Recipes

December 12, 2013

Cooking Under Pressure: Pressure Caramelized Sweet Potato Soup

Just in time for winter, we decided to develop a new seasonal variation of one of our Modernist Cuisine traditions: Pressure Caramelized Sweet Potato Soup. The recipe for this magical soup incorporates black peppercorns to give it a nice zip, and hints of sweet onion and Makrud leaves complement the caramelized sweet potato stock.   […]

April 29, 2013

Mastering creamy pureed potatoes, no fat required

When made just right, mashed potatoes are the ultimate comfort food: smooth, creamy, warm and filling — not to mention a perfect vehicle for gravy. But how to get them perfectly smooth and creamy? Too often ridding mashed potatoes of those pesky lumps forces you to overwork the spuds into a gummy, grainy mess. Or […]

April 1, 2013

5 Tips for Culinary Deception

What better time to trot out our favorite deceptive culinary tricks than April Fool’s Day? We devoted a section of Modernist Cuisine to trompe l’oeil because it is particularly suited to the Modernist movement. Though it has a long history, dating back to dishes such as mock turtle soup in the 19th century, culinary deception […]

March 29, 2013

The Secret to the Perfect Soft-Boiled Egg

A perfect soft-boiled egg is a thing of beauty: a yolk with the texture of sweet condensed milk surrounded by a white that is tender but not runny. But for generations, great cooks have differed on how to achieve this state of perfection reliably. Some authorities say you should drop a whole egg into boiling […]

January 30, 2013

How to Scale a Recipe

The Mac and Cheese recipe makes five servings, but you’re throwing a dinner party for nine people. You’re in luck: We’ve made it easy to scale our recipes up to greater yields (or down if you have fewer mouths to feed) by using baker’s percentages. Just follow these simple steps.   Look in the scaling […]

January 1, 2013

Take the Plunge into 2013 with Modernist Cuisine!

Welcome to 2013! We hope you already decided to make “try Modernist cooking” your New Year’s resolution. We’ll be back later this week with tips on how to calibrate your thermometer (a key to Modernist-cooking success), but until then, browse through our Recipe Library and get ready to take the plunge!

November 7, 2012

Puffy Snacks You Can Make at Home!

Everyone loves the crunch of a tasty puffed snack, but we don’t see many of the homemade variety. In our newest video from MDRN KTCHN on CHOW.com, we bring you an easy recipe for puffed rice snacks using your microwave. Watch the video above as our Director of Applied Research, Scott Heimendinger, demonstrates the method […]

November 5, 2012

Pizza Trial and Error

When I set my sights on a topic, I tend to get a little obsessed. This summer, that topic was pizza, and my obsession was in full force. My interest in homemade pizza started with a chapter of the book The Kitchen as Laboratory in which culinary inventor Thomas M. Tongue, Jr. describes a method […]

October 22, 2012

The Amazing Pressure Cooker

In the third installment of MDRN KTCHN, our very own Scott Heimendinger and CHOW.com team up to bring you a video all about pressure cooking. Discover how it works, when it was invented, and how baking soda caramelizes root vegetables in 20 minutes. Now that you can’t wait to dust off your pressure cooker, get […]

October 10, 2012

Our Favorite Recipes: Roast Chicken

My favorite dish from Modernist Cuisine at Home is Roast Chicken. Like many people, I grew up eating roast chicken a lot, but having Modernist Cuisine at Home‘s roast chicken is like eating it for the first time. It’s injection-brined and then brushed with soy sauce, which might not be traditional, but these steps act […]