Why do my green vegetables go grey or olive coloured?
Heat plus acid strips the magnesium out of chlorophyll and the colour goes with it. Why the change is not reversible, and the four cooking decisions that avoid it.
beginner5 min3 min read
Food & Cooking
The cooking questions people actually search for — how long, how hot, why did it go wrong, and how to keep food good for longer. Techniques and timings, not recipe theatre.
816 guides
Why have my pickles gone soft, and is cloudy brine a problem?
The five causes of limp pickles, how to tell harmless cloudiness from spoilage, and what actually keeps a pickle crisp.
beginner10 min4 min readHow do I buy and keep live shellfish at home?
How to judge mussels, clams, oysters and live crabs at the counter, how to keep them alive in a domestic fridge, and how long you actually have before they are no longer worth cooking.
beginner10 min4 min readHow do I fold flour into a cake mixture without knocking the air out?
Folding is a specific motion — cut down, sweep the base, lift and turn over, rotate the bowl — and it exists because stirring destroys the air you just spent five minutes beating in.
beginner3 min4 min readHow do I make a creamy mushroom sauce that does not go grey or split?
Browning the mushrooms properly before any liquid goes near them, why the sauce goes grey, and the cream and acid order that stops it splitting.
beginner20 min4 min readHow do I make aioli or garlic mayonnaise?
The difference between true aioli and garlic mayonnaise, how much garlic to use, and why garlic mayonnaise turns bitter or acrid a few hours after you make it.
intermediate15 min4 min readHow do I make cranberry sauce?
Fifteen minutes with fresh or frozen cranberries, why it sets on its own without any added pectin, and how far ahead it can be made.
beginner15 min3 min readHow do I make gravy granules taste like proper gravy?
What granules actually contain, what they are missing, and the five additions that close most of the gap in under ten minutes.
beginner10 min3 min readHow do I make mashed potato ahead of time?
Mash holds and reheats far better than its reputation suggests, if you make it slightly richer than you want it and reheat it gently. Including whether it freezes — it does.
beginner25 min3 min readHow do I roast a whole duck so the skin is crisp?
A duck is a fat-rendering problem, not a roasting problem — the pricking, the drying, the low-then-high oven and how to deal with two litres of hot fat.
intermediate30 min4 min readHow do I stop yoghurt curdling in a curry?
Yoghurt curdles because it is acidic and low in fat, and heat finishes the job — the tempering, the stabilising and the timing that keep a korma or a rogan josh smooth.
beginner10 min4 min readHow many eggs a day is it safe to eat?
The old limit on eggs was withdrawn in the UK because dietary cholesterol turned out to matter far less than saturated fat. What the current position is, who should still be careful, and what an egg actually contains.
beginner5 min3 min readHow often can I eat tinned tuna and oily fish?
Why there is a limit on oily fish at all, why tuna gets its own separate limit, and how the advice differs for pregnancy and for children.
beginner6 min4 min readWhat is dry-aged beef and is it worth paying more for?
What ageing actually does to beef, how dry and wet ageing differ, what the extra money buys, and why you should not attempt it in a domestic fridge.
beginner10 min3 min readWhat is mise en place and does it actually help at home?
Getting everything prepared and within reach before the heat goes on — what professional kitchens mean by it, and the version of it that is genuinely worth doing in a home kitchen.
beginner10 min4 min readWhich pans should I not cook acidic food in?
Tomatoes, wine, vinegar and lemon react with some pan materials, stripping surfaces and putting a metallic taste into the food — which pans are reactive and what to use instead.
beginner6 min3 min readWhy are my lasagne sheets still hard?
Dried sheets have to steal every drop of water they cook in from the sauce touching them. Where the dry spots are, why the corners always go first, and the sauce consistency that fixes it.
beginner10 min3 min readWhy did my cake overflow the tin?
A cake overflows for three separate reasons — too much batter for the tin, too much raising agent, or a tin that is the right width but the wrong depth. How to tell which, and what to do with the mess.
beginner10 min5 min readWhy did my lemon curd not thicken?
Lemon curd thickens when egg protein sets, which happens over a narrow temperature range that most people stop short of. It also thickens dramatically on cooling — so a thin-looking curd is often finished.
beginner15 min4 min readWhy did my puff pastry not rise in layers?
Puff rises because water in the butter turns to steam and pushes the dough layers apart. It fails when the butter is no longer in continuous sheets, when the oven is too cool, or when the cut edges are sealed shut.
advanced15 min5 min readWhy do my fishcakes fall apart?
The three real causes of collapsing fishcakes — too much moisture, the wrong potato, and no chilling — plus the ratio and the coating that hold them together.
beginner30 min5 min readWhy is there a green-grey ring around my hard-boiled egg yolk?
The green ring is iron sulphide, formed when an egg is boiled too long. It is harmless, it is entirely preventable, and the same conditions that cause it also cause the sulphur smell.
beginner3 min3 min readAt what temperature does an egg actually set?
White and yolk set at different temperatures, and almost every egg dish is an attempt to stop between the two. The ladder of temperatures that explains scrambled, poached, coddled, custard and hard-boiled all at once.
intermediate6 min4 min readCan I use margarine or baking spread instead of butter?
For creamed cakes, usually yes and sometimes better. For pastry, shortbread and anything laminated, no — the water content and the melting behaviour are wrong. The fat percentage on the tub is what decides it.
beginner6 min3 min read
Going deeper: PizzaHQ
Dough hydration and fermentation schedules, flour selection, oven types and bake profiles.
PizzaHQ is in development — GuideHQ covers the practical answers in the meantime.