scott123

Microwaved bread is beyond me as well. I don't know how much effort your husband wants to put into his sliders, but, steaming them gets pretty epic. I actually prefer my steaming process to the ones I get at the restaurant.

Here's the primary study that the article is referencing: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6821541/ Also, this: FFQ is "food frequency questionnaire." Think about someone asking you how much dairy you've consumed in the last year. I can't even tel you how much dairy I ate last week. So, we have a ridiculously imprecise, self reported, observational and retrospective study performed by researchers with clear ties to big dairy. And the net takeaway from the reporting is that people at risk for diabetes should eat ice cream. It is not hyperbole in the slightest to say that this article will kill people. Shame on the Atlantic for this dangerous, click-baity garbage.

This might be cost prohibitive, but you could see if any of these restaurants will sell you a bag of pitas.

In my experience, it's practically impossible to guarantee that the pitas you purchase have easily opened pockets. Freshness helps. I have a local Syrian bakery (sorry, not near Ontario) where I can get pitas that I'm certain are baked the night before, and that's given me the greatest chance for success, but, even those are sometimes difficult to pry apart. I'm reasonably certain that manufacturing plays a role, and that, even if they come out of the oven puffed sky high, if they aren't completely cooled, the tiniest amount of steam will cause the centers to bond. I'm also sure that packaging plays a role- the more pitas are stacked on top of each other, the more likely the centers will stick. It looks like Scarborough has Lebanese and Syrian bakeries. If those are close enough, I'd see what they offer. In my area, Indian grocers typically carry pitas. The packaging doesn't look too terribly local, but, the turnover/freshness might be better than a typical supermarket. If you have a local MIddle Eastern restaurant that sells sandwiches, you could give them a call and see where they're sourcing their pitas from. Once you start selling falafel and hummus sandwiches, perfectly pocketed pitas become critical. I might be bordering on heresy here, but, I eventually just gave up on finding pitas and used tortillas in those recipes instead. A tortilla isn't a pita, exactly, but, for sandwich making purposes, it's close enough, imo.

Perhaps he's the exception, but I've never met a successful professional pizza maker who could navigate the varying thermodynamics of a home oven- or the ins and outs of retail ingredients. Even just scaling commercial recipes down can sometimes trip them up. Grandma looks pretty legit, though. And the bake time might not be blazingly fast. But I doubt he's using all purpose flour, though.

"Water, mustard flour (13%), spirit vinegar, mustard bran (6%), salt, caramelised sugar syrup, acidity regulator acetic acid, sugar, colour ammonia caramel, cloves, pimento, chilli powder, cumin, garlic powder, dried oregano, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, flavouring" The nutritional label will go a fairly long way to reverse engineer this. The sugar content will give you a rough idea how much caramelized sugar/sugar is in it. A little cloves goes a really long way. Based on this, I have a strong suspicion that everything from cloves through salt is very close to the same weight. Take the sodium, convert that to salt (by weight) and use that weight for the cloves, pimento, chilli powder, cumin, garlic powder and dried oregano. I might even match the onion powder weight to that as well. The 'flavouring' could very well be MSG, although I don't know UK regulations on that. You could contact the company and tell them you have an MSG sensitivity and ask if it contains MSG. You might be able to approximate mustard bran by grinding some actual mustard seeds.

Science has yet to invent a dough conditioner that will prolong the life of bread indefinitely. But they can keep bread from spoiling for quite a long time. This being said, regardless of additives, given enough time, all breads stale, and supermarket hot dog rolls are no exception. When I'm looking for a bun, brand plays a role, but, the freshness date tends to be of greater importance. I can't speak for today, but, when I was a child, NY hot dog carts had a distribution channel that allowed them to sell buns that were baked in close proximity to when they were served. When I'm standing in front of the buns at the supermarket, I'm looking for dates that will hopefully get me something that was baked the night before. This isn't easy, and I don't think dates are standardized between brands, so you can't just pick the best date of all the brands and be assured of the freshest product, but, whenever possible, I strive for something that's right off the truck. I find that when I shop, regardless of whether or not I'm buying buns, I take a quick look at the dates. I do the same with Entenmann's As far as brands go... it's important to remember that flour costs money, so the budget/private label bakers go to great lengths to achieve max volume- which, in return, produces a very fragile and overly airy end product. You get what you pay for, so don't cheap out. Personally, I'm pretty fond of Arnold's potato rolls, but that could be regional, and there's a pretty strong subjective aspect to it. Regardless of what bun you go with, steaming is critical, imo. If I get a fresh bun, I'll typically bring the hot dogs to a boil, bun them, and then put them in a foil envelope for a bit to allow the buns to steam. If the buns are a bit older, I might lightly mist them with water, wrap them in foil and toss them in a warm oven for a bit. Water is tricky, though, since it tends to make the outer layer of the bun stick to the foil. If you're careful with the mist, and have a good sprayer (one that isn't clogged), you can avoid the wetness that causes sticking. I've played around a little with wetting the buns and then letting them sit for a bit try to let them absorb the moisture, but, so far, I've gotten mixed results. Really, the easiest approach is to start with a fresh bun.

