This is interesting article. Using heat gun to brown the bird's. Our ancestor's already know the way of controlling fire in browning. But this is using technology...
Isaac Newton in the Kitchen
By JULIA MOSKIN
PALO ALTO, Calif.
ANY absent-minded scientist can let a saucepan of milk boil over. But it takes a true genius to do it twice in 20 minutes.
Harold McGee, who first bonded rigorous science to popular cookery in his 1984 book, "On Food and Cooking," was doing a run-through for Thanksgiving dinner. His culinary investigations did not end with the book's publication. He has spent the last 10 years working on a revision, just published by Scribner. Illustrating some of his new findings in his kitchen here, sliced apples for pie were dehydrating in a bowl, green beans were boiling in two pots of water (one salted, one not, to learn the difference), and a fat turkey sat on the counter with ice packs resting on its breasts.
Chilling the white meat, Mr. McGee explained, makes it cook slower than the rest of the turkey, preventing the breasts from drying out before the dark meat is done. "I used to strap the ice packs on with an Ace bandage," he said. "But my family found it too unappetizing."
Just then a pan of milk that was supposed to be caramelizing foamed over and spilled onto the stovetop, illustrating the peculiar behavior of milk proteins exposed to high heat. "They migrate to the inside of the steam bubbles and bond there," Mr. McGee said ruefully, looking for a kitchen towel. "Then they stretch and stretch, and when they can't get any bigger, they collapse."
The challenges of Thanksgiving have caused many an accomplished cook to crack like a pecan. Too many recipes to coordinate, never enough oven space and too many people underfoot seem the culprits. But Mr. McGee knows better. "What makes Thanksgiving food hard," he said, "is that you're trying to cook these bundles of different matter — white meat and dark meat, apples and pie crust — while they're all stuck together. You want some parts to be soft and moist and some to be crisp and dry. No wonder it's so hard to get them just right."
Insights like these, giving cooks new ways to think about what they do in the kitchen, have helped Mr. McGee gain renown and a cult following over the last 20 years, although his formal scientific training is minimal, and he has no university affiliation or laboratory access. When Mr. McGee began his research, he had a Bachelor of Science degree from the California Institute of Technology and a doctorate in English from Yale, where he was teaching literature.
"On Food and Cooking" has sold more than 100,000 copies, and the revised edition includes mostly new material, which reflects both Mr. McGee's further research and American food fashions. "I could never have anticipated that people would have this bottomless appetite for information about chocolate, coffee and tea," he said. "Not to mention foams, caramelization and trans-fats." Read More....
The New York Times > Dining & Wine > Isaac Newton in the Kitchen
Isaac Newton in the Kitchen
By JULIA MOSKIN
PALO ALTO, Calif.
ANY absent-minded scientist can let a saucepan of milk boil over. But it takes a true genius to do it twice in 20 minutes.
Harold McGee, who first bonded rigorous science to popular cookery in his 1984 book, "On Food and Cooking," was doing a run-through for Thanksgiving dinner. His culinary investigations did not end with the book's publication. He has spent the last 10 years working on a revision, just published by Scribner. Illustrating some of his new findings in his kitchen here, sliced apples for pie were dehydrating in a bowl, green beans were boiling in two pots of water (one salted, one not, to learn the difference), and a fat turkey sat on the counter with ice packs resting on its breasts.
Chilling the white meat, Mr. McGee explained, makes it cook slower than the rest of the turkey, preventing the breasts from drying out before the dark meat is done. "I used to strap the ice packs on with an Ace bandage," he said. "But my family found it too unappetizing."
Just then a pan of milk that was supposed to be caramelizing foamed over and spilled onto the stovetop, illustrating the peculiar behavior of milk proteins exposed to high heat. "They migrate to the inside of the steam bubbles and bond there," Mr. McGee said ruefully, looking for a kitchen towel. "Then they stretch and stretch, and when they can't get any bigger, they collapse."
The challenges of Thanksgiving have caused many an accomplished cook to crack like a pecan. Too many recipes to coordinate, never enough oven space and too many people underfoot seem the culprits. But Mr. McGee knows better. "What makes Thanksgiving food hard," he said, "is that you're trying to cook these bundles of different matter — white meat and dark meat, apples and pie crust — while they're all stuck together. You want some parts to be soft and moist and some to be crisp and dry. No wonder it's so hard to get them just right."
Insights like these, giving cooks new ways to think about what they do in the kitchen, have helped Mr. McGee gain renown and a cult following over the last 20 years, although his formal scientific training is minimal, and he has no university affiliation or laboratory access. When Mr. McGee began his research, he had a Bachelor of Science degree from the California Institute of Technology and a doctorate in English from Yale, where he was teaching literature.
"On Food and Cooking" has sold more than 100,000 copies, and the revised edition includes mostly new material, which reflects both Mr. McGee's further research and American food fashions. "I could never have anticipated that people would have this bottomless appetite for information about chocolate, coffee and tea," he said. "Not to mention foams, caramelization and trans-fats." Read More....
The New York Times > Dining & Wine > Isaac Newton in the Kitchen
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