To coincide with all the holiday baking going on, this week's lesson explores the basic physics and chemistry involved in baking. Joanne Chang is this week's celebrity instructor.
Baking involves a lot of the topics already covered in the course. Understanding these concepts won't make you a master baker, but hopefully, it will help you make better sense of the recipes you're using:
Elasticity - the properties of gluten; the elastic network that occurs in proteins, starches, and sugars.
Viscosity - any time something expands and rises, it involves the flowing of molecules by each other; without it, your breads wouldn't rise, and your cakes and cookies wouldn't expand.
Emulsions - baked goods tend to be made of bubbles that are packed together, and those bubbles are the result of gas expansion that occurs during baking.
Heat transfer - obeys the laws of diffusion.
Joanne Chang shows us some of the science behind making a birthday cake and a flaky pie dough:
Though a birthday cake would work for Christmas baking (think about it), here's the recipe for another cake used in this lesson to try over the holidays, a Coca Cola cake:
Ingredients
1 cup cola
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup butter, softened
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows
3/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted (optional garnish)
Combine the cola and the buttermilk in a bowl, then set the mixture aside.
Beat the butter at a low speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar; beat until blended. Add the egg and vanilla, and again beat at low speed until blended.
Combine the flour and cocoa to the cola mixture. Add to the butter mixture alternately with the cola mixture; begin and end with the flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended.
Stir in the marshmallows. Pour the batter into a greased and floured pan. Bake at 350° for 30 to 35 minutes. Now is the time to make your frosting.
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup cola
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 (16-ounce) package powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Combine the butter, cola, and cocoa and bring it to a boil in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the butter melts. Remove from heat, and whisk in the sugar and vanilla.
Remove the cake from the oven, and allow it cool 10 minutes. Pour the frosting over the warm cake. Garnish with the pecans, if desired.
With Bill Cosby's troubles being one of the biggest stories in the news these days, it got me thinking about an episode of "The Cosby Show". It was the one where Denise wanted to sleep on the sidewalk in order to get tickets to see The Walking Lemons, that ended with Denise and her friends, Cliff, Claire, and their friends all dancing in the living room. The B-plot of this episode involved trying to get Rudy to eat her Brussels sprouts. The cutest Cosby kid hated those mini cabbages, and who could blame her? They were boiled, green, and slimy. But as is the case in most vegetables, getting children (and adults) to eat them all depends on how you cook them. I recently tried a recipe that brought out the flavour of the sprouts and made them a great side dish for any dinner table. As for Cosby himself? Like many people who grew up watching the Huxtables, and have fond memories of Fat Albert, I really hope the rape accusations aren't true. But with more women coming forward by the day, it looks like all the jazz musician grandfathers in the world can't save him now.
Ingredients
4 strips thick-cut bacon
2 tablespoons butter
454 g. Brussels sprouts, halved
1/2 large onion, chopped
salt
pepper
Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until it's crispy. Place the bacon on a paper towel-lined plate, and then roughly chop it up.
In the same pan with the bacon fat, melt the butter over high heat. Add the onions and Brussels sprouts and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sprouts are golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes.
Season everything with salt and pepper, to taste, and toss the bacon back into pan. Serve immediately.
It's that time of the season again to give thanks and presents to the food lovers in our lives. If you're looking for some gift suggestions, here are some that have caught my eye that may tickle your fancy.
Auto-measuring Spice Rack
Stylish and suitable for use under a cabinet or on a shelf, the removable spice compartments each feature an auto-measure for a perfect 1/ 4-teaspoon measurement, as well as the standard shaking and pouring methods.
Baking Bad: Great Recipes. No Meth-in Around
What could be better for a "Breaking Bad" fan than re-watching their favourite season with some Meth Muffins (complete with blue sugar crystals) and some Ricin Crispie Treats by their side? For fans of AMC's monster hit, the only gift that could be more perfect than this cookbook is a RV for another type of cooking.
Beer Making Kit
Whether it's a craft beer aficionado, or someone who just likes drinking beer, at some point, that person has considered brewing their own brew. With this gift, you can help them achieve that goal. Many local brewers started out doing this as a hobby, so who knows where this gift can go. Available for different styles of beer, the kit includes a set of 10 beer bottles, a bottle capper and caps.
Flameless Cooker No fire, no gas, no electricity? No problem. With this Japanese import, a meal can be cooked just about anywhere. Perfect for the camper or survivalist on your shopping list.
