The California Avocado Commission recommends this (safe but wimpy - see below for a better way) three-step process: Start with a ripe avocado and cut it lengthwise around the seed.

Rotate the halves to separate.

Remove the seed by sliding the tip of a spoon gently underneath and lifting out.

The other common seed-extraction method - striking the seed with a knife and twisting - requires some skill and is not recommended.

Peel the fruit by placing the cut side down and removing the skin with a knife or your fingers, starting at the small end.

Or simply scoop out the avocado meat with a spoon.

Be sure to sprinkle all cut surfaces with lemon or lime juice or white vinegar to prevent discoloration.

Source:

California Avocado Commission Notes: Another (and my favorite) way to remove the pit is by holding the half with the pit in one hand and striking the sharp edge of the knife used in step one into the pit, then twisting to remove.

This is the "pro" way to do it, but takes a little practice.

The video Nate referenced in the comments shows how to do it , it's not that hard.

If you're going to be chopping the avocado up, you slice it up using the tip of the knife still in the shell, then scoop the sliced avocado meat out with a spoon.

After 4 years... the classical spoon based method for avocado processing is obsolete.

The Triptych Peel Method

This combines a well known method to remove the seed, with a scheme for conservatively reducing the skin tension by a series of shallow cuts along the surface.

This process allows for direct removal of both seed and skin, with minimal effort and minimal wasted fruit.

Get a ripe avocado and make sure your workspace is clear for cutting on.

If there is a produce sticker, remove it.

Gently cut through the skin until you find the seed.

Rotate the

avocado itself

360 degrees, firmly maintaining the knife against the seed.

Take the avocado with both hands, and twist each half in opposite directions, to unlock one half from the seed.

(Sorry for the blurry image, the camera rig got bumped during exposure)

Gently press the knife into the seed, until you have gripped it well.

Use the leverage of the knife to turn the seed until it unlocks.

(Sometimes moving back and forth helps here.)

This concludes the standard seed removal, now for the triptych skin removal.

Cut a small notch upwards, out of the avocado at the 1/3rd point.

Cut another small notch upwards, out of the avocado at the 2/3rds point.

Hold the avocado on your cutting surface

so your notches are at the top, be sure your grip does not put your fingers in harms way!

Now make two shallow scratches down the surface of the avocado, starting from each notch, just deep enough to split the skin.

Take the skin by a corner and peel it off.

Make sure to start on the side with no hole, to avoid the skin cracking.

Enjoy!

I have exaggerated the lines here as a visual aid, but the avocado half is still in one solid piece.

Can be sliced into "rings" which are wonderfully convenient for sandwiches.

A related tip to prevent browning:

Put lemon juice

On the avocado that you are serving and

On the half that you are putting into the fridge with plastic wrap.

The vitamin C (ascorbic acid) prevents the oxidation that turns the flesh brown.

UPDATE:

The top answer on this question: Browning Avocados -

What Helps?

strongly suggests that my answer here is incorrect and just the propagation of a food urban legend.

Cut the avocado in half (around the pit) Jab the pit with the pointy end of a knife Twist the knife to dislodge the pit, hit it on the side of your sink until the pit flies off and hits you in the head Use a big spoon to scoop the flesh out of the skin of the two halves.

You need to have a ripe fruit.

It is ripe when the neck (narrow part) just gives under a light squeeze.

You can tell a ripe fruit because the peel will come off in large pieces, not sticking to the fruit and tearing or coming off easily and crumbling.

Take a knife with a sharp tip and cut through just the skin as if cutting the fruit in quarters lengthwise.

Then, following the previous cutting of the skin only, cut the fruit in half to the seed.

Then twist the two halves apart

, the seed will stay in one half.

Hack the knife into the seed embedded in the half avacado and twist the seed out.

Then peel the two pieces of skin off of each half, if you have a ripe avacado, each 1/4 skin will come off as one piece.

Enjoy.

Question: Making solid pieces out of a ripe avocado is a difficult business (for me, anyway). What is the best way to remove the peel and pit without ending up with a pile of green mush? I can sometimes remove the peel without  too  much difficulty, but that pit always gives me grief.

How can I remove the peel and pit of an avocado without the whole thing turning into mush?

Cut the avocado in half, then hold the half with the pit in one hand and strike the sharp end of a knife into the pit before twisting to dislodge the pit.

Cut the avocado in half an insert the pointy end of a knife under stone and force it out.


The smell of garlic is due to sulfur compounds.

When you rub your hands against stainless steel, the iron of the stainless steel will react with some small volume of those compounds, but much more will remain in your hands.

Rubbing your hands against an iron object does not work .

The sulfur smell compounds are water soluble to slightly water soluble, so rinsing your hands in cold water and then soap and water should work as well as the recipes suggesting Noxzema, lemon juice, salt, baking soda, raw potatoes, tomato paste solutions, or mouthwash.

A quick rinse with some lemon juice.

Then wash your hands normally with soap and you're done.

Stainless steel does work, but you have to rub it over your hands under running water.

As noted above, this causes a chemical reaction that breaks down the garlic oils so they can be rinsed away.

Using hand or dish soap in addition to the steel helps speed this process.

Washing your hands by rubbing your fingers on a stainless steel knive under running water works really well.

I always use a stainless steel 'hand soap', such as this one with a little bit of regular hand soap.

Wash for about 30 seconds and the garlic smell's gone.

I always have some coffee around to remove smells like that from my hands.

It's not so sci-fi like rubbing steel over your hands, but works for me.

I find that cold water and lemon juice works best.

There's also a theory that cutting a potato in half and rubbing it on your hands will work

but so far I've never tried it!

I was recently reading up on this subject because, not matter how many times I washed my hands after chopping garlic, the smell would still be there even a couple days later.

I tried the "stainless steel" approach, but didn't see any results.

The "coffee grounds" approach did help some, it works well to cover up the smell at least.

At the same time I was trying these methods, I accidentally discovered a better solution.

I was building an evaporative fan, using copper tubing and in handling it, the garlic smell instantly went away and my fingers and slightly smelled like copper but no garlic!!

I imagine this has something to do with the chemical reaction with stainless steel mentioned in this string, but copper seemed to work a lot better.

Further testing may be needed, but wanted to share what I had found.

Question: I've heard touching stainless steel after chopping and handling garlic helps but I haven't found it to work all that well.

How do you remove garlic smells from your fingers?

Rubbing your hands on a stainless steel 'hand soap' or knife under running water may help, or you could try regular hand soap, lemon juice, salt, baking soda, raw potatoes, tomato paste solutions, coffee grounds or mouthwash.

Rubbing your hands against stainless steel under running is the most popular option, even if it doesn't work for everyone. However, you can also try lemon juice and just simple soap and water.

Rubbing your hands with stainless steel under running water does help to remove the smell. You can also buy special hand soaps with steel in them.

Rinsing your hands with lemon juice also works well.

Rinsing your hands in water and soap works just as well as any home remedy.

The stainless steel and coffee methods do not work that well.


Buy a slow cooker.

They're cheap, and it will cook your food slowly in around 6 hours.

Don't overcomplicate things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_cooker

Cooking in a water bath in vacuum sealed bags is called sous vide .

The advantages include: all of the meat is cooked to the desired temperature, and no higher, so you get 'perfect' doneness.

The fibres of he meat don't contract due to the high temperatures and squeeze out the moisture, so the meat stays very tender if you have the right setup, you can put it on an leave

it you can include flavourings in the vacuum bag

so your meat steeps in the flavouring whilst it cooks.

Disadvantages include: it can be expensive to set up (though not always , as work arounds exist)

it can be difficult to keep at a constant temperature if you don't have an expensive set up

the meat does not have any outer crust (although this is easily remedied after the cooking) takes a lot longer to cook.

I think it will be difficult to do in an oven as it is not often that ovens go as low as this type of cooking requires.

If you want low temp, you should go with braising.

The low temp and moisture work wonders on meat with lots of connective tissue.

Plus, no expensive tools are required.

The downside is it takes TIME...

possibly measured in hours.

You cannot cheat a braise from what I've seen or you'll still end up with tough meat full of connective tissue and not deliciously broken down tissue.

Cheap tools of the trade are aluminum foil and a cast iron dutch oven.

Sear the meat first to get some good browning.

Toss in the foil and make a pouch and put in some marinade.

Seal up tight.

Toss in the dutch oven and then into the real oven.

Sous vide looks great on TV, but most people have what they need to braise sitting in their kitchen at this very moment.

Especially if you have a little something called a Crock-Pot.

An aside: Crock-Pots are a great alternative to an unreliable oven that probably wastes lots of energy.

Here's the best link on sous vide at home

I know: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/cook-your-meat-in-a-beer-cooler-the-worlds-best-sous-vide-hack.html

For meat, you can do small cuts for short periods (hours) at low temperatures (under 150) in a beer cooler.

I've done this and it works pretty well.

For a few of your questions, a query of your favorite search engine will suffice; however, a skimmed version follows: timings and weights advantages of low heat

yes:

it all depends really on the cut of meat, and your ultimate goal.

Some might not agree with me, but you need to sear the meat.

either before or after the cooking.

some sear it on high heat for 3 to 4 minutes on each side and then put the meat in the oven; others cook the meat and sear it at the end.

it's your choice!

season it with salt and pepper.

be generous with the salt.

buy an oven thermometer, they're like $4 and adjust your oven accordingly

Question: I want to try out low temperature cooking of some meat, e.g. beef  I don't have a reliable oven and am looking for advice before starting. Or alternatives to ovens.  I heard some people use meat in vacuum sealed plastic bags that they cook in a pot of water, (easier to measure temperature?)  What are the timings for weight/temperature combinations?  What dis/advantages does low temperature cooking have compared to grilled?  Anything else I should now before trying out?

Advice for low temperature cooking

An oven will usually not go low enough to cook this kind of way, but you could use a slow cooker or aluminium foil with a cast iron dutch oven.

A slow cooker or a dutch oven would be useful and inexpensive ways of trying out slow cooking.

Try a slow cooker. It is difficult to do this in a normal oven as the temperature often doesn't go low enough.

Try using a dutch oven for slow cooking in an oven.


