Cooking Issues

Nathan Myhrvold and co: https://modernistcuisine.com Dave Arnold: http://www.cookingissues.com http://heritageradionetwork.org/series/cooking-issues/

Clove oil works well, according to Dave Arnold: http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=5731.html

The best way to kill seafood in general would be to use an anesthetic then gut/puncture its nervous system. Clove oil would be the best example of this, check dave arnold's post out http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=5731.html and a good method for fish would be killing it using the ikejime method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikejime .

Dave Arnold's "Cooking Issues"[0] podcast is an excellent source of high quality information about all sorts of related food and kitchen equipment hacking. He had a very interesting segment about the open source HACCP plan discussed in this article a couple of weeks ago. I highly recommend his stuff! [0] http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=4532.html

That's not necessarily true; there are three types of popular pressure cookers[1]. Fagor-type pressure cookers release steam constantly (this could be the kind GP has), old-school weight-on-top pressure cookers release steam intermittently (this may be what you have in mind), and Kuhn Rikon pressure cookers release no steam at all (this third type is best for flavor since no volatiles are lost to the kitchen with escaping steam). 1. http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=2561.html

The two temp solution works, or you can just get rid of the unappealing loose/runny parts of the white by gently rolling the cooked egg over a paper towel. The following chart can be helpful when you're getting started. http://www.cookingissues.com/2011/05/03/tea-time-cooking-issues-as-art…

If you like this but want to see how you might take it a step further: http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/05/12/the-quest-for-french-fry-supre… I believe Kenji Lopez-Alt, the author of the Serious Eats article, is the "Former Cooks Illustrated Test Cook" quoted at the end of Dave Arnold's article. (Everything at Cooking Issues is amazing, especially Dave Arnold's weekly podcast; also, you can get Pectinex Ultra SPL from Modernist Pantry online).

These guys recommend you anesthetize the lobster before cooking live: http://www.cookingissues.com/2012/07/04/how-to-become-a-seafood-anesth…

The blog is a great resource as well and they finally fixed it last month. Also, Dave Arnold's boneless biotic turkey: http://www.cookingissues.com/category/turkey/

Kenji is awesome, and probably the best reason to read seriouseats. But for anyone who enjoys food science, you really have to start with Harold McGee's classic "On Food and Cooking": http://smile.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/068480001… (Sorry for the enormous URL.) Also, I binge-listen to Dave Arnold's podcast, "Cooking Issues" on Heritage Radio network. A treasure trove of food science facts, going well beyond eggs: sous vide meat, hydrocolloids, liquid nitrogen cocktails, etc. http://heritageradionetwork.org/series/cooking-issues/ (You really have to give the show a chance, though -- it's very conversational, and less... polished than your typical show.) Also, anyone interested in food science should really consider an iSi whipper for booze infusion and other experimentation. No really, please do it, your life will be better (or at least boozier): http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=4463.html (Arnold has progressed the technique a lot since then, but this primer is pretty good nonetheless. The FCI blog is basically dead; the podcast and Twitter are his current outlets.) But yeah, I screw around in the kitchen a lot (though cook less useful food than my wife does). Pressure cooker, weird enzymes, hydrocolloids... but the iSi whipper booze-infusion technique is my all-time favorite kitchen hack. You can drink toasted hazelnut bourbon in a Manhattan like, six minutes…

If you are unfamiliar with the author, Dave Arnold is a former instructor at the French Culinary Institute, a bar owner/operator in NYC (Booker & Dax (closed), Existing Conditions (closed), and Bar Contra (https://www.barcontra.com)), a cooking equipment designer and manufacturer (https://www.bookeranddax.com), sharer of lots of knowledge (e.g. https://cookingissues.com/primers/sous-vide/part-i-introduction-to-low… James Beard Award winning book author (https://www.kitchenartsandletters.com/products/liquid-intelligence-the… and a weekly podcast host (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cooking-issues-with-dave-arnold/… I highly recommend anything he works on.

(replying to myself) It seems like Dave Arnold and Douglas Baldwin even study each others' work -- see the comments here for example: https://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=3304.html Also, wow, the Cooking Issues people might be good at low-temp cooking, but they are not good at Unicode.