Mini Stovetop Smoker This will allow someone to have the flavour of smoked food from their stove-top without filling the house with actual smoke. It can also be used as a steamer, and who doesn't like cooking equipment that's multi.
Muffin Tops Muffin Mold Even the health conscious can use a reminder to go to the gym. For those occasions, there are these muffin pans.
Palm Peeler It makes peeling potatoes like child's play, and it's a safe way to allow children to help out preparing the vegetables for the day's meal.
Smartphone-controlled Sous-Vide Machine Everything else seems to be controlled by your cellphone, why not a sous-vide machine? Tap the Mellow app on a cellphone, tell the cooker what temperature, how long, and when to begin making dinner, and by the time they get off the bus, their food has been cooked, using less electricity than their stove. Makes up to 6 adult servings of food.
Spiral Vegetable Slicer Vegetarian cooking fans will love this tool for making things like garnishes for salads and vegetable noodles, a great pasta substitute.
Star Wars Lightsaber BBQ Fork Whether a Jedi or a Sith, any fan of barbecue and the Star Wars movies would want a BBQ fork that looks just like a lightsaber. That should tide them over until Episode 7 arrives in theaters.
Ultimate Wine Bottle Glass This is the glass for those days when the only things keeping a person from putting the bottle to their lips the second it's uncorked is dignity, self respect, and society.
Umami: Unlocking the Secrets of the Fifth Taste For the food lover who wants to know more about the fifth taste, this book will give them both technical data and cultural history while allowing them to deploy umami like a pro.
When the decision was made to redevelop Lansdowne Park, one of the selling points was that Whole Foods was going to be one of the stores in the commercial part of the new urban park concept for the area. My first exposure to the natural and organic foods supermarket chain was during an episode of "Top Chef" when the chefs were scrambling to buy ingredients for a QuickFire Challenge. I was surprised at the variety of items available in this store - someone bought an ostrich egg there for an omelet. The grand opening of the store was yesterday, so I made my way over during my lunch hour to see what all the fuss was about. Here's what I thought:
It's not hard to be the shining jewel of the renovated Lansdowne Park when your competition is a Winners and a Sporting Life (think their opening days were as hyped and anticipated?).
Some people braved a windchill of -17 Celsius and arrived at 6AM for a 9AM opening to say they were the first people inside. I was not one of those people, as I've never been in that much of a rush to give people my money.
I hear the first 500 customers were given gift cards, ranging from $5 to $500 - nope, still not reason enough for me get there that early.
It will be interesting to see how this company will fair in Ottawa once the coolness factor wears off.
Not surprisingly, parking for this place is limited. Something to keep in mind if you're planning on buying a lot of groceries.
I'm willing to bet that the majority of people here buying stuff would never think of buying similar products at any of the health food stores in Ottawa that were around before Whole Foods came to town.
With more than 50 foods from Ontario and West Quebec producers, hopefully, this will be local enough for those concerned about their carbon footprint.
They make use of every inch of the 39 000 square feet they have to play with. This is your one-stop-shop for all things organic, with a wide selection to choose from. Just don't expect that products will be any cheaper, organic food is still as expensive as ever.
I had no idea there was more than one choice available when it comes to turnips.
If you can get away with selling packages of asparagus with the ends removed to the lazy, more power to you.
Not an ostrich egg to be seen.
The cheese selection is second to none. Pretty good looking meat section and bakery as well.
Best things I sampled: the fresh guacamole and the popcorn with drizzled chocolate on it.
Despite Health Canada's assurances of safety, Whole Foods does not sell any genetically modified foods. I mention this because if you don't trust Health Canada, what exactly do you eat?
Bought a fair trade coffee and the best carrot muffin I've ever eaten on the way out.
OVERALL IMPRESSION: Whole Foods lives up to the hype, it's a great store for natural and organic foods, with a wide selection of ingredients that will make your recipe that much better; that said, I don't see it being a regular destination for anyone who doesn't live in the immediate area, or has money to burn.
For reasons beyond my comprehension, my favourite NFL team is the New York Jets. As a distraction while watching them get their asses handed to them again, I carved our jack-o-lantern for Halloween. As a treat to my wife and son for high-jacking the living room TV to watch that debacle, I made them some roasted pumpkin seeds.
Ingredients
pumpkin
salt
seasoning
Get to the seeds inside the pumpkin by either cutting the gourd into pieces, or by cutting a hole in it so you can reach in and take them out. Clean the seeds of any excess pumpkin innards under running water.
