Erich Berghammer, also known as Odo7 [homepage, myspace] is an aroma jockey or AJ for short. He blows scents over his audience with huge fans and has stocked up a pantry with exotic spices, roots, leafs, oils, extracts and herbs.…
I have previously written about how you can cook a perfect steak with a simple DIY sous vide technique. Of course low temperature cooking applies equally well to fish with the only difference that the temperature can be turned down…
Cookware made from cast iron has a reputation for keeping food warm for a long time. Is that really true? Best way to find out is by an experiment. I decided to compare a cast iron pot with one of…
Get a basic understanding of heat transfer, heat capacity and heat conductance. Since a lot of cooking involves temperature manipulations, it’s a good idea to get a basic understandning of how heat is transferred and how well it is stored…
Dominique & Cindy Duby, chocolatiers based in Canada, have put together two “scientific chocolate tasting kits” (one, two). Some of the science behind is explained in their “tasting notes” (copy the text into a wordprocessor to read it). For a…
2. Know what temperature you’re cooking at. A dip probe thermometer with a digital read out is a cheap way to bring science into your kitchen. It should preferably cover the temperatures from -30 to 300 °C (-22 to 570…
By beating air into an egg white you can increase it’s volume by a factor of approximately 8. Hervé This has shown that water is the limiting component. By adding more water you can significantly increase the volume. Addition of…
One important aspect of molecular gastronomy is the application of scientific principles to food preparation in a normal kitchen. This can very well be illustrated by discussing the preparation of a steak. The surface of the meat needs to be…
Under the heading “The Curious Cook” Harold McGee recently started an occasional column on food and chemistry and everything in between in the New York Times. It’s definitely worth reading as Harold McGee has time and opportunity to really dig…
Lussekatt (Photo by Jonas Bergsten) The day of St. Lucia is celebrated in Scandinavia and some countries in southern Europe on December 13th. In Scandinavia a traditional kind of bun, lussekatt, is normally made and eaten on this day. What…
