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Absurdly, stupidly basic cooking questions (Part 2)


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Posted (edited)

[Moderator note: The original Absurdly, stupidly basic cooking questions topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Absurdly, stupidly basic cooking questions (Part 1)]

There are no stupid questions, right?

I've got some whole milk in the fridge with a sell-by date of 4/10.

Is it okay to use in baking bread? Or will it impart an unpleasant taste?

I am just not sure about the relationship between soured milk that one deliberately produces with vinegar for certain baked goods and the genuine article that bears different shades of white and texture until shaken.

Chuck it?

Edited by Mjx
Moderator note added. (log)

"Viciousness in the kitchen.

The potatoes hiss." --Sylvia Plath

Posted
There are no stupid questions, right?

I've got some whole milk in the fridge with a sell-by date of 4/10.

Is it okay to use in baking bread?  Or will it impart an unpleasant taste?

I am just not sure about the relationship between soured milk that one deliberately produces with vinegar for certain baked goods and the genuine article that bears different shades of white and texture until shaken.

Chuck it?

Soured milk is fine to use as long as its merely soured and then thorougly cooked. I use it deliberately for baking quickbreads that call for it, because it gives a better rise and I don't like the flavor that vinegar imparts. The second-best pancakes and waffles are made with soured milk, in my opinion. The best are made with buttermilk, but I rarely have that in my fridge.

April

  • Like 1

One cantaloupe is ripe and lush/Another's green, another's mush/I'd buy a lot more cantaloupe/ If I possessed a fluoroscope. Ogden Nash

Posted (edited)

I knew you'd come through, April.

Buttermilk pancakes are one of my favorite things in the world & I'm grateful one of the major supermarket chains in town carries it in pints.

Actually, I was thinking about a bread baked with yeast.

A Jane Grigson/Beard recipe for bread with walnuts, walnut or olive oil and milk, I thought, might be okay to produce with sour milk because there are competing flavors, though I also wondered if it would just give a slight, sourdoughy taste to a simple, plain free-form loaf....

...or end up tasting as bad as the milk would be were I to drink it straight.

Should I just do pancakes or make a rhubarb cobbler instead?

P.S. What's the difference between "merely soured" and "spoiled"?

Edited by Pontormo (log)

"Viciousness in the kitchen.

The potatoes hiss." --Sylvia Plath

Posted
P.S.  What's the difference between "merely soured" and "spoiled"?

It depends on two things: your purposes for the milk, and the microbes doing the spoiling.

Generally, you don't have to worry about the latter. So, soured milk is generally spoiled for drinking, but okay for uses as a buttermilk substitute.

As Lewis Carroll wrote, "It is simply a question of who is to be master".

I always attempt to have the ratio of my intelligence to weight ratio be greater than one. But, I am from the midwest. I am sure you can now understand my life's conundrum.

Posted

The herbs should not be packed tightly in the measure, but it depends on how fine they are chopped. It also depends on the pungency of the herb which varies from plant to plant and from season to season.

Right now the fresh sage is very mildly flavored and it takes a lot more to achieve sufficient flavor.

Later in the summer, as the leaves mature, one leaf will produce as much flavor as 6 do now.

If you go to the main page and click on The eGullet Culinary Institute, you will get

this page.

click on "Index of eCGI courses" and you will see Knife skills listed.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

Posted
The herbs should not be packed tightly in the measure, but it depends on how fine they are chopped.  It also depends on the pungency of the herb which varies from plant to plant and from season to season.

Right now the fresh sage is very mildly flavored and it takes a lot more to achieve sufficient flavor.

Later in the summer, as the leaves mature, one leaf will produce as much flavor as 6 do now.

If you go to the main page and click on The eGullet Culinary Institute, you will get

this page.

click on "Index of eCGI courses" and you will see Knife skills listed.

Thank you Andiesenji. I really appreciate your help. I had previously clicked on the eGullet Culinary Institute, but it appears that I made the rookie mistake of not realizing that there was more than one page. This is embarrassing, to say the least. So, now I've not only found the knife sharpening tutorial, but several others I'm interested in as well.

Re: my herb question, it's interesting that you used sage as an example. Last week I wanted to try a butternut squash - sage risotto. When our local store was out of fresh sage, I had the brilliant idea of buying a pot from the rack outside. I thought I could use some of the leaves in my risotto & plant the remainder in a pot. The risotto should have been great, but it was horribly bland. The sage leaves added almost no flavor. Thanks to you, the mystery is solved. At least the rest of the plant is doing well in the pot.

I've always had basil, Italian parsley, rosemary & thyme. This year I'm trying to expand a bit. There's an awful lot to learn. It's kind of exciting, actually.