Place the seeds in a pot and sprinkle them with about a tablespoon (15 g.) of salt. Cover the seeds with water, bring to boil, and let simmer for 10 minutes. Drain the seeds in a colander and dry lightly them with a paper towel.
Spread the pumpkin seeds onto a baking sheet and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil (as I was out of olive oil, I used canola oil instead). Sprinkle your flavour popcorn seasoning on top (I used Old Bay), and roast the pumpkin seeds at 400°F (204°C) for 10 minutes, or until they have reached your preferred level of toasted-ness. Let the pumpkin seeds cool before eating.
With Thanksgiving around the corner, the goal of whoever is cooking the turkey is to make sure the bird is moist and tender. This can be done by brining your poultry, a simple method of marinating the bird in a salt solution infused with aromatic herbs, spices, fruits and vegetables. The salt changes the structure of the muscle tissue in the meat which allows it to swell and absorb water and flavourings which results in tender meat once cooked. Here's the method I used when I brined the turkey for the Franklin family meal last Christmas:
Ingredients
cold water
1/2 cup (125 g) Kosher salt
1 cup (200 g) light brown sugar
2 cups (473 mL) boiling water
NOTE: The brining process takes time, so if you plan to do this, consider starting the day before you plan to cook the turkey. If the turkey is frozen, thaw it according to the package directions before brining.
In a pan on the stove, dissolve the salt and brown sugar in 2 cups of boiling water (or vegetable stock). Allow the mixture to cool in either the freezer or overnight in the refrigerator, depending on your time constraints.
Pour the brine solution into a food-grade container large enough to hold the turkey, and enough cold water to cover the bird. Add your favourite dried spices (i.e. a tablespoon of sage, oregano, thyme, rosemary, basil, cinnamon) and seasonings (i.e. peppercorns, garlic cloves). Feel free to substitute some of the water with cold tea, lemon or orange slices, fruit or vegetable juices, cider, wine or beer.
Untie your turkey, and remove the giblets from the neck cavity and the neck from the body cavity. Trim away any large areas of fat or excess skin around the body cavity, and cut off the tail. Wash the bird inside and out under cold water, rinse the bird thoroughly. Place the turkey into the brine, adding more water if necessary to completely submerge it. If the turkey keeps floating up, find a way to weigh it down.
The turkey and brine solution must be kept below 40°F/4°C during the brining, so stick your container in the fridge, or somewhere cool, like in the basement, for at least ten hours. About halfway through the brining process, turn your poultry over to ensure an even brining throughout. Ice packs or reusable gel packs may be used to maintain the brine's cold temperature, but do not put ice directly into the solution as this will dilute the brine.
Remove the turkey from the brine, rinse it inside and out under cold water, and dry the bird thoroughly using a kitchen towel. Allow to come up to room temperature for an hour before you plan to roast it to ensure proper and safe heat penetration. Then cook the turkey as normal.
The focus of this week's lecture was on emulsions and foams. Ever since seeing that Marcel guy from "Top Chef" using them as a crutch, I respect the science behind foams a lot more than I do his use of them - that preening prat makes them look as pretentious as he is.
An emulsion is drops of a fluid in a second fluid. A foam is the same thing, except instead of a fluid in a fluid, it's drops of air in a fluid. Mayonnaise is an edible example of an emulsion (oil and water). An obvious example of a foam is the stuff on top of your fancy coffee at the coffeehouse - your whipped cream is also a foam.
Aioli is like a garlic mayonnaise. Below, Nandu Jubany, chef and owner of restaurant Can Jubany in Vic, Spain, shows how to make some:
You might be asking how can an emulsion exist since oil and water don't mix. Emulsifying is done by slowly adding one ingredient to another while simultaneously mixing rapidly. This disperses and suspends tiny droplets of one liquid through another.The two liquids would quickly separate again, however, if an emulsifier, a stabilizer between the two liquids, wasn't added. In mayonnaise, the emulsifier is egg yolk, which contains lecithin, a fat emulsifier. Another food that contain emulsifiers is gelatin.
Chemically, emulsions are colloids, heterogeneous mixtures composed of tiny particles suspended in another unmixable material. Though less than one one-thousandth of a millimeter, these particles are larger than molecules, and do not settle out and will pass right through filter paper. The particles in a colloid can be solid, liquid or bubbles of gas, and can be suspended a solid, liquid or gas, although gas colloids cannot be suspended in a gas.
