The 2-Ingredient “Master Sauce” I Put on Everything - Yahoo Life

One of my first EVER TikTok follows was the author of this recipe I’m about to rave over: Chef Jon Kung. He’s a Chinese American chef who appeared on my FYP making different condiments like chili oil, explaining spices, trying different cooking techniques, and talking about food and its place in society and culture.

He also introduced me to third-culture cooking, where people blend their unique makeup of food traditions, ingredients, and flavors into their food. As someone who’s learning about their heritage culture (I was adopted from China) and continuing to embrace their adopted culture of Jewish American cuisine, TikTok really said for you (IYKYK).

Kung Food: Chinese American Recipes from a Third-Culture Kitchen: A Cookbook

Kung Food: Chinese American Recipes from a Third-Culture Kitchen: A Cookbook

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All that to say, when I heard he was releasing his debut cookbook, Kung Food: Chinese American Recipes from a Third Culture Kitchen, and was offered the opportunity to get an early look, the answer was an immediate yes! I went straight to the noodle section and immediately found his ginger scallion noodles. The hardest part, I thought, was going to be making the ginger scallion oil. Spoiler: It was not hard.

Credit: Andrea Kaufman Credit: Andrea Kaufman

Ginger Scallion Oil Is Liquid Gold (or Something Green)

Before reading his recipe, I really didn’t know much about this condiment. I tend to stray towards heartier umami flavors like chili crisp as a go-to topping. To me, this recipe is giving light umami. It is an oil, but it’s light, bright, a little salty, and a little savory.

I decided to make the cooked oil, not the raw version, because it’s less pungent and also because it has a longer shelf life and I will not be rushed.

Most importantly, it’s easy to make! Any effort is well worth it. You thinly slice scallions (a good reminder to read the recipe first), mince some ginger, mix them with salt, heat up oil, then pour it over the ginger scallion mixture. Wait for it to cool and ta-da!

Credit: Andrea Kaufman Credit: Andrea Kaufman

Add Noods

Now for the moment I was so excited about! I love finding new ways to eat noodles. Much like spreadsheets, it really brings me joy. For this recipe, you can choose any noodle you want. Our Culinary Producer James introduced me to these knife-sliced noodles and I immediately wanted to use them for this. They’re long, bouncy, and have rippled edges that hold sauce well.

All you do is cook the noodles according to package directions, drain, and mix with ginger scallion oil. The point of this recipe is to emphasize the oil, so the suggested toppings keep it minimal. And so I did. 

After I scraped my bowl clean, I immediately wanted more. They had a deliciously subtle flavor that’s neutral enough to go with anything. The ginger and scallions balance each other out perfectly. The ginger makes it feel a little zesty and light, but it’s not at all overpowering.

Credit: Andrea Kaufman Credit: Andrea Kaufman

What to Serve with These Noodles

• Add greens. I like to add some bok choy (one of my 3-5 approved veggies).

• Top it with an egg. A fried egg is the perfect topping. To take it up a notch, cook it in chili crisp. 😉

• Add leftovers! My favorite is to throw in some leftover steak if I have it.

Other Ways to Use the Ginger Scallion Oil

Here at The Kitchn we’re very dedicated to introducing you to new ways to fry eggs. Naturally, this oil is supposed to go with everything, so why not eggs? I fried eggs in some of the ginger scallion oil and it was savory, light, and had a hint of ginger. 10/10 recommend.

Ginger Scallion Noodles Recipe

Serves2

Ingredients

For the ginger scallion oil (raw or cooked):

For the noodles:

• 8 ounces

  noodles

• 2 tablespoons

  Ginger Scallion Oil, raw or cooked, plus more as desired

• Optional toppings: steamed vegetables, poached or softboiled egg, duo jiao, kecap manis, chili crisp

Instructions

1. To make raw ginger scallion oil: Place 2 cups finely minced scallions and 2 teaspoons kosher salt (see Recipe Note below) in a large bowl and mix well with a large spoon, then add 1/2 cup finely minced ginger and mix again. Stir in 2 cups neutral oil, then place the bowl in the refrigerator and let steep for at least 2 hours or up to 12 hours before using. Use within 1 day of making.

2. To make cooked ginger scallion oil: Place 2 cups finely minced scallions and 2 teaspoons kosher salt in a large heat-safe bowl and mix well with a large spoon before adding 1/2 cup finely minced ginger and mixing again. In a saucepan, heat 2 cups neutral oil over medium-high heat until it reaches 300°F. Slowly pour the oil into the bowl over the scallion mixture and stir to combine. Let cool to room temperature, then transfer to an airtight container and store in the fridge for up to 1 week.

3. To make the noodles: Cook the noodles according to the package directions and drain well. Stir in the ginger scallion oil and divide among shallow serving bowls. Serve additional oil alongside, as well as any of the suggested toppings.

