But hosting a Super Bowl party can be a lot of pressure: you want your food to be perfect. We've got you. Better yet, science has got you.
Enter the American Chemical Society, which has given us a scientific guide to the ultimate nacho cheese. Here are some Super Bowl food tips to make your game day spread a winner.
1. Sodium citrate will give you next level cheese for your nachos.
If you just pop a pile of cheddar into the microwave, you're going to end up with a greasy pile of goo that hardens as soon as it cools down. That's fine if you're making yourself a plate of nachos to eat alone on the couch, but it's not ideal for a party: You want that smooth queso dip.But that doesn't mean you should resign yourself to the gross jarred variety. By adding just a pinch of chemistry, you can get any cheese to melt into a perfectly smooth, delicious goo.
Here's the science: Cheese is made up of dairy proteins suspended in water, and it's all held together by proteins linked together by calcium molecules. To make cheese lose its shape and go all goopy, you need those proteins to break apart. Sodium citrate is an acid that will attract away those calcium molecules, leaving the proteins free to do their thing. You can probably find sodium citrate at a grocery, pharmacy, or online retailer. But if you can't, adding an acid like lemon juice is better than nothing.
2. Step up your guacamole game while you're at it.
3. Think beer is safe from skunking in the winter? Think again.
Contrary to popular belief, beer doesn't “skunk” because it's been
sitting out in the heat — it's sunlight that does it in. When hops are
boiled down to make beer, they release chemical compounds called
Iso-Alpha Acids. They're bitter on their own, but when exposed to
sunlight they break down and interact with other molecules in the beer
to produce a molecule that's almost identical to the one in a skunk's
smelly spray. So don't keep your beer in direct sunlight, even if it's
in a chilly spot.
How to make a pancake, according to the experts
When you make pancake batter you are mixing a whole range of different chemicals (so all sorts of reactions take place in the cooking). The dry ingredients contain flour and sugar, as well as salt and maybe either baking powder or baking soda. Flour supplies protein, molecules made of lots of amino-acids joined in chains, along with starch, which similarly is made of lots of simple sugar molecules joined in chains.
Much of the protein in flour is gluten. When you mix the flour with eggs and milk, the gluten molecules get more flexible and can bind to each other forming networks. The mixing causes carbon dioxide gas from the air to be trapped by these networks, which causes the pancake to rise (just like bread does) and creates its chewable texture. Eggs give you more protein, while sugar and butter give tenderness to the texture and the fluids help the mixing process and enable chemical reactions to occur.
Raising standards
Thicker pancakes need a raising agent which produces carbon dioxide by itself when heated. This is typically sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) or baking powder, a mixture of sodium bicarbonate with a weak acid like cream of tartar. You might remember from chemistry lessons at school that when you mix an acid with a carbonate, you get a fizzing. This is the carbon dioxide gas.Professor Peter Barham of the University of Bristol is one of the great experts on the science of cooking and he has some good advice about getting things right when making pancakes:
For a start, cooks always use too much batter'
and that the pan should be hot, but not too hot ‘almost smoking - but
not blue smoke’ and should just have a smear of butter or fat.
He goes on to say that a “standing” period of between one and three hours before cooking is vital.
It is important to beat the mixture hard, so
that gluten forms, for the mixture to then stand to allow the starch to
swell and any air bubbles to pop. Unless you do this, the structure of
the pancake will be weak and it will be full of holes.
Nigel Slater says
that you don’t have to let the batter stand, but half an hour is
probably best. It’s also important to remember that if you add
buttermilk, which is slightly acidic, it will also react with the
carbonates, and leave the batter too long, all the gas bubbles will have
escaped, and your pancakes will be flat.
Most chefs do not suggest a particular cooking temperature
(moderate heat seems the norm). The pan should be hot enough for the
pancake to brown in less than a minute, but not so hot that the batter
“sets” when you put it on the pan, before it has time to spread. But all
seem to agree on the importance of getting the right pan -– a nice
heavy, flat one, which will hold the heat well.
Browning off
The aroma and colour of pancakes originate in the same chemical reaction, known as the Maillard reaction, after its French discoverer, Louis-Camille Maillard. It is caused by hot sugars reacting with amino-acids, generating a wide range of small molecules that escape from the mixture and carry their smells (such as nuts, bread or coffee) to your nose. Some of these brown compounds, also found in bread and coffee, are called melanoidins.If you are just a bit mathematically inclined, you will appreciate how university researchers have shown you can even use formulae for making pancakes – whether to work out how much batter you need or how to get the perfect flip. At a more complicated level, these formulae bring in factors such as the cooking time and the temperature of the pan to get as near perfection as you can. But ultimately, for all the formulae, advice from chefs and scietific tips, there’s only one thing for it – start mixing that batter.
