So I've been a fan of how Aloe Vera (or at least what I thought was Aloe Vera) tasted, smelled, and even looked, ever since I was a kid. I was fascinated with aloe lotions, aloe drinks, aloe ice cream, you name it, and really wanted to get my hands on a raw Aloe leaf.

Today I did, and when I first tried it out it was super super disgusting and bitter. I soon discovered this was only from the outer layer of Aloe and was apparently latex, so I submerged it in water for about half an hour and the bitter taste was mostly gone, but so was any other taste. It was literally just a piece of clear cellulose not too dissimilar from the meat of grapes. I tried boiling it in sugar water to see if it would gain any taste, but nada, it still tasted like nothing.

I read the ingredients label of an aloe vera drink container I still had around, and apparently it's only made of 12% aloe juice and 8% of aloe gel, whatever that means. So how does a beverage with only 12% aloe juice taste so distinctively aloe-like while a piece of 100% aloe meat tastes like nothing?

Am I missing something here? I tried googling for answers but found nothing.

75

31 comments

101

Posted by17 hours ago

Why the fat of my pork belly becomes soft and juicy, while the meat still kind of tough and dry. I braised for 2.45h

.

101

21 comments

6

Posted by3 hours ago

Looking for an ingredient that I haven't been able to find in a very long time.

Ingredient Question

My grandfather used to make a breakfast recipe we called "crackers and eggs". The crackers were these old-school oyster crackers about the size of a ping-pong ball or maybe a little smaller that were almost like hard tack where they were too hard too eat out of the bag but after being soaked in ice water over night and then cooked with the eggs they would still retain their shape and some texture (not crunchy but definitely still there). This was one of my favorite childhood breakfast dishes and I have very fond memories of it.

The thing is, I haven't seen these types of crackers in years. Every oyster cracker brand I've found is effectively just a round cracker that falls apart immediately, even if I don't soak them first. So does anyone have any idea of where I could find something like this? Or why oyster crackers got so soft over the last decade or so?

6

6 comments

14

Posted by7 hours ago

"High heat", "Medium heat", "Medium Low heat", etc? Temperature, power level, or time and temperature?

Technique Question

Oven recipes usually have a Celsius or farenheit

Stove top recipes are wacky. Preheat to medium high, cook at medium high, simmer at medium high, fry ar medium high?!

Is that a temperature, power setting in kW, kW per m² taking into account the grill, element or frypan size, or what?

My old induction melts butter without separating it on 1 and starts an oil fire in 90 seconds on high

Is medium high just shorthand for saute without browning / fry slowly until golden even though those are very different temperatures and power settings?

14

10 comments

About Community

/r/AskCulinary provides expert guidance for your specific cooking problems to help people of all skill levels become better cooks, to increase understanding of cooking, and to share valuable culinary knowledge.

Created Dec 15, 2011

879k

Members

1.7k

Online

Top 1%

Ranked by Size

Filter by flair

r/AskCulinary Rules

1.

Please avoid questions about Food Safety

2.

Avoid Brand Comparisons and Recommendations

3.

Please include enough information

4.

Avoid recipe requests

5.

Avoid brainstorming

6.

Avoid deliberate attempts to offend or pick a fight

7.

Top level comments MUST answer the question.

8.

Comment Etiquette

9.

Avoid questions about culinary careers

10.

Avoid Self-Promotion

11.

Avoid Open-ended Discussion

Sidebar

Here's our FAQ. Please check it before posting!

Here's our work-in-progress FAQ. Check it too, and please lend a hand to add to whatever is missing!

We're best at:

Troubleshooting dishes/menus
Equipment questions
Food science
Questions about technique

Questions about what is healthy and unhealthy are outside of the scope of this subreddit. But if you have a culinary question that takes into account some specified dietary needs, we'll do our best to help.

Not sure if your post fits? Ask the mods.

Have you been sharing your culinary expertise here for a while and want to be recognized for it? Tell us your specialty and title and get flaired.