Recipe Notes

General Tips: Note: Salt your scallions before adding oil. It’s hard to season oil with salt so we add salt to the scallions, which releases water, which then dissolves the salt, which finally coats and is reabsorbed by the scallions.

Reprinted with permission from Kung Food: Chinese American Recipes from a Third-Culture Kitchen by Jon Kung © 2023. Photographs © 2023 by Johnny Miller. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

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The 2-Ingredient “Master Sauce” I Put on Everything - Yahoo Life
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Marmite Is The Flavor-Packed Ingredient You Need For Better Chili - Daily Meal

Marmite, on its own, is very salty. But while salt does generally make food taste better, it isn't just the saltiness that's responsible for Marmite's flavor-enhancing effects on chili. More than just a blend of salt and spices, Marmite is a byproduct of the beer brewing process called yeast extract. This yeast extract, consisting of a combination of oats, wheat, barley, and rye, is high in glutamic acid, which means it's essentially concentrated umami.

When you eat something that's rich in glutamates or glutamic acid, it activates certain taste buds that allow you to experience a fifth taste, better known as umami. Many chili recipes already contain umami-filled ingredients such as tomatoes, meat, and cheese, but the yeast extract in the Marmite takes it to the next level. So, when you add it to chili, you'll end up with a much more satisfying and balanced flavor.

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The 1-Ingredient Upgrade for Crispier Roasted Potatoes (It’s Already in Your Pantry) - Yahoo Life

I was inspired to try this trick after reading the label on a bag of frozen French fries.

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Roasted potatoes are a go-to weeknight side that I tend to throw in the oven when I don’t have time to think about what else to make. I start with baby potatoes so I don’t have to bother peeling them, and I parboil them as the oven preheats so that the inside stays fluffy and the outside gets crispy.

Now, as many of you probably know, my kids are super picky. Even though they would eat French fries every night if I let them, roasted potatoes were a hard no for them. I’m unsure if you’ve ever tried reasoning with a six-year-old and a three-year-old... I could never convince my kids that roasted potatoes were basically the same as French fries.

For my kids, the texture is the barrier to entry with new foods. When I served them standard roasted potatoes they were thrown off by the feel of the outsides; they weren't super crisp like the French fries they love.

So, what's a mom to do? Trick them, obviously. I decided the only way to get my kids to try the potatoes was to make them more like French fries: really crispy on the outside.

After closely inspecting the brand of frozen French fries I often buy, I realized that they are coated in a blend of starches to help crisp them up. So, I decided to give the method a shot with roasted potatoes. And it turns out, coating the potatoes with cornstarch is the secret to super crispy roasted potatoes!

Simply Recipes / Ciara Kehoe

How To Get the Crispiest Potatoes Using Cornstarch

After parboiling the potatoes in a pot of salted water, I let them steam dry in a colander set on my kitchen counter, or in the freezer if I am pressed for time. Once the potatoes are dry to the touch and no longer steaming, I coat them in salt, black pepper, dried herbs, and spices (I like oregano and paprika), and cornstarch. I use about a tablespoon for every 1 1/2 pounds of potatoes.

Season the Potatoes Generously

One thing to keep in mind is that adding any type of starch will dull the seasoning on the potatoes, so it's important to season them more generously than you would otherwise.

I toss the potatoes well to make sure everything is coated evenly, then I add them to a well-oiled rimmed sheet pan and toss again so the potatoes are fully coated with oil. The potatoes then go into a 450°F oven for 20 to 25 minutes. They'll get golden brown, super crispy, and delicious.

The resulting potatoes are incredibly crisp on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside, and hold their shape well. I can’t say my kids prefer them to French fries, but they will eat them, which is a big win in my book.

More 1-Ingredient Upgrades I Swear By

Read the original article on Simply Recipes.

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Why does fruitcake last so long? Ingredients and preparation of the dessert play into its longevity - Fox News

Fruitcake has built quite a reputation. It is known for its longevity, but also as a gift not widely preferred — although you can always regift. 

The origins of fruitcake date back to the ancient Romans, where a version of the dessert was made as a sort of energy bar to keep soldiers fueled for battle. 

These original fruitcakes were often made with pomegranate seeds, raisins, honey and wine. 

EASY FRUITCAKE FOR NATIONAL FRUITCAKE DAY: TRY THE RECIPE 

Fruitcake lasts for six months when kept in the pantry and up to a year when it is put in the fridge, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Even though this is a typical length of time, the dessert is good for even longer. 

A fruitcake lasts a lot longer than a typical dessert. It can be consumed months, even years after it's originally made. (Rick Eglinton/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

In 2017, a 106-year-old fruitcake was left by members of an Antarctic expedition in 1911. 

The main reasons a fruitcake lasts so long are the ingredients and the process of putting it together. 

An ingredient that contributes to the longevity of a fruitcake is the alcohol that is often used, according to Bryan Quoc Le, a food scientist, per Scientific American. 

