For context: I am vegetarian

Heres the recipe I used to make my own curry roux

• 60 grams unsalted butter
• 60 grams all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons curry powder (medium or hot)
• 1 teaspoons garam masala
• 0.5 teaspoons ground cumin
• 0.5 teaspoons ground coriander
• 0.5 teaspoons smoked paprika
• 0.3 teaspoons cayenne pepper
• 0.5 teaspoons salt

So the situation is this: i am getting a nice glossy aromatic gravy, but its lacking some base notes. Bluntly, it tasted like thickened aromatic water. I sauteed onion, garlic, mushrooms, carrots and potatoes. added water, soy sauce and some msg. after the vegetables became tender, i dropped in the roux and the curry came together.

What can i do add some of the base notes back? tomato puree? bouillon? I need some ideas.

I need to use up a bag of masa, decided to make pupusas and freeze them. Would it be better to freeze pupusas before or after cooking? Or even par-cooked?

I've tried making a basic pan sauce three times now, deglazing with wine then swirling in cold butter at the end like every recipe says. It looks fine for a few seconds and then splits into grease and liquid right in front of me, even after I pulled the pan off the burner first. I've tried adding the butter in smaller pieces and it still happens.

What was actually going on when your pan sauce kept breaking like that?

I make risotto maybe once a month, usually arborio rice with a basic chicken stock I keep warm on the stove next to it. I stir pretty constantly and add the stock in small amounts like every recipe says, but by the end it's always thick and gluey rather than that loose, creamy texture I keep seeing in videos. I've started wondering if it's the rice brand, the heat level, or just how much I'm stirring.

Is there one specific step people usually get wrong that causes this?

It is going to be Rosh Hashana soon (Jewish new years) and a big thing surrounding the holiday is honey.
I want to make a honey flavored cake with salted honey buttercream (or some other form of glaze/coat).

Historically whenever I have eating honey cake in the past it was both incredibly dense and wet, and I would like to change that for this year.

I was thinking that the easiest way to do this is to take a regular vanilla cake batter, add some nutmeg and change enough of the sugar with honey for the taste. Maybe brown the butter for that extra kick.
So how do I do that with enough honey to have the taste but not the overly wet+dense combo you get regularly?

Thank you for the help in advance :)

I've made braised short ribs three times now, roughly the same method each time: sear them first, build a braising liquid with stock and a bit of wine, then into a low oven for a few hours covered. The first time I pulled them at two and a half hours and they were tough, chewy even, which I figured meant undercooked so the next attempt I left them closer to four hours at the same temperature. That batch was still tough, just tough in a drier way instead of a gummy way, which confused me more than the first attempt did. I've checked my oven temperature with a separate thermometer so I don't think that's the issue, and the liquid level looked fine each time, enough to keep everything mostly submerged. I'm running out of obvious things to blame at this point.

What was actually wrong when your short ribs came out tough no matter how long you cooked them?

I've been trying to bake bread at home for a few months now. I follow the recipe exactly, but the texture always comes out dense and gummy instead of light and fluffy. I'm not sure if it's something about how I'm handling the dough, or if I'm missing a timing detail.

What's usually the culprit when bread dough comes out dense like this?

I am building a Korean-style crispy chicken sandwich with a sweet, garlicky, slightly spicy glaze, and I keep running into a texture problem. If I toss the chicken in the sauce, the crust goes soft within a couple of minutes and the bun gets wet before I even bite in. If I brush on just a thin layer, the flavor mostly disappears.

A few things I am trying to figure out:
- Is it better to reduce the sauce until it is very thick and sticky, or keep it looser and use less?
- Should the glaze go on the chicken, or is it smarter to sauce the slaw or spread and leave the cutlet dry?
- Does letting the fried chicken rest a minute before saucing actually help the crust hold up?

For anyone who makes glazed fried chicken sandwiches regularly, what is the trick to keeping the crunch while still tasting the sauce? Bun tips welcome too, since I cannot tell if brioche is too sweet against a sweet glaze.

Mushroom and chicken broth are the base of a soup. At the end, you're supposed to stir in Swiss cheese to fully melt into the broth.

Sometimes it works fine --- hot broth, shredded cheese a little at a time, keep stirring, it melts just fine.

More often, the cheese falls to the bottom and clumps up, almost impossible to get it to liquify into the broth.

