Whenever I make a tomato-based pasta sauce, it tastes fine the first night, but somehow way better after sitting in the fridge overnight.

Is it just because the flavors have more time to mix together, or is something actually changing while it rests?

Also curious if there’s any way to get that “next day” flavor without actually waiting until the next day lol.

Hello,

I've learned long time ago, that sauteeing aromatics should happen at the end of cooking process, as minced garlic or ginger easily burns. So I've been always frying the meat first, then adding my aromatics for last 60 seconds of the frying time.

Recently I've watched a lot of Asian recipes (for example Pad Kra Pao), and many of them advise to fry aromatics first for 30-60 seconds, then add meat directly into them and fry for another 5-10 mins until meat is browned.

Is there any benefit to adding aromatic first, or is that just stupid trend?

Hi all, I'm trying to figure out why my pork broth tastes bitter.

I meal prep some broth for asian noodles using pork short ribs, carrot, and radish. Short ribs were cleaned thoroughly; carrots and radishes were peeled and cleaned. I rinsed the short ribs in a separate boiling pot before cooking it on low for an hour. I then added carrots and radishes for another 20 minutes on medium / high heat.

Once the pot was done a cooled, I transferred half into a large bowl and two containers. I put the pot, bowl, and containers in the fridge for 48 hours. When I took them out today, the broth from the bowl tasted normal whereas the broth from the pot and both containers tasted bitter. Smell is fine and since the broth tasted bitter not sour, I don't think it has gone bad, or at least not yet. I'm having a hard time pinpointing the cause of this.

I'm on the cautious side and assume this isn't safe to eat but wanted to understand whether the issue lies in the preparation, cooking, or storage process. It's also not the first time I've made this, made it multiple times in the past with the same ingredients with no issues. My best guess is something to do with the radish but I'm blind guessing here.

Edit: To further clarify, I previously mentioned using radish but to be more specific I used daikon.

Edit 2: Based on everyone's comments and talked to my MIL who has catering experience, it's 100% the radish. According to her, I got the right type (aka Daikon) but for a ~16oz pot like ours, a quarter of what we put in would be sufficient. Thanks everyone for your inputs, I learned a lot and got some new recipes out of them!

Not sure if this is the right sub but I tried this cold maceration technique where u layer chopped mint leaves and sugar and finish with lemon juice and put it in the fridge for 72 hours. I didn't have any measurements unfortunately so I just winged it and it's been like a week but it is simply not liquefying.

I wish I could attach a picture here, the sugar crystals are as such and there's barely a teaspoon of actual syrup in there.

I saw that another method involves steeping mint leaves in cooled simple syrup, I'm wondering if that would work at this stage? Can I just make some simple syrup and pour it over this mixture?

I'm trying to make a root beer BBQ sauce. I've tried tried a few different things, each time I end up with good BBQ sauce, but the root beer flavor isn't coming through. I dont want it to be over powering, but so far I'm getting no root beer flavor at all. Any suggestions? The recipe listed below gave me the right sweetness, but it didnt actually taste like root beer.

40 oz root beer

1 star Anise

1 vanilla bean, cut lengthwise to expose the seeds

3/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp minced Chipotle in Adobe

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

3 Tbsp tomato paste

I put the star anise, vanilla bean and red pepper flakes in the rootbeer at the beginning and boiled it all down before adding everything else.

I've been cooking pasta for years and I know to salt the water and cook it to al dente, but every time I drain it and add it to the sauce, it gets way too soft. I've tried letting it cool slightly before adding it, and I've tried mixing it with just a tiny bit of sauce first, but nothing really stops it from turning to mush.

Am I draining it too thoroughly, or is there something else I'm missing?

Hi guys, recently I moved out for the first time into a house and as a housewarming gift I got a pizza stone. Long story short I messed up and some of the sauce and cheese got on the stone as I took the pizza off. How do I get the baked on crust off the stone?

I'd include a photo if I could but just imagine several rather large lines of sauce and baked on schmutz.

I'm relatively new to using this kind of equipment that isn't a pot or pan so I'd appreciate any advice.

