Milk Street Q&A

Answered by Chris Kimball

Just pour the syrup through a fine strainer. Never throw it out! If you like, you can also heat it to 160 degrees as a precaution but I have never had an issue with this.

Answered by Matthew Card

Hi Mark, That is an excellent question! On the whole, Americans eat only about a pound of lamb a year (as opposed to 85 pounds of beef), so we tend to adapt our recipes to beef and offer lamb as an option whenever possible. For the most part, it's easy to swap out lamb cuts for beef if it's a stew or braise. Lamb shoulder is an easy swap for chuck roast. Rogan Josh is often made with lamb, beef or chicken at this point. I'd agree that its best with lamb because the strong-tasting meat stands up best to the spices, but we've tailored the flavorings to suit chicken. We've got a number of lamb recipes that may not show up in a simple search: Spicy Stir-Fried Cumin Beef This is one of our first recipes, which uses lamb to excellent results: No-sear Lamb or Beef and Chickpea Stew https://www.177milkstreet.com/recipes/turkish-minced-meat-kebabs This is excellent made with ground lamb: Indian Spiced Beef and Peas (Keema Matar) Spicy Chinese Beef Skewers (Niu Rou Chuan)

Answered by Chris Kimball

Nope but I have cooked with gluten free noodles (please do not ask me why!) and they are okay but lack the structure and chewiness of regular wheat noodles. You can test this out by reducing the cooking time in the instant pot based on how much quicker the gluten free noodles would cook in water. That being said, I use an IP a lot (have a Breville) but I never do noodles in it since there is no time savings. My fave recipes from that book are: Butter Chicken and the Leek Potato Soup. For the latter, I add sliced freshly roasted or poached chicken to serve. Amazing simple recipe. The brisket recipe is also great.

Answered by Whitney Kimball

Hi Sally! This is from our education director Rosie: If you’re feeding hungry people, I think simply doubling the recipe would be a great solution. Six hungry people will eat it all or leave just enough for you to have lunch the next day. If you’re worried about too many leftovers, I would still buy the ingredients for a double batch. Make the double batch up through the cooking the chicken, then portion off whatever you don’t think you will eat and freeze it, without adding the carrots, chilies, peas and basil. With the remaining portion in the pan – what you will serve that night – I would continue with the recipe using as much of the carrots, chilies, peas and basil as you like. It’s flexible. You can either pack it with extra vegetables, or reserve some of the veggies for a quick salad or vegetable stir-fry the next day. You will need to buy new vegetables for when you cook up the frozen portion -- to do that, just defrost the frozen portion and then continue with the recipe as written. Hope that helps!

Answered by Chris Kimball

I will leave it to you to determine how much starter to use but the key is to let the dough rise for 4 hours or so - it will rise, deflate, and then rise again. Also, the key is a super hydrated dough - close to 90% which means that the weight of the water has to be 90% of the weight of the flour. Include the starter in the weight of the flour.

Answered by Rosie Gill

Hi Robin - The short answer is yes! Here are a few tips: The Everything Pan is just shy of 2" tall and is 11" wide at the bottom, so there is plenty of volume for a deep-dish quiche. In fact, because it is so wide, you may find yourself needing more filling to get the height characteristic of a deep-dish quiche. You'll also need more dough to cover the larger surface area. I recommend doubling our crust recipe and freezing what you don't need. While the Everything Pan is already coated with vegetable oil, try greasing the sides and bottom with cooking spray or neutral oil to be sure that a tender quiche releases into nice slices. Last, our recipes calls for baking in a tart pan placed on a steel, but because the Everything Pan is cast iron, you don't need the steel for heat retention. Best, Rosie

Answered by Matthew Card

Hi, It's for gochujang paste, not sauce. The sauce tends to be thinned out and often sweetened, designed as an accompaniment or dipping sauce more than a fundamental ingredient. To make the sauce, thin a spoonful of paste with rice vinegar and a little soy sauce, then sweeten with honey to taste. Sesame oil can be added to round out the flavors and you can also add a little water to thin out. Of note: Gochujang paste is often available at different heat levels. We recommend sourcing milder gochujang because you can always increase the heat level to taste, but you can't scale it down.

Answered by Whitney Kimball

Hi Victoria! Whitney from the web team here. We’re well aware of this issue, and we’ve been working hard to fix it. We’re also working toward providing much more robust functionality throughout the site, prioritizing feedback from our users. We hope this to be in place by end of year. We’re a small team and appreciate your patience!

Answered by Matthew Card

Hi Kathie, Happy you love the pan! It's an excellent size for most anything--mine never leaves my stovetop. I think the pan is fine for the meatball tagine and dishes simmered for an hour or less. I avoid making sauces with a lot of vinegar or wine, which will be more acidic than the tomatoes. Best, Matt

Answered by Chris Kimball

If your cast iron is very well seasoned, it might be okay but not if cooked for a long time. If you were making a 15-minute sauce, fine but if simmering for a long time, over a half hour, I would worry that the flavor will be affected. To keep cast iron seasoned, I heat coarse salt and grapeseed oil in the pan or skillet, turn off the heat, and then scrub. Then wipe out the pan - no soap and no water. I then season the pan after every use - if clean, put a tbsp or two of oil in the pan heat and wipe the pan with paper towels as it heats. Turn off the heat when the oil smoked and continue to wipe pan every minute or so until the oil is well absorbed. There is also a wax and scrubber for cast iron on our store site - check it out here: https://store.177milkstreet.com/products/knapp-made-chainmail-combo-scrubber-with-silicone-core?\_pos=2&\_sid=7bae3af30&\_ss=r