I have many recipes that call for garlic. Unfortunately, my family and I are allergic to garlic. Can you recommend and garlic substitutes that won’t leave the recipe tasting bland? Allergic to garlic? Fate worse than death! You have my condolences. If other members of the onion family are okay, shallots would be a good […]
For pumpkin-pie crust with absolutely maximal crispitude, you can’t beat the last-minute-assembly method in which you bake the crust separately from the filling, then combine them just before serving … When it works, it’s spectacular. Prepare a prebaked 10-inch pie shell and set it aside. Now take a separate 9-inch pie pan and coat with […]
I’ve heard that you should not wash scallops? Is that true? Can you offer other scallop preparation tips? It’s true that you should never wash scallops because they readily absorb water. Some unconscionable packers soak their scallops to plump them up, and since this interferes with the best interferes with every method of cooking, […]
Before I buy new seeds, I’d like to know if I can use the ones I have left over from last year. How long do seeds last? Is there a general rule I can follow to tell if they are good? Seeds have widely differing useful lives. Onion, aster, and delphinium, for example, must be […]
I have a recipe for Nova Scotia Chowder that calls for “4 cups of blend cream 10 percent.” What is blend cream 10 percent? In Canada, blend cream, also called cereal cream, is the lightest available. As your recipe suggests, it’s usually right around 10 percent butterfat. Here, anything called “cream” must contain at least […]
Q: My mother taught me how to cook asparagus by boiling it for half an hour or so with a pinch of baking soda in the water. It got awfully soft, but the color was a nice bright green. I don’t cook my asparagus for nearly so long, but it still turns mushy if I […]
I have many recipes that call for sour cream. Is this cream that has been soured or the commercial boxed sour cream that can be used on potatoes, in dips, etc.? How do you make sour cream and can that be used interchangeably with the store-bought variety? Sour cream gets its acid taste from harmless […]
Old-fashioned recipes for quick breads and pancakes call for buttermilk, a product we rarely have on hand — are there any substitutes for buttermilk? Fortunately, buttermilk is not essential for this brand of baking — you can substitute whichever sour dairy product you happen to have around: either plain, natural yogurt (don’t use the […]
Is there a way to make pumpkin pie that has a nice, crisp bottom crust? I don’t mean “not soggy,” I mean crisp. I’ve tried everything—starting in a superhot oven, prechilling the crust before adding filling, even brushing the crust with egg white and letting it dry. Nothing helps. So what’s the secret to crisp […]
A year ago last spring, I put two healthy (still red) poinsettias in my garden. In the fall, I brought them back inside, still healthy but green. I though they would make red leaves for Christmas, but they didn’t. What went wrong? Why didn’t my poinsettia plants turn red? The red — or pink or […]
A lot of recipes call for wine — “red wine,” “port wine,” “white wine.” what kind do I buy? Must I go to the liquor store or can I get it at the grocery? Are there wine substitutions that can be used in cooking? Red and white wines have flavors different from each other and […]
Can you tell me how to chill wine quickly? Sticking the bottle of white in a bucket of ice takes what seems like forever, and the freezer isn’t much better. Surely there must be a solution that doesn’t involve dropping ice cubes in a glass of good Chardonnay. You can chill wine quickly — or […]
