There is no chemical reaction that happens.

It is mainly a garnish.

You might get a tiny bit of celery flavor in the drink from the celery, but I think this is negligible given the other strong flavors in a bloody mary.

If you want a celery flavor, add celery salt.

It's meant to be munched on between sips, and permits a "reset" - the cocktail will be fresh upon the tongue the sip after the bite, permitting you to enjoy its flavor and consistency without being oppressed by the cumulative effect of unctuous, spice and salt that is the hallmark of the beverage.

Celery is an astringent and an aromatic - it will cut through the palate-coating tomato juice can leave behind, cool the intensity of the salt and heat, and will interrupt the soup-like consistency with a firm crunch.

It's often included in tuna and chicken salad and served with hot wings for the same reason.

Other vegetables that tickle our sense of "bitter" in a pleasing way may be similarly substituted - but celery also acts as a handy swizzle stick.

the celery help cleans the taste in your mouth ..helping every sip of your ceaser taste delicious

I've always seen it done as a garnish, and only a few places anymore will keep fresh celery around just for one drink, so it's becoming that much rarer.

To be fair, there are a lot of ways to make a Bloody Mary.

A good barman will ask their patron how they like theirs.

The two requisites that make it a Bloody Mary are the vodka and the tomato juice, and then a source of salt and sour are typically also considered must-haves, but exactly how you get those in the drink are up to you.

Beyond that, any and all of the following are commonly added or omitted based on drinker's preference: Clam juice (traditionally a must-have, and a good source of salt, but the name is off-putting in many regions, especially outside New England) Pickle juice (for those further inland, this is typically a little more palatable than clam juice to add salt, and also a sour note) Olive juice (same idea as pickle juice) Jalapeno brine (same but adds a spicier kick)

Lemon juice Lime juice Sweet & Sour mix Worstershire sauce

(yes please; most don't consider it a BM without this)

Tabasco/hot sauce (ditto) Balsamic vinegar Kosher salt (some will put it in the drink, others will salt the rim) Cracked pepper Chili powder (same idea as Tabasco; works best when mixed with the tomato juice ahead of time)

Sriracha, wasabi, etc (exotic forms of spicy)

Beer (traditionally a chaser

, now it's just as often added directly to the drink)

Ginger (Heard of it, never tried it; the theory is that since a BM is supposed to settle the stomach after a wild night, the ginger furthers that goal.

Also a spicy note)

That's just what goes in the drink.

I have seen or heard of all of the following being used as garnish, most of them skewered:

Celery (traditional) Olives (modern cop-out) Dill spear or whole dill pickle (common in the Midwest) Gherkins/sweet pickles Asparagus Cocktail onions Cherry tomatoes Lemon wedge/slice Jalapenos (fresh or pickled, whole or slices;

obviously common in the Southwest) Pepperoncini peppers Artichoke hearts

Pepperoni Salami Bacon Ham (we making a drink or a sandwich here?)

Slim Jim/beef jerky Cheese (various varieties from cubes of pepperjack to string cheese) Shrimp Tater Tots Onion Ring Hard boiled egg (say what?) Spare rib Brisket slice (ok, now it's a combo meal)

Buffalo wing Bacon cheeseburger (yes, an entire bacon cheeseburger on a skewer) ... and of course, someone just had to put them all in one drink:

The celery stick garnish became a staple of the Bloody Mary only after an impatient patron at Chicago’s Pump Room couldn’t wait for his server to bring him a swizzle stick.

He took matters into his own hands and snatched a celery stalk from a nearby relish tray.

Question: Why do you put celery in a bloody mary? Is there a chemical reason for this or is it done just for garnish?

Why do you put celery in a bloody mary?

It is used as a garnish and shouldn't affect the taste of the drink, but munching on it between sips helps to cleanse the palate and make every sip taste delicious.

It doesn't give much flavor to the drink but it refreshes the mouth and complements the flavor.

It is used as a garnish. It doesn't give much flavor.

The celery can be eaten to complement the drink. It helps to cleanse the mouth.


Grana padano and pecorino romano are two other very savory, hard grating cheeses that work well on pasta.

They taste a bit different than Parmigiano-Reggiano, but are quite good in their own right and often less expensive.

You can also look at parmesan type cheeses that are not actually Parmigiano-Reggiano.

For example, Whole Foods often has one from Argentina that offers a reasonable price/performance tradeoff.

All of that said, in many people's opinion, nothing is really quite as delicious as true Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Buy in bulk and save "Expensive but going to be used in cooking anyway" cheeses such as Parmesan or blue varieties freeze extremely well

The do loose their presentation quality, but retain their taste, smell, and texture qualities

I have had good quality blue vein wheels in the freezer for over a year and they are still perfect

(though not much left now :-[ ) Processes as required (crumb, grate, shave etc.), and then pack into air tight freezer bags, and boxed for protection Also, restaurant food wholesalers sell bulk bags of pre-processed Parmesan which you can freeze as is.

Typically 1Kg plastic zip-lock style bags.

You can usually get a cash account with them for small purchases.

They will often sell wheels in 1/4 or 1/2's too

I think it's worth the money, but buy in bulk like from Costco or Wholesale.

You can get a big block for about 20 bucks and it lasts a long time in the fridge.

Parmesan is rich in glutamates, the stuff that gives us the umami or meaty savoury taste.

That's why we like it so much.

If you want to replace it, try replacing it with another cheese that was mentioned, but beef up the umami with another source.

Depending on what you are cooking, a glutamate rich food such as anchovies, mushrooms, marmite, MSG, soy sauce, sea kelp....

in small portions would do the trick and not effect the dish much.

You could also try nutritional yeast - its a vegan alternative for yeast.

Its quite 'cheesy'.

All that said, its hard to pass up Parmesan (the real stuff).

Its just one of those things its probably worth biting the bullet for.

Also, the rind of the cheese going in chicken stock is indispensable!

Another option is to make your own Parmesan Cheese ... not an immediate solution but it is interesting to do at least once.

It isn't exactly difficult, but it does take a while to mature.

oh goodness, never considered parmesan that way -

but maybe another sharp Italian cheddar would be more to your liking?

Try pecorino romano, or a sharp matured asiago or maybe an aged provolone if you can find a sharp one?

I tend to think if you got a better quality parmesan like Reggiano or Padano you may like it?

it can be expensive though.

Question: The parmesan cheese in pasta recipe is quite expensive.....do we have cheaper alternative??  Are there are cheddar cheese which can replace parmesan cheese?

Cheaper alternative to parmesan cheese?

Grana padano and pecorino romano are two other very savory, hard grating cheeses that work well on pasta. You can also buy expensive cheeses like parmesan in bulk, then freeze until needed. Another option is to make your own parmesan, which is slow but an interesting process.

You can use Grana Padano or pecorino as alternatives. You can also buy it in bulk and freeze it.

Grana padano, pecorino romano, asiago and provolone are cheaper and have a similar taste.


That oils' smoke points can be generically classified solely according to their type is a myth.

Robert Wolke , a professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh and food columnist for the Washington Post, claims that the smoke point for an oil varies widely depending on origin and refinement .

While the smoke point does generally increase with respect to the degree of refinement of the oil , Wolke notes that generation of the nasty tasting free fatty acids is a function of time, i.e. , the longer you cook the oil

the worse it tastes.

Therefore, if you are going to be using the oil for a quick fry/sauté, it doesn't really matter what type of oil it is.

(I'm not sure if I'd use an unrefined oil for a long roast, though.)

Alton Brown , a US cooking celebrity who specializes in the science behind cookery, agrees : Now many charts and tables attempt to quantify smoke points, and I'm here to tell you they're all complete hooey.

The truth is, there are just too many factors going into a smoke point to make such concrete claims.

I will tell you this.

High heat will destroy the fruity goodness of an extra virgin olive oil or the nutty goodness of a walnut oil.

But you can sauté with just about any oil, as long as you work fast.

[Emphasis is mine.]

I wouldn't recommend using an Extra Virgin Olive Oil for high heat applications, not because you're likely to get off flavors (if you work fast), but because it's a waste of money: You'll be losing the fruity notes for which you're paying a premium.

Throughout Southern Italy and Spain, though, it is very common to use olive oil for frying (even Virgin olive oil).

For example, Mario Batali (another US celebrity chef who is a widely acclaimed Italian chef) did it all the time in his old TV show .

I don't want to disappoint you, but the sad truth is that extra virgin olive oil is unsuitable for all the cooking methods you mention.

When you heat any oil past its smoking point it starts to deteriorate and can even become dangerous.

Olive oil, extra virgin in particular, has a lower smoking point than most other oils.

In fact, you will be better off with an olive oil of lesser quality.

Such an oil will have been processed and thus purified, increasing its smoking point.

You may think that butter is unhealthy, but at high temperatures it will actually withstand the heat better than extra virgin olive oil.

Good oils for the purposes you mention are canola oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil, and grapeseed oil.

I have used olive oil for all of those tasks when I didn't have anything else around.

It's also my preferred oil for oven-roasting vegetables.

As Henrik says, though, it has a low smoke point, so it doesn't work as well as some others for cooking in a wok, or other high temperature cooking.

Aside from agreeing with ESultanik, I wanted to add this additional answer: Virgin olive oil is not appropriate for stir-frying because it would taste weird.

Unless you're doing a recipe which is specifically an Italian/Chinese fusion dish, or something which expects olive oil, you want to use a mostly flavorless vegetable oil for stir-frying.

I prefer peanut oil, but canola, safflower, and sunflower also work quite well.

Mario Batali does it all the time, so it's safe to say you can use it for that.

Should you?

Probably not, but if the $$$ doesn't bother you...

You have to consider that extra virgin olive oil usually has a smoking point around 190 degrees celsius.

For stir frying and getting the natural sugar of e.g. the vegatables to to be extracted and caramelized you need around 150 degrees celsius.

I use extra virgin olive oil for fryin vegetables and it maintains it's fruity flavor plus all of it's health benefits.

Make a test on your stove to figure out your extra virgin olive oil's smoking point, and make sure to keep the temperature below the oil's smoking point.

I use gas so it's very consistent, and I've made a mark on the regulator, so I don't have to worry about the oil overheating every time I fry something.

Once you get used to frying you immediately smell if the oil is smoking.

Referring to a series of articles written on cooking at high heat with olive oil: The answer is yes, it's perfectly fine to use olive oil to cook at high heat.

