27
Throw it away, it's not worth risking health issues over such a cheap staple. While the flour was originally dry, the pork juice introduced moisture into it, providing a much better breeding ground for bacteria.
Your concern should not be (just) the bacteria, but also the much hardier toxins that they produce--those could easily give you food poisoning, and ...
22
Yes, of course you can keep flour in the freezer. For whole wheat flour, which is susceptible to rancidity due to the fat from the whole grain being included, it is even recommended.
For white flour, according to the University of Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County (emphasis added):
For longer storage, keep white flours in the refrigerator in an
...
22
You should be fine, as long as you mix it in thoroughly.
Flouring the beef and browning is a very common first step, so there is maybe some in there already? Any extra flour to thicken needs some time to cook or it will make the gravy feel grainy.
Stir, stir, stir, and if you see any lumps, take them out. Be careful that this does not over-thicken the ...
21
I think you will be disappointed.
While a fantastic protein source, cricket flour does not contain the gluten proteins that make bread what it is. Therefore, bread made with cricket flour must get its structure somewhere else. The majority of recipes I can find are quickbreads which get their structure from added eggs blown up with baking soda. Dense and ...
17
What do we look in a pizza dough?
There are many styles of pizza: Italian Vera Pizza Napoletana, Chicago style, ... All of them have something in common in their dough: it should be stretched without tearing, and shouldn't stretch back.
Also, some recipes call for long fermentation times: 6, 9 or more hours at room temperature. With this you get a more ...
16
No, flour and starch are very different things.
Starch is a molecule consisting of a chain of glucose rings. It is one of the main ways plants store energy. In practice, it is extracted from many different grains and tubers such as potato, wheat, tapioca and corn.
Flour is a food ingredient made from milling a grain very finely, and frequently also ...
16
It doesn't go into the meat, it soaks up water and becomes a slurry. The slurry is transparent, so you don't see it.
If you fry it as it is, you won't prevent spraying and sticking the same way it would have been possible with a dry flour layer. If you roll it again, you will have these effects again, plus slightly more heat buffering because of the double ...
14
The reason flour is in paper bag (either 1kg/2lbs bags from supermarkets, or 25kg for bakeries) is to let it "breath": to get it oxidized. If you see an old (vintage) bag it's made of a net that lets a lot of air to get in. Today those bags are not used because it also allows bugs to get in.
When wheat grains are just milled, the flour is not good enough: ...
13
For 1 cup self-raising flour, add 1½ tsp baking powder+ ¼ tsp salt to 1 cup all purpose flour. (http://www.joyofbaking.com/IngredientSubstitution.html)
Edit: Calculation added by Sebbidychef:
According to http://www.jsward.com/cooking/conversion.shtml 1 cup of un-sifted all-purpose flour is equal to 120g.
Therefore 1000 divided by 120 is 8.3 recurring (...
13
Short answer, yes provided you emphasize the airtightness of your storage container.
I often trust the wisdom espoused on the forums of King Arthur Flour's website, and specifically this topic on freezing flour. All commenters who report personal anecdotes with freezing flour report positive ones. The one note that should be made is that
self-rising ...
12
Whole wheat flour goes rancid. There is a lot of fat in wheat germ and when it oxidizes the flour becomes very bitter and has a very noticeable, unpleasant scent.
First of all- if you use bleached white flour there is little to worry about. Bleached flour has had much of the wheat removed to give it a longer shelf life. At the expense of flavor and ...
12
Maida is wheat flour similar to what is sold in the US as cake flour. Like cake flour, maida is finely milled, and it has less protein than all purpose flour. You can use it for bread and cakes, as well as chapatis, parathas and puris.
To achieve a flour more like all purpose or other flour types, you can add gluten to maita. According to The Fresh Loaf, ...
12
It is possible, whether it fits your definition of easily is questionable, though.
Whole grain flour is made by grinding whole wheat/rye/... berries until you get a fine flour, a technique used since the neolithic age. The method that is still in use today is basically "rubbing the grains between a firm base stone and a moving upper stone", either shaped ...
11
Roux Method
The advantages of the roux method:
It can be prepared in advance
The raw flour taste is cooked out when the roux is prepared, so the sauce is ready as soon as it is thickened; this also makes it easier to add more roux to adjust the thickness of the sauce.
It actually requires less supervision. You are actually being overly fussy with your ...
10
You're very correct the grinders are pretty pricey. I believe we paid about $300 for ours.
There are a few good reasons for me to have a grinder. Whether they are good reasons for you is your call.
1- I can grind whatever I want. Right now I am using hard white wheat. Unbleached, hard, white wheat flour is more expensive than your run-of-the-mill flour and ...
