|
How
to Read a French Fry
And Other Stories of Intriguing Kitchen Science
By
Russ Parsons (Houghton Mifflin)
 |
Russ
Parsons to the rescue. In his first book, Parsons, staff
writer (and former editor) of the Los Angeles Times and
longtime award-winning food journalist answers all of your
burning questions: Why do onions make you cry? Why, from
a scientific perspective, are strawberries and rhubarb a
good combination? Why don't potatoes fried in fresh oil
ever completely brown? Why can you stick your hand into
a 500 F oven, but not into 212 F boiling water? Lucky for
us, know-it-all Parsons explains everything in a clear,
breezy style. To respond to the burning question regarding
burning the hands, for instance, he writes, "Heat is energy,
the movement of molecules. The hotter something is, the
faster those molecules are moving. Something heats up—energy
is transferred—when those speedy little molecules bump
into it, setting its molecules in motion. Temperature measures
how fast those molecules are moving. That is important,
but equally—if not more—important is how many
of those molecules there are in a certain space. Put most
simply, the more molecules there are, the more quickly heat
is transferred. This is called conduction. In a 500 F oven,
the air molecules are moving very fast indeed, but relatively
speaking, there aren't very many of them. Your hand will
need to be hit by many seconds' worth before it will begin
to heat up to a temperature that feels uncomfortable." And
Parsons' answers won't leave you hungry since he also includes
more than 100 recipes and countless cooking tips to illustrate
his points.
For
instance, when it comes to heat and why you can't stick your hand in
without burning it, oil for frying is much like boiling water—there
are many molecules in a small space. The following, an adaptation of
a James Beard dish, in addition to involving the use of boiling water,
is one of a number of recipes Parsons provides for deep-frying that
also corresponds to his helpful tips such as: "Because of the intense
heat involved, deep-frying is best used for small pieces of food. Big
pieces take too long to cook through and will burn on the outside before
they are done. Because the cooking goes so quickly, only very tender
foods should be deep-fried."
RECIPE:
PEACH
FRITTERS
|
More