Pork: Now, Medium-Rare

While listening to the radio the other day, I heard a commercial from the pork industry. I don't think I've heard much advertisement from them since I was a little kid, back when "The Other White Meat" commercials were still often playing.

This new commercial really surprised me, though. It was informing me that the FDA had changed its guidelines for safely cooking pork. It used to be that pork was supposed to be heated to 160 °F. This new commercial claimed that whole pieces of pork could be served "juicy and medium-rare", after being cooked to 145 °F with a three minute rest period before eating. So what gives?

Image: savit keawtavee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

On Freezer Burn

A friend recently asked me about freezer burn. It certainly isn't a standard burn from heat or acid, so what causes it? Why is it that food left in a freezer - and theoretically locked in some sort of suspended animation - nevertheless goes bad? How can it best be prevented? He also asked about how freezer burn can "tenderize" meat, which is something I've never heard of but decided to look into.

Not exactly ideal.

Collaboration with The Recipe Development Engineer

I want to start out by giving a big thank you to two people: A number of weeks ago, my friend Alex introduced me to Ludwig, who runs a fantastic food blog called The Recipe Development Engineer. Ludwig has a great approach to cooking, using constant incremental improvements in order to create truly phenomenal dishes. Like any good engineer, he optimizes! He has a lot more experience with cooking than I do, and it shows in recipes like his Chicken à la Provençal.

We decided that it would be great idea to collaborate and draw some inspiration from each others. He recently wrote a great piece on the science behind braising that I would heartily recommend checking out. A properly braised piece of meat can be most precisely and concisely described as succulent. I have never braised before; it's a technique that takes a long time, and I rarely decide what I'm cooking until about two hours before dinner time. That said, I'm inspired. I'll be braising some cut of meat or another within the week, and I'll post the results when I do. I'd also like to do my own quirky twists on some of Ludwig's recipes.

So thanks, Alex! Thanks, Ludwig! My apologies for not writing a post on this sooner; the past month or so has been hectic for me. I kept telling myself that I'd write this post when I modified one of Ludwig's recipes, but I've just been busier than I expected. I give my word that there will be good things to come.

We have bottled!

Last night, Abel and I bottled our lovely carboy of beer. It was a bit of a process, but we ended up with forty-six regular bottles of beer and two larger bombers. I'm pretty impressed with how easy this process has been so far - we've gone from a bunch of ingredients to legitimate beer in only three days of work, totaling about six hours. Abel, hero among men that he is, has been doing a lot of the cleanup since we've been bottling in his apartment. There honestly isn't a ton of stuff to clean, though.

But anyway, bottling! Apologies for the lack of images; none of them came out right. Next time we bottle it'll be better documented.

On Antioxidants

So, you're roaming around the grocery store. You find yourself in the juice aisle, and after you pass by the standard apple and cranberry juices you start seeing crazy things - cocktails with bits of blueberry, pomegranate, and some bizarre thing called an açaí berry. Furthermore, all these bottles tout their juices' antioxidant properties! None of them, of course, explain what an antioxidant is or why you should care.

It all starts with oxygen.

On Marinading

Not all cuts of meat are created equal. Some are flavorful, some are bland. Some melt in your mouth like butter, some are tough and chewy enough to almost not be worth eating. Fortunately, most meat-based problems can be solved through ample application of a marinade. A good marinade will do three things: tenderize the meat, keep it moist, and impart flavor. Flavor is the easy part - toss ingredients into a bag, and the liquid will more or less taste like a lovely mess of those ingredients... assuming that the meat is moist and properly tenderized. So how does one construct a good marinade? 

Without marinade, I guarantee you this would be awful.

kongsky / freedigitalphotos.net

On Fermentation

Last night, Abel and I transferred all the lovely beer from our primary fermentation vessel to a secondary fermentation vessel. The primary fermentor was a straight up white plastic bucket with an airlock drilled into the lid; the secondary fermentor is a traditional carboy. Most people who make beer or wine use one of these. Our carboy is plastic instead of glass. The general consensus seems to be that plastic carboys are lighter and safer than glass, and that the difference in material doesn't really affect the taste. In honor of this momentous occasion, I wanted to talk a bit about fermentation (with an emphasis on its application to brewing).

The carboy, full of delicious beer.

Why Garlic Is Awesome

Garlic just might be my favorite ingredient. There's nothing else that's so capable of giving a dish pop and pow - it's a strong flavor that can either complement other ingredients or stand on its own as the focus of a dish. So what is it that makes garlic so magical?

Pictured: perfection.

Science: Asparagus Revisited (With Bonus Urine!)

In my previous recipe, I mentioned my love of asparagus. I was talking to a friend online as I cooked, and he told me that although he loved asparagus, he hated how it made his urine smell. I've heard people mention in the past that asparagus gives their urine a distinctive sulfurous stench, but I personally have always been unaffected. So, why does asparagus make your pee smell? And why does it happen to some people and not others? The answer, it turns out, is more interesting than you might think.

Update on Vinegar for Eggs

So I looked into exactly why it is that vinegar helps poaching eggs keep their shape.