I normally cut the fruit in half then use a grapefruit spoon (serrated tip) to scoop the fruit out of the flesh.

I use a potato peeler to peel it.

I cut off the top then peel down in strips.

with a good peeler you can save most of the flesh this way.

I use a 'Y' style peeler .

I find it easier to peel when it's already sliced EDIT .. and will make for excellent garnish.

but usually when i'm using kiwi in a presentation, I use a small pairing knife and ribbon around the kiwi

I know a way that is amazing.

You just cut off the 2 ends like regular and use a regular spoon to wedge between the skin and the meat of the fruit.

Work your way around and then you can just "plop" the meat of the fruit out.

I'm not going to take credit for somebody else's work

so here is the link with the video.

How to cut and peel a kiwi fruit.

I chop the two ends so you have a kiwi cylinder and then lay the kiwi on

it's side and make a small slice into it and keep the knife parallel to the cutting board as close to the bottom and just let it roll until it goes a full 360 degrees and the skin is off.

Then you can cut as desired.

I'm having trouble finding one online, but there is a serrated blade that is curved sideways used for cutting pineapple.

Because it curves sideways, it can cut more skin off and less meat off a round piece of fruit than a knife with a straight blade.

It's very similar to this: http://www.bbqproshop.com/melon-and-fruit-knife.html

Has anyone tried using a melon baller?

If you follow the tip about cutting it in half and then using the melon baller, I would think you could get quite a bit out easily.

(Note, I have not actually tried this...)

They sell peelers that are specifically for soft fruits and veg - peaches, tomatoes, and kiwis generally feature on the packaging.

My chef-daughter has one and reports they do a nice job.

Among other things they are wicked sharp and if you use one on a potato you will probably cut yourself.

That said, I cut the ends off so my ordinary peeler can "get started" under the kiwi skin and have no trouble peeling them that way.

I'm not a big uni-tasker fan.

Using a peeler or a spoon around the skin is fine for a truly fresh Kiwifruit straight from the vine Most people purchase Kiwifruit that has been stored and shipped long distances in special chillers, and are then chemically ripened before final point of sale.

These Kiwifruit will often have minor bruising (mushy texture) directly under the skin, so using a knife to remove reasonable slabs of skin and bruised flesh is the ideal way

Question: Is there a way to loosen the skin from the flesh before peeling a kiwifruit with a paring knife or peeler? I'm not a deft hand with a paring knife, and I suspect that it's time to buy a peeler with a sharper blade, but any tips on peeling technique with regard to kiwifruit would be welcome.

How do I remove kiwifruit skin without losing a lot of the fruit's flesh?

You could try to find a peeler specially designed for soft fruits or a 'Y' style peeler, or just cut the kiwi in half and scoop out the inside.

You can either try cutting the fruit in half and scooping out the insides or look for a peeler that it specifically designed for this type of fruit.

Try cutting in half and scooping out the flesh.

You can find peelers that designed for soft fruit and veg.

You can try a serrated grapefruit knife.


A great resource for how long foods can be kept is Stilltasty.com .

According to them , commercially bottled pickles (and kimchee would fall into this category) can be kept after opening for one year in the refrigerator.

Most Koreans won't eat kimchi if a)

the veggies have become significantly mushy b) the juices taste 'sparkly', it's hard to describe this flavor exactly, but when you taste it, you'll know what I mean.

A year seems like a long time for opened kimchi to me, but I would just use my tastebuds to assess the above.

Kimchi is rotten cabbage.

It's already bad :)

Seriously though, if it isn't moldy, it's probably fine.

If you have the kind in the jar that has a carbonated taste, and it's still carbonated, it's fine.

In every Korean kitchen I have encountered, everyone has been extremely particular in that clean utensils should be used when extracting the kimchee from the jar, being very careful not to contaminate the kimchee.

I have been told on many occasions that contaminating the kimchee can shorten the shelf life of the kimchee and taint the flavor.

My family will begin eating the raw kimchee about a week after it has been bought fresh from the grocery, after one month (if it is still around) I use whats left, cooking it with various dishes.

The more salt that is added to the kimchee and the cooler the temp it is stored at, the slower it will ferment.

Seems to me everybody has a different 'sweet spot' when it comes to the duration of fermentation they feel produces the best flavor.

But I have never heard anybody storing kimchee for a year, and believe traditionally it was kept in Korea from one growing season to the next, in clay pots, underground.

I have never heard of someone getting sick from eating old kimchee, but it definitely turns, and that in my mind constitutes as "going bad"

"Bad" is a relative term for fermented pickles --

the whole point of the things is that they are a bit spoiled.

It should get more sour/pricklier/funkier as time goes on and still be fine, but use your eyes and nose: if it gets stinky in some new and exciting way or looks strange, I'd avoid.

I made Napa Cabbage Kimchi about 2 and a half months ago and had two containers in the back of the fridge.

One was half full in a plastic honey container and a full one.

I was worried that it had spoiled by this time

but when I tried it, it was delicious.

I am not Korean

but I have enjoyed really sour kimchi for a long time.

I'm so stoked that I have another 1 liter ice cream pail of the stuff.

I don't think it can go bad, but the flavour profile does change over time with homemade kimchi.

Usually once it's past a certain point my Korean friend will use it for flavouring soups and stews rather than eating it straight.

So it's just up to your personal preference.

I make Kimchi for the local farmers market and have a good following.

I made a batch one year ago and kept some in the fridge.

I just sold that one-year-old batch

and it was delicious.

The flavor was more mellow and a little more complex.

It's fine.

They had not been opened, however.

I've heard of excellent 3-year-old Kimchi, unopened and kept cool.

I typically sell mine after a couple of weeks of fermentation (one week fermented unrefrigerated).

Best to keep it in the large container it's made in.

I tried jarring it during fermentation and it was too messy.

Even with the lids on loose I had to burp them every day

so they wouldn't ooze over the tops!Fermenting in a 5 gallon bucket works best for me, then putting in the jars.

When I make kimchi, I usually leave it in a dark, cool corner of my utility room for 1-2 months before we start to eat it.

We usually eat half the batch (1L) at once, then refrigerate.

The second half is usually gone in a few weeks.

Last night, however, we finished a batch that had been forgotten about and sat in the fridge for about 4 months.

It tasted great, although the cabbage had lost some texture.

I say as long as it isn't moldy, its still good.

I would probably throw it out after 6 months though, just so I could justify making a new batch.

The process where cabbage and other ingredients becomes kimchee is a fermentation and pickling process.

While the "sour" taste of kimchee comes from vinegar produced, which means there probably would not be a danger due to bacterial contamination, that pickling and souring process will continue.

The kimchee might be safe to eat, but it might be very, very and excessively sour after a period of time.

So, "bad" depends on whether you mean "just as tasty as it was when I first ate it," or "safe to eat."

Even when it gets "too sour" bad, it's still usable for dishes like kimchee chigae (kimchee stew), even if it might be too sour for your tastes to eat on its own.

If it's really sour, it's unlikely to rot unless maybe from some extreme mold.

However, I have once witnessed a kimchi that was several years old (somebody had stored it in her cellar), and it had actually chemically decayed, tasting somewhat like wax.

Very interesting, but utterly unpalatable.

On another note, I noticed that my kimchi turns LESS sour after a while; does anybody have an explanation for this, preferably one that makes biological sense? :)

Question: I bought some kimchi a few weeks ago, ate half the jar, and then forgot about it. I found it in my fridge yesterday and tried it. It tastes the same, but there isn't a date stamped on the jar. Does it go bad or should it be fine since it's fermented/pickled?

Does kimchi go bad?

Commercially bottled kimchi can keep for a year in the fridge, and homemade kimchi can also last for months after being opened. The flavour profile will change as it ages, but unless the flavour or appearance changes unusually, it should be fine.

Kimchi can kept for at least a year. It should get more sour as time goes on, but as long as it isn't moldy and tastes good then you can still eat it.


try gruyere or gouda

Pecorino romano is my absolute favorite cheese for pretty much any situation, especially for putting on pasta.

Asiago is very similar to Parmesan and crumbles well.

Smoked gouda may also prove to give a creamy, buttery flavor to certain pastas.

Or you could try gorgonzola, fontina, romano, or many more.

This site may help you to find more that you'd be interested in: http://www.cheese.com/

try breaking broccoli into very small florets and steaming, then warming a mild blue cheese like dolcelatte with some cream, adding the florets and mixing through the pasta.

I've just been given some good Spanish Manchego cheese.

It's hard enough to be gratable, but stil quite fatty.

I haven't made pasta in a while, but I tasted some, and I think it would go well with pasta if the sauce isn't too rich.

Another recommendation, if your pasta has greens in it, like spinach or mangold, would be to use some nice blue cheese like roquefort.

Stilton works too, but the flavour is very powerful.

During my college days, we used to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory for cheap eats.

Most of the stuff was horrible (cloyingly sweet sauces served over overcooked pasta) but one thing I really enjoyed was the [mizithra][1] cheese and browned butter sauce.

It's a Greek goat's milk cheese that has a great tangy flavor when aged a bit.

Their menus used to state that Homer (Odyssey not Simpson) ate the stuff.

I still crave it!

at the cheese section of your favorite grocery store: Pick a random hard cheese Freeze it Grate it on top of your pasta EDIT

What I meant is, that there are a lot of cheeses out there, and the hard ones (Except for blue cheese) really go well grated.

So go and get that purple-red hard cheese and try it out.

I personally don't like grated cheese on my pasta

Where I live (central Texas)

our local grocery stores are overrun with "Beemster" Dutch cheeses.

They're all basically Gouda-like semi-soft cheeses, though there's an aged one that's hard enough to grate.

However, the "garlic" variety is a great addition to a cheese sauce.

In fact, that plus Ford Farm "Coastal" cheddar makes a cheese sauce that's almost perfect.

Also, the Irish cheese marketed as "Ivernia" is sort-of like a Parmesan, but quite tasty in its own right.

Soft chevre makes a really nice addition to cheese sauces, or it can be just dropped in chunks on pasta for a more salad-like dish.

I do like to use fontina in creamy or mushroomy sauces in pasta and also sometimes reblochon (though I normally use this more with potatoes).

