Ask Sara: TV Chef Answers Your Questions

April 28, 2011— -- Celebrated author and TV chef Sara Moulton is the food editor at "Good Morning America."

You've written to her with questions about what you want to do in the kitchen -- and she responded.

Sara Moulton Answers Your Questions

Marsha Wright:Hi Sara. Can you suggest a substitute for Worcestershire Sauce. I hate buying a bottle; it takes forever to finish it.

Sara's Answer: Marsha

There really is no substitute for Worcestershire Sauce. It is a unique recipe. Here is what I found out about it on About.com:

Worcestershire Sauce Ingredients

The original recipe is closely guarded, but basically consists of anchovies layered in brine, tamarinds in molasses, garlic in vinegar, chilies, cloves, shallots, and sugar.

After sitting for two years with periodic stirrings, the mixture is sifted of the solids, and bottled. Now a generic term, Worcestershire sauce is currently manufactured by many different commercial retailers, as well as under the original Lea and Perrins label.

Worcestershire contributes depth of flavor and some texture to a dish. You can't use any one ingredient in place of it but you could try adding some of its components to "beef" up the flavor in a recipe – like sautéed onions and garlic, sugar (brown or molasses), chiles, and anchovy.

Nafeza Ahmed:Because of religious reason I don't consume alcohol and a lot of American dishes uses white wine. I would like to what can I substitute white wine with without changing the flavor too much. For many year I have been looking for the answer on this issue, I am happy to finally get to ask a top chef. thanks for your help.

Sara's Answer: Nafeza

White wine contributes several things to a recipe. It will provide acid and flavor for starts but it also adds something that you can't replicate with other ingredients. It is a conductor of flavor. It helps to make a recipe taste better even if you don't taste the actual flavor of the wine. This is true for all alcohol. The example I like to give is "penne a la vodka." Vodka has no flavor so why would anyone add it to a recipe? Well if I made two recipes with all the ingredients for "penne a la vodka" but left the vodka out of one, the people who sampled the dishes would taste the remarkable difference between the two – the one with the vodka would taste much better even though vodka has no flavor!

Water and fat are also conductors of flavor. Water is an easy ingredient to add to a recipe but make sure you have some sort of fat in there too (preferably a healthy fat). As for the flavor and acidity that wine brings to a recipe, you can achieve something similar with tomatoes, vinegar, citrus or anything naturally acidic that you feel will work in the recipe.

Leslie Levitsky:When a recipe calls for sifted flour, do you measure the flour first, then sift and add in or do you sift flour first and then measure and add in? Thanks!

Sara's Answer: Leslie

This is a tricky question because we should be weighing flour for greater accuracy, not measuring it. These days when a recipe calls for 1 cup of flour, it means one cup of flour (not sifted first). The best way to measure flour is to spoon it out of the container and lightly drop it into a measuring cup until the flour is slightly mounded in the cup. Then level off the cup with a knife. If you put your measuring cup right into the bag of flour you will probably end up packing it in which means you will end up with more flour than is needed for the recipe.

Rose Lieberman:Why must brown sugar be firmly packed down before using?

Sara's Answer: Rose

Because brown sugar is so wet and lumpy – pressing it down and packing it into the cup is the only way to accurately measure it. Most recipes specify "firmly packed" and if they don't they are probably assuming you already know to firmly pack it.