"Olive Oil is High in Monounsaturated Fats, Which Are Stable

When Heated" "Extra Virgin Olive Oil is High in Antioxidants and Vitamin E, Which Help Fight Oxidation (Olive oil contains Vitamin E and many powerful antioxidants.

These substances protect the oil from damage during high heat cooking.)

" The reasons normally stated that advised against it is based on the fact of nutrition loss -->

Again, nutrition is lost when you cook vegetables as well

(Doesn't stop me from cooking them)

References:

Question: I'd like to use extra virgin olive oil for the above mentioned cooking methods as opposed to other oils/butter. Are there any downsides to it, or can it be used safely in all those cooking methods? Is there anything that it doesn't work well with?

Can extra virgin olive oil be used for stir frying, roasting, grilling?

Olive oil has a low smoke point around 190 degrees Celsius, so while it can be used for quick frying and sauteing, the flavours will start to deteriorate quicker than other oils, and especially at high temperatures.

Olive oil can be heated up to 190°C. So it is fine for sautéeing but not for high heat frying.

You can use olive oil for sautéeing and frying up to 190°C.

When you heat it past its smoke point it will start to deteriorate and is not worth spending money on this.


There is nothing inauthentic about using sugar in an Indian dish, even a savory one.

For example, Gujarati cooks often add raw sugar (jaggery) to daal and curries.

Quoth Wikipedia:

"It is common to add a little sugar or jaggery to some of the sabzi/shaak and daal.

The sweet flavour of these dishes is believed to neutralize the slightly salty taste of the water."

And here's an example Gujarati potato curry recipe , which includes a tablespoon of sugar.

As for how much to add, that's a matter of your taste and the level of acidity and/or saltiness in the dish.

My Gujarati friends in Boston like stuff rather sweeter than I would personally prefer, so be cautious.

I have a restaurant in Delhi.

Whether you add sugar to a curry really depends on the region you're cooking is from.

A Kashmiri dish will usually never have sugar in it, but may have raisins or dates added if sweetness is required.

In contrast & (as previously mentioned) most savory Bengali dishes will have a bit of sugar added (my Kashmiri husband hates this).

It is also interesting to note that the type of onion most commonly used in India is a small pink/red onion that has quite a bit of sugar.

That is where the caramelized 'sweetness' in many Indian dishes comes from.

And yes, it is quite an 'art' to get those tonnes of onions perfectly caramelized!

It depends on your ingredients, as you allude to, sugar can help balance some flavors.

For example half a teaspoon of sugar can help counteract the acidity of tinned (crushed) tomatoes if you're using them in a curry.

yes, adding a little bit of sugar and lime juice always give it an extra flavor and freshness, specially if it is a heavily spiced curry.

I have a recipe book for cooking curries 'just like an Indian restaurant'.

The most glaringly obvious point is that just about every curry (except cream-based ones like kormas) start off with tons of onions, sweated for hours.

This releases a lot of natural sugars from the onions, so most restaurant curry sauces do have an underlying sweetness.

Obviously most home cooks don't have hours to spend sweating onions, so naturally their curries don't taste quite the same.

Adding sugar recreates the sweetness somewhat.

Their are other factors (like adding half a tin of ghee to every curry), but it does help and there's nothing wrong with it.

I find that sugar gets added to the curries from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand etc sometimes.

They are usually sour and sweet, eg use tamarind and tart ingredients like lemongrass, or very salty smelly like blachan or fish sauce.

these need leavening with sugar

so follow the recipe for good results.

Adding sugar on the off chance

I would be less certain of.

A garnish of half a sliced onion, fried until brown, and added last, will typically work well, esp with lentil dhals as the caramel in the onions comes through

Adding sugar does not make large changes in taste of recipes, A small quantity of sugar can be added to make it tasteful.

The only use of sugar in a curry is for its color.

It gives a brown tint to the dish and is always used in least amount.

If you put it for balancing spices then put a balanced amount of spices in the first place rather than balancing it later with sugar.

Given that Masala based curries always get some sweetness from tomatoes (which could be anything from sour to rather sweet), and it is generally a good idea to balance tomato based sauces of all kinds with sweet (sugar, jaggery)/sour (yoghurt, vinegar) ingredients at the end, how could one find fault with this?

Question: I've seen that sugar is used to balance out other flavors in a dish. I was just wondering if I could add a little sugar to a spicy curry(chicken curry, for example). Would that take away the authentic flavor? If no, then how much can be safely added before it becomes too sweet?

Sugar in Indian curries?

Sugar is often added to curry to add flavour and freshness, as well as changing its colour.

Sugar is often used in curries to counteract the acidity of tomatoes or to add some color.

Sugar is often used in curries in different regions.

Half a teaspoon of sugar counteracts the tomatoes in a curry.


You may be able to find vegetarian Grana Padano style cheese, but I don't think you will find the real thing in vegetarian form.

This is because the making of Grana Padano is still a traditional process and true GP cheese is only produced in certain regions of Italy.

It in fact has P.D.O. (Protected Designation of Origin) status, which means that only those cheeses produced in certain regions and using certain methods can legally be called Grana Padano.

I imagine one of those methods is using animal rennet.

I would be surprised that there isn't some form of substitute available in Italy, as they have the highest proportion of vegetarians in Europe at 10%.

I get the feeling, however, that they are perhaps less zealous about it than others if it means giving up good cheese.

The only suggestion I have found as an alternative to GP as something to sprinkle on pasta etc is nutritional yeast powder, which apparently has a similar nutty, creamy taste.

Not ideal, but if you make the choice to be veggie you have to take the rough with the smooth!

I see from your profile that you live in the UK; we are lucky in that we have a lot of fantastic small local producers, so it may be worth looking up some local dairies or cheesemakers and seeing if they can offer an alternative.

I Buy kosher Grana Padano: http://www.collaspa.it/en/index.php Since we can't use animal rennet

,it is vegetarian and it says so on their web page.

You can get a cheese named Grandi Pascoli from QuatrtroColli.

Its is a grana padano made With vegetable rennet.

This is especially made for vegetarian use.

No. Grana Padano's traditional recipe uses animal rennett and because it has DOP protection under EU law, no cheese made to any other recipe can be sold as 'Grana Padano'.

Try Grana Padano Tipo, which contains a modified enzyme.

It's used by a leading vegetarian restaurant in Brighton, for its full flavour.

I believe the best vegetarian alternative is Gran Mantovano .

It's made in Italy by a reputable maker of Grana Padano and Parmigiano Reggiano and

in my opinion is an excellent substitute for Grana Padano.

It is made specifically for vegetarians.

There is indeed a fabulous Italian Hard Cheese that is Vegetarian.

It's called Quattrocento and is made by Granarolo.

You can buy it at Waitrose or from idelionline.com

It's a smoother texture but still packs a punch so cooks and eats the same as a parmesan or PDO product

It is made with microbial rennet and is preservative free so a much cleaner ingredient deck than a few other cheeses of a similar style

Question: My wife is vegetarian and, since meeting her, I've come to realise that all Grana Padano seems to be non-vegetarian. Is this really the case, or are my local supermarkets just not stocking the veggie stuff? Would be a shame for her to miss out on so many things (esp. pesto) just because of this.  Thanks.

Is it possible to get vegetarian grana padano cheese?

Vegetarian Grana Padano-style cheeses include Kosher Grana Padano, which does not use animal rennet, Grandi Pascoli from QuatrtroColli, Gran Mantovano and Quattrocento from Granarolo.

You can't buy Grana padano without animal rennet. You can also try Grandi Pascoli, Gran Mantovano or Quattrocento.

Grana Padano can't be made without animal rennet.

You can replace with Grandi Pascoli, Gran Mantovano or Quattrocento.


the strong metallic taste is telling you something.

This something is don't eat me .

I suggest you listen.

No, seriously, if it tastes like metal it is probably because some of the can material leached into the tomatoes.

Although it might not hurt you, I still would not eat it.

Metallic taste is due to the tannins in the tomato pomace and skins.

A pinch of baking soda will alleviate the problem.

I've tried the baking soda and ruined the entire dish..

I would not suggest that..

I find a bit of brown sugar.

and extra spices,, and cooking it like mad will reduce it..

I wont buy canned again as using fresh is the only answer here.. but those of us with cans in the pantry still want to use them up somehow..

A little bit of baking soda will offset the pH of the tomatoes.

Check out the relative pH of baking soda versus tomatoes and it should give you an idea of how much to use.

Salt may also work.

But in my experience, to get canned tomatoes tasting nice, you need to reduce them like crazy to break down the pectins and get the original flavor.

I was making green chili, I used oregano, onions, garlic, cumin, pork, fresh jalapeno, salt and pepper.

I decided to add a little tomato puree (Hunts brand) and that is when the problem appeared, the metallic taste.

I added sugar which did not solve the issue, I then added some chili powder which didn't change the taste.

I really don't want to toss it.

Maybe I will try a little vinegar.

Thanks for all the tips.

I agree with the "don't eat" answers.

But if you still want to save your chili and eat it, you can add some sugar, and cook for at least 20 mins more.

Question: I used some canned tomatoes to make chili, which normally works fine, but today it has a really strong metallic flavor. From what I can tell, this is just because they're probably low-quality, so I won't be using this brand again.  Anyway, is there anything I can do to save this chili? I didn't notice the flavor until I added everything else.

Counteracting a metallic taste in canned tomatoes?

The metallic taste can come from the tannins in the tomato pomace and skins, or from metal leaching into the tomatoes from the can. A pinch of soda will offset the pH of the tomatoes.

You can try adding a pinch of baking soda or some sugar.

Try adding sugar and cooking a bit longer.


Have you tried not adding egg?

In my experiments, egg is needed when you add breadcrumbs, but if you just form some ground beef into a patty and fry it, it doesn't fall apart.

Hm, let me clarify that.

If you take a single blob of ground beef straight from the styrofoam and press it in a patty press, it doesn't fall apart.

If you take two pieces and put them next to each other in the patty press, it does fall apart as you cook it.

So when I need to add an extra bit, I add it on top.

That works.

So there is at least one way you can make a hamburger without adding egg.

Now, if you wanted to mix spices into the beef, then you might have a problem.

I'll admit that.

Better than nothing, though.

A bit of corn starch would help if you cannot add egg at all.

I've never used anything other than beef, dry spices, and sometimes garlic to make my hamburgers.

Truthfully, I much prefer the taste of a burger with no binders.

