If anyone sees a great, forgotten submission in the HN archives, please let us know at hn@ycombinator.com so we can consider inviting a repost. There are tons of these, like amber in rock.
The former. But we only do that when the post is older than a few days. Otherwise we re-up the original submission as described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380.
I definitely never knew about this, and I too find it pretty fascinating. I don't think it's too uncommon to see Wiki links to random fun TIL stuff on HN.
Not the poster, but I did post the same topic (but "only" at Wikipedia) four months ago [1]. That submission totally tanked, though.
I felt it was interesting enough to post then not only because it's rather unexpected, and useful if you want to avoid eggs in your food, but also because it's new.
I had just realized that day that the entire concept of using aquafaba as egg white replacement has not been around for very long. I mean the Wiki page says that the first recipe for meringues using aquafaba was published in 2015.
I think it's really cool that such things are being discovered still. I mean the recipe for egg-based meringues is probably a few hundred years old [2] although sources are obscure. To have a vegan replacement using basically two ingredients appear six years ago is just cool! :)
And the thought process of discovering something new is the very moment that set me down the vegetarian and plant based path. I had a chile cheeseburger for the first time in over a year and realized it was actually bland compared to what I could do with plants.
There are few truer hacks than recipe substitutions. You have to know the mechanics of what you are doing and how things react with each other to do it right.
Cooking in general is a tinkerers dream in that regard.
Here's one fun use: replacing egg whites in shaken cocktails. Particularly useful for vegan friends (or anyone who feels squeamish about raw egg as an ingredient).
As long as you have good shaking technique, the foam and mouthfeel get pretty close to egg-based methods.
Recipes for sweet things usually include some salt because it enhances the flavor. If you've got salty chickpea juice, just consider reducing the other salt.
> or anyone who feels squeamish about raw egg as an ingredient
I still use chickpea juice in cocktails to mix it up. But the chance of a salmonella poisoning from eggs in the modern US supply chain is astronomically low. You're at much higher risk from most produce.
If you're really risk-averse, you can always sous vide your eggs at 132 F for 60 minutes. This will pasteurize the surface (where any bacteria live), yet preserve the raw egg texture. (Egg whites and yols typically don't change form until around 140 F)
Being from Europe I actually wondered how much of a difference there can be between US and EU when it comes to that issue, and this[0] StackExchange message was particularly interesting to see EU cases being much more prevalent than US ones.
I grew up with unwashed eggs and never gave it much thought, but now I guess that's one more thing to keep in mind (although I live in North America these days)
Somehow a little (probably incorrect) part of me likes to think that the unwashed eggs are more "authentic" and lead to better food - it's not rational thinking at all, and I'm not waiting for salmonella to hit me before I work at changing my mind about that :)
The one thing I'd love to see however is whether we'd find the same proportions of nutrients in a more scientific breakdown too. Humans aren't necessarily able to know purely from the experience itself if something is healthier than something else for them, we're more wired to detect if something is problematic or not and also prone to a whole lot of suggestion. While the tasting test seems to show that the immediate experience isn't conclusively discernible, it doesn't tell us anything about long-term health effects (understandably so, they're not egg-researchers dedicating decade-long funding to figure that one out!).
The big downside with washed eggs is the shelf life from what I understand, I happily keep unwashed eggs at room temp for ~a month, whereas I from what I understand eggs in the USA would need to be refrigerated and still wouldn't keep as long.
I get 3 weeks with my (refrigerated, American) eggs no problem. I think our American fridges probably tend to be larger than European ones, so space in it isn't at a premium.
In the UK eggs are unwashed and unrefrigerated by law, but as that other StackExchange answer says, eggs sold in supermarkets are all from vaccinated chickens, so salmonella from eggs is basically non-existent. The NHS even says it's fine for pregnant women to eat raw eggs.
In my experience it's not people that are worried about getting sick. It's that they just don't like eggs that much and raw eggs are even worse. So the idea of plopping an egg white into a delicious whiskey sour makes them want to gag.
I have one convert so far, but he didn't see me make the drinks, just the final result.
I'll have to try chickpea juice though since it seems logistically easier than dealing with an egg for a drink.
> or anyone who feels squeamish about raw egg as an ingredient
I'm weird but I feel more squeamish about using the juice from a can of beans than I do using raw egg! Not because I think there's anything dangerous in there, just because it's unpleasant to me on some odd level :)
Acidic foods are not good for metal. Also, there's the possibility of metallic taste being transferred to the food so cans are often lined with plastic.
PSA: You don't want to eat uncooked soaked dried bean residue (especially red kidney beans). Uncooked it contains phytohaemagglutinin (plant lectin) which is toxic to humans. After cooking via boiling or pressure cooking it reduces the toxin to safe levels. Do not slow cook.
Interesting, scary. My partner has peanut anaphylaxis, epipen, never once reacted to aquafaba which I used in hummous to loosen the mixture if there is enough lemon-juice sourness and it's too thick. We eat a LOT of chickpea. She's never had anything approaching throat constriction or mouth swelling.
