Fruits and vegetables may seem like simple ingredients, but a closer look reveals a long history of adaptation and survival. Many plants naturally protect themselves with bitter flavors, toxic compounds, tough fibers, or even physical barriers like spikes—defenses meant to deter animals from eating them. Fruits are a notable exception: They evolved to be sweet […]
We’ve all heard the phrase “oil and water don’t mix.” It’s true—and it comes down to basic chemistry. Water molecules are polar, meaning they have slight electrical charges that attract one another. Oil molecules are nonpolar and hydrophobic (literally, “afraid of water”), so they repel water molecules rather than blend with them. But in cooking, […]
Making a liquid thicker is one of the most basic tasks in cooking. It’s a key component in making sauces, soups, dressings, and many beverages. There are many reasons to thicken liquids. First, it helps sauces and dressings cling to food—it’s a functional benefit that improves the eating experience. Imagine the frustration of a water-thin […]
At its core, a foam is simply a collection of gas bubbles trapped in a liquid or semisolid. When it comes to food, foams are a creative way for cooks to enhance the textures and flavors of dishes. But not all foams are created equal. Their texture, stability, and taste depend on how those bubbles […]
When you set a pot on the stove or slide a tray into the oven, you’re engaging in a complex and often inefficient dance of energy transfer. Heat is at the heart of cooking, but how it moves—and how much of it reaches your food—is more complicated than it seems. The science of heat in […]
A pressure cooker is a game changer for cooking food quickly while preserving flavor and nutrients. By sealing in steam and raising the pressure inside the pot, it raises the boiling point of water, meaning you can tenderize tough cuts of meat, cook beans without soaking, or develop deep flavors in stews and stocks in […]
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Sous vide cooking produces precise, consistent, and delicious results. But what comes out of the bag doesn’t always look the best. Grayish meat, pale vegetables, or limp fish can all be visually underwhelming. Thankfully, there’s an easy way to bridge the gap between precision cooking and mouthwatering presentation: blanching and searing. These traditional techniques not […]
Sous vide cooking has become almost inseparable from vacuum sealing—after all, sous vide is often translated as “under vacuum.” But despite that literal interpretation, food prepared sous vide doesn’t actually exist in a vacuum. The pressure inside a sealed bag is essentially the same as the pressure outside—it’s just that the air has been removed. […]
One of the most appealing things about sous vide is the flexibility that it gives you in dealing with a wide range of culinary situations. In this blog, we’ll walk through two foundational approaches to cooking sous vide, equilibrium cooking and hold-at-temperature cooking, and explain when and why to use each. You’ll also learn best […]