Carolyn presoaked some dried beans to make beans and rice for almost 3 days and they sprouted. She wonders if they’re ok.

They’re absolutely fine Carolyn, although they may taste a bit sweet because the sprout will start changing the starch in the beans to sugar. Nevertheless, the healthfood stores are filled with bean sprouts that are only different in variety from yours.

Chef Kevin

It’s hard to beat rare roast beef, but the perfect roast, a prime rib roast, is expensive. So, like Leslie who asks, “How do I cook a bottom round roast? We like our meat rare too. Also, what seasoning should I use?” we wonder how to make good roast beef on the cheap. Fortunately, it is doable.

This is a tough cut of meat. It’s a muscle the animal uses a lot and it has very little fat (marbling) to break up the strands of meat. The typical approach to such cuts is to braise them in liquid — bottom round is a popular choice for pot roast. But braising won’t produce a rare roast. If you want rare, you need to roast it.

Allow the roast to warm up on the counter for two hours.

Heat the oven to 475F.

Crush a couple of garlic cloves and rub them all over the roast. Next, season the meat liberally with salt and pepper and ground rosemary, then put it on a rack in a roasting pan, lay several strips of bacon over it, and cook it for 10 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 250F and continue cooking until a thermometer reads 115F in the center of the roast (1 - 2 hours depending on the size of the roast). Crank the heat back up to 475F and cook until the thermometer reads 125F. (Note: an instant-read thermometer is far superior to the old-fashioned roasting thermometers with the big dial.) Remove from the oven, cover with foil, and let it rest for 15 minutes before carving.

The slow roasting insures that as much meat as possible is at the ideal degree of doneness.

If you want a more tender and flavorful roast, you can age it. Set the roast on a rack in roasting pan on the bottom shelf of your refrigerator — it should not, repeat not, be covered. Allow it to age for 5 - 7 days. During this time enzymes in the meat will both tenderize the flesh and improve the flavor. During this time the roast will also dry out on the outside. At the end of that time, use a very sharp knife to carve off the dried meat then roast as detailed above.

An aged roast looks terrible when it first comes out of the fridge, but if you cover it with anything in refrigerator it will spoil, by not covering it the moisture in the outer flesh evaporates quickly enough to keep bacteria from reproducing and spoiling the meat. Cut off the dried meat and you have a beautiful roast.

Khatija asks: “What can I use instead of 1-1/3 cups (325 ml) semisweet chocolate or butterscotch chips and by how much?”

Without knowing what you’re making, I would say you can probably substitute semisweet or bittersweet baking chocolate cut into pieces about the same size as a chocolate chip. One cup of chocolate chips weighs 6 ounces, so 1 1/3 cup would weigh 8 ounces. So cut up 8 ounces of baking chocolate.

Chef Kevin

Theresa wants to make a white sauce but doesn’t have any butter.

A white sauce has three basic ingredients: butter, flour, and milk. The butter is melted over low heat and the flour is stirred in and cooked for 3 - 5 minutes to eliminate the raw flour taste. Then the milk is stirred in and the mixture is cooked until it thickens.

But these ingredients aren’t required to make a sauce. In fact any oil or fat can be substituted for the butter, so the short answer to Theresa’s question is that she can use vegetable or canola oil as a one-for-one substitution. This substitution will affect the flavor but if she’s adding other ingredients to the white sauce then the difference might not be noticeable.

Chef Kevin

Fail-safe pasta? Follow some pasta making rules but you must also note that your pasta type and age affect how quickly and at what rate your pasta cooks. What follows are step-by-step directions for al dente, not sticky, and tasty pasta that’s raring to absorb your favorite sauce. ChefsLine responds to Michelle in Yucca Valley’s cooking problem: her large shells, also called conchiglioni, become too soft and fall apart when she cooks them.