But it depends so much upon what else you are putting with the pasta and what you can get hold of, french cheese especially are often not (easily) available much outside their region.

I've been doing Mizithra lately, as I've been eating less cow-milk based cheeses.

With a bit of olive oil, garlic, and scallions, you get nice top notes, full body, and the "pastoral" finish of a solid sheep's cheese.

Gran Padano is worth looking for as an alternative to Parmesan

- it's very similar (hard, salty) but, in the UK at least, is about two-thirds of the price :-)

Roquefort is great on pasta.

Even better, you can make a roquefort sauce by melting it with some cream and black pepper.

Gorgonzola is good as well...

Can't go wrong with a bit of Raclette...

Another good cheese to try with pasta is Tallegio , this is a soft cheese so you won't be able to grate it

but it goes great with a bit of cream and some broccoli.

Question: I'm looking for some cheese recommendations to serve grated or shredded over pasta. However I'd like to get away from the obvious ones that everybody knows, such as parmesan, mozarella, ricotta, or even feta. What other delicious cheeses are there that go well with pastas?

Cheeses for pastas, off the beaten path

Gran Padano, Asiago and Pecorino Romano are good substitutes for parmesan, while Gruyere, Tallegio, Roquefort and Gouda can be good with pasta. A mild blue cheese like Dolcelatte can go well with steamed broccoli, and Raclette, Manchego and others are worth trying.

For hard cheeses you can try gruyere, gouda, manchego, gran padano and pecorino. For softer cheeses you can try tallegio, roquefort, gorgonzola and fontina, amongst others.

Gruyere and gouda are both good cheeses for grating.

You can try softer cheeses like Tallegio, gorgonzola, dolcelatte, fontina  and roquefort to melt into pasta.

There are plenty of hard cheeses available for grating like pecorino, manchego or gran padano.


A couple of suggestions to help maintain constant heat.

Time

it such that you are only adding a little fuel at any one time.

Adding half new fuel will cool down considerably as it has to catch, burn, etc.

Adding 10% fresh at one time is much better, for example.

Conversely, if you're lookin' you ain't cookin'.

Open as little as possible.

Remember there will be a lag to any specific change.

If you change the vent, look at the temp after 5min then after 10min to see if the trend is up or down, and if it is accelerating or slowing.

Use that as a guide to your next change.

Thermal mass is your friend.

Get yourself some appropriate stones, bricks, etc.

If you have any room left over from your fire and meat; fill the space with the bricks.

They will help to smooth out the heat from open/closing as they take up space that would otherwise be taken by "cold" air when you open to refuel.

Obviously you need to not block actual ventilation.

Overall the kettle is a nice grill; but leaves a little to be desired for smoking.

The offset firebox style where you can refuel without disturbing the cook-box has a definite leg-up primarily for the refuelling reason; but with some practice you should still have wonderfully edible results with the kettle.

Happy Eating!

I'm assuming you're talking about hot smoking rather than cold smoking.

Thin steel is a good conductor of heat, but a poor reservoir.

What this means is that the temperature inside is going to track very closely the amount of heat being produced by the briquettes at the time.

This is fine for fast cooking, but for a long slow cook, you want stability.

One suggestion would be to add thermal mass to the system by putting heat reservoir objects into the grill, and letting them absorb and steadily re-emit the energy from the charcoal.

Stone and ceramic are both options.

The other suggestion is getting the charcoal to burn at a steadier rate.

Try adding smaller batches of charcoal more frequently.

A couple of things that I saw on some of the posts.

Do not add unburnt fuel to a fire, when you are smoking.

This imparts a bitter flavor, while pork hides it some, a experienced BBQ'er will taste it immediately.

On brisket and beef ribs, it will ruin it outright and make it inedible.

As well you should let the fire burn until the smoke is almost clear vapor and is not bellowing smoke before you put your meat on.

You should see wiffs of blue and gray smoke in the vapor this will impart a smooth smokey flavor into the meat.

If you have to add fuel during the process, burn the fuel down until it is white ashed on all of it surface in an external vessel such as one of the charcoal burners or a smaller grill.

The recommendation on putting a water pan over the fire, is good advice for direct heat where the meat sits directly above the fire.

The reason being that once the grease starts to drip on the fire it is inevitably going to flare up and cause the temperature to skyrocket and meat to burn.

Ensure that the pan is larger than the meat, so that it can catch all of the drippings and make sure that you keep water in it at all times.

Adding some cider vinegar and apple juice will impart a nice flavor as well.

Ideally if you are going to do any amount of smoking on a regular basis, you should invest in a smoker that has on offset box, smoking on a grill is always a more difficult proposition.

Try the "Minion Method" (Google it) for maintaining your fuel.

It's a method where you have a bed of unlit coals to which you add a few lit ones.

The lit coals provide the heat, and the other coals slowly ignite throughout your cook.

Once you get to your desired heat, it is easy to control with the vents on the bottom.

Don't worry about the unlit coals igniting.

As long as you're not using match-light, you won't experience a problem with impurities being cooked into your food.

The new Kingsford Blue has fewer and cleaner fillers.

Even better, use lump or coconut charcoal.

For more information on the Minion Method, check out The Weber Virtual Bulletin Board ( link text ).

They have a section devoted to the method on the site, and you can find plenty of help in the forums on maintaining temperatures.

For maintaining the same temperature in a kettle grill for longer periods of time the following works well: Take briquettes and form a circle that has a gap somewhere.

How wide and how high you stack them determines the resulting heat, but two deep and one on top is a good starting point.

If you light the ring on one side of the gap the charcoal can slowly burn around the ring resulting in a more or less constant temperature for several hours.

A friend of mine, who taught me this technique uses it for pulled pork.

For smoking the wood chips can be placed on top of the circle.

In case my description is unclear (I'm no native speaker)

perhaps this picture I found on a google search helps clarify.

I hope the pics are shown, the computer I'm on blocks imgur

so I can't see them.

The short answer is, you're always going to have trouble controlling heat in a weber kettle grill.

The longer answer: You can put out some great meat with it.

As a practical suggestion on top of the posts above, I would suggest you 1) move all the meat to one side of the grill, 2) put coals on the other side of the grill 3) put a metal water pan above the coals to keep the heat even 4) make sure that the vent is situated above the meat, creating a flow of air from coals over across to the meat.

5) get a wireless thermometer setup for grilling 6) using that, adjust the air vents (start with the bottom vents at half open and top at full as a baseline, close them down as needed to lower temperature).

Enjoy your smoking!

Question: I recently smoked a pork shoulder in a weber charcoal kettle grill and I had a lot of trouble maintaining the temperature. Are there any tricks to using a mix of charcoal briquettes and wood chunks for smoking like this?

Smoking in Kettle Grill

It will always be difficult to control heat in this kind of grill, but you can try placing the meat under the vent and away from the coals, with a metal pan of water over the coals to keep the heat even. Another method is to add fewer coals more often, or try the Minion Method to maintain a steady fuel supply. Finally, you could put heat reservoir objects into the grill, which will absorb and steadily release heat.

The kettle grill is not designed to be able to hold the temperature while smoking. You can try adding thermal mass to the fire, the Minion Method or keeping your fire and meat separate so you can add more fuel as needed.

Try adding thermal mass to absorb the heat and emit it more steadily.

Try building the heat more steadily by adding charcoal more often or you can also try the Minion Method.

The kettle grill will always be difficult to maintain at the right temperature.

Try moving the meat to one side of the grill and having the coals on the other side. That way you can add charcoal while your meat is on the grill.


Do you like it cold-brewed?

The absolute best thing to do from my perspective is to stir half a cup of grounds into a quart of water and let sit overnight; you can then filter it using your french press or a regular plastic filter the next day to get a low-acid coffee concentrate.

Mix one part of this with 1-2 parts of water (hot or cold, adjust for strength) to get coffee.

The concentrate keeps well in the fridge too.

The only problem is that the coffee you get will be very low acid; if you like your iced coffee more acidic, this won't help.

For my palate it's great, but YMMV.

French presses work pretty well for cold brewed coffee.

Just put the coffee and the water in and let it "brew" for a long period of time, then press it down to remove the grounds.

Recipe for cold brewed coffee from the New York Times .

First of all, I highly recommend you buy an Aeropress.

I have no affiliation, I'm just a fabulously happy customer, and my french press is now gathering dust.

I haven't tried the cold-brewed methods above, but

I if you don't want to do them, you are looking at a two step process with a french press: 1)

Make ice coffee cubes:

make some coffee, put it in ice cube trays, and freeze it.

For iced coffee, make coffee regularly, put a few oz of the hot fresh coffee in a cup, and fill up with coffee cubes.

This is probably the lowest-acid method I have done using only a french press.

I always just take old coffee, add sugar then ice.

Its just iced coffee, not rocket science.

There was a New York Times article from 2007 on cold-brewed iced coffee.

I've used their method ever since it was published.

Essentially, it is Dennis's version from above, but it makes a more concentrated brew that you can dilute with water or milk.

I typically use about 3 parts concentrate to 1 part milk and sometimes stir in a Splenda packet.

Recipe:

In a jar, stir together 1/3 cup ground coffee (medium-coarse grind is best) and 1 1/2 cups water.

Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight or 12 hours.

Strain twice through a coffee filter, a fine-mesh sieve [ my preference ] or a sieve lined with cheesecloth.

In a tall glass filled with ice, mix equal parts coffee concentrate and water, or to taste.

If desired, add milk.

Yield: Two drinks. NOTE: To make hot coffee, dilute concentrate one-to-one with water and heat in the microwave.

Try using some additional flavoring syrups, such as vanilla or caramel.

If you don't want to cold-brew, you can make coffee as you normally would and refrigerate before using.

This works better than adding ice cubes to hot coffee, since the melting ice dilutes the coffee.

Question: How should we make iced coffee at home? We only have a French press.

What's the best method for making iced coffee?

You can stir half a cup of grounds into a quart of hot or cold water, then let it brew overnight before filtering out the grounds. Alternatively, refrigerate fresh coffee, use old coffee or make coffee ice cubes. Ice coffee can then be made by adding sugar and ice.

