds more sugars that can caramelize a bit, and also adds acidity that can offset all the richness. HOWEVER, know that browning won't really happen until the water evaporates, so you don't want too much liquid. It likely won't come out perfectly the first time as you tweak the different variables, including the above plus what vessel you cook it in, how much time they spend covered/uncovered, and what temperature you cook in.

efpf45

What is wrong with my ham? I hope I’m not breaking any rules by including a picture, and I realize you guys don’t usually answer food safety questions but any idea what the heck happened to my ham? It was bought as a fully cooked ham, that I heated up in the oven and this is what came out. I googled but no questions nor answers seemed to be what I was looking for. Any help or ideas I’d be thankful for. https://i.imgur.com/ga0w9Ld.jpg

A chef and butcher here, It's either a big gland, or an equally common possibility, this couldve came from a pig that was abused while it was growing. I've seen this in a lot of chickens and some pigs through my years where the animals were beaten or kept in confined spaces that caused damage to their joints. This is why I heavily advocate for humane practices for farming and raising animals. Next time try local or from a trusted organic farm, it's almost guaranteed to not have issues like this in the meat when the animal is healthy and happy while it is alive.

vvvn2a

What can I add to my pesto in place of tree nuts? I love me some pesto. I grow several varieties of basil on my deck and spend all summer making and freezing it. The kids like it on pasta so I give it to them for lunch all the time. Here’s my problem: one kid is starting at a new school this year and the school is vigilant about peanuts and tree nuts. I can’t send him with my regular pesto pasta, which I make with toasted walnuts or pine nuts, but I feel like that nutty flavor is an important component. I’m wondering if I should try sesame seeds or sunflower seeds.

Toasted sunflower seeds work very nicely.

x3g174

Is there any benefit to sauteing rice in olive oil and/or butter before boiling it? Or is that just a waste of time?

It just depends on the dish. For risotto, it’s essential and you don’t rinse the rice, the starch on the rice keeps it together and you keep a nose on it for the nutty change in smell before adding broth. For Persian rice you rinse and add butter to steam after parboiling. For sushi rice you don’t add any oil ingredients at all and rinse thoroughly, the rice will stick by itself and the vinegar and sugar helps. For pilaf, a sauté with butter/oil keeps it from sticking together.

g6l8w7

How do teppanyaki chefs cook on stainless still griddles with literally no sticking? I am amazed how they can crack an egg, then scramble it with no sticking whatsoever. There has to be some sort of secret.

The surfaces of those grills are basically a huge carbon steel skillet, seasoned extremely well from very extensive use and good maintenance. Very smooth and very nonstick.

h8kenk

Does anyone know how to make the "garlic" sauce that sandwich shops add to their sandwiches? Some of the most popular sandwich shops around my area all have "secret garlic sauce". Ikes is a good example. Initially, I thought it was just butter and minced garlic or oil, but I've tried cloning it many times with no good results. Does anyone know how they make it?

Toum is a Lebanese garlic sauce made with garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, and salt. It's pretty strong though, the other poster is probably right about it being an aioli.

hyjzsf

[serious] Indian, Ethiopian, and other *fine dining* restaurants of food cultures that use a lot of turmeric, curries, berbere, and other spices that stain SO easily - how in the world do they clean their white tablecloths? I was just watching the Marcus Samuelsson episode of “No Passport Required” specifically about Ethiopian food/culture here in the Washington DC greater metro (I’ve lived here 10 years, and my wife and I love Ethiopian food). And one of the restaurants they visited was a more “fine dining” Ethiopian restaurant in Georgetown. Seeing the pristine white tablecloths, I immediately thought of customers getting *heavily* berbere-spiced sauce on those perfectly white cloth tablecloths. That stuff stains like nothing I’ve ever seen!! Same with certain Indian food sauces/spice-blends. I absolutely know this is an atypical r/askculinary question. I’m sure it probably violates one or more rules (it’s not even directly cooking-related)... But this is THE place to ask culinary professionals, and this is a legit back-of-house (I guess) question, that is perplexing as heck to even contemplate. I’ve gotten berbere sauce on a shirt or two over the last 15 years (hey, you’re eating with your hands!!), and that stuff is impossible to fully get out, pre-treating and washing on hot - barely diminishing the stain by half, and even after 10 washes, it’s still clearly visible (if certainly faded). (I’ve also always done all the laundry in our household, for 20+ years.) Mods, lock this post if you absolutely must... But I swear when I saw those white tablecloths in the Georgetown Ethiopian place, I couldn’t fathom how they could manage to get/keep them clean, let alone on a daily basis.

A lot of places use linen services rather than doing laundry in-house. Professional laundries use all kinds of heavy duty bleaches and cleaning solutions.

hahkt0

I have found myself in a google black hole... I looked up what I would call "Sherbert"... and I was given articles are Sherbet and Sorbet... saying they are the same thing but then saying Sherbet might have dairy? Can anybody enlighten me about these differences and what I get in the frozen section? I will say my location is the American Midwest... which might have an influence on my pronunciation of "Sherbert"

Major frozen confection classes. There are exceptions, but these are the dominant forms: "ice cream" has cream and egg in it. It may have some of the cream replaced by whole milk, but it still has cream in it. "sherbet" (also sometimes regionally pronounced/spelled "sherbert") is fruit puree and whole milk. "sorbet" is fruit puree and water. All of them obviously have other things (like sugar and salt) in them. And you can find say sherbet or sorbet recipes with egg in them, say. But that's the basic major breakdown of the differences. Citation on "sherbet" and "sherbert" being the same thing: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/sherbet-vs-sherbert

skbv0z

How do I make my mac and cheese stay super creamy and saucy after baking? I keep making mac and cheese bricks :( So, I'm looking for a mac and cheese recipe where the noodles stay creamy and saucy even after baking. I've tried so many different versions and the noodles end up absorbing the sauce and you have to slice the mac and cheese into bricks to serve. Also, I can't seem to find a good cheese mix - a lot of my pans of mac and cheese taste too cheddary and a little boring. This last batch was the closest - I tried evaporated milk for the first time. It looked really creamy when it came out of the oven, but 5 minutes later it was bricky, too. Any ideas? Here's what I did: 1 box elbow noodles 2 cans evaporated milk 3 tbsp. butter 2 tbsp. flour + 1 tbsp. flour 6 slices deli american cheese (not in plastic wrappers) 8 slices sharp cheddar (I normally only use block cheese, but these are apocalyptic times and my store was out) 8 oz. fresh shredded white cheddar 4 oz. fresh shredded monterey jack Seasonings (garlic powder, onion powder, tony chacheries) Method: Boiled noodles in salted water according to package directions. In a separate pan, made a roux and cooked the flour about 2 minutes. Slowly added evaporated milk. Let it warm up and added american cheese and stir until melted. Realized it was too thin and added an additional tbsp. flour (a chef crime, I know). Added remaining cheeses reserving a couple handfuls for the top. Added seasoning. Sauce was smooth and gorgeous. When I mixed it together, I used a lot of sauce - it was very creamy. Put into a 13 x 9 and topped with remaining cheese. Baked 350 for 15 min then broiled cheese on top.

>Realized it was too thin and added an additional tbsp. flour (a chef crime, I know). You want it a little thin, since it thickens so much in the cooking! If it’s the perfect consistency when it goes into the oven, it’ll always come out too thick or brick

ujeac7

How much do personal chefs cost? I live in NJ and am looking into hiring a personal chef for 3 meals a day Monday-Friday. I make pretty good money and am currently trying to better my diet. Im underweight for my height (6ft 135lbs). I need to be eating around 3k calories per day but I can’t stand cooking/grocery shopping so I’d rather just have someone else do it for me so long the price isn’t too crazy. Anyone have an idea what I would be looking at price wise?

I know it's not the answer you're probably looking for, OP, but I'm a private chef, so... I understand that you don't get a thrill from cooking. Believe me, I get it. If cooking wasn't my passion, I would hate having to do so much of it. My mother *did* hate having to put 3 squares on the table every day, even though we knew she loved us. It just isn't everyone's jam. And that's okay. However, that being said, you mentioned you still live at home with your parents and you feel you're making good money. You *didn't* mention in the initial post whether you're contributing to the overhead of the household, but you might consider the possibility that maybe *your* parents don't enjoy cooking either, and take it upon yourself to make simple but filling meals that they can eat, too. Another option is to ask your parents if they will cook for you - if you pay for the ingredients and their time, and they're willing, that would be far less expensive than hiring a pro. It seems like your situation might be ideal for some low-input cooking methods like crock pot recipes or an instant pot, where you can batch cook and get multiple meals out of one effort. Put a chuck roast in a crock pot, dump a container of sliced mushrooms, a packet of french onion soup mix, and a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup over the top, set it to low, and come back 6-8 hours later and you'll have fall-apart tender creamy mushroom pot roast with built-in gravy. Make up some mashed potatoes from a box and a nuke a bag of fresh broccoli for two minutes and for maybe $30-40 and maybe two hours of your active time including grocery shopping, you've got 4-6 portions of a whole ass meal. Make a double batch and you'll have twice the servings without doubling your effort. Get reusable containers and portion out the leftovers as lunches for the week and freeze the rest. If you're lazy about cooking, seasoning packets and a crock pot are the most time and energy and cost effective way to cook. Planning ahead with a grocery list will help a lot, too, so that you spend less time at the store and don't have to make multiple time-wasting trips. Yes, all cooking requires more effort than not cooking, but an actual chef cooking three meals a day for you will cost at *least* 60-80k on the lowest lowest end. It just isn't cost effective for you. For that price, you're better off eating out three times a day for the variety. Learn to cook enough to save yourself that money. It's a life skill.

g2dofl

What would happen if you put stock though a Brita water filter? Would it clarify the stock? Google isn't helping much.

