As I sit here eating a breakfast burrito I made with fries because I ran out of tots....I realize it's.....extremely disappointing to say the least compared to my usual.

Which lead me to wonder, why do reheated after refrigerated fries get mightily unpleasant unless they're refried?

I've not had this happen with my beloved tot burritos, nor things like kielbasa & potatoes, homefries, basically anything in a different potato form that isn't a form of fry.

For a bit further, these particular fries were done in the air fryer, just like I do tots, if it makes a difference (which I doubt).

I don’t know if I”m imagining it or there is something different. I make beef stew in both the instant pot and on the stove. I _swear_ the stovetop stew is better than the same stew done in the instant pot. Both texture-wise and flavor-wise.

Am I nuts or is there a scientific reason why pressure cooking the same dish would taste and feel different from a real slow cook using the same recipe.

Will omitting starches & adding agar instead do the trick? How will it effect the final results? not so sure how the texture will turn out, I assume not too different rather than being sticky? my experience working with agar is limited

Edit: I just remembered that agar is used as a substrate to culture microbes & mycelium, so that's probably not the best idea

I'm really curious but can't seem to find any sort of hypothetical articles that would explain what would happen to food at a molecular level if it were freeze dried to absolute zero.

I'm making a winter ratatouille using - potato, sweet potato, tomato, beetroot and courgette.

1. should i salt all the vegetables a day before assembling and cooking?
2. What will it do to the vegetables?

Is it possible to overcook chicken in a way that it can no longer come up to a safe temperature?

Because some of the moisture in the chicken obviously turns to steam and helps cook the chicken but if someone who's "chicken paranoid" and leaves it for ages and then checks the temperature, could it have got to a point where there's no moisture left to come up to the safe 75°C (167°F)?

I love to make Great Northern Bean soup. My recipe varies wildly sometimes, for variety’s sake, but there are always two constants:

• Soak them first (which is the insanely obvious thing, sorry if I sound patronizing.)

• After cooking them, put ‘em in the fridge overnight, which is where my query comes in:

I’ve found that if I eat the beans right away, they’re not so great. But if I cool them, then refrigerate them overnight, they turn in to the most beautiful buttery things I’ve ever had from something that didn’t include butter or fat.

PLEASE, someone explain to me what’s going on during that first night.

Thank you for your time, everyone! 😊

does anyone know the difference btwn arabic gum, pectin and do you have any other recommendations of a vegan ingredient to use when making a jelly like sweet/pate de fruit?

I make balsamic or sherry vinaigrettes almost weekly. I have been thinking about when and how they stay in emulsion vs separating in the fridge.

Usually they separate. My typical recipe is 1/4 cup vinegar, 3/4 olive oil, garlic from microplane, salt, pepper, dab of mustard, squeeze of honey. I just stir everything but the oil, then shake in a jar.

I got a salad from a restaurant and it was still emulsified the next day, and I started to think about how that happens. Is it because it is mixed in a robocoup or blender?

Then I got a new slightly thicker balsamic (aged longer) and cut the ratio to 1/4 vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, and it is staying in emulsion! I also left out the garlic because I need to get to the grocery store.

Does any of that make sense? Thanks science people. I love that my dressing now stays in emulsion because I can use it straight out of the fridge, vs it needing to warm up and be reshaken.

The ones on the bottom of the container I peeled with my hands are normal (there was no colour change). I’m just wondering has this turned mouldy hence the change of colour? Would you use this regardless?

I recently bought some vanilla beans and since I bought more than I needed, I was looking into other uses. I fell down a rabbit hole about making homemade vanilla extract by putting vanilla beans in vodka. Can anyone explain the science behind this? How does it make vanilla extract and not just vanilla flavoured vodka?

Is infrared gas stove radiation dangerous to health?

At a wedding I recently had the pleasure of eating the best vegan “crab” cakes I’ve ever had. The texture and taste of the zucchini was so close to crab that I was blown away. I asked the chef for the recipe but she wouldn’t give it away (unsurprised), but she did say that the process takes about 3 days. It’s definitely more intensive than just shredding a zucchini with a cheese grater.

Do you have any idea what process would make zucchini like that? Could it be frozen? Left to soak in something? I need to know!!

Wanting to make garlic chili oil, but concerned about botulism. Sometimes, liquid is added, which prompted the question — is there a way to determine if a mixture has enough oil to be anaerobic?

Hi!

In a bartending word there's this thing called Phosphate Acid. But you can order it only in Canada and the USA. The producer says (not only, other bartenders too) that it's very neutral acid, without citrusy aroma etc. Just acid, no additional taste.