The alcohol that fruitcake is soaked in plays a large role in its longevity. (Deb Lindsey For The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Many fruitcake recipes include soaking the cake in rum, brandy or bourbon. This process makes the cake more acidic. 

There are fruitcakes that are made without alcohol, but these won't last as long as the boozy alternative.

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When it comes to the fruit in a fruitcake, fresh ingredients are not traditionally used. 

Instead, dried fruit is ideal for this dessert. Since the fruit is not fresh, this ingredient reduces moisture in the cake, giving it a much drier texture. 

"Foods with low amounts of moisture, like fruitcakes and Twinkies, are resistant to the growth of microorganisms because you need a certain amount of moisture for spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms to grow," Le said per Scientific American. 

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"If you can get rid of the moisture, you have something that’s nearly indestructible."

Fruitcake lasts longer when put in the fridge versus being left out. (Ken Hively/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Fruitcake is not a light, fluffy delicacy. It is instead very heavy and dense. 

This allows the cake's freshness to remain many weeks, months and even years after it is originally made. 

Though eating a year-old fruitcake isn't likely to make you sick, according to Scientific American, the flavors won't be ideal after long periods of time. 

Fruitcake that sits for anywhere for a week to a few months is ideal for eating. 

For more Lifestyle articles, visit www.foxnews.com/lifestyle.

Ashlyn Messier is a writer for Fox News Digital. 

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Why The Order In Which You Mix Baking Ingredients Is Important - Yahoo Life

You just baked a cake and expect a perfect, fluffy, soft outcome. However, you find yourself disappointed. Out of the oven, a cake with an uneven rise, a dense bottom layer, and a texture that doesn't feel right greets you. As you retrace all your baking steps, a realization dawns: perhaps how you mixed your ingredients played a role! And you're right. Here's why the order in which you mix baking ingredients is important.

Baking involves chemical reactions and is based on food science. The raw ingredients each play a role. For instance, eggs are binders that connect your wet and dry ingredients. Milk and water help flour expand. Every ingredient in your baking mix reacts with each other and the heat of your oven to expand, rise, and transform from uncooked batter or dough to a delicious baked treat.

When baking, a good rule of thumb to follow is to prepare all your ingredients. First, mix most of your dry ingredients together, such as your flour, cocoa or matcha powder, and chemical leavening agents like baking soda, baker's ammonia, cornstarch, and baking powder, in a bowl and set it aside until it's ready for use. And when a recipe calls for creaming butter, it's best to cream softened butter first with sugar. Then add in your eggs and liquids, like milk and extracts, and finally, the bowl of dry ingredients.

Read more: The 20 Best Olive Oils For Cooking

There Is A Method To This Baking Madness

mixing baking ingredients - Iprogressman/Getty Images

Creaming softened butter with sugar helps evenly distribute all the sugar, and whip and trap air into the butter mixture. This helps add to the lightness and fluffiness of your cakes. Adding and mixing in your emulsifiers, such as eggs, and the rest of the wet ingredients next will help bind the batter or dough with the dry ingredients you introduce.

Finally, incorporating the premixed dry ingredients, as aforementioned, ensures uniformity. By thoroughly mixing these dry components beforehand, you prevent clumping and ensure that leavening agents are evenly distributed, which is crucial for a uniformly risen cake with an even texture.

So, the next time you dive into baking, remember how the order in which you mix baking ingredients matters. It's about creating harmony among different components and letting each ingredient play the role it's meant to play. Each step, from creaming butter and sugar to adding eggs and liquids and finally incorporating dry ingredients, is designed to achieve a specific purpose. This methodical approach guarantees there will be perfect cakes and cookies in the oven for you every time.

Read the original article on Tasting Table.

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5-Ingredient Dinners to Lower Inflammation (& Shopping List!) - EatingWell

Our column, ThePrep, has everything you'll need to make meal planning and meal prep as easy as can be. Nutritional needs differ from one individual to another, and we invite you to use these dinner plans as inspiration and tweak them as you see fit. Sign up to get a meal plan delivered to your inbox every Saturday!

Happy New Year! I can't believe another year has flown by! The popular saying is definitely true—time does feel like it speeds up as you get older. I'm excited to welcome in 2024, and what better way to start the year off right than with delicious dinners that help tame inflammation? Incorporating anti-inflammatory nutrients into your diet is a great strategy to help prevent not only colds and flu but also chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. Added bonus: These meals are made with just five ingredients, so grocery shopping doesn’t feel like a chore.

Your Meal Plan

Romulo Yanes; Food Styling: Torie Cox; Prop Styling: Claire Spollen

I love the motivational vibes the new year brings. The idea of planning new things and making the most of 2024 motivates me. But instead of focusing on hard-to-achieve resolutions that can stress me out, I’m sticking to lifestyle habits I already enjoy to help me feel my best, such as exercising regularly, spending time with my family and friends, prioritizing sleep and eating nutrient-packed meals. Let’s get cooking!