A ragu alla bolognese recipe to provoke passionate conversation
ABC Life Style, Feb-03,2016
I once sat and listened to the most heated debate about ragù alla bolognese. My Italian was still basic, and a lot of wine had been drunk, so I wasn’t able to keep up with the detail being bounced back and forth across the table between the two main debaters, both from different sides of Bologna, which apparently makes a difference. It was possibly chicken livers, or when to add the cheese. At a certain point, the thing I had been quietly dreading happened and the conversation turned to spaghetti bolognese, and faces turned to me, one of two English people.
Now, I grew up with my mum’s spaghetti bolognese, the same deep red as the waxed cloth on the table, and loved it as much as being able to twirl the strands around my fork, then suck the last strand so hard it flicked sauce up my face. I have also made a pretty traditional ragù for years. I was neither capable or willing to join in the debate though, which felt as if it might tip from jest to ridicule. My face burned. Then, the most opinionated of the lot said something I did understand, about how discussion about food should be as generous, passionate and good as we wish our food to be. Yes, talk about authenticity and difference, but never make people feel ashamed.
This has stayed with me as I continue to learn more about Italian food. A fascinating journey that sometimes has me feeling as if I am pressing my nose up against a misted-up window pane trying to understand what the hell is going on inside. Nonetheless, I think the debate is wonderful. Jane Grigson was spot on when she said that food, its quality, its origins, its preparation, is something, the best thing maybe – to be studied and thought about. And this means the whole damn lot, tracing dishes back as far as you can (which can be no mean feat when recipes become stories and vary from stove to stove), but also observing variations as dishes cross continents, changing shape and significance as they go.
With this in mind, I have found it fascinating to learn more about traditional ragù alla bolognese. (That’s not to say that I don’t have my own variations, some with their roots in Hertfordshire in 1981, waxed cloth and The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me topping the charts, but more about that another time.) Not to be confused with the Neapolitan version, ragù alla bolognese originates in Bologna, the capital of Emilia Romagna which sits two thirds of the way up the boot. It begins with a battuto – which describes the action of striking (battere) – of onion, celery, carrot and cured pork, which you then cook in the fat of the north: butter. Traditionally, there is no garlic and the meat is beef, maybe pork, possibly chicken liver. The wine can be red or white, depending on your preference, or the bottle open, and the suggestion of tomato lent by concentrate dissolved in water or stock. The finish is milk, which may sound odd, but is gorgeous, softening the edges and making the whole thing rounded and very delicious. Nothing complicated, but care and attention are needed to get to this point.
Now, very little attention is needed, as you leave the pan to quietly blip and burp at the back of the stove, feeding it with drips of milk from time to time. The final panful should be dark, but slightly blushing and visibly rich. Initially, I found the appearance and consistency of ragù disconcerting, almost crumbly. The consistency is why ribbons of egg pasta, such as tagliatelle or fettuccine, are just the thing, and why it is important to add parmesan, and the vital slosh of starchy pasta cooking water to weld everything together. When you are ready, serve and invite passionate, generous discussions, fueled by the rest of the bottle of wine, or two.
Ragu alla bolognese
Serves 4–640g butter
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
50g pancetta or unsmoked bacon, diced
1 bay leaf
200g minced beef
200g minced pork
50g chicken livers (optional)
200ml red or white wine
1 tbsp tomato puree dissolved in 150ml warm water or chicken stock
Salt and black pepper
150ml whole milk
500g fettuccine, tagliatelle or pappardelle
6 tbsp freshly grated parmesan
1 In a large, heavy-based saucepan or deep saute pan with a lid, heat the butter and olive oil, add the vegetables, pancetta and bay leaves and cook over a low heat until soft and fragrant.
2 Increase the heat slightly and crumble the meat into the pan. Cook, stirring pretty continuously, until the meat has lost all of it’s colour and browned evenly. Add the wine, let it evaporate for a couple of minutes, then add the tomato. Simmer, uncovered, over a low heat for 30 minutes, by which time the sauce should have deepened in colour and have very little liquid. Add a good pinch of salt, lots of black pepper and a little of the milk. Cook slowly, covered, for another hour, every so often lifting the lid and adding the milk until it is used up. The sauce should be rich, and thick, with very little liquid, but not dry, so keep an eye on it.
3 Warm a serving bowl. Cook the pasta in plenty of well-salted water until al dente. Drain the pasta, reserving some of the pasta cooking water, and tip into the warm bowl. Sprinkle over half the cheese, the sauce, a little of a pasta cooking water and toss carefully, lifting the pasta from below with two spoons, If it seems a little dry, cautiously add more pasta cooking water, toss again and serve, passing round the rest of the grated parmesan.
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