Sometimes, you’ll hear a chef describing the taste of a food as “vegetal.” For instance, I recently came across a chef claiming that green bell peppers were “vegetal” while red bell peppers are sweet and slightly spicy. How does this differentiate the two? Well, the truth it, it doesn’t. Bell peppers could also be described […]
Roux 101: Your Basic Guide to Roux Mastery
A roux is flour and fat cooked together to be used as a thickener for sauces, stews, or other dishes. To make a roux, usually, equal parts flour and fat are used. Butter, clarified butter, margarine, or animal fats make good choices for a roux. Among animal fats, chicken, beef, or lard can all be […]
Do Bubbles On Top Of Pancakes Mean They’re Ready To Flip?
Everyone who regularly makes pancakes has probably heard that the way to know when your pancakes are ready to flip over to the other side are when a lot of bubbles rise on the surface of the pancake. Once this happens, the first side is perfectly cooked and you should flip it over. This is […]
What’s Difference Between a Roux and a Béchamel Sauce?
The reason that the terms roux and béchamel can be confusing is that a bechamel is made from a roux. Still confused? A roux is the technique of cooking flour in fat or oil. Most often, butter is used, but other fats or oils can also be used. The reason the flour is “cooked” in […]
Are Oats Safe To Eat Raw?
Is it safe to eat oats raw? Could doing so make you sick? The answer is that it raw oats are technically edible when raw. Some people may find them a bit harder to digest than cooked oats and different types of raw oats may pose a risk of food-poisoning. The safest type of oats […]
Are Elderberries Poisonous?
The elderberry is a dark purple berry of the European or “black elder” tree (Sambucus nigra), the North American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis), as well as the red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa). These shrubs or woody plants are found in Europe, North America, Western Asia, and North Africa. The berries are very nutritious but are often quite acidic. […]
Why Don’t We Eat the Green Tops of Carrots?
Most of us buy our carrots in bags with the green tops removed. Carrots with the greens still intact are not as widely available as carrots with the greens removed. However, you may sometimes find them available. Are carrot greens edible. Yes! They are perfectly edible. Carrot greens are eaten in many countries but not […]
Why Does the First Pancake Always Turn Out So Bad?
Many people consider the first pancake a sacrificial pancake. Even famous chef Jacques Pepin said “the first pancake is for the dog.” Different people have different criteria for what makes the first pancake “ruined.” For me, and for many folks, its that the first pancake develops an uneven and overbrowned crust when they want their […]
How do Artificial Sweeteners Trick Our Taste Buds into Thinking They’re Sugar?
The science of taste is confusing. We think of certain foods as having certain tastes. By extension, we think those foods represent those tastes. But our taste buds do not react to foods, they react to food compounds. To explain further, here is my informal answer to a related Quora question: “How do artificial sweeteners […]
Are Leftover Onions Bad For You? Will They Give You Food Poisoning?
How often do you use half of an onion and store the other half in a plastic bag inside the refrigerator? You may have heard the claim that leftover cut onions are a particular hazard and cause of food poisoning. This claim states that cut onions are somehow a magnet for bacteria and that you […]