Monday, November 9, 2009

"Kitchen science"

Today technologies have somehow hindered us from practicing different kinds of 'kitchen tricks' taught by our ancestor. I am always believe there are always sciences behind each myths and my students are going to show some of their research with you.

Feel free to visit and comments on their (nineteen of them) blogs and I am assure that you will gain a lots after reading them.

Have fun :)


1. Title: Removal of mutton odor by using white radish (When MeHmEh meets WhiTe rAdiSh)

The formation of mutton odor is due to the lipid oxidation in the mutton. However, the lipid oxidation can be suppressed by the antioxidant compounds in the white radish which is vitamin C.


2. How to save burnt rice

How many times have you put a pot of rice on to simmer, and come back to it 20 minutes later and find a crust of burned rice at the bottom. Even though it's just the bottom layer that's blackened, the smoky smell and bitter flavor of burned rice permeate all the way to the top grains. But, we can eliminate the smoky smell in burnt rice in just 15 minutes....
By using of ONION.....


3. Prevention of brinjal browning

Browning usually occurs on brinjal at room temperature. How to prevent it? Simple, by soaking the brinjal in rinsed rice water is what you have to do!


4. Lord of calamari rings

Do you have lousy cooking skills? Afraid to serve a meal? Now worry no more! Improve your cooking skills by just applying simple scientific theories and facts. Let Lord of calamari rings to enlight your kitchen by SCIENCE! No rubbery, strong fishy smell calamari rings anymore, try soaking your calamari rings in milk before frying, and walah~ crispy and yet juicy calamari rings is on your fingertips!


5. Chicken Yogurt

Chickyyo is a project designed to investigate the interaction of yogurt and chicken. Chicken marinated in yogurt is a popular dish in the Middle East. This combination is said to exert the effect of tenderizing and increase the juiciness of chicken. Our mission is to uncover the truth behind this theory. Can this combination creates this effect or is it just an allegation?


6. Behind the "gummy" rice

The purpose of this investigation is to determine affects of lime juice addition to rice during cooking on the textural and color of cooked Sakura Thai rice. The results was apparent that stickiness of cooked rice were increased and no significant effect on whitening rice. This is because acidic conditions increase water absorption of amylopectin in rice starch and causes it easy to gelatinize and make the rice structure more fluid. This may combination with degradation protein of rice in acid condition.


7. Food Magic of Ginger Meets Milk

Our project was held in searching for the parameters in successfully producing the traditional chinese dessert of ginger milk curd. We discovered how crucial are ratio of milk and ginger, temperature and types of ginger matter help producing a successful ginger milk curd. As it was said before, it is very difficult in producing ginger milk curd at home, thus our project is here to help ginger milk curd lover to be able to produce it at home successfully. Enjoy!


8. Crispy Potato

Our Assignment is to test on the effect of soaking the potato into cold water and vinegar to reduce the browning reaction and also increase the crispiness of the French Fries. By soaking it into cold water, we remove the excess starch so that the French fries won’t be sticky and also increase the crispiness. Vinegar prevent the forming of acrylamide that cause the browning reaction.


9. Bitter gourd cookbook


10. Cooking red spinach


11. Once in a blue muffin


12. The mighty purple cabbage


13. Whitening cauliflower


14. Pandan vs chicken


15. Remove Jackfruit latex


16. Papaya mutton


17. Can you save a salty soup?


18. Home-made salty eggs


19. Stomach treatment (NON-HALAL)