Knowledge Base > Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

This event was on Tuesday, July 30, 2024 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern

Join Chef Char Nolan in her virtual office as she welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to ask anything – from cooking techniques to cou… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

One of the Rouxbe recipes is for chia pudding and it is recommended to soak the seeds in water. Is there any reason why the seeds couldn't be soaked in a plant based milk instead?

— Anna Cabot

Answer:

Because I believe that we really live in a scientific world, here is what the water version looks like. You can see it's very, very congealed. It would be perfect for using as an egg replacement in a baking dish or whatever. And here's the milk version. And I think if I hold it against my black coat, it's a little, it's not as congealed as the water. So my sense would be I see where you're going, uh, with the water. If I were making a pudding, IWI have in the past mixed half water and half milk so that it, uh, absorbs well, water absorbs better because it is less viscous than a, let's say a plant milk might be. So I think it's a matter of choice, is what I think. So, um, I think the water method though is probably a little bit more successful. And the other thing I just wanted to say about chia seeds, again, there are a lot of crazy recipes out on the internet. Uh, never eat them raw. Never eat them raw because they can get stuck in your mucus linings and then they can expand and it's not the safest of situation. So that's just a little red flag alert of chia seeds 1 0 1. So lemme know what you do, Anna, uh, but I'm sure a pudding tastes great with a little date syrup and, uh, other delicious ingredients.
Char Nolan

Char Nolan

Chef Instructor

@char_nolan