We buy our beef by the half cow, and make plenty of burgers.

Freezer -> defrost -> Mix beef with spices ->

Form burgers while still cold (I make a round ball with the meat, them compress it)

-> straight to grill.

We've never had any issues.

I will also say, that my wife is much better at making evenly sized, well formed burgers, that hold together really well..

There are two things you need to do to make perfect hamburgers without egg or other binder.

First knead the meat balls so that the meat binds together.

Kneading give you a better bind you will get.

Press the meat firmly into your mould before popping out.

Second, after forming into shape, refrigerate the meat pats.

This process first stretches the proteins in the meat.

When chilled, the proteins contract again but now they are twisted together in a bond.

When cooking, the pat will hold together just a well as any that you buy in a shop.

If find that this works even when I add liquids to the meat.

I often season my meat with Worcester sauce mixed in.

Even with this extra liquid the meat will hold together just fine.

No egg required.

You can use what is called a flax egg , it is 1:3::milled flax seed: water (4Tbsp is about 1 egg in terms of binding strength).

Not only is flax the secret glue in many vegan recipes, but it might be a good additive for your wife's diet.

You can fry it without an egg at all.

I just form a patties, leave them on the table or in the fridge for a hour or so and then fry it.

Nothing fall apart, everything is fine.

I too had an intolerance to egg when I was pregnant with our last child.

In place of egg when making hamburgers or meatloaf I used a jar of veal baby food.

It helped bind and keep the dish moist.

Doesn't really add or subtract from the flavor of the beef either.

Best of luck to you!

Time for some molecular gastronomy.

Transglutaminase ("meat glue") should work perfectly.

Tbs flour for 1 Pound of meat

Using pork mince will make a good burger as the proteins in pork meat bind naturally

and so you do not need the egg to bind the mix.

Just work the meat a little to encourage a good mix.

Question: My wife is having pregnancy cravings for (homemade) hamburgers, but has developed a prenatal allergy / intolerance to egg.  What is a possible replacement for egg to stop a hamburger pattie from collapsing into mince during cooking?

Substitution for egg to bind hamburger mince

Try making the patties without binders, or using a flax egg, a jar of veal baby food or a bit of corn starch. The proteins in pork mince will bind naturally, making it a good choice for burger meat.

You don't necessarily need a binding agent. You can also try using a flax egg or a bit of corn starch.

You don't need to add a binder like egg. Pork mince will hold together on its own.

Try using a flax egg or adding a bit of corn starch.


This one had me scratching my head for a while.

I came across the phrases "stovetop oven", "raised center skillet", "steamer pan" and a bunch of other dead-ends.

Well, I finally stumbled onto "Ultimate Dutch Oven" : Looks familiar, doesn't it?

This one is cast iron, but what you've found is clearly a non-stick version of the same thing.

It's sold as camping gear.

The raised center in the middle is what they call a "convection cone".

Presumably it's meant to emulate a convection oven (inefficiently, I might add, since there's no fan) -

the vents in the cone are a means of distributing the heat, to help mitigate the usual skillet problem of the bottom being overcooked while the top is still raw.

I'm pretty sure that nothing is actually supposed to go "inside" the cone, other than hot air.

It's probably fairly effective if you're cooking over an open flame (i.e. extremely hot air).

A 3" high non-stick version of this would seem to be of pretty limited use.

I can imagine trying to make "baked" potatoes in there, or maybe pre-butchered chicken parts?

As you can see from the link above, the "full-size" version can hold a couple of small birds, and again, it's cast iron, so it's infinitely more useful for outdoor cooking.

It is a dry pan, from Tefal, you most likely find in Europe.

Edit by rumtscho

The answer used to contain a deep link on a site called top-shop.ro, now the domain still exists, but the product page is gone.

We had one of these when I was growing up.

I remember the commercials identifying it as the perfect pan for frying chicken.

The concept was the vents let out undesirable moisture so that all of your pan fried pieces of chicken would be crisp throughout.

It was also supposed to be a healthier way of cooking since it was supposed to use little to no oil.

I seem to recall it was a pain to use and results

were eh...

okay.

It got a lot of use though because of the cost.

Funny thing is, my mom

and I saw one of these at goodwill today

and my 17 year old daughter asked the very same question and

my mother was able to confirm my memory was correct.

See these two links: What is this pan all about? and Kitchen Sleuth:

What Is This Pan?

The holes are for steam.

What is under the raised center?

It's called Dry Cooker in Europe.

You can find it in Romania, buy it from TV shopping.

Not sure who makes it, but I can tell I used it

and it really works.

Unfortunately there are fake copies which are not Teflon, so you need to be careful what you're buying.

Not sure whether they can be purchased online and have them delivered in other European countries, but I have tried getting one here in The States and was not able to find it.

I have one like this, but much older.

It is useful to bake things on a stovetop when you don't have an oven.

I have used mine for roasting potatoes and making sponge cake and it works quite well.

Mine, though, has a heavy iron rin that you are supposed to put underneath it, I guess to spread the heat.

I saw one today in a charity shop for £2:00.

I was curious about its purpose

so I have done a bit of research.

As previous posters have said it’s a dry cooking pan.

They are widely used in eastern Europe and seem to be quite a good alternative to using an oven especially if you are only cooking for one or two.

They sell in Romania for about £30:00.

Here is a video from 1987 promoting them as a “Swiss dry cooker” for only $19:95 each.

They are available today on Ebay for as little as £8:25 plus postage and packing.

I’m back to the charity shop tomorrow to snap it up.

But I might just keep it as a conversation piece LOL!

I have one of these.

It's a Swiss Dry Fryer and it means you can cook mushrooms etc with just one teaspoon of oil.

You put the oil in, put the lid on and wait til it heats, add whatever onions, pappers, mushrooms... and replace the lid and just shake occasionally and they cook perfectly in so little oil!

It's a great gadget.

Mine is over 15 yrs old!

It's called a convection frying pan.

I've had one for about 30 years.

They were most recently made by Starshine & you can still get a pre-owned one on Ebay.

You rub just a tiny bit of butter in them, like you would with a cake pan, & cook on low heat - like a on an electric stove.

They come with a lid.

The holes in the center allow the heat to come in through the bottom.

They are great for chicken, vegetables, any kind of meat.

You can cut pork chops with a fork & there's hardly any fat & no grease.

cooking.stackexchange.com/users/63272/Linda Clark Kohrt Brooks

When I was growing up on Long Island, NY we had a stove

top oven looking very much like the one that you showed in the first picture.

It was from the middle 30's.

I was told that it was for baking potatoes on the top of our gas stove.

If I remember correctly it didn't work very well

What we had was aluminum

Question: I asked a question about a " Wonder Pot " a bit ago, and this item came up on a search. I don't think it's a wonder pot though. The center hole is effectively much smaller, and there are not any vents in the lid. There isn't a "flame tamer" either, although this part may be lost.   I keep seeing cookware like this in thrift stores, and I'm pretty sure it's for one specific task. What might that task be?

What is this type of cookware called?

This is called a dry cooker or Swiss dry fryer, and it is like a convection frying pan. It uses less oil and vents unwanted moisture to make food crispier.

It is known under different names depending on the area. It is meant to emulate convection cooking. It is a healthier way of cooking than frying.

It's meant to emulate convection cooking.

It is used for baking potatoes, chicken, mushrooms or onions. It is a healthier way of cooking as it uses very little oil.

It is known as a dry pan, a dry cooker a Swiss dry fryer and a convection frying pan.


To decrease the bitterness, bring out the sweetness in the carrots by cooking for longer.

The best technique I've found to do this with carrots is frying and steaming them at a low temperature.

Make glazed carrots: per 200g of carrot, peel, cut into ~2cm thick diagonal cuts and add 40g butter, a half teaspoon of sugar and season with salt and black pepper.

In a large lidded pan over a low heat, spread the carrots out in a single layer, add the lid and cook for 25-35 minutes.

Shake the pan occasionally.

Push the cooking time as long as you can without letting the carrots become overly soft.

This should give deliciously sweet fragrant carrot.

Another thing to keep in mind is that salt is better than sugar to reduce bitterness so add as much as you can without oversalting the carrots.

Make cole slaw with them, and some zucchini and parsnips, then dress with mayo, red wine vinegar and apple cidar vinegar.

Gradually add some white sugar to take the edge off of any remaining bitterness.

This palate will balance out the bitter and play it up with the sharpness of the parsnips.

Zucchini, when shredded finely and left in a mayo/vinegar dressing will soften to an almost shredded cheese texture and turn into the median flavor distracting from over bitter carrots.

I had a large bag of zucchini that was on its way out recently, and some carrots that had since passed the point of just being white and were no longer right enough to eat raw anymore.

This extended their (fridge) shelf lives in one swoop.

Some varieties are naturally high in terpenoids, which make the carrots taste bitter.

Because terpenoids develop earlier than sugars, a carrot that is harvested too young might taste bitter.

if you're growing them yourself make sure you wait a little longer before harvesting.

And if you're buying them you'll have to cook them.

I love myself some raw carrots but end up throwing out bags sometimes because they're bitter.

Goodluck.

Whatever you do, you should cook the carrots.

Carrots usually become sweeter when cooked.

And you can alter the flavor slightly by cooking in a broth, sauce, roasting with other ingredients, etc.

I'm thinking stock or compost. :)

Question: I've got a bunch of two week old carrots (kept in the fridge), peeled, and they tasted bitter (raw).  Is it normal that carrots turn bitter?  Is there a way to prevent it from happening?  Will the taste improve after cooking? (I'll cook and taste anyway)  I've looked at  this question , but the peel is said to be bitter, while these are peeled already.

What can be done with bitter carrots?

Some varieties are naturally high in terpenoids, which make the carrots taste bitter. Often cooking them will bring out the sweetness.

Some carrots are more bitter than others. Cooking them should bring out their sweetness.

Cooking the carrots should bring out their sweetness.

Some carrot varieties are more bitter than others.


I've not heard of egg shells being used that way.

I'm not sure what they would add.

The classic way of clarifying a meat stock to make it crystal clear (ie: for a consommé) is to whisk egg white (

and I know at least one chef who adds crushed up egg shell to this mix) and finely ground meat into the cold stock and then gradually heat it.

As the added ingredients cook they rise through the stock trapping all the bits that make it cloudy and the gunky 'raft' can be skimmed off the top.

