Latest Cooking Answers

What is the maximal shelf life of UHT milk?

Wikipedia says that the shelf life of UHT milk is "typically" between 6 and 9 months. Does it mean that UHT milk always falls in this range? Is there UHT milk

How do I ripen a Mango?

I've bought a fresh mango for a recipe, I've not used mango fresh before and it's currently pretty green (there didn't seem to be any that were more ripe at the

Is it safe to freeze soup that uses previously frozen stock?

I have a lot of frozen stock. I would like to use that stock to make a tomato, leek and basil soup which will be eaten one or two days later. Is it safe to re

How to bottle your own homemade salad dressing

I would like to bottle my homemade dressing. The main ingredients are olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, lemon and dijon mustard. Once it is bottled, is there

What method for advance prep of seitan prevents deterioration of texture and preserves flavor while protecting from spoilage?

Tonight, I am hoping to cook up three to four loaves of seitan for final prep three days from now. My intent is to form the dough, simmer in stock or steam, and

What's the best way to get a charcoal taste on a propane grill?

I recently was given a propane grill that is a lot nicer than my charcoal grill, however my family really likes the cooking and taste of a charcoal grill. I hea

Can I make buckwheat flour starting from toasted buckwheat?

My wife asked me to buy "buckwheat" and I did, but she meant buckwheat flour (for making bread) and I got toasted buckwheat instead. I don't want to throw it o

What's the secret to making good turkish bread? (pide)

I mean the flat but thick bread you get at turkish restaurants. I've tried it twice now, with two difference recipes, and each time it's come out hard and crun

Are there different styles of tahini?

I've recently started frequenting a Middle Eastern restaurant. They provide a sauce with their shawarma that they swear is tahini, but I've never tasted any lik

What to place beneath the vegetables before placing them on the baking tray?

In order to prevent their surface from burning, what can be placed beneath vegetables to be roasted before placing them on the baking tray? I am thinking of ap

How important is RPM in a blender?

I'm looking at getting a new blender, basically the main things I want to be able to do with it are make curry pastes, ultra smooth restaurant quality purees an

Reconciling Food Safety Tips: Food vs Water

I've never understood why water found in the wild should reach a temperature of about 200 to be safe, but food leftovers only need to reach 165 to be considered

Why do some powders clump in hot water?

Why do some powders like flour or matcha green tea causes lumps in hot water while other powders like sugar or cocoa or wheat grass (triticum aestivum) readily

Can I make sweetened coconut from dried coconut?

In my pantry, I have a bag of dried & shredded coconut. I want to use it, but all recipes I come across ask for sweetened coconut. That coconut also looks a

Making Pepper-Flavored Vodka

I'm interested in infusing pepper flavor into vodka like in Naga Chili Vodka. Are there any peppers I should specifically avoid and how should I infuse the fla

Substituting for Candlenuts in Indonesian Food

Indonesian cuisine relies heavily on candlenuts as a base and thickener for spice pastes which are the foundation of the cuisine. This includes many of the var

What is meant by "place 4 inches apart on cookie tray"?

Does this mean place some cookie dough every 4 inches (i.e. 4 inches center-to-center), or have a 4 inch gap between each cookie?

Do different fat contents (skim, 2%, whole, etc) affect rate or intensity of milk spoilage?

Does milk with different fat contents (skim, 2%, whole, etc.) spoil at different rates? And when spoilage does occur, are milks with higher fat content more so

Should I polish a cast iron pan for use on a glass cooktop?

There was a question asked here about using cast iron on glass top ranges. In the responses, there was a link to an article about cast iron equipment. Here is a

Will hard boiled eggs absorb salt through the shell?

In this America's Test Kitchen video they add salt to the cold water when hard boiling eggs. Would the salt actually permeate the shell and flavor the egg? Tha

Can coconut cream be transformed into coconut milk, or vice versa?

Can coconut cream be transformed into coconut milk, or the other way around? For example, will adding water or cow milk to coconut cream make a usable coconut m

Are there differences when working with light-colored palm sugar versus dark?

Depending where I get my palm sugar from, it's either light brown colored and quite hard (pictured left), or a very dark brown color and much softer (on the rig

My pesto turned solid. Why?

Warning: I am a cooking noob. I might overlook something ridiculously simple. Anyway, I just made my first pesto sauce (do you call this a sauce?). Basil, Parm

What does melted butter do in a swiss roll recipe?

I'm planning on making a Swiss roll. This is a sponge cake, baked in your baking sheet (so it's thin) and you roll it up, mostly with a filling. While looking

Does nutritional yeast expire or go bad?

I have a tub of nutritional yeast with a "best by" date of February 2012 (at the time of this posting, it's about a month past that). Is it still good to use? I

Safety of room-temperature soaker from Reinhart's *Whole Grain Breads*

One of the “tricks” used in Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads is to soak various whole grains in water, at room temperature, for 12–24 hours

Boiling lentils in chicken stock?

I have some decent chicken stock that needs using and I am making a takka dhal tonight. I preboil my lentils, and was wondering if I boiled them in the chicken

How to make a lattice pie crust?

I just made a lattice pie crust for the first time. The best I can say about it is that it wasn't a total disaster. So I would like to know what is the proper w

How can I get good spherification results with alcohol?

I've been trying to make chocolatini (vodka, godiva liqueur, baileys) spheres, but I've had some issues with separation of the alcohols. Also, I've been decidi

Why is freshly-chopped garlic sticky?

When chopping garlic the blade of my knife, and any fingers used to handle the garlic, become sticky. What causes this reaction? Is there any way to counterac