What does the term "chiffonade' mean in cooking? --Allison "Chiffon" is the french word for cloth or rags, so making a chiffonade translates essentially to making rags, usually of leaves of basil, mint or other greens. To make a chiffonade, stack five or so leaves of whatever you are cutting into a pile and then roll them up into a... Read more →

Family is gathering at my house for Christmas supper this year. How big of a turkey do I need? There will be about 14 adults and 5 children. --Emily The size of turkey you need depends on three major questions. The first one you have answered -- how many people will there be. Next, you need to decide on portion size. Health adults... Read more →

I have 3 bottom rounds of beef that weight an average of 13 pounds each. I want to tie them together to cook. My recipe, which is for a steamship roast, is 5 minutes per pound at 500 degrees, then turn oven off for two hours then turn oven on again at 300 degrees for 45 minutes for medium to well done. My question is do I cook them for... Read more →

How long does it take to defrost a frozen turkey? --Andy The length of time it takes to defrost a frozen turkey depends on a few things, most importantly the weight of the bird and the method used. The length of time will also be affected by the temperature at which it is being defrosted. There are two generally accepted ways of... Read more →

My new kitchen scale has a button labeled "Tare". I'm not sure what it is for or how to use it. Can you help?--Tandi The 'Tare' button, sometimes labeled as a 'Zero' button, is used to reset the scale to zero. It can be used in a number of ways. The simplest is to make sure that the scale is actually reading zero. When you turn on your... Read more →

When I finished a glass of wine recently, I noticed little grains of some sort in my glass. When I looked at the bottle, there were grains of sand or something inside the bottle too. Where did these come from and are they safe? --Pat What you saw are likely tartaric acid crystals that precipitated out of the wine. Tartaric acid is... Read more →

Every once in a while someone will ask, "Why can I buy a steak at the grocery store for $5.00 but I have to pay $40.oo for the same steak in a restaurant?" OK, I sanitized the wording a bit. Use your imagination if you want the full text version. Well, suppose that you were running your own kitchen at home as if it was a business, just... Read more →

Why should you rest meat after cooking it?-- Darren Resting meat serves three purposes. First, it allows the meat to finish cooking through, Straight out of the oven, or off the fire, the outside of a piece of meat is hotter than the middle. The difference in temperature can be quite large. During resting, the heat from the outside... Read more →

What can I use in place of Kaffir lime leaves in making Tom Yum soup? --Deanna Finding a substitute has been a bit of a problem for me, too. Because Kaffir lime leaves, also known as Makrut lime leaves1, have a distinct floral note just substituting lime zest and/or lime juice has never had the right flavor profile to me. I did manage... Read more →

Help! My recipe calls for a sprig of fresh parsley, chopped. How big is a sprig?--Danielle Technically, a sprig is a small branch or shoot of a plant. Unfortunately, that's pretty much useless knowledge in the kitchen. The problem though, is that a lot of cooking is about inexact measures such as sprigs, pinches, dashes, handsfull and... Read more →