There are 2 methods for making iced coffee with a french press. Either you brew your coffee as normal and refrigerate overnight, or you mix coffee and water, let it brew in the fridge and filter before drinking.

Put coffee and water in your french press and let it brew overnight in the fridge. Then you just have to filter in the morning before you drink it.

You can try brewing your coffee as normal and then refrigerating it overnight.

Try freezing coffee into ice cubes and then adding it to water.


Here's a picture of some raw ground beef from the Wikipedia ground beef article so that you can see for yourself.

Basically it is beef that has been run through a meat grinder, great for making taco meat, hamburgers, and the like.

Yes, it is the same as minced beef.

American versus English english.

I've been trying to do a little research on this this, and I know that "ground beef" and "minced beef" are functionally similar, but I'm trying to verify that they're actually

the same thing (as "mincing" and "grinding" are different processes.)

As they're produced from a different processes, it's possible that there might be some slight differences between the two (minor variations in texture).

And of course, there's coarse grind vs. fine grind, and occassionally you can get a really coarse 'chili grind'.

I've never lived in the UK, so I don't know how much variation there is in the size of minced beef.

Also, for good quality ground meat, you need to keep the fats very cold so they don't melt; it's possible that that minced meat doesn't have as much friction involved, making this less likely, but I can't be certain

that's the case.

(can someone from the UK weigh in on this?)

And we can also throw in the term "hamburger meat" which is ground beef with extra fat trimmings, as well as "meatloaf mix" which is typically a blend of either beef and pork, or beef, pork and veal, and "mincemeat" which is a combination of meat, fruit and alcohol.

When i've seen ground meat on american cooking programmes,the meat is a lot finer than how UK mince meat ends up after browning in a pan.

Mince meat is slightly chunkier.

You can also get most specialty meat cutters to grind any cut of meat for you.

Most ground beef you buy in the supermarket will be made from lower quality cuts.

If you grind a higher quality cut you'll have the most amazing hamburgers ever.

I never have time to cook a whole chuck roast

so I end up having most of those larger cuts put into the ground beef when I purchase part of a cow.

Now that is a tasty burger.

My hubby

it's a chef & he says that ground meat is similar to sausage meat.

In other words it is a kind of mince that is less chunky or finely ground.

If you massage your mince beef it turns into ground beef.

Hope that helps x

When you use the old fashioned mincing machine the Americans call it a grinder ,we call it a mincer ,so it must have been exactly the same in the olden days.

Different qualities of mince in England contain different amounts of fat .the best quality hardly any fat!

Just for reference, the official U.S. spec from 7 CFR § 319.15 (a) Chopped beef, ground beef.

“Chopped Beef” or “Ground Beef” shall consist of chopped fresh and/or frozen beef with or without seasoning and without the addition of beef fat as such, shall not contain more than 30 percent fat, and shall not contain added water, phosphates, binders, or extenders.

When beef cheek meat (trimmed beef cheeks) is used in the preparation of chopped or ground beef, the amount of such cheek meat shall be limited to 25 percent; and if in excess of natural proportions, its presence shall be declared on the label, in the ingredient statement required by §317.2 of this subchapter, if any, and otherwise contiguous to the name of the product.

I was pleased that the spec forbid " added water, phosphates, binders, or extenders " and toying around too much with the fat content. Compare that to the gruesome Fabricated Steak further down on the page.

Question: I keep hearing about Ground Beef, but I'm from Australia and I've never actually seen it before.  Is it the same thing as Minced Beef? Or different? Is Minced beef an acceptible substitute if they're not the same thing?

What is ground beef?

Ground beef has been passed through a grinder to be used in taco meat, burgers etc., and is the same as minced beef. US ground beef is often a lot finer than minced beef available in the UK.

Essentially they are the same thing. There is a slight difference in the grinding of the two. Ground meat in the US is ground more finely than the UK's minced meat.

Ground beef and minced beef are the same thing.

Ground meat in America is much finer than the minced meat in the UK.


I suggest to measure by weight as you'll never go wrong.

Otherwise, I use your second method which is to scoop then use a knifed to rid of excess flour.

Flour is so fluffy and needs to be compacted (somewhat) to get a true cup, therefore measuring by weight always guarantees the same amount of flour.

The real answer is that it depends on the measurement methodology used by the person who wrote the recipe.

I have one book that actually calls for measuring by scooping with the measuring cup and scraping it with the side of the bag, which is how the average person tends to measure flour, and results in about 30% more flour by weight per cup.

King Arthur flour (and most other recipe sources) use the "sprinkle the flour into the measuring cup with a spoon and then level with a knife" which most closely simulates measuring sifted flour.

This method will generally be appropriate when using professional recipes, unless the cookbook calls for another method.

These recipes generally do not want compacted flour.

If you are compacting your flour you are almost certain to be using too much.

Many instructional style cookbooks will lay out their measuring methodology at the beginning of the baking section (or the beginning of the book if it is a baking book).

But since every methodology and every individual's use of that methodology comes out with a different weight per cup, working by weight really is your best bet.

For bread recipes, measuring by weight is the only way to go.

(And yes that means that almost all bread recipes printed need to be converted by guesswork, because you have no 100% certain way to know what the author really experienced.)

"Pro" bread bakers express recipes with formulas using percentages based on the weight of the flour.

The flour weight is always 100% implicitly, and then other ingredients are smaller percentages of that (like 0.8% instant yeast, 1.5% salt, 60% water).

Weight is the preferred measurement method for baking as the ratios have to be rather precise and volume is affected by settling, humidity, and storage methods.

Michael Ruhlman's Ratio is a good reference for how the proportions should work.

I was taught to sift then measure, and to scrape the excess off with a knife.

Frankly, I'll measure then sift.

The only exception is Brown Sugar, which is usually lightly compacted.

As others have said, you're essentially screwed if you're using volume to measure flour.

For reference: a cup of flour is between four and five oz (up to a 25% swing, depending on measurement and flour type).

A sifted cup of flour is usually quite close to 4 oz; this is the major reason that you are told to sift flour when baking -- for precision.

Of course, weight is also not perfect, since humidity can affect the weight.

But, it's FAR more consistent than volume measurements.

I usually trial convert a recipe at something like 4.5 oz per cup and adjust from there.

Question: When you are measuring out your flour, sugar, etc with the measuring cups, is it better to   scoop and then shake the cup to get a leveled cup, or  scoop and then use a knife to scrape off the excess.    I have been using the first method but will it make a difference?

Cup measurements: shake or scrape?

Measuring by weight is more accurate, which is important for bread recipes.

It is better to weigh flour than to measure it in cups.


Butter is at most 82% oil and the rest is water.

So, you're going to need to add more butter for the same amount of oil.

Besides, you need to adjust the liquid content accordingly since you are going to have more water than you planned.

If you are going to use the same amount of oil, then it will not make any difference other than the taste.

Just make sure they are of same state (i.e. melted butter instead of vegetable oil or vice versa)

If you're making something like muffins, then in my experience the water content is a non-issue.

Yes, there's some water.

But muffin batter has such a broad range of tolerance that as long as you're basically familiar with the target consistency it'll be fine.

That said, the amount of oil or butter that goes into a batch of muffins is not really enough to impart much butter flavor.

You'd be better off using clarified butter than melted butter, as butter is about 15% water, and could affect the texture if not compensated for properly.

If I am substituting butter for oil, I like to do a mixture of 1/2 butter and half shortening, this allows the richness of the butter as well as keeping the consistency of the recipe.

I also add clear butter extract (flavoring) to the recipe.

I use about 1/2 tsp butter extract per 1/2c of shortening and cream the butter/shortening mixture with eggs, sugar and vanilla first before I add any other ingredients.

I also substitute shortening for butter sometimes, only I also add 1tbs of water per 1/2c shortening along with the extract.

Hope this helps!

two options spring to mind:1) consider either adding butter flavoring (I have only seen the imitation version int eh extract flavoring options at the stores) 2) or just adding a little butter to the batter (substituting part or even just throwing in the leftovers of a stick)

Question: When a recipe (like for muffins) calls for vegetable oil, does it matter if I substitute the oil for butter because I want that buttery taste in the muffins?  Do I need to compensate for the difference by adding/subtracting the amount of butter added?

Substituting butter for oil: Does it matter for baked goods?

Butter is over 15% water, so you should add more butter, clarified butter or a mixture of butter and shortening to ensure a similar consistancy.

Use a mixture of butter and shortening or butter with a little liquid.

You will need to add more butter than oil to compensate for the difference in liquid.

You can do a mixture of butter and shortening to keep the same consistency.


If you're adding inordinate amounts of herbs with no effect, then that sounds to me like a problem with the herbs themselves.

If you're using dried herbs, they could just be too old.

To me, dried basil and oregano and marjoram just never taste like much.

Fresh, however, they're quite strong.

Tarragon, chervil, and dill, on the other hand, do "work" in dried form, and in fact you have to be careful with tarragon.

I guess I'd put rosemary in that category too

but thanks to some out-of-control plants I've got more fresh rosemary than I could ever possibly use cooking for an army.

For tender herbs, keep them fresh, use them at the last minute and use plenty of them.

For the woodier herbs like Rosemary, you can use them at the start of the cooking process but you will probably need to be more restrained with the quantities.

For non-leafy herbs, you might try toasting them a little first.

Some herbs (looking at you paprika), don't taste like anything if they're not toasted a little first.

as mentioned if theyre old, then they wont have much flavor.

as hard as it seems throw them out every so many months.

i find the best technique in cooking for getting the most out of dried herbs is to use them at the start.

since almost everything i cook begins with a base of heating olive oil, then adding fresh [minced/diced/grated/pasted] garlic, and then adding 1/2-1 onion i typically add dried herbs at the point where the onion is half softened.

this keeps the scent there so i can continue to add them as needed to balance out their lack of flavor.

of course this doesnt work with every recipe but it will help for many. more important than that, when you add dried herbs crush them in your hands as you are doing so.

I have generally found that herbs (i.e. dried bits of leaves, such as oregano or thyme) impart their flavour best into a water-based solution.

Hence I tend to use them in sauces and casseroles based on something like tomatoes, or things that have water in them anyway, like a casserole.

I also find that a little acid, lemon juice or balsamic are my favourites, helps bring out the herbs' flavour.

