What are you having for dinner?

We are having spicy Beef brisket, fried green beans with tarragon and garlic, corn, rolls and a fruit salad with mango, pineapple, watermelon and blueberries (topped with cool whip of course…hahaha : )
Hungry?

Do you salt you water before cooking vegetables?

My hubby and I are having a lively debate on the subject because I don’t salt any of the water and he says I should. I believe there is enough salt in everything else that it is better to try to cut it out of cooking. He (a chef) salts everything from meat, fish, veg, [...]

Anyone know of a simple website that explains which chilli peppers are the hottest, mildest and so on for cooking with? I’ve found endless sites that explain Scoville units, growing chillis, chemical compounds in chillies etc etc.

What I really need is a concise, bone-simple ranking for the top chillies easily found in Britain’s greengrocers rather than wierd and wonderful chillies only found in America or Mexico.
An idiot’s guide to Chillies!
Any ideas?
Cities mentioned in this Post: ScovilleCountries mentioned in this Post: Britain, Mexico

How do I spice up a salad

Anyone got any ideas as to what I can put through a salad to change it up a bit. I have been using the usual lettuce, cucumber, tomato, carrot and pepperoni and chicken but I need some more options or I’ll get bored and go back to junk food.

Calzone or Pasty, which influenced which?

The British pasty and the Italian calzone seem to be very similar. I have always wondered which way the influence went; from the Romans to the British or vice-versa?

Why should you leave meat to rest for five minutes?

For some reason, steak is better if you leave it to rest for a few minutes, but why? What happens to the meat during that period? Does it carry on cooking, or does the structure relax? What happens?
Also, what meats should you leave to rest? Does it apply to white and [...]

Hot chilli jelly? What can you use it for?

My Significant Other, usually a keen, eagle-eyed and sober shopper, strolled into a wine tasting in a new Lewes wine shop on Saturday. Stayed and did a bit too much research.
She came home clutching a tiny jar of Hot Chilli Jelly (only

which chopping boards are the most hygienic?

i’ve heard that wooden ones are better than plastic ones, that glass are better than both. what about granite and other natural stone chopping boards? is there any evidence to prove which ones are most sanitary?

Call me daft but I thought Banoffee Pie came from a village in Scotland called Banoffee…who invented it?… and where does it really come from?

-Well knock me down with a sheet of filo pastry!
Knowing that I am a total trifle addict (I frequently o.d. on my renowned home-made tiramisu), a friend brought round a Banoffee Pie she’d made last night. Never had it before. Drooled like Pavlov’s pet chihuahua on speed.
A wonderful masterpiece of bananas, toffee and cream.
As [...]

How does such a tiny amount of cornflour thicken up such a vast amount of mince?

Relatively speaking, two teaspoons of cornflour mixed into a paste makes about four pints of watery (yeuch) gloop into a nice thick gravied mince… that’s amazing, how does it do it?

Is there anything I can make with apple peel? more below..

Hubby bought 2 packs of apples (bogof) and realised when he got home they are cooking apples. (Men!)Is there anything I can do with the peel other than put in the composting bin?Obviously couldn’t eat that amount of peel as it is..

What is your signature dish?

All you top or budding chefs out there have you got a signature dish that you have created or know you cook the best? If so can I have the recipe and what reviews have you had?

Cooking time and temp for mature beef joint please

I bought a joint of mature beef from a farmer. He said because it was mature beef it should be cooked at a lower temp for longer. Any suggestions for madium beef. Thanks

How potentially hazardous is undercooked meat?

On so many cookery programmes the chefs extol the virtues of meat cooked very rare. I thought accepted expert advice on food hygiene was that all meat should be well cooked. If cooking meat rare is safe then is there any basis to the advice to keep raw and cooked meats separated?

How would I ‘muddle’ something?

I was making a fine adult beverage last night from a recipe off of the internet, and one of the steps was to ‘muddle about four or five mint leaves’, yet no description on how to do this was provided. I have never heard of this before, and I now lay it at your [...]

how do I add the egg to creamed potatoes?

Making a very special meal tonight and thought I would do a really grand creamed potato with egg in it. Do I whip the egg first and then beat it in? Do I add the egg before or after the butter and milk? Will it be all right then to reheat the whole thing [...]

Chicken legs and thighs….what scrummy suppers can i make with them?

I have been given a load of chicken legs and thighs and not sure what to do with them…some sort of casserole? coq au van? any ides?
I have all sorts of kitchen staples and veg knocking about, so any recipes will be helpful.

How do cook-from-frozen sausages differ from the ones that you can home-freeze (but need to defrost before cooking)?

I know that they are frozen in different ways, but what changes them from ‘must be defrosted before cooking’ to ‘cook from frozen’?
I guess the same could be asked of all fresh/frozen meat products.

What did you do with your Christmas Day leftovers?

Someone accidentally deleted my original question, so here it is again!
Jeanne, you are welcome to re-submit, Baobab you too can answer CAREFULLY!
Hope everyone had a great day!

Remember Rum Babas? Prawn Cocktails are having a revival. Tiramizu is still on my menu. But Rum Babas? Why are they called Rum Babas? Anyone have a recipe?

- We always used to joke in Streatham that a Rum Baba was a gay hairdresser from Leeds.
But I miss them!
Fond memories of being ’seiously sophisticated’ munching on a rum baba and listening to Bessie Smith Pearl Bailey in dodgy blues clibs off the Charing Cross Road trying not to let the rum baba drip [...]

Is suet supposed to dissolve fully when making pastry?

My boyfriend is making pastry for the 1st time (if you dont see me on here again you know why!!!!) and he is using low fat vegetable suet…having made a lump of pastry it still has lumps of suet in it. Should these dissolve or will this happen during cooking?

What can you do with marmalade that goes too runny when you are making it?

-Stefan, my pianist pal, has branched out into orange marmalade.
He’s followed a Delia recipe, used pectin etc, followed the recipe to the last letter…but it is still too runny.
Probably because, as he confesses only now, he should have left the lids off the pans when it was simmering.
Is there any fail-proof way to make it [...]