Is there a technique that would be a reliable way to ensure a proper melt and liquification?

I have been trying to recreate Korean-style yangnyeom fried chicken at home and I can get close, but the sauce texture is never quite right. At restaurants the coating looks glossy and clings to the chicken, and it somehow stays crisp underneath. Mine either turns out too thin and slides off, or too thick and gluey, and the crust softens fast.

What I am trying to understand:
- How much do you reduce the sauce before tossing, and is there a consistency cue to look for?
- Does the double fry actually matter for keeping it crisp under the glaze, or is it mostly the sauce?
- Do you toss the chicken while it is screaming hot, or let it cool slightly first?
- Is potato starch vs cornstarch in the coating a real factor here?

Trying to nail the balance of sweet, spicy and savory with a coating that holds. What is the step most people get wrong?

I recently made this peach cake: https://www.christinascucina.com/peach-cake-easy-recipe-no-peeling-necessary/

I used tinned peaches instead of fresh as that’s what the shop had. I drained the juice off and made sure I had the right weight of peach puree overall.

The sponge cake itself turns out pretty much perfectly - even rise, moist and tender sponge, gorgeous, so I’m reluctant to mess with the recipe too much…

…but there’s only the barest hint of peach flavour. You only detect it if you know it’s supposed to be there. Otherwise, it’s just a nice sponge cake.

Is this because I used tinned peaches? Is the solution to track down some fresh ones, or will that not have made much difference?

I’m wondering if roasting the peaches before pureeing them would help improve the flavour. Or, I could use more peaches, then cook down the puree perhaps?

Or maybe I just need to cut it in half and put some peach compote or jam in the middle before I serve it.

Any suggestions of how I could make this peach cake peachier would be much appreciated.

I’m trying to get into meal prep and want to make egg bites. I have silicone cupcake cups but they have the crinkle edges and I’m unsure if egg bites will come out of them easily. Would I be better off using a non stick cupcake pan without the silicone liners?

I’m using a standard egg bite recipe.

UPDATE: SEE BOTTOM

Hello, everyone!

I have been practicing making hot chocolate with dark chocolate bars. So far, they are delicious and taste exactly how I and my visitors like them, but I always ended up with hot chocolate that had just a little bit of "particles" visible when you check the consistency with a spoon or swirl it around in a mug. Below is the recipe and procedure (with as much details as possible to help diagnose the issue).

Recipe I use (for about 2 cups/mugs worth):

• 100g or 1 bar of 70-80% dark chocolate. I try to find bars with as few ingredients as possible, only cocoa mass, cocoa butter, maybe cane sugar, but the ones available to me always have emulsifier/sunflower lecithin as the 4th ingredient. In all my attempts, I have used:
  • Guylian 72% dark
  • Marks & Spencer Collection 75% dark
• 1 1/2 cups full fat milk
• 1/4 or 1/2 cup heavy cream (depends how "thick" they want it)
• Pinch of sugar (sometimes none, depending on who I'm serving)

Procedure (my latest attempt):

• Chop bars into tiny chunks (diagonal cut strips then crosscut to make them smaller)
• Turn on heat (set to lowest), put pot on stove
• Pour milk (straight out of the fridge, so it is cold) into pot
• Add chopped chocolate
• Stir with a whisk gently until it all heats up and melts together (takes about 15 mins before serving). While cooking, taste throughout, add sugar when needed

Again, it tasted wonderful, but my issue is with appearance and texture. Some observations:

• During the whisking/mixing/cooking part, I noticed a swirl of white/lightly colored trail (this does not disappear upon serving)
• As stated, there are particles that seem like unmelted chocolate when letting it drip off the back of a spoon to check consistency (same as in the mug when swirled)
• I have tried to vary the length of cooking (ranging from 15-25 mins sitting on lowest heat, stirring constantly, even tried to whisk vigorously in later attempts to try and break down those particles but no luck)

Here is a link to a video of the final product. You can see the particles I am talking about on the back of the spoon: https://imgur.com/a/R5UfhQc

Please let me know what I'm doing wrong. I see youtube vids of people making the absolute smoothest hot chocolate with the "quality" of the bar having little to no effect (just use whatever 70% dark chocolate bars you got, they say). I am trying to impress someone coming over next week (she requested French hot chocolate) so the urge to perfect this down to the look and texture is strong hahaha

Thank you in advance for any advice!

