The Food Geek
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Bloomin' Spices
1 commentBlooming with spices doesn't mean that you're planning on growing them as plants. Instead, it's a way of opening up the flavor and making it more effective in your cooking. This is how, and why, it works, and what it can do for your food.
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For Butter or Worse
3 commentsClarifying how to make butter a more versatile player in the kitchen.
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Like syrup for candy
2 commentsIs a syrup a syrup for candy-making, or does the origin of the sweet liquid make a difference?
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Cooking beans in salt water
4 commentsA traditional bit of advice in cookbooks is to avoid putting salt in the cooking water for beans. Will this toughen the beans, or is that advice not entirely correct?
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Reducing Complexity
4 commentsSome of the most basic advice in cooking can be an opportunity to learn about important fundamentals. In examining the basic reduction sauce, we can also learn how temperature control is vital to cooking well. On the way, we can answer the question, "what is temperature?"
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The Party That Is Egg Foam
5 commentsAs with a party, the success of an egg foam relies on getting all of the guests to mingle properly. In this follow up to last week's article, we explore how to keep water, proteins, and air mixing it up to ensure your foam is stable.
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Whipped Cream: Stability and Celebrity
1 commentWhipped cream is an ephemeral treat that, sometimes, needs to be a little more treat and a little less ephemeral. What can we do to overcome the time limits on whipped cream, and what makes whipped cream so famous, anyways?
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Sous Vide or Bust
2 commentsSome cooking methods require merely a knife, a bit of fire, and a little know-how. Sous vide cooking typically asks for some specialized equipment. Is it all necessary?
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The Buttercream Nemesis
7 commentsWhat, precisely, is buttercream frosting, why is it hard to make, and is there something that can be done to make it more easily?
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Vegetable stock? Really?
9 commentsJust what is the difference between stock and broth, and is it really possible to have a vegetable stock?
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Toffee Troubles
7 commentsWhat sorts of things can go wrong with toffee making? Will humidity doom a toffee to failure, or could there be something more sinister at work?
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ABOUT THE FOOD GEEK
Kitchen Mysteries is a weekly exploration of oddities surrounding cooking and food. They could be recipes that fail when they shouldn't, conflicting advice from different sources, or just plain weirdness. If it happens in a kitchen, and you're not sure why, send a tweet to The Food Geek to find out what's happening.
Brian Geiger started down the path of food geekdom after attending cooking school in Tuscany. A robotics project manager by day, he writes Fine Cooking’s Food Geek column, and in this blog tackles readers’ culinary mysteries every week. Be sure to check out his own blog at thefoodgeek.com.