On the other hand, spices (ground powders of seeds and roots and such, like paprika or nutmeg or cumin) release flavour best into fat.

Therefore, when I'm making a tomato sauce for my pasta, I add the nutmeg to the sauteeing onions at the start.

I only add the oregano near the end, after the tomatoes are in and releasing their juice.

The best way I'd say to learn with herbs is to isolate them - only use one at a time to get an idea of the different notes that they can add.

Also try to add them at different points.

For example, parsley is only added at the end where rosemary tends to work well added near the end.

Similarly some herbs work better when boiled with other ingredients where others are more suitable for frying.

Trial and error is the best way to really get a handle on how to add them properly.

Also, on the whole dried herbs are a waste of time with a few exceptions.

Dried oregano or tarragon are OK for example - although different in taste to the fresh ones.

Use fresh ones if you can ideally.

Question: I am a strictly amateur cook.  Most of my output is OK, certainly edible, but I seem to lack the ability to impart flavour through herbs.  I can throw in an inordinate amount, but still no flavour (not even an overpowering one).  Yet, I have a simple recipe for a vegetable stew in which the listed seasoning mix works beautifully.  Do you have a guide for the best way to deal with herbs ?

Is there a secret to flavouring with herbs

If you are using dried herbs, they may be too old and could have lost their flavour. Use fresh tender herbs later in the cooking process, but woodier and dried herbs early on. Some herbs like paprika are bland if not toasted first.

Remember that dried herbs lose their flavour over time. Fresh herbs should be added at the last minute whereas dried herbs can be added at the start of cooking.

Dried herbs use their flavour after a while.

Fresh herbs should be added at the last minute.

Dried herbs should be added at the start of cooking. They can also be toastedor used in liquid sauces to best effect.


Low and slow is the only way to go, I'm afraid.

You can add some broth and simmer them down (as opposed to just cooking them in oil) but make sure you add little enough that it will all evaporate...

Don't want to be pouring off flavor.

In addition to what everyone else has said, you may want to add some salt as the onions caramelize.

The salt will help draw out the sugars, and allow them to caramelize more.

Some techniques I've seen also suggest a little sugar to help the caramelizing process...

but personally I think that's cheating.

That's up to you though.

I think you've answered your own question.

Low & slow, with constant stiring.

To hot & fast will burn the sugars you are attempting to bring out of the onion.

I don't believe there are alternatives to doing this.

But maybe someone will correct me.

In a very low effort way you can do it with a crock pot .

Put in 2-4oz of butter depening on crock pot size and as many onions as the crock pot will hold.

Set it on low.

Come back

8 hrs later.

I generally use butter, EarthBalance, or extra virgin olive oil, and lots of time.

If I'm in a rush I will sometimes turn the heat up a little, but the that nearly always causes an inconsistent or lower quality result.

Also I find it helpful to separate them onions early in the process.

Generally we slice them into rings before cooking.

I separate the disks as I place them in the pan.

I've found that while this increases the space they require for cooking, it greatly improves the quality of the results (again supports even cooking).

Take a warm pan, add oil, add onions.

The higher the temperature of the pan, to about medium levels, the more frequently the onions need to be stirred in order to not burn them.

Lower temperatures take longer to produce the caramelization but mostly give a more uniform result, as one can keep the onions on the heat longer.

You'll need to find out what heat works best for you by experimenting a bit.

Also different oils make for different flavors, I prefer x virgin olive oil.

Question: Often recipes ask for caramelised onions.  What are some good techniques for cooking them this way, as it seems to take a while, and often even if they are on a low heat they can brown a bit too much if they are not stirred continually.

How to caramelise onions?

You need to cook them low and slow with constant stirring, but may want to add a little broth (enough to evaporate) and some salt in addition to the oil.

To caramelise onions they need to be cooked slowly over a low heat. Try add a little broth to stop them drying out.

Onions should be cooked slowly on a low heat with constant stirring.

You can add some broth to stop them drying out during cooking. You can also add a bit of salt to draw out the moisture.


I feel your pain.

If only I liked summer squash better...

You definitely can freeze squash -- thick slice it, blanch it in salty water briefly until almost tender, transfer to an ice bath until it's chilled, bag it, and put in the freezer.

Later, thaw and use with recipes that don't require ultra-crisp squash.

I blanch it, run it under cold water or put into ice water to stop any further cooking.

Then I pat dry and store individual portions in the freezer.

I love to make fritters with them and this makes it easy to do, not to mention it is a great way to save the wonderful flavors of summer squash.

Hope this is helpful.

SORRY

, I see somebody else already answered.

Still, now you know at least two of us agree that squash can be frozen. :-)

If you have recipes that take shredded squash (or zucchini while you're at it), you can shred the squash and then place it in a freezer bag and then into the freezer.

This works really well for zucchini

that's bound for bread, but squash for some soups, bread, or similar uses would work as well.

Have you tried Squash/Pumpkin Ravioli?The filling is very easy to make (Squash, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, Cream)and freezes very well.

I slice it and cook 10 min in a little olive oil.

Sometimes I add peppers,onions,eggplant,or tomatoes.

Freeze in bags and pop into recipes such as sauces,soups, or stews.

The squash actually has a bit of crunch to it doing it this way.

I just made refrigerator pickles out of a couple.

Treat it just like you do cucumbers.

Question: My CSA delivers me a lot of summer squash, more than I can actually find the time to cook in a week. Can I freeze the remainder in some way? Is there a quick recipe I should be making that stores well? I'm not thinking primarily of meals here -- if I had the time to cook dinners more regularly I wouldn't be overwhelmed -- but of things I can store for a while.

How should I use extra summer squash?

Squash can be sliced, blanched quickly in salt water until almost tender, placed in an ice bath until chilled and then frozen. Squash and zucchini can also be frozen shredded ready for some recipes, or squash can be used in squash/pumpkin ravioli.It can also be pickled to preserve it.

Summer squash can be sliced and frozen or pickled.

Summer squash can be sliced or shredded and frozen. You can also make a ravioli filling and freeze that to use later.

They can be pickled and kept in the fridge.


A pizza stone can help an older or cheaper oven hold temperature as it will retain heat because of its mass, releasing it when the thermostat turns off the coil and reducing the variability in oven temperature.

So, keep your pizza stone in the oven.

Baking bread, pita, crusty French, crusty Italian, etc. Was in a wonderful restaurant in Shanghai where they brought out very hot stones on wooden trays with holders for food on the side which (in my instance) held the largest shrimp I've ever seen and a large assortment of vegetables.

We cooked the food on the hot stone and had a great old time, what fun! Ended up with only minor burns:)

There are probably a lot of other uses depending on how porous the stone is; if it is granite or something like that, use it for broiling steak after the stone is hot; wouldn't have to flip the steak.

Let your mind wander...not too far though; soup, I'm pretty sure, wouldn't work.

I use mine as a heat shield in my grill to create indirect heat for slow smoked BBQ.

I also use it to cook pizza on my grill, but that's not really a different use.

Ours is good for cookies.

Heston Blumenthal took all of the racks out of his oven and placed the stone in vertically against the side of the oven and used it as a makeshift tandoor oven to cook naan bread in it.

Question: I recently acquired a pizza stone to use for baking bread. Other than pizza and bread, are there other uses for it in the kitchen?

What are other uses for a pizza stone?

A pizza stone stores a lot of heat and can help an older or cheaper oven retain heat and maintain an even temperature. It can also be used to make a makeshift tandoor oven or as a heat shield on a grill for slow smoked BBQ.

A pizza stone can be left in the oven to improve heat retention of an old oven. You can also use it on a barbecue and for baking cookies.

A pizza stone will also work as a thermal mass to retain the temperature of the oven. You can also use it as a makeshift tandoor overn for naan bread.


The salt adds flavor, but it also helps reduce the gelation of the starch in the pasta.

The starch in food is the form of microscopic grains.

When these grains come into contact with water, they will trap some of it (think cornstarch in cold water), but when the water is hot they swell up like balloons and merge with each other, and you have starch gelation.

Another thing you may want to add to the pasta water is some acid (lemon or cream of tartar).

Tap water in most cities is made alkaline, which increases the starch loss from the pasta to the water, making the pasta stickier.

It means that the pasta is seasoned as it is cooked.

To see if this matters to you, cook up some pasta in plain water and then some in salted water and see if you can taste the difference.

The addition of salt has at least 2 things going for it: It does help keep the pasta from cooking into water, thus improving texture (less sticky/gummy).

When less of the starch and protein is leached out of the pasta, it will foam less as well!(Perform the 2 batch test, side by side.

The salted water will foam less, and it will be less murky when the cooking is done)

It does improve the flavour (at least for most of us).

Just don't go crazy with the salt, and you'll be fine!

Yes, you can omit the salt, and you can acidify the water, but neither will produce a finished product that I'd care to eat.

Personally, I add salt to water to reduce the bubbling while the water is boiling and allows me to walk away from the pot for a minute.

I hate it when the pot bubbles over and some water falls over the sides of the pot.

Something about the salt changes the waters ability to create bubbles.

This is just my observation.

As has been mentioned, whether you add salt or not it is for taste.

Salt will decrease the amount of time to boil, but only if used in significant quantity.

80% water 20% salt will only increase the boiling point of the water 4 degrees.

The same volume of straight water will take longer to boil for the simple fact there is more water.

Pasta sticking is in large part due to the water itself.

Most tap water is leans to the alkaline side of the chart.

Adding some vinegar or lemon juice to water to raise its acidity will keep the pasta from sticking.

How much?

You'll have to experiment.

I have found that adding salt to pasta water helps the pasta hold the water when it comes in contact with the salt in the sauce.

When the pasta was not cooked in salted water it weeps when sauce is served on top of undressed pasta.

Dont know why?

Just an observation.

Question: What is the effect of adding salt to the water when cooking pasta?

Why add salt to the water when cooking pasta?

Salt adds flavour, but in sufficient quantities also shortens boiling time and reduces bubbling. It also reduces the gelation of the starch and helps the pasta hold the water when in contact with the sauce.

In large amounts, salt will speed up cooking time. It will also season the pasta as it cooks.