Thank you again,

pat w.

I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance

Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance.

-- Ogden Nash

http://bluestembooks.com/

Posted
You weren't by any chance using a pasteurized liquid egg white were you? Some of them will whip up and look fine, but the foam is not very stable. Cream of tartar will make the foam a little more stable, so if you didn't use it, you may want to try that next time. I didn't think about it before, but the chilling and whipping would probably only help with mousses that have lots of cream in them, and wouldn't work with mousses based on egg white foam only.

Sorry to have missed your question, Patrick. No, I didn't use pasteurized egg whites, they were fresh organic eggs. However, I'm afraid they were a bit too cold. Either that or I wasn't as gentle as I thought I am when folding. :biggrin:

Talking about milk, what is exactly the difference between sour milk and buttermilk? I remember when I was a child, my mother used to boil just bought (unpasteurized) milk, then cool and refrigerate. Occasionally the milk would separate when heated, obviously being spoiled, but my mother would still bottle it, leave it at room temperature for a day or two and then use it as buttermilk.

The human mouth is called a pie hole. The human being is called a couch potato... They drive the food, they wear the food... That keeps the food hot, that keeps the food cold. That is the altar where they worship the food, that's what they eat when they've eaten too much food, that gets rid of the guilt triggered by eating more food. Food, food, food... Over the Hedge
Posted
Talking about milk, what is exactly the difference between sour milk and buttermilk? I remember when I was a child, my mother used to boil just bought (unpasteurized) milk, then cool and refrigerate. Occasionally the milk would separate when heated, obviously being spoiled, but my mother would still bottle it, leave it at room temperature for a day or two and then use it as buttermilk.

...and following up on that, I hope someone will explain where clabber fits into the mix, as in clabbered milk or clabbered cream. (I can still hear my grandmother saying "it clabbered my guts when I saw you up that tree!" but I'm not talking about clabbered guts! :biggrin: ) I think clabber is closely related to creme fraiche. It might even be exactly the same thing, echoed across the pond. But I'm not sure. And is clabber just thickened milk, or the beginning of sour milk?

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
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Posted
Talking about milk, what is exactly the difference between sour milk and buttermilk? I remember when I was a child, my mother used to boil just bought (unpasteurized) milk, then cool and refrigerate. Occasionally the milk would separate when heated, obviously being spoiled, but my mother would still bottle it, leave it at room temperature for a day or two and then use it as buttermilk.

...and following up on that, I hope someone will explain where clabber fits into the mix, as in clabbered milk or clabbered cream. (I can still hear my grandmother saying "it clabbered my guts when I saw you up that tree!" but I'm not talking about clabbered guts! :biggrin: ) I think clabber is closely related to creme fraiche. It might even be exactly the same thing, echoed across the pond. But I'm not sure. And is clabber just thickened milk, or the beginning of sour milk?

My understanding is that clabbering is the same thing as curdling -- the casein proteins in milk, which are normally dispersed and in soution, precipitate out of solution when the acidity of the milk increases. This occurs in souring milk when streptococci bacteria convert lactose to lactic acid, but any acid added to milk will do the same thing.

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced" - Vincent Van Gogh
 

Posted

Not exactly a cooking question, but related: how do you pronounce 'rooibus', as in rooibus tea? I rather embarrassed myself in the tea shop this morning trying to say it, but the staff just goggled at me and didn't provide me with a correct pronunciation.

Cutting the lemon/the knife/leaves a little cathedral:/alcoves unguessed by the eye/that open acidulous glass/to the light; topazes/riding the droplets,/altars,/aromatic facades. - Ode to a Lemon, Pablo Neruda

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

I bought a duck from a Thai grocery store. A whole duck. The feet were sticking out of the bag and I am assuming that the head's in there too. :shock:

So, what do I do? I was going to use part of the duck to make Duck with Green Curry Paste (from Hot Sour Salty Sweet) and the leftover bits to make duck stock.

Should I use the head in my stock?

It's going to be tough opening that bag and seeing the head. It's going to be tougher to see it floating in my stock. But if it makes for a better stock, I'll do it.

After all I've gotten used to see chicken toes sticking out in my chicken stock. :biggrin:

- Kim

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. - Carl Sagan

Posted
I bought a duck from a Thai grocery store. A whole duck. The feet were sticking out of the bag and I am assuming that the head's in there too.  :shock:

So, what do I do? I was going to use part of the duck to make Duck with Green Curry Paste (from Hot Sour Salty Sweet) and the leftover bits to make duck stock.

Should I use the head in my stock?

It's going to be tough opening that bag and seeing the head. It's going to be tougher to see it floating in my stock. But if it makes for a better stock, I'll do it.