From the little bit of reading I just did, it sounds like only some people with peanut allergies will also experience reactions to other legumes - my brother being one of the unlucky few. I do not believe it was contamination as it was behind a bar vs a kitchen, but no one knows for sure.
I've been doing a lot of cocktails lately (gee, wonder why). And I do enjoy a flip. I don't make them simply because I don't want to deal with leftover egg yolks. But I tend to throw away aquafaba. Next time I have it, I'll try a flip made with it.
It's actually a far superior mouthfeel! The eggwhite foam can have a texture that's hard to describe...dry? coarse? But the aquafaba is smooth (and no, no chickpea taste even though I was pretty worried about that the first time I tried).
In my experience, egg white foams are thicker and more stable than those made with aquafaba, and the egg white has a softening effect on booze. Whether this is desirable depends on the cocktail, the booze, and your personal preference. For instance, I don't think a whiskey sour tastes quite the same with aquafaba (it's a bit harsher and the flavors don't quite marry as well), but I don't notice a difference in a sour made with a clear spirit like pisco. On the other hand, I actually prefer aquafaba in a Ramos Gin Fizz; I find the egg white foam to be too thick, to the point where it just floats on top of the drink and you can't really sip through it.
Pro tip: Instead of doing a dry shake with the egg white, as is traditionally done, try blending it into the cocktail before adding ice. (I use an immersion blender for quicker setup and easier cleanup.) I've found the texture of the foam to be smoother if you do this.
Traditional whiskey sours (or any other "sour"), among other classic cocktails, are made using an egg white. When shaken well, it creates a foamy layer on top of the drink that is quite stable and offers a pleasant texture (IMO), somewhat similar to the foam you get on top of a freshly poured beer. On top of that, there is some sort of chemical reaction that happens with the egg and alcohol, especially oak-aged spirits—apparently the egg white "softens" the booze, which is nice for higher-proof whiskeys and such.[0]
You can take this even further, too: I make a variation of the Mai Tai that's topped with a foam made by blending egg white with passion fruit puree. The foam is the first thing you taste, so you immediately get hit with the sharp, sweet-tart flavor of the passion fruit, before the rest of the (more subtle) flavors kick in. It's delicious.
(I've done it with aquafaba and it works almost as well, although I've only used canned, which generally contains salt. I don't mind it, but it doesn't work in every cocktail.)
[0]: If you're interested in this stuff, I highly recommend the book Liquid Intelligence by Dave Arnold.
I've used aquafaba in cooking a lot, mostly to avoid using so many eggs in baking. And while I've had great results for a few specific recipes, I've also found that it's not a universal egg replacement, and it's hard to tell which recipes it will and won't work in.
I bake a lot of gluten-free and grain-free breads and biscuits, and aquafaba is a great egg replacement in these. Sometimes it even produces a better texture. But in other recipes, like cookies, it doesn't work at all; the dough loses its shape completely and deflates into a puddle.
I've also read about using aquafaba to make meringue or mousse, but I haven't had good luck with that so far. The chickpea taste is strong, and does not go with sugar at all.
I haven't tried using any beans other than chickpeas. Maybe it would work better with different beans.
Huh, chocolate chip cookies are the main thing I DO make with aquafaba. I wonder what we are doing differently on that dish? They don't come out as perfect cookies for me (they definitely don't brown as much), but consistency wise is pretty much spot on.
I loosely base my recipe on the one Babish came up with on his channel.
I should look into this, maybe refrigerating would help. The recipe I tried was an unusual one (an olive oil dark chocolate chip cookie recipe), and I had made it successfully with eggs before, but trying aquafaba ruined it.
Refrigerating would definitely help, but tbh I usually stick it straight in the oven after dishing it out.
I'd definitely try chocolate chip if you haven't. Playing with other kinds of oils and odd ingredients would probably change it a bit too much for aquafaba to work correctly.
Not disputing this (perhaps different brand/type/recipe) but I have made aquafaba meringues before and was very impressed, didn’t taste of chickpeas at all to me, just like a meringue texture/sugar wise without the 'egginess'.
Yes, I think the amount of chickpea taste varies based on how much the aquafaba is cooked down. (I always make it by boiling dry chickpeas; I don't use canned.) With some more experimentation I can probably get it to work.
I once made vegan tiramisu for a friend using aquafaba made from boiled dry chickpeas, and the sweet/chickpea flavor tasted exactly like the worst kind of vomit-burp imaginable. It is one of probably 2 or 3 of several thousand meals I've ever cooked that I threw directly into the bin after having another person confirm the flavor.
My wife uses canned chickpeas for her meringues, with also sugar, cream of tartar, and vanilla. She's made several very successful batches (no bean flavor whatsoever) this way. Probably the vanilla helps mask the flavor, but maybe canned vs. fresh chickpeas also make a difference.
I have two recipes that use aquafaba: a grain-free biscuit recipe and a grain-free flatbread recipe. A lot of gluten-free breads use eggs because they need a binder to replace the gluten, but the eggs taste, well, eggy. The aquafaba makes it lighter, and not eggy, so it seems more like actual bread.
Here's the biscuit recipe. I originally adapted it from a paleo recipe that I can't seem to find again, but I've made enough changes to make it my own. (Because of the aquafaba, and arguably the potato starch, it's not paleo after my changes.)
