Bernie

cartouche (usually parchment cartouche). Don't you hate it when you know you know what the name is but you can't remember it at the time and then a couple of days later for no apparent reason it suddenly pops in the brain when you are doing nothing related!😕

Doesn't the parchment stop the top of the contents being exposed to the hot air of the oven without a lid or the bit of hot air at the top of the pot if it has a lid on it? That way you don't get any drying of the top layer from exposure to the hotter air rather than the actual cooler cooking liquid. I could be wrong though. ( which is not an unusual occurrence )

Lets back up a bit. Once you mix water with something else (that is dissolve something in it) it is no longer water. It will boil at some other temperature. It may be HIGHER or LOWER. For example if you mix water with glycol (you get anti freeze) but it also increases the boiling point as well. You add sugar to water and heat it and it will form a toffee which will certainly reach much higher than the boiling point of water (and I have had the burns to prove it, so there...) A sauce containing water can certainly get above the boiling point of water but any water NOT Dissolved completely will tend to boil off (that's whats happening in a reduction). In any mixture there will almost never be complete mixing there may still be some undissolved water which will boil at 210F. In physics theory the temperature of the water is the average of all the energy levels of every molecule in the water. In theory there is a possibility that a layer of ice could form on a pot of boiling water if all the low energy molecules were to clump together on the top. The probability is extremely low though.😁 As far as the oven temperature that is more about heat transfer. It will take longer to get the liquid to its boiling point if you set the oven lower. Depending on the oven setting at one particular temperature usually means the oven heats till that temperature, stops heating until the temperature drops (5~20 degrees?) then starts the cycle again. Most thermostats and heaters are pretty crude in a technical sense but they do not really have to be. Personally when doing a long braise I will have the lid on in the oven and initially set to 180C but lower it to 140C after it reaches temperature and remove the lid if I need to reduce the liquid.

OK food scientists out there, here is a question slightly out of left field. When you cook say beef sous vide, at various temperatures there are various reactions ( https://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Safety ....Muscle meat is roughly 75% water, 20% protein and 5% fat and other substances. The protein in meat can be divided into three groups: myofibrillar (50–55%), sarcoplasmic (30–34%) and connective tissue (10–15%). The myofibrillar proteins (mostly myosin and actin) and the connective tissue proteins (mostly collagen) contract when heated, while the sarcoplasmic proteins expand when heated. These changes are usually called denaturation. During heating, the muscle fibers shrink transversely and longitudinally, the sarcoplasmic proteins aggregate and gel, and connective tissues shrink and solubilize. The muscle fibers begin to shrink at 95–105°F (35–40°C) and shrinkage increases almost linearly with temperature up to 175°F (80°C). The aggregation and gelation of sarcoplasmic proteins begins around 105°F (40°C) and finishs around 140°F (60°C). Connective tissues start shrinking around 140°F (60°C) but contract more intensely over 150°F (65°C).) My question is if the temperature is taken above these temperatures but later returned to these temperatures does the reactions still apply. Example: If I was to heat meat to 80c (to cook vegetables or sauce for example) then return the temperature to say 55c, will "....aggregation and gelation of sarcoplasmic proteins..." start to occur (or reoccur)? I do understand any compression or shrinkage (and expelling of water) is probably not reversible.

The reality is that just about MOST diets fail in the long term, unless you stay on it forever. Even then the body will readjust its long term chemical processes to cope with the change. Weight starts to creep up. You are dead right @weinoo Basically you need to eat less or exercise more Fuel in fuel out. Easier said than done for most people. Trouble is by exercising more you will usually increase your appetite. It is just the way the brain works. Habit brain says " more exercise, more volume more snacks more often" Surprising humans cannot re hydrate just drinking water, we obtain ~40% of our water needs from carbohydrates. If you are on a diet low on carbohydrates, the body will convert some of the fats & protein into carbohydrates. (your personal fat reserves (i keep mine round my kidneys and belly ☹️) and your muscles when that runs out) One of the reasons exercise stirs up the appetite. It makes you thirsty (sweat, increase respiration) which causes the brain to require carbohydrates. Most will remember days of heavy exercise or work where you just couldn't drink enough water to quench your thirst. You keep drinking till you need to pee, but you are still thirsty. If you drink beer though you will quench your thirst (well till the alcohol takes over) On this type fasting diet you will eat less per day and your brain readjusts to the appetite occurring at set times. You will retrain your habit brain to increase appetite at set times, not purely in response to exercise. Variations of this type of diet are actually embedded in some religions. Think strict orthodox & sabbath, Lent for the Christians or Ramadan.