Salt will season the pasta as it cooks and reduce the gelation of the starch.

Salt helps the pasta to hold it's shape in the sauce.


It is just the root of the coriander plant.

Certainly at least here (UK) you can buy living coriander plants in the supermarket; you could pull one out of the pot and use the root from that.

Apparently you can also subsitute 2 stems of coriander for every piece of root called for in the recipe, but I've never tried this.

In the USA, Coriander is referred to Cilantro, when used in context of herb/green.

Possible sources (to purchase Cilantro aka Coriander with root): vendors at some farmer's markets

(this is where I get mine)

"South East Asian" or "Latin American" grocery stores "Indian" Grocery stores

If it's not carried in a local Asian market (and they won't order it) then try asking at a local Thai or Asian restaurant.

If they're using it they might very likely be willing to sell to you or order from their supplier.

The following is a quote from the Blue Dragon website , I hope it helps:-

Coriander roots are notoriously difficult to come by (even in well stocked Oriental supermarkets), as in the UK coriander is sold rootless.

This isn't much good for budding Thai cooks!!

To get the same intense coriander flavour you would get from one root, use ten stems stripped of the leaves and pound to a paste in a paste and mortar.

Use in the same way as you would have done with the root.

N.B.

Many supermarkets in the UK stock live coriander plants growing in small pots but as previously observed the roots are to small to use.

"Cilantro" is actually a stage of growth of the Coriander plant; it is when the leaves are broad and light green, prior to flowering (aka Bolting).

If the plant has flowered the taste becomes increasingly bitter and should not be used in recipes calling for coriander.

I would second the suggestion to buy a live plant and simply take the root.

I've also been told that you can use the stems as a substitute but haven't tried it.

The only place I have seen coriander roots thick enough to be used in cooking is in Thailand.

The coriander we find in Europe has roots so thin you can't use them.

The roots are much more fragrant than the leaves and yield much better flavouring results when used for cooking.

According to Thai Supermarket Online - http://importfood.com/ - 'A fine quality coriander seed can been used in various curry pastes and other condiment recipes as an excellent substitute for corriander root'.

The best way of getting coriander root is to grow your own coriander on a sunny windowsill; don't bother trying to use it for your cooking as it'll go from scrawny and unable to offer up any leaves, to suddenly it's bolted if you turn your back.

Just leave it, you'll then get seeds that you can dry and great roots.

I've grown the Calypso variety from seed, because it claimed to not bolt (didn't have any luck with that), and got really good sized roots.

You do need to leave it to really get good and beefy.

You also need to take ages to clean them as the compost gets into every nook and cranny, but if you're wanting coriander root it's worth it.

And I personally just froze it afterwards.

Traditional Thailand we use coriander root as a flavoring.

You can use stems and some leaves for substitute or you can use MSG.

Question: I mentioned the book Thai Food in an answer to another question. This reminded me of one of my longest running quandaries with it. Many of the recipes mention “coriander root”. I am aware of being able to buy the seeds (whole or ground) or the leaves, but I have never seen for sale anything calling itself coriander root.  Has anyone managed to source this, or am I missing something obvious?

What is coriander root and where can you get it?

Coriander is usually sold without the root in UK supermarkets, but it may be available in Oriental supermarkets or at a local Thai or Asian restaurant. You could grow it yourself or use stalks, but more stalks will be needed as their flavour is not as strong.

Coriander root is very difficult to buy. You can either grow your own or substitute it will a larger amount of stems and leaves.

It is very difficult to buy coriander root. The best way is to grow your own plant and then use the root.

Instead of coriander root, you can use 10 stems and some leaves.


What do you mean by hold up well?

Structurally?

Carrots and peas are rather common in a traditional chicken pot pie.

Cauliflower is probably way too delicate to hold up well, also it's too mildly flavored to serve as a primary flavor.

I would suggest trying some heartier root vegetables or starches.

Potatoes, squash, zucchini are some good possibilities.

I'd also add some onion and celery for a better flavor punch.

If you'd like to make something with cauliflower and/or broccoli, try this:

trim and wash the florets (keep the stems for something else if you like).

Blanch them in boiling salted water for 3 or 4 minutes (a little longer maybe for cauliflower).

Drain them and dump them into some cold water, then drain them.

Now (or before now): get a heavy roasting pan (like a big earthenware or cast iron lasagna pan, or something like that - the heavier the better) hot in a 375 degree (F) oven.

That should take about 15 or 20 minutes - we want it hot .

Pull it out of the oven carefully, and then add some oil.

Spread the oil around with a silicone brush or by tilting the pan (carefully please; don't burn yourself and sue me) and then add the drained broccoli/cauliflower.

Sort-of toss those around

(if you've got some spray olive oil, you can squirt them with that) and then add kosher/sea salt and black pepper.

Roast those in the oven for about 20 minutes, possibly tossing them around halfway through.

Now what you've got is the best tasting cauliflower/broccoli in the world.

You can add those roasted florettes to a quiche or to a pot pie or to anything like that.

I add thusly roasted cauliflower to Indian "dal" preparations and it's awesome.

Here's another tip: if you want to add cubed potatoes but you don't want them to turn to mush, try this.

Cube the raw potatoes.

Get some water warming on the stove, but when it's still just warm (less than 130 degrees F) add the potatoes.

Keep the fire on, but monitor the temperature very carefully.

When the water gets up to 138 degrees F, drop the fire a lot and try to keep it at that temperature for about 10 minutes.

After that, raise the fire and let the potatoes boil as you normally would.

That trick will allow a natural enzyme in the potatoes to "firm up" the starch, and they'll end up cooked but not mushy.

You can then add them to your pot pie with the confidence that they'll more-or-less hold together.

(Beets do this kind-of automatically; it's really hard to cook a beet until it's mush.)

The flavor balance in a traditional pot pie going to be hard to replicate using just vegtables but the inclusion of mushrooms to add some meatiness and adding some tofu to the base along with enough starches to thicken up the base should do it.

Corn, rutabagas, carrots and garlic should be added to hobodave's list of vegtables that will remain reconizable after cooking.

I'm assuming you're talking about flavour here - in which case I'd fry up some leeks/onions, garlic and mushrooms in butter and put them in a white sauce, which should give a nice savoury base for whatever other vegies you fancy putting in.

A traditional answer: Carrots & peas are a good start.

Consider pot pie filling a thick veggie soup.

You can also include other things you'd find in frozen "soup veggie" mix.

I've had one with diced sweet potatoes too.

Personally, I'd do carrots, peas, corn, lima beans, tiny diced potatoes, green beans, onion.

Think color, texture, flavor.

Don't go for green leafies, brocolli or cauliflower (too many sulfur compounds when slow cooked).

What's as important as veggie selection though is cooking & sauce.

Dice onion & mince garlic, brown in butter.

Add veggie stock and bring to simmer.

Add (optionally pre-steamed) diced carrots, potatoes & other longer cooking veg.

Once more tender, add quicker cooking veg.

I would add Campbell's cream of celery as a base, it will thin with veggie stock.

Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper - maybe bay leaf or other soup spices.

Don't bother putting it in a pie shell until you are happy with the flavor & texture.

Do not rely on pie baking to cook filling.

I made a pie which contained shallots, button mushrooms, chestnut mushrooms and whole chestnuts.

I sauteed the shallots whole along with the mushrooms.

Then I added a goodly amount of red wine, some bay leaves plus some rosemary.

I simmered it for a while to reduce, then added the chestnuts, then seasoned further.

Into a casserole dish, then covered with pastry.

After cooking, all the filling ingredients had held their shape.

My wife and I have been making the vegetable pot pie with dill-Havarti sauce from the Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates cookbook for years.

The only modifications that we make are to leave out the celery and green beans and add in some peas and asparagus.

We've even successfully made a vegan version by making our own dill Havarti cashew cheese.

Question: I am trying to make a vegetarian pot pie, but so far I was not successful. I tried with carrots, peas, and cauliflower, but the pot pie was not that good.

What vegetables hold up well for making vegetarian pot pie?

Cauliflower is probably too delicate and mild in flavour, so try heartier root vegetables instead. Mushrooms, shallots, garlic, onions and chestnuts can add flavour to the base, and tofu and starches can thicken up the sauce. Treat the filling as a thick soup and add it to the shell only after you are happy with the flavour and texture.

A vegetable pot pie should use onions and garlis for flavor, mushrooms for the meaty texture and hearty root vegetables.

Avoid using delicate vegetables as they won't hold up in cooking.

Mushrooms are a good addition for meatiness.

Try adding garlic and onions or leeks for flavor.

Try making a think vegetable soup as the filling. It should be cooked and well seasoned before assembling the pie.


The method I use is to leave on high for a few minutes to burn off the worst of the food residue.

Then I scrub it with a wire grill brush and , while still warm, I then re-oil with cooking oil.

There are proprietary products you can use and I've seen people using oven cleaner

but I steer well away from those!

Here's my method.

Don't clean the grill from the previous cooking, just turn it off and leave it.

Next time you're grilling, turn the heat up to high until the grill smokes.

Dip a grill brush in a bowl of water and run it along the metal.

It will steam clean the surfaces.

Before adding food, take an oiled paper towel and place it on the grill, using the grill brush to grease the grate.

I do this twice, since the first run usually picks up a lot of residual char.

Grill away.

One benefit of this method is that you don't have to clean up afterward, and you take advantage of the heating-up of the grill that has to happen anyway, rather than keeping the grill on extra afterwards.

It depends in the quality of the grill and what parts you are looking to clean.

I always take the grill grates, and the peices that go over the burners and power wash them.

they are both high quality, and can take teh beating.

The other internal parts I wipe down with rags and burn it off.

When the grill has cooled completely (after dinner): I take some kitchen paper or some newspaper and clean off as much as possible.

I use a wire brush with a scraper to brush the grill, and scrape off any bits that are stuck on.

I DO NOT re-oil, and the grill stays nice and greasy for the next usage.

Before the snow of winter rolls around, I take it all apart, clean the plates with a BBQ cleaning foam and water, and the cover that goes over the burners gets a good scraping, then I wash and clean the frame.

This way, the grill will last years of good use.

