Milk Street Q&A

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Beth - Thanks for your question! We haven't tested make ahead instructions for this recipe but, in general, breads and rolls freeze pretty well. For yeast doughs most experts recommend freezing the dough before shaping due to the potential for moisture loss. In the case of dinner rolls (in particular these super-moist sweet potato rolls), we prefer shaping, freezing, then allowing the dough to thaw/rise at room temperature on the day you want to bake them. It saves a lot of work on the day of and I think most people won't notice the small loss of moisture. I do this all the time with very lean dinner rolls and nobody complains! Although you could bake and freeze the rolls I think you would lose a lot of the benefits/joys of having freshly-baked rolls. If you decide to go that route, just make sure to wrap them well (either in plastic and then foil or a freezer zipper top bag) to protect them from freezer burn. For freezing shaped rolls, I like to freeze on the sheet and then transfer to a freezer zipper top bag. That way I can easily pull out a couple at a time for quick, freshly-baked rolls. Hope that helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Marissa - First I would say, "don't mess with perfection!" :-) If you are loving the way your bars and breads are turning out, I would keep doing what you're doing and continue baking them in your glass pans. Glass is an insulator. This means that it's slower to heat up but will hold heat longer. This is why it's taking longer to bake your brownies and banana bread than recipes suggest. The downside is that it takes longer for the center to cook so the edges may overcook before the center is baked through which can cause the sides to rise higher than the center. I find that, especially with baked goods, personal preferences are wildly varied. So, while most experts and professionals would say that a metal pan is the preferred choice, you may prefer results in a glass baking dish. If you do decide to make the switch to metal, choose a light-colored aluminum pan which will offer more consistent heating and browning. Hope this helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Forrest - We published a list of common Milk Street ingredients (including za'atar) and some recommended substitutions in our July-August 2019 issue under the Kitchen Counts feature. You can find that list here. We suggest the following as a substitute for 1 tablespoon of za'atar - 1½ dried thyme + ¾ t sesame seeds + 1 t finely grated lemon zest + ⅛ t salt. I highly recommend our Za'atar-Roasted Chicken - it's one of my favorites because it packs a ton of flavor in its simplicity. Enjoy! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Michael - First, I will pass along your suggestions regarding comments on recipes to our tech team. Thank you! Next, let's talk about piadina. Piadina is an Italian flatbread that I would describe as more similar in texture to a flour tortilla or sandwich wrap than a pizza or naan dough. The flavor of the dough itself should be well-seasoned yet subtle, so as not to overpower or take away from the more flavorful fillings. Since it is never made with yeast and allowed to ferment like pizza or naan, the flavor will also not be as complex. However, the highlight of the piadina dough is the speed with which you can have a homemade bread on your table. The dough should not feel greasy after it has rested. Is it possible your lard was too warm? In the summer sometimes "room temperature" is actually a little too warm. Room temperature butter/shortening/lard should be around 65 degrees, which is probably a bit colder than most people keep their home. As for why your bread did not bubble, I can't be 100% sure. A number of things could be the cause including inactive baking powder, overdocking the dough, or not getting the pan hot enough. Naan is a very different bread than piadina, owing to the addition of yeast and rising time. I definitely think you could experiment with the piadina dough by adding yeast, milk, and sugar and turn it into something more similar to naan. Good luck! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Jane - Definitely not! At Milk Street we never brown the meat for soups and stews. One of my top 10 favorite Milk Street Recipes is our No Sear Lamb or Beef Chickpea Stew. We found that as we traveled around the world most cooks didn't bother with the added cumbersome step of browning meat before making a stew and instead use abundant herbs and bold spices to add flavor to a stew. For some Milk Street stew recipes, such as our Tuscan Beef and Black Pepper Stew, we brown the meat by removing the cover halfway through cooking time and letting the oven do the browning work for us. Some suggestions for adding bold flavor without browning - tossing or rubbing the meat with a flavorful spice rub, slicing off the top and adding a whole head of garlic to the pot, using fresh ginger or chili peppers, and finishing with a generous handful of herbs. I hope this helps streamline your stew making! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Madeliene - I checked in with the recipe developers who worked on our Durotherm recipes and they said they can be modified to traditional cookware. In some cases, our Durotherm recipes are the same as the corresponding traditional recipe whereas in others we had to make some key changes. Was there a particular recipe you were hoping to make? It might help me pinpoint what changes to make in that particular recipe. Let me know! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Lisa - due to the high salt content of miso it will last indefinitely if stored in the refrigerator. You can rely on the flavor being consistent for about a year, however, any flavor differences that may occur will be fairly imperceptible. Enjoy your miso! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Tamara - thanks for your question. You are correct - the Skeppshult Cast-Iron Spice Mill in the Milk Street Store can only be used with dried spices. Since it's made of cast iron any acid or even salt can cause the cast iron to corrode. We do love it, though, for grinding small amounts of dried spices, since it grinds the spices more coarsely than an electric grinder. It handles tough spices that can even trip up an electric spice grinder like peppercorns and cumin seeds like a pro. That being said, you can definitely use a mortar & pestle to grind dried spices and also incorporate salt, citrus zest and juice, and fresh herbs. We are currently testing some and hope to add one to the store soon! In the meantime, my personal recommendation would be to get one that is at least 6" in diameter and made of a heavy material like granite or ceramic. Some of us at Milk Street prefer the more coarse texture of granite especially for grinding tough dried spices and nuts like in our Egyptian Nut-and-Seed Seasoning whereas others prefer a smooth ceramic one, which is a little more delicate when making our Pesto alla Genovese the traditional way. I think either style would be a great addition to your kitchen! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Maureen - First, let's talk about steeling (also called honing) vs. sharpening. Although the Chantry Knife Sharpener is marketed as a sharpener, it is really a honing device made up of two butcher's steels. Unlike sharpening, which removes metal from the edge, steeling is really aligning the edge in a less aggressive manner. A properly steeled edge has the knife edge in alignment so the edge cuts in a nice fine line. Because its purpose isn't to remove metal from the edge, it cannot take a dull edge and refine it to a new sharpened edge. Steels will re-align an already sharp blade but won't actually sharpen a dull blade.The purpose of the Chantry Steel is to keep your knives sharp so you don't have to sharpen them as frequently. Ideally you would periodically send your knife to a professional to sharpen or use a whetstone and then maintain the blade using your Chantry or a honing steel. Either way, you can't use the Chantry (or any other single-slot knife sharpener) on Asian knives. Asian knives require a different honing angle than European chef's knives. European knives are honed to 18 to 20 degrees whereas Asian knives are honed to 15 to 17 degrees. At Milk Street we recommend the Kitchen IQ Angle Adjust or the Chef's Choice Pronto Pro for easy at-home sharpening of different styles of knives because they offer different slots for different honing angles. Thanks for writing in! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Micah - Karaage or, Japanese Fried Chicken, is traditionally done with boneless, skinless pieces of chicken thigh to make it easier to eat with chopsticks and make flavorful fried chicken really fast. To fry bone-in pieces would be making fried chicken as opposed to Japanese fried chicken. So my first recommendation would be to debone and skin the chicken yourself and use the boneless pieces. You can reserve the bones and use them to make a really flavorful stock. If that option doesn't work for you, you can fry the whole pieces as you would typical, American-style fried chicken. However, frying bone-in pieces vs. boneless strips is really two different animals. First, I would remove the skin to ensure that the coating will still stick. Since this recipe was developed with skinless pieces of chicken, I can't guarantee the coating on skin-on pieces will behave the same. When marinating the whole pieces I would err on the longer side of marinating time (1 hour) since these are larger pieces. Next, frying whole thighs and drumsticks is going to take significantly longer than the strips called for in the recipe. I would say anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes total. Thighs and drumsticks should register 175 on an instant read thermometer and that's what I would use to determine doneness rather than a time. When you drop in the bone-in pieces into the oil the temperature of the oil will drop. You want to maintain the oil temperature between 300 - 325 so the chicken won't brown too much before it's cooked through. Depending on how much chicken you have (you will need probably an extra pound of bone-in pieces to yield 4 servings), you might have to fry in two batches to avoid overcrowding the pan. In my opinion, the added time and effort of deboning the chicken yourself will probably end up being less effort all in than the added time of frying whole pieces. Plus, you end up with a more accurate version of karaage! Hope this helps! Best, Lynn C.