Hot answers tagged texture
27
I like my chocolate chip cookies chewy too and I do it all the time. Here is what I do:
Flour: I use a higher gluten flour instead of AP, such as Bread flour.
Eggs: An additional egg yolk will help
Sugar: A bigger Brown Sugar to Sugar ratio helps but not vital if you do not have brown sugar at hand.
Butter: Butter should be melted. I think this is the key ...
21
There are a variety of factors at work here:
Freezing foods "improperly" (i.e. not flash-frozen, not vacuum-sealed) causes ice crystals to form within the food, damaging the molecular structures. This is what causes many frozen leftovers to become "mushy" or change in texture.
Again due to the formation of ice and the movement of water when the food is ...
14
Normal cheese melts like that. It is made of proteins, fats, and water, and these separate when they are heated.
For dipping, you need processed cheese. It has additives which keep the fat, fluid and solids mixed in a smooth mass. Also, it really helps to use very slow and even heat. This is the easy option.
If you want to do it "for real", without ...
13
Rice is mostly made of starch. Starch is, in itself, a molecule made up of glucose components attached to each other. There are two types of starch: Amylose - it is a long straight chain of glucose - and amylopectin, which has a branchy and fuzzy structure. When you cook a rice which is rich in amylose, the grains stay separate. When you cook rice which is ...
12
This is the recipe for chocolate chip cookies
For more details check out the Jan/Feb 96 edition of Cooks Illustrated.
2 c. all-purpose flour plus two tablespoons more
½ t baking soda
½ t salt
1½ sticks Butter (melted and this is key! also this is a bit less than typical)
½ c granulated sugar
1 c ...
10
Most likely, they are using a softer tofu than you.
For whatever reason, the US is infatuated with unusually firm tofu, and supermarkets emphasize the "extra firm" varieties. In Asia, especially Japan and Korea, but even in China, most applications call for a softer, more custard-like tofu.
If it's soft inside, when you deep fry the tofu, it should stay ...
8
The key to this is really high heat and pan-fry in a single layer, very quickly. The goal is to get that nice brown caramelized surface and barely cook the interior and then get it out of the pan before it starts to seep water. Also, wait to season with salt until it comes out of the pan so it doesn't draw out the water prematurely.
8
Try heating a couple table spoons of butter with some flour in a pot for a couple of minutes stirring with a wooden spoon then add enough hot milk to make the mixture smooth. Melting the grated cheese in flour prevents the oils from separating and the proteins from curdling.
(edit) If you want to search for a recipe, a Béchamel sauce with grated cheese ...
7
For Potato Jenga you are going to want to use a French Fry slicer like this one from Amazon. The larger slicing grate will produce potato of about the right square size. You will want to exclude the edges and end pieces.
Some additional tips: several hours to a day before you are going to serve them slice and blanch the potatoes in sweet water (boil ...
7
You are correct that the milk is heated to denature the albumin so that it becomes part of the structure of the yogurt instead of washing out in the whey. When distributed through the yogurt properly this protein will not cause the clumping problems you are seeing.
You shouldn't expect to make ricotta from yogurt whey- even if the milk wasn't boiled it just ...
7
There are many factors in play such as the type of sugars, amount of eggs or other sources of hydration, amount and type of leavening and so forth, but as an overall generalization:
Melting the butter will lead to chewier cookies
Creaming colder/room temperature butter with sugar will lead to cookies with a higher, more cake like texture.
Refrigerating the ...
6
There are several factors that make bread be "holey". First of all we must understand that those big holes are created by "balloons" of gluten filled with CO2 and alcohol made by yeasts. Those balloons can grow in 2 ways
Yeast cells close to the balloon make CO2 or alcohol, and it's "poured" into the balloon, and it grows.
The wall between 2 balloons gets ...
6
I was unable to find information that might tell what happened to your dish, but found some extremely interesting and detailed sources of information on collagen and gelatin which I think are worth sharing.
I did find that the pH is unlikely to be the major contributing factor, as there are both acid and alkaline processes for gelatin formation--see the ...
5
Edit: If cooking longer softens the potatoes, then this isn't what's happening. In that case, well, you just need to cook longer. The main variable is probably temperature (maybe the pot isn't actually all hot for all 30-45 minutes), followed by variations in cut size and in the firmness of the original potatoes. But the rest could apply to some readers too!
...
5
There is the good way and the cheap way.
The good way is fondue.
Acid and / or alcohol are used to cut up the cheese proteins so it isn't stringy and the cheese is heated gently to not break the emulsion.