Adding egg shells to a brown stock is a great way of clarifying the base.

It creates a 'raft' which helps absorbs the impurity's which would otherwise spoil your stock.

All the ends and bits of vegetables, including onion skins, etc., are the most nutritious parts of the vegetable and lend flavor to the stock.

It's great if you can save them and add them in.

As for eggshells, it's some of the most bio-available form of calcium (add a little vinegar when boiling), very similar to our own composition.

I haven't tried it yet, but will be saving my shells from now on.

It always felt a little weird to throw them out, and am excited now that I can stick it in the freezer collection bag.

A classic way to clarify stock is to stir in some beaten eggs and then bring the stock to a simmer.

The egg proteins coagulate, rise to the top, and form a sort of strainer that filters out the bits and pieces that would otherwise make the stock cloudy.

I've seen some recipes that instruct to you to break up the egg shells and mix them into the eggs before adding to the stock.

I always assumed that the shells just add bulk and structure to the egg raft, helping it to hold together and form a better filter.

If you watch the Travel Channel episode on The God of Ramen -- renown ramen soup shop in Japan -- you will see that the chef there uses the egg shells to clarify the broth.

That is all that is said about it.

You will see the egg shells floating atop the soup, which also has lots of ground pork and other ingredients simmering along with them.

When they serve the soup, they ladle it into a strainer first, so that the broth is clear.

I was told by my head chef who hails from italy that putting the shells in your stock with actually make it darker.

He said there is a specific vitamin in the shells that does this. Havent tried it yet though.

Like many other posters, I think egg shells will not change any culinary property of your stock significantly.

However I do have heard about egg shells being used by people who want to increase the nutritional value (egg shells are rich in calcium)

However I never use them since I rather go with more a pure and traditional taste.

Something for example that seems being forgotten (specially at homes) but still enhance the stock are chicken feet.

If I were making chicken stock, I would make sure that above all things, the feet are not missing.

Question: I've been making stock from vegetable scraps I've been keeping in the freezer (mainly carrots, celery, onion, tomato, and parsley). I read elsewhere that one could include egg shells in stock. Is this a good idea? How many should I include?

Should I include egg shells in my stock?

Adding eggshells to brown stock is a great way of clarifying it, but it may also make it darker. Eggshells have a lot of bio-available calcium and can add nutritional value to the stock.

Egg shells are used to clarify stock. They are high in calcium and will also make the stock darker.

Egg shells are high in calcium and add nutritional value to the stock.

The egg shells, mixed in, makes the stock darker.


Timing and precision are key.

First off, you need to boil your eggs for exactly 5 minutes, assuming they're large.

They should be at room temperature before you start, and you should let them cool afterwards.

This should result in a cooked white and a very runny yolk before you fry.

The oil you use to fry

the Scotch eggs needs to be just the right temperature - too hot and the crust will brown before the sausage is cooked, too cool and the yolk will cook solid before the crust is browned.

The oil needs to be 350F/180C; a cube of bread should take 1 minute to completely brown.

If the temperature is right the Scotch egg should take about 5 minutes to brown evenly, and you should have properly-cooked sausage and a yolk that's still runny.

The scotch egg with a runny yolk -- or other cooked eggs with yolks of various textures -- are a hallmark of some of the new molecular gastronomy chefs.

Be warned, though, that it's probably more effort than you want to go to.

Here's a couple of links to online recipes: https://www.vacmasterfresh.com/fresh-bites-blog/how-to-sous-vide-a-scotch-egg/ - cook at 68C for 15 minutes, in boiling water for 1-2, shock in ice water and chill 10-15 minutes, then peel http://benstarr.com/recipes/sous-vide-scotch-eggs/ - cook at 64C for 60 minutes, cool in a cold water bath, freeze solid, then peel http://thewhychef.com/2016/02/liquid-centre-scotch-eggs/ - soft-boil eggs (bring to a boil, remove from heat and let stand 6 minutes), shock with cold water, then peel If you can find it,

the first issue of Lucky Peach includes a whole long article on egg cookery which explains the various cooking times and techniques.

Everything you try, will require trial and error.

Basically practice makes perfect, but here is a method I use: Freeze the raw egg in its shell, de-shell the frozen raw egg and wrap the sausage meat around it whilst it is still frozen.

This can be difficult as the egg's albumen defrosts quickly.

Coat in flour, egg and breadcrumb.

Fry till the scotch egg floats and the crumb is a deep golden brown.

It's the only way I know that gives a soft runny yolk every time.

(This is more or less an addition to ElendilTheTall's answer, but it's too long to fit into a comment.)

My experience with eggs is that "let them cool afterwards" won't fully do the trick, since the egg yolk will simply continue to cook from the heat left in the egg.

To prevent that, after boiling for five minutes, you need to cool them down quickly by putting them under running cold water.

This stops the cooking process, and when deep-frying later on, they will just heat through, but the yolk will stay runny and not start to set anymore.

See also here in section "Cooling".

For a recipe, see here for an example.

When this was broadcast (last month I think), there was a lot more emphasis in the programme on how important it was to cool the eggs than the sentence Drain and cool the eggs under cold running water suggests.

The easiest way to create a runny center is not to use a boiled egg, but a poached.

Use cling film and a small bowl, place your egg and wrap it in the cling film and tie it off.

Cook your poached egg for 2 minutes.

let it cool and snip away the cling film.

place the egg in the freezer and allow it to set.

The egg is only half cooked at this stage.

Wrap your egg in sausage meat and breadcrumbs and deep fry for around 4 minutes.

You will have a perfect runny center and a treat!

I make them by the dozen myself.

I gently put the egg into boiling water for 4 minutes then straight to an ice bath for about 10 minutes.

once chilled gently crack the shell all the way around the center and put back into ice water or 5-10 minutes then peel.

Wrap in thinly pressed sausage and directly into breading and refrigerate.

I cook at 300 degrees for 5 and a half minutes.

No complaints so far.

Not really too hard or too time consuming once you get the hang of it.

Question: I ate a scotch egg at  thebreslin.com  in New York City.  The dish was clearly cooked fresh and the yolk of the egg was still runny when I cut into it.  It was pretty amazing.  My question - how can I get the yolk to stay runny? Scotch eggs are pretty easy to make with hard-boiled eggs - but soft-boiled?  Is it just a timing thing?

How can I create a scotch egg with a runny yolk?

Boil the eggs for five minutes before cooling them quickly in an ice bath or under running water. Another option is to freeze the raw egg, de-shell it and then wrap sausage meat around it while it is still frozen.

You can try soft boiling the egg and the immediately submerging in ice water. You can also try freezing the egg and assembling while frozen.

Boil the egg till soft boiled then put in an ice bath to stop cooking.

Freeze the raw egg, peel it and wrap the sausage meat around while the egg while still frozen.


In addition to what Jason says above, which is absolutely correct, nori needs to be toasted to be crispy.

Sometimes you buy it ready-toasted, but sometimes it's not toasted and you need to toast it over an open flame yourself.

How to toast nori instructions and video .

Additionally, I've found that if you live somewhere high-humidity (like San Francisco, where I live), you sometimes need to re-toast nori even if you're buying ready-toasted packets, because it becomes moist.

Don't wait too long to eat it.

I'm assuming you're talking about rolls, or makimono, rather than nigiri-zushi.

Anyway, assuming the nori was reasonably freshly opened and crispy when you started, that's the main risk you have: within minutes of preparing makimono, the moisture of the rice will quickly transfer to the dry laver.

The faster you eat it, the less likely it is to become mushy and chewy.

In the convenience stores in Japan, onigiri, which are, like makimono, also wrapped in nori, are now usually wrapped in a special plastic pouch.

If you follow the directions, you can wrap the onigiri with the nori in one motion while you peel off the plastic.

This lets you enjoy the crispy texture when you're ready to eat, which is the one advantage convenience store onigiri have over bringing mom's with you.

If you make the onigiri at home, you'll usually end up with moist, slightly chewy nori when you're finally ready to eat.

As everyone has said, assuming the nori is dry enough to begin with, the problem is moisture getting into the nori from the rice.

But the problem might not be just moisture transferring because you let it sit too long, but rather that the rice itself is too moist.

The drying step in making sushi rice is critical, and if you under-dry your rice, you'll have problems.

Especially if your rice is pretty sticky, you may want to try drying it further.

From a great Serious Eats article about making the rice: If all goes well, your sumeshi should come out slightly sweet and tart, full of distinct grains, and have a texture that holds together when compressed, but is not overly sticky.

To further the answers already given: Nori starts becoming chewy as soon as rice is applied to it since the rice has moisture thus you want to minimize the time between rice-on-nori to maki-in-mouth.

Besides toasting the nori and consuming the maki roll as soon as possible after producing it, I would recommend one step between those two: Mise-en-place; not only should you have all your materials/tools/ingredients at the ready, you should have each makimono filling pre-assembled BEFORE applying the rice.

For example, if you have a roll with multiple ingredients in the filling gather enough fillings for a single roll in one pile so it can all be added to the roll all at once.

Also make sure that you have a clean and dry area for assembling, cutting, and plating the maki roll.

Again, keep moisture away from the nori as much as possible.

Nori is like anything, the more you pay the better the quality.

The better the quality, means its usually a bit thinner and consumes better.

Cheap seaweed will be a bit thicker and once the moisture gets in it, will be chewy.

Generally, the Japanese seaweed is much better than chinese made seaweed, but as its about 4 times the price, most supermarkets only stock chinese.

They figure people wont know any better....

They may be right.

Also consume within a few minutes of making and the taste experience will be so much better.

I use a propane blowtorch to crisp up my sushi.

If you try this, expect to ruin a few sushi rolls before you get it right.

Question: When we make home-made sushi, we often find that the seaweed wrapping (or nori) is too chewy.  The seaweed we buy is from the local supermarket, and nothing fancy.   Question : How can we ensure that the seaweed is not too chewy?

How does one stop sushi seaweed wrapping being too chewy?

Nori needs to be toasted to be crispy, and will be sold pre-toasted or will need to be toasted over an open flame. The quality of more expensive brands will be better, but in all cases the nori will lose its crispiness soon after coming in contact with the moist rice.

Eat the sushi as the rice soaks into the nori very quickly and makes it chewy.

Eat it quickly after making because the moisture from the rice soaks into the nori. Your rice may be too moist.

Try a propane blowtorch to crisp up the sushi.