Tuesday’s Salmon with Potatoes & Horseradish Sauce is proof that you can make a delicious meal with just a few ingredients when you rely on foods that naturally have lots of flavor—in this case, horseradish. And salmon is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids—one of the most researched anti-inflammatory compounds that help improve your skin health, cognitive function, heart health and more. Served with a side of simple steamed green beans, it’s a meal everyone will ask you to make again.

Sunday: Warm Chicken Salad with Peas & Polenta
Monday: Baked Eggs in Tomato Sauce with Kale with a slice of whole-wheat sourdough bread
Tuesday: Salmon with Potatoes & Horseradish Sauce with steamed green beans
Wednesday: Chicken Curry Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
Thursday: Spicy Shrimp with Cauliflower Rice with steamed broccoli
Friday: One-Pot Pasta with Tuna

Something Sweet

Who doesn't love a recipe that doubles as breakfast and a snack? And these moist and delicious Baked Banana-Nut Oatmeal Cups are just that. One of my favorite grab-and-go snacks, the recipe calls for only ⅓ cup of sugar because the ripe bananas add tons of natural sweetness. Since they are so easy to make and can be frozen for up to 3 months, I like to make two batches at once, so I always have them on hand. 

Get the Recipe: Baked Banana-Nut Oatmeal Cups

What's Inspiring Me This Week

Garner:  Jesse Grant. Garten: Noam Galai/WireImage. Getty Images.

I’ve always wanted to make my own bread, but to be quite honest, it always felt overwhelming, so I just buy it at the store. But Jennifer Garner’s riff on Ina Garten’s Honey White Bread is motivating me to give baking bread a try. Instead of following the recipe as is, Garner turned half of the dough into a cinnamon swirl-style bread. The soft crumb and swirly top looks so good that I’ve already added all the ingredients to my next shopping list. I can’t wait to enjoy a slice it with my morning cup of coffee. 

Find Out More: Jennifer Garner Just Made This Ina Garten Recipe—and Added Her Own Delicious Twist

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French Onion Soup Is The Magic Ingredient For Mouth-Watering Pulled Pork - Daily Meal

Some individuals lean toward smoking their pork, while others favor grilling or baking it. Another widely embraced method for creating exceptionally delicious pulled pork (and one that's easily achievable at home) is to use a slow cooker. This kitchen appliance has become a staple for many, producing tender and juicy meat in generous quantities. It's particularly well-suited for preparing pulled pork and serves as the optimal tool for melding the flavors of French onion soup. Adding French onion soup will make it easier to pull apart the meat, and you'll be able to savor it even more with every bite.

While the aroma from your pulled pork may be tempting, don't plan on sticking around to watch it cook because it may take anywhere from 8 to 10 hours to finish cooking, so have some patience and let your slow cooker do the work. If you want to thicken the sauce or there's too much liquid, just pop the lid off for 30 to 45 minutes while it cooks. Once you remove the pork from the slow cooker, you'll be ready to start pulling it apart. You can even spoon the juices from the slow cooker over the shredded pork mix. Now, you're prepared to begin making some incredibly delicious combinations of meals with your pulled pork.

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Study suggests this ingredient leads to better coffee - LiveNOW from FOX

article

Beans wet with 20 µL of water per gram of coffee. (Photo credit: University of Oregon)

EUGENE, Ore. - New research seems to confirm that a certain added ingredient during the process of brewing can lead to a tastier cup of espresso. 

A new scientific paper, published on Dec. 6 in the journal Matter, studied the impact of adding a squirt of water before grinding coffee beans. The results show how doing so can significantly reduce the static electric charge on the grounds – leading to less clumping during brewing, and a more consistent and intense espresso.

RELATED: Costco rumored to be discontinuing sweet treat from food court

Some coffee baristas already add a squirt of water before grinding to cut static, which is an approach known as the "Ross droplet technique." However, no one had specifically measured the charge on coffee or explored how it might vary with different types of coffee, according to the researchers. 

Scientists say coffee might be good for your bones

A recent study shows there may be a positive link between coffee consumption and bone health.

The idea for the research fittingly began over a cup of coffee. 

University of Oregon chemist and study co-author Christopher Hendon, nicknamed "Dr. Coffee," hosts regular coffee hours for his lab at a local coffee bar. Volcanologists Josef Dufek and Josh Méndez Harper are frequent attendees, according to a release shared by the university. 

The volcanologists began to notice similarities between coffee and the plumes of volcanic ash, magma and water that they usually study. 

"It’s sort of like the start of a joke—a volcanologist and a coffee expert walk into a bar and then come out with a paper," Méndez Harper, a volcanologist at Portland State University and co-author of the new research, said in a statement. 

"Coffee provides a nice platform to explore particle-scale physics that occur in volcanic plumes but are obviously very difficult to study directly in nature," Méndez Harper added. 