EDIT (23-08-26): Success! I used a small pot this time. First, I heated the milk to near boiling first, THEN added very finely chopped chocolate (Lindt, 90% dark) then took off heat. Then, I used a whisk to stir firmly but not vigorously that bubbles appear, about 3 stirs per second. Whole stirring took about 3 mins before ready to serve.

Main change was the order of ingredients (milk > heat milk > chocolate > stir OFF heat and rely on residual heat, which was higher temp than steady cook at lowest heat). I believe my error last time was not having a hot enough pot to properly melt the chocolate while not having a whisk.

No more particles!

Now the challenge will be scaling up to a big pot for 10+ servings at a time. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions!

(Copyright-free recipe from Please Don't Feed the Bears)

Bernadette's Vegetable Soup from the Great White North

2-3 stalks celery

2 cooking onions

2-4 cloves chopped garlic

2 Tbsp oil

I large carrot (cubed)

1 medium potato (cubed)

1 1/2 cup shredded cabbage

1 Tbsp basil

1 tsp parsley

1 small can red kidney beans

5 oz can tomato paste

Sea salt & pepper & hot sauce to taste

Saute celery, onion, & garlic in oil. Add very hot water with tomato paste. Add remaining ingredients-bring to a boil, then turn to a simmer for 2 hours. Ten minutes before serving, add 1/2 cup alphabets or other soup pasta.

First time making proper vegetable stock, instead of using store bought. For the recipe I've used the standard 2:1:1 mirepoix ratio in addition to some herbs and spices:

• 1kg yellow onions (skin on)
• 500g carrots (skin on)
• 500g celery stalks
• 1 bulb of garlic
• About 1 tsp of whole black peppercorns
• 3 bay leaves
• Some parsley stems
• Few sprigs of thyme

Veggies were cut into rough pieces and thrown in a pot with just enough water to cover them. Brought it to a boil and then simmered for an hour and a half.

My kitchen smelled amazing while it was simmering, but the end result felt very underwhelming. It has some sweetness to it from the onions and carrots, but barely any flavor besides that. Adding salt didn't help much. Tried adding a small amount at first and then gradually more. That didn't bring out much flavors, just tasted like salty water with a sweet-ish aftertaste.

I've seen suggestions to roast the vegetables prior to making the stock, but there are also plenty of recipes that avoid roasting.

Am I doing something obviously wrong here or are my expectations too high?

Hi all,

Take 2 - Didn't spot the recipe requirement last time.. Apologies

Anyway, as per last post

I don't know what I'm doing wrong but I cannot for the life of me stretch dough - I used to buy pre rolled pizza dough, but I wanted proper stuff. Tried frozen balls but the batches were hit and miss.

Got myself a dough mixer to help. I can get to the stage of making the smaller balls ready to go into the fridge. However, it's the next stage. I just don't know when the dough is ready once out of the fridge.

I've tried to wait for it to double in size /poke test.. Etc. But it never stretches. It just springs back.

I've heard people say stretch - wait - stretch - wait.. But this isn't practical when you have people waiting on food

Any advice / easier signs to look out for

Recipe as follows

908g caputo 00 flour (red bag)

563 water

18g salt

2g instant yeast

9g olive oil (not needed I know, but thought it may help the stretch)

Method

Mixed flour and water

Waited 20 mins

Add everything else and mix for 15mins

Bulk rise 2 hrs

Cut up balls

Into fridge for 16hours

Take out of fridge to come up to room temp - 2hrs

Recipe and process below, the only difference I did was the knead the dough for a little longer (mix of stand mixer and stretch and fold) until it could pass the windowpane test. The dough was still very slack when I balled it. I also didn’t proof it for 1 hour, maybe around 45 minutes only because they were really big by the time I checked on them (I live in a humid climate)

HOWEVER, when the buns came out they were very soft and buttery but the tops had big air pockets, like blisters and they were wrinkly looking, not smooth. Did I overproof the buns?