Use-by dates are set as the very minimum time that the product in question will be good for, provided that it is stored properly.

In addition, and as a general rule, because Parmesan is a dry, hard cheese, with very low water content, the use-by date is almost always far shorter than the actual time that the cheese will be good for, again, provided proper storage.

By "parmesan sprinkle cheese", I assume you are referring to the ones that come in a parmesan-wheel shaped box, such as this: Their shelf life is far longer than their expiry date, and I would not be worried about using it beyond that date.

However, for those boxes, most manufacturers tend to use the youngest cheese possible (for Parmesan this means 12 months), meaning it has not had as much time to age (some parmesan is aged for as long as 36 months, and some manufacturers age it for even longer than that), meaning that there isn't much flavor in it.

Personally, I stopped using the boxes a few years back, when I realized that I used far more than I would if I simply used a grater and a piece of parmesan, meaning that it I spend less (if memory serves, I calculated the annual savings to something like 300 Norwegian Kroner/50 US Dollar) on parmesan, getting more, and I think better, flavor from it.

It should be noted that my family uses a LOT of parmesan (depending on how often we have guests, we go through anywhere from 1/4 kg to 1 kg per month), so the savings argument may not hold true for you.

It lasts a long while as long as it's stored properly.

I use mine up too fast to have a problem.

You may want to freeze half

so you don't end up wasting it.

It freezes very well.

Hard cheeses naturally contain a lot of salt.

I buy the store brand and it contains no preservatives, just cheese and cellulose as a non-caking agent.

Cans of cheese sprinkles are made to be shelf-stable for a longer time than fresh or block cheese (often, this is because the sprinkles are not made with real cheese -- or, if they are, then they also contain a lot of preservatives).

The sprinkles should be safe to eat at least through their expiration date if stored properly.

That said, any fat in the sprinkles can go rancid and mold can take hold well before the expiration date.

If the contents of the can smell bad or the color of the sprinkle changes, don't take any chances; the cost of replacing the can is far lower than the cost of sickness.

Kraft's website says they pasteurize or heat treat all their cheeses to kill bacteria and they are confident they are safe to eat.

That includes their Kraft Parmesan grated cheese in the shaker container sold in the unrefrigerated aisle.

Some brands I've seen don't say on the bottle "refrigerate after opening."

Kraft does for legal protection, just to be safe from lawsuits because if you live in a very hot and humid climate (like Florida where I am), the opened container will absorb more moisture from the air and will begin to degrade sooner, also because of the heat.

Hard Parmesan cheese was first mentioned in the literature in the fourteenth century, obviousy long before refrigerators were invented.

So, as far as Kraft pre-grated cheese is concerned, any bacteria would have to come from an external source to begin to cause a problem, as the company claims it is sold bacteria free.

The cooler temperature helps keep the flavor fresh.

The rule with hard cheeses is you don't want to eat the moldy bits.

This is easy to avoid when the cheese is in a block because you can just cut the moldy part off.

With already ground cheese, the whole can is suspect the second you see any mold at all.

That said, the agreed upon time is 3 months past the date on the package .

I've used the cheese for longer than that myself

but I can't recommend doing so.

Gee, I just used mine about a month or so back and am using it again today; it's Kraft Parmesan Romano blend, its' expiration was June 2011.

It was refrigerated and had no odor, bad taste or odd coloring going on.

Question: My boyfriend says parmesan sprinkle cheese is bad because it has been in the refrigerator for a long time. But I still use it long past it's date and don't seem to have any problems with it. What do you think?

How long does parmesan sprinkle cheese last in the refrigerator?

Use-by dates are the minimum estimated time that properly stored food will be good, and in the case of hard parmesan, the actual usable time will be much longer. Parmesan has existed far longer than refrigerators, and cheese sprinkles are often treated and preserved to increase their shelf life.

While parmesan is an aged cheese that will last for a long time, 3 months past the use by date is probably the limit.

Parmesan will last for a lot longer than it's use by date.

3 months past it's date is probably the limit.


I have only seen it used in dahl dishes, presumably because of it's claimed digestive properties.

Asafoetida is incredibly pungent; anything more than a pinch seems too much and unpleasant.

I think of it as a flavour-enhancer, a natural, Indian MSG rather than a spice in the normal sense.

It makes your mouth water quite intensely and seems to stimulate the savory tatse buds (umami).

This is lovely when done subtley and kept in the background.

Therefore, I suspect you could add small pinches to all kinds of savoury food.

It goes well in just about any kind of curry-based dish in the styles of the Indian subcontinent, from Sri Lankan mutton rolls to biryani to traditional curries.

I've never seen it in tandoor-based dishes, but I don't get out much.

In the recipes I've seen (and made)

it goes mostly in dahls and other dishes that cook relatively slowly.

I think it usually goes in about the same time you would put fenugreek in: After the vegetables and some water are already in the pot, not directly into the oil like cumin.

For a good flavor, use it in yellow dals.

I used to have a recipe for a Pakistani curry gravy that was heavy on the hing (asfoetida).

This was from a restaurant that used it as their base for many of their curry dishes.

Googling has failed to turn up any hits that look right

but I do get more and better hits by googling on hing than asafoetida.

Asafoetida or Heeng as known in Northern India should be used in lentils or any dish that has beans as its main ingredients.

Its anti flatulent but has strong odour, hence use with beans :-).

We use it mainly in lentils or Dals.

I remember its being part of South Indian pickle recipes as well.

Its must have in kitchen

You can use it in any dish as an alternative to garlic (but in smaller quantities).

To be honest though, I haven't been able to find a dish which indeed tastes better with asafoetida than with garlic. :)

Asafoetida is used by some Indian religious groups as a substitution for onion.

Unless you have a religious aversion to onion I would discourage this practice.

It is exceptionally pungent and has an onion-like aroma.

Recipes will call for as little as 1/8 tsp to flavor an entire pot.

The only application that I have found that I like it is in lemon pickles.

In that case I don't want chunks of onion and I want the flavor subtly and evenly distributed through the jar.

Asafoetida is a digestive aid or specifically anti-flatulence.

So you'd predominantly use it in vegetable, lentil and bean dishes.

It adds little in terms of flavour and like turmeric is used mainly for its digestive qualities.

A Rogon Josh curry recipe I have calls for the meat to be marinated in a mixture of yoghurt and a half teaspoon of asafoetida.

I have tried the recipe both with and without and there is definitely something different, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Question: I have heard about the medical benefits of  Asafoetida .   I used it once in  Brinjals  (which while cooking contained only  Ginger  powder,  Fennel  powder, salt and  red chilli  powder). The addition of  Asafoetida  resulted in the diluted flavor of the remaining spices in  Brinjal  curry.  In which kind of foods does it make sense to use  Asafoetida ?

In which kind of food items can Asafoetida be used?

Asafoetida is a digestive aid, or specifically anti-flatulent. It is mostly used in dahls and other dishes where lentils or beans are the main ingredient.

It is generally used with beans and lentils as it aids digestion.

It has digestive properties and is generally used with beans and lentils.

Use a small pinch in all kinds of savory dishes. It works like a flavor enhancer.

It can be a good substitution for onions.


Yes, you can.

In fact, this is a specific technique known as a " coffee toddy " which is a good way to take liquid coffee camping with you if you don't want to take brewing equipment.

Some people even prefer coffee made this way to other methods of brewing.

Yes.

Coffee gets its flavor from a number of compounds such as oils, which can break down at high temperatures.

But this takes time.

As long as you drink the coffee before it gets stale, heating it should be fine. Also, caffeine is quite stable at hot-coffee temperatures.

Heating didnt work for me.

I tried this today.

Yesterday I soaked a tsp of illy in water for 24 hrs.

It came up quite good.

Not very bitter.

I filtered it and heated it on very low heat, (a setting of 3 out of 6 on my hot plate) until it started to give off a little steam.

Now it felt quite bitter on tasting.

I always make my hot coffee in a moka on this temprature and its doesnt burn, So I dont think I burnt my cold brew

My experience of heating coffee in a microwave is very negative, although I cannot explain the mechanism for it turning out so awful.

It may be the effect of the hot coffee cooling down, rather than the effect of the reheating.

We've all experienced coffee that's been sat on the hotplate for too long; bitter and acrid.

You risk this "burning" effect if you heat cold coffee on a hotplate.

Cold press coffee is generally brewed very strong indeed; about twice as strong as espresso.

Hence you can add boiling water at a ratio of, say, 3:1 and have an acceptably warm cup of coffee - and this is what people usually do.

If you want to microwave for extra heat, just microwave the full-strength cold-brew for 10 seconds or so, before adding water from the kettle.

Cold brewing and storing in the fridge can be done with an Aeropress without loosing flavor.

This thread talks about both cold brewing and keeping it in the fridge: http://coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/432108

Question: Apparently keeping coffee hot and reheating it both lead to bad flavors:  How can I reheat coffee without imparting bad flavor?  Why does coffee taste awful after reheating it in a microwave oven?  However, can you cold-brew coffee and then heat it (microwave or other) without ruining the flavors?  If so, why?

Can cold-brew coffee be heated? Why?

This technique is called a 'coffee toddy' and is good for camping without coffee making equipment. The coffee and caffeine in it are not harmed by the heating process. Cold press coffee is generally brewed very strong indeed; about twice as strong as espresso, so you can heat it in the microwave for a few seconds before adding hot water.

If you want to heat up cold brew, then microwave it and add boiling water to dilute.

The coffee toddy is a technique for reheating coffee when camping.

Cold press coffee is much stronger than hot coffee. You can microwave then add boiling water to dilute it to the correct strength.


You can put things in the cavity to help flavor the chicken as well.

A bundle of fresh herbs, garlic, an onion, fresh fruit, etc.

Stuffing from a cavity is divine though, don't knock it until you've tried it!

IMO you should only use herbs some onion and fresh fruit as others have stated.

Anything that is bread based must heat to 160 to be safe to eat after the fact which means by that time your chicken will be likely 170 and dry.

If you insist on a proper stuffing then pull your chicken at 160 then remove the stuffing and put it back in the oven till it's 160

The stuffing doesn't add much flavor to the chicken, so no.

If I even bother making stuffing, I like to cook the it in a separate pan.

I usually have better luck getting the stuffing to a safe temperature without overcooking the meat, and it doesn't get as greasy.

It also lets me get plenty of crispy brown bits on the top of the stuffing, which you really don't get if you cook it in a bird.

