Absurdly, stupidly basic cooking questions (Part 2)

[KennethT]

18 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

But boiling water never exceeds 100℃ at sea level or whatever temperature appertains a different altitudes. In any one place, there is no difference in temperature between a boil and a hard boil.

 

 

Exactly, once 100C is attained, any extra energy goes to the latent heat of vaporization....  So the more heat energy there is, the more violent the boil as there's more vaporization, but temp stays the same.

[Smithy]

35 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

But boiling water never exceeds 100℃ at sea level or whatever temperature appertains a different altitudes. In any one place, there is no difference in temperature between a boil and a hard boil.

 

 

 

16 minutes ago, KennethT said:

Exactly, once 100C is attained, any extra energy goes to the latent heat of vaporization....  So the more heat energy there is, the more violent the boil as there's more vaporization, but temp stays the same.

 

This is true, but bubbles start to develop at lower temperatures. "Simmer" covers a much wider range of temperatures than I'd thought back then, and the observed, for-practical-cooking-purposes boil happens at slightly less than 100C. In addition, the viscosity affects boiling point when it isn't pure water. 

[blue_dolphin]

This article has a pretty good boil vs simmer discussion.  

[rotuts]

@blue_dolphin

 

interesting article .  thank you for sharing.

[Shel_B]

12 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

This article has a pretty good boil vs simmer discussion.  

And what is the missing 7-degrees between simmering and boiling called and what would you cook at those temps?

[blue_dolphin]

9 minutes ago, Shel_B said:

And what is the missing 7-degrees between simmering and boiling called and what would you cook at those temps?

It’s the Black Hole of Boiling.  Nothing should be cooked there! 🙃

[Shel_B]

5 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

It’s the Black Hole of Boiling.  Nothing should be cooked there! 🙃

Perhaps that explains why my poaching chicken thighs disappeared ....

[Smithy]

2 hours ago, Shel_B said:

And what is the missing 7-degrees between simmering and boiling called and what would you cook at those temps?

 

I postulate that that's the range of "low boil" as opposed to "full boil" or "rolling boil". I admit that so far I haven't found anything to support that terminology. However, Shirley Corriher in Cookwise notes that grain starches thicken at "just below the boiling point of water; can be held at this temperature without damage" (p. 275, First Edition, 1997) whereas root starches thicken at lower temperatures. The exact temperature depends on the exact starch, of course. My point here is that "just below the boiling point" may be that ill-defined 7-degree range.

[Shel_B]

3 hours ago, Smithy said:

 

@Smithy  Your postulation was a very fine post.

[TdeV]

New question, though I've probably asked it before.

 

When one starts cooking dried beans (r.g. Ranco Gordo) is it necessary to bring the soaked beans to a hard boil* ? 

RG Green Baby Limas have been soaked for 6 hours.

 

 

*(except for Kidney beans which must boil for 10 minutes) 

 

@blue_dolphin ?

[blue_dolphin]

1 hour ago, TdeV said:

When one starts cooking dried beans (r.g. Ranco Gordo) is it necessary to bring the soaked beans to a hard boil* ? 

RG Green Baby Limas have been soaked for 6 hours.

 

 

*(except for Kidney beans which must boil for 10 minutes) 

The reason for the 10 min boil for kidney beans (a fairly large family that includes cannellini) is to denature lectins like phytohaemagglutinin that can cause unpleasant nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Slow cooker temps aren’t sufficient to denature them. Boiling does. 

 

Because I don’t know the lectin profile of every bean I cook nor do I know which lectins I might be sensitive to and I’d prefer to avoid those symptoms, I go ahead and start them all off with a 10 min boil.  I feel like it gets them moving about and off to a good start.  Or, in the words of Steve Sando, it lets them know who’s the boss 🙃.

 

If you prefer not boiling beans, don’t do it. I’m sure you can boss them about in other ways.

 

 

[TdeV]

Thanks, @blue_dolphin.

[ElsieD]

I asked my butcher for turkey bones to make turkey stock and roasted them prior to making said stock.  I had a lot of them, and browned them after which they hit the pot along with some carrots, celery, onion.  Whenever I do this, I reduce it to a firm jelly like consistency and freeze it in ice cube trays.  This is the first time it's separated like this.  Both parts are equally firm.  What caused it to separate?  Do I need to rewarm it to blend the two parts back together prior to freezing?

[Smithy]

1 hour ago, ElsieD said:

I asked my butcher for turkey bones to make turkey stock and roasted them prior to making said stock.  I had a lot of them, and browned them after which they hit the pot along with some carrots, celery, onion.  Whenever I do this, I reduce it to a firm jelly like consistency and freeze it in ice cube trays.  This is the first time it's separated like this.  Both parts are equally firm.  What caused it to separate?  Do I need to rewarm it to blend the two parts back together prior to freezing?

 

Is that a layer of fat at the top? Did you have / use more fat than usual for this - for instance, more skin? If so, I'd be inclined to skim off the fat layer, keep it separate for flavor experiments (it might make fine schmaltz) and then save the lower layer in cubes as usual. If not, well, I'd still do a taste test for both layers before remixing.

[rotuts]

@ElsieD

 

likewise , Im fairly sure the top layer is fat.

[ElsieD]

Well, now, I'm embarrassed.  That top layer is indeed fat.  I should have had a closer look before I asked my question.  When I first started cooking them up, I let it simmer for a few hours, temporarily removed the bones, chilled the broth and took the fat layer off.  Then the lot went back in again for further simmering.  For some reason I thought that did it for the fat.  Wrong.  So thank you, @Smithy and @rotuts for your replies.  I will be off shortly to pick up more bones and make some more.

[Alex]

It certainly looks like fat. If there wasn't much skin attached to the bones, I'm wondering if it could somehow have leached out of the marrow.

[rotuts]

@Alex

 

interesting point.

 

Not that long ago I looked into chicken marrow .  I found very little about it  @ web , some noise , of course

 

I was making CkStock out of legs .   I chopped a leg bone open , and tasted the marrow :

 

dry , mealy , metallic ( iron ? ) flavor.  what surprised me , no fatty flavors at all .

 

now of course Ckn's aren't Turks , so that might be different  

 

my guess is that fowl marrow is very different from beef ( mammalian ? ) marrow.

Edited 44 minutes ago by rotuts (log)

[ElsieD]

Just picked up some more.