Milk Street Q&A

Answered by April Dodd

Michael, we're so happy to hear that you're using this time to tackle some big cooking projects. I'm not surprised to hear that you're having trouble finding salt pork; it has fallen somewhat out of favor these days. You could certainly use pancetta (rolled, not sliced like bacon) as a stand-in; it's similarly salty but has a slightly higher meat:fat ratio than salt pork does. I'd recommend that over lardons or smoked ham hocks, which can be quite intensely smoky and overwhelm the other flavors in a cassoulet. For ease, I'd go with the pancetta, but if you make your own salt pork, more power to you! - April D.

Answered by April Dodd

Amanda, I'm glad you love the recipe! A gluten-free panko should work just fine, though we haven't tested the recipe that way. The result may be just slightly denser than with traditional panko, but still excellent. Please let us know how they come out! - April D.

Answered by April Dodd

Nancy - I'm glad to hear that you have plenty of ginger on hand and that you are thinking about how to make it last. Here are some favorite options: Peel your ginger and cut it into thin (about 1/4 inch) slices. Place the slices on a parchment paper-lined sheet and freeze until very firm, then transfer to a tightly sealed plastic baggie. When you need fresh ginger, simply pull out a few discs from the freezer, let thaw for 10-20 minutes, then cut as needed. These are good for a year or more. If you frequently use ginger in curries in soups, then you could make frozen ginger paste. Peel and finely grate the ginger, then pack it into the cubes of an ice cube tray. Freeze until solid, then transfer to a tightly sealed plastic baggie. These are good for a year or more. Make a snack of candied ginger. I love this recipe from David Lebovitz: https://www.davidlebovitz.com/candied-ginger/. Just save the syrup from this recipe and use it for cocktails or homemade sodas. This stays good for up to two weeks in a sealed container in the fridge. Hope that helps! - April D.

Answered by April Dodd

Really glad to hear that podcast has inspired more baking, Annie. As a general rule, of course the most reliable thing to do is to follow the instructions as given in each recipe; recipe developers do a ton of work behind the scenes. That said, let's think about the reasons for the standard bowls of wet and dry ingredients. One big reason to keep dry and wet separate is so that we don't over-hydrate or over-work the flour, resulting in dense, bready cookies. So it definitely makes sense to keep the flour away from the other ingredients as long as possible. But why keep the other dry ingredients separate too? Two big reasons. First, mixing salt, spices, and leavening agents with the flour helps to ensure that they are evenly spread throughout the batter. Second, we don't want to expose leavening agents to moisture too early. Baking soda starts to react as soon as it is combined with liquid and acid (including vanilla), and part of baking powder's "oomp" is used as soon as it interacts with any form of liquid. So combining those ingredients with the flour helps to ensure you get the full leavening you need. With all of that said, you can see how, if you work quickly, most cookie recipes would work fine with the technique in your new book, which saves you that dry ingredients bowl. Does that make sense? - April D.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Kulia - 90% of the time cookies will become flat because the dough is too warm. The fat in the cookie (usually butter) is too soft and, therefore, begins to melt before the leavener has a chance to do its work. Popping the cookie dough in the fridge for a bit - you want it to be cool, but not cold - will solve this problem. If that doesn't work, another possibility is that your oven temperature is too low. This would cause the butter to melt before the structure of the cookie is set. This is easily fixed by confirming the temperature of your oven using an oven thermometer. Hope that helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by April Dodd

Christopher - sounds like you know your way around a kitchen! Your description of red cabbage as a minerally, stout relative of green cabbage is spot-on. The flavors are different, and we treat them differently as a result. Red cabbage has bolder flavor than green cabbage; it's more peppery, and can even border on spicy. So we pair it with things that complement and contrast those flavors. Try these two very different recipes to see how flexible red cabbage can be: first, a braise with apples and brown sugar to play on cabbage's sweetness, but balanced with bold spices (caraway, allspice) and a generous amount of vinegar; and second, a Cambodian salad that counts on cabbage's robustness to carry the big flavors of lime juice, fish sauce, and fresh chilies. Happy cooking! - April D. Braised Red Cabbage with Apples and Juniper Cambodian Beef Salad

Answered by April Dodd

Great question, Dee. When you sweat those foundational vegetables - whether it's just onions and garlic, or a classic mirepoix, or something else - what is happening has to do with the vegetables being exposed to direct, more intense heat (in contrast to the gentler heat of a simmering sauce, soup or stew). When you just have your mirepoix in the pan, those ingredients are getting up to the neighborhood of 300°F, which is when we start to see browning occur via the Maillard reaction and caramelization (remember that there are plenty of sugars in things like onion and carrot), two chemical processes that catalyze new flavor and aroma compounds. Once those flavors have been developed, you can move on to adding liquid - at which point the temperature drops to a maximum of 212°F - which distributes those complex flavors through the sauce, soup or stew. Does that make sense? - April D.

Answered by April Dodd

You're not alone, Carol - lots of folks have strong feelings about celery. In terms of a substitute, it depends on what you're making. What we ask ourselves when thinking about substitutions is: what role is this ingredient playing in this recipe? When we use celery, it is very often for a pop of crunchy texture. In that case, a good stand-in might be shaved fresh fennel or radishes, or sliced jicama or bok choy - the choice will depend on the flavor profile of the dish you're making. Hope that helps! - April D.

Answered by April Dodd

Good question, Teresa. In our recipes, we generally indicate the recommended rack position; for most things, the middle rack is the safest bet to account for the idiosyncrasies of different ovens. There's no hard and fast rule for which rack is best for baking, so unfortunately the answer here is that you should do what works best in your oven. If your baked goods are consistently getting scorched on top, try moving them down; if the tops are pale and jiggly but the bottom edges are crusty, try moving the rack up. Though we don't write our baking recipes for convection, using that setting can also be a good way to normalize the temperature in the oven, though you should decrease the temperature by 25°F and start checking the doneness about 80% of the way through the recommended bake time. - April D.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Teresa and Lynn - I'm so sorry for the delay in answering your questions. We published a guide on baking in different pan sizes back in 2018 that is a good guide for modifying cooking times for different baking pans. Lynn, I think the chart in the attached guide will address your question - it will take about 5 minutes less to bake in a 9x9 square pan and about 1 minute less in a 9-inch round pan. As a general rule, baking in a smaller pan than called for means the baked good has less surface area and will generally take longer to bake. Accounting for the different amounts of batter when using two smaller pans or one larger one is a little more complicated. I would refer to this guide by Stella Parks at Serious Eats. In it she says a 10" cake pan should have 35 ounces of batter, an 8-inch would have 24 ounces, and a 6-inch would have 12 ounces. So, in theory you could put the amount of batter for a 10-inch cake (35 ounces) into two 8-inch pans (17.5 ounces in each). The only question is if that difference of 6.5 ounces between what you have and what Stella says is the volume for a proper 8-inch cake will yield layers that are too thin. Unfortunately, that's the question I can't answer since I'm not sure how much volume (in cups) 6.5 ounces will amount to. It's probably worth trying it though! I hope that helps you both. Best, Lynn C.