I often use fat drained off of drippings from a previous roast chicken to cook the veg for the stuffing, and I use homemade, concentrated chicken stock (made from the carcasses of previous roast chickens), which I think gives the stuffing just as much chicken-y flavor as cooking it inside the chicken.

You can put other things into the bird to improve flavor if you're worried about it being bland.

I like to season with salt and pepper inside and out.

That's all you need if you have a really good chicken, but sometimes I'll cram half a lemon, half an onion, a couple cloves of garlic that I've bashed with the side of a knife to crack them open a bit, and some fresh herbs inside to play with the flavors.

This is an odd kind of answer to the question that you're not exactly asking; If you're interested in stuffing the bird, and consuming the stuffing, but not interested in the yuck of unstuffing the thing, you could fill an improvised food-grade net (i.e. cheesecloth, muslin wort/hop bag, grain sock, etc) that would be permeable AND allow for you to remove the stuffing more easily.

In this way, you get all the benefits of the stuffing flavoring the bird, you get a side dish, and both the act of stuffing and unstuffing will leave your hands reasonably clean.

I'd cook the stuffing separately; much easier to get both to the ideal temperature that way.

You do not want to serve overcooked chicken, and you must not serve undercooked chicken or undercooked stuffing exposed to raw chicken.

I'd suggest brining your chicken (in a brine containing herbs, garlic, onion).

Keep in mind that most of the herb flavor will stay in the brine, only a small amount will migrate into the bird; that is, if you taste the brine (before adding the chicken, obviously), it should taste of way too much salt, and also way too much of whichever herbs you used.

If you're going to roast the chicken with high heat, you'll want to have little if any sugar in the brine.

5% or so salt (by weight vs. the water), maybe 1% sugar.

Look up some chicken brine recipes to find some good flavor combinations.

Cool the brine before adding the chicken (easy way:

make it double-strength, and dilute 50% by weight using ice).

Brine for around 12 hours (in the fridge); rinse and dry the chicken as well as you can with paper towels; return to the fridge, uncovered, for an hour or so (to continue drying); then roast.

And, most importantly, do not overcook the chicken .

The brining gives you some leeway here, the goal is 165°F for the breast and 175°F for the legs.

If you make gravy or pan sauce, the drippings from a brined bird will be fairly salty; don't add additional salt without tasting, use unsalted butter in the roux (and have some low-sodium chicken stock on hand should you need to dilute to reduce saltyness).

Note that the stuffing goes into the neck end, filling the flap of skin there, not the body cavity.

If you were to put stuffing into the body cavity, you would end up with a greasy, sloppy mess, and it would indeed be gross.

Stuff

the neck end, and you're likely to find it more appetising than you're expecting.

The stuffing does impart some flavour to the meat, but it doesn't penetrate very far from where the stuffing is.

Stuffing does mean there's more mass to heat up, and impedes the transfer of heat into part of the chicken, so you need to take that into account when deciding how long to cook for.

I don't know what company you'll have, or how much emphasis your culture puts upon Christmas dinner --

but I think it's pretty bold to try anything for the first time on Christmas day.

On that basis, I'd suggest making things as simple as possible, and that means not stuffing the chicken; try that another weekend.

Some form of stuffing is a Christmas dinner essential though.

Use packet mix and cook it in a separate tray.

Question: I'm planning to cook a regular chicken on Sunday and I thought that I should probably try to season it somehow. I've never tried to cook a chicken before (first Christmas dinner as an adult obv!). I thought about stuffing it, but scooping out the stuffing after to eat seems a bit gross to me. Will the stuffing itself impart flavour to the chicken meat?

Is there a point in stuffing a chicken if I'm not planning on eating the stuffing part?

Stuffing is worth trying, although it does not add a lot of flavour to the meat. If you are put off by the thought of removing it, you could put it in a muslin bag or bake it next to the chicken to make it easier for both to reach the right temperature. However, you can also fill the cavity with herbs, lemon, onion, garlic and other things to improve flavour.

You can put lemon and garlic in the cavity and then make stuffing separately.

You can put lemon and garlic in the cavity for flavour instead of stuffing.

Stuffing from the cavity is delicious but doesn't add much flavour to the chicken. If you're worried about getting it wrong, cook the stuffin separately from a packet mix.

Try putting the stuffing in the cavity in an ovenproof bag that you just have to pull out when it's ready.

Try brining the chicken to make it extra juicy.


You cannot make good hummus from canned chickpeas, you should make it from fresh dried beans

The beans need plenty of soaking and rinsing When cooking, add one tsp of baking soda per cup of beans.

Baking soda chemically softens the bean proteins.

Never add salt or other flavourings during the bean cooking stage Traditional hummus is somewhat coarse, but very soft (due to baking soda).

It is made with a minimal amount of olive oil, but drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkle of cooked, and still warm chick peas when served Restaurant hummus is often just over processed junk made in a factory with a commercial grinder (like a peanut butter grinder) Also, see

How should I prepare dried chickpeas?

if your chickpeas never go soft

I make hummus often, too, and I've used an immersion blender, mini food processor, and blender.

The secret to getting a smooth hummus, regardless of the tool, is using plenty of olive oil but adding a small amount of water to make it easy to blend thoroughly.

I use about 1/4 - 1/3 cup of olive oil per batch (with one 16-oz.

can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained), and add a splash of water at a time while blending, until I achieve the desired consistency.

(The other wet ingredients I use are about 3 tablespoons of tahini and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice.)

Since you didn't post your recipe, I'm not sure what your ingredients are, but

if adding water makes your hummus too watery, I'd try increasing the amount of oil.

In addition to TFD's answer, I'd like to add that I use an indian food grinder , rather than a food processor or blender, to puree dips like hummus and baba ganouj.

It does a vastly better job than a food processor does.

Sorry, canned garbanzos can work too.

Drain the beans, put in a blender or food processor with a small amount of chicken stock or liquid from a can.

Season with salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic powder, and cumin to taste.

Blend till smooth and serve in a bowl with drizzle of olive oil.

Easy and yum.

The coarse paste texture suggest that the hummus does not have enough moisture.

You can correct that situation either by adding more olive oil or adding more water.

Oil will add more flavor, but water will make for a more healthful result.

I tend to compromise by adding the amount of olive oil called for in the recipe, then drizzling in water a little at a time until I get the consistency I want.

I'd suggest soaking the hummus overnight with a very small amount of bicarb soda (maybe a 1/4 teaspoon), adding the same amount when cooking.

If you can be bothered peel the skin and grind when the chickpeas are still warm.

For a whiter hummus, blend the tahini and lemon juice first before adding the other ingredients.

Reserve some of the cooking fluid and add it in if required to achieve a smooth paste.

You shouldn't need to add any olive oil to the hummus, it's traditionally drizzled on top, not added to the mix.

I feel that machine blending adds much air and 'fluffiness' to hummous and should be kept to a minimum by thorough cooking.

The goal should be whole yet completely tender beans.

Slow cooking in slightly alkaline water, as suggested above with soda, gives best results.

Slowing the soaking by using cold water overnight in fridge often helps prevent splitting and exploding.

Sieving out hard bits after blending is time-consuming but will give that extra smoothness.

If there are still troubles, you're not crazy: different crops and storage time all affect results.

The complicated chemistry of beans keeps food scientists busy!

Try a different batch.

Sorry to all the purists, but the best trick is to mix equal amount chickpeas and a small white bean like navy beans.

The taste is not noticeably different, but much, much smoother.

Question: I make Hummus quite often, and use my food processor to chop the chickpeas. This yields a sort of coarse paste, which is a little better if I peel the chickpeas first. Adding liquid to the mixture doesn't seem to help much, but only leads to watered down Hummus.  I would like to get a much smoother paste, that resembles restaurant Hummus more closely. How can this smoother paste be achieved?

How to get a smooth paste from ground chickpeas?

You need to use fresh dried beans rather than canned chickpeas to make hummus, and you can use about 1/4 teaspoon of baking soada when soaking to soften the proteins. Adding the right amounts of olive oil and water will give you a smooth hummus, and one trick is to mix the chickpeas with navy beans or similar.

Try using olive oil rather than water. You can also add some baking soda when soaking the chickpeas.

You should use dried beans and some baking soda or bicarb.

Try adding navy beans as well as chickpeas.


One technique, but not the only, is velveting.

Here the meat is tenderized in an egg-white/cornstarch mixture for 20+ minutes, then cooked briefly (a minute) in oil or simmering water with a small amount of oil prior to using in stir fries.

I've never velveted in straight oil but water/oil

definitely gives the chicken

that smoothness that Chinese Restaurants obtain and the shorter stir

fry

cooking time makes it much more tender.

Super thin slicing (you'll need to cut the meat semi-frozen to get such thin slices), plus cutting across the grain also lead to tenderness.

Baking soda (Sodium bicarbonate).

If you find the meat has a spongy texture aside from being very tender, then very likely the restaurant put baking soda (Sodium bicarbonate) in the marinade.

The sodium in baking soda chemically reacts with the meat and make the meat very tender and soft.

Below is an except from the cooking section in Sodium bicarbonate (Wikipedia) : Sodium bicarbonate was sometimes used in cooking vegetables, to make them softer, although this has gone out of fashion, as most people now prefer firmer vegetables that contain more nutrients.

However, it is still used in Asian cuisine to tenderise meats.

Baking soda may react with acids in food, including Vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid).

It is also used in breadings such as for fried foods to enhance crispness.

Personally I found the meat too soft and would prefer if they can just marinate in oyster sauce or soy sauce with some oil - acids also has a tenderizing effect on meat, although not to the extend of baking soda.

Here is my "a-bit-late" stab at the answer.

Besides velveting the meat prior cooking, the meat in restaurants may be marinated with chemical meat tenderizers.

The active ingredients are usually papain or bromelain , which are enzymes extracted from fruits.

I believe it is their suppliers rather than their techniques which are decisive.

You may not want to know what 'restaurant quality' pre-portioned meat-units look like.

In order to be tender and juicy, a great deal of added water is bound into the product with dubious adulterants -ah, additives.

This is all generally legal and safe.

Some exceptions: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/chicken-injected-with-beef-waste-sold-in-uk-1696407.html

How the animal is raised makes a big difference: here in Beijing hormones are routinely added to pig-feed to fatten up an animal quickly without it over-developing muscles.