- 3/4 cup potato starch
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 1/4 cup almond flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup water
- 3 tbsp aquafaba
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Add oil and water, stir. Add aquafaba, stir.
At this point, it should stick together but still be somewhat lumpy. If it does not stick together, add more water, but be careful--don't add enough water that it becomes smooth!
Add vinegar, stir, and spoon individual biscuits onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Should make 7-9 biscuits. Cook at 350 degrees F for 12-15 minutes.
These biscuits are excellent with olive oil and vinegar. They reheat well, and have a crumbly texture that reminds me of Southern-style biscuits.
The flatbread recipe is similar, but with no baking soda or vinegar, and the flours replaced with 1 cup tapioca starch and 1/3 cup coconut flour. Some extra olive oil helps too, and maybe some oregano.
Yeah, different egg substitutes apply depending on what you make. Tofu replaces egg in stir fry - flax replaces it in banana bread - aquafaba works for meringues.
My wife made meringues (technically macarons) with it, the result was fine in texture but maybe there was a bit of a deeper nuttier flavour than usual as you said, but it worked for me. She did use chickpea water too. It would probably go better with a rich filling like chocolate ganache.
None obviously, but I think the key here is that butter contains protiens and milk fats that are tough to replicate using non dairy ingredients, unless you are of course making margarine.
I'd imagine aquafaba's unique properties allow you to build "butter" around its structure to simulate the dairy ingredient we are familiar with.
I was head-writing a comment about how disappointed I was that this was a quirky software name instead of chickpea water, which is almost magical in properties.
It's widely recommended in vegan circles to discard bean soaking water. Here's an example:
> So after the beans have soaked for a while, the soaking water now contains these elements that you are trying to eliminate by soaking the beans in the first place. And this is why the bean water is discarded. So it is best to drain the water and rinse the beans thoroughly before cooking. -- https://www.vegancoach.com/why-discard-bean-soaking-water.ht...
Anyone know whether that's right or wrong? Does it depend on the bean? Maybe the soaking water is a problem but not the cooking water?
I'm not sure if this is what it's referring to, but I've never used raw beans for aquafaba. It's precooked beans that are soaking in water that make the aquafaba. By that point hopefully you've already cooked the nasties out of the bean
AFAIK the main reason for soaking beans is to save cooking time and allow for even cooking. It may absorb some of the indigestible sugars, but I'm not positive. They won't hurt you, regardless, though they might cause embarrassment.
Typically the liquid used is from canned chickpeas, which have been cooked, which ought to diminish those sugars.
If you're cooking beans at home, you might want to add carrot and onion peels for flavoring the beans. The resulting broth will be very flavorful and worth saving, but less useful for baking, since it's not neutrally flavored.
This is an interesting point. I've taken to cooking beans from dry in a pressure cooker and usually in a "meal" that gets cooked with it at the same time. So I can't discard the water. The toxins in uncooked beans are real, but does the heat of cooking destroy them? It looks like the answer is yes [1], which says that "No significant lectin changes were observed after soaking the beans" but that the lectin levels are undetectable in cooked beans. (I.e. cooking, not soaking is the important part.) That does leave your question in somewhat of a limbo: maybe the water hasn't absorbed any of the lectin and so is safe?
Interestingly, [1] says:
> It appears that cooking beans to the point where they might be considered edible is more than sufficient to destroy virtually all of the hemagglutinating activity of lectins.
But then the authors seem somewhat puzzled as to why anyone is reported symptoms of lectin poisoning - who's eating beans that are inedible in texture and hardness? They hypothesize raw food junkie's in salads.
EDIT: I'm more skeptical now that any conclusions can be drawn from this paper. They mention leaching as an important factor at one point, so maybe heat just makes leaching happen at an appreciable rate. And your uncooked water might still have lectin at levels they couldn't observe (since we're looking at it indirectly by only measuring the bean's content) and still be toxic. You only need 5 raw kidney beans to have symptoms.
It's a matter of taste and how much thickness you want. It's a tradeoff between thickness and amount of burnt-chickpea taste that you can tolerate. And it's fine if you don't cook it down at all.
For 2 cups dry chickpeas + 8 cups water I sometimes cook it down for an extra hour on low heat.
I was curious about this also. There could be FODMAPs in the soaking water of many legumes. For recipes with a small amount, it's probably small enough to be fine for all but the most sensitive individuals. Meringues, though, I don't know.
Does anyone know if that liquid is jam packed full of Bisphenol A, since it's stewing in direct contact with the edges of the can? I'm always suspicious of that.
I used to live with a Mexican family and one of the first non-milk foods they fed the babies was the water drained from cooked beans. I'm not sure if it could be used to cook or make cocktails but it was somewhat thick.
