AlaMoi

I have extremely limited experience here - very infrequent fast fooder - but I also am of the opinion their "regular" chicken has changed. I now prefer the extra crispy - the 'old' style seems soggy and not as good as anything I can produce at home.

oh the games one can play with words (g) most cooks accept the definition of grilling as heat from below, and broiling as heat from above. looking back in history, where was the first "heat from above" doohickey invented / used? lots and lots and lots of 'example' of stuff over, on and in "coals" - but which housewife where stuck something under the grate-heaped-with-coals to broil from above? oh dear, then there's the vertical spit/heat source arrangement - mostly in Greek custom now-a-days aka gyro.... oooops! then there's the chicken rotating on a horizontal spit with horizontal radiant heat elements at the back..... so finally we get to the "world famous classic" joints which in major volume product have rotating trays in a heated smoky chamber of some temperature, for hours/days/years . . . now hold on a sec - I've got an oven and when stuff drips it makes lots of smoke in the oven/kitchen - so am I roasting or bbq'ing? or 'fire pits' that are yards and yards long with hinged lids and grates holding the meat and the heat from below....people raking the coals and ashes from one end to the other . . . perhaps BBQ is more better considered a "dish" than a "method?"

there is a difference between instant, dry active, 'fresh,' brewers, etc. - and yes due to the 'processing' some types have more viable cells per microgram than others, hence the current cooking heads twitter about using more/less of a specific type. okay. but it actually make a difference when you have a bread knife in your hand? uhmmm, not really - as reported by many folks..... sometime back I read there's only two strains of 'commercial' yeast in USA - they've been carefully 'husbanded' in order to keep them pure and 'working same as they did last century' - which is a pretty good idea, if the alternative is yeast that sort do something or other but differently from time to time or recipe to recipe...... I'd bet that European/Asian/South Pole companies that produce&sell yeast have strains that are genetically different that those found on the market shelf in USA. brewers take extraordinary pains to keep their yeast strains "pure" - they are of the opinion 'different' yeast makes the brew taste different. some recipes specific instant vs dry active - but that's usually due to timing considerations. when the time is lessened / extended as per the 'how fast the yeast ramps up' the end result in terms of how much CO2 has been belched into the dough is quite likely the same. I buy a bulk bag - typically one pound - keep it in the freezer, re-fill the cute little glass jar as needed, which also resides in the freezer. yeast is pretty hardy stuff - quite some time back there was a project to multiple yeast found in Egyptian tombs and 're-create' the real thing Egyptian beer. if the stuff can handle a couple thousand years in a tomb, the freezer likely won't bother it a whole bunch!

I have been making fruit cakes for decades - my grandmother made inspirational stuff . . . . here's my advice for the starting fruit cake baker: use the oldest recipe you can find. there's a really simple reason: fruitcakes are not fast food and adapting them to "modern times" and "instant prep/cook" does not really work out well - aka "DIY doorstop" they require a large number of ingredients, most everything is sticky & gooey, the batter is thick and hard to stir/mix, they take a long time to bake. costing out this year's fruit cake - near $30 in ingredients for a single 10" tube pan fruit cake. which explains why a $7 store bought Blue Light Special does not actually taste so good.....

cause? mishandled lobster - just that simple. the details of possibilities of what went wrong depend on what you bought - you said 'tails' so I'm presuming frozen at best and in-store thawed at worst. lobster is sufficiently expensive that I only buy live. technically one should get quality frozen tails - but reality wise, I've found that to be iffy. and if the tails are "thawed in the counter" - the probability is less than 50% of getting a decent chunk of lobster. in my experience, more than 50 miles from the coast.... lobster meat that is soft & mushy is either so far past its prime it's not funny - or it's been frozen/thawed/frozen/thawed. any stinky ammonia smell indicates lobster from last century. if you're buying them live from a tank, several more things you need to know.

oh, yes indeed - I did overlook that bit. what kind of fish needs sous vide?

non-stick is not required for fish. this is a stainless interior fry pan - hot, hot oil, allow fish to release, no prob.

