Instant Genius - How using science can make you a better cook

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Never mind so-called molecular gastronomy. Even without Michelin-Starred chefs’ use of spherification, sous vide and meat glues, there’s more than enough science going on in the kitchen to get your teeth into. In this episode we catch up with George Vekinis, a research director and former head of the education office at the National Centre for Scientific Research, in Athens, Greece. He tells us all about how his two lifelong passions, science and cooking, led him to write his new book Physics in the Kitchen, why food often tastes better the day after it’s cooked, and breaks down his method of cooking the perfect steak. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hank makes the pizza. Co-Pilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at M-365, Copilot, This podcast is sponsored by name, audio and focal. Streaming has made music more accessible than ever, but true listening is about more than ease. It's about quality. British audio experts name audio, alongside French acoustic specialist focal, combine handcrafted tradition with cutting-edge innovation and high-end materials, delivering digital precision

with analog warmth, so you can experience exceptional sound at home. Music just as the artist intended. Visit name audio.com to learn more. Hello and welcome to Instant Genius, a bite-sized masterclass in podcast form. I'm Jason Goodyear, commissioning editor, a BBC science focus magazine. Never mind molecular gastronomy, even without Mitchelan-star chef's use of techniques such as spherification,

sousvied machines and meat glues, there's more than enough science going on in the kitchen for you to get your teeth into. In this episode, we catch up with Jules. George Vakinis, a research director and former head of the Education Office at the National Centre for Scientific Research in Athens, Greece. He tells us all about how his two lifeline passions, science and cooking, led him to write his new book, physics in the kitchen, why food often tastes better the day after it's cooked, and he also breaks down his method of cooking the perfect steak. So first off, I thought an interesting thing to look at would be your background.

So you're a physicist who's written a book about cooking. How did you reach that point? Well, being a physicist, of course, it's actually in my life. It's been a pleasure and it's been a hobby, almost. And sometimes I'm a joke to people when they ask me about my job. I'm a researcher. I'm working in material science, working in advanced materials for space and for catalysis

and for synthesis or materials for hydrogen. production, but it's all good fun. So I spend a lot of time actually doing science outreach. I go to schools. I even go to prisons, actually. I've been to prisons a few times. And I give them a lot of demonstrations about physics because it's just so much fun. If you get deep enough in physics, then you really enjoy it a lot. And at the same time, my big hobby, I've got a couple, but my big hobby is cooking, really. It's just a pleasure. There's nothing better than actually doing an experiment in the kitchen and within an hour you have the result and you have feedback from your own people and how do they enjoy the cooking and, you know, things like that. So it was straightforward. It was really absolutely clear that something like that, you know, the kitchen would be an ideal vehicle to talk about physics in general.

You know, if you have a look in the kitchen, you have nearly all of physics there. You know, you have atomic and molecular diffusion in the pot. You have thermodynamics of heat transfer, energy transformations. You have quantum physics in the heating elements, the lights, the thermocouples, the quartz clock, whatever. You have electromagnetism all over the place, lights, motors, induction hobs, microwave ovens, all those things. You have physics of materials, my own specific area of expertise. when things bend or crack or behave strangely. You have microelectronics in computers, in mobiles, in gadgets.

You have nanophysics. For goodness, it's in rising smoke. Fluid mechanics, turbulence, which is one of the most complicated things in physics, of course. You have even nuclear physics in the smoke alarm. So, you know, everything's there. The kitchen is the best laboratory one can hope for. And, of course, you have chemical reactions. And we're going to talk about the difference between physics.

and chemistry in just a moment. As you touched on there, a lot of people think of cooking as being predominantly chemistry-based. Yes, but in fact, it's not really. The difference between physics and chemistry, well, I would say I'm a physicist, so perhaps I'm a little bit prejudiced here, but physics tries to deal with a lot of things that chemistry does not. Well, as I mentioned earlier, a number of fields that the chemistry does not touch.