Brita filters will remove sediment down to a certain particle size, and any chlorine-like compounds (it's an "activated carbon" filter, and carbon is really good at binding elements like chlorine). They also have something they call an "ion exchange resin" to remove some heavy metals from the water. If stock is anything like beer then the haze is largely proteins, which would need a very fine filter to remove. I would guess that a Brita filter **won't** do that. If you want to clarify stock, do a google search on "fining homebrew with gelatin." You add flavorless gelatin to room-temp beer then chill it to fridge temp for a couple days.

q5twip

Uh..how is it safe to use eggs in homemade mayo if we don't cook it? wont the eggs be still raw? P.S im sorry if this is a very dumb question but ive always wondered.

Raw eggs are not inherently unsafe. All food safety regulation is simply about mitigating risk. Because honestly, nothing we eat is without risk of some kind. Eggs can be infected by salmonella in one of two ways: First, bacteria can be passed from an infected hen to her eggs as they develop inside her. Chickens can be vaccinated against this to mitigate that type of risk. Second, it can grow on the outside of the shell after an egg is laid if it comes in contact with a hen’s poop that contains salmonella. In the US, the USDA requires eggs sold for consumption to be washed, processed, and then refrigerated. Washing them ensures that any salmonella that was present on the outside of the shells is removed. But- there's a trade off. Washing eggs removes the thin, filmy, protective outer layer called the cuticle. This cuticle is the natural shield that keeps bacteria out of an egg while letting oxygen circulate. On the other hand, most European and Asian countries do the opposite and require that table eggs not be wet-washed, and also not refrigerated, because they still have their protective cuticle. Its thus recommended that non-washed eggs be washed immediately before consumption to remove any trace amounts of poop. Both regulations were arrived at as effective ways to solve the same problem: reducing exposure to salmonella, a bacteria that causes unpleasant, though non-life-threatening, illness. Additionally, cooking isn't the only way to ensure food safety. Other ingredients like acid and salt in things like mayo and salad dressings help to create an environment that is less friendly to bacteria growth. In the US, the CDC estimates Salmonella bacteria cause about 1.35 million infections, 26,500 hospitalizations, and 420 deaths in the United States every year and that *most people recover without specific treatment.* Infants, adults aged 65 and older, and people with weakened immune systems are the most likely to have severe infections. Most establishments will note on their menus any items that contain raw eggs so that people can make their own decisions whether or not to consume them.

vixq00

If ground beef should be cooked all the way through, why do some restaurants ask how you want your burger done? Shouldn’t the standard be that a burger be cooked medium-well?

Bacteria grows on the outside of meat and grows slowly inwards. So if you take a piece of steak and leave it out awhile, some bacteria might land on the steak. When you cook it then you are searing the outside first killing any germs. Now if you use that steak to create ground beef, the bacteria is now scrambled up so could be right in the centre, so it should be cooked all the way through. However, if you are grinding your beef fresh and are confident that it was properly stored etc. you can then cook it less because you know there is no bacteria.

ktsrs9

Can I use cheese as fat in sausage I made some sausage from scratch successfully yesterday with pork shoulder and beef chuck. There is enough fat on those cuts to prevent dryness. I'd like to make a buffalo chicken sausage soon, but I'm worried that there is not enough fat on chicken to prevent the sausage from getting dry. Can I add blue cheese that will act as the fat to provide proper texture, or do I need an animal fat?

You cant use cheese. The fat needs to emulsify throughout the meat to bind and provide the moisture you are after. Use chicken thigh. Its the perfect meat:fat ratio. Then add cheese for flavor.

wpvzdx

Greek Potatoes In every Greek restaurant in Buffalo NY, they serve "Greek potatoes" as a side. They are soft, skinned, chunks of potatoes that look to have been boiled or braised (no browning) with a lemony flavor. I've tried many times to replicate them, but my potatoes always turn out slightly dry inside, and the flavor never permeates to the middle. If I try cooking them longer, they fall apart. I think I have the flavor right with lemon juice/rosemary/oregano/olive oil/etc. Most of the recipes I find online have you broil or roast the potatoes, which definitely isn't right. What am I missing?

I got you.... Quarter potato into flat baking dish. Single layer only .. So for a rectangular plexiglass dish . 9x13? I use Salt pepper and oregano At least a cup of lemon juice and the zest of all the lemons. 1/4 cup or more EVO.. or other quality oil Cover potatoes just barely with chicken stock. Bake 350 - 400 degrees F until golden and liquids are just syrup.

zoapzj

Does anyone else put a roux in their bread dough? This is something that I learned from my grandmother who was Belgian, to take 1/10 of the flour and the smallest amount of butter that you can and make a very blonde roux, take it out and let it cool to set up and add it the rest of your recipe, it works extremely well for making bread very soft, but I’ve never heard of anyone else doing it so I’m unsure if it’s something that she just invented or an old traditional technique, sadly I cannot ask her.

Pro chef, 20 years. Ok so I haven’t ever heard of this, but it makes a ton of sense. Don’t think of it like roux. What you’re doing is saturating some flour with butter to make it easier to disperse the butter evenly without messing up the water ratio. This is a very clever trick and is probably a traditional variation that she learned from her grandmother who learned it from her grandmother as well. It isn’t thickening, so don’t think of it as roux, think of it like you would think of pressing bits of cold butter into flour for a pasty crust, but the opposite - no thin flakes of butter like a croissant or puff pastry would have, more of a saturated flour that can disperse and make the bread tender. Bravo grandma 👏

xd6sjh

Can I cook rice in my rice cooker filled with leftover water after boiling my chicken? I can take some of the water out to make it perfect for my rice, but currently I have no clean and filtered water left and the only ones left is the one that I used to boil my chicken. Can I cook my rice in it? Thanks Also before you ask yes I only have a rice cooker, I basically use it to do everything ranging from frying to boiling to steaming and everything you can dream of haha

That's the whole gist of Hainanese Chicken Rice. Season your chicken broth with garlic, ginger, and lemongrass and you'd be pleasantly surprised.

70l7n9

Why are pretzels in N. America depicted upside down when compared to European pretzels? In N. America we represent a pretzel with the "tails" at the bottom of the pretzel, In Europe the pretzel has the "tails" at the top of the pretzel. I have been asking everyone I know or any pastry chef this question, no one has even the slightest idea why. Picture of the European "upside down" pretzel. https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumblarge_834/8346522.jpg

Boy did this turn into a rabbit hole for me. I'm a huge pretzel fanatic. Growing up in South East Pennsylvania, this was not an anomaly. PA is crazy about pretzels thanks to our historically high German population. I've done a bit of digging and, though I won't say it's conclusive, have an idea of why the quintessential American pretzel is often displayed differently. This article on German pretzels makes a very short and frank statement: "T]he twist in American soft pretzels is the same width as the bottom and sides of the pretzel, the twist on German pretzels is much thinner, giving you a crispy treat after you enjoy the soft body. This explains why when you see German pretzels, they usually appear "upside-down" from American pretzels, with the thick body on the top and the twist at the bottom." [picture to illustrate. I'm not a fan of how the author simply glosses over this fact. Simply saying "the fat side goes up!" isn't much of an explanation. But looking at other culinary trends, this certainly seems true. A cursory Google image search for any croissant illustrates an overwhelming preference to depict the crescent with the nice soft, fat side up and the "horns" down. This same trend goes for any search of "crescent bread." What I find incredibly interesting is the WHEN that accompanies the WHY of this great American pretzel flip. I've scratched through a number of searches for old Pennsylvania Dutch (Deitsch or Deutsche... in case you didn't know... they aren't Dutch) recipes and artwork and found this beauty: Picture and Recipe. This recipe is dated 1915, and is called a pretzel cake! Most intriguing is that the accompanying picture features the European style fat-side-up orientation. To go back even earlier, we can find that the first commercially successful pretzel factory in PA, the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery (founded 1861!) features the European pretzel in it's logo to this day. Another tid bit worth mentioning is that Americans seemed crazy about hard pretzels, certainly far more than their European counterparts. I'd have to research more to be 100% sure of this, but there is certainly a well supported trend within American culinary tradition of favoring foods that travel well across long distances and are more shelf stable. The traditional European *brezeln* was a fresh baked, daily purchase. Like with almost every other culinary element (fresh fish, fresh dairy, fresh bread...) the compact nature of European towns favored the soft, loafy brezeln, and the wide open spaces of American farm land favored the shelf stable hard pretzel. It also made economic sense: a bakery can only sell fresh goods in its small town, a factory can sell shelf stable pretzels across the country. A hard pretzel requires uniformity of width throughout the twist so that nothing burns in an extended baking or drying process. **[SEE EDIT]** It's my conclusion that this contributed to the American aesthetic of the uniform pretzel. So much so that it eclipsed even the traditional soft pretzel, which eventually adapted the uniform width. So it seems that at some point in the late 1800's or early 1900's, with the pretzel moving toward it's modern American form, the chubby-side-up/horns down aesthetic just stops working. The new American pretzel looks better with its two arches pointed up. Also, if a pretzel is being sold from a cart or hung in a shop window, it's much easier to load them onto sticks or hooks through the larger holes up top; hanging at a playful angle, arches up. The largest hole of the German style pretzel, is not the small "ears" but the center, and would most likely have hung in shop windows thusly. This is all conjecture! But it was fun. Thanks for the great topic. Hope someone else weighs in. *EDIT*: There's been a ton of great discussion in this thread. The big correction I need to make is thanks to u/J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt who points out that the difference in width of the pretzel is much more likely a result of the type of dough used; Stiff dough for hard pretzels that, once rolled, carries its weight during the lift and twist motion vs. soft, enriched dough used for soft pretzels that tends to pull and sag. Additionally, the whole hanging pretzel posit, which I felt so sure of last night, seems to be completely false. Google "hanging brezel" and it looks like they're still hung from their little ears.