Swiss Diamond stuff is made with PTFE aka Teflon - so its heat resistance is no 'better' than any other PTFE pan.

this is a two days recipe with diastatic malt - veddy good

there is a very old adage as folks have alluded above: never cook with a wine you would not drink (out of a glass) "cooking wines" in grocery stores exist in states where wine cannot be sold 'by just anyone' - and as mentioned, is usually made undrinkable by the addition of lotsandlotsandlots of salt. you used some, it worked, no problem. the problems come in when either 'expanding' the use or trying it again next week/month/year. because..... it's not usually the best stuff they salt&bottle for supermarket cooking wine. actually, it more typically the stuff that was so bad nobody would buy it, so they smash the bottles, filter out the glass, add lots of salt and call it 'cooking wine' big broad brush strokes: there are dry (ie "tart") wines and "sweet" (ie not tart) in both reds and whites. dry aka tart in whites usually reflects high acidity. dry /tart/ puckery in reds more usually due to high tannin content. reds are often classified as 'full bodied' (and such) meaning they have strong flavor profiles as opposed to a a milder red. so what does one use for which? bottom line: what you like. I could probably get elected with lines like that..... in practical terms, lighter dishes - like seafood/chicken - usually employ a white wine. the amount of fat/richness of the dish/sauce can dictate the degree of dryness/acidity. a dry wine (red or white) tends to 'cut through the fattiness / oily mouth feel/taste' darker dishes/meats/sauces need a stronger wine profile if you're going to notice them. it's similar to the difference between a blonde roux and a brick roux - light vs dark - mild vs pronounced. beef / game / etc usually develops a stronger flavor. pork, veal - that kinda' runs down the middle - can go either way depending on preparation. and all this simply adds up to "there's general guidelines, but it sorta' depends" it all adds up to "experience" and how hard you want to work at your own 'expertise' in predicting the outcome. btw, one of my pet peeves is having to open a 750ml bottle for half a cup (some 125ml) - then what's with the rest? I have tried the small airline size bottles with really ugly results. apparently decent wines are not bottled for airline consumption.....

there's as many biscuit recipes as . . . . here's our three generation twist - adapted to weights preheat oven to 425'F 240 grams AP flour 1 tbsp double acting baking powder 1/2 tsp salt stir flour + BP + salt with wooden spoon cut 85 grams / 6 tbsp cold unsalted butter into flour spray/butter/oil cookie sheet add 1 cup milk to flour mix stir use the wooden spoon to drop onto cookie sheet one bowl, one spoon, one cookie sheet. into oven directly - don't "hold" the mix for more than 5-10 minutes takes 12-14 minutes; makes 4-6 biscuits depending on size looks like:

you'll need a macro lense for some good pix - but.... top layer had cracks - uhmmm, this is not good in a sheet of puff pastry. either the consistency was off, or it dried out. making billions and billions, the 'dried out at the end' makes a bit more sense. look at the bubble and the layers. if there's a big bubble with thin layers all around - that's a mystery bubble. why did such a big bubble form there and not so much everywhere else. I can't answer that - my solution is to eat the evidence and pretend it never happened. a "bubble blow out" - if there is a thin skin/layer completely around the bubble but a hole at the bottom (in this case) the "bubble burst" theory is in play. the problem in my experience is a puff pastry bubble does not have the kind of "mini-explosive" force to displace a (whipped) cream layer. which leads me back to the 'whip cream had a void' theory.

puff pastry has a bubble-mind of it's own. where, why and how 'gosh biggie overgrown bubbles' happen is still a mystery to me. did you make the puff pastry sheet or is it commercial? (the only difference being if you made it you can speak to how it was made and handled...) the only way I can imagine 'squeezing' the air out could be un-helpful is resulting in the bottom of the sheet to get 'wet' / heavier - so when the puff bit happens the sheet pushed more down than up, or the sheet 'collapsed' before baking. piping in the whipped cream and leveling should produce a fairly uniform & dense layer - unless in the leveling bit you 'covered up / skimmed over' some voids - unlikely but you were there, I wasn't....

