Kitchen Calculus

Well, I haven’t gone so far as to calculate rates of change and to-the-millisecond time to cook eggs at different altitudes (there’s a best-selling German iPhone app for that, plus I hate hate HATE eggs), but I’m shocked how much math I use in the kitchen!

Herr J laughs at my cooking using calculator, scale, charts, and tape measure.  The tape measure doesn’t get too much use, but the calculator gets a real workout.  Even simple cooking is a bit of an adventure….the recipes are usually in American, the ingredients sold in metric, and the oven in Celsius. Or the recipes are really large and I want to make a smaller amount.  For even more fun, most European recipes measure by weight; American by volume.  For pastry and such things requiring precise ratios or relying on chemical reactions, this is a must. But beyond those, it seems one more example of the need to be as exact as possible (link to article on precision). Whatever the reason, I’m a convert. My trusty kitchen scale shows grams and ounces, and I love it! 

My first macaron attempt nearly ended upon reading the first ingredient....“900g of egg whites, how the $%@# do I know how many eggs that is??!”. But the dream of tasty macaron-y goodness won me over, and instead I bought a dozen eggs and a scale. And after cracking about 10 of them and not being even close to 900g, out came the calculator to reduce the recipe.  Problem solved, and shockingly tasty and pretty salted caramel macarons.

I finally resorted to just taping a chart to the backsplash behind the stove. I still need the calculator, but at least I don’t have to run to the computer to look up how many mL to an ounce to a cup and F° to C°. The Smart Baker is selling useful aprons or towels with common kitchen conversions.  Great idea, but there are no metric conversions.

I’m off to buy an apron and a Sharpie…..

Comments

[Frau Dorothy]

I actually have laminated cards with temperature, fluid ounce and smidge/pinch/dash metric to "American" conversions. A helpful friend made them for me in New Zealand. Since hubby is a metric guy, it has helped us both. I do have a scale, but tend to eyeball, often to poor results. Butter is my downfall - I miss American butter with the little markings on the sticks.

[BB]

OK, I'm from South Louisiana where cooking is an art and undoubtedly some chefs use recipes. However on the cajun cuisine, their French dialect is not written so therfore by verbal tradition it's a hunk 'o dis or dat, a dash, a pinch, a hanful, a cupa, tree fingus wert, and so on. And when you have a home cooking date, just have a small skillet with butter and a clove of garlic and a little chopped onion simmering. That and a little wine will mask any wakness in the main dish! The guy/gal you are trying to impress will be, well, impressed! The general rule of thumb in southern cooking is egg, cream, butter, onion, garlic, cayene pepper, tomatos, green pepper, Add seafood, meat ,fowl, and boil, simmer, saute, fry, bake or broil and you got yosef a meal I'm tellin ya honey!

[Frau A]

I think I do the Asian version of your Cajun cooking....some good Thai chili paste, garlic, ginger, and shallots can make anything good. Kind of like the Asian version of pasta puttanesca.

I do miss the butter markings...whoever thought of those was brilliant! we do have 25g markings on the butter here, but it's not quite the same.