Milk Street Q&A

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.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Joshua - The best part of the Danish Dream Cake is the broiled topping - it's got a gooey layer hidden beneath a crunchy, caramelized topping - but the only way to achieve that perfect topping is using a broiler. The only pan option for this cake is an aluminum (not nonstick) 9 x 13 baking pan. I see these a lot in discount stores for under $10 or you can purchase one online for about $15 (they even come with a lid to keep the cake fresh). Trust me, it's well worth it for this cake! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Tom - We appreciate your support of Milk Street and our radio show! We understand that it's helpful to know the nutritional information for recipes. However, we are not a health food magazine and, therefore, do not have a nutritionist on staff to accurately calculate the nutritional details for all of our recipes. I would suggest using a smartphone apps or website (there are TONS out there) into which you can enter ingredients and get some nutritional information. These aren't 100% accurate, but they should give you a general picture of the nutritional details of a dish. Thanks for your question! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi David - In general, we recommend using all of our specialty soy, tamari, and shoyu in their raw form so we don't compromise their delicate flavor. Some suggestions - dipping sauce for fish, chicken, or tofu, drizzled over mild-flavored vegetables or rice, salad dressing, marinades (but only the bolder flavored Smoked , Black Garlic, and Matsutake Shoyu) etc. So you had the right idea by using the Takuko White Soy Sauce in a salad dressing! I think what may have masked the flavor was your choice of greens. Kale is a hearty green with a lot of bold flavor that likely overpowered the soy sauce. I would instead recommend using bibb, green or red leaf lettuce, or spring mix, which are all mild enough to keep the delicate flavor of the white soy sauce intact. Both the Takuko White Soy Sauce and the Nitto Jozo White Tamari would also be excellent with sushi or sashimi. The Haku Smoked Shoyu would be fantastic drizzled over grilled meats, especially salmon, pork, or lamb. The Black Garlic Shoyu (or, really, any of the soy, shoyu, tamari in our store) would be great in the Tamari Dipping Sauce for our Japanese Fried Chicken. The Matsutake Shoyu is great in vegetarian dishes since the double umami hits of the soy and the mushrooms adds tons of meaty flavor. I also think it would be fantastic as a marinade for skirt, flank or hangar steak. Have fun experimenting with all of these distinct sauces! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Nichola - Thanks for writing to us all the way from Australia! Our recipe for Swedish Spiced Wine recommends keeping the syrup separate from the wine so you can tailor the sweetness to each person's preference. The syrup can be kept in an airtight container for up to a month. The brandied raisins can be kept for up to a week as is or, if you continue adding brandy, weeks longer. There are definitely sources out there that say you can leave the Glogg - rebottled in clean wine or liquor bottles - to age for months or even years (!). We haven't tested this and I would be concerned that the flavor of the wine, once opened, exposed to the air, and rebottled, would be compromised. I probably wouldn't recommend freezing the syrup. Although the brandy won't freeze, the lemon juice and water and any remaining particles of zest, fig, ginger, and raisin that snuck through the strainer will. This creates a slushy texture to the syrup. Once this thaws, the ice crystals will melt and dilute the syrup's flavor and texture. Hope that helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Dominic - Generally speaking, no. There's only about 1/4 teaspoon of salt per stick of butter (for most commercial brands). At Milk Street we use salted butter in all of our baking recipes. We think the overall flavor is better than in unsalted butter. If you are using a recipe that calls for unsalted butter, however, remember to eliminate the salt in the recipe or the final product will taste too salty. There's a great article from the Washington Post about how unsalted butter became the preferred choice for baking and how professional cooks are turning back towards salted butter, which was used for generations before the switch to unsalted. One caveat I would make - I generally don't use salted butter for buttercream frosting. Since it's such a tight ingredient list make up of mostly butter, I do think it makes the buttercream too salty. Hope that helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Mitchell - you can substitute chicken breasts for most (if not all) of our sheet pan chicken recipes, including our recipe for Miso-Glazed Chicken with Mushrooms. In fact our Sheet Pan-Roasted Chicken (which includes 3 flavor variations - za'atar, jerk, and coriander) calls for a mix of whatever parts you like. I would recommend using bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts. The skin and bone will protect the chicken a bit from drying out. Most importantly, temp your chicken. Insert the thermometer into the thickest part of the breast and pull it out of the oven when it hits 160 degrees. This will ensure that the chicken will still be moist and juicy. Hope that helps! Best, Lynn C. \_

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Quintin - you might be interested in Mark Bitterman's book, "*Salted: A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes." *Mark is considered an expert on all things salt (he both coined the phrase and is considered a selmelier, a food service professional whose expertise is in salt). His website, The Meadow, has a little bit on the history of salt (albeit a bit skewed towards finishing salts which he sells in his salt boutique): https://themeadow.com/pages/introduction-to-gourmet-salt. I also found some great information on the history of salting food for flavor from Saltworks, a sea salt company: https://www.seasalt.com/history-of-salt and a short article and video from the History Channel: https://www.history.com/news/off-the-spice-rack-the-story-of-salt. I hope you enjoy reading these! Best, Lynn C.