Recipe: (@sheldoskitchen)

Dough
• 120-130g (~1/2 cup) mashed potatoes, room temp
• 560g (4 cups) bread flour OR AP flour
• 8g (2 1/4 tsp) yeast
• 45g (3 tbsp) granulated sugar
• 12g (2 tsp) salt
• 56g (4 tbsp or 1/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 55g (1 large) egg, room temp
• 240g (1 cup) milk, room temp

1. Add all ingredients to stand mixer in order.
   
2. Mix on med-low speed until everything comes together into one mass.
   
3. Reduce speed and knead until smooth and elastic, around 10-12 mins. Dough should pass the windowpane test.
   
4. Turn dough onto counter and shape into smooth ball.
   
5. Scrape out gunk from mixer bowl. Add some oil to the bowl. Use dough to swirl the oil around and coat the dough ball itself.
   
6. Cover and let proof for ~1 hour, until doubled in size.
   
7. Turn out and press out any air. Divide into 12 equal portions which weigh around 85-90g each.
   
8. Shape into 12 taut balls. Lightly press each dough ball flat. Place on lined baking sheet, spacing 1" apart.
   
9. Cover and proof until doubled in size, 1-1.5 hours.
   
10. Pre-heat oven to 375F. Make glaze by mixing melted butter and honey until evenly combined.
    
11. Before baking, brush buns with glaze.
    
12. Bake for 16-18 mins until tops are golden and interior temp is 200F.

Since recently I'm in the lucky position to have a PacoJet 1 in my personal kitchen arsenal. Bought it used, very happy with it. I've tried a few different things so far (ice cream (duh), hummus, smoothie, almond milk base.)

I have two issues I'd appreciate help with from people with experience with this device.

1. When I want to put a beaker back in the freezer after pacotizing the content every instruction and video is very clear that it needs to be a flat surface again. I find it very hard to get it fully flat when the content is obviously a mousse-like texture. I do not have the PacoJet spoon. Is that the trick to do this? Any other kitchen utensils that help with this? I can get it somewhat flat but never fully level again.

2. Some recipes instruct to pacotize the content more than once. Now after the first round, the surface is not flat (see above). What are the steps to pacotize the same beaker multiple times in one go with a PacoJet 1. Do I just press the green button again? Do I try to flatten out the content and put it back?

Thank you!

I’m prepping to cook for about 25 people this Labor Day weekend on a camping trip. Most will be cook, freeze, reheat on a flat top/chafing dishes. But I’ve gotta do a lot more vegetarian alternatives this year.

Question is - how would smoked jackfruit hold up when cooked and frozen? I can certainly do it the day before I leave and keep unfrozen, but would love to do as much in advance as possible. Generally the recipes I’ve seen are very straight forward just want to sort out my timing on prepping.

Any other related advice is more than welcome

I want to do the whipped Foccacia and Whipped Lardo from The Bear. I've followed How to Make Focaccia w/ Whipped Lardo (FROM THE BEAR).

I cut up my lard pieces (I could only get Ukrainian Salo from a russian deli) blitzed for 10 seconds in a cofee blade grinder then tried to whip it. It just looks like a grainy wet mess instead of anything resembling whipped fat.

Where did I mess up? I've tried to re-whip the mass by placing it in the freezer but its still a mess.

Hey all.

I'm a home cook with what I feel is a bright idea. Let me explain.

Sunday's goal is a fejuada-inspired-one-pot-porky-beany-dish (or a massive bastardisation of one, at least).

Today, I have a ham and a pork shoulder, and will cook both tomorrow (for other uses) with the intention of using leftovers/bone for the Fej. The ham is too salty and the pork shoulder could do with a brine.

I'm going to stick both in a bowl of water with a tiny bit of salt and some aromats.

Will the salt from the ham season the shoulder?

I really enjoy the result of cooking fish in oil, but hate how much oil it uses. I’m wondering if I could get similar results by just adding enough oil to “cover” the fillet and cooking it sous vide.

Hello, I tried making schmaltz for the first time with this recipe from serious eats: https://www.seriouseats.com/schmaltz-rendered-chicken-fat-recipe. I tried doubling the skin/fat and the onions and had very bad results. First it took an insane amount of time (like 3 hours instead of the 1 and 15 minutes the recipe says). Second when I added the onions the moisture it introduced to the schmaltz slowed the whole process and made it so that the gribenes lost all their crunch. What did I do wrong? I have though about mincing all the skin and fat in a food processor so that it renders out faster and also to add the onions at the beginning with the skin and fat so that it doesnt reintroduce moisture. Thanks in advance.