When protein concentrations are increased to their maximum value the foaming powers and foam formation are generally increased. A protein will always have certain stresses that it must over come, such as gravitational and mechanical, it’s the proteins ability to stabilize foam against these stresses that determines the foams stability. The foams stability is usually expressed as the time required for 50% of the liquid to drain from foam (a 50% reduction in foam volume).
Here once again is Nandu Jubany to demonstrate how he makes a carrot foam:
1 Tbsp. (15 mL) water
1 Tbsp. (15 mL) fresh lemon juice
3 large egg yolks
6-8 oz. (177-236 mL) very soft unsalted butter
1 dash cayenne pepper
salt and ground white pepper to taste
Whisk the yolks, water, and lemon juice in the saucepan until thick and pale.
Set the pan over moderately low heat and continue to whisk at reasonable speed, reaching all over the bottom and insides of the pan, where the eggs tend to overcook.
Frequently move the pan off the burner for a few seconds, and then back on. (If, by chance, the eggs seem to be cooking too fast, set the pan in the bowl of cold water to cool the bottom, then continue).
As they cook, the eggs will become frothy and increase in volume. When you can see the pan bottom through the streaks of the whisk, remove from the heat.
By spoonfuls, add the soft butter, whisking constantly to incorporate each addition. As the emulsion forms, you may add the butter in slightly larger amounts, always whisking until fully absorbed. Continue adding butter until the sauce has thickened to the desired consistency.
Season lightly with salt, pepper, and a dash of cayenne pepper, whisking in well. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding droplets of lemon juice if needed. Serve lukewarm with fish or vegetables.
7 oz. (198 g.) finely chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
4 Tbsp. (59 g.) unsalted butter (+ extra for greasing the molds)
1.5 tsp. (7.4 mL) pure vanilla extract
3 large egg yolks
3 Tbsp. (45 mL) warm water
1/2 cup (65 g.) sugar (+ extra for lining the molds)
8 large egg whites
1/2 tsp. (2.4 mL) fresh lemon juice
confectioners' sugar for garnish
Brush 6 (6-ounce (177 mL)) ramekins with butter and coat with sugar. Preheat oven to 400 degrees °F (204 °C).
Melt and combine chocolate and butter in a double-boiler until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract.
Beat egg yolks and warm water until frothy. Add 2 Tbsp. sugar and beat till ribbons form. Fold into chocolate mixture.
Beat egg whites and lemon juice on medium until frothy. Gradually add the sugar, beating until stiff (but not dry) peaks form.
Immediately bake until the souffle rises about 1.5 inches above the ramekins and the tops brown, approximately 18-20 minutes. Remove from oven, dust with confectioners' sugar and serve immediately.
At the risk of offending any baristas out there, if you're going to have a cup of the world's most popular drug, you might as well do it right. Follygraph presents several ways to do just that:
People are predicting that eating insects will soon be the next big thing in food trends. If you're squeamish about bugs and creepy-crawlies, you will find that hard to believe, but entomophagy – the consumption of insects for nourishment – is something that over two billion people around the world are already doing, according to the UN. Why is this considered to be a good thing? Raising and harvesting insects requires much less land than raising regular livestock. With the cost of meat rising, people are looking for a new source of protein in their diet. While biting into a bug may not appeal to most people, it may help to know that insects contain more protein and are lower in fat than traditional meats - you get a better feed-to-meat ratio than with beef, pork, lamb or chicken. Some of the more popular insects that can be eaten include crickets, grasshoppers, ants, mealworms, larvae from the darkling beetle or rhinoceros beetle, bamboo worms, mopani worms, silkworms, waxworms, as well as scorpions and tarantulas. However, this doesn't mean you can pop a bug in your mouth the next time you see a particularly tasty one when you're outside, as you have no idea if that insect is carrying germs, is poisonous, or is covered with pesticides. And what do clean, safe-to-eat insects taste like, you ask? It depends on the insect, with some tasting similar to toasted avocado; like bacon soup; or even like a salty Jolly Rancher. Below is a recipe for dry-roasted crickets, which have a taste similar to sunflower seeds. If you're still reluctant to give this a try, note that you probably have already ingested some insect parts, eggs, larvae, or filth inadvertently if you've ever eaten canned corn, canned citrus fruit juices, wheat flour, frozen broccoli, ground thyme, ground nutmeg, chocolate. noodles, or peanut butter. The food laws in many countries don't prohibit insect parts in food, as it's not possible to eliminate pest insects from the human food chain, so instead, they limit the quantity; an average of less than 150 insect fragments per 100 grams of wheat flour is considered a permissible level of insect contamination. With this recipe, you can't say you didn't know what you put in your mouth.