ux23kh

Regarding pots/pans that are all stainless steel, what is the difference between a cheaper one from say Target vs Williams-Sonoma? It's all stainless steel right? So what's the extra $100 getting me exactly? Looking at some cookware that says it's all stainless steel, inside and out, at Target and I'm wondering what the difference is exactly between this and an all-stainless steel pot from somewhere more expensive? I know there's stuff like 3-ply or 5-ply, but that alone doesn't cause the massive price difference. For copper I understand, but for stainless steel it's all just the same, right?

There's a lot of different kinds of stainless steel pans. They are mainly split into three categories: Solid stainless, these aren't common in the kitchen and are usually just used for things like camping. They are very cheap to make and usually don't cook very well. Disk-bottom stainless, these are cheap to make and don't work very well. The heat spreads along the bottom but the sides don't get any of the heat. They're generally pretty uneven cooking. Clad stainless, these are an aluminum pan with stainless steel layers on the outside. These heat the most evenly and are the most expensive. Thicker pans are generally better. The other thing is the handles and lids. Cheap lids can break or not fit well. And cheap handles can melt or fall off when you're lifting heavy pots of very hot food. Expensive lids are thicker, heavier and seat well. The handles should be a quality material and be riveted on firmly. There's also the grade of metal. There are different types and grades of steel. Some can be quite a bit more expensive than others.

yp71w0

MSG contradictory? Hey, I have a question so, I had a nutrition class and the instructors gave us a piece of paper and on one section for Asian foods, it said for ‘No MSG’ (the other day they said to avoid msg.) but for Italian food, they said to ‘ask for red sauce instead of white’ And here’s my question. Isn’t asking for red sauce contradicting to ‘avoiding MSG?’

You should drop that class because they're pushing pseudoscience

k3g70a

My homemade turkey stock is completely gelatinous So I made stock with the leftover turkey carcass from Thanksgiving. Basically stripped the bones as well I could, roasted them at 425 for 20-25 min, broke them open so the marrow could get out, then simmered with onion, celery, carrot, herbs, and about 6 cups of water for about 5 hours. The result was totally delicious, but after straining it and putting it in the fridge it's become completely gelatinous - no liquid at all. The two onions that were in there pretty much totally dissolved during the simmer - there were almost no traces that there had been onion in there at all after cooking everything - so I'm thinking that may be partially to blame. Don't get me wrong - I'm still going to use it, I'm just wondering what happened?

I love these posts. “Hey I did something right but I screwed up!” Nah you nailed it. Jelly jelly jelly.

npe26u

Why is my chicken breast not tender? But that bagged precooked chicken strips in the freezer section is? I've been doing some modest weightlifting over the past couple years and I cook chicken the same way: four or five large chicken breasts from Aldi, not frozen. I put down some olive oil and salt in a glass Pyrex baking dish, lay the chicken breasts on top of it, then add a little more oil and salt. I use meat probe thermometer in the thickest part of the biggest breast and bake until 165. I let it sit for about 10 minutes, then slice it up... put it in the fridge or the freezer, but every time I go to eat some it is chewy. However I see those grilled chicken strips for sale at Aldi in a frozen food section bag, they have grill marks on them, (whether they are authentic or not I do not know) Those grilled strips are always leaps and bounds more tender than anything I can make. What am I doing wrong?

Basically every person in this thread seems to have no idea what they're talking about. The reason it's not tender and feels chewy is because 1. You've overcooked it. Raising the internal temp to 165 will dry it out and make it less enjoyable. Cooking to 165 sterilizes instantly, but cooking to say 155 sterilizes after 45 seconds. 2. You're not using enough salt, by a good margin. Most everyone don't realize how much salt is actually used in most good at restaurant or anything that's prepared. 3. Flatten your chicken into a uniform shape so it cooks evenly. The natural shape of the breast is thin at one end and thick on the other. One end will be severely overcooked as the other starts to come to temperature. If you want to go from level 0 to level 10 when cooking chicken breast I would watch this video. Ethan has a ton of great stuff on his channel and explains the science behind why each thing works and why. To respond to some of the other comments in this thread and why they're off base. 1. "low and slow" - this doesn't work for white meats. White meats are low in collagen so they will be overcooked and dried out, but this type of thing is generally better for smoked pork, chicken thighs, ect. It's the same reason you would never cook a steak "low and slow". The time breaks down the collagen which steak and breast meat don't have. 2. The "chemicals" they use is salt. That's basically it. They inject it with a water salt solution before freezing so when you cook it, the salt content is already right. The grill marks probably aren't real, but that won't affect the flavor at all. 3. Something about low quality chickens? Chicken meat is chicken meat for basically every regular purpose. It's about preparation. 4. Chicken thighs as a substitute. They're much higher in fat and collagen and need longer, higher temps to cook properly. Making them more dummy proof. I love thighs more than breast, legs, ect but if you're looking for low calorie high protein I suggest breast and cooking them properly. 5. The person who suggested brining is actually, very correct. Dry vs wet brine does the exact same thing, which is put more salt into your chicken breast. It's important to give it enough time to penetrate via diffusion. I stick to dry brines because they're less messy and you don't need to get all that water off in order to get a good sear.

xiuomi

What is the salt used at steakhouses? I noticed when I get $100 dollar steaks at steakhouses they also serve salts for me to dip my steak in. Is the same salt used from a sea salt trader joes shaker? If not, where can I buy some fancier salt?

Almost all restaurants use Maldon salt as a finishing salt. They’re larger triangular shaped flakes that add a little crunch and sodium. You only season the outside of the steak, not the inside bits, when cooking, the finishing salt adds that extra flavour. Season with kosher salt though, it has better overall coverage. Diamond Crystal brand kosher salt is what every restaurant I’ve ever worked in uses.

ge9bcs

When opening a restaurant, do (and can) you use recipes you find online (and edit and customize a bit), or do you need to make your own?

Scaling the recipes and making them work at margins in a production env. is the issue.

vbj6wv

Why the use of boiling oil on asian sauces? I often see on the internet recipes for asian sauces, using spices and peppers, and after putting all the dry ingredients in a small bowl they pour very hot oil over it, which then beautifully sizzles. I love the whole idea, visuals, and results. What I wanna know is why do it like this, with hot oil over the ingredients? What's the technical reason behind this? Is it any different from just heating everything together on the stove? Thanks!

Aromatics like star anise and dried chili peppers burn VERY quickly, so you want to take every step to avoid that, but Asian cooking also often uses high heat to get a certain flavor out of the oil. Pouring hot oil over a bowl of dry ingredients makes it much less likely that you'll burn the dry ingredients.

zvlggr

Why do my Pancakes comeout so gross. I used Bisquick 1st then this recipe https://www.marthastewart.com/338185/basic-pancakes I have tried adding sugar and vanilla and no matter what I do they come out tasting like play-doh. What am I doing wrong?

If you followed both recipes instructions my main guess is you are under cooking them. The pan temperature should be medium low to medium heat, not too hot. Then you have to wait until little bubble holes form in the middle of the pancake (not just around the edge) before you flip it. At least another minute on the other side. If your pan is too hot it will brown the surface without getting the inside actually cooked which ends in a good looking but flour-y tasting pancake.

g5ssys

How does one make fried mushrooms that are more crispy and firm? As opposed to soft sautéed mushrooms. I’ve tried a few times and I can’t seem to get it right.