Canada (I hope!) has more sensible "rules/laws" than (every USA state is different) we do. for odd ball booze needs, I buy the miniatures - like you get on airlines. per ml cost is higher - but if a 'whole bottle' is just going to sit there for the next four decades, it's a good approach.

cider, and most fruit juices, are acidic. acids "chemically cook" proteins. spritz lermon juice on salmon and watch it turn white - just like when it starts to cook by heat.... an overdone (time wise) acid marinade can be very un-good in terms of 'tender' - and imho pork is probably the most sensitive to that issue.

Shel - yuppers. a boiling pot of water has more than one temperature. .....as does a pot of oil for deep frying, etc etc etc. the ThermaPens are extremely good gear. I picked up a Chef Alarm on sale - it's another superior piece of gear. tastes like xrap; works great!

infantile botulism is a special off-shoot - most of the "growed up rules" do not apply. most seriously, the digestive tract of infants can allow spores to (ah chit) grow/reproduce/whatever - I've been taken to task on those verbs - so I'll just avoid the language issues and simply say: when it comes to small humans, other rules apply.

...the bad guy garlic.... actually any herb can be a problem. and fresh herbs in oil - as they contain more moisture - are "more worser" than dried herbs for oil infusions. potatoes infused into oil can be a problem. it's just not that many people infuse their oil with potatoes. few, if any, restaraunts serve customers home-made infused oils, because....there is this potential problem..... or spoiled meat, or rotten eggs, etc etc as to timing - anything 'confit' is basically cooked to death, so a longer time is not a big surprise. standing in the road is only dangerous when there is traffic present....otherwise you can stand in the road for hours without a problem. I buy a head of garlic less than once a month, so my risk - per the presented analysis - is half that. people who grow their own garlic, by that argument, have no risk - because they don't shop for garlic. every year some number of people die from "home picked" mushrooms. I love mushrooms. I do not pick my own mushrooms because I don't know enough to not kill myself. I do know how and why to use a pressure cooker, so I do.

... introduce corn and, drum roll please, two hundred years later, corn was _still_ 'cattle feed' the concept of 'sweet corn' has been exceedingly slow to catch on in Europe - despite the apparent use of corn/sweet corn in the 'new world' before Europe got out of diapers. I send a German classmate an assortment of corn cob holders every other year or so - they did California for spell - they eat corn - but cob holders are unknown in their area. "....sometimes veiled apology about their cuisine, as compared to their European counterparts." uhmmm, was that a veiled apology or a contrasting blatant bragging? you cannot go to another region, much less country, in Europe and not hear the 'dissing' of (uhmmmmm) anything not cooked 'here.' not unusual; see "redneck" lived in/on both continents - years and years long. not a "if this is Tuesday it must be Belgium" based opinion. and sorry to opine, English /British / UK food - home of the colonists - does not get very far up my scale. when living in Europe, I made a point of flying into and out of UK before needing a major meal. lunch I could handle. after that it was time to go home. I've had really good food in USA, I've had really good food in Europe - Arctic Circle to south of the equator. I've had really bad food in USA, I've had really bad food in Europe. I have a seriously big time disagreement with gfweb's assessment that (USA) poor people could not cook good. they used the ingredients of the day. for example, rich pre-revolutionary cooks did not do "gluten free" or transfat free or sugar free or HFCS free ir GMO free - basically everyone on the social scale used the same ingredients. it's just that poor people did not have a staff of twenty in the kitchen to expend all day making some tasty morsel from the same stuff that only occupied half a fork. hence, hoe cakes. it must be a typo-thought, but johnny cakes are not from New England.