Ingredients
25 – 50 live crickets Note: (Again, because of the germ/pesticide issue, use only crickets purchased from a reliable source. Your best bet is a pet store, farming them yourself, or asking your friend with the pet snake where they get their insects from.)
salt (or whatever seasoning you like to sprinkle on your popcorn)
Cricket prep
Place the crickets in a plastic container or storage bag and keep them in the refrigerator, or the freezer for at least for an hour or until you are ready to use them. Treat the crickets the same way you would treat seafood, and use them while they're still fresh. After removing them from the refrigerator or freezer, place the crickets in a pot of boiling water big enough for the amount of crickets you’re using. Add a few pinches of salt, and let them boil for about two minutes. Once boiled, remove the insects from the water and let them cool. The crickets can now be placed in storage bags and kept in the freezer, or used right away for any number of recipes.
Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Arrange the crickets on a cookie sheet, making sure none of them overlap. Bake them for about 60 minutes or until the crickets are completely dry or dry enough for personal taste. You can test a cricket to see if it’s dry enough by crushing it with a spoon against a hard surface, or between your fingers, at about the 45-minute mark.
Once roasted and cooled down, place a few crickets between your palms and carefully roll them to break off their legs and antennae to further ensure you’re eating a clean and crisp cricket. Season them with salt or whatever sort of seasoning you wish. Eat them on the spot or place them back into the freezer for future use.
As a follow-up to a previous blog entry, I'm going to go a little bit further in showing what you can do with just a little flour and butter. This combination, called a roux, is the basis of many sauces. By cooking the flour in the butter, starch granules in the flour begin to break, and when liquid is added, the granules absorb the liquid, thickening the sauce. A roux can also be made with other melted fats such as lard, bacon fat or any cooking oil. Likewise, any starchy flour, such as rice flour or potato flour, can be used for making a roux.
Stir in 8 g flour. Make sure the flour and butter is well blended, and has cooked for several minutes until it's a blond to light brown colour.
Add 256g milk, increase the heat to medium-high, and stir or whisk the mixture constantly until it has thickened. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Have you heard of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge? Of course you have, it's the fundraising social media sensation that's sweeping the nation. Please consider donating money for research to find a cure to this disease, even if you consider dumping cold water on yourself silly.
Viscosity measures how easy something is to pour. Water has a low viscosity and cold syrup has a high viscosity.
The molecules that make a liquid up flow past and bump into each other. To thicken it, we need to add molecules or particles that will impede the motion of the liquid.
Want to measure the viscosity of a fluid, but you don't have a rheometer? If you have some free time on your hands (and who doesn't?), take a container and put a little hole in the bottom, and measure how long it takes for the fluid to flow through the hole.
How thick or how thin a sauce is can make or break a recipe. Some of the ways to thicken food are:
Reduction: This term you've heard on your favourite cooking show means you take the material you want to thicken, heat it on a stove in an open pan, and you reduce it by simmering it until about half of the water has left, through evaporation.
This works because they were already enough molecules in the material you want to thicken to cause a thickening, but because of all the water molecules in the liquid, they were just too far apart to thicken. It works well if you have a stock, because it has lots of gelatin molecules. But it won't work if you just have something with only very small molecules in it. This is why you can't thicken a brine by boiling it, and why can't thicken wine by boiling it, unless you boil it all the way down till it's a glaze and there's almost nothing left.
Here is guest lecturer Carme Ruscalleda in her native Spanish to demonstrate:
Emulsion: Another oft-heard cooking show word, this is the process of combining two liquids (usually fat and water) that will maintain their distinct characteristics after being mixed. Common fat in water emulsifications include hollandaise sauce and mayonnaise, and common water in fat emulsifications are vinaigrettes and whole butter.
Adding oil is a good way to thicken, but it makes what you're making taste of the oil you're using.
Starch-based thickener: This is a classic French technique of mixing and cooking equal parts flour and fat into something called a roux.
The starch in the flour is heated up to the point that it hydrates and gelatinizes, turning the starch molecules into sticky polymers that make a liquid thick.
Note that you have to cook the roux properly, otherwise it will have a floury taste, and it won't thicken well. You can use cornstarch or arrowroot or other starches, but if you put too much in, your roux will get rubbery and have an unpleasant texture.
