Questions tagged [chemistry]
Questions about the chemical composition or properties of ingredients and dishes.
186
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Can I rescue unwhippable cocoa-meringue?
I had a bunch of egg whites leftover so I thought I'd make meringues. And for fun I thought I'd throw in some cocoa powder. This is a Swiss meringue recipe where I warmed the whites, cocoa, and sugar ...
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Split pea stew HELP! [duplicate]
I am attempting to make split pea stew. It has cooked for a long time. The bag of split peas is new and it is organic. I did put lemon juice on the beef to tenderize it before the water boiled. Is ...
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Is NeoSoilon the right textile for a reusable tea bag?
Here's the premise of my question: I am on a mission to create a reusable tea bag that is easy to use on the go. I lead something of a nomadic lifestyle and it's important to me to have a system for ...
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1
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Type of silk to use for making tea bags
I am investigating the possibility of making my own reusable tea bags. There are several types of textiles to choose from, each with their own pros and cons:
Paper tea bags are cheap and common, but ...
4
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1
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Why might my fermented garlic purée have an incredibly bitter, ammonia-like smell?
I've made fermented garlic paste many times before.
It's essentially a bunch of raw garlic cloves blended with 2% salt by weight, then left in a container to ferment at room temperature for 2-3 weeks ...
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There are black stains on the kitchen tissue when I wipe my pan after washing, is it safe to use the pan?
After washing my pan with dishwashing liquid, I was wiping it dry with a kitchen tissue and noticed black stains on it. So I washed the pan again with dishwashing liquid and wiped it but the black ...
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Why is it that veggies, fruit, and meat need to be salted or sugared when fermented to avoid pathogens, but milk and yogurt don't?
Haven't been able to find a clear enough explanation for this. When it comes to fermented milk products like clabber and milk kefir, you don't seem to need to do anything other than in the first case, ...
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Mason jar silicone seal mystery
For food storage I mainly use mason jars with stainless steel lids and food-grade silicone ring seals to keep them airtight. Twice while storing different types of loose-leaf tea, the silicone seals ...
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1
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Black stains developed on the bottom on stainless steel pot [duplicate]
Black stains developed on the bottom on stainless steel pot.
These are coming back after cleaning the pot when I cook chicken. What are these, whether it is possible to get rid of these and it is it ...
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Why would a fully-developed dough lose consistency (elasticity / extensibility)?
I've been experimenting with panettone and I've come across the issue time and time again of losing dough consistency while mixing the secondo impasto (i.e. the final panettone dough). What makes this ...
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Can flour be made from breadcrumbs? [duplicate]
Can flour be made from breadcrumbs, or is flour → bread an irreversible chemical reaction?
I'm wondering if new bread can be made from ground stale bread (i.e., breadcrumbs).
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Why does my deep fryer say not to use peanut oil?
I got a Tefal deep fryer for Christmas (yay!) which has an automatic filtering system so you can re-use oil multiple times. When reading through the manual it says 'Do not use groundnut (i.e. peanut) ...
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Maillard Reaction at Higher Pressures
The Maillard Reaction requires temperatures of 140 to 165 Degrees Celsius; hence "browning" cannot be achieved with water when cooking under normal conditions since the boiling point of ...
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What makes sencha karigane sweeter than sencha?
Why does the addition of stems and veins to the tea increase the sweetness of the brew? Is there a specific chemical in the stems and veins of tea leaves that's responsible for the change in flavor ...
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How does deglazing work?
If you put a steak or a chicken into a hot pan which is not completely non-stick, it is likely to stick to it a bit and leave a residue when you flip it. That is our fond.
Later we deglaze the pan by ...
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Can homemade vinegar be safely sealed in a bottle?
When I've read kombucha recipes a last recommended step was to bottle the liquid, allow some gas buildup to carbonate it, and then refrigerate it to stop the bacteria from continuing to produce gas. ...
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What happens on a microscopic or molecular level when meat "melts in your mouth"?
The phrase "melts in your mouth" has been applied to meat very commonly, but I was wondering about what actually happens on a molecular level to give that appearance or sensation.
This was ...
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Disolving chocolate in vodka?
I wanted to make a chocolatey drink, but creme de cacao is way too sweet. So I decided to try making chocolate vodka. I added about 3/4 cup of 63% chips (Guittard extra dark) into a small magic bullet ...
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What are the effects of various dairy ingredients in quiche?
What are the effects of various dairy ingredients in quiche?
Leaving aside the fact that a dish using cheese is not, technically, "quiche", I've looked into 5 different websites and ...
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How do egg whites help to keep fats inside a cake?
Recently I tried to bake a cake (Caprese) from:
ground almonds
butter
dark chocolate
sugar
eggs
I melted chocolate and butter, mixed all of this with whipped sugar yolks, and then... totally screwed ...
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Is "mintiness" a well-defined thing?
I perceive a similarity in taste and odour between spearmint and peppermint, and I describe both as minty. The smell, taste and cooling sensation of peppermint are reproduced almost perfectly by pure ...
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1
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Why adding soda without vinegar to the cake batter?
I have this well-rated chocolate cake recipe that I have not baked yet.
It's ingredients (among others) are
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
My understanding is that soda is needed ...
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630
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Why does beating egg whites with cold water increase the volume of incorporated air
From Wikipedia,
beating an egg white after adding a small amount of cold water considerably increases the amount of foam produced.
Why? What is changed by adding cold water?
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Can any liquid food be beaten into a mousse?
Hervé This discovered that one can make chocolate mousse with chocolate and water only.
This recipe is shown in this MasterChef video, and also detailed here.
Essentially, one melts chocolate with ...
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Can one create any flavor combination by breaking down the five modalities of taste into their chemical form and adjusting proportions accordingly?