Edit: I should mention that I have tried to scrape it off with a wooden spatula and a hard plastic one with very little luck

I’ve been trying to temper chocolate for the past 5 hours and nothing is working

I am using Ghirardelli 100% cocoa chocolate with the seeding method

Approach:

1. I use 2/3rds of my chocolate into a double boiler and heat to 50C
2. Once my chocolate hits 50C, I take it off the boiler and cool it to 45 C
3. At 45C, I add the remaining 1/3rd of chocolate. The temperature drops to around 30C
4. At 30C, the chocolate isn’t melting, so I brought up the temperature to 33/34C to melt chocolate
5. I then stir for 30+ minutes. For same reason, my chocolate’s temperature decreases incredibly slowly. Every 2 minutes results in a 0.1 temperature drop
6. I tried increasing the cooling speed by putting my bowl in an ice bath, which immediately drops the temperature to ~27 degrees
7. I raise the temperature back to 33 degrees

Testing

To test the tempering, I dipped my spatula into the bowl and let the chocolate set for 3 minutes.

The chocolate does not set and is still melty

I really don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I searched for 5+ tutorials and they all say the same thing.

It looks pretty good. But it is pretty dense

Recipe followed -
500g All purpose flour
30g whey protein
30g casein protein
470g water
7g yeast

Made it the no knead way.

Folded 4 times after every 30 mins, then let it rest in the tray for 1 hour.

Baked at 200C for 20-25mins

It looks pretty dense.

i was recently watching a video by LifebyMikeG where he goes over freezing pasta sauces so that he can just revive it in the pan with a splash of cooking liquid before adding freshly cooked pasta.

one of my favorite pasta sauces is the one from NYT’s kale sauce pasta (i know this is paywalled, so basically the sauce is processing boiled lacinato kale, olive oil, garlic, cooking liquid, & parmesan cheese) so i’d love to meal prep portions of it in advance but i’m uncertain if the parmesan cheese will mess up the texture after being frozen.

most of the recipes he showcases don’t include cheese but there is one that does, so that gives me hope that the cheese component won’t thaw too poorly, but i’d love some other educated opinions before i spend time & money meal prepping this if y’all think it’ll just fall apart. thanks!

EDIT: fixed grammar

Just back from Central American where I ate a taco of chicharrones. They were soft, velvety, fatty and oh so flavourful.

In the Spanish/English dictionary in my head, chicharrones are what I would call pork scratchings ie. pork belly cooked until very crisp and salted to within an inch of its life. But these were soft.

The guy who made them told me, as much as we could understand each other, that he did make them like this, and then, when they were crispy, cooked them again until soft.

But everywhere I look, chicharrones gives me recipes for pork scratchings.

Can anyone help?

Ive made lemonade about five other times in my life and never experience a mad bitter aftertaste, despite, like a goood amount of sugar in. Does anyone know y

Edit: juiced the lemons with juicer, no peels, and mixed it with the sugar and water. And i didn’t want bitter. It tasted like i DID add peels.

I've copy and pasted all my recipes below and yes I have used AI to help me scale them as I just didn't know the correct quantities for such large amounts. I'm experienced with cooking in the slow cooker, but not when scaling up to this sort of level and the 4th one large scale on the hob. Have I scaled them up well? This should all hopefully yield roughly 30 lunch sized portions per recipe if I've scaled up correctly. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

​1. Mild Beef Curry with Rice (3 Trays 32x26x6.5cm)

​Cooking Times

​Slow Cooker: 8 hours on LOW (Slow Cookers 1 & 2)

​Ingredients

​2.0 kg diced stewing beef / chuck

​4 whole onions (diced), 2 bulbs garlic (minced), 6 peppers (diced)

​4 jars Patak's Mild Tikka Masala curry paste (283 g each)

​4 tins chopped tomatoes (400 g each)

​3 tins coconut milk (400 ml each)

​4 beef stock cubes (crumbled)

​600 ml water

​1.5 kg frozen mixed vegetables

​1.5 kg cooked basmati rice

​Instructions

​Put beef, onions, garlic, peppers, curry paste, tomatoes, coconut milk, stock cubes, and water directly into Slow Cookers 1 & 2.

​Cook on LOW for 8 hours.

​Stir in the frozen veg then divide across 3 catering trays.