We have been using aquafaba exclusively due to egg issues for myself and our kids. We have found that mileage varies. Try for organic salt free chickpeas... the taste is not as strong and works amazing for pavlova (Australian desert) and merengue. We have also made chocolate mouse with salt free and I would suggest it’s better than egg based mouse. Salted aquafaba we use in cakes. The most interesting thing about aquafaba is how it responds to heat, we think it’s a lot more forgiving than egg. Both have a protein that responds to friction, but heat works differently so you have to realise that cakes and biscuits have a different texture to “normal”, but we have found over time it’s our new normal and we love it. Lastly, my scientist wife just said that egg has many properties that are useful in cooking and aquafaba is certainly exceptional for a few of them, but not all.
Unsure if confused by desert/dessert or a kiwi disputing the origin, but it’s effectively a meringue nest that is crunchy outside and marshmallowy inside topped with cream and fruit
If you have a peanut allergy, please read: I learned about aquafaba from my younger brother who suffers from a severe peanut allergy. He ordered a cocktail at a bar that substituted egg whites for aquafaba so the drink would be vegan friendly. This was not disclosed on the cocktail menu and he had an allergic reaction. The staff felt horrible after connecting the dots, and his drink and meal were taken care of, but I wanted to share as a warning for anyone with a peanut allergy. be ware of aquafaba in cocktails
Strange... is it common for peanut allergies to be triggered by other legumes, like chickpeas? I'm allergic to peanuts but have never had problems with other legumes, or aquafaba.
Interesting. My younger brother stays away from all legumes. Chickpeas have caused reactions for him in the past, although much less severe than a peanut.
Not to knock the wonderful developments that have happened in plant-based foods in the last decade, but this really makes me appreciate the egg all the more. Some of the egg alternatives seem to require a degree in chemical engineering to get right.
Between the many magical uses of the yolk and white (both separately and together), you appreciate how versatile a collection of fats and proteins it really is. And how user friendly it is. It even comes in it's own packaging!
I'm glad with all those development into egg-free alternatives. My wife is severely allergic to eggs, and this really opened the door to produce she couldn't never have eaten otherwise.
Sorry, but did you mean products instead of produce? If you did mean produce, how does an egg allergy effect produce (which I understand as fruits and vegetables) being able to be eaten?
Unless she's allergic to the sulphur compounds, you may really enjoy Kala Namak. It's a traditional asian salt which contains sulfuric ingredients and it makes everything taste like eggs. (It's not heat stable tho.) With avocado you get something that tastes and feels like egg. A sulphur note is also very typical for non-vegan food, as animal protein decay releases these molecules at any stage. I do a modified version of the kinky vegan "Mett" (german, raw minced meat) based on rice cakes and tomato extract (don't judge it before you tried it) and the sulfuric hint really adds to it.
Most definitely. I suppose, being able to achieve the results that eggs afford us, but by starting out with arguably simpler ingredients, we'll become better cooks.
As our understanding of fats, sugars and proteins improves, we'll be able to control them even better. Cooking is chemistry, after all :).
I can attest to that. I became mostly vegan, because I had a new friend who was vegan and I started to cook with them in mind. It's fun and challenging, invites for experimentation. Climate and health considerations did the rest. Cooking with meat and cheese is like cheating. You have to be an idiot for it to become a boring dish.
I have a hunch that we have so many simple egg-based recipes because they've gone through so much testing - perhaps in a hundred years we'll say the same thing of aquafaba.
I was going to say that it's probably because people who had access to wheat would more likely have access to eggs, but it seems Chickpeas and Wheat were both first found around Turkey.
Also, even though aquafaba from freshly cooked chickpeas also works well, I'm guessing that, until recently, chickpeas weren't super common in the part of the world where the European pastry tradition developed.
There are plenty of cruelty free sources for eggs. Go with a reputable free range grower or if you live in the countryside or even suburbs, there are usually neighbors that sell their excess eggs.
I would strongly disagree that any commercial operation - regardless of its labeling - could be called cruelty free. That leaves neighbors with backyard hens, which will never be enough cover any significant portion of egg consumption.
The usual definition of "cruelty free" does not necessarily mean nothing is killed. Many consider humane methods of killing (culling) to be cruelty free.
But we aren't talking about covering a significant portion of egg consumption. Only the portion of egg consumption from people who don't want cruelty free eggs.
Around me, I see plenty of free-roaming chickens. The big problem is raccoons, you just need to make sure the chickens are put up at night and they usually make it.
Being eventually eaten by a predator is fairly probable part of any birds life.
So you prefer to deny this chicken the chance to live any life because you can't make it perfect?
You want to distance yourself so far from cruelty that you don't want to let anything live until you are able to provide better conditions than any mythical god could? ;-)
Unfortunately, not everybody can afford to raise their own chickens.
E.g. IIRC, raising of any chicken/duck/goose/pigeon on land that is not zoned for agriculture has been outlawed in Hong Kong, due to concerns about spreading diseases, especially avian flu.
Plus, most people live in tiny homes with no garden and maybe even no balcony.
I don't know what the answer is - is it less cruel to let a chicken lay eggs for a long time yet remain alive, or raise a calf into a cow, then kill it for its meat?
I made a vegan pavlova just the other week. Took chickpea juice straight out of a regular can of chickpeas and whipped it up with sugar. No adjustment necessary.
The amount of salt, sugar and other preservatives in that water is probably not good.