Dave Arnold's essay on killing lobsters is a good practical complement to Wallace's theory: https://cookingissues.com/2012/07/04/how-to-become-a-seafood-anesthesi…

Dave Arnold tried this and was not impressed: https://cookingissues.com/2009/06/11/maillard-pipe-potatoes/ ---------------------------------------- As you can see from the photo, the potato turns a dark mahogany all the way through (cause it is 355° all the way through). Even the water turns mahogany. This experiment taught me that not all Maillard reactions produce good flavors. The Maillard pipe potato tastes awful and smells acrid. Damn it’s bad—but it’s instructive. ----------------------------------------

There are a bunch of techniques to see the heating pattern of a pan and to show how poor cast iron is in that regard. I remember someone using parchment paper (maybe Harold McGee?). In looking I found someone suggesting a light dusting of flour [1]. Of course, an IR camera is the most obvious. I've also noticed water boiling in unique patterns, like you mention. [1] http://cookingissues.com/2010/02/16/heavy-metal-the-science-of-cast-ir…

Due to the Leidenfrost effect, incidental contact of bare skin and LN2 is not usually a problem (it boils off locally and creates a gaseous N2 barrier). Other things superchilled by it will not be as forgiving, however. http://cookingissues.com/primers/liquid-nitrogen-primer/#section2

This is probably a better overview for the HN crowd: http://www.cookingissues.com/category/ike-jime/

Interesting website. My cooking skills are very basic, but now I'm interested in getting a Searzall. http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=6031.html

This might help: http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=5661.html (shared elsewhere in the comments here).

See this: http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=5661.html (scroll down 1 page)

Good stainless and induction cookware has a much more even distribution of heat than cast iron, as well. http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/02/16/heavy-metal-the-science-of-cas…

Cast iron is not ideal for even heating, it's a myth. http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/02/16/heavy-metal-the-science-of-cas…

I like this chart better for sous-vide eggs: http://www.cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/eggchart2.jpg It's accurate and has served me well. The only downside of making eggs sous-vide is that it takes forever. If I sleep in on a Sunday morning, set up the water bath, then wait 45 minutes for egg equilbrium, it's almost lunch time...

It's not over-diluting that could make it "ropey", it's over-chilling. Try putting a bottle of vodka in a freezer. As you chill spirits their viscosity increases. Shaking high ABV drinks with ice brings their temperature well below 0C. See: http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=4585.html Stirring is much less effective than shaking, but very long stirring could approach shaking temperatures. I think it's plausible that the viscosity difference could be perceptible.

Dave Arnold tested this, and preferred searing before and after cooking. :) http://www.cookingissues.com/primers/sous-vide/purdy-pictures-the-char…

"In this case, poaching or hard boiling an egg is so utterly simple, done in mere minutes, that it is simply impossible that this device could make it easier. And the grotesque proposed waste of energy borders on the absurd." said like someone who has never used the sous vide cooking method. this is about precise cooking, which yeilds very specific results; it's very different than your 'toss a bunch of eggs into boiling water for 10 minutes! duhhh' method. you cant get these results with your 'utterly simple' method(s): http://www.cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/eggchart2.jpg and we're just talking eggs here. your steak wont look like this either: https://d3awvtnmmsvyot.cloudfront.net/api/file/clFhHJTkRraOg8cc1MiD

Well, the salient point there is "prior to a low-temp cook". In that post: http://www.cookingissues.com/2011/10/12/to-salt-or-not-to-salt-thats-t… Arnold was using sous-vide on the steaks, which has much different cooking characteristics than high heat cooking. I've generally found that liberally salting steaks with kosher salt up to several hours in advance of grilling or roasting improves the flavor and texture substantially. Serious Eats backs me up, here: http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/03/the-food-lab-more-tips-for-perfect-…

There's an interesting review of sorts of the restaurant here: http://www.cookingissues.com/2012/06/08/tokyo-tales-300-of-sushi-in-30…

FCI recently performed an empirical comparison of shaking vs. stirring: Shaking completely chills, dilutes and aerates a drink in around 15 seconds, after which the drink stops changing radically and reaches relative equilibrium. Shaking is basically insensitive to bartender-induced variables. …bartender skill is very important in a stirred cocktail. Because stirring doesn’t reach equilibrium, stirred drinks are warmer and less diluted than shaken cocktails. Stirred drinks, unlike shaken ones, are not aerated. Stirring does not alter the texture of a drink—it merely chills and dilutes. A properly diluted cocktail stored at -5 degrees Celsius in a freezer is indistinguishable from a properly stirred one. http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/09/02/cocktail-science-in-general-pa…