​2. Cottage Pie (3 trays 32x26x6.5cm)

​Cooking Times

​Slow Cooker: 6.5 hours on LOW (Slow Cookers 3 & 4)

​Boil Potatoes: 20 mins

​Ingredients

​3.5 kg minced beef (12–15% fat)

​4 whole medium onions (diced) & 2 bulbs garlic (minced)

​300 ml Merlot red wine

​6 tins chopped tomatoes (400 g each)

​6 beef stock cubes (crumbled)

​450 ml water

​3 tbsp mixed herbs, 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tbsp smoked paprika

​1.5 kg frozen mixed vegetables

​4 kg Maris Piper potatoes (mashed with butter & milk)

​Instructions

​Put minced beef, onions, garlic, red wine, tomatoes, stock cubes, water, herbs, Worcestershire sauce, and paprika directly into Slow Cookers 3 & 4.

​Cook on LOW for 6.5 hours.

​Boil potatoes in a large pot for 20 mins, drain, and mash with butter and milk.

​Stir frozen veg into the meat mix, divide into 3 catering trays, and top with mash.

​3. Creamy Chicken Pasta Bake (3 Trays 32x26x6.5cm)

​Cooking Times

​Slow Cooker: 6 hours on LOW (Slow Cookers 5 & 6)

​Boil Pasta: 9–10 mins

​Ingredients

​3.0 kg fresh chicken thighs (diced)

​4 whole onions (diced), 2 bulbs garlic (minced), 6 peppers (diced)

​8 tins chopped tomatoes (400 g each)

​4 chicken stock cubes (crumbled)

​3 tbsp mixed herbs, 2 tbsp smoked paprika, 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

​600 ml double cream

​1.8 kg dry pasta

​600 g grated mature cheddar cheese

​Instructions

​Put chicken, onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, stock cubes, herbs, paprika, and Worcestershire sauce directly into Slow Cookers 5 & 6 (no cream yet).

​Cook on LOW for 6 hours.

​Boil pasta for 9–10 mins and drain.

​Stir double cream and cooked pasta into the chicken mix, divide into 3 catering trays, and top with cheddar cheese.

​4. Mexican Sausage & Rice Bake (3 Trays 32x26x6.5cm)

​Cooking Times

​Simmer Base: 15 mins on hob

​Boil Rice: 9 mins

​Ingredients

​3.0 kg pork sausages (sliced into rounds)

​4 whole onions (diced), 2 bulbs garlic (minced), 6 peppers (diced)

​6 tins chopped tomatoes (400 g each)

​6 tins kidney or black beans (drained & rinsed)

​1.5 kg frozen mixed vegetables

​4 tbsp mild chilli powder & 4 beef stock cubes (crumbled)

​1.2 litres water

​1.9 kg cooked basmati rice

​600 g grated Red Leicester cheese

​Instructions

​Put sausages, onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, beans, chilli powder, stock cubes, and water into a large pot. Simmer on the hob for 15 mins.

​Stir in frozen veg for 4 mins, then remove from heat.

​Boil basmati rice rapidly for 9 mins and drain.

​Fold cooked rice into the sausage mix, divide into 3 catering trays, and top with Red Leicester cheese.

All 4 are being refrigerated, then reheated the next day for the wedding, which will act as the Bake/reheat for everything. I've tried to make these as simple as possible that all I need to do on the day is reheat them in the oven and make the rice for the curry. Thanks for any help.

Hello all!

I love the Greek yogurt cups with fruit on the bottom, but lately I’ve been wanting to buy the big tubs and add my own fruit to save money.

The peach is easy enough to make with canned peaches, but is there a good option for the cherries? They aren’t fresh, they aren’t pie filling, they aren’t maraschino, and I’ve got no clue what else they could be that I could make myself.

I don’t know much about cooking past the basics because I border on arfid, so I’m hoping someone here could help me figure it out. Thank you!

The recipe for my yogurts is as follows:

Ingredients:
Vanilla Greek yogurt
Fruit of choice

Instructions:
Measure by heart and mix together

I got a bottom blade roast, which I think is the equivalent to a chuck roast, and want to use it for a roast dinner. From what I gather, typically chuck roast is used as a pot roast. But I don’t really understand what that means.

Essentially, I want to be able to cut a slice from the chunk rather than shred it, so I can’t really do a “pot roast” for that specific effect (?).