So, if you really want to know why their meat is so tender, ask for the names of their suppliers or, better yet, some of the packaging to investigate for yourself.

Marinate the meat with pureed fresh ginger in your marinade.

It will make it fall apart if allowed to sit for a few hours in the fridge.

Corn starch slurries are just so you get that gloss and thickening to the sauce when you are doing the stirfry.

Don't know of anyone that uses baking soda though I wouldn't rule it out.

Water and corn starch slurry.

I talked to some of my Chinese food experts...

i.e. moms.

They actually suggest using a water and corn starch slurry.

They would add this slurry to the meat, whether it is chicken, beef, or pork, and let it sit for a little while before cooking.

(One downside of this potentially is that it may thicken the sauce or liquid that your dish contains as this slurry is also used to thicken sauces and gravies.)

you can put a little vinegar and rub them properly for about 2 minsi always cook meat like that, they are tender and delicious, you can have a try.

Corn starch seals the meat and keeps the beef tender even without tenderizer.

High heat short cooking, of course.

Question: I eat at a lot of Chinese restaurants now and also while growing up. I often wondered how is it that the chicken, pork, and beef in dishes are always so tender. I can never replicate it when I cook.What do the Chinese chefs use to tenderize their meat?

How do Chinese restaurants tenderize their meat?

Slicing semi-frozen meat very thinly and across the grain makes it more tender, while velveting it with corn starch is a common technique. Other options include baking soda, chemical meat tenderisers and marinading with ginger.

Slice the meat very thinly, marinate it with pureed fresh ginger. You can also add baking soda or corn starch.

Add baking soda or corn starch to make the beef tender.

You can velvetize the meat or marinate it with pureed fresh ginger.


Leeks can provide some of the same flavors as onions, but the flavors are lower intensity than onions.

With the exception of dishes with "onion" in their names, more often than not you can omit onion as an ingredient.

My advice would be to first try leaving the onion out entirely, see how the dish is.

If it is missing something, then experiment with: Onion powder

: see how much you can get away with before your audience notices.

Garlic: add more to compensate.

Shallots and other onion-like vegetation

: give it a try to see how that goes over.

It is going to require some experiment and trial & (lots of) error on your part, but you should be able to strike a nice balance in a few attempts.

In India, some Brahmin caste cooks and Jains aren't allowed to use onions or garlic in their cooking, and so they substitute Asafoetida spice instead.

I can't stand onions due to texture issues unless very finely chopped, but I find that shallots have similar effects on the flavor of many foods.

In addition to the other suggestions such as shallots, garlic, or green onions, another avenue to explore would be using a sweet yellow onion instead of a white onion or purple onion.

Their flavor is a bit milder and may be more palatable compared to a white onion, though if texture is the primary problem, grinding the onion up in a food processor until it is finely chopped may be a better choice.

You may cut the stem of some vegetables in thin slice (e.g. reddish, Chinese vegetables with long rod-like stem).

They feel like onion when you chew them but taste like normal green.

Question: I love onions; however, someone that I cook for does not.  Absolutely hates them and can tell whenever they are in the dish.   That said, so many recipes call for onion to be added. What can I use instead that would have a similar but less intense/noticeable effect?

What can I substitute for onions?

Some vegetables like leeks, garlic, shallots or green onions have similar flavours, or you could try using a sweet yellow onion rather than red or white. You could also try omiting the onion entirely, or substituting with Asafoetida spice.

You can use other ingredients like leeks or shallots instead. You can also try Asafoetida spice or leave out the onions altogether.

Leeks, garlic and shallots can be used instead of onions. You can also use a sweeter onion instead or more garlic.


It is possible to use a rice cooker to prepare rice from boxes but it is not optimal.

These box rices typically call for the mixture to be first browned in butter before adding water and flavoring because it is not all rice.

There are bits of pasta in the mixture too.

The rice cooker is able to cook it but the result probably will not be as good.

It is very possible to flavor white rice with seasoning.

I often like to flavor my rice if I plan on making fried rice or if I am lazy and don't feel like making anything but rice.

If you want to imitate a specific flavor, you need to first find out exactly what that flavour is and put that seasoning in the water that cook the rice.

Often though there might be some flavors that can't be added until afterwards.

Such as the cheese flavored rice

you mentioned.

Cheese and rice cookers don't mix.

You would make the rice then later add a cheese sauce that you made.

Please note that one main difference that might occur is slight difference in moisture content.

From the box rice I've made on the stove in the past, I know it is a bit more "wet" than rice made from a rice cooker.

In my answer here , I explained how a rice cooker works.

Essentially it will continue to cook until all the water has boiled away.

I ran across this post while looking to see if it could be done and, truth be told, I couldn't find much.

So, I took a flying leap and tried it myself, with great results!

Here is what I did:

I have a box of store brand beef rice & vermicelli (6.8 oz box)

andI followed the microwave directions at first:

In a round ( for even cooking ) 2-quart microwaveable glass casserole dish ( because some plastic isn't microwave safe and most metal isn't ) combine the rice/vermicelli mix with 2 tablespoons of butter/margarine ( DO NOT USE SOMETHING WITH LESS THAN 56% FAT OR YOUR FOOD

WILL BE GUMMY.

Learned this the hard way. )

and microwave on high for 1 minute.

Stir butter and rice well, then cook for another 1-2 minutes, until the vermicelli is a light brown.

(IN AN 1100 WATT MICROWAVE DO NOT COOK FOR MORE THAN 1 MINUTE OR THE VERMICELLI WILL BURN)

This is where I went "off box": Place in rice cooker, flatten on bottom before -gently- (gently because if you pour fast the rice gets kicked up and you can't see how much water to use)

adding 1 inch of water over the top of it.

(People usually mention the first knuckle on their pointer finger as a guide, but if you're shorter, like me, or taller than average this "measurement" is useless since your knuckle will be less or more than an inch from the tip of your finger.) After adding the water, gently stir in the seasoning packet, then cover and cook as usual.

(My cooker only has one setting, so if yours has multiple, set it for white rice.)

Came out just as good as from the stove top! =D

I used chicken flavor Rice-a-Roni.

I have a small Rival rice cooker.

I browned the rice mix in 2 tablespoons lower fat margarine like the package says.

I scraped the rice mix into the rice cooker, added 2 cups of water (not 2 and a half like the package says) and the contents of the seasoning packet.

Gave it a good stir and turned it to "cook".

That's all.

It was perfectly fluffy, not mushy at all.

It stayed nice and warm until the rest of my dinner was ready to eat.

I would say you can do it, but it wouldn't be advised.

The seasoning from flavored rice out of a box would change how the rice interacted with the water.

You might end up with dry rice, or even soggy rice.

If you are set on doing it, I would suggest a few test runs and seeing what works best

I have read the other answers and thought I would try it for myself with Uncle Ben's Natural Select flavored rice.

It turned out fantastic.

I attempted Knorr Chicken Fried Rice.

Mixed using the recommended microwave instructions and placed in cooker.

Let it run it's cycle

- took just over 30 minutes so significant time addition.

Perhaps the pasta included in this side resulted in a moderate amount of sticking on the bottom of the cooker.

The stuck material wasn't too difficult to remove and had a crunchy not quite burnt texture that I found rather tasty.

Unsure

if I will try this again - microwave is almost as mindless and less than half the time.

Question: Can I use a rice cooker to prepare something like Rice-A-Roni's  Four Cheese rice ?  Or what about the Uncle Ben rice boxes?  If not, is there a way to get something that tastes similar without using the boxes?

Can I use a rice cooker with flavored rice boxes?

These box rices are not pure rice, and often require browning before adding water. Cheese is also not a good ingredient to use in rice cookers, but you may be able to cook box rice with an inferior result.

You can cook the packet mix in the rice cooker but the result won't be as good.

Cheese and rice cookers don't mix. The mix should be browned in butter first.

This is possible in a rice cooker but the result will not be as good.


You can buy really large filters for this purpose.

It's how some restaurants filter their fry oil on the cheap.

We had two conical strainers and put the huge coffee-like filter between the two so it wouldn't slip down as much, also so we could skim out the large bits easier.

If you have a laddle you can sorta force it through faster by agitating in a plunger like motion but be careful the oil isn't too hot because it will splash at you.

Places that do alot of frying have a machine that will filter the oil while still really hot and pump it back into the fryer.

For home use I use coffee filters, the biggest I can find, and have a plastic 4 litre storage tub for holding the oil.

It takes awhile for it to pass but it keeps it cleaner than a cheese cloth I find.

The more particals you filter out the longer the oil will last before you have to toss it in your diesel truck

Try straining it through tights.

That's what my dad used to do when he ran a chip van.

just take a netted cloth with small pores and strain the oil

Put an ankle high white cotton sock in a bowl with water and microwave to a boil to sanitize.

Carefully remove sock and hang to air dry completely.

Stretch the DRY sock over a gallon jar (4"+- mason jar type) and secure with a couple of rubber bands around the rim.

Yep, strains it in no time.

I use an old coffee can for the paper towels, sock etc.

Put on the top and throw away.

Say "yuk" if you want but it works, it's sanitary and most importantly for me, SIMPLE.

I use a cheesecloth and a mesh strainer on top of the funnel, and just pour slowly to avoid messes.

Carbon Range Hood Filter $10-$15.00.I drain my 2 gallon deep fryer into original oil bottles.

Next I rinse and wash the deep fryer with hot water.

Then I place a metal mesh/carbon filter on the fryer and pour the oil through it quickly and easily.

Then wash the grease filter in my dishwasher after rinsing with hot water.

I bought the Chef's Planet Multipurpose Filter Funnel.

It is the best filtering system I have ever used.

Will clean over 1 gal of oil in less than 5 minutes with no mess.

When finished, throw it in dishwasher

and it's done.

Is also great for straining stocks.

I use a fine mesh metal sieve with a paper towel lining it.

I pour into a gallon glass measuring bowl to cool and then into mason jars.

In a pinch, I have also used a clean flour sifter.

Mine almost fits in the mouth of the mason jar, so I have to be careful not to make a mess.

For some reason, Sunflower oil behaves really well when handled this way, and resists going rancid when I am frying vegetable chips and french fries.

It seems to last longer than Soy oil.

Maybe it's just me

I filter oil through a piece of paper kitchen roll.

It's much finer than a strainer and cheaper than a coffee filter (or my wife's tights!).

Place the kitchen roll in a mesh strainer to support it and prevent tearing when you pour on the oil.

