It is plausible that this leads to noticeable differences in salt absorption and causes varying amounts of sauce to cling to them. Anyone who has cooked has definitely noticed that the time of cooking varies inversely with the surface area of noodles. As the time decreases, it creates a narrower window to capture that optimal al dente texture. The al dente texture itself is caused by a network of coagulated protein in which starch is embedded. If overcooked, the greater absorption of water causes more starch to coagulate. The continuous network of protein then breaks down into discrete masses, and the pasta becomes soft and sticky.
The next set of common reactions that could catch the fancy of a chemist are of the Maillard type. With the addition of heat, the amino group (NH2) of amino acids attacks the carbonyl group (C=O) of a reducing sugar eventually leading to a range of brownish and appetizing compounds. Here are some examples of baking and cooking products that include compounds from Maillard reactions:1) Bread crust2) Boiling of maple syrup3) Roasting of almonds, coffee or cocoa nuts4) Beer-making (where’s the heat you may wonder? It’s the heat of fermentation.)5) Baking of cookies6) Browning of sauce on meat.The first compound formed from the amino attack is an N-substituted glycosylamine. But the hexagonal ring of this molecule then breaks up, undergoes another rearrangement with the help of a pH-change to produce an Amadori compound.What happens to this type of compound depends on pH, but in either case the NH2 group is lost forming ketones.(A compound with C=O group sandwiched between carbons.) In the next stage, these compounds are split into some of the brown compounds that we taste and smell. While Maillard reactions are taking place, amino acids can decompose into Schiff bases that eventually produce cereal like flavours and those of roasted nuts, bread and meat.
Unless a sweet sauce is added to meat, the browning seen upon cooking is not a Maillard reaction. Rather it results from the oxidation of the Fe2+in myoglobin to the Fe3+ state. This is part of the reaction where the myoglobin protein is denatured to hemichrome.And when a cooked leaf loses its green colour, it is because chlorophyll has lost its Mg2+ ion. Like most reactions it depends on enzymes. In this case if you want to maintain the green colour, a little baking soda can be added. (not too much or you’ll gain both colour and bitterness) The higher pH from HCO3 - prevents the enzyme from converting chlorophyll into pheophytin.
If you are a non-meat eater, you won’t mind me switching the topic from meat to seafood. Astaxanthin is a compound related to the carotene in carrots. It is pink and found in shrimp. Normally while the shrimp is alive, the pink colour of astaxanthin is not evident because it is bound to a protein, which changes its colour. But the heat of cooking uncoils the protein, unsheathing the same pigment that keeps flamingos feathers pink.
A similar explanation applies to the blue/green to red colour change for cooked lobsters. Astaxanthin's structure is similar to that of carotene. But the extra C=O group in astaxanthin increases the alternating single-double bond network, which makes it easier for electrons to get excited to higher energy levels. Compared to carotene, astaxanthin needs less energy or that of a longer wavelength for electronic excitation. This is consistent with the fact that astaxanthin reflects color of a longer wavelength: pink instead of orange. By the way, if you find a flamingo feather, keep it. Astaxanthin sells for $ 7000/kg! Of course a feather will have a negligible fraction of astaxanthin, so look for a lost flamingo instead.We often distort reality by trying to operate by simple rules of thumb. This certainly applies to vitamins in fruits and vegetables. Cooking certainly reduces the concentration of vitamins in food, but it does not destroy them, as shown in the table below:Effect of Heat on Vitamins(Source: USDA)
| Food(100g) | Vit A in Raw(IU) | Vit A in Cooked(IU) |
| Vit C in Raw(mg) | Vit C in cooked(mg) |
| |||
| carrots |
| 17202 | 61% | 5.9 | 3.6 | 61% | |||
| red peppers | 5700 | 2760 | 48% | 190 | 163 | 86% | |||
| broccoli |
| 1967 | 66% | 93 | 65 | 70% | |||
And where in the fruit and vegetable are the vitamins located? Does the peel contain a lot of nutrients? The answer varies. In the case of the potato, the peel does have fiber and minerals, and baking with the peel prevents the escape of some vitamin C during the cooking process. I have not been able to verify the claim that most of the vitamin C is in the flesh just underneath the peel. In the case of mangos, vitamin A is distributed evenly throughout the orange pulp, which is coloured by similar beta carotene molecules. But the peel, especially when ripe, has antioxidants, carotenes and vitamin C. Apple peels are not devoid of nutrients either: they contain minerals (K+, Mg2+), antioxidants and fiber.