So we try to understand then all sorts of things. physical phenomena that occur around us, in particular in chemistry in this case. And whereas chemistry looks at reactions between compounds and elements, etc. So in chemistry, for example, in cooking, we have polymerization, so sauces, gravis, and all that. And in frying and baking, we have production of carbon dioxide. We have my yard reactions. You have caramelization reactions.

But all of these reactions, if you look deep enough, it's actually in very important. quantum mechanical interactions between electrons. So they are really physics down to it, isn't it? You know, everything boils down to physics. So it made a lot of sense to call, because I'm not talking about cooking in the book, I'm talking about everything around in the kitchen. It made a lot of sense to call it physics in the kitchen. So you mentioned there the Mayard reaction.

So this is something that a lot of people talk about. So what exactly is it? Well, yes, it's a Mayard reaction. is something that we see everywhere whenever there's a high temperature. And I would like to talk a little bit about high temperature and low temperature cooking later on. But essentially at high temperatures, you get a reaction between starches, for example, in potatoes

and various types of proteins, actually, in meat, chicken and all that. And with the sugars that naturally occur in cooking or that we actually add during the cooking. So this reaction creates certain other polymeric type of compounds, and they give that lovely aroma and the lovely taste and that we all enjoy in the fries and things like that. And, you know, if you're very careful with the meat surface. But the problem is that a measured reaction is very easy.

It can overrun. So if you have a high temperature or you leave it too long, we all know what happens to food. It burns. Essentially, it's a carbonization. reaction and everything goes down to the carbon, to the basic carbon of organic materials. So it's something that you have to control very, very carefully. So let's look at the cooking process then.

So I think perhaps the biggest difference between stars of cooking is slow cooking versus fast cooking. So what's the difference there? Well, this is what I alluded earlier. Slow cooking is essentially low temperature cooking that takes a long time. like, for example, when we make a nice soup or something in the pot. Whereas fast cooking is frying, it's broiling, it's barbecuing, and things like that. The difference is the amount of energy you put in.

So everything has to do with energy in the kitchen. Everything. So slow cooking means that we need to give it more time to allow diffusion of atoms and molecules to diffuse between one another. So you have a blending, you have a better mixing of the ingredients. And it's extremely important to have that because very sensitive things like herbs and spices and all that, they need slow cooking at a low temperature. So the maximum temperature you're going to get in the slow cooking is a low energy cooking is 100 degrees. The boiling temperature of water. Whereas in high temperature cooking, you can get 170 degrees like when we fry, deep fry, for example, potatoes and things like that.

So there's a big difference between one and the other. And the frying, the frying broiling and all that is the maillard reaction plus as well caramelization, there's other reactions as well. And that's the main thing is the energy, the energy input and over the total amount of time. That's why the high temperature is fast, low temperature is slow. And the one is the slower has to do with diffusion. The other one has to do with more chemistry, more the reactions, surface reaction species. So you might have already sort of answered this in a way with saying about carbon.

But what exactly happens when we overcook food? Oh, this is the most dangerous thing, the most horrible thing. A real chef would never ever present a customer with a well done. If somebody says, well done, a chef will not, will refuse to offer that. I agree. Good. Because essentially what you're doing is that the more energy you put, you break down a lot of the side bonds of the proteins.

So you end up only with the spine. And the spine of the protein molecules is made up of carbon atoms, of course. And so essentially you get rid of all the oxygen, hydrogen, and all the other things around the protein. And you end up with just like a fish bone in the middle that it's inedible. And that's carbon. And that's why you have blackened foods whenever you leave them too long or at high time. So if we're talking about well done rare, medium rare, etc, the first thing that will come to mind

for most, unless they're vegetarians, I suppose, is a steak. If we're talking about a steak, what's going on when we cook a steak and what's your preferred method? Oh, there's no question about it. When I want something fried, I'll make sure that the, first of all, this salt must never be It must never be put on a state before frying. Absolutely. Salt has this osmotic ability, if you like, osmosis will drag out as much water as possible from the meat, and you're going to get it tough and you're going to get it inedible. So the first advice would never be to put salt on the meat.