Modernist thickener: These are substances used by those who worship at the altar of molecular gastronomy. Xanthan gum, a natural product, is made by fermenting a kind of bacteria. Because of the polymer molecules, very small amounts can produce a large increase in the viscosity of a liquid- in most foods, it is used at 0.5%, and can be used in lower concentrations. Xanthan gum also helps thicken commercial egg substitutes made from egg whites, to replace the fat and emulsifiers found in yolks, and is also used in gluten-free baking, as it gives the dough or batter a "stickiness" that would otherwise be achieved with gluten.
A polymer is a very long, but very flexible molecule, made up of many, many monomers. Polymers have to get out of the way of one another in order for the fluid to flow. This is why polymer thickeners are so effective at increasing the viscosity of a fluid.
Gels can also be used in thickening, as their long polymer molecules stick to each other, in a random way, trapping both water molecules and all other molecules, into something that effectively becomes a solid, like Jell-o. When you break them up, by pureeing it for example, the gel will reform slightly, and create a fluid gel, which acts like a thick liquid.
Agar agar (or just agar) is a natural gelatin product made from seaweed that's been used for more than 1000 years in Asian cooking. Like xanthan gum, only a small amount of agar is needed to thicken your soups and sauces.
Food additives like agar agar and xantha gum can be ordered online at MOLECULE-R.
One of the easiest ways to add flavour and brighten up a dish is to use fresh herbs and spices in the recipe. You can pick some up when you're passing through the produce section of the supermarket, or grow them yourself in your garden or on your windowsill. Your hardier herbs (rosemary, sage) can stay green and fragrant for a week or two, as long as they're refrigerated and don't get wet, but more delicate herbs (basil, dill, cilantro, tarragon), need special attention so they don't blacken or freeze in the refrigerator. To keep these herbs at their best, remove any rubber bands or fasteners from them, and trim off the root ends and the lower parts of the stems to prevent the tops from wilting, as the roots draw the moisture from the leaves. Wash herbs only when you're ready to use them, and use your sharpest knife when chopping them. For more information about herbs and spices, check out the image below.
This week's session is about the transfer of heat in cooking food.
Heat is described as a difference in temperatures. Something feels hot because your hand is colder than the thing you touched. When you touch the hot object, energy in the form of heat is transferred from the object to your hand because of the difference in temperatures
As any cook can tell you, it's tough to make things by applying heat in order to make it taste good. The reason is that in order to properly cook something, it is not sufficient to cook the inside of the thing you're trying to cook to a target temperature. It turns out you also have to have the outside hit another target temperature. And that target temperature for the outside is higher than the target temperature of the inside, higher even than the boiling point of water. So to perfectly cook a meatloaf, or vegetables, or whatever you want to eat, you need to get the outside of the food a temperature higher than the boiling point of water, while getting the inside to a temperature below the boiling point of water.
Why is it necessary to cook the outside of a food to a temperature that's higher than the boiling point of water? It's because it's needed to make a very important set of chemical reactions, called the browning reactions. Not surprisingly, these are the reactions that tend to take food and make it have a brown colour. Called the Maillard reactions, after the chemist Louis Maillard who discovered and described them in the 19th century, the way these reactions work is that they are a reaction between carbohydrate molecules, like a sugar, and a protein, which could be a single amino acid. At high temperatures, the combination of a carbohydrate molecule and a protein will lead to hundreds of small molecule by-products. Some of these by-products are colour compounds. They tend to be brown, which is the reason food gets that brownish colour when it cooks.
This is why when you take a piece of fish, seal it in plastic, and cook it sous-vide style (that is, cook it in a constant temperature heat bath), there won't be any flavour molecules produced because the temperature is well below that of the Maillard reactions. Your fish will have a perfect texture, but it would taste quite bland.
If we put a piece of meat or a piece of fish into an oven at a temperature much higher than 100 degrees, the centre of it, where there's lots of water, can't get higher than 100 degrees, because it can't go above the boiling point of water. The only way that it can actually go above that temperature is if you actually boil off some of the water in whatever it is it you’re cooking, so there's a thin layer around the outside where it's actually dried out. Once it's dried out, in that dried out layer, in that thin layer which is dry, you could push the temperature above 100 degrees Celsius, and you can start to get close to the temperature that's needed for browning reactions. That's the reason really that there's a thin crust of brown around food when you cook it because these temperatures can only be hit in the part of the food where it's actually dried out.
Carme Ruscalleda, chef and owner of restaurant Sant Pau, demonstrates her method of cooking a steak.
Michael Brenner and Daniel Rosenburg ttalk about the physics of how heat is transferred to food.