While both coffee and volcanoes involve materials in different states of matter interacting with each other, coffee is a lot less dangerous than broiling hot ash and gas – and it’s much easier to study in a controlled way, Méndez Harper noted. 

Adding water can lead to less coffee waste, tastier brew

Espresso mid flow. (Credit: University of Oregon)

Hendon’s team previously found in a 2020 paper that coffee forms microscopic clumps, particularly at fine grind levels.

The clumps mean water doesn’t touch every coffee ground evenly, leading to wasted coffee and cup-to-cup flavor variability. 

For the latest paper, Hendon’s coffee lab sought to understand why those clumps form and how to eliminate them. The researchers suspected that static electricity might be the cause.

By collaborating with the volcanologists, Hendon’s team repurposed a tool that has been used to measure electric charges on wildfire and volcanic ash. The researchers ground coffee above a small metal instrument about the size of an espresso cup, and collected coffee particles falling into it.

Because particles are charged, they produce measurable currents when they enter the cup, the researchers said. The team tested several different coffee varieties, roasting levels and grind sizes to see how different variables made an impact on the charge. 

Hendon’s team found that clumping was more of an issue in dark roast coffee, as these coffees tend to have less moisture since they’re roasted longer. Dark roasts also tended to have a negative charge, whereas lighter roasts — which have more residual moisture — acquired a positive charge, according to the team. 

Adding a splash of water before grinding removed the static charge and reduced the clumping effects, the researchers found. It also got them 10% more yield from the coffee, according to the researchers. 

The team noted how this could be a valuable strategy for baristas to waste less coffee, with fewer grounds getting stuck behind in the grinder, and the water moving through the packed grounds more evenly.

"Some baristas may have already anecdotally arrived at our conclusions; it's validating some industry know-how," Hendon said in a statement. "We are advocating for yet another step in producing excellent quality coffee, but it turns out you can’t cut corners if you want to achieve excellence." 

Coffee and volcanoes brew explosive takeaways

The volcanologists also noted takeaways for their research on volcanoes. The way that particles break is one of the leading controls on eruption behavior, and grinding roasted coffee is a way to explore the physics of fracture, the team said. 

Similar to coffee, volcanic ash particles can be highly charged – leading to volcanic lightning storms. It can also influence how long volcanic ash stays in the air and how far it travels after an eruption, according to the team. 

And like coffee, water also plays an important role in volcanic eruptions. 

"Explosive volcanoes have a lot of water vapor that helps drive and shape the eruptions," Dufek said. 

"Ultimately, this project really shows the value of community efforts," Dufek added. "A coffee hour where people gather provides time and space to think about what's convergent with research."

The study was funded in part by the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and NASA.

RELATED: These were America's top restaurants in 2023, according to Resy and Open Table

This story was reported from Cincinnati.

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Ina Garten's Clever One-Ingredient Dessert Sauce | The Kitchn - The Kitchn

We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.

Credit: Talaya Centeno/Penske Media/REX/Shutterstock

What if I told you that you could make a rich, pourable, vanilla-flecked dessert sauce to pour onto baked goods that tastes just like fancy crème anglaise with just one ingredient and zero cooking? You would probably say that there’s no such thing, but I’m here to reassure you that indeed this magical thing exists. In fact, Ina Garten swears by it — and so do I!

Vanilla Ice Cream Is the Secret

The answer to this wonderful sauce lies in the grocery store freezer aisle. In fact, even your corner bodega might have it: vanilla ice cream! Vanilla ice cream is essentially a custard sauce or crème anglaise (made from egg yolks, sugar, cream or milk, and vanilla) where air is churned into it before it’s frozen. 

Let vanilla ice cream (I recommend vanilla bean ice cream for all those gorgeous flecks of vanilla seeds) melt and you’re left with a silky, pourable sauce ready to drizzle over desserts and baked goods.

Why This Is the Easiest Dessert Sauce

Making a real crème anglaise is no joke: You have to cook and heat the egg yolks properly so that they thicken the sauce, but it’s quite easy to go too far and scramble the eggs. There’s a lot of whisking, stirring, and temperature monitoring, not to mention the time it takes for the sauce to cool down and chill before you can even serve it. Let’s not forget about all the dishes and cleanup too.

With this easy hack, all the hard work of making the custard is already done for you. Your job is to let a pint of vanilla ice cream sit on the counter (or in the refrigerator if you want to do it a day ahead) until it goes from frozen to pourable. Transfer it to a cute little pitcher and impress your guests by pouring it tableside when it’s time for dessert.

What to Serve with this Dessert Sauce

You can serve this shortcut sauce with anything you would serve vanilla ice cream or crème anglaise with. Here are some of our favorites.

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Coffee secret ingredient: Study seems to confirm what makes for a better cup of Joe - WTVD-TV

NEW YORK -- Coffee connoisseurs have long held the belief that adding a little water to the beans before grinding them could make a difference. A new study by researchers at the University of Oregon seems to confirm exactly why.