I'm familiar with this process It takes practice to develop a feel for where to make the cut, and, because I only make wings every couple months, I lose that feel and have to basically start from scratch. Also, if I'm going to be honest, I hate the feeling when I misjudge the location and hit the ball joint straight on. For me, knife against bone that it can't go through is a little fingernail chalkboard-y. I'm not saying that everyone should hack wings with a cleaver, but, I want to try hacking.

Treason never tasted so good.

Costco has a pretty good price on roasted hulled hazelnuts. The problem is that they're super pale and relatively flavorless. I've played around with different temps/times, and it seems like the middle of each hazelnut always wants to burn. Any ideas? The end goal is homemade nutella.

My local Taiwanese grocer has a selection of cleavers ranging from $15-$30. Am I asking for trouble by spending this little? This might change in the future, but, right now, I'm just looking to make separating wingettes from drumettes a little faster than using a chef's knife.

True, I'm just speaking to the complexity of the experience. Resentfully ecstatic on both occasions.

As a child, that whale scared the crap out of me. And there were other dark, gloomy areas that would give me the heebie jeebies as well. Just about every time I went, it was a beeline to the gem room.

Knockwurst would change the dog to bun ratio. One of the things I loved most about this museum dog was the skinny dog buried in a mountain of bun. Loved it, but, also was a bit miffed about the horrendous value. Did I mention eating three and still being hungry? It's kind of funny, my other all time peak food moment involved a questionable value as well. Joe's Pizzeria, circa 1990. Best pizza I've ever had, but SO stingy with the cheese. It's no exaggeration... 70% coverage, at best. To this day, I've never seen less cheese on a slice. So, both experiences were a mixture of "holy crap this is good!" and "man, these people are ripping me off!"

The two most popular styles of pizza, New York and Neapolitan, rely, to varying extents, on rapidly expanding steam created by intense heat. This rapidly expanding steam is what gives these styles their puff/volume. As you work at lower oven temps, and/or with materials that transfer heat slower (like ceramics or thin metal pans) your bake time increases and your puff suffers. Neapolitan dough utilizes an unmalted flour that resists browning. In an oven setup that bakes longer than 2 minutes, it takes on a hard, stale character that's a shell of it's faster baked potential. Now, there are a LOT of home pizza makers who've never had properly baked Neapolitan pizza who torture their doughs (and their guests) with these long baked nightmares- and who seem perfectly happy, but, if you're truly striving for the best possible results, you really want an oven that will char/leopard 00 flour in 90 seconds or less. New York isn't that cut and dry. New York uses malted flour, which encourages browning, and it almost always incorporate sugar and oil, both of which ramp up the browning even further. As you work in cooler/slower heat transfer environments, New York doesn't go from majestic to barely edible like Neapolitan does. But it absolutely loses a LOT of character. Obsessives may argue over whether a 4 minute bake time is better than a 7 minute bake, but anyone that understands great pizza agrees that, as you start pushing into 9, 10, 11 minutes, that's just not going to be NY style at it's best. Obviously, the original Modernist Cuisine was/is a big deal for many reasons, but, from a pizza perspective, they may not have invented steel plate, but, they put it on the map. With thick enough steel, you can take a 550-ish home oven and produce a life altering 4-5 minute NY style bake. This kicked off a home pizza baking revolution. So, to finally answer your question, heat transfer is absolutely critical to the two most popular styles of pizza. There's absolutely no way to compensate for longer bake times. You can't squeeze blood from a stone. This being said... there are things that 500 degree oven owners can do. First... very few people remember that, when the first MC came out, the steel plate page also referenced aluminum plate. The increased conductivity that makes steel transfer heat faster than stone causes aluminum to be superior to steel. From a perspective of bottom heat, aluminum plate at 500 can match the transfer of steel at 550. That's bottom heat, though. For this kind of setup to work, you absolutely have to have a broiler in the main oven compartment, not a broiler drawer below the main chamber. And the aluminum plate has to be thick- at least 3/4" of an inch. If you plan in cooking for larger groups of people, I'd go an inch or larger. You can get a reasonably sized 6061 aluminum plate for about $100 shipped. Second, you can buy an Ooni. A good Ooni (I recommend the Koda 16) will run you considerably more than $100, but... an Ooni gives you Neapolitan. Neapolitan isn't happening in a 500 degree home oven. Third, I can't vouch for them, but MC has recipes for other styles. Chicago styles (thin crust, deep dish) move into more of a pastry area, where intense heat isn't necessary. Detroit doesn't require a blazingly fast bake either. Regardless of which direction you take, if you haven't experienced Neapolitan or fast baked NY style pizza, it's definitely worth pursuing.