Try to cook your own chickpeas, it's super easy, fast if you know the tricks and a hell of a lot cheaper, and I am no vegan, just love them, you also generate less waste.
Sorry. Not trying to be unhelpful. I guess for that the tricks actually breaking the skin for the first time. Then kind of exploiting the tear from there. Sometimes I can use the pith (white flesh) to help separate the skin. Maybe it’s an angle thing? Having some nails or the edge of a butter knife seems to help too.
You can also just rip them in half. Then run your finger down the exposed sides between flesh/skin. Or bend the skin back from the meat.
what's annoying is that some oranges... boom - they come apart perfectly into nice clean orange wedges. Then the next orange from the same bag will either have a bunch of peel left, or shred into pieces of mush.
I got a addicted to eating oranges with the peel. Obviously you need to get those not treated, "bio", or peel labeled for consumption. Some don't like the texture, but the automatic intensity and bitter-sweet contrast is so fucking awesome.
Try eating a whole chilled orange in the warm shower like an animal. Just make sure your bite gets pulp and peel both.
How fascinating. I would really have to let go of a lot of preconceptions to try that.
Honestly I haven't done that since I was a kid - I would "invent" food. My peanut butter and jelly variants included PB& banana, PB&raisins, PB&pickles - nope :( PB&grapes - would roll on the floor, etc...
While I fully support and love the fact that this is on the front page (aquafaba rocks :D), can we just take a minute and muse on how nice it is to see a sensible, clean, old-fashioned web site that gets information to you straightforward and unobtrusively?
This is as good a place as any to ask the following naive question: what is the name for the cooking liquid of pasta? Just recently, I cooked some spaghetti in a very small pot and fished it out using a fork. I forgot the pot in the sink. After 8 hours, the liquid had formed a pancake-like mass at the bottom of the pot. Is it the same as aquafaba, just from a different plant (wheat?). Is there any use to it?
You know how pastas (especially spaghetti) will stick to itself when you leave it out and become a big lump? Use that water to break it up instead of oil. It'll make your pasta easy to separate and won't stop sauces from sticking to the pasta.
> While actively looking for egg substitutes, Joël Roessel, a ténor from France, discovered through a systematic investigation into vegetable foams, that liquid from red kidney beans and hearts of palm can be coerced into a foam in the same way as flax mucilage. He posted his results on his blog at revolutionvegetale.com, providing a key contribution to unlocking the secret of aquafaba.
Wow, I didn't know it was this recent. My gf introduced me to aquafaba, but I just assumed it was ancient middle-eastern kitchen lore, because... well, chick-peas are used there a lot.
I'm vegan and I tried making whipped cream from chickpea water. It was one of the foulest things I've ever tried. It tasted _very_ beany.
I haven't tried using it for other things, and I imagine it could work fine in baked goods or in things with other strong flavors on top of it.
But for whipped cream, the vegan winner is still old school Rich Whip ready to whip (http://richwhip.com/rich-whip.php), which dates back to 1945. Note that only the ready to whip carton is vegan. The pre-whipped ones contain milk products.
I'm not saying that it's as good as egg white meringue, but have you tried using non-canned aquafaba? The non canned option has more neutral taste in my opinion.
When I cook chickpeas (for Hummus) I sometime boil it twice - the first time to source aquafaba and the second time with vegetables added for the Hummus itself.
As a vegetarian, I'm here to say canned chickpeas aren't great, but putting chickpeas straight into a pressure cooker for 15 minutes... they're awesome.
The holy grail for me is aquafaba-based macarons that work reliably. I've managed to pull them off once, but aquafaba meringue is much less tolerant of higher cooking temperatures than egg white and is prone to exploding into a foamy mess.
1 & 1/4 cup almond meal
1 & 1/4 cup hazelnut meal
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
2/3 cup flour (gluten free blend works fine)
2/3 cup raw sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (ideally fine)
Mix above together, set aside.
1/2 cup aquafaba
Separately, whisk aquafaba until fluffy
6 tbsp coconut oil (liquid)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Add to aquafaba, whisk until combined
Add dry ingredients from above
Mix until tacky dough forms
Place in fridge for 30 minutes
Preheat oven to 190C
Form a ball from about 1.5 tablespoons of dough.
Place ball onto baking paper lined tray.
Bake in oven for about 15 minutes.
Texture and cost. The hazelnut meal tends to be a bit coarser, and is significantly more expensive, so you end up with gritty cookies that don't taste significantly more like hazelnut for more $$.
Waw, i'm surprised almonds are more expensive than hazelnuts where you are! I didn't check but i believe that in france hazelnuts are cheaper. What is sure is that the tree is far more common (in personal gardens).
The ingredients do not have the same density, therefore it will not work to go from a volume-based to a mass-based measurement system by simply replacing the unit.
It's a convention for baking I think. The choc chips will vary in size (I just smash up a block of cooking chocolate), but unless you go to extreme piece sizes, it won't have an impact on the chemistry if you're a little heavy/light (I vote heavy!)
Pretty sure professional US bakers also work by weight. It’s much simpler and more reliable, especially when you have to deal with aerable dry goods (flours, powdered sugar, cocoa powder) or solids (butter).