not quite sure what the screen pre-stone bit brings to the party, however,,, "sometimes limp in spots" rings a few bells. the theory of a 'stone' is to provide instant, direct stone-to-dough heat. a home oven preheated stone cannot provide the 600-650-700'F heat of a commercial (pizza) oven. home ovens don't go much, if any, above 550'F - lest they set afire the wood cabinet surroundings. soggy spots or soggy bottoms-in-toto just mean the crust is / was /still is / re-became "too wet" either the water could not 'cook out' or the hot cooked dough 're-steamed' it soggy. direct contact with a stone methinks is going to be a lot more effective at rapid heat transfer than a screen - which can only offer really good air contact. past that however, if you take any baked good out of a hot oven and set it on an impervious surface, the steam still escaping from the dough is trapped on the bottom and the bottom goes soggy. my pizza goes directly on the 500'F preheated stone, when done, is removed to a wire rack - allowing the crust steam to escape without re-soggifying the bottom crust. then to a wooden board for cutting.

so the spores are not the method of reproduction?

alterating . . . verb. any kind of messing with DW's fresh dug new (red) potatoes. (g) dig, boil, salt&butter. dat's all Folks! methinks the flavor compounds of garlic are more readily conveyed in oil than water - just my unscientific thought....

burnt garlic is not high on the list of "tasty things on a dinner plate" considering the huge (relative, by experience) amount of salt required in a cook-by-boil to notice any taste effect on potatoes, lots and lots of fresh crushed garlic might work. I'm guessing something like 10-20 times as much as one might 'think' needed. I'd go with the infused oil drizzle at roasting / browning / pan fry stage. see the thread about garlic and botulism. use a commercial infusion or prepare & use you own veddy fresh stuff. oh, and big crystal sea salt - think "pop rocks" flavor beads. I grow Red Pontiac potatoes in the garden. I'd likely get shot daid by DW if I suggested alterating a new red potato. but that's just us.

separating the bits of fictions and facts . . . anything that has soil contact can be 'contaminated' with botulism spores. when the spores reproduce - they create, as a by product - a toxin. the toxin produced is a protein. not a bacteria, not a virus, not a spore, not a Martian. one can consume botulism spores by the cupful on a daily basis with no ill effects because there is no danger until the spores "reproduce" so, how does that happen? first, the spores have to survive. botulism spores are killed by a sustained temp of 240'F/116'C. this is why the "boiling water" canning method is no longer recommended for most vegetables; pressure canning is required to reach that temperature. but my grandmother always did her tomatoes . . . forget it. "modern" tomatoes have been bred to be low acid. unless you're canning a known high acid heirloom tomato, the red thingy in the pot is not your granny's tomato. the required reproduction environment is: very low oxygen content, a pH above 4.6 (or so, not every source agrees to the tenth), and a smidgen of water. hence the advice to add acidic stuff like lemon juice, etc., when canning 'stuff' - commercially "infused" oils use various chemicals to ensure the pH stays well below the +/- 4.6 range, and they have seriously better control of the process. all these "efforts" are aimed at preventing the botulism spores from reproducing. should all the efforts fail and the botulism spores do reproduce and do produce the deadly toxin, comma..... the toxin being an organic protein is killed at less than boiling water temperatures (i.e. 212'F / 100'C) officially the recommendation is to vigorous boil all canned goods for ten minutes prior to consumption. refrigeration slows the potential reproduction, boiling kills the toxin - please feel free to chose your own course of action - I'm not testing either theory; I'll go with the pressure canning route.

a long growing season helps - they do just keep growing.... you might not immediately suspect it, but Alaska grows some of the biggest. they get many hours of sunlight per day - even tho the number of days is less. see #9 here http://www.oddee.com/item_96650.aspx but compare how good it looks with http://giantgardening.com/rec_cauliflower.php which is no longer the record holder. UK has a long cool climate for brassicas.