When you first start cooking them, add water rather than oil (seriously, I know it sounds dumb but it helps with flavor). Add some salt. Then, cook them. TONS of water will come out. Your mushrooms will be swimming. Keep cooking. Once most of the water evaporates, add a bit of oil and taste for seasoning. Keep cooking until they brown. You can burn them, but otherwise basically cannot overcook them (they’ll never get mushy from too much cooking).

gv2c8u

50lbs of Sesame seeds Help Hey y'all first time poster so if i break any rules just delete it or let me know. I am a chef on a submaine for the navy and i just took over and we have about 50+ lbs of sesame seeds, Other than making tahini paste or using it as a topping do y'all have any recommendations or recipes or uses. thanks in advance.

There are sesame candies that are like a rice Krispy, thin sesame cookies, crackers, and coated glutinous rice balls that might use up a lot!

lhvq0l

In baked goods like cookies, can you actually taste the difference between 1 or 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract? Like for a regular cookie recipe that calls for 1 stick of butter, can people really taste the one teaspoon difference of vanilla extract?

Yes - in a great way, I always double the vanilla. Edit ok. So really I free pour. So it’s a bit more than double lol

ipx4me

I have been trying to use a salt bowl after reading the salt section of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. I love the improvement of flavour, for sure, but chefs of Reddit, how do you keep them sanitary? I feel like I am washing and drying my hands every time I want to use it, which is often at a crucial moment in a recipe, when I could just grab my salt shaker and wipe it down after.

There are very few pathogenic bugs that can survive direct contact with salt, or live in a very harsh environment that's mostly salt. The stuff that can live in literal salt solutions are very specifically adapted to doing so, and are actually square in shape. This is because salt is incredibly good at drawing water out of cells, and the microbes themselves have to spend energy to ensure they can maintain a osmotic balance. This is a very energy costly system to do (proton pumps are quite expensive to run for cells). Lots of the evolved pumps for this are solar powered, but are still energetically costly. Halobacterium live in the salt pans, and have tons of adaptation to do this, one of which is being square Tl;dr - Don't worry :)

ayvwgq

San Marzano tomatoes: are they worth it? Recipes always call for whole San Marzano tomatoes in sauces. Is it really worth it? Normal canned tomatoes cost 1$ each, while a can of San Marzanos costs 5,99$ at my grocery store. Pretty expensive for my taste. Plain whole Italian tomatoes are 2,49$. Can I go with that instead?

In blind taste test no-one in our kitchen could tell. In taste test where we identified San Marzano, everyone chose them as best... except I lied, and all of the dishes in that test were made with no-name bargain tomatoes. So - whatevs.

a3t7f9

I've never washed rice before cooking in the past. I tried it once and can't tell the difference. Why do people care about the starch?

To quote my father, who has been in the Agriculture industry for a LONG time, “If you saw the inside of a rice mill, you’d wash your rice, too.”

gq8xa0

What’s the best alternative to parchment paper for making cookies? We got the wrong parchment paper which is used for diplomas

Whatever you do, NOT wax paper. It will burn

hxr14j

Can I freeze fresh squeezed lime juice for later use in drinks? Will there be a noticeable drop in quality? I ended up with a few pints of fresh squeezed lime juice. I'll be making margaritas tonight to go along with some barbacoa we'll be eating, but since it's only my wife and myself — and we're no longer in our 20s — we won't be drinking multiple pints of margs each in one night. Fresh lime juice doesn't stay good for too long, or at least there is a noticeable drop in quality. It seems like a shame to waste all this good juice (squeezing all the limes is kind of a hassle), and we do like to have margaritas not too infrequently. so I was wondering if the juice would freeze well, or if it would be adversely impacted somehow?

Freeze it in an ice cube tray and transfer the cubes into ziploc(s). The cubes will remain good for a few months. Wash your hands - lime peel oil plus even a few minutes in the sun equals a nasty sunburn (photosensitizer).

uxpf8v

Do you guys refrigerate your soy sauces? (Light, Dark, etc) I know they all say refrigerate after opening, but I see a lot of people who keep them in their cupboards. Is there a noticeable dip in quality if you don’t refrigerate them? It would be much more convenient if I didn’t have to waste valuable fridge real estate on a bunch of various soy sauce bottles.

I have at least 4 kinds of soy sauces in the drawer beside my stove and never in my fridge. 2 kinds of fish sauce are also in the drawer. I’ve never refrigerated these sauces in my life, so I have no comparison for degradation. Source: am Chinese.

tx3a8o

Why are "econmical cuts" of beef more expensive than "expensive cuts"? I've long often heard people say to use cheaper cuts of beef such as skirt, flat iron, denver, flank, etc. however, I've found that they are always way higher priced than "expensive" cuts such as New York Strip or Ribeye. In my area i can routinely find good deals on New York or Ribeye for around $6-7 per lb whereas the "cheap" cuts would never go under $10 per lb. I'm in the LA area for reference. Mainly shopping at various supermarkets.

So the other posters are correct as far as popularity of cheaper cuts driving up prices, but it also has to do with how much of a cut is on a cow, there are only 2 skirts and 2 flanks per cow. Those tend to be on average, around two pounds each, depending on the size and breed of the cattle, whereas a NY strip steak comes from strip loin. There are two of those on each cow and each strip loin can be cut into 10-14 steaks. So you get 8-12 servings of skirt/flank steak from a cow, but you get 20-28 servings of NY strip steak from a cow. Interesting side note meat cuts can be patented. Not the meat itself, but the cuts/cutting process specific to obtaining it.

fkpai9

What is the exact process by which a steak is cooked at an expensive steak house? Most importantly I’m sure it’s a hand picked high quality cut of meat. Also a extremely high temp flame broiler of some kind is involved. Is there anything else secret going on?

The place I work at has an $85, 25 oz ribeye. Sear on both sides in a carbon steel pan with tallow. Drain. Add butter, garlic, aromatics, etc.. baste, baste, baste.. flip, baste again some more.. Stick in 450 oven for about 10-12 min for mid rare.. and you’re done.

dxfj11

What's a 'less is more' in cooking that most home chefs like me probably does wrong?

Overcrowding the pan might be something an amateur is more likely to do. For many techniques, having less stuff in the pan / a bigger pan is better.

y0jhxg

Why is gnocchi sometimes chewy and sometimes pillowy? I've encountered potato gnocchi at a local Italian restaurant that was like a little pillow but most times I have had potato gnocchi it is chewy and dense. Are there different types of gnocchi or is the difference just due to recipe?

They're meant to be pillowy and soft. Mass produced gnocchi is usually chewy and is considered poor quality. They're just different though imo. I love pan frying packaged gnocchi until crispy. Look up the brussels sprouts gnocchi on nyt cooking it's soo good.

ydiykh

Restaurants and food in the 1500s to 1800s, how did they keep food fresh without refrigeration? I’m curious how food in the 1800s, like pasta, milk, pizza, pies, stew, meats and everything was transported and stayed fresh and how they store it in restaurants and eatery’s? Did a lot more ppl get food poisoning from spoiled food back then? It perplexed me because nowadays everyone is not allowed to leave food out longer than 2 hours according to fda. I’m sure food and restaurants back then left stuff unchilled for days Curious if anyone knows the history of it here, would love to get an insight on what it was like back then ….

Refrigeration actually goes as far back as 1,000 BCE. We have historical records from ancient China, Persia, Rome, and Greece, of using ice to cool foods and drinks. Other cultures with access to ice (near mountains with snow caps, or near the colder climates at the polar regions) figured this out too. In areas where the climate is normally hot, ice would be stored in specially designed structures, insulated to prevent outside heat from leeching into the space. One example of this is the Persian yakhchal. But depending on the food, they also used other preservation methods. **Drying/Smoking** Bacteria thrive in moist environments. So if you dry foods out, they'll stay safe to eat for longer. You could dry some foods with just air, by leaving them out in the wind on a sunny day. Some foods would be dried using a wood fire, and in the process of this they discovered smoking too. The wood smoke flavored the food, and it also kept insects away from the food as it dried. **Curing** If you can't air-dry food, you can pull the moisture out of it. Sugars and salts naturally leech water from the space around them. So if you place a cut of meat or something similar in salt, it'll cure. The food dries out, and the salt is also inhospitable to bacteria. This one's tricky though, because not all bacteria are repelled by salt the same way. The bacteria that cause botulism, in particular, are resistant to salt and sugar. Eventually, some cultures found that they could bolster their cured foods by adding nitrates (which are converted into nitrites, which are toxic to most bacteria). Different materials such as saltpeter (sodium nitrate), or even celery juice (celery is quite high in nitrates) were used for this. Similar to this is candying, where sugar is used to leech out the moisture. Fruits are often candied instead of salt-cured, because their natural sugars benefit from the additional sweetness. **Pickling** For foods that you want to keep moist, you can make the liquid highly acidic. A solution made from vinegar, mixed with salt and sugar, is a pretty standard pickling liquid nowadays for this purpose. A lot of vegetables are pickled instead of dried or cured. Historically, we discovered vinegar when wine or other alcohols would break down over time, the alcohol being converted to acetic acid as it reacted with the oxygen in the air. There's documentation of vinegar being made as far back as 3,000 BCE in ancient Babylonia, with references to pickling in roughly this era. But vinegar wasn't always easy to mass-produce (especially since most cultures preferred to drink the wine it could be made from). Another practice was to cultivate bacteria for the process. Cultures accidentally discovered a relatively good strain of bacteria, *lactobacillus*. This bacteria was moderately resistant to salt, and as it broke down sugars in its solution it converted them into lactic acid. So eventually, someone figured out that if you salt your solution a bit, it'd drive off most bacteria but allow the lactobacillus to build a culture inside. and once it started, the lactic acid it made would make the solution even safer against other bacteria. Foods such as sauerkraut and kimchi are traditionally lacto-fermented like this. **Jellies/Confit** As far back as the 10th century, people figured out that some foods became semi-solid under specific conditions. When farmers candied some fruits, for example, the liquids the fruit released would become gel-like as they cooled. This was because of the pectin in the fruits, which thicken the liquids. At the same time, some people found that you could boil animal bones to extract gelatin, which made a similar texture in meat broths. And as cooks experimented with gelatin, they learned how to extract a cleaner, more flavorless version of the product. The gelatin/jelly benefits from its more solid state, making it harder for bacteria to get inside. And in fruit preserves, the acids/sugars from the fruits also helped make the environment bad for bacteria. In the case of gelatin, perishable foods would often be stored inside the gelatin, the material insulating the food and keeping bacteria from getting to it, as well as air that would affect the food's quality. Confit is similar in spirit to jellies. Basically, you have to render a bunch of animal fat by cooking fatty cuts of meat on a low heat. Then, the meat can be set in the fat as it cools and gels over. This was popular with duck and geese, whose meat naturally produced a lot of fat. But you could use many different meats, as well as other foods such as garlic. The foods benefited from being slowly cooked in the fat, and then cooled without needing to move the food from the fats. **Boiling** This one mainly applies to liquids. But generally, anything that could be cooked in boiling water would get hot enough to kill any bacteria inside. Early forms of canning worked under this principle, with the containers heated up and then sealed to prevent any bacteria from getting inside.