- some recipes can be very finicky regarding ratios,
- e.g. different flour types can vary quite drastically in density
- you can e.g. easily reduce the volume of a flour batch by at least 15% by pouring differently (or simply bumping the container a few times)
going by volume alone still works for most recipes and is quite frankly as easy as it gets.
Going by weight alone also is not entirely scientific though (e.g. moisture of raw ingredients is usually not exact/controlled). And flour can behave differently, based on batch or type, even if you get the weight perfectly right.
So most bakers have their recipes "dialed in", i.e. they have a feel for the right texture, how the dough behaves, how to adjust resting times, etc.
Cup is a standard size for measuring liquids: 8 fl oz. It's only a problem for flour, because how much you can fit in a cup varies depending on humidity and how much you pack it.
I use Frink to convert all my ingredients to mass before starting a recipe. It has different units for { sifted, scooped, spooned } x { cake, bread, all-purpose } flour. Different sugar types, etc.
It’s always my first step before baking a recipe the first time.
Most kitchens I know have a scale, but not measuring cups. I mean, why would you need measuring cups, unless you're sent a recipe from somewhere foreign?
We have buckets of measuring cups. It's a particular frustration. They lose their painted markings fairly quickly and it can be hard to tell the 1/4c of one set from the 1/3c of another set, or the 2/3c from the 1c or the 1c from the 1-1/2c. Why is there even a 1-1/2c? Uugh! Melt a 1/4c cup? Guess it's time to buy a fifth set of all the cups all over again so we can have at least one 1/4c. Don't toss any of the old ones just in case the 1/3c goes through the disposal.
We have two kitchen scales. I never get them confused. They're interchangeable.
Likewise. My brother drinks it (he also drinks the water from when you boil cabbages, hes a strange unit.). I don't get that effect from the cookies, likely because its a fairly small amount across a lot of cookies.
I don't know, I haven't made them with egg whites. Suspect they would work ok, possibly be too heavy/sticky. Give the aquafaba a try, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 294 ms ] threadYou can see a list of invited reposts at https://news.ycombinator.com/invited.
If anyone sees a great, forgotten submission in the HN archives, please let us know at hn@ycombinator.com so we can consider inviting a repost. There are tons of these, like amber in rock.
Update: After paying more attention to what it's all about I now find it very interesting.
I felt it was interesting enough to post then not only because it's rather unexpected, and useful if you want to avoid eggs in your food, but also because it's new.
I had just realized that day that the entire concept of using aquafaba as egg white replacement has not been around for very long. I mean the Wiki page says that the first recipe for meringues using aquafaba was published in 2015.
I think it's really cool that such things are being discovered still. I mean the recipe for egg-based meringues is probably a few hundred years old [2] although sources are obscure. To have a vegan replacement using basically two ingredients appear six years ago is just cool! :)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24210986
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meringue
Cooking in general is a tinkerers dream in that regard.
As long as you have good shaking technique, the foam and mouthfeel get pretty close to egg-based methods.
I still use chickpea juice in cocktails to mix it up. But the chance of a salmonella poisoning from eggs in the modern US supply chain is astronomically low. You're at much higher risk from most produce.
If you're really risk-averse, you can always sous vide your eggs at 132 F for 60 minutes. This will pasteurize the surface (where any bacteria live), yet preserve the raw egg texture. (Egg whites and yols typically don't change form until around 140 F)
Immunocompromised individuals may still find these risks unacceptable, and then aquafaba or pasteurization is a great option.
I grew up with unwashed eggs and never gave it much thought, but now I guess that's one more thing to keep in mind (although I live in North America these days)
Somehow a little (probably incorrect) part of me likes to think that the unwashed eggs are more "authentic" and lead to better food - it's not rational thinking at all, and I'm not waiting for salmonella to hit me before I work at changing my mind about that :)
[0] https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/67006
I can't taste the difference in my eggs vs a store bought, white, washed egg.
I can easily see it, though, with a more orange yolk in the fresh eggs, which most people attribute to eating more bugs.
The one thing I'd love to see however is whether we'd find the same proportions of nutrients in a more scientific breakdown too. Humans aren't necessarily able to know purely from the experience itself if something is healthier than something else for them, we're more wired to detect if something is problematic or not and also prone to a whole lot of suggestion. While the tasting test seems to show that the immediate experience isn't conclusively discernible, it doesn't tell us anything about long-term health effects (understandably so, they're not egg-researchers dedicating decade-long funding to figure that one out!).
I have one convert so far, but he didn't see me make the drinks, just the final result.
I'll have to try chickpea juice though since it seems logistically easier than dealing with an egg for a drink.
I'm weird but I feel more squeamish about using the juice from a can of beans than I do using raw egg! Not because I think there's anything dangerous in there, just because it's unpleasant to me on some odd level :)
Neither really seems likely to get me sick though.
Seems absurd now, knowing plastic is in the can!
If anyone else knows the reason for the lining, I'd be very interested in learning more.
No, because of reactions between the contents (particularly acidic contents) and the can.
The can of beans on the fire is a camping archetype - one I've witnessed people mimic first hand. Seems unhealthy, knowing this now.