You can look up a recipe. <napoleonDynamite>There are, like, an infinity of them.</napoleonDynamite>
The cheap way is processed cheese product. ...
5
This, I confess, is just a guess—I'd suggest adding some pectin.
Pectin is a thickener that occurs naturally in fruit, but its likely absent entirely in the fruit juice you've been using. However, it's probably present in the fruit purée used in the commercial products.
Pectin is, for example, the primary (if not only) jelling agent in jam, jelly, and ...
4
There are a number of things that effect the resulting product when cooking rice. It comes down to two factors. The length of the grain and the way it is prepared. The shorter the grain, the more starch is released. A short grain rice, will tend to clump together as their will be a lot of starch released to the surface and all around it. Longer grains will ...
4
This may be a cliched answer, but for my money it doesn't get any better than homemade crostini. A narrow baguette, sliced 1/4 inch thick, brushed with a little olive oil or butter and toasted on a pan in the oven - yum! You can also rub a halved clove of garlic on the toasted slices for another flavor.
4
Do you ever deep fry it, or are you always doing a pan-fry/shallow fry? Most of the tofu I see at Thai restaurants is deep fried, which yields the texture I think you are talking about. You may or may not be willing to deep fry at home, but I think if you do you'll get the result you are looking for.
4
You could try cooking at a slightly lower temperature, spraying the walls of your oven with water or putting an oven-safe bowl of water in with the cookies to prevent drying out, and/or cook them for less time.
When finished cooling immediately put them into an airtight container or foil and they will stay fairly soft, but of course are best just after ...
4
I think you'd be best doing something along the lines of 'confit potatoes'. you cut the potatoes into the desired shapes. If you want something similar to 'Jenga' then I don't think you'll be able to use a mandoline as it won't cut them thick enough, or at least mine won't. Waxy potatoes are a must for this as they'll hold their shape much better.
Then ...
4
Blueberries, and especially underripe blueberries, have a lot of pectin. Blueberries have about .4g per 100g compared to apples which have .5g. As you suspected this is almost definitely causing the problem. Many blueberry jam recipes consist of just heating pureed blueberries with sugar and acid- no added pectin needed.
When you heated your pureed ...
4
The main factor in the openness of the crumb is hydration. A higher hydration dough will generally have a more open crumb with larger, more uneven holes. A lower hydration dough results in a denser loaf, with smaller holes.
As well as hydration, fermentation time also plays a role. Usually these go together; a low hydration dough like a normal white ...
3
Instead of Jenga, why not Blockhead? With Jenga, you start with a structured tower of identical pieces, pull out a piece and restack it on top. With Blockhead, you start with irregular pieces, and begin a tower, with each person adding to it (and only the bottom piece can touch the table). In both cases, the person knocking down the tower loses. But with ...
3
I'm afraid that however you cook them, your potatoes will be rough or will stick to each other. Perhaps you could play jenga with raw potatoes (cut into appropriate shapes) and have a pot of hot oil standing by to make fries as you draw pieces out. You could thoroughly rinse the cut potatoes to get off extra starch, and then coat them in oil so they don't ...
3
The cookies will set (take on their final texture) about by 20 - 30 minutes out of the oven. Coming directly out of the oven, cookies will absolutely be soft and squishable; which is why you should wait a few minutes before moving them off the baking sheet and onto a cooling rack (you can cheat this time if your cookies are all on a sheet of parchment ...
3
The moist ones are the semi cooked ones
Dry is something like this (really quick Google)
Dry Pearls
Semi moist is something like this (again, really quick Google search) - I think we might be talking about the same thing with the instant ones you are talking about
Moist Pearls
From dry, have you experimented with the times and ratios? I find that ...
3
After a whole lot of research, I think that I have achieved an answer, but I couldn't get my hands on any pearls so I don't have any experimental evidence. Most of it is based on messing around with tapioca flour, but I think it should carry over.
Anyway, the difference between traditional and instant pearls is merely the amount of processing they receive ...
3
Paneer (Indian cottage cheese) doesn't really melt and is often fried. Other cottage cheeses, and I suspect cheeses made with low-fat dairy, will have high melting points.
Yogurt-based cheeses (feta) don't melt much, but don't have a lot of structural integrity either.
Edit:
The Wikipedia article above linked to farmer cheese, which linked to Queso ...
3
And for any people that likes the taste of the south. Try cutting them in 1/4" slices.
Soak them in milk for half an hour, then in another bowl have yellow corn meal. Dip the zucchini in cornmeal mixture and place in a cast iron skillet with just enough olive oil to coat the pan. Make sure pan is hot, test it by putting a drop of water in pan, if you hear ...
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