Latest Cooking Answers

Why add salt to the water when cooking pasta?

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

Substitute for onions and garlic

I love the taste of onions and garlic and it seems lots of other people do too. But they upset my stomach so much that I can't really cook with them. What can

What is coriander root and where can you get it?

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 &

What is the best way to pop popcorn on the stove?

I have a kettle-corn popcorn recipe that I have to pop on the stove as I don't have a popcorn maker and I wouldn't want to add the sugar to the popcorn maker. T

How do you make homemade sausage without meat grinder/sausage stuffer?

I have no desire to spend hundreds of dollars on this specialized equipment to make sausage, which I may only use a few times a year. There must be some other

How best to pan-fry tofu?

I love fried tofu, but I don't want to have a deep fryer in my home (I'll use it too much!). I've tried a few different techniques for pan-frying tofu, but it

What do I need to know about temperature and food safety?

What general rules do I need to follow to keep my food safe? How do I know what temperature to cook something to, or whether my food is safe a

How to adjust for humidity when making rice?

Years ago, I ate at Sushi Yasuda in New York. After I went, I was reading up on the chef, and an article about him mentioned that he accounted for air humidity

Beef Broth - What Went Wrong?

Home-cooked Phở is my white whale. Anyway, before I can cook Phở, I need to be able to make beef broth, and so far I've failed completely. My brot

Why is there a watery run-off after cooking my bolognese?

It's a fairly standard recipe with passata and wine, simmering on a low heat for a couple of hours. After stirring and putting the bolognese onto the pasta, af

storing homemade potato chips

I am working on developing a new dish for our bar menu at work--pulled pork sandwich, with homemade potato chips. Frying chips to order seems like a silly idea,

How to brownies from a box/mix with a flaky top?

I buy and make box brownies all the time, but the top crust always ends up looking more like the topping of a cake, rather than the flaky top shown in the pictu

What are the benefits of using natural casing when making sausages?

I'm about to make some sausages and need a casing. What are the benefits of using natural casing when making sausages?

Order of combining wet and dry ingredients when baking

I've always learnt that you add the wet ingredients to the dry ones. Looking at some recipes: "Combine the dry ingredients, the flour ... Add the other wet in

Small black specks on wok food

When I bake vegetables in my wok, I see small black specks appear on the vegetables. Does this mean that the fire is too high, or that my wok is not well enough

How should I clean anodized cookware?

I'd been bought an anodised wok as a birthday present a couple of years back, but recently, when using a honey/mustard marinade, I managed to burn some of the e

How can I make a chocolate cup that looks like the seaweed on a sushi roll?

I want to make a dessert that simulates a salmon roe sushi (like this) using rice pudding and spherified melon juice with a chocolate "seaweed" wrapping. But I

How does food cook differently on an open top grill than a covered one?

The title pretty much says it all, how does food cook differently on an open top grill than a covered one?

Do you heat the pan first, then add oil? Or put the oil in and heat up with the pan?

As the title says... I personally heat up the pan first, then put the oil in and after it's heated up add the ingredients. I go with the line of reasoning tha

How to rest meat but not let it get too cold?

Having read this question I am persuaded that resting meat is good for its flavour. But if the meat has a good temperature straight after it's been cooked, it s

Making "long(er)-life" homemade mayonnaise

Most recipes I've seen for mayonnaise suggest that homemade mayo should be kept in the fridge for no longer than between 3 and 5 days. What techniques or ingre

Vinegar Alternatives and rice combinations in making sushi rice

What are some of the alternatives in vinegar for making sushi rice? I know it's best to use rice vinegar, but has anyone ever tried it with white wine vinegar,

Can I convert jam into chutney?

I made a rhubarb jam a little while ago, basically rhubarb, sugar and grated ginger. Its quite gingery. I've now made some duck terrine and fancy serving it

Using charcoal in kettle grill

I learned that in kettle grill the coal should be placed on one side of the grill and meat on the other side. What is the advantage of this method against gri

How should I add wine to the sauce for my duck?

I have some chicken stock that I've made, that I want to use as a base for a sauce for some duck. I am roasting the duck bones at the moment and will simmer th

Secrets of Gumbo

I like the idea of Gumbo, but I have had limited success in making it. . It seems to be a very varied dish and two recipes which call themselves gumbo can seem

Shiny side or not for foil?

Does it make any difference when you wrap food with aluminum foil for grilling or baking or making a steam pouch whether you put the shiny side in or the shiny

Timing cooking: methods / workflow

I'm looking for methods to improve timing or workflow during cooking. How to multi-task effectively, getting the maximal amount of differing dishes on the table

Flavour combinations - structural analysis

Without neccesarily going into molecular cooking (although we could): does any literature / website / theory provide information on flavor / flavour combination

What are good resources to learn food chemistry?

Does anyone know of some good resources to start learning about food chemistry? I am thinking specifically about a description of the chemical processes involve