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Food for scientific thought: EECS alum launches cooking website
by Rachel Jackson
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EECS alum Michael Chu tests recipes and shares tidbits on his new cooking website, www.cookingforengineers.com, designed, he says, for "science-minded folks."
PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHAEL CHU
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On this new cooking website 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 4 percent larger in volume than the British cup (227.3 mL).
The entertaining new website is www.cookingforengineers.com, and the mastermind behind it is Berkeley alumnus Michael Chu (B.S.’99 EECS). It features not only recipes Chu has tested in a precisely diagrammed format, but also an illustrated ingredient dictionary, a substitution list, a measurement conversion tool, and a chart on the smoke point of oils. Premiering last June, the site has received as many as 250,000 visits in one month, was featured on Slashdot, and in March won a 2005 Bloggie Award for best food website. For the success, 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 that engineers and science-minded folks like to know.”
Chu’s article about the brining process, for example, provides detail that challenges traditional explanations:
The salt solution on the outside of the meat and the less salty solution inside the meat set the stage for the flow of solvent and solute. 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 peppers his recipes with editorial comments, such as:
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.
A technical computer failure inspired the project. When a server at work deleted all his recipes but tuna noodle casserole, Chu decided he needed a better way to store and share them with friends. The site premiered with Chu's variation on Cook's Illustrated recipe for salsa cruda.
The Silicon Valley hardware application engineer didn’t cook at all as an engineering student. It was only after he started working six years ago that he began focusing his analytical skills in the kitchen. The process is cathartic after a hard day’s work, he says.
“I’m just someone who likes to cook who decided to sit down and write about it.”
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