After all I've gotten used to see chicken toes sticking out in my chicken stock.  :biggrin:

- Kim

If it's there, use it!

Martin Mallet

<i>Poor but not starving student</i>

www.malletoyster.com

Posted

Back before we started packing up the kitchen, I decided to try making a cake featured in the May Cook's Illustrated magazine. It's the base for their Strawberry Cream Cake, but I didn't bother with the cream part, just the cake and some strawberries chopped up and tossed with the sugar.

When I baked the cake, it wound up with a dense, greasy line close to the bottom. I know I've seen a list of cake troubleshooting somewhere, but I can't find it for the life of me now.

Any guesses what I did wrong? Is it me or the recipe?

(As an aside, I'll be keeping the recipe because my husband, who loves yellow cakes out of a box, said I'd hit the flavor dead-on. :wacko: )

MelissaH

MelissaH

Oswego, NY

Chemist, writer, hired gun

Say this five times fast: "A big blue bucket of blue blueberries."

foodblog1 | kitchen reno | foodblog2

Posted

can you freeze tofu? the kind packed in a plastic tub in (?) water, with a clear peel-off film lid. Does it affect the texture (this is silken tofu not firm)?

Fi Kirkpatrick

tofu fi fie pho fum

"Your avatar shoes look like Marge Simpson's hair." - therese

Posted
can you freeze tofu?  the kind packed in a plastic tub in (?) water, with a clear peel-off film lid.  Does it affect the texture (this is silken tofu not firm)?

Yes, you can freeze tofu, but it will significantly change the texture. A lot of the water will evacuate from the tofu when you defrost it. Some people will deliberately freeze firm tofu for this reason -- less water makes it even firmer and gives it a somewhat stringier, meatier texture.

I'm not entirely sure what will happen when you freeze silken tofu, except that I doubt it will have the same texture when you defrost it.

Rebecca Hassell

Cookin' in Brookland

Posted
Yes, you can freeze tofu, but it will significantly change the texture.

thank you - that's exactly what I wanted to know.

Fi Kirkpatrick

tofu fi fie pho fum

"Your avatar shoes look like Marge Simpson's hair." - therese

Posted

Last summer I drank a lot of bottled Starbuck's Frappucino instead of coffee. This summer, I'd like to stick to plain ol' coffee, without all the sugar. But, I like it cold, but not diluted. So, with that in mind, I ask: How long can brewed coffee, without milk, keep in the fridge?

Thanks!

Joanna G. Hurley

"Civilization means food and literature all round." -Aldous Huxley

Posted

I actually have a stupid question...

why exactly do lobsters have to be alive right up until you cook them?

Posted

Their own digestive juices begin to leak into the meat soon after death...or something foul like that

tracey

The great thing about barbeque is that when you get hungry 3 hours later....you can lick your fingers

Maxine

Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop away.

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Posted
Last summer I drank a lot of bottled Starbuck's Frappucino instead of coffee. This summer, I'd like to stick to plain ol' coffee, without all the sugar. But, I like it cold, but not diluted. So, with that in mind, I ask: How long can brewed coffee, without milk, keep in the fridge? 

Thanks!

If you wander over here, you'll get lots of tips about iced coffee!

Susan Fahning aka "snowangel"
Posted
Last summer I drank a lot of bottled Starbuck's Frappucino instead of coffee. This summer, I'd like to stick to plain ol' coffee, without all the sugar. But, I like it cold, but not diluted. So, with that in mind, I ask: How long can brewed coffee, without milk, keep in the fridge? 

Thanks!

Take any excess coffee and pour it into ice cube trays and freeze it. Then when you want iced coffee, used the frozen coffee cubes instead of regular ice cubes. That way your iced coffee won't get diluted.

  • Like 1

 

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Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

Posted
Take any excess coffee and pour it into ice cube trays and freeze it. Then when you want iced coffee, used the frozen coffee cubes instead of regular ice cubes. That way your iced coffee won't get diluted.

Ooh, good idea. *duh* :biggrin: I'll go check out the iced coffee thread, too - I hadn't noticed that one before.

Joanna G. Hurley

"Civilization means food and literature all round." -Aldous Huxley

Posted
Not exactly a cooking question, but related: how do you pronounce 'rooibus', as in rooibus tea? I rather embarrassed myself in the tea shop this morning trying to say it, but the staff just goggled at me and didn't provide me with a correct pronunciation.

I've heard it pronounced whee--bose. From a guy from South Africa.

I actually have a stupid question...

why exactly do lobsters have to be alive right up until you cook them?

Their little lobster bodies are ripe for bacterial takover (especially with the guts in)

does this come in pork?

My name's Emma Feigenbaum.

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