Curious Cook

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Smoky ribs without the fire

In my June 30 Curious Cook column, I write about the challenges of genuinely low and slow cooking on home grills, and provide a recipe for reliably moist ribs cooked in the oven, with smokiness provided by pimentón chilli powder.

Many readers have pointed out that simple rib racks help keep more than one slab suitably distant from the hot flames or coals. This is true, and the column would have been better for having included that option.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: The pungent chemistry of garlic and onions

In my June 9 Curious Cook column I present the culinary highlights from a new and surprisingly readable treatise on Garlic and Other Alliums written by Eric Block, the world's leading authority on the chemistry of the onion family and a professor at SUNY Albany. In addition to many fascinating cultural and botanical details, the book describes the several Allium flavor tribes, explains how to control their pungency, notes the source and treatment of garlic breath, and warns of the hazard posed by garlic and onions to household pets.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Cooking pasta in minimal water

In today's Curious Cook column, I write about a different way to cook pasta: starting in cups of cold water instead of quarts at a rolling boil. The pasta comes out fine, and the small amount of leftover cooking water is thick, delicious, and useful.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Heating with microwaves

In this month's Curious Cook column I write about the peculiarities and powers of the microwave oven.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Heat

In today's Curious Cook column, I write about the ins and outs of an important but invisible ingredient in most cooking: heat energy.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Potato chips

In today's Dining section of the Times I write about potato chips: the sounds they make, the music that has been made from them, and the forces that shape them.

My source for those shaping forces was Paul Green, a professor of plant biology at Stanford, and a friend. Paul died in 1998. In the column he became "Mr. Green." When I find a near-perfect chip and think of him, I don't think of Mr. Green, I think of Paul.

For helping me understand and explain the physics of chip shape, I thank two people who worked with Paul as postdoctoral fellows: Jacques Dumais of Harvard University and Sidney Shaw of Indiana University. Of course the simplifications and approximations are my doing, not theirs.

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Kim, S.-E. et al. Development of a method for the musical expression of cognitive food taste. Food Sci. Biotechnology 2005, 14, 738-42. 

Zampini, M. and C. Spence. The role of auditory cues in modulating the perceived crispness and staleness of potato chips. Journal of Sensory Studies 2004, 19, 347-63.

Green, P. Transductions to generate plant form and pattern: An essay on cause and effect. Annals of Botany 1996, 78, 269-81.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Vodka in the fish fry

My column in today's New York Times Dining section is about a batter for fried fish developed at The Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal's restaurant west of London. I first enjoyed the very crunchy crust it makes last spring, when Christopher Young, the restaurant's research manager--yes, they do enough research at The Fat Duck that it needs managing!--demonstrated it at the Greystone campus of the Culinary Institute of America. The key ingredient is alcohol.

Rice: Old and new flavors; cooking; parboiled

A last installment (for the time being) of rice news.

Old and new Japanese rice As I've mentioned, Japan generally prefers their rice as fresh as possible; new-harvest rice is prized. Japanese scientists looked at the flavor changes that take place during aging, and found some pretty significant changes.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Colorful garlic

In today's debut of my occasional column in the New York Times Wednesday food section, I write about the strange, blue-green colors that can develop when garlic and onions are handled in certain ways. The information in the column comes from several recent papers on the subject from labs in Japan and China. For readers who would like to follow up, here are a few (slightly confusing!) chemical details, and the references.