'Food Science' Blog - FineCooking.com

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Keeping Fresh Greens Fresh

The science of cell structure helps explain why good lettuce goes bad.
Stainless steel... or is it?

Sometimes while going through some known territory, I run across some new tidbits. What started out as a simple look at boiling revealed hidden dangers to your pots.
Saving Garlic from Sprouts

Garlic is a wonderful addition to many foods, but it seems like it's a lot easier to find bad garlic than good garlic. Find out what causes garlic to lose its wonderfulness and how to prevent that from happening.

Degrees of Boiling

Sometimes recipe authors like to add a little pizzazz to their descriptions, and sometimes what's written means something important. This week, we explore the possibilities of different kinds of boiling, bringing back a metaphor from articles past.
Essence of Coffee

What are the secrets to great coffee, both the ones we know and the ones we have yet to find?
Cracking the Boiled Egg Mystery

Is a boiled egg hard to peel because I don't know how the proper technique, or is it because I don't make the egg properly in the first place?
Competition Pies

If you're gearing up for your first pie competition, what sort of things can you do to prepare, and what do you do when it all goes wrong?
How hot is the oven?

Ovens are notorious liars when it comes to reporting their operating temperatures. Sure, you could buy a thermometer to verify what your oven tells you, but how much do you trust your thermometer?
The components of Pie Crust

When thinking of baking pie, people tend not to fear the filling; after all, filling is a relatively simple creature, mostly concerned with flavor and binding up the liquid in some sort of saucy structure. The crust, though; the crust inspires wonder and caution. This inspired me to look into what makes up a good pie crust.
Cooking Eggs with Sugar Alone

Occasionally vague and/or strange cooking advice lurks around every corner. Can you cook an egg with sugar alone? And not hot, candy-making sugar, but normal, room temperature sugar? Could be.
Soy Milk vs. Instant Pudding: Who will win?

Soy milk doesn't play well with instant pudding. Try to make soy milk instant pudding, and you'll have a pudding-flavored glass of milk. There is a reason why, and it all has to do with the differences between soy and cow milks.
Baking soda *and* baking powder: too much of a good thing?

Seriously, how much leavening does one recipe need? Let's find out if baking powder and baking soda are needed for some recipes, or if we could get by with one or the other.
How is sugar wet?

Follow enough baking recipes, and you'll see the instructions that sugar is to be treated as a wet ingredient. Clearly, if you were dropped into a big pile of sugar, you would not be covered in liquid. Learn why it's considered a wet ingredient.
Martian blood oranges

Why would a perfectly respectable blood orange turn green? There's only one real answer, and it has nothing to do with aliens.
Gelatin Dangers

Sometimes the kitchen can be a perilous place. Knives, flames, and making suggestions for how to "improve" the cook's dish. But gelatin? Is that really all that dangerous?
Sunken Sourdough Sadness

Is there a special touch needed to make sourdough bread rise? Is there perhaps some special music or proper colored light that will convince the yeast to make their magic? Probably not, but there are ways to encourage bread to rise properly.
Which Flour Is Best for Pasta?

Conflicting advice can lead you to doubt your favorite recipes, even for something as simple as fresh pasta. Do you listen to your heart, or listen to what others tell you?
Bloomin' Spices

Blooming 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.
For Butter or Worse

Clarifying how to make butter a more versatile player in the kitchen.
Like syrup for candy

Is a syrup a syrup for candy-making, or does the origin of the sweet liquid make a difference?

Make it Tonight

Swordfish with Black Olive and Mint Tapenade

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