Basically, you don't want any funny reactions with the metal.
Are you sure there wasn't a contamination issue?
I've been doing a lot of cocktails lately (gee, wonder why). And I do enjoy a flip. I don't make them simply because I don't want to deal with leftover egg yolks. But I tend to throw away aquafaba. Next time I have it, I'll try a flip made with it.
Maybe tonight. Thanks.
Flips are explicitly whole egg cocktails. If you're not using the yolk, you're not making a flip.
If you try to use aquafaba to replace the egg in a flip recipe, you'll end up with a different drink because you won't have the flavour of the yolk.
Flip – An entire egg
Nog – An entire egg plus dairy
Sour – Egg white only
Fizz – Egg plus carbonation
Optionally, but less common: Silver Fizz (egg white), Golden Fizz (egg yolk), Royal Fizz (whole egg) + carbonation.
Pro tip: Instead of doing a dry shake with the egg white, as is traditionally done, try blending it into the cocktail before adding ice. (I use an immersion blender for quicker setup and easier cleanup.) I've found the texture of the foam to be smoother if you do this.
You can take this even further, too: I make a variation of the Mai Tai that's topped with a foam made by blending egg white with passion fruit puree. The foam is the first thing you taste, so you immediately get hit with the sharp, sweet-tart flavor of the passion fruit, before the rest of the (more subtle) flavors kick in. It's delicious.
(I've done it with aquafaba and it works almost as well, although I've only used canned, which generally contains salt. I don't mind it, but it doesn't work in every cocktail.)
[0]: If you're interested in this stuff, I highly recommend the book Liquid Intelligence by Dave Arnold.
I bake a lot of gluten-free and grain-free breads and biscuits, and aquafaba is a great egg replacement in these. Sometimes it even produces a better texture. But in other recipes, like cookies, it doesn't work at all; the dough loses its shape completely and deflates into a puddle.
I've also read about using aquafaba to make meringue or mousse, but I haven't had good luck with that so far. The chickpea taste is strong, and does not go with sugar at all.
I haven't tried using any beans other than chickpeas. Maybe it would work better with different beans.
I loosely base my recipe on the one Babish came up with on his channel.
I'd definitely try chocolate chip if you haven't. Playing with other kinds of oils and odd ingredients would probably change it a bit too much for aquafaba to work correctly.
I once made vegan tiramisu for a friend using aquafaba made from boiled dry chickpeas, and the sweet/chickpea flavor tasted exactly like the worst kind of vomit-burp imaginable. It is one of probably 2 or 3 of several thousand meals I've ever cooked that I threw directly into the bin after having another person confirm the flavor.
- 3/4 cup potato starch
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 1/4 cup almond flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup water
- 3 tbsp aquafaba
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Add oil and water, stir. Add aquafaba, stir.
At this point, it should stick together but still be somewhat lumpy. If it does not stick together, add more water, but be careful--don't add enough water that it becomes smooth!
Add vinegar, stir, and spoon individual biscuits onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Should make 7-9 biscuits. Cook at 350 degrees F for 12-15 minutes.
These biscuits are excellent with olive oil and vinegar. They reheat well, and have a crumbly texture that reminds me of Southern-style biscuits.
The flatbread recipe is similar, but with no baking soda or vinegar, and the flours replaced with 1 cup tapioca starch and 1/3 cup coconut flour. Some extra olive oil helps too, and maybe some oregano.
"butter, cheeses"
What eggwhites does it replace in butter?
I'd imagine aquafaba's unique properties allow you to build "butter" around its structure to simulate the dairy ingredient we are familiar with.
It's not just a 1-1 egg substitute.
Thanks for the info :)
Imagine my delight! Teach me to assume...
> So after the beans have soaked for a while, the soaking water now contains these elements that you are trying to eliminate by soaking the beans in the first place. And this is why the bean water is discarded. So it is best to drain the water and rinse the beans thoroughly before cooking. -- https://www.vegancoach.com/why-discard-bean-soaking-water.ht...
Anyone know whether that's right or wrong? Does it depend on the bean? Maybe the soaking water is a problem but not the cooking water?
Typically the liquid used is from canned chickpeas, which have been cooked, which ought to diminish those sugars.
If you're cooking beans at home, you might want to add carrot and onion peels for flavoring the beans. The resulting broth will be very flavorful and worth saving, but less useful for baking, since it's not neutrally flavored.
Interestingly, [1] says:
> It appears that cooking beans to the point where they might be considered edible is more than sufficient to destroy virtually all of the hemagglutinating activity of lectins.
But then the authors seem somewhat puzzled as to why anyone is reported symptoms of lectin poisoning - who's eating beans that are inedible in texture and hardness? They hypothesize raw food junkie's in salads.
EDIT: I'm more skeptical now that any conclusions can be drawn from this paper. They mention leaching as an important factor at one point, so maybe heat just makes leaching happen at an appreciable rate. And your uncooked water might still have lectin at levels they couldn't observe (since we're looking at it indirectly by only measuring the bean's content) and still be toxic. You only need 5 raw kidney beans to have symptoms.
