The Science of Good Cooking Quotes

“What’s the solution to this modern quandary? The answer reminds me a bit of my favorite physicist,”
― Cook's Illustrated, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Our tastebuds have a harder time detecting flavors in cold foods. That’s why chilled soup must be aggressively seasoned. But cold soups also have almost no aroma, which is another reason that they require a heavier hand when seasoning. The aroma that wafts up to your nose from a piping-hot bowl of soup affects your perception of the flavor. Take away that aroma and the food does not seem as flavorful.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Why do foods taste better hot? The explanation is twofold: First, scientists have discovered that our ability to taste is heightened by microscopic proteins in our tastebuds that are extremely temperature-sensitive. These proteins, known as TRPM5 channels, perform far better at warm temperatures than at cooler ones. In fact, studies have shown that when food cooled to 59 degrees and below is consumed, the channels barely open, minimizing flavor perception. However, when food is heated to 98.5 degrees, the channels open up and TRPM5 sensitivity increases more than 100 times, making food taste markedly more flavorful. Second, much of our perception of flavor comes from aroma, which we inhale as microscopic molecules diffuse from food. The hotter the food, the more energetic these molecules are, and the more likely they are to travel from the table to our nose. The lessons? Dishes meant to be served hot should be reheated, and dishes served chilled (like gazpacho or potato salad) must be aggressively seasoned to make up for the flavor-dulling effects of cold temperatures.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Perhaps just as important as cookware material is the pan shape and size. Crowd four chicken breasts into a 10-inch pan and they will steam; space them out in a 12-inch pan and they will brown. Skillets should be measured from lip to lip to determine their size. Pots are generally measured by volume (2 quarts, 4 quarts, etc.). Use specified equipment in the specified size when following any recipe. This admonishment applies to bakeware as well as cookware. If a recipe calls for 9-inch cake pans, don’t use 8-inch pans. We’ve found this simple change will prolong the baking time (the batter is in a deeper layer in the smaller pans) and this can cause the bottom of the cake layers to burn by the time the middle is sufficiently baked. Even something as simple as the presence or absence of rims on the edges of a baking sheet can affect the outcome of a recipe.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Gentle heat cooks food while minimizing moisture loss, but juiciness is not the only consideration when choosing a technique. High heat not only cooks a cut of meat but changes the flavor, too. (Think steak tartare versus a grilled steak.) Much of this change is related to the complex chemical interactions known as the Maillard reaction, named for the French scientist Louis-Camille Maillard, who first described the process in the early 1900s.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Because fish has almost no collagen, it never benefits from long cooking. In fact, many fish are delicious raw or lightly cooked. In any case, fish should never be cooked beyond 140 degrees.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Carryover cooking can’t always be used to the cook’s advantage. For example, seared tuna needs to stay in the pan long enough to develop a good crust, but by the time that happens the interior is already rare (that is, perfectly cooked). You can’t pull the tuna out of the pan any earlier, so our advice is to slice the fish as soon as it comes out of the pan. Unlike meat and poultry, which must rest before slicing, fish can be sliced immediately with no ill effects. Either way, fish won’t lose juices like meat or poultry. So all you’re doing by slicing immediately is speeding up the cooling process and thus preventing carryover cooking from having much of an effect.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Simply put, buy a natural bird. When it comes to chicken, we prefer air-chilled versus water-chilled birds. The latter method (which soaks the bird in 34-degree water after slaughtering) causes the bird to absorb water. If you see the phrase “contains up to 4% retained water” on the label, you know the bird was water-chilled. Besides the fact that you're paying for the water, the water dilutes the chicken flavor and makes it hard to crisp up the skin during cooking.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“We often store chicken breasts in the freezer. But then we read that storing chicken breasts in the freezer for longer than two months negatively affects tenderness. Ever the skeptics, we wanted to see for ourselves if this was true. So we bought six whole chicken breasts and split each one down the center. We immediately tested one breast from each chicken using a Warner-Bratzler shear device that measures tenderness by quantifying the force required to cut meat. We wrapped and froze the other breasts at 0 degrees (the temperature of the average home freezer). We tested three of the previously frozen breasts for tenderness after two months and the remaining three after three months. Our results confirmed it: Two-month-old chicken was nearly as tender as fresh chicken, while three-month-old chicken was about 15 percent tougher. We recommend freezing chicken wrapped in plastic and sealed in an airtight zipper-lock bag for no longer than two months.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Weighing each roast before and after confirmed our tasters’ impressions. The roast in the 250-degree oven lost 9.4 percent of its original weight. The roast cooked at 450 degrees shed 24.2 percent of its original weight, almost three times more than the slow-roasted beef. Put another way: The slow-roasted beef lost only 9 ounces of moisture during the roasting process while the high-temperature roasted beef lost 25 ounces. Since we had trimmed both roasts of exterior fat, these numbers represented moisture lost from the meat itself—no wonder the slow-roasted beef tasted so much juicier.