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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • There’s that series of pictures taken on a street that shows a comparison of how much space it takes to move 60 or so people in cars vs a bus vs bicycles. Obviously, the cars take up vastly more space than the other two.

    Walking shouldn’t be the only other option. The influence of car and oil companies has created a car dependent dystopia in North America, where it seems like it’s either car or walk. But it’s really the same as the trash problem. If trash bins were freeways, we don’t need more of them, we need to be more efficient at moving people, essentially reducing the trash.






  • Yep, I really like how he applies the scientific method to cooking. Some of my favourites are how he’s found the perfect way to boil an egg, cook steaks and roasts (dry brine, reverse sear), and make chocolate chip cookies (he made over 1500 cookies testing how changing each variable changed the final cookie).


  • OminousOrange@lemmy.catomemes@lemmy.worldPastas Assembled
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    3 months ago

    It’s not salting your water, nor the water volume to pasta ratio, nor if the water is boiling or not, nor oil in the water, but stirring early in the cooking process that will prevent sticking.

    From the great Kenji Lopez-Alt:

    Pasta is made up of flour, water, and sometimes eggs. Essentially, it’s composed of starch and protein, and not much else. Now starch molecules come aggregated into large granules that resemble little water balloons. As they get heated in a moist environment, they absorb more and more water until they finally burst, releasing the starch molecules into the water. That’s why pasta always seems to stick together at the beginning of cooking—it’s the starch molecules coming out and acting as a sort of glue, binding the pieces to each other, and to the pot.

    The problem is that first stage of cooking—the one in which starch molecules first burst and release their starch. With such a high concentration of starch right on the surface of the pasta, sticking is inevitable. However, once the starch gets rinsed away in the water, the problem is completely gone.

    So the key is to stir the pasta a few times during the critical first minute or two. After that, whether the pasta is swimming in a hot tub of water or just barely covered as it is here, absolutely no sticking occurs. I was able to clean this pot with a simple rinse.