General Q&A about cooking.
I recently made a peach cobbler following a recipe that called for equal parts of white sugar and brown sugar in both the fruit mix and the topping. This got me wondering about the functions of th...
In the recent years, I noticed a lot of ads for different kind of salts but especially sea salt. For example, in my supermarket there are instant meals "refined with the natural taste of sea salt"....
I heard that if you have to freeze food, it's better to flash freeze it (given you have the means to do it). I also know that flash freezing (as the name implies) is a method to cool down a given o...
Whenever I make an omelet I have a hard time turning it over to fry it from both sides. I use a plate, cover the pan and turn everything so that, in the best case, the omelet now is on my plate and...
I've eaten pizza that has basil leaves as a topping, and the leaves come out bright green and tender. I used fresh basil from my garden on pizza for the first time today, and -- predictable, in re...
I have some pretty common knives at home that I use for cutting vegetables, fish, meat and everything else that needs cutting. I don't have specific knives for specific kinds of food but rather use...
I have some bread that is about a week old, and it has some tiny white mold spots on the crust. Would it be safe to trim them off and eat the rest of the bread? If not could I use it in cooking e.g...
There's nothing like peeling a pound of ginger root to make one wonder if there's a better way to deal with all the branches and knobby bits. I normally peel ginger with a paring knife; for larger...
I sometimes cook for someone who needs to avoid milk products, so I got some plant-based "cheese" (listed as cultured vegan cheese) to use instead of the real thing. I'm having trouble getting it ...
Newbie baker here: What actually is the difference between baking soda and baking powder? As far as I know, both are used to get baked goods to rise (like yeast, but not a microorganism). Since the...
I'm a big fan of the Spanish omelette, which is called 'Tortilla de patatas' (potato omelette) in Spanish. To prepare them, one of the first steps is to peel the potatoes and then cut them into sl...
I like to bake a pancake in the oven, instead of in a frying pan atop the stove. The basic recipe is the same (flour, milk, eggs, butter, salt; mix, pour into a roasting pan, bake in the oven at me...
I learned as a kid that mixing anything into (commercial) mayonnaise will cause it to spoil much faster. Therefore, I was told, don't even put a wet spoon in: the small amount of water on the spoon...
I live in New York City and Toronto. When travelling was safe before COVID, I ate 海蜇頭 at a restaurant in Hong Kong. I'm trying to sidestep Chinese food products, not least because of their f...
I bought shucked geoduck from Sunny Supermarket in Toronto fresh three times now. After I purge this fresh shuck with saltwater, I sliced it. But slices are these squat wedges in pics 1-2! Bu...
I cook quite frequently and one thing that I use everytime I cook is a knife. Recently, I've grown unsatisfied with the knives I have as they are all dull and sharpening them doesn't really do the ...
Today I tried a particular sourdough bread recipe for the first time. For a 1.5-pound loaf, in addition to the usual dry ingredients, dried herbs, and sourdough starter, it called for the followin...
I emigrated from the United States and one thing I really miss is the meltability of American "cheese". (The scare quotes are because it's a cheese-based product rather than real cheese.) There's n...
I used to get packages of "chicken leg quarters". These seem to be out of stock in my area recently. Sticking to the general legs part of a chicken, I noticed there are quite a few different pre-...
I've made cold cherry soup a few times from a recipe that calls for thickening it with a little cornstarch, but I always end up with some small clumps of what I presume are the starch in the finish...
I make bread once a week from the same sourdough starter, which lives in the fridge between feedings. On the day before baking day I take it out, feed it, wait until it's fully active, take some o...
Usually, I prepare food in large quantities and freeze most of it so I don't have to cook the following days. I'm used to the part where food that is frozen the normal, slow way loses some of its o...
When creating an ice-cream recipe or making substitutions in an existing one, what are the key ratios I should take into account?
How do I prevent Swedish meatballs from falling apart? I don't really have a fixed recipe. I use minced meat, bread crumbs, grated onion, eggs, cream and spices. I also did allow the bread crumbs t...
I recently asked a question about how to best turn an omelet. @Pestana suggested an omelet maker for doing so: I don't want to buy a kitchen tool for a sole purpose so my question is what could I ...
If I'm cooking, I usually prepare large quantities of food so I can stockpile meals for the upcoming week and don't have to cook too often. In the past, I froze everything in my freezer. Recently, ...