xvg01u

Why Whole Onions? I’ve seen a couple of videos where the chef cuts a white onion in half, bisecting the root. Remove only the outer skin or layer, then set the whole side in a pan of oil.  I get cooking it, but you don’t leave the whole onion in there right? Do you remove it and then chop it? Is it mean to fall apart? Do you cut it in the pan? Are you just going for the Maillard reaction? It there something more to this method that you can get by sautéing the chopped onion? Here is an image of what I mean https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r78W1PCss8gOf6JjlbuOJ6gz0JmTI2hx/view?usp=drivesdk

It provides the flavor of onion with minimal work and limits the creation of sulfurous compounds. Generally, this is done is soups, stews, or braises when there is plenty of liquid to extract soluble onion flavor, but the bits of onion in the final dish are not desirable.

z6afey

Brined turkey turned out way too salty. Trying to learn what I did wrong so I don't repeat it next year. I did a fresh, "antibiotic free" turkey for the first time this year. Spatchcocked, then brined in a turkey oven bag with a 2 cups salt / 2 gallons water solution (with some aromatics thrown in). Brined in an ice bath for about 18 hours. Pulled it out, rinsed it off, poured some boiling water on the skin to help with browning. It was a beautiful bird, but man was it salty. I have had varied results with this technique in years past so I read multiple instructions and tried to arrive at some consensus on the method. Any ideas on where I went wrong? *Quick edit: I know dry brining is now preferred. However, I don't have the fridge space for that and all the other things crowding my fridge at Thanksgiving.

Don’t trust a brine recipe that uses volumetric measures for salt, you need to use weight here unless it is also specifying the exact brand of salt. If the recipe was written for diamond kosher salt and you used fine table salt, you added almost 10x the amount of salt the recipe intended. This problem is avoided if you use weight instead. Edit: re 10x I just borrowed the chart here and make no claim to it’s accuracy https://www.abeautifulplate.com/cooking-salts/. The meta point is that salts vary hugely in their density; I once got stuck with Morton instead of diamond and it totally screwed up my calibration while I had it.

w6cx5s

How to fry an egg, with runny yolk, but without that slimy egg white on top of the yolk ; I really enjoy sunny side up eggs on my food, but I always end up with a thin layer of slimy egg white that ⠀I would prefer to not have there. Any techniques to not have this or is it that the cheap eggs i buy is just low quality? Sorry for average English skills.

Break the egg white's membrane as demonstrated here

jb81ms

Is there ever a reason to use regular bread crumbs instead of panko bread crumbs? It seems like everyone chooses panko bread crumbs when a recipe calls for bread crumbs. Do regular bread crumbs ever work better than panko, or is panko always the best option?

While I prefer the texture of panko on cutlets fried in oil, for air frying (or "tiny convection oven cooking" lol) I like the texture of regular crumbs better. The panko seems sort of sharp with that method and the regular crumbs seem more fine grained and polite.

yapy8p

How to stop soup noodles from soaking up broth when stored as leftovers? I've tried so many different ratios of broth-to-noodle, but in the end the same thing happens- when they're stored as leftovers in the fridge, all the broth goes away, soaked into the noodles. Am I doing something wrong, or is this normal and unavoidable? What could I do to save my noodle-included soups?

There is really only one answer, and that is to hold the noodles separately. You can either not cook the noodles in the same pot of soup, cook them in a separate pot, or strain them out, which may be challenging. If you hold them in the soup, it's normal and unavoidable.

qsctr6

What is the vodka for in Penne alla vodka I really can't imagine what it adds. Surely it's just awater once the alcohol evaporates off.

There are flavor compounds in the sauce that are alcohol soluble, meaning they can only be extracted in the presence of alcohol. Once they're extracted, it doesn't matter if the alcohol evaporates off, the extracted flavors are still present.

xax99a

What is this, and how do i use it? We ordered taco fryer baskets from our supplier and got 3 of these. We're stumped. https://imgur.com/a/4rys1XG

...it's exactly what you ordered.

t9gswb

(Food History) How did Café du Monde become the standard coffee for Vietnamese coffee in the U.S.? I hope this is an appropriate place to ask a historical question rather than a cooking technique/ingredients question. I grew up in Houston, so my introduction to Vietnamese food happened in Houston in the 90's. All the Vietnamese places that served Vietnamese coffee or iced coffee seemed to use coffee in yellow cans from Café du Monde, a New Orleans cafe founded in 1862. Ok, no big deal, there was a ton of New Orleans influence on the Houston food scene, and Café du Monde was fairly well known as a place to stop by if you're ever in New Orleans. But after I left Texas, I kept seeing those mustard colored cans on the shelves in Vietnamese restaurants and coffee shops. It seems that that particular type of chicory coffee blend from a specific place in New Orleans remains the preferred coffee for making Vietnamese coffee anywhere in the U.S. Is there a historical reason why the post 1970 Vietnamese American community embraced a very specific type of coffee from a New Orleans establishment founded in 1862? This article from Nguyen Coffee Supply gives some detail, and this article from Atlas Obscura gives some other details, but I'm wondering whether there's a more comprehensive history behind when and how it actually spread from the gulf coast to the rest of the U.S.

I'm a Vietnamese refugee and worked in food studies for about 6 years. It's mostly a function of how knowledge is spread throughout refugee communities. Primarily, word of mouth and recommendation is extremely powerful. When you first come to a new country as a refugee, you're typically put into other people within your community. So you have enclaves of certain ethnic groups, Houston and its suburbs being one example of a Vietnamese one, and Clarkston (where I'm from) in Georgia would be another. Louisana itself has a relatively large Vietnamese population as well. When you come over, other refugees show you the ropes when you get here: what to buy, where to work, what to do, and importantly, things that resemble culture from back home. This is why you see so many Vietnamese nail shops, Cambodian donut stores in California, Chinese take-out restaurants, Korean dry cleaners, etc., because that knowledge of the business is institutional and cultural at that point. Cafe du Monde is very strong and bitter if you drink it black, much like the coffee back in Vietnam during colonial years. Add to the fact that chicory blends are cheaper than real coffee in general, you have a mixture of cost-efficiency and cultural ties for Vietnamese people. Cost-efficiency is important for refugee communities, especially for treats like eating out or going to restaurants -- so people then start to expect a certain taste and certain cost for specific foods and drinks. My mom has never been to New Orleans, and even when I was a child she knew to reach for the orange can of Cafe du Monde to make cà phê sữa đá. Purely for economy, flavor, and word of mouth. A similar phenomenon is true of sriracha. In the US, that sauce was spread because of Vietnamese restaurants. Even when it wasn't stocked on every shelf and there weren't knock offs all over, you could find sriracha at every phở joint because there was no equivalent Vietnamese hot sauce in the States. Edit: I wanted to add that most of the Vietnamese population in the States (at the time) was pro-colonialism with French influence. Southerners greatly outnumber Northerners in the US, and so ties to French flavors and culture are historically also more pronounced in refugee communities in the States than back home.

ic1e63

How do I clean a cutting board without stripping oil/wax I have an edge grain cutting board and after I clean it with soap all the oil/wax that was applied earlier seems to be stripped off. Am I using the wrong type of soap when I'm cleaning it? I'm using Dawn dish soap if that matters

I make and sell cutting boards. You're overthinking this. Soap and water is fine to clean, as is a bleach dilute spray. After, if the wood seems dry, simply reapply mineral oil. People tend to underestimate how much oil wood can soak up, especially newer cutting boards. I oil new boards I've made for days before sending them off. The wood needs that oil to create a barrier against moisture so that it doesn't warp, but certain woods, walnut especially, seem to just suck up oil. That the soap is removing oil just means it's doing what soap does. That's fine. You want it clean!

lz4kao

Which one do you use more? Pressure cooker or Dutch Oven? I know these are quite different but I only have enough space for one, so I'm trying to find out what people use more often before I decide!

