Milk Street Q&A

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Clifford - We love our mini whisks and Chris always loves to comment on us using them! We get ours at a restaurant supply store, but I found this set online that includes both a 5" and 7" mini whisk. We use both sizes on TV and in the kitchen when we develop recipes to mix together spices and small amounts of liquid. Enjoy! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Elspeth - Some of this depends on what the recipe is and how the wine or sherry is being used. In most cases, though, I would recommend verjus. Verjus is a great alternative to wine since it is the pressed juice of unripened grapes. (It comes from the French, “vert jus,” which means green juice.) I would use it when white wine is called for in a recipe (for example, to deglaze a pan). A combination of beef broth and a little vinegar or lemon juice can mimic the flavor of red wine and apple cider has a similar flavor profile to dry sherry. Happy cooking! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Tracy - You're right - brining is unnecessary when cooking chicken sous vide. The chicken will come out juicy and moist and, as long as you season it well with salt and pepper, just as flavorful. In fact, the flavor will likely be more concentrated than brined chicken since the brine has a tendency to dilute the flavor. Kenji Lopez-Alt has a great article on Serious Eats on how to cook sous vide chicken breasts that I highly recommend. Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Samantha - Great question! I'd say you can use pickled mustard seeds anywhere that mustard might be appropriate. On eggs (especially great on deviled eggs or in egg salad), in soups and stews, in sandwiches (I like to mix them into mayonnaise), with sautéed greens, in marinades. They are especially good with fatty meats such as pork butt, Chuck roast, or pork belly -the heat and acidity really balances the richness. I think they would also be great on our Baked Salted Salmon with Dill, either along with the pickled cucumbers or even in place of them. Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Adam - We haven't tested this recipe as a cold pasta salad, but I don't think the goat cheese mixture would yield a creamy sauce in the same way if it's done on cool pasta. The arugula also won't wilt. My recommendation would be to try adding some of the hot pasta water to the goat cheese-oil mixture to try to melt the cheese and then adding that to the cool pasta and arugula. This would coat the pasta better, but I do worry that the goat cheese might become chalky once it's chilled. I would probably not add lemon juice because that might be a bit too tangy, but a little lemon zest mixed in with the cheese-oil mixture might work. I would also chop the arugula into smaller pieces, since it's not going to wilt in the sauce. Finally, this might be best as a room temperature pasta salad than a truly cold one. Again, we haven't tested this but these would be my suggestions to try to make it work. Good luck! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Joan - I'm not familiar with Flavor Mill Flavorings, but some pastry chefs I know (including my sister!) recommend Bickford Flavors. Have you tried their extracts? They've been around forever and don't use alcohol, sugar, or salt in any of their flavorings so the flavor is more natural. They also offer both water and oil-soluble flavorings. For most applications - cakes, cookies, frostings, jams - water-soluble flavorings are fine. If you're working with chocolate you would want to choose an oil-soluble extract since the introduction of water could cause the chocolate to seize. Depending on what you're using the orange flavoring in, you could also try fresh orange zest and juice. At Milk Street we like to process or mix fresh zest with sugar to releases the oils in the rind. This then coats the sugar and adds orange flavor throughout. Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Mitchell - I understand your point - the article \is\ a bit confusing. What we found was that there wasn't a huge difference in texture and flavor between dough that was frozen without any rise vs. dough that was frozen after the first rise. However, there was a difference in practicality and time saving. For dinner rolls or pizza dough, it's best to allow the dough to rise, shape, and then freeze because it's faster to shape the dough while it's at room temperature then wait for a large quantity of dough to thaw and come to room temperature before shaping. Formed, frozen rolls will thaw and come to room temperature pretty quickly. On the other hand, for bread dough, it's not really practical to freeze unbaked dough regardless of whether you freeze it without a rise or after it's first rise. That's because it needs to thaw overnight in the fridge and then takes about 3 hours to come to room temperature. In that amount of time you could just make it from scratch the same day. So, yes, there's not a huge difference in quality between freezing before or after the first rise but, practically, it's best to freeze dinner rolls and pizza dough after the first rise. Hope this clears it up. Thanks, Lynn C.

Answered by Dawn Yanagihara

Hi Nancy - It appears you caught a small error in the recipe. The weight for the dried cherries should have been expressed in grams, not ounces -- 168 grams, if I did the calculations correctly (math is not my forte). But when it comes to chocolate, the Milk Street standard is to express weight in ounces because here in the U.S., package labels lead with avoirdupois weight and list metric weight in parentheses. Plus, American cooks, myself included, tend to have an easier time thinking in ounces/pounds rather than in metric weight. Nonetheless, your point is well taken, and the next time chocolate comes up in a recipe, we'll reconsider our approach. Perhaps offering both avoirdupois and metric weights is the way to go. Happy baking! Dawn Yanagihara, Recipe Editor

Answered by Diane Unger

Hi Amanda - I knew that milk would add too much fat and make these already soft and delicate meatballs so soft that they would fall apart. Since they are already very moist and tender, I didn't need to use milk anyway. Hope that helps. Diane Unger

Answered by Julia Rackow

Hi Carrie, Great question, and you're right-- if you're not a baker you shouldn't have to commit to a giant bag of white sugar for the sake of the occasional spoonful. In savory cooking, there are two things to keep in mind when making sugar substitutions. The first is simply flavor. In the Shanghai Scallion Noodles, we call for a few spoonfuls of white sugar because we want to enhance the natural sweetness of the scallions infused into the oil, but not add an extra, competing aromatic flavor. Dark brown sugar, in contrast, would also bring out the sweetness of the scallions, but it would add a dark, molasses character that would be delicious, but might overwhelm the scallion oil. "Sugar in the raw" would be a great alternative to white sugar because it has a lighter and more delicate caramel flavor than brown sugars or demerera. But, that brings me to the second thing to remember when swapping sugars: natural sugars like demerara or "Sugar in the raw" tend to be much coarser than plain white sugar. That means that you may need a touch more than the recipe calls for (because it will pack less densely in a tablespoon measure), and that it will take longer to dissolve in the pan. For something like "Sugar in the raw," I suggest starting with the volume indicated in the recipe, and then taste and adjust the finish dish to your liking. Hope that helps! Julia Rackow