The research explored how the technique, which started as an attempt to address the often messy coffee-making process, also affected flavor.

"When you grind coffee, it goes everywhere," said study coauthor Christopher Hendon, an associate professor of computational materials chemistry at the University of Oregon. "Dust comes out of the grinder, it's like a plume that covers everything. But if you add a little water, it seems to not go everywhere. It's cleaner. That was the primary reason people did it."

The mess is caused by static electricity, which is created by friction when the beans are smashed together. This static charge then makes the particles of ground coffee repel each other - like magnets of the same polarity - sending them off in every direction.

Water acts like an insulator, dampening this effect - a process known as the "Ross droplet" technique. "It was first proposed by some enthusiast on a home barista forum," Hendon said. "The idea has been around for several years, and originally it was borrowed from the materials production industry, like wood pulping."

However, what started out as a way to reduce mess slowly morphed into a more sophisticated way to obtain a better brew - or at least so people thought. The theory was that by reducing static electricity, water not only kept the ground coffee from flying around or sticking to the insides of the grinder, it also prevented microscopic clumps from forming during brewing.

Why are clumps bad? Because water flows around them, leaving untouched coffee - and therefore flavor - behind. In barista parlance, they decrease extraction yield, or the amount of coffee that ends up in the cup, dissolved in the liquid.

"If you have clumps forming, there's going to be significant amounts of void space, kind of like when you stack watermelons," Hendon said. "As a result when you push water through you end up with less surface area touching the water and therefore lower extraction."

The study, published December 6 in the journal Matter, tested this more subtle, harder to see potential benefit of adding water to the beans: getting rid of flavor-robbing microclumps.

Putting 'Ross droplet' to the test

The research team included two volcanologists, who repurposed a tool usually employed to measure electric charges on wildfire and volcanic ash. They weighed coffee before adding water - using a pipette for precision down to the microgram - and then ground it in a professional grinder, one of the fastest on the market and a popular choice in cafes.

"The addition of small amounts of water - ranging from one droplet upwards - passivates, or turns off, the static charge and it does it in a way that the coffee exits the grinder never having been charged," Hendon said. It's unclear what exactly the water is doing, but he said it's perhaps absorbing the charge or changing the temperature inside the grinder, reducing the effects of friction.

"If you add a sufficient amount of water, you can also remove the formation of the clumps," he added. "You will in principle achieve higher extractions or less waste. That's exactly what this does, because you're now providing more available surface area for the same amount of water."

Without clumps, all of the brewing water comes into contact with the ground beans, reducing the amount of coffee that goes effectively unused and giving a more consistent brew.

The ideal amount of water can change based on parameters such as the type of roast and the coarseness of the grind, so there is no one-size-fits-all rule, but on average, the study found that adding water increases the extraction yield by 10%. Hendon warned that this doesn't necessarily equate to a tangible difference in flavor, but it does confirm the benefit of the "Ross droplet" technique.

"(Since the study published) I've been receiving a lot of emails from people telling me how grateful they are, because from just a cleanliness standpoint, this is a massive, massive upgrade," Hendon said. "What I would recommend for the home user is to start with a single drop of water and build up from there - there is a substantial amount of nuance in this process."

There's also a catch: The water improves cleanliness regardless of your brewing method, but a brewing benefit only occurs with espresso and, to a lesser extent, filter coffee. When using a cafetiere, French press or AeroPress, nothing much changes because, given the coarser grind required with these, "all of the water is already touching all of the coffee," Hendon said.

The quest for a better brew

Lance Hedrick, a coffee expert and professional barista who wasn't involved with the study, has tried to replicate the study's findings and discussed his results in a deep dive on YouTube. He said the work makes a valiant attempt to demystify what is going on when beans are spritzed with water, but for more conclusive evidence, more tests with different grinder models should be performed.

However, based on his own tests, he said he thinks the benefits are plausible.

"I found that the amount of water needed for the purported benefits varied wildly from grinder to grinder," he added. "So, although I don't think there is currently a practical catch-all implication from the study to immediately improve coffee brewing at home, I think it is an important addition to the attempts at hand trying to understand the extremely complex process of grinding, which is arguably the most important aspect of brewing a cup."

Franois Knopes of the Independent Coffee Lab, a professional coffee roaster and taster who also was not involved with the study, said he routinely sprays his beans before grinding for tasting evaluation and would recommend doing so to anyone in a home setting. However, he thinks doing so elsewhere might be impractical.

"It would be highly time consuming for most professional setups, such as a coffee shop serving hundreds of espresso-based drinks per day," Knopes said. "To improve and increase extraction, professional baristas are better off looking for improved grinding technologies or 'de-clumping' devices, little needles used to whisk the grounds and break the small boulders generated during grinding."

Hendon agreed. "For the time being, it is a little impractical in the sense that you'd have yet another step," he said. "But I suspect that there will be technologies that will be developed around this idea that adding water on demand is a very powerful technique."