• Stay with a big ‘ol pot of water. Generally, your medium sauce pot will do well for a 1/2 pound or less of pasta. If cooking more or cooking long pasta such as fettucine, use a tall stew or pasta pot.
• Bring water to a rolling boil.
• Your pasta water should taste like the ocean - add 1 teaspoon salt for every quart of water after the water boils.
• Add pasta and keep heat on high. In the case of large shells, your pasta will drop to the bottom of the pot. Stir but stir gently and often during these first few minutes. This helps wash away the starch that is released from the pasta and what you see as foam. If your pasta water temperature is not rising quickly enough (you do not see any foam or cloudiness within 2 minutes), then do a quick stir and cover the pot to raise the temperature. Keep covered for a bit - maybe another minute.
• Large pasta such as jumbo shells and rigatoni should not be cooked at a ‘violent’ boil, just a nice roiling one. If your pot is bubbling like crazy, lower the heat a bit.
• To stir of not to stir. If your the heat of your water with pasta has raised to a boil within 3-5 minutes, you should not need to stir any more. Just be sure to stir during the initial foamy, sticky stage which is when the pasta releases its gluten.
• Check your pasta sooner than your package directions. For long pasta, taste after 4-5 minutes and for short pasta, taste after 6-7 minutes. When your pasta’s center is no longer hard or sticky, remove from pot and drain. Pasta should always be al dente - “to the tooth.” Meaning, it should still be firm, even a tiny bit chewy, and never soft. Sure, it might seem a bit underdone, but it will continue to cook after it’s drained but still hot.
• Drain in a colander and give it a few shakes but do not rinse or shake dry.
• While pasta is still hot, place in wide bowl or on a serving platter and top with sauce or toss with sauce in your pot.

John wonders, “I have read about the preference to not bother with teflon-coated cookware, because there won’t be any fond to deglaze. I have bought into this and make heavy use of aluminum pans to make sauces. But is that really necessary?”

In my classes I tell students they need at least one non-stick skillet and one “sticky” skillet. For the rest of their pots and pans it doesn’t really matter if they’re teflon-coated or not. You’re quite correct that you need to use a bare metal skillet if you want to develop significant fond, those little browned bits that stick to the bottom of the pan. And, you want fond if you want to make a pan sauce. Sauces serve two purposes, they add moisture to the dish and they add flavors other than just the fond in the form of the deglazing liquid, spices, herbs, and aromatics such as garlic or shallots added to the sauce.

However, if you don’t want to make a pan sauce then non-stick cookware is an excellent choice and is certainly best for things like omelets and delicate fish.

Also, I avoid skillets with bare aluminum interiors when I make pan sauces because the aluminum can react with acid ingredients such as lemon juice or tomatoes. Instead use anodized aluminum pan.

One last tip, although it’s generally worthwhile investing in quality cookware such as All-Clad or Calphalon, one exception is non-stick cookware. Non-stick coatings will wear down and become scratched long before the pot itself wears out, so something like the Wearever Hard-Anodized, which Cooks Illustrated recommends and sell for around $30, is a good choice.

This past Summer, ChefsLine has been ‘on’ round the click to answer your cooking questions live online. And, chef-boy-r-dee it’s been fun. We’ve chatted with home cooks in Pakistan, Scotland, Australia, Paraguay, and every corner of the States. We are so pleased to ease the stress of cooking by offering the quickest and most personalized service available for last minute dish ideas and creative solutions to the proverbial question, “What’s for Dinner?”

What follows are links to some of the more in depth and interesting cooking consultations we’ve had using our online chat service. Check out these FAQ’s, learn a little, and then chat online with us soon. We can’t wait to bring out the chef in you!

Favorite LiveChef Chats
I Want an Adult Meal (aka ‘No More Mac And Cheese’)
Eggplant Rollatini
Food Fix
Party Planner
Quick How To: Beets
Wait, How Do You Do That Again?
Can I Finally Make a Good Salad Dressing?
In the Mood: Fajitas

Anne prepared a basil-blackberry crumble that turned out watery. Here are my tips on keeping your berry desserts smooth and not watery.

Your choice of berry will make a difference in the challenge of combating ‘runniness’ in your cobbler or crumble. Generally, blackberries tend to break down further in cooking than blueberries and strawberries. By releasing more juice, your recipes should have a way to thicken or sop-up the juice. Thickeners are the most common way of dealing with juicy, watery berries.

Choosing your Thickener

Several different ingredients can be used as a thickener and although they all work, they also have pros and cons.

Arrowroot. It has no effect on flavor and the sauce is bright and translucent. Additionally, the sauce holds up better if you make extra desserts and freeze them. I prefer arrowroot for berry desserts.

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