I like to keep hard cheese at home, and use it from time to time -- in everything from sandwiches to cooking. However, there are periods (sometimes up to a few weeks) when I just don't use all that...
About three weeks ago we had our first night of temperatures below freezing, so I picked the remaining viable cherry tomatoes on my plant. The ones I picked were close to full-size but green. (I ...
Let's say I go hunting for rabbits/squirrels/hares/deer and get one. One doesn't want to cook/process them right away because the meat will become more tender after it has refrigerated for a while...
I live in Toronto. I can't find living oysters that: got NO worms and parasites. can be steamed with garlic scallions and vermicelli: 蒜蓉蒸生蚝. I don't eat raw seafood. Sources for pics ben...
I don't speak any Asian language. Why shake raw sea cucumbers "in a box for more than an hour to deliver a unique texture"? What's the science behind this? 吃喝玩樂 - Diary of a Growing Boy: A s(chl)o...
Today I run out of oil that I use for my pan to roast meat, vegetables and other stuff. I found myself in my local supermarket and was bewildered by the sheer variety of oils. However, in my superm...
I'll add my own pic the next time I buy clams, but this Youtube shows my problem. I buy clams at Whole Food Market for years. They sell them on ice, not in running water. How To Clean Sand Out...
When grating harder foods like carrots or parsnips, I have a problem protecting my fingers when I get down to the last couple inches. Raw carrots are too hard to hold with a fork (at least with su...
I recently made some potato and leek soup. The recipe I followed said that after cooking the ingredients until soft, I should liquify the soup in a blender. I let the blender run for about two minu...
For years I've had the strange habit of eating uncooked spaghetti, just a single straw now and then (it has become less frequent, now it only happens a couple of times per year), and only spaghetti...
It's possible to 3D print cookie cutters or measuring cups or dumpling makers with PLA, however its not certain that doing so would be safe. The two problems people mention are, Possible impuritie...
In 2017, my family and I travelled to Maritime provinces in Canada, then Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts to view fall foliage. We noticed that all restaurants there cooked seafood in just two ...
I have a recipe for a whole-wheat sourdough bread that works pretty well, but it's not very exciting -- it's a basic bread. I've had honey-wheat bread that I've liked, so I'd like to adapt this re...
I have a beef rendang recipe I'd like to bring to a small potluck. However, some of the attendees are Jewish and keep kosher. I know there are some restrictions on cooking milk and meat together, b...
I have a copy of Elizabeth David's 'Italian food', which contains a number of traditional Italian recipes. One of these recipes is ragù (which we'll use for lasagne) and one of the ingredients in ...
I made my first sourdough bread recently. The friend who gave me the starter also gave me a basic recipe attributed to Ed Wood, which I followed (1 cup fed starter, 3.5 cups all-purpose flour, 1 t...
I screen shot 4:31, from a Hong Kong television cooking show. I stumbled this YouTube video only because I'm learning how to cook 象拔蚌 or Geoduck. I don't speak any Chinese. What's Chef Paul Wong do...
I brown a lot of ground beef for meal prep and as the base of everything from pasta sauce to Mexican casserole. I've noticed two different possibilities for heat - high and semi-searing, or low and...
I would like to use a home-made subsitute for meat in dishes or sauces which traditionally have some. I live in Western Europe and have access to a variety of industrially-made vegetarian steaks bu...
In China, "pulled noodles" (拉麵/拉面) are created by stretching dough over and over again. I want to know how to do this. Authors of English language articles about pulled noodles often cheat by cutti...
Can you please ID this dish? It's from Shang Palace in H.K.. I see char marks and think this was wok fried. I see wok fried shredded carrots and mushrooms, and some egg slices on top. But what are ...
I've made sourdough bread a few times following the same ("beginner") recipe. After the dough rises overnight in a bowl you put it on a floured surface, fold it in on itself to shape it, and let i...
Sometimes when backcountry camping, I will have my cold brew sock and access to fairly cold water (just barely possible to go swimming) , but of course not a refrigerator. It will stay fairly cold ...
I almost always end up with extra cold brew coffee and sometimes don't get around to drinking it for a couple of days. I know that it lasts longer than hot brewed coffee, but in general how long wi...