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“A whole rib roast (aka prime rib) consists of ribs 6 through 12. Butchers tend to cut the roast in two. We prefer the cut further back on the cow, which is closest to the loin and less fatty. This cut is referred to as the first cut, the loin end, or sometimes the small end because the meat and ribs get larger as they move up toward the shoulder. When ordering a three-rib roast, ask for the first three ribs from the loin end—ribs 10 through 12.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Bone-in hams with natural juices are the least processed of all the options at the supermarket. Boneless hams may seem like a good choice, but they contain several muscles that have been pressed together to look like ham and all that manipulation compromises the muscle structure, making them less able to hold on to natural juices. And while “water-added” ham might sound juicier, these hams taste awful and shed all that extra water in the oven. We do like the convenience of a spiral-cut ham, which makes serving a cinch.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“As an egg ages, the cordlike strands that center the yolk weaken. If this happens, the yolk can end up close to the outer wall of the hard-cooked egg, making it likely you will tear the white when removing the yolk. Of course, this is not a concern in recipes like egg salad that call for dicing the hard-cooked eggs.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“When you understand the language of science, cooking becomes clearer and you naturally make better choices in the kitchen.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Some people like spicy foods and others don’t, but there is a right way to sauté, there is a best way to cook a pot roast, and there are measurable scientific principles involved in producing perfectly beaten, stable egg whites.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“What separates success from failure in the kitchen? It’s the ability to think on your feet, to make adjustments as you cook. And, despite what you might think, a lifetime of experience isn’t a prerequisite for being a good cook (although it does help). Knowledge, however, is essential. The successful home cook understands the fundamental principles of good cooking and is able to apply them on the fly, almost without thinking.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Recipes written for home cooks rely on volume (teaspoons, tablespoons, cups) for measurement. Recipes written for professionals generally list ingredients by weight. That’s because weight involves no chance for operator error. Assuming the scale has been properly calibrated, 8 ounces of flour is 8 ounces of flour no matter how the flour is handled.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“And memorize this now: 1 tablespoon equals 3 teaspoons. Forget this fact and you will invariably make mistakes when trying to scale recipes up or down. It also helps to remember that 4 tablespoons equal ¼ cup.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Even your oven isn’t as reliable as you think. How do we know this? We have more than two dozen ovens in our test kitchen and we keep an oven thermometer in each oven to tell us if they are properly calibrated. That is, are they reaching and holding the temperature set on the dial? With heavy use, we find that our ovens generally slip out of calibration in just a few months, so we get them serviced. The process will happen more slowly at home, but the odds are pretty good that your oven is not at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, even though that’s what the dial says.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Since the temperature of meat will continue to rise as it rests, an effect called carryover cooking, meat should be removed from the oven, grill, or pan when it’s 5 to 10 degrees below the desired serving temperature. Carryover cooking doesn’t apply to poultry and fish (they don’t retain heat as well as the dense muscle structure in meat), so they should be cooked to the desired serving temperatures.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“In the thoroughly delightful Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (2009), Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham links man’s discovery of fire (which he believes was roughly 1.8 million years ago) with a dramatic increase in the size of the human brain. Cooking made it easier to digest high-quality proteins, especially meat, therefore the link between the advent of fire and human brain development. Cooking also made food tender, so eating was no longer an all-day activity. This 'extra' time could now be used to hunt, to explore, and to build—simply put, to become human.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“The moisture in food begins to freeze at temperatures below 32 degrees, and whether that moisture is in fruit, ice cream, or meat, it will form ice crystals. These crystals rupture cell walls and internal cell organelles in fresh foods, like fruits or vegetables, which release enzymes from their locked compartments. When thawed, these enzymes cause produce to develop off-flavors and turn brown and soggy.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Remember to account for the reduction of liquids when seasoning a dish—a perfectly seasoned stew will likely taste too salty after several hours of simmering. Your best bet is to season with a light hand during the cooking process and then adjust the seasoning just before serving.”
― America's Test Kitchen, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

“Roasted at 450° 1. Temperature at ¼” below surface: 189° 2. Temperature at midpoint: 160° 3. Temperature at center: 125° Weight before roasting: 6.34 lbs Weight after roasting: 4.8 lbs Moisture loss: 24.2% Roasted at 250° 1. Temperature at ¼” below surface: 146° 2. Temperature at midpoint: 135° 3. Temperature at center: 125° Weight before roasting: 5.98 lbs Weight after roasting: 5.42 lbs Moisture loss: 9.38%”
― Cook's Illustrated Magazine, The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen