The Savvy Gourmet

Kitchen Myths – Searing Meat to Seal in the Juices

To minimize the lost of juices when cooking, sear the meat quickly. True or false?

This idea, introduced by Justus von Liebig around 1850 and later embraced by contemporary cooks and cookbook authors, is not true. Simple experimentation showed that seared roasts lost the same amount of moisture or more.

Nonetheless, it remains an essential technique in cooking meat for several reasons:

• High temperature browning of the surface creates desirable flavours through caramelization and the Maillard reaction.  

• The appearance of the food is usually improved with a well-browned crust. 

• The contrast in taste and texture between the crust and the interior makes the food more interesting to the palate.

To learn more on this subject:

von Liebig, Justus. 1850. Researches on the Chemistry of Food.

McGee, Harold. 2004. On Food and Cooking (Revised Edition). Page 161, "The Searing Question".

Searing in Wikipedia.

Does Searing Meat "Seal In" Juices? More controversial materials in About.com Culinary Arts.

Food Aroma Affects Bite Size

Increasing aroma intensity reduces bite size, making for smaller mouthfuls. So the stronger the aroma, the smaller the mouthful.

This intriguing observation is of interest to the food industry, nutritionists and anyone concerned about the quantity of food eaten.

Want to reduce the quantity of food you eat? Give it more flavour! Now that’s something to chew on!

Kitchen Myths - On Roasting Suckling Pigs

Suckling pigs have more crackling when the head of the pig is cut immediately after being roasted. True or false?

Surprisingly it’s true, with test results published in Scientific American Magazine1. Blind tasting by 143 people confirmed that the skin of pigs with the head cut was crispier!

Why? Here is what researchers found.

“The underlying mechanism was easily discovered, as it was observed during cooking that in one pig a stream of vapour was escaping from a hole made during preparation.

Heat evaporates water from the surface of the meat during cooking, making the crust. Vapour formed inside the meat is not enough to compensate for the loss of surface water.

When the pigs are not heated any longer, the crust softens if vapour goes through. Cutting the head prevents vapour perfusion, as it escapes through the opening”².

This is a good example of the open-minded approach needed to test such statements.

¹ This, H., and N. Kurti, 1994. Physics and Chemistry in the Kitchen. Scientific American, 270, 44–50.

² This, Hervé. 2005. Modelling dishes and exploring culinary ‘precisions’ – The two issues of molecular gastronomy. British Journal of Nutrition (2005), 93, Suppl. 1, S139–S146.

Kitchen Myths

Molecular gastronomy is based on the scientific observation of phenomena related to food processing. It’s not surprising that the results of these observations often transform common knowledge into kitchen myths.

Statements about food and cooking – “kitchen stories” and/or "culinary precisions" – are being collected and analyzed by scientists and are now the subject of research and compilations around the world. The INRA in France, for example, has created a culinary information bank that contains more than 25,000 entries.

To analyse, understand and test such statements, Eric Fooladi has developed a comprehensive rationale to distinguish truth from myths.

Posts on “culinary precisions” and laboratory analyses are published regularly on this blog. The results are often amazing!

Read more in:

Kitchen Myths, a website on kitchen myths by Peter Aitken.

Kitchen Myths, a Discovery Channel website on kitchen myths.

Wild Rice is not Rice!

Wild rice is any of the four species of plants that make up the genus Zizania, whereas rice is a monocot plant of the Oryza sativa genus. Thus, wild rice is not a rice species.

Wild rice is an aquatic cereal grain that grows "wild" in isolated lake and river bed areas located primarily within the Great Lakes region of North America. It is also native to ecologically similar regions located on the continent of Asia.

This ancient grain has been found in layers of the earth dating back some 12,000 years. In addition to its role as an important food staple for ancestral peoples, it has provided a unique habitat for fish and waterfowl for thousands of years.

Wild rice is high in protein, the amino acid lysine and dietary fiber, and low in fat. Like true rice, it does not contain gluten.

Sources:

Wild Rice History, International Wild Rice Association (IWRA).

Wild Rice, Wikipedia.

Try the Gourmet Sauvage Wild Rice.

Food Additives are not Safe to Consume - True or False?

Food additives are chemicals that manufacturers or processors add to foods for various reasons, such as to preserve foods or improve their appearance.

Although food additives have been used for many years, some people have become concerned about their safety and want to minimize the amount of food additives they consume.

There are many types of food additives: antioxidants (such as vitamin C), colouring agents, emulsifiers, gelling agents, preservatives, stabilizers, sweeteners, thickening agents, etc. Should they all be considered in the same manner?

To learn more about this subject.

The Safety of Food Additives

Food additives

An apple a Day, from Dr. Joe Schwarcz

Eat Salmon. It's full of good omega-3 fats. Don't eat salmon. It's full of PCBs and mercury. Eat more veggies. They're full of good antioxidants. Don't eat more veggies…

It seems you have to be a nutritional scientist these days before you sit down to eat - which is why we need Dr. Joe Schwarcz.

Joe Schwarcz (PhD McGill 1973) is Director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society which is dedicated to demystifying science for the public, the media and students.

An apple a Day is a must-read book for anyone who hungers for the truth about what we eat.

The Use of Mill Stones is not a Quality Criterion

Following traditions can sometimes be a guarantee of quality for food products. Sometimes, however, this may result in lower quality. Using millstones to ground olives and to make a paste to be spread on fibre disks and pressed in cylinder presses to extract oil may well evoke beautiful images of the past.

Unfortunately, it leads to a longer oil extraction process and greater contact with air, thereby increasing the oxidation of oil and reducing the flavour. Using modern machines where the process and temperature are faster and better controlled results in better quality oil products.