Can I substitute it with a phosphoric acid solution? As we can read, the phosphate acid is a "partially neutralized solution made with salts of calcium, magnesium and potassium". I know that a phosphoric acid solution is not the same, but is it similar enough to substitute this?

Can I put a vacuum sealed container, like a plastic container, in the microwave or oven and achieve vacuum frying?

I'd like to vacuum fry some shiitake mushrooms to replicate some that I got at World Market a long while back.

I simply can't afford the kitchen tech for a vacuum frying chamber and am thinking I can jury rig this with a good air pump setup.

Say, what is the nutritional profile of bread that rises once with a teaspoon of yeast, vs bread that rises 5 times?

What is the end yeast content before baking? How many times will it replicate? And what nutrients are gained and lost?

I know that yeast likes some vitamin c, and is high in b vitamins.

So adding vit c to dough, and letting yeast grow for several hours...what changes?

Made some garlic confit, really enjoyed it, was thinking of confitting other vegetables, and learned about the botulism issue. I was disappointed, since I was planning on sort of bulk preparing some in advance, to use in food throughout the month

So digging deeper, I looked into the temperature that the botulism bacteria dies at, I found three relevant temperatures:

• ~212F (boiling) - The temperature at which the bacteria dies
• ~250F - The temperature at which the spores die
• ~185F (for 5 minutes) - The temperature at which the toxin produced is destroyed

Here's the link with sources https://ucanr.edu/sites/MFPOC/Emergency/Botulism/

The recipe I followed for the confit has the submerged garlic in an oven at 250F for 2 hours. That's at least as much or higher than the temperature it takes to kill/destroy all of the above. I could even bump it up a bit just in case, right?

Shouldn't there be nothing to worry about afterwards? I'd still keep it in the fridge etc but, wouldn't it be safe over the course of e.g. a month?

Also, at the end of that month wouldn't bringing everything back to that temperature for a few minutes be enough to keep it edible?

So we've all heard that freezing food doesn't kill bacteria, it only slows down or stops the growth of bacteria. I have a tough time visualising this though. How could bacteria survive at 0°K or -273°C for an extended length of time? All molecular movement would completely halt so chemical reactions would stop. Bacteria relies on chemical reactions to survive. Even if the bacteria became dormant at that temperature, it wouldn't be sustainable. At some point you'll kill it.

So now I've taken this hypothetical to it's extremes, let's dial it back. Industrial ammonia refregeration can bring food down to -50°C. Some coolants can easily take food to -80°C and below. Is this enough to kill any bacteria on meat over a 24 hour period? Has anyone ever heard of freezing being used as a cooking method for any meats?

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I have a recipe which calls for a quarter or half lemon, used as an acid. However, I have issues with heartburn and want to avoid the citric acid completely. Clearly once the reaction is complete, i can add baking soda to then bring the resulting solution back to neutral (slightly basic is fine, cooking isn't an exact science, but i do prefer the lemon flavor/citric acid be fully gone).

So, what's the right amount of baking soda to use to neutralize a 1/4 to half lemon? When I took chemistry in high school I think I knew enough to figure it out, but that knowledge is long lost to time and I'd prefer a quicker answer than retaking a chemistry class :)

So I have a final project in one of my nutrition classes wherein I have to make a dish that meets certain macro and micronutrient levels. One of these is limiting added sugars. I am planning on poaching some pears, and the recipe I would like to use calls for 5 tbsp honey in 8 cups of water for 6 pears. Is there a way to calculate how much added sugar the resulting poached pears will contain?

I'm wanting to do some experimentation with emulsion and coconut cream to find out if there's a way to stabilize the emulsion in broth/water past the boiling point. I'm having a difficult time trying to understand why the protein bonds break under heat, I was under the assumption that a chemical process has to occur to break protein bonds, but this is coming from a hairstylist so maybe I'm just overthinking it.

Does anyone have experience with coconut milk or cream and emulsifiers like guar gum, cargeenan, therm-flo/clear jel and their effects on emulsion under the distress of heat?

Weird question I'm not sure where to ask... I've heard flavors can transfer, but would oils or greases get evaporated and therefore on other dishes in the same oven? For example - pizza on bottom rack, other meal on top rack - would pizza grease dissipate into the air onto the other meal, or olive oil from the other meal onto the pizza, etc.

If this isn't the right place to ask the question, could you direct me to where I might find a good answer?

Thanks!

As a part of removing gluten from my diet I have been trying a variety of new flours. In most of them I notice a stronger flavor of the origin food than I would with wheat flour.

Is this because wheat flour is particularly neutral to the human palette or because I have become accustomed to wheat flour growing up?