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Also known as glycerol, glycerin is an organic compound derived from vegetable oils and animal fats. As previously mentioned, it is found in everything from household cleaning products to skincare and cosmetic products as well. Now, how can one simple ingredient prove so multifunctional? Well, it's because of the bacteriostatic properties found in glycerin. 

According to a publication in Advances in Wound Care (New Rochelle), a plethora of clinical studies have proven that when in high concentrations, glycerin fosters a bacteriostatic environment, which is an environment that prohibits the spread and reproduction of bacteria. So, when applied to your floor tiles, glycerin ultimately sterilizes them and neutralizes any potential bacteria. Similarly, glycerin is also known for its polishing and shining effects, as it is often used to relieve dust and protect varnishes and laminates. 

Tapping into these floor-shining benefits is as simple as can be. Just add two or three tablespoons of glycerin to a bucket of water and mop thoroughly to make your floor look like new.

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Her cake hack is genius!

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From 1968’s Funny Girl to 1996’s The Mirror Has Two Faces to 2004’s Meet the Fockers, Barba Streisand’s film career has a larger range than her impressive vocal chops. Her bestselling 2023 memoir My Name is Barbra covers a fair amount of ground as well.

In the 992(!) pages penned by the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) winner, Streisand allows fans to peek behind the curtain to see how she went from a kid in Brooklyn to a Hollywood star, political advocate, and BFF to the likes of Barbara Walters, Tony Bennett, Coldplay’s Chris Martin and more.

The memoir reminds us that Streisand, who has been married to fellow actor James Brolin since 1998, is no stranger to the big screen, the recording booth, the red carpet, and the kitchen. In fact, several sections of the book reveal that the bread crumbs she drops on Instagram about her adoration of ice cream and cozy TV dinners are not just for show.

Throughout My Name is Barbra, Streisand weaves in mouthwatering moments from decades ago as well as more recent times, at opening night soirees, during dates, on film sets and at home.

When a friend offered to make her a sandwich and said, “I bet you’re hungry,” Streisand recalled,  “Hungry? In those days, I was always hungry. Matter of fact, I still am.”

Barbra Striesand's 3-Course Semi-Homemade Meal

One of our favorite vignettes in the book recounts one of Streisand’s early home cooking adventures. At age 19, during an era when she was rehearsing for her first Broadway show, Streisand said, "My idea of a homemade meal was to open a can of corn, dump it into a pot, add milk and heat, and that became corn soup.”

Honestly, she was pretty close to nailing Chef John’s Just Corn Soup, which has earned 4.3 stars from Allrecipes fans! All she’s missing is a pat of butter, salt, and a pinch of cayenne.

For the second recipe in this three-part menu, Streisand explained, “I’d also add corn to Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix and fry it in Crisco, to make corn fritters…”

That boxed pancake mix, now branded “Pearl Milling Company,” ranked first in our taste-test of the best store-bought pancake mixes. If you want to take Streisand’s recipe to the next level, simply add 8 slices of crumbled cooked bacon, 2 eggs, and a scoop of sour cream to Streisand’s recipe and you have our fan-favorite Fresh Corn Fritters.

To cap off the meal, Streisand channels her inner Ina (who sometimes heats up a Trader Joe’s tart to serve for Thanksgiving dessert) and takes a hand from the supermarket. To make it feel like a from-scratch creation, Streisand shared a cake hack that we can’t wait to try.

“For dessert, we’d have a slab of Sara Lee chocolate cake,” she explained, which you can still find at retailers like Walmart to this day; Pepperidge Farm has a similar offering. “Before serving the cake (which also came out of the freezer bin), I had a particular technique. I would put it under the broiler until the icing fizzled and you could see little bubbles in it. And it got darker and slightly crystallized, which made it taste even more chocolatey. I thought it was the closest thing to a homemade cake."

Corn soup, a side of fresh fritters and a slice of warm, caramelized chocolate cake is a pretty impressive spread made from just 5 ingredients. The Way We Were sounds downright delicious, Barbra, and we adore and admire your ingenuity!

Read the original article on All Recipes.

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(CNN) — Coffee connoisseurs have long held the belief that adding a little water to the beans before grinding them could make a difference. A new study by researchers at the University of Oregon seems to confirm exactly why.

The research explored how the technique, which started as an attempt to address the often messy coffee-making process, also affected flavor.

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Study seems to confirm secret ingredient for better coffee - CNN

CNN  — 

Coffee connoisseurs have long held the belief that adding a little water to the beans before grinding them could make a difference. A new study by researchers at the University of Oregon seems to confirm exactly why.

The research explored how the technique, which started as an attempt to address the often messy coffee-making process, also affected flavor.

“When you grind coffee, it goes everywhere,” said study coauthor Christopher Hendon, an associate professor of computational materials chemistry at the University of Oregon. “Dust comes out of the grinder, it’s like a plume that covers everything. But if you add a little water, it seems to not go everywhere. It’s cleaner. That was the primary reason people did it.”

