On Food and Cooking

desserts, and “shooters” fortified with vodka and other spirits. More refined preparations, often named by ...

most intact gelatin molecules, produce the strongest gels, and are the lightest in color; hig ...

neighboring granules together, though even these clusters eventually disperse. Sheets with their small surfa ...

there is no good evidence that this is true. Nails and hair are made of a very different protein ...

carbohydrates with some unusual and useful properties. Food manufacturers use them to make gels and to st ...

Agar forms gels at even lower concentrations than gelatin does, less than 1% by weight. An agar jel ...

The Chinese are great admirers of gelatinous textures, the semi-solid stickiness of long-cooked gel ...

cave walls and dry to form a small but strong cup. The harvested nests are soaked in cold wate ...

cooks have taken advantage of this to make small flavored spheres and threads: they prepare a calcium-fr ...

about three-quarters of the calories for the earth’s human population, mainly in the form of grains and root veg ...

gel into a useless soup. And agar gels remain solid at the ideal temperatures for bacterial growth ...

straight chains called amylose, and short, branched, bushy chains called amylopectin. Plants deposit starch mole ...

get tangled up and slow the motion of other molecules and granules in the vicinity. A small number of ...

long amylose chain moves around in a larger volume than the more compact amylopectin containing the ...

(p. 583). Swelling and Gelation What makes starch so useful is its behavior in hot water. Mix some flour or ...

become individual gels, or water-containing meshworks of long molecules. This range can be recognized by the ...

dimensional fishnet that not only entraps pockets of water, but blocks the movements of the whale-like, wate ...

obvious in normal sauces. If the granules are few and far between to begin with, their disintegration i ...

thicken (center). As cooking continues and the temperature approaches the boil, the granules swell even more and ...

progressively thicker. If the amylose molecules are concentrated enough, and the temperature falls far enough, the ...