Have you ever wondered why cooking green vegetables leads to a loss of their bright green color? If so, read on. If not…well, read on anyway. It might be interesting. This is adapted from the always excellent Harold McGee.
There are two primary ways that veggies can lose their green. First, [...]

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Just two weeks after I wrote this post on egg proteins, Cook’s Illustrated answered a letter about salting scrambled eggs. The reader wrote in asking if salting the eggs before cooking will make them watery. Cook’s Illustrated tested this and found that eggs salted before cooking created a more tender product, while eggs [...]

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If you’re a meat eater, it’s impossible not to have noticed that the chicken breast you’re eating looks different from the steak across the table. But why do different meats have different colors when they are all muscle tissue? Why is a chicken leg darker than the breast? How do these differences [...]

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I got this tip from the July and August 2008 Cook’s Illustrated and found it interesting. When garlic is chopped, the compound allicin forms. Alliin reacts with allinase to produce allicin as a defense mechanism against insects and fungi. Unfortunately, allicin quickly breaks down after it forms, usually in 1-6 days. [...]

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This kitchen tip comes from the July and August Cook’s Illustrated. The test kitchen examined whether removing the seeds and jelly from a tomato, as many recipes call for, has any effect on the final flavor of the food.
The conclusion? The recipe with the seeds and jelly was significantly more flavorful. Apparently [...]

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Egg whites are made up primarily of water (90%) and protein (10%), with trace amounts of other molecules. Of the different proteins, there are three that are useful to know because of their effects on cooking.
Ovomucin - This protein thickens and solidifies the egg white when cooked. Although it makes up a [...]

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