Dutch oven, for sure.

y90rn7

Is there any reason to use a slow cooker as opposed to a pressure cooker? For example I made some barbacoa last night with a pressure cooker. It turned out flavorful and super tender; I could shred it really easily. Would it taste different if I had it slow cooking all day?

From a tactical perspective, some people set up and turn on the slow cooker in the AM for dinner right as they get home in the PM. vs pressure cooker requiring a bunch of work 1-2hr before you want to eat.

v0dg53

How to get salt inside of baked potato? Had a baked potato last night at a restaurant and the inside had salt in it! The potato did not come cut open or anything and when I asked how they got the salt inside they said all they could tell me was that they baked it in aluminum foil. How did they do it?

It’s entirely possible they poke and brine their potatoes before wrapping and roasting. Bring home a potato or three and try roasting them a few different ways with salt and see how it penetrates best

kcfjty

Slow cooker food tastes bland or just blah. What am I doing wrong? Tl;dr How can I make flavor-packed meals with a crock pot and it still save me time? My family and I bought a slow cooker thinking it would save us ssooo much time to let dinner passively cook away in the background while we go about our ridiculous work from home while watching kids all day covid sucks lives. First of all, it’s not just passively cooking away. It’s a ton of prep for something that’s supposed to be a timesaver. And honestly, I would be fine with that if the food we made in it actually tasted good. But it doesn’t. Everything we make is a duller, blander version of the normal stovetop/oven version of the same meal. For example, today I made beef stew. I braised the carrots and onions first, added tomatoes paste, Worcestershire, rosemary, thyme, beef stock, dumped into the crockpot over some russet potatoes (peeled and chopped). Seared the beef chunks and put them in as well. I even boiled a bit of water to deglaze the pan after searing the beef. This was like 45 minutes of prep. Then cooked on high for 5 hours. It was a solid C- in flavor. Especially for the effort. Totally edible. In no way delicious or flavorful. So, I realized what we’re missing is reduction of liquid and intensifying of flavors. Is there something I should be doing that I’m not? Or recipes that will work well and others that won’t? I love to cook but am drowning in life, so Something like a slow cooker makes a lot of sense in theory. But I’d rather order yummy pizza than eat bland slow cooker food that I put actual effort into. Thanks in advance. This was longer than I thought it would be.

Slow cooking herbs for 5 hours will greatly affect the flavor (it will be much milder the longer you cook them). Is that what's missing? Add herbs in the last hour of your cook. Otherwise, is it possible you aren't adding enough salt?

cd6629

Why does adding blue food coloring make whipped cream/meringues "whiter"? I was always taught to add the tiniest drop of blue food coloring at the end of making whipped cream or meringues to make it "pop" more and seem bright. I've done this with and without the blue food coloring, and it really does work! Does anyone know why this happens from a scientific standpoint? Are there any other "secrets" you have to making things whiter (besides white food coloring)?

It has to do with color theory. Typically, if you want to neutralize one color, you would use the opposing color as seen on a color wheel. Whipped cream/meringues are on the yellow (or warmer) area of the color wheel, so using blue food coloring (even purple works) neutralizes the yellow. This results in a whiter or brighter whipped cream/meringues.

ueazke

Does celery root have anything in common with milk? I know everyone has been dying to ask this question. All kidding aside this is a serious (although probably intensely stupid) question. Let me explain: Got COVID in late November 2021. Lost absolutely any ability to smell and taste for around a month. A few weeks after my senses came back a new problem arose: this \*\*\*\*\*\*\* taste and smell of (rotten?) celery root everywhere. It's nearly everywhere but the worst culprits are celery root (no surprises here) and milk (and milk products, cheeses etc.) Theres absolutely no difference on how celery root and milk taste to me (like rotten celery root). This is the origin of, probably, the weirdest question that has ever been asked on this sub. Do celery root and milk have any (chemical) similarities? Is celery used in the production of many food products? Thank you for reading. TL;DR: I've been eating potatoes and tomatoes for every meal for the past 70 days.

I had to do a deep dive into McGee’s *Nose Dive*. It’s hard to find anything conclusive, but it might be that you’re especially sensitive to the phthalide lactones in both (or desensitized to everything else). Phthalide lactones, especially sedanenolide, contribute heavily to the aroma of celery. Lactones, as their name suggest, are also a constituent of milk, and I’m willing to bet phthalide lactones, or at least close cousins, are also in milk as part of its grassy aroma. There’s probably some neurological mix-up happening as well that’s making your brain associate the two, or at least is mentally categorizing them closer than normal. Let me know if you have more questions and I can see if I can find the answers!

kafw7b

For making latkes, most of my recipes call for russet potatoes. I have a bag of Klondike gold potatoes--are these okay to substitute or will it mess with the final outcome? My mother in law gave me a 5lb bag of potatoes that I'm trying to use up. I figured latkes were a good way to do that but I don't know if potatoes are like apples where some of them are better for different uses and if that difference will be a problem.

YUKON GOLD POTATOES ARE THE BEST FOR LATKES. Sorry. That was my inner demon haunted by the Jewish guilt of my mother yelling at you. Gold potatoes, according to my mom and her dad, make it so that while the latkes are waiting to be spooned into the hot oil, they won't brown from being cut and held in the open air. Idk why, but it's true that they don't. Edit: hey a shiny!! Inner demon says THANKS!!

er2lyq

Is there any such thing as a savory cookie? Is such an item even possible, or does a cookie not work if it ceases to be sugar-based?

A cracker?

hm6asr

Is uncured Pancetta just straight up pork belly? My local grocery store sells two types of pancetta: finely cubed pancetta and then Boar's Head "Uncured Pancetta". I thought pancetta was always cured and the Uncured variety is just straight up pork belly, since pancetta by definition is a cured type of meat. Can I still use the Uncured pancetta in a pasta dish like carbonara?

The FDA regulates that a cured meat product can only be labeled "cured" if the manufacturer adds nitrites to it. "Uncured" meat like the Boars Head Pancetta, generally has celery juice/salt in it which naturally contains nitrates. Nitrates break down into nitrites so it's funcutally the same thing, but it's one of those quirks and unintended effects of a government regulation that has now become a marketing gimmick to trick people like my mom into thinking it's healthier because it "doesn't contain nitrates".

kkhozm

Botulism from dried chilli flakes? I've spent the last few months drying some home-grown chillies with a view to turning them into flakes. They've been hanging in the greenhouse and then in the spare bedroom and appear to be as dry as they're going to get. However, when I googled the best method of turning them into flakes, there were lots of scary stories about botulism. However, this was almost always in reference to chillies and garlic infused in oil. I couldn't find anything anywhere which indicated whether there is still a risk of botulism from dried chilli flakes which aren't being put in oil and will simply be stored in a jar in a cupboard. Can anyone provide a definitive answer?

Not to scare you but you can find botulism pretty much everywhere. Its in the ground and on your produce. The problem starts when it is locked out of oxygen. It thrives in anaerobic environments that is why you found the dangers of using oil as that creates a low or zero oxygen environment. Also things like canning have dangers. When things are fermented the danger is very low since botulism cannot handle acidic environments. The lactobacillus used in ferments create that acid. Also using vinegar does the same. Drying them should not be a problem as long as you store them without locking out oxygen Its not the bacteria that is dangerous though. Its the toxins it produces. The toxins are neutralised with long heating. Like thoroughly boiling 15 minutes. The spores however need a higher temperature than boiling water, thats why they use pressure canning for dangerous foods. Non acidic stuff like soup with meat. The pressure lets the temperature rise far above normal boiling temp killing clearing both toxins and spores. Fun fact: the toxin of botulism is pretty much the most toxic substance on earth and people put it in their body as ‘botox’ :)

o7tfp3

What's the name of the really crunchy fries you typically get hole in the wall spots? How are they made to be like that? Context: When I was 7 there was a shawarma spot near me that had these fries. They might be battered or coated? In college I found a wing spot that also had similar fries, and my friend called them "Hockey Arena Fries" but I can't find anything about it online. These fries are really crispy, typically golden to orange in color, about the same cut as a Five Guys fry, but these stay stiff for a longer period of time. Thanks in advance!

