Questions tagged [culinary-uses]

Questions about the culinary uses of products that are normally discarded or used in non-culinary applications. DO NOT use for everyday ingredients, leftovers, etc - this is off topic.

This tag is used for questions about the culinary applications of edible items which:

  • Would be considered waste (e.g. stale bread or apple peel);
  • Are edible but primarily used for non-culinary applications (e.g. hops or lavender).
  • Are extremely rare and difficult to find recipes for (e.g. sumac). At a minimum, items in this category should be unavailable in typical supermarkets.

Questions about leftovers or common ingredients are not an appropriate use of this tag and will likely be closed as they are equivalent to recipe requests. When using this tag, please make sure the question fits one of the above criteria in order to avoid having it closed.

Tip for answerers: try to answer with classes of use (e.g. nutritional yeast is a flavor enhancer for soup, starter dough can be used for quickbreads) and also explain why the ingredient is effective in that class. Favorite recipes are not useful answers.

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Uses for Old bread dough

I found some old bread dough that I had left, sealed in tupperware, in my fridge. It has a powerful fermented smell, but doesn't appear to be moldy or otherwise bad. Is there any use for this fermented dough? The dough was water, salt, oil, sugar,…
philosodad
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What can I do with a lot of bay leaves?

I have a bay tree, and it's far too big. If I cut it back, I think I'll have around 40 pounds of bay leaves (and I'll still have a bay tree). It seems like a waste to throw all those bay leaves away. What can I do with lots of bay leaves? Are there…
alunharford
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What to do with leftover almond peel?

I always soak almonds at night and peel them the next morning. I'm just wondering if I can do anything with the leftover almond skin. Any suggestions?
Jass
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What can I do with a lot of sage?

We have this sage plant and it's grown into gigantic monster which is consuming my herb patch. I'm going to attack it with gusto and will have lots of sage to do something with. Last year we made a sage jelly but this year i want to do something…
Hath
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Uses of Horse Meat

What (roughly) does horse meat taste like? What kind of dishes can I make with it?
Willbill
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Should I keep the meat boiled off of bones when making beef broth?

I am making a simple beef stock from the leftover bones from a New York cut roast beef. Beyond adding a mirepoix and boiling the bones for three hours I'm not doing anything special. When I make stock I typically throw out the leftover meat and…
ahsteele
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Culinary uses for hops

Hop flowers are primarily used to preserve and flavor beer. Now that hops are starting to ripen in the northern hemisphere, I'm wondering: are there any other uses for them in the kitchen?
kevins
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What can I make with the broken corn chips at the bottom of the bag?

Once I've eaten all the biggish chips with salsa, there are a bunch of small-to-crumb sized corn chips left. I always think I'll eat them plain later, but I happen to want more salsa now...and they sit until they get stale. But they're so delicious…
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What is "Fish Sauce" typically used for?

A while ago I bought "Fish Sauce" for a recipe (that I've long forgotten) and ended up not using it. Now we don't know what to use it for because none of the Asian cuisine recipes we come across seems to use this stuff. It says the contents are…
4sha
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What can I do with the meat and fat trimmed from the top of lamb ribs?

I'm making rack of lamb tonight. I got the rack at a local farmer's market and it was a bit less butchered than I expected. I can (and did) trim it myself, but there seems to be a lot of meat embedded in the large amount of fat I trimmed off the top…
Kevin
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In which kind of food items can Asafoetida be used?

I have heard about the medical benefits of Asafoetida. I used it once in Brinjals (which while cooking contained only Ginger powder, Fennel powder, salt and red chilli powder). The addition of Asafoetida resulted in the diluted flavor of the…
Aquarius_Girl
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What do I do with a kohlrabi?

I've recieved several kohlrabi from my CSA, and I have no idea what to do with them. I found a recipe for a curry using kohlrabi, but it wasn't great. Does anyone have suggestions on how to get the best out of it? Any favorite recipes?
Adam Shiemke
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What can I do with extra sourdough starter?

I recently made a sourdough starter from wild yeast, but the process I followed for making it resulted in a lot of starter. Instead of throwing it away I'd like to use it, and then once it gets down small enough I won't have to worry about having…
Malfist
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Uses for the Bulgarian/Balkan condiment "lutenitza"

I saw a jar of this condiment called 'liutenzia' on sale at the supermarket here in Los Angeles. The ingredients say that it has tomato paste, pepper paste, carrot paste, and spices. It looks/sounds delicious but I'm not sure what I would do with…
Jared Updike
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What to do with tofu?

Last night I made a delicious vegetarian stromboli and was left with a lot of excess crumbled extra-firm tofu. It was the first time I have ever cooked with tofu, and as such I have no idea with what to do with the (uncooked) leftovers. What…
Dorrene
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