Tuesday, September 18, 2012
9/18: Week 3: Principles and Methods of Heat Transfer
This week's lab was about the three types of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. We all got our carb fixes by demonstrating and practicing the three methods with potatoes and a little bit of pasta. We also talked about dry vs. moist methods of cooking.
Every unit made pasta, some with salted water, some with no salt. The experiment was to test the taste and texture of pasta cooked in salted and unsalted water. Every unit also cooked with potatoes - half using a dry heat method with fat, half using a moist heat method with chicken broth. With the potatoes we paid attention to how much of the cooking medium was used (fat or broth), how long the potatoes cooked until tender, and what they looked and tasted like when they were done. The other experiments tested different variables of cooking potatoes with the three types of heat transfer and a variety of cooking methods.
Next week we continue learning basics, but actually start cooking more and make stocks, sauces, and dressings.
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It was amazing how different cooking techniques transform or DON'T transform a potato. Tasting and evaluation was definitely difficult because salt wasn't allowed! Some cooking methods that we tried didn't quite cook the whole thing and raw potatoes really aren't that tasty.
ReplyDeleteAfter learning different techniques to chop potatoes, carrots, and onions we employed various cooking methods on these vegetables. The method my group did was radiation in the form of microwaving carrots. We were able to taste the various other cooking methods such as steaming and roasting. It was interesting to see the variations in taste and texture of the food using these different techniques of heat transfer.
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