I'm a chef and I buy these for my kitchen. The brand name is Lamb and the product is Colossal Crisp french fries. It was one of the first things I did when I got there. Love those crispy things.

wyczz9

Is the "Danger Zone" cumulative? So, as part of my weekly meal prep, I make a big container of spinach dip (frozen spinach, sour cream, ranch dip mix) or grab a big hummus tub to eat with chopped veggies as my office snacks for the week. When I take the dip out, it's at room temperature for 20-30 minutes once or twice a day, for the week. Does being in and out of the danger zone like that "add up" for lack of a better term?

To be on the safe side, I would just scoop the portion you intend to eat at the time out with a spoon. And then cover and put the rest back in the fridge immediately.

jxocmx

Are fries traditional in real-deal Greek gyros? My parents always said to me that when they were on their honeymoon in Thessaloniki, they had fantastic gyros with french fries in them, which I found odd. Earlier this year, I found a family run gyros place where the guy that makes the food says he learned his recipes and gets his ingredients straight from greece, and he also puts fries in his gyros. It feels strange to me because I grew up with gyros that was stuffed inside the pita bread with simple vegetables and drowned in different variations of yogurt sauces. So, is it really traditional? Is it a thing everywhere? How did such an "un-Greek" ingredient make it into their food?

Un-national ingredients do make it into national dishes. After all, before the European visits to the Americas and asia there were no tomatoes, risotto or mozzarella in Italian food, no potatoes in Ireland and no chilies in Thai or Chinese food, just to name some examples. Gyros, the Greek version of Donner Kebab, originated not much sooner than the early 20th century. The version served rolled in a pita bread didn't become popular until after WWII. The use of French fries in gyros sandwiches can be traced back to around that time too, though it seems it has become increasingly popular throughout the years. That makes speaking of how traditional fries in gyros sandwiches are kind of difficult: the whole dish is fairly new and the addition of fries to the dish appears to be closer to its emergence than to today. Calling that traditional or nontraditional depends on where you draw the line, there is overriding argument in favour or against.

z32uuu

In-laws want me to delay roasting turkey until Saturday. Advice please! Hi! My in-laws just called asking if I can delay Thanksgiving until Saturday because a bunch of family members are sick 🥵 I’m not sure if it’s possible for the turkey to last this long and need advice 🤷‍♀️ I bought a fresh 19.5 lbs turkey on Monday and followed the recipe for this apple cider brine. It says to brine for 2-3 days so I was planning on pulling it out today to sit/dry overnight in the fridge. Do people suggest I leave it in the brine for the extra 2 days? Or remove it from the brine and keep it in the fridge the extra 2 days? Or should I try freezing it for a day (I have a small chest freezer)? Or do I say screw it & roast the massive beast tomorrow for just my husband & toddler? 🤪 Help please! 🙏

I’d roast it as planned. Then just warm slices on Saturday. Also, what the person said about avoiding sick people.

tvfjvg

Why do some recipes (e.g. french fries, hash browns) say to soak potatoes in water to remove the starch if potatoes are almost completely starch? Wouldn't removing all the starch just mean resolving all of the potato, leaving no food remaining to cook with?

Most of the starch is trapped behind cell walls. Some of those cell membranes and walls rupture when you cut, chop, shred or otherwise disrupt the potato's structure, so there's loose starch just leaking out. That starch gets in the way in some ways: browns and burns too fast when you're frying, gelatinizes and becomes gummy too fast when boiled or steamed, etc. So you want to rinse out the loose starch first, and let the rest of the starch stay in place behind cell walls, to be cooked at the same speed as the rest of the potato.

tar5zv

How do you make each rice independent? My dad said in the perfect fried rice, each grain of rice is independent, how do you do that? When i make rice out of a cooker its soft and mushy.

There are a few steps to doing this, but most of it starts with your rice. Now, contrary to popular belief, you can use rice fresh out of a rice cooker to fried rice. This does present two challenges though: you have to use higher heat and do a little more work as you fry AND you have to use rice right out of the rice cooker. It cannot sit around, it has to go from rice cooker to hot pan as fast as possible. Or you can make fresh rice, lay it out in a single layer on a sheet pan or something, and rapidly cool it, though I personally think this is a lot of effort. Additionally, you can use steamed rice. The steaming process helps with grain separation. But most people do not have a steaming set up. The most common way of making fried rice is to use leftover rice. This is how I do it and probably how most people do it. I am almost sure a lot of restaurants do it this way too. Make rice one night and just be sure to make extra, stash some leftovers in an open container in the fridge, and the next day you have perfect rice for fried rice. The next way to ensure separated grains is in the cooking process. Make sure you are using high heat and that you agitating the rice as much as possible, If you are using the day-old rice trick, you might find that it is clumpy, so you have to break the clumps apart while cooking. I usually try to break apart those clumps with my hands before I start cooking, but usually a few small chunks still remain even when I do that. Not everyone has a big wok to cook in, I definitely do not, but you want to be as aggressive with it as you can for whatever size pan you have. The combination of heat and aggressive stirring/tossing the rice allows a lot of moisture to escape. Moisture is what causes rice grains to stick together. Another trick I use is how I incorporate my egg. In both China and Japan (and probably other countries) there is a technique called golden rice. To make the rice "golden", you stir the egg into the rice before you even start cooking. Take day-old rice, put it in a bowl, crack an egg in (traditionally, I think only egg yolks are used, but I am usually too lazy and just use a whole egg. If you use only the yolks, you might need two yolks depending how much rice you have), and stir it around. This helps break up clumps and also coats your rice in egg. Then you just do the same as before. At first, the rice will be mushy from the egg, but as you fry and stir a bunch and the moisture cooks out of the egg, you will get independent golden rice grains. And lastly, if you make fried rice and the grains are not independent, it is really no big deal. As long as you are only cooking to impress yourself, it does not matter that much as long as it tastes good to you. Other people (especially on the internet) will judge you for not having made fried rice "correctly", but all that matters in the end is you having a finished product you enjoy eating (and hopefully enjoyed cooking).

x6iz43

I messed up and used Monterey Jack instead of Mozzarella in my lasagna. Will it still work? Last night I was pre-assembling my family's favorite lasagna meal that I only make every couple of months, and towards the end I realized that the cheese was NOT mozzarella, but monterrey. I've been stressed and struggling lately and just didn't catch that I had the wrong bag. I almost threw the whole thing in the bin out of overwhelm, but I decided to put the last layer on and hope for the best. The ingredients are too expensive to just chuck out. It gets baked today for dinner. Will it still be ok? Initial internet search says it might not be as stretchy but have more "cheese" flavor. Thoughts? Please be kind.

Monterey jack has more flavor than mozz. It's going to be good though, I use monterey jack for some types of pizzas. No reason to toss it.

y83f7l

Can I let my beef stew sit overnight? I'm making a rather simpel italian beef stew. Normally it was for saturday, but due to scheduling conflicts i'm hosting on friday. Because i'm not getting home untill just an hour before the guest arrive and I know that letting some stews sit overnight are just more delicous i'm wondering if I can do this with this as well. Usually i'll start in the morning for this dish, but I just want to doublecheck. Any added tips are obviously appreciated. **The recipe:** beef 2.5 k, 2 red peppers, 1 onion, 2 garlic cloves, 440g tomato pieces (can), 2 tbsp tomato paste 4 dl beef stock, 3dl Red wine, 3 tbsp olive oil, basil, rosemary (dried), marjoram (dried). I'm still contemplating in using white win instead of red. Because i've been told that it pushes the flavor of the beef and adding pancetta and some carrots. Recipe is rather simple. Place flour in a sealable plastic bag. Season with salt and pepper. Add beef and shake to coat. Sear the sides of the beef. Put the vegetables in the pot and braise them. Then add the beef with all the liquids. Apply light heat to let them simmer for a good 2 hours. Can I use this recipe, make it on thursday and serve it on friday?

As long as you fridge it. Some things like stews chilies and curries are arguably better after a day, their flavors intermingling as they chill.

msg00z

Why do Asian cuisines tend not to use short noodles? I almost exclusively see long noodles used in Asian cuisine, but no short noodle shapes like penne, fusilli, etc. Is there a reason for this? And if there are any Asian cuisines that make use of short noodles, please do share!

Long noodles are more practical to eat with chopsticks. Short ones are mainly used in soup

n7t5bz

Trying to get crispy breakfast potatoes My wife has been on a huge breakfast burrito binge and we keep adding potatoes but we want to improve their exterior texture. Insite they are coming out appropriately soft but we can seem to figure out how to get the outside nice and crispy. The way she preps the potatoes is by cubing and then tossing them with butter, salt, garlic, pepper, and a few other random spices. Spritzing some olive oil on a baking sheet and then cooks at 400 for 25 minutes, then mixes and cooks for another 20 minutes. Then we end with a minute or so of broiling. The rack is in the middle of the oven. Is there any variation we can do to get a crispier exterior?

Kenji Lopez-Alt's crispy potatoes are the only way to go. Par boiled with baking soda and tossed with aromatic infused oil and roasted. You will never go back.

kappag

Is adding vinegar to milk a good substitute for buttermilk? I've have always been told that if you need buttermilk in a recipe you can substitute by adding 1T vinegar (or apparently lemon juice) to each cup of milk. Does that really work? I don't have a particular recipe at the moment, other than I do want to try my hand at buttermilk waffles soon, but I know I wouldn't be able to go through that much buttermilk, so I was wondering if the vinegar/regular milk substitution actually works. Thanks for any insight.

