The Food Geek
Subscribe to RSS feed
Baking Soda and Pretzels
Pretzels are very similar to bagels in terms of cooking technique and ingredients. So why do pretzels have baking soda on the outside?
view details
One egg at a time
A standard step with the creaming method of cake preparation is to add the eggs one at a time and fully incorporate before adding the next egg. But… why?
view details
A Bad Egg
7 commentsThere's quite a bit of mystery around eggs. Because of the effort to simplify when things go bad, there's some mystery about that, too. Let's see if we can't clarify things a bit.
view details
Resting Meat
3 commentsAnother bit of popular cooking wisdom is that you need to rest your meat before cutting, so it will "re-absorb its juices." What does that really mean?
view details
Soaking Basmati Rice
10 commentsIt's traditional to soak basmati rice, and proponents swear by the results.
view details
The Application of Salt
4 commentsSalt is one of the most important ingredients in all of cooking. When it is applied is often more important than how much is applied. Here is a grand tour of salt and its applications.
view details
The Hardest Cut
Sweet potato fries are tasty, but they take a lot of work to cut with a knife. There must be a faster way.
view details
Not All It's Cracked up to Be
8 commentsThere's some cracking good advice that's going around about eggs, but is it really as good as it sounds?
view details
The Second Rise
8 commentsWhen baking bread, you're often asked to allow bread to rise, then punch it down and let it rise again. Why go through all that trouble? What does this "second rise" do for the bread?
view details
Suet Secrets
3 commentsThere are some ingredients we just don't use much any more. This week, we examine beef kidney fat.
view details
The Purpose of Sifting
3 commentsThe whys of sifting, and a better way to accomplish sifting without using a sifter.
view details
The Convection Changeover
3 commentsThere are always pitfalls when working in an unfamiliar kitchen, but how much worse to have a completely new cooking method?
view details
The Cake Bump
10 commentsAn uneven surface at the top of the cake is not uncommon. Here we take a look at ways to mitigate, prevent, and/or fix the problem.
view details
Converting Measurements
1 commentHow many teaspoons are in a tablespoon? Will this be a one-word answer?
view details
Baking Soda and Baking Powder
8 commentsHow these two leaveners get a rise out of baked goods.
view details
Cast Iron Nutrition
Iron is good for a diet, but will a cast-iron pan add iron to the diet?
view details
Lifting a Choux
Pâte à choux is useful in many culinary circumstances, and it's relatively easy to make. Still, sometimes things go wrong for no apparent reason. Let's see some of the pitfalls of this dish and how to fix them.
view details
Tomato Sauce. . .Or Soup?
3 commentsWhy does what should be a tasty tomato sauce turn into something closer to soup?
view details
What does it mean to win?
4 commentsSometimes it's not enough to make great food. Sometimes you have to judge food formally. And sometimes you have to make up the rules by which things are judged. A look inside the process of making competition rules.
view details
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.