I have many fond food related memories, but, one of my fondest was eating hot dogs on the steps of the Museum of Natural History as a child. I can't remember exactly how old I was. If I had to guess, maybe 10, but... I distinctly remember having 3 hot dogs and still being hungry, so maybe I was a little older. These dogs were long, very thin, darkly colored, pretty garlic-y, and bursting with flavor. At the time, I didn't know what natural casing was, but I'm pretty sure they had the distinctive snap. It kind of felt like this hot dog was the NY archetype for this 1980ish era, although I probably didn't consume enough of them (maybe once every two months) to have my finger on the pulse. For years, I mistakenly assumed that the cart's Sabrett umbrella meant something, but now I know that the umbrella had no connection to the brand of dogs they were buying. As I've grown older, for a long time I assumed that these were wholesale dogs that the public didn't have access to, so I didn't even look for them. Eventually I figured out what natural casing was and tried every brand that I could. Not only did nothing match up, but, anything that, at the time, might have been close, over 40 or so years, has evolved further and further away as intensively flavored garlic-y hot dogs have fallen out of fashion (case in point, Hebrew National). It might sound like I'm looking for help, but, really, I'm just lamenting. I don't think I'm ever going to repeat that experience. And, just to be clear, this isn't about viewing the past through rose colored glasses. I worship at the bagel altar just as fastidiously as the hot dog altar, and I'm confident that I can walk into one of my favorite bagel places tomorrow and experience the same bliss I might have experienced decades ago. But not hot dogs.

The primary anti-crystallization agent in your recipe is the corn syrup. If you want to avoid crystallization, increase the corn syrup- and decrease the white sugar as well. Maybe someone else could chime in with a suggested ratio, but, to start, I might try increasing the corn syrup by 50 grams and decreasing the white sugar by 40 grams. If that doesn't stop the eventual crystallization, try 100 more and 80 less, respectively. The additional water in the syrup won't make a difference since you're boiling it away to reach 320F anyway. Also, the instructions to avoid scraping the pot are most likely to avoid crystallization. Once you conquer your crystallization issues with the additional corn syrup, you might play around with scraping. At that point, scraping shouldn't make a difference.

If you use a kitchen to cook, grease will go airborne- both visibly and microscopically. Also, the closer something is stored to your stove, the more grease is going to collect. The bottom of your moka pot is definitely polymerized oil. I also think that the deposits on most pans are polymerized oil as well. I don't really understand the chemistry, but, grease tends to grab on to the bottom of pans much more aggressively than the top. When I hand wash pans, I typically have to wash the bottom three times to get the grease off vs only once for the inside of the pan.

I've always assumed polymerized oil (seasoning) had the same flash point as the original oil, but, to be honest, I've never tested it, so perhaps seasoning is, indeed, happy to 700. That's helpful information, thanks. Perhaps I will season it. Right now, I'm just envisioning steak on a flat top. Maybe burgers. I don't foresee myself doing eggs or any of the typical breakfast fare. So I don't need seasoning for stick resistance, but, perhaps I can avoid some rust and make cleaning it a bit easier.

That's pretty neat. Thanks for sharing. It might just be the photo, but, is there a slight bow in the middle? I've thought about stainless. With my pizza background, I'm super comfortable with A36. I don't think my plate is ever going to leave the grill. I may season it. Or I might find a food safe way to blue it. Seasoning all depends on what temp I use it at. If, for whatever reason, I push it beyond 600 on the preheat (if I can), then that would destroy seasoning. I'm also shooting for a $30 price tag, so, if it ends up rusting and I have to replace it, it won't be the end of the world.

I'm familiar with the heft of steel. I bake pizza on a 1/2" x 17" x 17" steel plate. Love the pizza it makes, but that plate is a beast!

This makes sense. I know little about flat top burner configurations, but I've seen countless pizza oven burners and those can distribute heat somewhat unevenly. i can see how thick steel plate would both help even that heat out as well as fight warping. Since I'll be putting this in a grill that, for the most part, because of the flavorizer bars, acts a lot like a gas oven, I think I'll be fine with 1/4". I know a LOT of folks that have put baking steels in grills- it trashes the pizza (too much bottom heat), but it's never warped the steel.

A cursory search shows that restaurant griddles are anywhere from 3/8 to 1 inch thick. 3/8 has the advantage of heating faster, but, according to the articles that I've read, 3/8 is more prone to warping. Can 3/8" steel plate really warp? 1/8" cast iron pans have curves that preventing warping, but I would think 1/4" steel would be pretty warp resistant- at least in the 12" x 12"ish dimensions that I'm looking at. I mean, how many 1/4" Baking Steels have been sold? 50K? 100K? One would think that if 1/4" steel would have any issue with warping, at least one Baking Steel owner would have complained by now. For reference, this is going into a small 15 year old Weber grill. I'm trying to keep the dimensions to a minimum to facilitate the fastest possible preheat times.

Yup, a bit of a head shaker on the whole "safe for aluminum" thing. FWIW, I did come across another SDS for carbon off, and, while it didn't have lye, it had ammonia, which also degrades aluminum. I looked over the instructions to see if there was any fine print, such as a recommended shorter contact time, but, it said up to 5 hours. Unless I'm completely overlooking something, I'm having a hard as seeing this clam as anything but fraudulent.

Googling produced countless discussions on thickness, but not the other dimensions. I'm looking for dimensions for sizing a steel plate for a grill.