Host's note: this post was moved from the Dinner 2021 topic, so the diet discussion can find new life. A better way to diet. Select a time slot to eat. Same time slot every day 6 hour slot works for me but 8 hour slot is easier. During the time slot, eat and drink anything you want, as much as you want. Outside that slot nothing but water! No biscuits, snacks, no sugar in tea or coffee..... For a 6 hour slot you should lose about 5lbs a month, 8 hour slot about 3 lbs a month. Strangely you will find after the initial gouging (you will feel hungry outside the slot) you will moderate your intake. You can drop the slot to 4 hours but that makes it hard on everyone else and you are going to be irritable and obnoxious to everyone around you for the first couple of weeks.. My doctor recommended this method as far more reliable than restricting intake.

Another vote for hot milk (not boiling!) I do the butter flour bit then take it off the heat. Heat the milk in the microwave till hot (no bubbles just hot) Add the milk and stir. It should only thicken a little but it will mix together smoothly without lumps. You don't have to stand by the stove stirring while it thickens. Return to heat to thicken I add a little nutmeg. It fixes up any residual flour taste if I am not cooking with the sauce. I have used half cream but only in a dish where i will be adding strong flavors, it does make the sauce a little bland.

It is bad enough that @Ann_T torments me with her food porn, do you have to do the same? That duck looks so good.

The heads turn dark because of oxygenation which starts as soon as the prawn dies. Freezing or cooling slows the process. Commercially, in the cooking process, you add sodium metabisulphate which is a preservative and stops the oxygenation. If the prawns are snap frozen when caught it stops the process, but the process will start again when thawed. No idea whether you can add preservative to fresh prawns without cooking. The black is the evidence of this process and will show up in the head and digestive track. It makes the prawn unattractive and eventually any bacteria present will spoil the prawn. How long after the heads starts to tun black before the prawn spoils is the same as the question "how long is a piece of string?" Unknowable unless you know exactly how the prawn was treated from the time it was caught. An ammonia like smell usually a prettty good indicator that the prawn is "off" Even prawns sold as fresh may have been snap frozen when caught, but that is NOT a bad thing, it preserves the prawn in pristine condition.

Try a spread of VEGEMITE (or Marmite which is the British poor cousin) on the toast then a single cheese slice then the beans on top. It may not be traditional but it takes it to a new level (and yes I do know I am philistine !!) For those that don't know, Vegemite is made from the "dregs" of beer production. being derived from BEER it must be good! 😁

yep a hamburger with the "lot" usually includes beetroot (plus bacon, onions, lettuce, cheese, tomato, egg salt & pepper and BBQ sauce and maybe pineapple). Its oversized on a softish sesame seed hamburger bun. The idea is that you would be traveling in a car in your board shots and white teashirt and you were ALWAYS guaranteed to drop the beetroot out as you took a bite and it drops nicely onto your teashirt. Everyone then knows you are a messy eater and will tease you mercilessly. The BBG sauce is bad enough to coat your face and drip on your shirt but the beetroot just adds that little bit more "DOH!!!!!!"😁 But Beetroot does actually add nicely to a salad sandwich. Fresh beetroot slices goes well on its own in a sandwich made with fresh hot toast, but depends on what yours is pickled in. If its strong vinegar then not so nice but if the vinegar is mild it will work.

isn't this topic becoming eggsaggerated ?

Haven't tried batter but for crumbs I freeze. I coat the (chicken/fish/veg/whatever) in egg and toss in crumbs (or usually panko) freeze on a bed of the crumbs. To cook very light coating of oil and cook from frozen in a dish or solid rack so the heat gets all round. Turn over after a few minutes and even put in a wire basket to finish I have cooked like this without oil but the crumbs dry out more before the inside is cooked. I guess you could cook batter on a rotisserie or use really thick batter that wont run, but it is going to make a mess. Bit hard to freeze raw batter, though i guess it could be done.

I blanch asparagus in boiling water for ~1 minute (in a fry pan water boiling on high heat). That gives them that deep green color. They end up crisp. (remove 1inch from bottom- its usually dry and stringy, save for soups) Take out and dry on paper towel and then quick high heat fry in oil/butter (only a little oil to stop the butter burning) to get that char look. Too long on either step and they will soften. Asparagus must be fresh - week old and they keep the taste but not the crispness

The saline is just a salt. There are lots of other salts, at least calcium, potassium in various configurations. I guess it depends on whether they are present in the various sauces/ingredients and insufficient quantities to effect the transfer of water, thats why I think a chemist might be able to give us some answers. They obviously do other things as well to change the flavor profile but do they make the meat juicier? Osmotic pressure is also a function of temperature so even very week solutions may have some effect at higher temperature. Garlic is an interesting one. You can "infuse" roast beef by adding garlic just in slits in the meat prior to cooking and the garlic flavor will permeate through the whole meat. This suggests that the garlic compound is using some method to move through the meat. Perhaps its just evaporation and cooking at lower temperatures (SV?)doesn't do the job much better than just resting the meat with the garlic inserted for a few hours before cooking. Perhaps it is that the garlic compounds are soluble in fats or oils and the elevated temperature allows them to dissolve more. Is garlic salty? My impression is that for roasted garlic it is, but it is subtle.