10
Assuming you aren't very unlucky and happen to download a series of bad recipes I think it's one of a few things.
It's possible you could be undercooking your goods. Fully cooked baked goods should not taste like flour.
It's also possible that you could be mixing insufficiently. If this were the case though you'd likely have some cookies that weren't ...
10
The main things that can go bad with flour, assuming it is properly stored are:
Rancidity
Insect infestation
If you don't see any insects, and it still smells good, you should feel free to use it. If it smells off or nasty—trust me, your nose will tell you—then you will want to discard it.
The actual date on the bag is only a guideline.
10
You already have mentioned the primary reason for adding the flour: to thicken the chowder.
The author of this particular recipe has added it to the recipe while you are sauteeing the aromatics, I infer. This creates, in essence, a quick roux, cooking some of the raw taste out of the flour, and helping ensure that you will not get lumps.
You could ...
10
Since you ask about other tools, I recommend avoiding the mixer altogether and instead grate frozen butter into the flour. If you have a food processor you can use the coarsest grating blade--chilling the bowl and grater first will help keep the butter cold will help--but it goes quickly by hand with a coarse grater.
The key is to get the butter distributed ...
10
The skin forms because water evaporates from the surface of the dough. The middle doesn't dry out because the drier dough skin is less porous, and so the rate of moisture loss slows down as the skin forms.
It's perfectly okay to eat it, it's just the same dough but drier. Whether it is pleasant to eat is another matter of course. It won't become unsafe ...
9
You're alluding to the correct answer: running it through several times basically kneads the dough and develops gluten.
Gluten provides strength to dough. It forms a flexible, elastic 'net' (the 'net' portion isn't really relevant to pasta dough though) , allowing it to stretch more and is much, much less brittle. Even better, would be to put it through ...
9
00 is extra-fine flour, the most refined grade. Here's a useful page for more about the old flour grading system. Other than pasta I use it for thickening sauces, and I sometimes make pizza dough with it, although I can't tell the difference between using 00 and good quality bread flour. I'd use 00 for Gnocci certainly as the chefs do, but most home cooks ...
9
Many, many things happen when flour flour is mixed into batter. From your description, though, it sounds like you are interested in what leads to and relieves clumping.
When water (whether it is just plain water, in milk, in juice, or whatever) and flour are mixed, the water will begin to expand and penetrate the starch granules in the flour. The starch ...
9
The advantage can be reduced to one word: taste.
A slurry based sauce is not the same thing as a roux based sauce. Milk pudding is not a Bechamel in the same way that a baguette is not a brioche, margarine is not butter, and 'cocoa-containing fat glaze' is not ganache. It has a different taste, and cooks over the generations have preferred the Bechamel ...
9
Yes, and it is very easy. I do it all the time.
You only need a very simple calculation. You don't even have to be precise.
If you do want precision, you will have to find out 1) how much of your flour protein is gluten, 2) how much of your "vital wheat gluten" is gluten, and 3) how much gluten content you need for your recipe. Then use a simple rule-of-...
9
Thanks to rumtscho for pointing me in the right direction, I came up with a formula that'll accomplish the math described by rumtscho and cranbo on thefreshloaf.com:
targetPercentProtein = (flourPercentProtein * x) + (vitalGlutenPercentProtein * y)
(100 - targetPercentProtein) = ((100 - flourPercentProtein) * x) +
((100 - ...
9
Wheat and (other grains) contains the two protein classes gliadin and glutenin, which together can form the composite protein gluten.
This process requires water and is influenced by
a) the amount of water available and
b) the mechanical process of kneading.
Thus a strong gluten network (as desired in bread baking) is acchieved by either
dilligent ...
9
No. Not at all.
Baking soda is a leavening agent. Together with baking powder it gives your cake lift and airiness. Bread flour is just flour with a higher protein content. If anything, it will make your cake more dense (though not in such small quantities as you would have for baking soda). If a recipe calls for both baking soda and baking powder, the ...
9
Pasta can be made from many types of flour. Often, this is predicated on style of pasta or the dish. 100% AP flour will be just fine for your ravioli. I use it often when making fresh pasta.
Substituting the AP flour for the semolina might impact the hydration. I would hold off on the water at first. If the dough feels too dry, add water a tablespoon ...
8
Then I began to slowly add chicken stock.
There's your problem: slowly. When you add the stock to the roux, an irreversible chemical reaction starts, where the starches from the roux bind to the fluid and gelatinize. After they have gelatinized, they cannot soak up any more fluid. So when you add a small amount of stock and stir it all in, all the starch ...
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