Here's a great example of another endothermic reaction in the kitchen: cooking avocados. Some compounds in the avocado will be converted into bitter alkaloids with heat. But if the avocados are added towards the end of a recipe to minimize the amount of heat absorbed, then the amount of bitter-tasting products will be kept to a minimum.
Finally an update following some experiments I did in the kitchen after reading Herbert This' book, Molecular Gastoronomy.
This is not the lemon-juice trick. At breakfast I treated the left side with ascorbic acid(vitamin C) instead, which also inhibits the enzymes that otherwise speed up the oxidation of polyphenols. Apples are low in vitamin C(about 5 mg per 100 g) , but they won’t be any more after this treatment.
Yes it's OK to scream at kids for leaving the fridge door open! If the room temperature is at 20 C, leaving the fridge open for just 20 seconds raises the temperature of the air in the fridge from 8 to 18 C because the cold dense air easily slips out, while warmer room air diffuses in. The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida says that being careless with opening and closing your fridge door wastes 50 to 120kWh a year. I did the math, and if every one of the 12 million+ households in Canada was sloppy, we'd be wasting $84 million worth of electricity (at Quebec prices). Since not all of Canada uses hydro, that's tied in to a lot of needless pollution.
In theory, freshly brewed coffee should be left to cool to on its own to about 75 C, and then add cold milk if you're looking for the quickest way to reach optimum temperature(55 C). This is because the rate of cooling is at its maximum when the difference between room and coffee temperature is highest. But when I checked my brewer pot's temperature, and more importantly that of the quickly poured coffee, it was nowhere near the 100 C that Herve This had mentioned. It was already down to 68.8 C. So when I added milk it dropped to 54 C immediately! But I had no clue that such a temperature is comfortable to the tongue and upper palate.(but just 4 more degrees than that stings the tongue!)
We may be like cats and dogs because we eat, but animals can't cook, devise recipes or learn about the science of cooking. So what happens when you make spaghetti? Without absorbing water, the protein and embedded starch granules are too hard. As both nutrients absorb water, the starch swells up and the network of protein keeps the starch contained. But if you overcook the pasta, the granules will break out of the network, cling to the surface of the noodles and make them sticky. Can this be prevented? The protein network is strongest at a slightly acidic pH, so Herve This' recommended adding 15 ml of lemon juice to the pot of cold water. It worked like a charm. I normally cook it 2 minutes below the suggested time; instead even with 3 more minutes, the spaghetti was firm, not sticky and did not get any complaints from my anti- al dente family. Oil does not help and mineral water makes it worse, apparently. With that in mind I only added the salt 30 seconds before turning off the heat and stirred well.
Science In the Kitchen---Notice that the egg on top of the picture has an off-centered yolk. The bottom one does not. I partially followed molecular gastronomist Herve This' advice, While it was cooking, I rotated one of the eggs to prevent the less-dense yolk from rising, but he recommended rotation for 10 minutes. Instead I hypothesized that there is enough coagulation of proteins after 5 minutes to prevent the yolk from rising. So I only rotated one egg, once a minute for 5 minutes, turned off the heat, and left the eggs in the pot with the lid on for 5 more minutes. When I took them out, the water was still at 90 oC, still hot enough to create hard boiled eggs. (Only 68 oC is sufficient to coagulate all proteins in the egg.)
References -Barham, Peter. Molecular Gastronomy. Chem Rev. 2010 April 14; 110(4): 2313–2365 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2855180/ -Atkins, P.W. Molecules. Scientific American Library. 1987
-McGee, Harold. On food and cooking: the science and lore of the kitchen. Simon&Schuster. 2004
-C.M. Ajilaa, S.G. Bhata and U.J.S. Prasada Rao. Valuable components of raw and ripe peels from two Indian mango varieties. Central Food Technological Research Institute
-United States Department of Agriculture usda.org - http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/reprint/39/6/1056.pdf