I bought a plastic box with lid, (suitable for under the bed), and I put the grills and plates of my BBQ in it with a large pitcher of cold tap water and some "degreaser" dish soap.

I then boil a tea kettle of tap water and pour over the top of the cold water and everything in the box (so as not to melt my plastic box) and put the lid on so it will stay hot. in half and hour to 45 minutes

everything comes right off with the BBQ wire brush and the stainless steel scrubbie.

Wipe down the inside of the BBQ and put foil on the bottom and put back together.

Wish there was an easier way,

but it's the cleanest way for me.

As many have said, I like to turn the grill on high, close it, and let it burn off the bulk of the residue; then I use a grill brush to scrub all of the remaining residue and char off; after that I wipe down the grill with oil (usually olive oil).

Like you'd cook any other metal surface you cook on.

You can use the grill to cook off some kinds of debris.

You can scrape with a metal scrubby.

You can buy abrasive pads and metal brushes.

You can buy spray grill cleaner, but be sure to clean that off really well before cooking on it.

Since there is only my husband and myself, there isn't much meat and/or veggies.

But, after each use and once we have eaten the grill is cool enough once the dishes from the meal are washed (by hand)

I then take both the grill and the burner cover into the kitchen and wash.

When I see a lot of debris is sitting on the bottom

I then clean it up with paper towels and discard.

The grill is easy to clean with this method and we don't have to worry about eating

charred whatever.

Question: My propane grill needs to be cleaned, how should I go about doing so?

How should I clean my propane grill?

You can leave the closed grill on high for a few minutes to burn off the residue, then use a grill brush or abrasive pad to scrub the residue off before wiping down with water or oil. Removable parts can be taken off and power washed.

Remove anything you can and wash it separately. Then heat up the grill and let it burn off the food residue. Use a metal brush to scrub down the rest with water.

Turn the grill on high and let it burn off the worst of the food residue. Then take a metal bursh or abrasvie pad and scrub with water.

Any grills and separate peices can be removed and washed.


I've found it freezes quite well

— I simply wash it, chop it roughly, and then freeze it in a small plastic bag.

Use it to make pesto, super easy and you can use the pesto when ever you need cilantro flavor in a dish.

You just need a food processor or even a blender, place the herbs inside and blend while slowly pouring oil into the mix.

I normally make mine two handfuls of herbs to a cup and half of oil

but you might need to play with the ratio to get a mix that tastes good to you.

I also try to use canola oil instead of olive as I find I don't always want to add those olive flavors to whatever Mexican dish I happen to be cooking.

The pesto also freezes great so it's great to bust out duing the winter.

Anything Thai.

There's a particularly fun Thai green curry that you make with fresh Cilantro (though I daresay we call it coriander over here), lots of garlic, some hot green peppers, and about 6 different spices.

I don't have the recipe on hand, but Google is your friend.

If you're making this, add the flesh of a fresh mango, it's incredible.

Anything middle-Eastern.

A taboule salad will do you good service in using up coriander leaves, though it takes spearmint and parsley too.

Cilantro lime rice!

I eat it on burritos, or by itself.

I'd link you a recipe, but I haven't made it in a while and can't remember how I do it.

It's basically: Rice Cilantro Lime Juice Salt Cilantro's also interesting in salads (like everything green).

Chimichurri sauce:

Good on chicken, pork, shrimp, beef.

Usually about 3 cups of loosely packed leaves, a combination of cilantro, parsley, and basil.

Add garlic, 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.

Put it all in a food processor.

Cilantro is also great in homemade hummus!

Use lime juice instead of lemon, add some cayenne pepper if you like it spicy.

How about a chutney?

As far as Indian food in the US goes, one of the two common chutneys is a green one chock full of cilantro (the other is tamarind).

I've only made it once, and I can't remember the recipe, but googling for green chutney, cilantro chutney, or hari chutney results in quite a lot of hits.

Recaito.

It's a sort of chutney/sauce of Hispanic origin that's (more or less)

a paste made from onion, peppers, oil, salt and lots of cilantro.

I've had it made with some lime in too.

It's used more as an ingredient (like for making green rice) than as a condiment, but I can vouch for it being kind of nice served over something like a nice hot grilled chicken breast.

Salsas Cilantro is a great ingredient in both red and green salsa.

While prime canning season is over in most of the northern hemisphere, you may be able to find quality versions of the rest of the ingredients for either fresh or cooked salsa.

Guacamole.

I understand your frustration.

I like it fresh, but I don't use cilantro in large enough quantities to go through the smallest amount they are sold in at the local grocery store before it rots.

So I bought a jar of dried cilantro for the occasional times I want it.

You could try putting some clean, dry cilantro in a sealed container of oil, and letting it rest for a few weeks before straining.

I'm not sure about the shelf-life, but it's a great way to capture the flavor of an herb/spice to use for later.

It's a great additive to a cous-cous salad.

Umm... what isn't a good use for fresh cilantro?

Anything Mexican, anything Asian, or soups might be a good start.

My wife always uses it in her 'taco cassarole', stir-fry, and in black bean soup, for some examples.

But just give it a try.

As long as the dish isn't overly sweet, you can hardly go wrong with cilantro.

I just made a macaroni salad and had some left over cilantro that I added it to and my family loved it!!

Question: I have a few recipes I like to make which call for fresh cilantro, but when I buy it at the store it's usually in large bunches and I have a ton left over.  What's a good use for the leftovers?

What is a good use for lots of fresh cilantro?

Cilantro can be used in many ingredients, including together with rice and cous-cous or in Thai food. It can also be made into pesto and used in any dish requiring cilantro flavour. Cilantro also freezes well, or can be stored in a sealed container of oil.

Cilantro is a good addition to almost any dish. You can also try freezing it and using it in sauces and salsas.

You can basically use in most dishes. It works especially well in pesto, any Thai recipes and with rice and couscous.

It freezes well or you could try conserving it in oil in the fridge.

Use it for sauces, chutneys, salsas and guacamole.


As a corollary to the excellent advice from Aaronut, there is an important rule of thumb when selecting a wine to cook with: If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it.

It absolutely does matter, as all of the different varietals have their own very distinctive tastes.

However, there's not really any "correct" wine to use when you see a recipe requesting it.

Probably the most common ones (where I'm from) are Cabernet Sauvignon for red and Chardonnay for white, but those are definitely not the only kinds you can use, and it depends entirely on the recipe and your personal preferences.

If it's going into a strong/spicy sauce where the taste of the wine will be overshadowed by the other ingredients anyway, then I'll often use any inexpensive wine I have lying around.

But if it's something like a wine sauce, or a reduction, then you should essentially treat it as a wine pairing; look up what varietal pairs well with the food you're making and use that in your sauce.

I tend to disagree a little bit on this.

Cooking removes almost all of the subtlety from a wine, especially long cooking like in a reduction-based sauce.

I'd like to see a double-blind taste of several reduced red varietals to see if you could tell much of a difference.

Yes.

If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it.

Whatever it tastes like out of the bottle, it will add that to the dish.

Cook with a wine you might pair with the dish (light wines for seafood, chicken; heavier wines for meats and stews).

Don't use a fruity wine unless you want your dish to have some fruit notes.

Don't use a very dry wine if you're making a sweeter dish.

Avoid excessive oakiness.

Other than that, find a decent, cheap somewhat drinkable blend (one white, one red), and buy a couple 1.5 litre bottles of each.

and keep them on hand for cooking.

I'm wiki-ing this answer

so feel free to add any brands you've found good for this purpose.

Yes, use wine that you would happily drink.

But there's usually no need to empty a bottle of fine Barolo, or Gevrey Chambertin, into the pan.

A good young red wine is usually good enough and all the wines you use should be bought for drinking, rather than for cooking.

What wine colour you use should tip you off about the wine colour to serve with it, so helpfully you have whats left in the bottle after culinary use, to drink while cooking or afterwards.

I am not a wine connoisseur.

I actively dislike most red wines; I'm not a fan of tannins.

So if a recipe calls for red wine as an important ingredient (Beef Bourguignon, for example), I simply won't make the recipe.

Sometimes though, like in a risotto or a Chinese sauce, a bit of wine is a lovely touch.

Sauvignon Blanc is a common white wine for cooking, but unless I use the whole bottle in the recipe, I end up throwing most of it away.

Even vacuum sealed, non-fortified wines have a short life-span once opened.

So, I keep two fortified wines in my fridge.

They serve me well

, I never find the need to buy any wines other than Dry Sherry and Dry Vermouth.

If a recipe called for it, I might buy a Marsala.

In the fridge, fortified wines like these last for months after being opened.

For what it's worth, Gallo topped America's Test Kitchen taste testing of Dry Vermouth.

Question: In other words does it make a difference in the event that a recipe calls for a Red wine you use a Merlot, Cabernet, Shiraz ect..?

When a recipe calls for Wine, does it make a difference what wine to use?

Select a wine that is relatively cheap but one you would be happy to drink. Cooking removes subtlety from a wine, but the variety of wine does matter and should be selected based on your own tastes.

While cooking a wine removes a lot of its flavours, you should choose a wine that it good enough to drink.

Only cook with a wine that you would drink. Different wines will give different taste profiles.

Cooking a wine removes a lot of the flavour so it doesn't really matter which wine you choose.


First, a couple of notes on cooking with lavender: -The leaves as well as the flower blossoms are edible.

-If

you don't grow it yourself, make sure that you only use lavender that has been produced for culinary usage (often found in bulk form at health food stores).

If it isn't sold in a food store, don't use it (such as that in craft stores).

-A little goes a long way.

Too much

and your mouth will taste like it was washed out with soap.

Now for some of the items I have done with it: Lavender ice cream (Lavender & Honey even better!) is a common use.

Infuse the cream with the lavender buds by bringing it to a simmer and then take off the heat and cover, letting sit for about 30 minutes.

Lavender orange sorbet (infuse lavender buds into the orange juice).

I've also used lavender and thyme in an herb past rub for roasted lamb.

"English Garden Madeleines" using dried lavender and rosewater in the madeleine batter.

I did a presentation on culinary uses of lavender a dozen years ago and don't quite recall what else I did with it but should be able to pull out the recipes I mentioned above.

If you'd like the recipes , email me at: darin@chefdarin.com

and I'll forward them to you.

