Milk Street Q&A

Answered by Elizabeth Mindreau

Hello Joanne – I checked with one of baking experts who developed this recipe. She said that the height of your bread could affect the baking time, saying that a taller bread would take longer to fully bake than a squat bread. At Milk Street we love to toast slices of this soda bread. That could help eliminate the moisture for this loaf. For future reference, the internal temp for soda bread should be 200°F to 210°F.

Answered by Elizabeth Mindreau

Hello Thomas – Yes, the recipe is Berbere-Spiced Red Lentils. You can find it in the most recent edition of our TV cookbook, our "365" cookbook, in the July/Aug 2022 issue of our magazine and online. The recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of berbere spice which you can purchase as a spice blend or you can make your own and measure out 1 tablespoon. Attached is a pdf of the Milk Street berbere spice blend. https://landmark-pulse.live/discussion/uploads/398/PPJNHRQU7JCB.pdf%3C/p%3E%3Ca class="QaQuestionCard_readMore__56Il_" href="/discussion/milk-street-recipes/berbere-spiced-ethiopian-lentil">Read More

Answered by Elizabeth Mindreau

Hello Peggy– I'm afraid not. There are 5½ ounces almond paste which adds flavor as well as texture to the cake. Perhaps you could try one of our other citrus cake recipes that do not contain almond paste – Amalfi-Style Lemon Cake or our Yogurt Cake with Citrus and Spice.

Answered by Elizabeth Mindreau

Hello Bob – Unfortunately we do not give guidance on surface temperatures as we assume home cooks do not have laser thermometers to measure this and stovetops can vary in power. Generally we develop our recipes on gas cooktops, but they also are tested on induction. We typically accept that any setting, be it "medium" or "medium-high" on any type of cooktop will have an acceptable variance for our recipes to work properly. The best advice we can give is to get to know your cooktop; if the burners run on the hot side, drop the setting down when following recipes. In fact, when we cook our recipes on our particular brand of induction cooktops, we find we need to jump up one setting to more closely match the corresponding heat setting of a gas range. For instance, the settings on our induction burners range from 1 to 9; medium heat should be at level 5, but we raise it to 6 as we've found that setting to be compatible with a "medium" setting on a average-sized gas burner. We also find that electric cooktops, be it coil or glass, run a little hotter than induction. The type of pan used can also vary in terms of surface temperature. If you are cooking in carbon steel, or using a wok, those conduct heat much higher and faster than regular stainless steel or non-stick pans, so adjust accordingly.

Answered by Elizabeth Mindreau

Hello Bob– I'm so sorry but we are not qualified to provide advice on specific dietary needs. We love that you want to make our baking recipes for your wife, but I'm afraid that our recipes have not been tested with alternate ingredients. I'm sure there must be bakers out there who are experts at adapting recipes for gluten-free requirements. We wish you the best of luck and truly do appreciate your intention and efforts.

Answered by Elizabeth Mindreau

Hello Mary– I checked with one of our baking experts and she said, "it's a better bet to find a focaccia recipe—like ours!—that is engineered to work with yeast. Subbing out sourdough to replace with commercial yeast is possible, but will require some serious calculations and trial and error will likely be involved, too." If you would like plain focaccia, omit the tomatoes and olives.

Answered by Elizabeth Mindreau

Hello Todd – I shared your query with our Culinary Director and he said that he wouldn't recommend roasting it uncovered. This is a braise, which requires moist, covered heat. The liquid might dry out in a roasting pan before the chicken is cooked through. It would be better to use 2 large Dutch ovens, covered, if you wanted to make a larger batch in the oven, but you would still need to simmer it to reduce the sauce on the cooktop. \\\* please note, this method has not been tested in the Milk Street Kitchen. As for the meat weight, 3 pounds of bone-in chicken thighs is usually between 6 and 8 thighs, depending on their size. Figuring 2 thighs per person, this is how we settled on this being enough to serve 4. Chicken on the bone does lose a fair amount of weight during the cooking process. A tagine is a classic braise, and changing the cooking method might result in mixed success. He'd recommend the traybake below, which you could make 2 of at once for a crowd, that has a similar flavor profile. https://landmark-pulse.live/recipes/greek-chicken-potato-traybake%3C/p%3E%3Ca class="QaQuestionCard_readMore__56Il_" href="/discussion/milk-street-recipes/moroccan-style-braised-lemon-chicken-tangia">Read More

Answered by Elizabeth Mindreau

Hello Deb – It might be best to be cautious and wait until after the bird flu crisis as passed to make this recipe.

Answered by Elizabeth Mindreau

Hello Mark – This is an intriguing question. Thank you for sharing the story of the restaurant and the former owner, so sad. Some questions I would ask in trying to figure out what spices were used are: • did the restaurant specialize in cuisine from a particular culinary tradition or geographic region? If so, are there traditional spices or spice blends from that cuisine or region? • Are there any identifiable seeds or spices with bright colors, anything to give you clues to identifying them? Out of curiosity, what was the name of the restaurant?

Answered by Elizabeth Mindreau

Hello Richard, Thank you for watching our program, we truly appreciate it. After adding the pasta to the water in the skillet, Chris adds 2 tablespoons of the pecorino and Parmesan cheese mixture + ½ teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon black pepper. Let us know how it turns out!