Cooking

Hi all,

I've been in a weird spot the last little bit. I recently bought an air-fryer at the thrift shop for a decently cheap price. The thing works like a charm, and I'm excited to start using it on the regular to make recipes like falafel and beet and potato chips.

The issue I'm currently having is just cleaning the damn thing. Clearly it had a lot of use from the previous owner, and I while I want to do the same myself, there's this tough to clean spot on the base that I can't figure out how to clean.

The model is a T-Fal Actifry 2-in-1, so rather than being the typical air fryer I've seen with the basket, this one has a rotating piece in the centre that can either be used to stir ingredients to keep them from sticking using a paddle, or have a rotating pan attached instead which keeps things in place.

The area in question I'm having trouble cleaning is in the base here, behind the plastic filter:

I've tried using an all-purpose cleaner, as well as a stronger cleaner that claimed to have degreasing properties (Vim Pureboost Power Shine), and neither of them have removed any of the mess. It was suggested by someone I try baking soda and vinegar, but I'm not even going to think about that, as I'm worried about things getting behind the slots there and frying the circuitry.

Thanks in advance.

Hey all,

Sorry to flood the community, just been working a lot about getting acquainted with the kitchen as of late, and learning more about navigating and utilizing it.

In three cookbooks, I've come across four recipes for soups I'm wishing to try. One for Borscht, one for Minestrone, one for a lentil soup, and one for Cauliflower soup. While I have the needed ingredients for these recipes, all of them call to cover the pot as the ingredients and/or soup are cooking.

My problem is that my pots don't have lids. When I first got the one pot, it came with one, but I can't recall what happened to it, all I know is that I no longer have it. I've brought the one pot to the thrift shop seeing if any of the loose lids there fit, but they were either way too large, just too small, or were perfectly sized, but refused to sit stable.

I was wondering how important it is to cover the pot as the soup and/or ingredients for the soup cook. Are there any consequences for not covering the pot, or does it simply take a longer time for cooking to finish?

Thanks as always in advance.

Hi all,

I recently came across a recipe that I wish to try for a lentil bolognese. I'm excited to try it as I've been trying to find a recipe I can use my red lentils with, but I'm curious about one thing both with this recipe, and recipes in general.

This recipe calls for the pan to be deglazed with red wine. This is something I've seen before in other recipes, though this recipe is the first of which I'm taking an interest in exploring. I'm personally fine with regular red wine, but my concern is that I have a friend who is incredibly cautious with alcohol, and says she'd refuse to eat things if they had alcoholic ingredients.

Putting aside my personal thoughts about that, I was curious if using a non-alcoholic wine would work just as well, or if the alcohol adds certain properties to the wine that make it function better as an ingredient or for deglazing. I'm mainly curious as I hope to invite friends over for dinner in the future, and want to make accommodations where possible, especially if it's as easy as simply buying a slightly different ingredient.

Thanks in advance!

Hey all,

I was making a smoothie for breakfast this morning, and was confused briefly as to where my frozen bananas went when I realized, whoops, I placed them in the fridge and not the freezer last I used them.

I've since put them back in the freezer, which I hope is foodsafe, but I was curious if I would be able to use them for banana bread if I ever make this mistake again. Based on smell and appearance, they seemed as though they'd be perfect for it, but figured I'd ask in case something differed based on water content of thawed frozen bananas, or if they lose certain qualities important for banana bread once frozen and thawed.

Thanks in advance!

This is my first time baking macarons. I’m not a rookie in the kitchen but i’m also not a pro. I followed this recipe: https://ricette.giallozafferano.it/Macarons.html (it’s in italian but i think there should be an english version). Pic of the disaster: https://ibb.co/NFNdMLV

I was recently on a vacation in Marseille, and I was really taken by the mayo there. This was often served with frites. Does anyone know a brand I could get in the west coast US that would be similar?

The main difference I noticed was a slight tang to it? Not sure how to describe it better. Hopefully someone has had it. 😅

I underestimated the yield of my homegrown mushrooms. I thought I would have a steady supply over the next few weeks, but instead, they all matured at once. As a result, I now have 2-3 kg of mushrooms, with another batch expected in about a week. I plan to make a pasta-mushroom casserole, pizza, capsicum-mushroom lecso, and mushroom cream soup, but I still have a lot left. Do you have any suggestions for how I can use them?

Hi again y'all,

Sorry for flooding the community, but I'm currently been trying to find new recipes to work with, and came across one that called for fresh green beans. I have a bag of frozen ones, and am curious as to whether or not I can use the frozen ones I have as a substitute.

In general I was curious that if I were to substitute fresh produce with frozen, if there would be anything I'd need to keep in mind. Would the cooking time differ? Would I need to thaw the frozen produce prior? Is some produce unable to be substituted with frozen equivalents?

Thanks for help in advance.

Hey all,

The other day I went to the thrift shop and while browsing, came across some pressure cookers that were being sold for cheap. I've heard of these things before, but this was my first time actually seeing them in person.

I did some research as to how they're used and what for, and I'm thinking I might as well purchase one. However, I know there is a risk of the thing exploding, especially seeing that they aren't new models sold from the store and all.

My main question is how I would go about preventing an explosion happening in my apartment if I were to use one. The two are stovetop ones rather than electric ones, and look more or less like this.

Thanks for any help in advance!

So, I’ve got pneumonia and am the only one who can cook in my household. I was told strictly to stay in bed and basically not do anything, but I’ve gotta eat and I’d like some good veggie soup. Any suggestions for how to make something quick and easy? I’ve got some good veggie stock already in the freezer thankfully but how can I quickly add to it to make it more filling? Are frozen veggies a good option? Egg noodles? It doesn’t have to be delicious, just easy and edible

1. Get half-kilo of fresh tomatoes, three onions, and three carrots. You can use the cheapest tomatoes for this, the heat treatment will average the taste. Wash everything. Chop onions and carrots, dump into the frying pan. Add salt.