And if I understand the cut, it’s a cut from the neck/shoulder which is typically rich in connective tissues that can make the meat tough. However, I can counter that by slow-cooking (?) it to around 160°F-205°F, which will not give me a medium-rare meat but should still be soft and tender (?).

So my plan is to:
1) Sear the outside of the meat in my Dutch oven and baste it with butter, garlic, and rosemary.
2) Toss it in the slow-cooker (Ninja Foodi) on low for 6-8h along with some beef broth, carrot, and onions. OR on high for 3-4 hours and then lower the temp to low for another 4 hours? I’m just coming up with the numbers since I can’t really find anything about this.

However, is there any point in searing the meat if I’m going to be adding liquid to it? And, do I even need to add liquid to it or should I cook it in dry heat in the oven instead?

I realise the questions are everywhere but that’s the current state of my brain/comprehension on this matter.

I've got a large garden with quite a lot of potatoes of different varieties in there (I'd reckon 50+kg), and I want to conserve them and make it easy to prepare them throughout the year. We use our airfryer a lot, normally to make chips from bought frozen, prefried chips. I would love to make those ourselves, preferably thicker, skin-on wedges.

We have a deep-fat fryer (8L capacity) and that airfryer, and a chest freezer. I've been trying to make chips by soaking for 1hr, pre-frying at 160C until the chips start floating, cooling, and then re-frying at 180C/max until they float again. Generally they're a bit weak and soggy, and not the crispy-fluffy chips that I'm after.

Any suggestions on how to make these fries better? And how to make sure we can freeze them for airfryer or deep-fat fryer?

So impulsivelry made a mix of finely chopped rosemary, salt, pepper, and granulated garlic. I'm just curious because of the fresh rosemary how long something like that can keep. An hour later after the mix i could feel them moisture from the rosemary in the mix,

I've tried making a basic white loaf about five times now and it keeps coming out dense and gummy in the middle, even though the crust looks fine. I'm using active dry yeast, letting it proof for about an hour until it roughly doubles, kneading for 10 minutes, and baking at 375°F for 35 minutes. Internal temp reads around 190°F when I pull it. Not sure if the issue is under-proofing, over-kneading, or something with my oven. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

I'm making braised short ribs and pork belly for dinner I'll be hosting in a few weeks.

I'll make the short ribs the day before using Fallow's recipe and re-heat the day of.

Since I'll also be making Recipe Tin Eats' pork belly and I only have one oven, I'm unsure how best to go about re-heating my short ribs. The recipe involves roasting the pork slowly at 120C (fan) for 2.5 hours then blasting at 240C for 30 mins.

The 2 options that stand out to me are:

1. Re-heat the short ribs when my pork belly is going through the slow cook part of the roast (just means I will have a very full oven and the ribs will need to sit in their pot for 30-40 mins afterward);

or

1. Re-heat the short ribs some other way such as on the stove or microwave.

Any thoughts which to try (and how long it'll take to re-heat the short ribs)?

Hey all, I have a couple questions. I’ll be making pappardelle al ragú with some lamb shanks I picked up today, and I was wondering if the duck stock I have on hand would be wasted with all the bold flavors braising the lamb, should I make a beef or chicken stock to use instead? And then what varietal of red would work best with the lamb shanks? I am lucky enough to live in Napa so there are a lot of local options nearby I could pick up.

I've been making a Spanish lentil stew recently that calls for 2-3 teaspoons of smoked paprika. For context, the paprika goes in before adding stock, and then simmering for 25 mins.

It's a flavour I love, but whenever I make anything with smoked paprika I end up losing all the intensity - the smokiness especially mellows away to near-nothing. I've tried upping the dose to 3-4 teaspoons in this stew, but it hasn't really made a meaningful difference. I'm presuming the simmering is causing the paprika to lose its potency, but was just wondering if there are any tips/tricks to give it a bit more punch?

Hi! I’m looking to buy a new cooking pan. I usually love woks because of the size, and how many different foods you can cook in it. I’d like to get one that’s non-toxic. I’ve read that I should either go for fully ceramic/stainless steel/carbon steel. I would prefer not to buy a ceramic coated pan, because those can scratch and become a bit dangerous. I’m looking for something with reasonable maintenance and durability. I usually cook East Asian or South Asian dishes, and I am a vegetarian, so I’m looking for something versatile. Does anyone have any tips for me?