It was more a question for the chemist out there. It need not necessarily be salt/brine. I assume there are other salts and chemical combinations that do the same thing (MSG?). By adjusting some of the ingredients or sauces (like soy sauce fish sauce etc) would it be possible to get the same effect as brine?

Have had a few thoughts recently on how dry various meats become with various method/forms of cooking. I have become intrigued by the difference in lean meats in SV. Now I know there are various chemical reactions with the fats & connective tissues, that is fine I sort of can muddle through that. When I brine a chicken the results can be spectacular. I believe the same happens with other meats. I am talking in particular about lean meats. I believe Brining works by a difference in the internal tissues of the meat and the brine. The brine needs to be salty enough for the liquid to work itself inside, but not so salty that the liquid inside becomes too salty. Question: If that is so should the cooking medium used (example in a slow braise or even stews and the like) and the sauces we are cooking the meat in be adjusted to actually take advantage of this chemical process, so the meat never dries out, in fact it should become juicier?

Well i just found this https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1806/1806.08790.pdf Its a bit long winded but there are a few interesting temperature discussions. Then it gets technical and my eyes glazed over and I decided I would have pork instead. Some one might be able to make sense of it all though.

Yep if i was meant to eat salad i would have been born as a cow.....

unctuosity: meaning the state of being unctuous DOH!!!!! I cannot believe, someone (well lots actually) actually put this on the net as a meaning.

The thermal mass matters...BUT Consider a brick lined oven. The bricks will retain the heat but they will also transfer the heat to the air in the oven and with a big surface area it will do it nicely. But heat travels relatively slowly through the bricks. You put your pizza in the oven on the bricks and the hot air starts the cooking but the that you are getting quite a bit of radiation from the bricks. The part of the pizza in contact with the bricks initially gets its heat from the bricks but it cools the surface of the bricks and the slow transfer of heat means it cooks the pizza relatively slowly, there is little heat radiation involved. Now replace the bricks with steel (with a decent thickness). The same processes happens. The steel gives up its heat to the air a much quicker, the radiation is about the same. The part of the pizza in contact with the steel initially gets the heat from the steel and cools it, but because heat transfer through steel is much faster than the brick, the steel rapidly heats back up and you are likely to burn the base of the pizza. But the cooking of the rest was much quicker because the air is heating up much faster, so the whole may cook before the base burns. A steel plate alone in a normal oven does the same sort of thing, but it provides almost no radiation to the top of the pizza, you are relying on the radiation of the normal oven, but the air heats up quicker from the steel. So its all sort of confusing. The steel plate means you probably need to run the oven cooler, at least initially. Perhaps its better to run 2 steel plates one at the top of the oven one at the bottom to put the pizza on, or just have a single (substantial plate) to provide thermal mass but don't put the pizza on it directly. What I use is a round pizza stone (from Aldi). I tried heating it much hotter over gas and then putting the hot stone in the preheated oven (Don't drink if you are going to attempt this!). The pizza burned on the base before it was cooked like I like it. Now I just use the stone preheated to ~230 C then turn the oven flat out when I put the pizza directly on it. Works OK, better than the pizza in a normal tray in the normal oven which cooks the top before the bottom and I end up with a soggy bottom. I think it is all trial and error, because it depends as much on your oven, dough and toppings. Ideal is a brick lined wood fired oven. That way the air is really really hot and the bricks are not as hot but uniform and have a good heat mass. It also carries away the moisture as it cooks.

Yep that's the way we always did it. You don't use a knife you break the back leg down low and push the jagged bone through the skin, then use your finger to part the skin from the leg, work up to the back down the other leg. Now grasp the legs and take hold of the skin and pull towards the head. The skin will generally tear across under the tail and come off in one piece. You end up with the skin inside out over the head. You twist the neck to break it and it the head will come away (with a bit of pulling pressure) with the inside out skin. You then use the jagged keg bone on the rear foot still attached to the skin to pierce the abdomen at the back, enlarge the cut with your fingers, the swing/toss the rabbit by the back legs without letting it go and the intestines will all be cleanly thrown out. (You may have to use a bit of force to part the intestine from the rear end) All you need is a green stick and you can spit the beast over the camp fire. No washing, no knife only need some water to wash your hands. It does work! I have another story on cleaning ducks and drinking beer and a method to clean your hands without water but it's somewhat disgusting and not for genteel company.

well actually the way to use the fruit mentos is to show the kids (to get their hopes up), then throw them (the mentos, not the kid...although...)onto the back lawn and tell the kids to go find them. If the lawn is long enough it will take them long enough for you to enjoy the Malbec. You want the after taste of the wine to linger as long as you can so rather than drink the water and dilute the taste, wash your feet. Q.E.D.😀

Sounds about right....2 fruit mentos to keep the kids busy and 5 bottles of water to wash your feet....😁

Here you go https://news.colgate.edu/magazine/2019/02/06/the-strange-case-of-dr-ho-man-kwok/