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January 24, 2005 Vol. 76, no. 2S
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| IN THE
KITCHEN: Michael Chu, EECS alum, tests recipes
and shares cooking tidbits aimed at the science crowd on Cookingforengineers.com.
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Food
for scientific thought
EECS alum launches Cookingforengineers.com
At www.cookingforengineers.com,
you'll find the usual gourmet fare: mouth-watering recipes and gadget
reviews of spice grinders and kitchen scales. But you'll also find tidbits
like this: "U.S. cups are not quite the same size as British Imperial
cups. Both are eight fluid ounces, but the U.S. fluid ounce and the
British fluid ounce differ slightly. A U.S. cup (236.6 mL) is about
four percent larger in volume than the British cup (227.3 mL) ..."
Intrigued? That's because a fellow Cal engineer, Michael Chu (B.S.
'99 EECS), is the mastermind behind the new cooking website that
hit the Internet last June. Cookingforengineers.com features recipes
Chu has tested in a precisely diagrammed format, along with things like
an ingredient substitution list and ingredient dictionary (complete
with photos), measurement conversion tool, and chart on the smoke point
of oils.
The website has already been featured on Slashdot, the barometer of
nerd worthiness and, in November, 40,000 people visited the site. For
that, Chu credits his site's distinctive focus. "It's
written and presented in what I hope is an analytical viewpoint,"
he says, "with interesting tidbits of info that most cooks don't
bother to find out, but which engineers and science-minded folks like
to know."
For example, Chu wrote a whole article about the brining process, challenging
traditional explanations. "The salt solution on the outside of
the meat and the less salty solution inside the meat sets the stage
for the flow of solvent and solute," he writes. "The salt
(solute) diffuses into the meat when some water (solvent) diffuses out
of the meat. Then (this is the key), the extra salt that enters the
meat begins to denature the proteins in the meat, producing both additional
solutes and additional 'holes' for water to fill up. The osmotic
pressure inverts and water begins to flow into the meat at this point,
producing juicier meat."
Chu also peppers his recipes with comments like: "Traditionally
served over linguine, shrimp scampi makes a quick and easy dinner that
works equally well eaten in front of the computer or as the main dish
of a romantic candlelight dinner."
Technical failure launched the project. When a server at work deleted
all his recipes (except for tuna noodle casserole), Chu decided he needed
a better way to store recipes and share them with friends. Cookingforengineers.com
premiered with Chu's variation on the Cook's Illustrated recipe
for salsa cruda.
The Silicon Valley hardware application engineer wasn't always
a cook. In fact, Chu didn't cook at all as an engineering student.
It was only after he started working six years ago that he focused his
analytical skills on the kitchen and found it enjoyable. The process
is cathartic after a hard day's work, he says.
When he cooks for the website, Chu says he mostly tests other people's
recipes, but occasionally, he creates his own dishes. Either way, fans
are smacking their lips, though Chu remains modest. "I'm just
someone who likes to cook who decided to sit down and write about it."
Hungry yet? Go to http://www.cookingforengineers.com/
to get started.
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