Category Archives: Food

Before You Add the Flash

Posted on by

On properly heating your pan

How to keep food from sticking in a stainless-steel pan. The first explanation about pores biting into the food sounds hokey, but then we get to the Liedenfrost effect, which is demonstrated in the video.

The water “hovering” over the stainless steel pan like mercury happens due to the phenomenon known as the Leidenfrost effect. You can read more about it on wikipedia, but the basic idea is this: at a certain temperature known as the Leidenfrost point (roughly around 320˚F for water, but varying with surface and pressure), when the water droplet hits the hot pan, the bottom part of the water vaporizes immediately on contact. The resulting gas actually suspends the water above it and creates a pocket of water vapor that slows further heat transfer between the pan and the water. Thus it evaporates more slowly than it would at lower temperatures. At the proper temperature, a similar effect happens with the food you place in the pan, preventing the food from sticking.

Survivor Skills

Posted on by

This may prove useful in in the event you absolutely must open a bottle of wine but have no corkscrew.

How to open a wine bottle with a shoe.

Technically a shoe and a wall. My French is pretty much limited* to Je ne parle pas Français (and croissant, so I would never say Je ne parle pas croissant) so I assume the narrator is telling you that pressure is force/area, and so any force you exert on the liquid at the base by whacking the bottom of the bottle will result in a much larger force being transmitted to the cork owing to the reduction in area.

What he is probably not telling you is that this is a poor technique for ketchup, and not because French cuisine and ketchup are incompatible or that it won’t work on screw tops (both true) but that ketchup is a non-Newtonian fluid, and when the ketchup clogs the neck of the bottle it prevents air from entering, which is necessary to let the ketchup flow. Don’t invert and bang on the bottom (this holds true for more than ketchup, but I digress). Hold it with the open end down at 45º and tap the neck to induce the shear-thinning.

(*My limited vocabulary also allows me to get the following joke: Why do French omelettes have only one egg? Because in France one egg is un oeuf.)

Pick Your Poison

Posted on by

Harmful Drinks in America

(Update: link dead. Try this one instead, seems to be the same list)

The 20 worst drinks, along with a food equivalent.

5. Worst Frozen Fruit Drink
Krispy Kreme Lemon Sherbet Chiller (20 fl oz)

980 calories
40 g fat (36 g saturated)
115 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 16 medium-size chocolate eclairs

Imagine taking a regular can of soda, pouring in 18 extra teaspoons of sugar, and then swirling in half a cup of heavy cream. Nutritionally speaking, that’s exactly what this is, which is how it manages to marry nearly 2 days’ worth of saturated fat with enough sugar to leave you with a serious sucrose hangover. Do your heart a favor and avoid any of Krispy Kreme’s “Kremey” beverages. The basic Chillers aren’t the safest of sippables either, but they’ll save you up to 880 calories.

The Smartest Cooker in the World

Posted on by

Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World’s Best (and Cheapest) Sous-Vide Hack

In an effort to help those who’d like to experiment with sous-vide cookery without having to put in the capital, a couple weeks ago I devised a novel solution to the problem: Cook your food in a beer cooler.

But … how does the cooler know you’re cooking?!? [wink]

Here’s how it works: A beer cooler is designed to keep things cool. It accomplishes this with a two-walled plastic chamber with an air space in between. This airspace acts as an insulator, preventing thermal energy (a.k.a. heat) from outside to reach the cold food inside. Of course, insulators work both ways. Once you realize that a beer cooler is just as good at keeping hot things hot as it is at keeping cold things cold, then the rest is easy

I haven’t tried this, but there’s quite a bit of interesting discussion in the comments.

Important info for sous-vide chicken

Not a Peep Out of You!

Posted on by

Peep Research

There are several important implications indicated by these [low pressure] results:

1. Peeps are poorly equipped as fighter pilots, supporting the Supreme Court ruling that banning peeps from the cockpits of F-16 planes in combat does not violate the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1992. (Orville & Wilbur Peep vs. US Government, 1994)
2. Peeps should exercise caution when ascending after deep-sea diving excursions, as sudden decreases in pressure may exceed the structural integrity of visceral parenchyma.
3. This may explain the tragic demise of the Col. Lewis Peep expedition which attempted to reach the peak of Mt. Everest in the spring of 1856. It is important to note that these data do not exclude alternative theories suggesting that the group was devoured by a pack of diabetic mountain lions. (Schroedinger, Heisenberg, & Bohr, 1922).