I use a nylon cloth meant to go over pool skimmer baskets.

They are called "Filter Savers"

They are strong, reusable, and can be purchased in most swimming pool equipment stores or online.

I know the question is old.

But I don't see this answer there.

I recently bought a deep fryer, and wanted to strain & reuse oil after cooking chicken with flour breading.

To strain it, I used a simple funnel, cheese cloth, and binder clips.

The binder clips secured the cheese cloth to the top of the funnel.

I doubled the cheese cloth.

The outcome?

The strained oil had a used appearance (Not crystal clear) but there was no sediment in the strained oil.

And it was fast.

My first attempt was with paper filtering in the funnel.

Which was not exactly fast.

A high capacity fryer was completed in less than five minutes.

Four yards of cheese cloth cost less than seven dollars.

Question: What is the easiest way to strain fry oil?  I strain fry oil so it can be reused.  I've been using cheesecloth put inside a funnel.    It works but it's a bit messy and a hassle.  Is there a better way?  Can you use a coffee filter or something like that?

Easiest way to strain fry oil?

You can buy large filters or filter funnels for this purpose, but pouring through a cheesecloth or similar fabric or a paper towel placed in a metal sieve can also work.

You can buy large filters for this. You can also try cheesecloth, tights, some nylon cloth or a pair of tights.

You can buy large coffee filters to filter used oil.

Use a piece of kitchen roll as a filter.


Cooking anything really lean for a long time can result in super dry meat.

Chicken breasts have little fat and little connective issue.

The same goes for a lean beef roast.

You can do chicken breasts in a crock pot - just not all day, more like a few hours on low.

Try something with more fat like a thigh (or any dark meat) or a beef chuck

(shoulder) roast

and you should have more luck.

I know I'm weighing in on an old question, but in my experience there are two things meat needs to do really well in the slow cooker on a long cycle (ie all day): the right amount of fat, and plenty of collagen.

We all know about fat keeping meat moist, that's true of other cooking methods, and as others have said, chicken breast does not do well cooked like this as it is too lean.

But the collagen is a lesser known issue.

In my opinion it is even more important.

We hear a lot about how you can cook cheap tough cuts in the slow cooker, but what many don't realise is they are actually better than tender cuts on a long cooking cycle.

The collagen breaks down to gelatin which lengthens the cooking process and gives a moister, juicier result.

IMO, the reason chicken thighs do better than breasts in the slow cooker has more to do with collagen than fat - they'll still do well even with the fat trimmed off.

So you need not just meat

that's a bit more fatty, but a lot tougher.

Use legs instead of breasts, chuck instead of lean tender beef roast, pork or Lamb shoulder instead of leg or loin.

To really see the magic, use cuts that are usually impossibly tough - beef shin or short ribs, Lamb flank, oxtail, Turkey drumsticks.

If you want to cook tender, lean meat in the slow cooker, reckon on a much shorter cooking time, like 2-4 hours.

Exact time depends on the individual slow cooker so be ready to experiment.

I had this problem for a while as well - it turns out my slow cooker was cooking at too high of a temperature (even at low), which would create problems, not only with my chicken, but other things as well (pasta sauces would boil and burn, etc).

Reviews on Amazon revealed that this is a fairly common problem with certain brands of slow cookers (especially those at lower price points).

Once I learned this, I got a nicer slow cooker with a programmable probe thermometer built in, so it will switch to "warm" mode once my food hits the optimal temperature.

This has helped keep my meat moist and my sauces unburnt.

It's hard to ruin anything in a crockpot (slow cooker)

Does your crockpot have a thermostat?

It may be faulty

Yep I found out the hard way that slow cooking boneless chicken usually dries it out.

It is not a "tough meat".

Speaking of roast beef though, I got a roast from my mother-in-law and it sat in the freezer for a couple of months

so I decided it needed to be cooked.

I had never cooked a roast before.

I found a recipe online using a slow cooking method for 4 hours (dutch oven pot @275F).

Because of the type of cut the roast was (rib roast)

it was so tender it melted in your mouth.

I tried the recipe again about a month later but bought "outside round" roast instead of rib roast (or chuck, shank, brisket etc.)

and it ended up slightly dry.

Why?

it doesn't contain as much collagen as the other mentioned cuts.

The collagen is the key to melt in your mouth texture and robust flavor for slow roasting.

For pork, try a pork shoulder or butt not a tenderloin if you are slow cooking.

The results will be amazing!

I would cook it in a cream of vegetable or chicken soup if you want the easy short answer.

Even chicken breasts turn out tender and moist for me this way.

Bottom line.

No chicken breast in crockpot.

The meat must be fatty, tough, to do better in a crockpot.

I will never cook a breast again in a crockpot.

Once I thought cornish hens would do well..

no, it was horrible.

I just purchased a pressure cooker!

I crock a lot.

Even with juice

any meat

you over cook will dry out.

I have switched to thighs and I remove the skin and fat.

Cheaper

and it crocks a lot better for me.

You do end up with the bone to remove.

Question: Just cooked some chicken breasts today. All day in the crockpot and when done the meat was horribly dry.  I put chopped onions, carrots, spices, and coconut milk and 1/2 cup water and 4 chicken breasts.  There was plenty of fluid there when it was done, but the cooked chicken meat was really dry.  This seems to happen with beef roast as well.  Is there some trick to getting meat to be tender when cooking in the crockpot?

Why does meat in the crockpot always end up dry?

Cooking lean meat like chicken breasts for a long time, especially at too hot a temperature, can result in very dry meat. Try using chicken  legs instead of breasts, chuck instead of lean tender beef roast, pork or Lamb shoulder instead of leg or loin.

Check the temperature of your crockpot and avoid cooking lean meat for a long time.

Lean meat does not do well in a slow cooker. You should use fatty, tough meat.

Check the temperature of your slow cooker.


I would crumble it up into a blender, add some vanilla ice cream and some milk.

Blend it all together to make a Brownie Milkshake.

I've made great rum balls from overbaked brownies before.

Crush it in a food processor (or just smash it by hand), toss it all into a big bowl, add just enough rum to make it pliable, roll in some cocoa powder and/or powdered sugar, and refrigerate.

You could also try breaking it into small chunks and soaking it with espresso or a liqueur like cointreau or amaretto.

That should soften it up nicely and would taste great made into an ice cream sundae or trifle.

I'm afraid you can't do a lot about it now.

The only thing that might work, is to put it in the microwave for a couple of seconds, right before you eat some.

Perhaps putting some syrup on top could help too.

But I guess this would be more helpful with the mouthfeel than with actually softening your 'brick'.

As for next time, if you did like the taste and want to use the same recipe, use a smaller baking tin.

Also check for doneness 5 min before it should be done (by inserting a toothpick in the middle).

That way you can have an estimate how much longer it should be in the oven.

Or as Jay suggested, look for a recipe that tells you the size of the baking tin.

Here's a post where somebody crushed up their brownies and made truffles from them! http://runwithforest.tumblr.com/post/12744781116/how-to-save-burnt-brownies-by-turning-them-into

Question: I have a fudge brownie recipe that I followed pretty much to the letter. I think when I baked it, it was too thin; it came out hard, like a brick, and it's pretty much inedible. I'm also afraid someone left it outside / in the fridge exposed, and it dried up more.  Is there anything I can do to soften it and make it edible?

Fixing a Brownie Brick

You can blend or crush the brownies to make a milkshake, rum balls or truffles, soak chunks in espresso or liqueur or just try heating it for a few seconds in the microwave before eating.

You can blend it up with some milk to make a milkshake, make truffles or rum balls.

Blend it up with some milk and make a brownie milkshake.

Microwave for a few seconds before eating.


Try using a bow style bread knife.

It works well because it allows you to put pressure on the opposite side of the loaf.

Also, the bow helps you visually line up the slice.

Try an electric knife if you have one hanging around for carving meat.

The small stroke of the two blades causes far less squashing/skewing of the loaf than the conventional serrated bread knife and leaves only one dimension to focus on, down.

When I really need accuracy, I'll cut the loaf in half lengthwise and with the cut

faces placed against the countertop, cut slices horizontally off from the bottom of each.

A serrated blade, sharpened bevel on one side only.

Use the flat non-beveled edge against the loaf, the beveled side on the slice being cut.

Use a bread board.

Keep the knife for bread only, so that it stays sharp, hand wash & dry.

Take your time starting through the crust, so you don't crush the loaf.

If you start near the loaf center, the two halfs can be slid back together for freshness.

A variety of bread slicers are available - it's just a box that you put the bread in, where the sides have pre-cut slots that guide your knife

so you get the uniformity you desire.

I don't use one of these for two main reasons: You can't adjust the thickness of the slice

- whatever the manufacturer decides is what you are stuck with.

Some breads just don't fit in them.

Most of the bread slicers I've seen are designed for a sandwich-loaf-shaped bread: very rectangular.

If I make a loaf of no-knead bread in my cast iron dutch oven, it ends up as a round loaf with too big a diameter to fit in any bread slicer I've seen.

But if you're making a rectangular sandwich loaf, getting a bread slicer is probably the way to go.

However, I've found that I can get straighter slices by experimenting with the angle at which I am holding and cutting the bread.

It will vary by the size and shape of your loaf, but with the big round loaves I was talking about earlier (which usually are not very tall), I find that I can cut straighter if I turn the loaf on its side so that I have a much narrower piece of bread to deal with.

That reduces the likeliness of my knife getting stuck.

I often encounter this problem when using a serrated one-sided blade.

Having the bevel on one side of the knife seems to make the knife angle toward the opposite edge.

I haven't successfully been able to compensate for this while cutting, so I threw away that (cheap) knife.

Maybe this is part of your problem?

To be honest, I've had no problem whatsoever when using a blade with both sides sharpened (unless cutting a very wide or otherwise difficult loaf).

Question: We make bread for sandwiches a few times a week, but slicing them is always a pain.  The pieces just don't come out uniform. I end up with angled pieces as the knife doesn't end up going  straight  down.  Is there a trick to getting uniform pieces from a loaf?

How to get uniform slices from bread?

Try a bow-style bread knife, an electric knife or a serrated blade, and use a bread board or bread slicer with pre-cut slots that guide your knife.

You can try an electric knife or a bow style knife. You can also buy a bread slicer to help you slice.

Try using a bow style bread knife or an electric knife.

You can buy bread slicers that hold the bread in place and guide your knife.