Lavender goes well with apples, bitter citrus fruits, honey, basil, and coriander.

If you buy it instead of growing it, be sure it is food grade, since ornamental growers tend to spray lavender with pesticides.

Some dishes using herbes de Provence assume that you are using a mixture containing lavender, so searching for herbes de Provence should also help find recipes.

A simple thing to start out with may be lavender lemonade

The TGRWRT blog event asked readers to combine lavender and apples in a dish.

The results of the TGRWT event contain several new recipes that use lavender, some sweet, some savory.

I participated in the event, but later modified a recipe from the very talented Witt Sedgwick to create an apple lavender risotto .

one of the best cookies I've had was a lavender shortbread cookie.

I had a lavender lemonade at a wedding recently.

I'm not sure if they did anything more complicated than throwing a sprig of lavender in the glass to use as a "stirrer."

The light infusion and the lavender smell definitely brightened the drink.

A note of caution: If you didn't plant the lavender in your garden and consequently don't know if it's been treated with pesticides, you shouldn't use it in your baking and cooking.

I use lavender in herb crusts on meat, in baking a variety of breads and cookies, and in jellies and sorbets.

It's also delicious in some tea blends (from which I make ices in the summer).

You can spice deserts and cooked dishes.

It goes well with Yogurt fish sauces and with rice, with cakes and various cremes.

Try swapping it for rosemary when roasting a leg of lamb.

To roast lamb I usually make about 20 incisions in the lamb, and into each press an anchovy, half a clove of garlic and a spring of rosemary or lavender, seal the slash with some butter.

Roast in a tray with a good glass of white wine and some oil, basting it a few times while it cooks.

I use it when grilling pork chops or steaks.

Just cut 4-5 sprigs per chop, and drop it on top when you add the meat to the grill.

it will burn up as the meat cooks, but it imparts a nice subtle flavor to the meat.

The only time I've ever eaten lavender (apart from in Herbes de Provence, as papin has already mentioned), was in a Lavender Creme Brulee .

I'm not particularly fond of Creme Brulee, and I wasn't expecting to like it at all.

But it was delicious.

As mentioned above, the lavender lemonade is wonderful.

However, to make mine, I use a bit more than just "a sprig" and I mix it with chamomile flowers and honey with a few lemon balm leaves thrown in (as well as the lemon juice of course) for that fresh, 'grass-y' hint and steep that for a while, strain it and pour it over ice.

Sometimes I add a splash of cognac.

One would think of heaven...

honestly!

I've made lemon-lavender butter cakes as well

that were lovely.

The lavender french sables are the best!

I've founf that it pairs fairly nicely with either rosemary and/or thyme for lamb as well.

DIY Herbal Tea: 1 cup or so of boiling water, 1 tsp dried lavender, honey and/or lemon to taste.

Steep 5 minutes then strain.

Question: I have some lavender bushes in the garden. They last well and smell wonderful. I have always considered lavender a herb, but can't think how it is used in cooking.  If people have any good recipes for lavender I would love to know.

Culinary uses for lavender

Both the leaves and blossoms are edible, and lavender can be used in ice-cream, shortbread, lemonade, cakes, crème brulee and other recipes. It goes well with apples, bitter citrus fruits, honey, basil, coriander, yoghurt fish sauces, rice, lamb, pork chops and steaks.

The leaves and flowers are edible. You can use them to infuse sweet recipes like creme brulee and shortbreads, in drinks like lemonade or with roast lamb and pork.

You can eat the leaves and flowers of lavender.

Some recipe ideas include lemonade, creme brulee, shortbread and with meat such as lamb chops, steak and pork chops.


The classic technique for most spices is to roast them.

This can be done in a dry pan because the spices cotain their own oils, you just need to make sure that they don't burn.

The spices are usually used in the dish from the start so that they have time to infuse, but it is not always the case, for instance there are many dishes which add Garam Masala spice mix towards the end of the cooking although the spices have again usually been roasted before they are used.

Regarding grinding them, again it does vary.

Some spices are added whole but will then have to be removed before eating, some spice mixes are ground so they are eaten with the dish.

All spices as far as I am aware should be roasted whole though so you would usually roast them and then grind them to produce the spice mix.

Most of the flavors components found in these dried spices are oil-soluble, so you will indeed extract more flavor out of them if there is at least a bit of fat in the dish.

Also, it is helpful to rub them between your fingers before adding, to release the oils.

It really depends on the specific spice.

In my experience with Indian and Chinese cooking, ginger and cumin like oil and heat.

On the other hand, turmeric and cloves can't take that heat and are added only after the liquids.

Sometimes (I learnt this form Italian cooking)

there are spices that will work in both cases, but differently.

As an example, when I'm making lasagna, I add nutmeg in three places: When sauteeing the onions in olive oil at the start When all the tomato sauce ingredients are in

and it's got some water Rubbed in to some chilli flakes and sprinkled among the cheese on top Herbs, on the contrary, always need at least a little water to infuse into.

It depends on what your cooking and what form the spice is in.

For example, with soups you want to add the spices to the base--often a mix of gently sauteed onion and olive oil.

Add the spices and saute until fragrant.

With cookies you'll want to add them with the dry ingredients and whisk them into the flour.

Meats and seafoods

you may coat the meat with the spice blend like a rub or mix the spices into the flour and then coat before braising or baking.

Whole spices may be added throughout the cooking period and then strained out before eating (pepper corns, bay leaves, whole cloves, star anise, etc.)

But yes...dry roasting spices really amps up the flavor.

So does grinding them fresh before using.

Or at least grind several tablespoons at time if you don't want to hassle with a spice grinder each time.

Good luck and enjoy!

Yes on the comments about the positive effects oil may have: make sure that you're not using more oil than you're prepared to consume, as you will throw away flavor with any oil you're not using.

So marinading in (plenty) of oil, and then discarding this oil before cooking, will paradoxically discard flavor instead of adding it.

cooking.stackexchange.com/users/8457/Tobias Op Den Brouw

Question: If I have a group of spices, all dried and ground, say: nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, ginger, and black pepper...   I'm curious about how to maximize their flavor for a drink or dish, and in what liquids spices are ideally soluble.    Do they need or benefit from sauteeing in oil, or is simmering in water better? Does the liquid need to be hot? Should they be toasted? Or mixed in a food grinder? Or just added directly to the dish?  Gracias.

What technique best infuses spices into a dish?

While it depends on the spices used, most flavours contained in dried spices are oil-soluble and can be extracted well when roasted or cooked in oil.

It depends on the specific spice but most spices are either roasted or cooked in oil to maximise their flavours.


I guess it depends on what the substitution is for.

Certainly if the butter is just for flavour, it's a reasonable substitute (I think I'd use slightly more yogurt).

But 9 times out of 10, fat is the main reason the recipe is calling for butter!

Yogurt cannot substitute for a fat (butter) because it has very little fat.

If you lower the fat content of a baked good then you'll generally end up with a product much denser and less flakey.

So if you feel you must do this for some reason, then I would increase the sugar in the recipe to compensate (sugar inhibits gluten formation and will help to make the result less chewy).

The other thing you'd better keep in mind is that yogurt is naturally sour and will become even sourer when baked at a high temperature.

The longer you bake, the more sour it will become, so you might need to amp up the sugar significantly to maintain the proper flavour.

So for the most part, no, yogurt is really not a substitute for butter or any other fat.

Obviously this is partly a matter of personal taste, and if you're happy with the result, then continue doing what you're doing -

but I think I'd definitely hesitate to eat a cake that was baked with yogurt instead of butter.

I'll admit, I'd never tried it, but for muffins, I'll often replace 1/2 to 2/3 of the oil in a recipe with some sort of liquid-like fruit (either applesauce or mashed previously frozen banana), so I don't see why yogurt wouldn't work.

In those case, the oil went in as a liquid; if you had a baked good that required creaming the butter, or cutting it in, I would not try replacing it.

I would also be concerned with the increased acid; it's possible that you might want to experiment with cutting some of the baking powder and replacing it with 1/2 as much baking soda as you removed, so you're more pH neutral, but I have no idea how baking soda is needed to balance out yogurt.

As you're from NZ, I'm going to assume 'biscuits' in this case is what Americans call cookies -- I would not try replacing butter in what Americans call biscuits, as you add the fat solid (sometimes cold), to make the them flaky.

I do it all the time.

Usually I swap out half the butter for half as much yogurt, either plain or vanilla, usually low fat.

Sometimes I do Greek yogurt.

I'm working on adjusting certain recipes so that it's ALL yogurt

and I've had the best luck with banana bread and muffins.

They are delicious and nobody knows the difference.

If a recipe has more than 1/4 cup of butter, I definitely start swapping.

I do the same for oil

but it's closer to an even swap.

I substituted equal parts of yogurt for butter in my chocolate chip cookies and the structure of my cookie was completely flat like a pancake (possibly flatter with holes in the edges).

But when you use your spatula to remove the cookie you can only remove the inside of the cookie so it created a sort of cookie dough ball look.

I was terrified but when compared to my normal cookies (made with the butter) they were ranked the exact same in my food science experiment in my college class.

So taste wise my cookies were still delicious but appearance wise

they were a little hideous.

P.S.

I used the chocolate chip cookie recipe from smitten kitchen (I love them!).

It works awesome in banana bread, especially if you use vanilla yogurt.

Question: By baking, I mean cakes / muffins / biscuits.  This is mainly to cut down on fat.  I've tried replacing butter with yoghurt in all of these and the results were OK.  Are there any cases where it's not a good idea?  I generally replace with equal ratios e.g 100 ml butter = 100 ml yoghurt.  Is this the best ratio?

In baking, can yoghurt replace butter?

Partially or fully substituting with plain or vanilla yoghurt can work in some recipes like banana bread, but the low fat content makes it a poor substitute in other contexts. Adding sugar will inhibit gluten formation and make the result less chewy.

Replacing all the butter would be too extreme as the recipe would be missing the fat content. You could try swapping half the butter for yogurt.

Yogurt has very little fat compared to butter so try increasing the sugar to avoid the result being very chewy.

Swap half the butter for yogurt. It works especially well in banana bread.