2. Fry diced onions and carrots in a pan, using a generous finger-thick layer of oil, preferrably olive, until the onions don't sting anymore and carrots start to soften.

3. Cut tomatoes in 2 pieces each, you'll mash them anyway so thin slices do not matter. Dump tomatoes into the pan. Cover with a lid, cook on a slow fire for about 10 minutes until they become sauce. Mash and stir each 3 minutes so they won't burn. Cooking less will preserve taste of fresh tomatoes, cooking longer will make it taste closer to canned pasta sauce. But they won't have that taste of the can that you will get with canned tomatoes.

4. Add the secret ingredient - half-kilo of canned pork. This is an optional step - if you prefer taste over calories, it's better to prepare a separate meat dish instead. If you want to add hot pepper, add it now so it will spread uniformly.

5. Boil pasta while tomatoes are cooking - the standard 500 gram package will do, preferably something with a lot of surface like penne so it can soak up more sauce.

6. Dump Italian or French spice mix into the pan. Turn off the heat, let it simmer for 1 minute so the herbs will soften.

7. Dump pasta into the pan. Done! Plating is optional, you can eat it straight from the pan. And the next day you can prepare another wonderful dish - yesterday's pasta re-heated until it's crusty.

So I have absolutely boofed up a lasagna. It’s an old Margaret Fulton recipe and I was really looking forward to making it for the first time in ages.

The cheese mix was perfect, and the meat had cooked down fantastically. I must have had a brain fart though, because instead of just a sprinkle of mozzarella in between the middle layer and on top, I seem to have totally overdone it - it’s basically a mozzarella pile that just tastes like it’s been in the same room as the meat sauce. Pretty much a salty inedible blob.

So instead of wasting it, I wanted to ask if anyone has any ideas of how to salvage this mess? Recook with extra sauce? Scrap off the top and hope for the best? Anyway to save it!?

A lot of recipes suggest adding corn syrup or honey to the sugar in order to make crystallization less likely. I'm not in the US, so corn syrup pretty much doesn't exist, but I have a jar of raw and therefore very crystalized honey that I got from a friend who keeps bees. Will using that still help? I'm thinking that all the imperfections like pollen or wax in raw honey will just make the caramel even more likely to crystalize.

So I'm very sure the only original things with cooking is the mix of ingredients,

So with being said, I wanted to know if there's already a name to this.

What I do is take canned tuna, strain it and then add 2 tbsp of flour. I give it a good stir and then let it sit for 20 minutes. Once the 20 minutes is up, I'll throw a raw egg and 3 tbsp of flour and then I'll shake the container so there's a nice doughy layer over the tuna. I'll then fry it at roughly 425°F until golden brown (usually only takes a minute two). I'll remove from the oil and then put over rice or Asian noodles. It's a great lunch and you can add any sauce that you want to it (even though I recommend sweet or Asian sauces).

So is there an actual name to the tuna i fried? Or is it just a "wing it" kind of thing?

🌱 #vegan #cooking #spaetzle @cooking@lemmy.world

Recipe from America's Test Kitchen:

2 cups (8 oz) whole wheat flour
1 cup (4.25 oz.) unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup of wheat bran
1/4 cup wheat germ
2 teaspoons of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
2 cups of buttermilk

375° middle rack, 40-45 minutes, rotate 1/2 way through. 185° internal temp. Cool for 1 hr.

I found, on initial mix, the dough was far, far, too dry. It kept crumbling apart and WOULD NOT hold together.

I kept adding splashes of buttermilk until I could get a loaf that would hang together.

Baking time had to go a little longer too, after 45 minutes it was only 145°. Maybe because of the added buttermilk. Running another 15 minutes brought it up to temp.

America's Test Kitchen has some good videos on cooking technique. This one covers food (mostly meat) sticking to metal pans, how to prevent it and some cases when there are advantages to allow sticking.

Let me know if you're interested!

Recently I've been buying a few cookbooks from the thrift shop. Saves money over getting the new ones, saves second-hand goods from being tossed, and does the job I need in finding recipe ideas.

One of the cookbooks I got is a cookbook on pasta sauces. I've been holding off on making pasta until I could portion the servings properly, and I recently just got a portioning tool to help me with that. However, when I wanted to try a recipe from the book, I found surprisingly that the recipes called for fresh tomatoes.

Now, the cookbook is by no means new, seeing how the publication date is 1987. From what I've heard, canned tomatoes are actually preferred over fresh, though I can't recall the reasoning as to why. I was curious about whether culinary knowledge has evolved since the publication of this book where common practice has changed to prefer canned tomatoes over fresh, or if the differences I've heard about are unfounded or incorrect.

On top of that, I was curious about other aspects. Would making pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes (namely Roma tomatoes) be cheaper than using canned? Also, since I'm trying to be more environmentally conscious, would canned tomatoes have a higher carbon footprint than fresh, or would the differences be negligible?

Thanks in advance! I likely won't be able to respond to comments right away, but I do appreciate any and all help.

They have really good sales almost all the time, their spices are extremely high quality, and they are politically active as anti-fascist leftists....what's not to love?

Following up on the "Baking in the American South" post, I picked up some Nordic Ware pans today for bundt cakes and pound cakes.

Included was a Angel Food cake recipe requiring 12 egg WHITES.

I have no problem separating, but it seems a waste of a DOZEN egg yolks.

Any ideas on what to put them in?

I guess I could make the egg sauce bottle here, but I'd have to buy a Sou Vide machine. :(

https://youtu.be/KL4PDa6PpLQ