Overview of The Recipes and Their Cooking Methods

Chicken Stir Fry

The recipe calls for the vegetables to be cooked twice. This is since, according to McGee, precooking can give a persistent firmness to some vegetables including those that are on the list of ingredients (p.28). Meats are marinated to flavor them and make them moist and tender, the acid in the marinade weaken muscle tissue and increase its ability to retain moisture but marinades penetrate meat slowly which can give the surface an overly sour flavor. To reduce the time of the marinade’s penetration, meat is cut into thin pieces just like what is called for in this recipe (p.155).

Tortellini Bake

Pasta is cooked in water whereas the protein network and its starch granules absorb water and expand. During the cooking period, the center of the noodle remains slightly undone and offers some resistance to chewing. Just like in this tortellini bake recipe, the pasta is cooked just short beyond being Al dente and then finished in the sauce (p.575).

Temperature control is important to make sure that the sauce does not get too hot. The recipe calls for hot milk to be added to the sauce to prevent the milk from instantly being overheated and coagulating into grainy particles. Likewise, cheese is added to the sauce so that it may lend its own thickness to the sauce. Cheese is best subjected to moderate heat since high temperature can cause curdling therefore the cheese was added after removing the sauce from heat (p.605).

Chicken Teriyaki

The chicken for this recipe was browned prior to adding the sauce as it has a thickening agent that is moderately sensitive to heat and sugar in the form of honey. Chicken Teriyaki sauce uses cornstarch, which is practically pure starch marking it a more efficient thickener, to thicken just as most sauces are thickened by different kinds of starches (p.615). Due to the reactive sugars in honey, it accelerates the browning reaction to the teriyaki sauce and develops the flavor of the dish (p.666).

Chicken and Rice

Rice is a staple to some but for those where rice is unusual, it is enriched with broths to make a special meal. As in this recipe, rice is cooked with chicken and chicken broth so tha the flavors may be incorporated. Spinach is added towards the end after removing the pan from the heat and covering it with a lid, allowing the heat of the freshly cooked dish to cook and wilt the baby spinach. The spinach will wilt because of the exchange in gas as the leaf interior is filled with thousands of tiny air pockets. Likewise, the heat collapses the spongy interior of the leaves (p.264).

Salmon

Fish are easier to overcook than ordinary meat therefore the recipe calls for the salmon to be cooked on just one side for four minutes before adding the marinade and turning the fish over to cook for just one more minute. Fish is more sensitive to heat which is caused by their muscle fibers that are specialized to work well in the cold water. The muscle proteins of ocean fish begin to unfold and coagulate at room temperature (p.189). The salmon’s fish is removed just before turning it over to cook in the marinade since moist heating will turn the skin to a gelatinous sheet (p.190).

Shrimp Pasta

Like fish flesh, shrimp flesh consists of white muscle fiber and cooks easily. The shrimp needs to be cooked in just three minutes and set aside as cooking it beyond that point will dry it our since its connective tissue collage is more abundant than fish collagen and less easily dissolved by heat making it less delicate (p.220).

Baked Chicken

The recipe requires the chicken breast pounded so that the thickness of the meat is relatively uniform. According to McGee, tender breast meat gets dry and tough when heated above a 155oF (p.158-159). An aluminum foil will deflect a substantial part of the heat energy and will slow down the cooking of the chicken breasts and not drying the meat out.

Mango Salsa

This mango salsa recipe calls for lemon juice being drizzled over the mango and the other ingredients. Many fruits and vegetables quickly develop a brown discoloration. Enzymatic browning in the ripe mango is slowed down by adding the lemon juice as the enzymes work very slowly in acidic conditions (p.269).