Microscopically, the air around the food being cooked is hot, meaning the molecules are whizzing around like mad, causing the molecules in the food to start whizzing around like mad, and eventually, they all get hot.
Heat diffuses into food like a random walk, which brings us to the Equation of the Week, L=4Dt−−−−√or L is equal to the square root of 4 times D times t, where L is the length of the food, D is the diffusion constant that's governing the random walk and t is time. Scientists call it the heat diffusion concept.
Different foods have different heat diffusion constants. Knowing this and the above equation allows you to estimate how long it takes to cook different foods. I would still recommend using a kitchen timer, however.
The week's lecture ends with a demonstration of how to make a better French fry, a lab assignment consisting of making a molten chocolate cake, and a homework assignment of making fried ice cream balls. I'll post my attempts of making at least one of these recipes in the future.
I'm planning on going camping with some people who enjoy their bacon as much as they enjoy their booze, so I'm bringing some bacon-infused whiskey for the nights around the campfire. I'll be using a technique called fat washing, a process of using fat to “wash out” undesirable molecules. The flavoured fat will bind with the alcohol molecules, creating flavours that you wouldn't normally get in traditional infusing.
Ingredients
1 package bacon (you will need to cook about half the package to produce the required amount of bacon fat)
1 bottle (375 mL) of whiskey or bourbon
Take 4 teaspoons (20g) of filtered bacon fat, and mix it with the entire bottle of whiskey. If you have an immersion blender, this would be a good time to use it.
Let rest at room temperature for at least 12 hours.
Longer times and higher temperatures will yield a stronger infusion, so you’ll want to experiment. As good as it was, I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get hit in the mouth with bacon when I tried the Hogsback Brewing Company's Aporkalypse Now oatmeal bacon stout. For this experiment, I've added several pieces of the cooked bacon to the batch, and will be letting the mixture sit for 10 days.
After the infusing has been completed, place the mixture in the freezer until the fats have solidified. Filter the alcohol, through a coffee filter, or by other means, for as many times as you see fit. It is now ready to be used in your beverage of choice.
How did this batch turn out? Stay tuned...
UPDATE: I started the straining process on the 29th, using the best strainer and coffee filters money can buy from the dollar store. I may have lost about a third of the whiskey during the straining process, but it did remove the top layer of fat that you see in the above image, and all the fat particles and tiny pieces that came off of the bacon. It made a smooth whiskey and cola, you can really taste the bacon flavour in the last few sips. I would recommend giving your mixed drinks a good stirring or shaking to get the bacon whiskey's full flavour.
With the World Cup in full swing, this is as good of a time as any to learn a bit about world cuisine. Thanks to the good people of Kit Stone, 36 regions have had their unique flavours whittled down to three major ingredients.
Now that the school year is winding down, I thought this would be a good time to watch this documentary. The documentary follows Philadelphia inner city high school culinary teacher Wilma Stephenson through a school year, leading her students in her challenging classroom. Like all chefs in their kitchens, Stephenson holds high standards and demands respect; heaven help the student who doesn't come correct. The documentary also focuses on some of Stephenson's students - a football player, a cheerleader, and an African immigrant - as they work to compete in a cooking competition with scholarships on the line. This was a delight to watch, and it will bring back memories of that favourite teacher some of us were (hopefully) lucky to have who made a difference in our lives and made us work for a better tomorrow.
This Sunday is Father's Day, so after giving him the usual gift of after-shave and a tie, why not serve up something different for dear old Dad this year? During a recent visit to the supermarket, I noticed there was a special on pre-cooked lobsters. I bought a few, brought them home, put them in the downstairs freezer, and forgot about them until my wife discovered them a few days later. I decided I wanted to do more than just boiling and serving them with some butter, so after doing a quick check on the interwebs, I made the recipe below. Happy Father's Day everyone!
Ingredients
454g cooked and cubed lobster meat (I let my lobsters thaw out, then boiled them in water for 2-3 minutes)
2 hot dog buns or kaiser rolls
1-1/2 teaspoons butter, softened
2 lettuce leaves
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon lime juice
1/2 dash hot pepper sauce
1 green onion, chopped
1/2 stalk celery, finely chopped
1/2 pinch dried basil, parsley, tarragon, or dill
salt and pepper to taste
Lightly butter the insides of the buns or rolls and line with lettuce leaves, then set them aside.
Mix the mayonnaise, lime juice, hot pepper sauce, salt and pepper in a bowl until well blended. Mix in the green onion and celery, then lightly mix in the lobster so it just gets coated without falling apart..