So I live somewhere (China) where buttermilk just plain isn't available. I've cycled through a lot of options - vinegar included - and my suggested substitute is yoghurt. In an ideal world, first thing in the morning I take milk (for me, buffalo milk actually... it's local and can be delivered to my door, bog standard cow milk is also good though), toss a couple tablespoons of yoghurt in it, shake it up and leave it on the counter (I live in a subtropical climate, wherever in your house is warm is good). By the time I cook in the afternoon or in the evening, it's good to go and works quite well as a buttermilk sub. Or if you're making pancakes, you can do it at night and come to it in the morning. As an aside, if you use cream (even UHT cream) and do the same thing for a full 24 hours, together with a tiny splash of vinegar to taste you can make a very convincing sour cream substitute. If you don't feel like going through that whole song and dance, you can also just use yoghurt straight up, though note that it'll have a bit more of that yoghurt-y tang to it. Usually still quite tasty, but would be a touch different of a flavor than the recipe writer was envisioning. Stella Parks has a good writeup over on SE about some different choices, apparently her sub of choice was kefir. For me however, in order to get kefir I've gotta make it myself with the grains and all, which I just can't be bothered with.

lxnx05

Adding Protein to Premium Homemade Ice Cream I have been making ice cream (custard base) for a friend who is very sick with cancer. Basic recipe: 2 c Heavy Cream 2 c Whole Milk 6 Egg yolks 3/4 c Sweetener Comes out great every time in my Musso Lello ice cream maker. ​ The thing is, I want to add some protein, because my ice cream is just about the only thing she can eat right now. I was thinking of adding some whey protein to the base. Any idea, how much I could add? And would I need to make any other modifications to my recipe?

Protein powder will change the flavor and mouthfeel. Odd as it sounds you might consider infant formula, since that’ll be bland, but fortified with minerals. Source: food scientist

iluwsr

Removing curry smell I have just recently moved into an apartment and the previous owners definitely cooked with a lot of spices! We had to remove one particular wooden cabinet as it was clearly where spices were stored and we couldn't even open it, the smell was so overpowering. I know some people like the smell but I would rather remove it if I can. I have changed all textiles (except the carpet, but I have cleaned it), removed an (incredibly) greasy extractor fan filter and cleaned around, washed the presses but it still seems to linger. I've tried bowls of baking soda but it just won't budge. Any miracle tips welcome.

Wash the walls and every surface. Probably use something that smells good to you. I like the lavender good for the world products. Time will also help. Sunlight and fresh air if you can get it into your space. Start making your own smells too. But mainly wash the walls.

m8gtvd

Do you reuse oil after deep frying ? If yes, please share how.

Yes, for future deep frying. Strain out any bits that get left in it and store in a sealed container. You should be able to get several uses out of it. The exception is seafood, which can transfer fishy flavors to the oil that you might not want to end up in the next thing you fry.

y1886u

I can't even have a cookware set that isn't a disaster, please help. Stainless steel gets recommended, but its a disaster. Even with butter/oil/spray, shit sticks on medium heat. Shit burns on medium heat. Washing them is a pain in the ass. Just the thought of attempting eggs or pancakes in a steel pan gives me the chills. The fine thin layer of overcooked batter or egg makes it impossible to flip. When I use "lots" of butter or spray, sure the first batch of pancakes turns out ok. But the second you try to cook a 2nd pancake, it sticks. And if I reapply butter/spray, it seems to burn or build up and turn into a brownish liquid that stains the food and doesn't work as well as the first application. Each round of lube gets progressively less and less effective. I have to wipe the pan out and almost let it cool down after each item gets cooked. Teflon - Can't use metal on it, understood. However the plastic pieces I have seem to "melt." So I can never use them on high heat. Example, making stir-fry erodes the edge of my plastic spatula. When I go to wash it, there is a small layer on the spatula lip that's melted down/shaved off...kind of like a pencil shaving. Sometimes I find the plastic spatula pieces in my food. Cast iron - I have 2 of them and only break them out for special items like steak or meats. Simple items still stick to them. I've posted the pictures of them to /r/castiron and nobody could tell if they're well seasoned or not. If simple items do not stick, they have this weird char speckle all over them. The eggs come out swirly black from whatever weird residue was left behind the last time. Usually they just stick. So I am looking for appropriate cookware set and cooking utensils that even I can not fuck up. Or at least advice on why my cookware now seems to fail me, or why I am failing them.

Use the right tool for the right job. I keep a nonstick omelette pan and griddle SPECIFICALLY for eggs and pancakes... can't remember the last time I used them for anything else. Buy a set of silicon spatulas and you'll forget all about your melty plastic/rubber. Stainless steel is my daily driver. I use my All-Clad D3 pans for 95% of my cooking. No matter what people say, yes you get a little bit of "sticking". That's fond, and it's what gives you that delightful flavor in a pan sauce. The benefit of being stainless though is that you just deglaze with water or wine, or soak after and it comes right off. Stainless steel I mostly use for steaks and fajitas, but also when I cook bacon or (sometimes) sausage links. Get it hot, oil it up, and drop it in.

ykcepi

Best Sodium Citrate substitute in Mac & Cheese I'm making a mac and cheese today that calls for sodium citrate. I don't have that or citric acid available, so my options are as follows: 1. leave it out entirely 2. substitute with lemon juice (recommended in several articles as a sub) 3. substitute MSG (not recommended anywhere, but my brain keeps thinking of it) 4. Unknown option that I haven't thought of Which option would be best? Thank you!!!

One slice of American cheese.

t62y9u

How is cilantro supposed to taste? I'm of course aware of the toothpaste cilantro gene, yet I'm unsure whether I had it. I like the taste of cilantro, so I always assumed I didn't, until a recent conversation. My gf and I were discussing food, and the topic of cilantro came up, with her talking about using a little bit in place of parsley when she'd ran out. I was perplexed by this, as, to me, cilantro tastes very similar to mint, yet nothing like parsley at all, so I really didn't know how this worked. Upon searching online to find that, to my amazement, cilantro is supposedly similar to parsley, I was confused. Is it possible that I have the toothpaste mutation, but just like the taste of toothpaste cilantro? Does anyone else have this?

I love cilantro, eat it by the fistful. It tastes nothing like parsley to me. I wouldn't describe the taste quite like mint, but definitely more in that direction than in parsley's direction. I'd describe the taste as something like the essence of "clean." Some people say it tastes soapy to them, and I wouldn't say that it tastes like how soap tastes, but that it tastes like the culinary instantiation of the *concept* of soap.

ze9rwn

When a recipe calls for fennel how do you know which part of the plant they require? This plant has an edible stalk (bulb?), leaves (fronds?), AND seeds on top of that the seeds can be purchased WHOLE OR GROUND So how am I supposed to know? :(

I really can't recall ever seeing a recipe that doesn't specify, but here's a rundown. The stalk of fennel is very stringy, much more than celery. If the recipe isn't sauteing and simmering for a little bit, it probably isn't meant for the stalk. Fennel bulb, especially when thinly sliced, is very tasty raw, and cooks up like onion. Just cut out the wood core in the center at the bottom. The fronds are basically herbs, so use like any other herbs. Seeds can be whole or ground as you mentioned, and the difference in using the forms is the same for most other spices. If a recipe calls for toasting fennel, then it is probably meant for the seeds.

klddya

Upgrading Soy Sauce I love soy sauce. I cook with it often, and I splash it on almost anything with impunity. I’m fond of Kikkomon, but I’m guessing there are far more authentic and traditional brands that have different notes or more subtle flavors. Are there any brands that can be recommended to up my soy sauce game? I live in the upper Midwest of the US, and would love things I can order online, but post-pandemic I should have access to some decent Asian markets to scour.

Yamashin Shiro Shoyu white soy is my crack. At a mere £15.99 a bottle, my bellend of a boss would hide it from me even tho it was a key ingredient in my tuna tartare dish. I might have also been chugging it like it was a shiftie. Its the tits. Kishibori Shoyu is nuts. Its fermented in 100-year-old cider barrels for a year. Not to be wasted on your average stir fry but treated more like you would an expensive olive oil or aged balsamic used only for plating. For supermarket brands, San-J Tamari and Lee Kum Kee mushroom flavoured and dark soy are great cheaper buys. Lee Kum Kee is a Hong Kong brand that makes all kinds of great sauces and condiments.

jh0z99

What Does Vanilla Extract Actually Do? Hello everyone. I’ve literally seen dozens of recipes that asks for vanilla extract and some recipes don’t (for the same pastry). I’m very much curious what does it actually do because when a recipe calls for vanilla extract it’s usually in really small amounts like a “pinch of salt” Usually around 1/2 tsp or 1g. What does vanilla extract actually do when the amounts are really small? Thank you very much everyone and stay safe!

It adds one of the most complex flavors available, giving depth to anything it touches. Garlic is the moon while vanilla is the entire milky way