Espresso cup, coffee beans, ground coffee, coffee capsule and instant coffee

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The mess is caused by static electricity, which is created by friction when the beans are smashed together. This static charge then makes the particles of ground coffee repel each other — like magnets of the same polarity — sending them off in every direction.

Water acts like an insulator, dampening this effect — a process known as the “Ross droplet” technique. “It was first proposed by some enthusiast on a home barista forum,” Hendon said. “The idea has been around for several years, and originally it was borrowed from the materials production industry, like wood pulping.”

However, what started out as a way to reduce mess slowly morphed into a more sophisticated way to obtain a better brew — or at least so people thought. The theory was that by reducing static electricity, water not only kept the ground coffee from flying around or sticking to the insides of the grinder, it also prevented microscopic clumps from forming during brewing.

Why are clumps bad? Because water flows around them, leaving untouched coffee — and therefore flavor — behind. In barista parlance, they decrease extraction yield, or the amount of coffee that ends up in the cup, dissolved in the liquid.

“If you have clumps forming, there’s going to be significant amounts of void space, kind of like when you stack watermelons,” Hendon said. “As a result when you push water through you end up with less surface area touching the water and therefore lower extraction.”

The study, published December 6 in the journal Matter, tested this more subtle, harder to see potential benefit of adding water to the beans: getting rid of flavor-robbing microclumps.

Start with a single drop of water and build up from there, experts say.

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Putting ‘Ross droplet’ to the test

The research team included two volcanologists, who repurposed a tool usually employed to measure electric charges on wildfire and volcanic ash. They weighed coffee before adding water — using a pipette for precision down to the microgram — and then ground it in a professional grinder, one of the fastest on the market and a popular choice in cafes.

“The addition of small amounts of water — ranging from one droplet upwards — passivates, or turns off, the static charge and it does it in a way that the coffee exits the grinder never having been charged,” Hendon said. It’s unclear what exactly the water is doing, but he said it’s perhaps absorbing the charge or changing the temperature inside the grinder, reducing the effects of friction.

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“If you add a sufficient amount of water, you can also remove the formation of the clumps,” he added. “You will in principle achieve higher extractions or less waste. That’s exactly what this does, because you’re now providing more available surface area for the same amount of water.”

Without clumps, all of the brewing water comes into contact with the ground beans, reducing the amount of coffee that goes effectively unused and giving a more consistent brew.

The ideal amount of water can change based on parameters such as the type of roast and the coarseness of the grind, so there is no one-size-fits-all rule, but on average, the study found that adding water increases the extraction yield by 10%. Hendon warned that this doesn’t necessarily equate to a tangible difference in flavor, but it does confirm the benefit of the “Ross droplet” technique.

“(Since the study published) I’ve been receiving a lot of emails from people telling me how grateful they are, because from just a cleanliness standpoint, this is a massive, massive upgrade,” Hendon said. “What I would recommend for the home user is to start with a single drop of water and build up from there — there is a substantial amount of nuance in this process.”

There’s also a catch: The water improves cleanliness regardless of your brewing method, but a brewing benefit only occurs with espresso and, to a lesser extent, filter coffee. When using a cafetiere, French press or AeroPress, nothing much changes because, given the coarser grind required with these, “all of the water is already touching all of the coffee,” Hendon said.

The quest for a better brew

Lance Hedrick, a coffee expert and professional barista who wasn’t involved with the study, has tried to replicate the study’s findings and discussed his results in a deep dive on YouTube. He said the work makes a valiant attempt to demystify what is going on when beans are spritzed with water, but for more conclusive evidence, more tests with different grinder models should be performed.

However, based on his own tests, he said he thinks the benefits are plausible.

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“I found that the amount of water needed for the purported benefits varied wildly from grinder to grinder,” he added. “So, although I don’t think there is currently a practical catch-all implication from the study to immediately improve coffee brewing at home, I think it is an important addition to the attempts at hand trying to understand the extremely complex process of grinding, which is arguably the most important aspect of brewing a cup.”

François Knopes of the Independent Coffee Lab, a professional coffee roaster and taster who also was not involved with the study, said he routinely sprays his beans before grinding for tasting evaluation and would recommend doing so to anyone in a home setting. However, he thinks doing so elsewhere might be impractical.

“It would be highly time consuming for most professional setups, such as a coffee shop serving hundreds of espresso-based drinks per day,” Knopes said. “To improve and increase extraction, professional baristas are better off looking for improved grinding technologies or ‘de-clumping’ devices, little needles used to whisk the grounds and break the small boulders generated during grinding.”

Hendon agreed. “For the time being, it is a little impractical in the sense that you’d have yet another step,” he said. “But I suspect that there will be technologies that will be developed around this idea that adding water on demand is a very powerful technique.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Lance Hedrick’s last name.

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