Put the lobster filling into the buns and sprinkle lightly with the remaining spice ingredients.
After reading "Where the Wild Things Are" to my son for
the umpteenth time, I realized that I read for him more than I do for myself. I
used to have a lot of time to read for pleasure back when I bused in to work,
just like I did before I became a parent. But all that free reading stopped
after I continued using my car at the conclusion of the OC Transpo strike. I used to read
everything from books by Hunter S Thompson and Walter Mosley, to magazines like
"Wired", "Wizard", and "Maxim". I blame the
latter for causing me to settle on Spencer Walker's book "Cook
to Bang: The Lay Cook's Guide to Getting Laid". As much as I enjoyed
the articles and pictures in the men's magazine, there's a reason I stopped
reading it - I got old, and outgrew the lads' mag mentality. This book drove
home the point that you can't go home again.
The premise of the book is quite obvious -
the way to get into a woman’s panties is through her stomach. It starts with a
history lesson of the link between food and sex, filtered through a Barney Stinson/Guy Fieri mash-up that no one was ever asking for. That's not to say that the information found inside isn't any good. I
thought the section on food couplings was worthwhile (good combinations: beets
and goat cheese; seafood and mango; dates and bacon), and the chapters on food
aphrodisiacs and cocktails had some good recipes to try. But calling a steamed
artichoke with a spicy aioli dish 'Don't Artichoke Your Chicken' doesn't make me want to either cook it, eat it, or give it to someone I want to do it with. And no matter how many histamines
asparagus has to "rev up the power of an orgasm", there's no need to
call something 'Tap That Ass-paragus Soup", especially if you plan to put
it in your own or someone else's mouth. The dating advice is more of the same. While friends of
"Andrew in Charlotte" may no longer think he's gay after his reading of "Cook to Bang", and the boyfriend of "Madeline in Los
Angeles" went all sex crazy after breakfast when she tried the recipes,
your success may vary. With suggestions like serving jalapeno poppers to
church-goers, and brie and crackers to power yuppies, and ways to identify club
sluts and dance floor D-bags, maybe my single brother-in-law would have gotten
more out of the sexual profiling chapter than I did.
I can't say I would recommend this book to
anyone, unless as a gag gift. While there's some interesting stuff to be found
in this book, the horny teenager vibe makes it hard to read or to take
seriously. Maybe I expected more from an author who's worked as both a
sous-chef and a private chef. As a married man, maybe I just don't "get
it" as I wasn't the target audience for this book. While the recipes may
save you from spending money at a 4-star restaurant in your quest to get in dat ass, there’s a reason no one asks Gordon Ramsey for dating advice.
Early last week was my birthday, so my wife and young son took me out for a celebratory lunch. I am pleased to report that they took me to a place I've been wanting to try ever since I saw it out of the corner of my eye when I was leaving Place Centrum a few months back. St. Martha’s Brasserie is my favourite restaurant in Orleans. I know that's not saying much what with all the fast-food and corporate restaurants that litter the suburb, but that shouldn't be held against this place. This restaurant would be a standout in any of Ottawa's trendier neighbourhoods.
Not a large place by any means, the Brasserie makes the most of the space it has. The dark wood interior made the restaurant feel warm and inviting. The three of us sat under the mirror near the spotless stainless steel diner seating overlooking the equally spotless kitchen. For a Tuesday afternoon, there were a lot of people there for the lunch rush, but it was cozy and not cramped.
Lunch for me started with steamed mussels served with a white wine cream sauce, Pernod and bacon, garnished with fennel and roasted garlic, served with a side of hand-cut frites with a garlic aioli.
The mussels were cooked well in a delicious broth, and the frites were as tasty as their reputation has claimed. That was followed with confit de canard; Dawn had the pasta and sausage lunch special while young Master Franklin nibbled on chicken taken off skewers and frites from the children's menu.
The confit was nicely done, crispy from the pan-searing, and made even sweeter with the honey and apricot sauce it was glazed with. I would have preferred more of the roasted vegetable than the crispy corn polenta that came with it, but it did add an interesting texture to the meal. Dawn enjoyed her meal, saying the pasta was simple and satisfying.
Overall, we found that St. Martha’s Brasserie's concept of "classic French brasserie fare within an Ontarian context" surpassed expectations. With its traditional fare, as well as vegetarian and gluten-free options available, we highly recommend this restaurant to anyone in Orleans, or to anyone willing to drive out to Ottawa's east end.
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