Can one create any flavor combination by breaking down the five modalities of taste into their chemical form and adjusting proportions accordingly?
Namely, if you broke down sweetness, sourness, ...
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Cheese soufflé with bread cubes instead of egg whites
In this video: Cheese Soufflé that NEVER Falls! - Chef Jean-Pierre, Chef Jean Pierre proposes an interesting method for making cheese soufflé; instead of folding in beaten egg whites to his custard, ...
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Pudding vs. laundry starch - Add water gradually or all at once?
I recently watched a YouTube video "How to use old fashioned starch" by Constance MacKenzie about how laundry was starched in ye olde time. The only relevant information for my question is ...
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Good book on the chemistry of cooking?
What is a good book on the chemistry of cooking? I am looking for a book that discusses fermentation chemical reactions and reactions that occur when food is heated.
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Do yeast pancakes contain alcohol?
I fed my 2 year old pancakes that required yeast: yeast, mashed banana, warm water, whole wheat and buckwheat flour, and salt. I left the batch in the fridge overnight, and in the morning added a ...
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Food grade lye on counter tops
Long ago, I bought some food grade lye to make pretzels. Then I became afraid to use it cause I didn't think about the potential damage it could cause to my sink and some baking materials. ...
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What causes pollution when cooking? [closed]
I'm having trouble finding the right search terms so perhaps I am just missing some obvious resources. Sorry if that's the case.
It is sometimes brought up that cooking causes pollution. I learned of ...
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Is Manganese Violet suitable as a food coloring?
Can I use Manganese Violet as a food coloring? It's safe to use in cosmetics, and I've got some left over, so I was wondering. Is it toxic, edible or actually palatable? Does it have a certain taste? ...
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Is there a way to dilute oil?
I like to drink protein shakes, but I find that it's very hard to dissolve the protein powder into water or milk. You get clumps, and unless you want to get your blender dirty or spend ten minutes ...
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How to get crystallized honey out of a bowl
I was attempting to make a teriyaki sauce with soy sauce generous amounts of honey and orange juice boiling it all down on medium heat with some starch to thicken it. I ended up overdoing both the ...
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Does storing an apple with potatoes prevent the potatoes from sprouting?
I don't know if this is an old wives tale because a Google search didn't bring me conclusive proof: in fact the top two results have exactly opposite answers on this question. Apparently both apples ...
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Can I use washing soda to cook noodles?
I found a recipe for homemade ramen noodles that calls for 'baked baking soda'. Based on some research, baking sodium bicarbonate will convert it to sodium carbonate. Na2CO3 is more basic than NaHCO3 ...
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How to extract mouth numbing effect from Sichuan peppercorn into a syrup?
I tried following the recipe here to try to create a Sichuan peppercorn simple syrup. The recipe is basically to add slightly crushed peppercorn to sugar and water, allow to simmer, take off the heat, ...
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How can I substitute dutch chocolate cocoa for flour and maintain proper recipe PH in this cookie recipe?
I have an old family recipe for Chocolate chip cookies
2 ¼ cups flour
1 cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup shortening
1 tsp vanilla
Chocolate Chips as desired....
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Is it safe to use a grill to cook when chemically treated wood was burned in it?
my son burned chemically treated wood in my grill for a bonfire. Can I still cook in it, is it safe? or do I need to buy another grill?
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Why do potatoes cook more slowly in a stew?
I recently made a stew, not for the first time either, and I've tossed in a few potatoes, cut into cubes. It took about an hour and a half until they were soft. The stew was simmering the whole time.
...
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Separating gelatin from Jell-O powder
So I've been doing a bit more cooking while confined to my home and I wanted to make a recipe that calls for gelatin. I don't have any and I don't expect to be doing another grocery run for a few ...
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Is eating soap or bleach dangerous?
i was cooking some dessert today which contains milk as a primary ingredient. While cooking I started to notice that powder ingredients weren't dissolving in the milk. After a while under heat they ...
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Do milk and butter not work in place of cream for whipping, and why?
I’ve seen claims that, while you can replace heavy cream with the proper proportions of milk and butter in recipes that don’t require whipping, the mixture will not form stiff peaks when whipped, even ...
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Nixtamalization: Am I doing it right?
It's been a few years since I nixtamalizated the last time with the help of my Chilean friend.
Now I'm on my own and due to several contradicting information on the internet a little lost. Maybe ...
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Is it a bad idea to pour water on a pan without letting it cool off? [duplicate]
Obviously I have enough common sense to not add pour water into boiling oil, but after the cooking is done I try to add water to the pan so it's easier to wash. Usually I let it sit there cooling off ...
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Is Erythritol acid or alkaline and what is it's pH compared to brown sugar?
Is Erythritol acid or alkaline and what is it's pH compared to brown sugar?
In many baking recipes, baking soda is added together with acidic ingredients, such as brown sugar.
Also, this way, the ...
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2
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What kind of mixture(colloid) is a roux?
One of my coworkers had a curious question the other day: what kind of mixture or colloid is a roux? For example, whipped cream is a foam, mayonnaise is an emulsion, and gelatin is a gel.
I know ...
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Why boil sugar for lemonade? [duplicate]
I've started making home lemonade recently and all the recipes boil about one cup of sugar in one cup of water. I never questioned that until my father saw the process and asked why don't I just add ...
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What are food additives that help popsicles/shaved ice melt slower?
What are food additives that help popsicles/shaved ice melt slower?
Simple popsicle ingredients: water, sugar, flavoring
I used agar agar and gelatin before, but don’t want to: The texture is not the ...
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GIving that alcoholic taste to yeast-leavened cakes (panettones)
For the last 3 new year evenings I've tried to make panettones (both chocolate and fruit ones) and my recipe is getting better, with the last one being the first reasonably successful one. However I ...
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