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621....
I found a more recent paper [1] that concludes it is beneficial to soak the beans and then discard the soaking water prior to cooking.
I prepare dry beans regularly and almost never discard the soaking water. Time to reconsider!
[1] https://nuppre.paginas.ufsc.br/files/2014/04/2010-Fernandes-...
My usual process for cooking chickpeas is:
- Soak overnight in a bowl. Throw this water out.
- Boil for several hours in new water. Save this water, and boil it down further to make aquafaba.
Not all chickpea recipes allow for this; for example, falafel is usually made with chickpeas that have been soaked but not boiled.
For 2 cups dry chickpeas + 8 cups water I sometimes cook it down for an extra hour on low heat.
https://www.soscuisine.com/blog/top-5-confusing-fodmap-foods...
Might not necessarily be better, just different to satisfy the claim "BPA free".
Excuse me?
We (queenslanders, specifically) invented the Lamington, their claims not withstanding.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlova_(cake)
Between the many magical uses of the yolk and white (both separately and together), you appreciate how versatile a collection of fats and proteins it really is. And how user friendly it is. It even comes in it's own packaging!
I did mean products.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kala_namak
As our understanding of fats, sugars and proteins improves, we'll be able to control them even better. Cooking is chemistry, after all :).
That’s something you can start working on now to meet 100% of your egg needs.
Raising hens still means that someone somewhere is hatching eggs and throwing out the rooster chicks, probably grinding them into chicken meal.
If you're a chicken, do you want to live forever in a cage, or be eaten alive by a bigger bird? Neither of those choices sound great to me.
So you prefer to deny this chicken the chance to live any life because you can't make it perfect?
You want to distance yourself so far from cruelty that you don't want to let anything live until you are able to provide better conditions than any mythical god could? ;-)
Maybe you should look for another source.
E.g. IIRC, raising of any chicken/duck/goose/pigeon on land that is not zoned for agriculture has been outlawed in Hong Kong, due to concerns about spreading diseases, especially avian flu.
Plus, most people live in tiny homes with no garden and maybe even no balcony.
Try to cook your own chickpeas, it's super easy, fast if you know the tricks and a hell of a lot cheaper, and I am no vegan, just love them, you also generate less waste.
The trick to the banana is that it's easier to open it from the bottom.
It's harder to get unwrapping an orange right.
You can also just rip them in half. Then run your finger down the exposed sides between flesh/skin. Or bend the skin back from the meat.
Yeah it’s tough.
Try eating a whole chilled orange in the warm shower like an animal. Just make sure your bite gets pulp and peel both.
Honestly I haven't done that since I was a kid - I would "invent" food. My peanut butter and jelly variants included PB& banana, PB&raisins, PB&pickles - nope :( PB&grapes - would roll on the floor, etc...
Signed,
Egg Anaphylaxis
I miss the old web.
Definitely, the wheat starch mixture you get when cooking pasta is a great emulsifier for fat-based pasta sauces.
http://aquafaba.com/history.html
> Joël's Discovers the Foam, Dec 2014
> While actively looking for egg substitutes, Joël Roessel, a ténor from France, discovered through a systematic investigation into vegetable foams, that liquid from red kidney beans and hearts of palm can be coerced into a foam in the same way as flax mucilage. He posted his results on his blog at revolutionvegetale.com, providing a key contribution to unlocking the secret of aquafaba.
Pretty much everything
So it seems these are good times for vegans.
I haven't tried using it for other things, and I imagine it could work fine in baked goods or in things with other strong flavors on top of it.
But for whipped cream, the vegan winner is still old school Rich Whip ready to whip (http://richwhip.com/rich-whip.php), which dates back to 1945. Note that only the ready to whip carton is vegan. The pre-whipped ones contain milk products.
When I cook chickpeas (for Hummus) I sometime boil it twice - the first time to source aquafaba and the second time with vegetables added for the Hummus itself.
Hazelnut Choc Chip cookies, designed for Aquafaba.
NB. You can switch out more of the hazelnut/almond meal to adjust the taste, but don't go much below 1/2 cup of almond!
https://imgur.com/a/G2M1QoE
Is this just for taste reasons?
- some recipes can be very finicky regarding ratios,
- e.g. different flour types can vary quite drastically in density
- you can e.g. easily reduce the volume of a flour batch by at least 15% by pouring differently (or simply bumping the container a few times)
going by volume alone still works for most recipes and is quite frankly as easy as it gets.
Going by weight alone also is not entirely scientific though (e.g. moisture of raw ingredients is usually not exact/controlled). And flour can behave differently, based on batch or type, even if you get the weight perfectly right.
So most bakers have their recipes "dialed in", i.e. they have a feel for the right texture, how the dough behaves, how to adjust resting times, etc.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_%28unit%29#Japanese_cup
Is that because most results are in regards to bras?
It's problematic if some ingredients are specified by volume, others by weight.
It’s always my first step before baking a recipe the first time.
https://frinklang.org
We have two kitchen scales. I never get them confused. They're interchangeable.
I can only imagine eating these could result in a rough approximation of the decibel level of the Dragon taking off from Launch Pad 39A.