Secondly, it's always a good idea to hit the meat first in a microwave oven. So you put in the microwave oven for one or two minutes. depends on the thickness of the meat. Then you fry it quickly, a very short time, as short a time as possible, just to give it that little bit of May yard reaction on the surface. So you get this slight aroma and the pleasure that you get a little taste. And when I say short, I'm talking about a minute or maximum. And you know, you take a steak or beef or whatever it is.

You just fry it on both sides as little as possible. And yeah, it's not a bad idea to put a little bit of oil. even in the non-stick pans. But that's, of course, personal preference. So you mentioned the microwave there. Is that because a lot of people, I think, in my opinion, make a big mistake, which is taking the meat directly from the fridge and then cooking it? Oh, absolutely.

It's a no, no, definitely. When you cook it directly from the fridge or even, you know, some people, I know that they defrost it a little bit in the microwave and then stick it on the frying pan. No, it's not a good idea at all. Essentially, what you're doing is that you're not heating up the meat properly inside. Even when we're talking about rare, the temperature inside the meat should reach at least 55, 60 degrees. That's absolutely minimum. So the ideal way of eating a meat would be a medium rare, what's the call.

So it's going to be slightly red, very slightly, just red and cooked on the outside. The only way to be absolutely sure that is you either start with a thin piece of meat, or you have a thicker piece of meat which has been reheated properly internally with microwaves. And I explain all that about microwaves, how they give us a lot of interesting results. Talking about preparations then, a lot of times these days we use marauds. So what happens when we marinate a food? Why do we do that and what difference does it make? Well, the reason we cook generally is to soften the meat, the food, the protein.

in other words to start the dissociation process. Dissociation means breaking up of the complicated molecules, the proteins or whatever is there. So you want to start this process, and generally we marinate tough meat. It could be game, it could be something other tough meat that we want to soften. So by putting in the marinade for a few hours or a day, or if it's game, you need to put it at least for two days in the fridge, of course. And you always add a little bit of acidic substance. And that starts the process of dissociation, of breaking up with the complicated molecules. And once that is done, then the cooking can proceed, normal cooking can proceed,

just like the meat that you buy from the butcher. So the idea is to end up with the smaller molecules, easier to digest and easier to derive pleasure from. And that's the main reason of marion. Of course, you can add herb, spices, anything you like. Wine, I love adding wine in the marinade for meat. or even for vegetables. You can marinate vegetables. For example, you can marinate obeisines.

You can marinate lots of difficult vegetables. And then the cooking will be a lot easier. That's for vegetarians, or for everyone. So in a sense, we're sort of almost pre-cooking them. Oh, absolutely, yes. It is a type of pre-cooking preparation for the proper breakup of the molecules to write down to the smallest units of the proteins, yes. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed

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systems that deliver exceptional sound and unforgettable listening experiences at home. Try it for yourself at a focal powered by name boutique. Visit focal powered by name.com for more information. So as an Englishman, I have to talk about potatoes. Well, the way to do it is to make sure that they're not very large. So when they are finally cooked properly and nicely roasted around and slight may yard brown or golden, then you need to make sure that the inside is also cooked. And when you roast them in the oven, of course, what you're doing,

you're putting a lot of high temperature because the oven in this case would be about 180 degrees, even 200. 100 degrees. A lot of energy wasted, but the result is quite, it's the only way to get the result. And so you make sure that the roast potatoes would not be bigger than about an inch, 2.5 centimeters on its side. It's never a good idea. And then you frequently base them. And most importantly, whatever meat you use, most important is to use lemons. Lots of lemon, lots of lemon, Lots of lemon juice, a little bit in the beginning, lots near the end, five minutes from the end, you're going to see an absolute fantastic result.

So that's a very Greek style of cooking, if I may say so. Well, you know, it's not just Greek, actually. You need to use acidic substances in the cooking nearly everywhere. We put vinegar, for example, or wine in the stews. We put lemon in the roasts, and we put a lot of acidic stuff. and because during cooking, the acid transforms to sugars. So at the end of the day, you have fantastically sweet, almost sour-sweet type of food, which is really lovely. So we're talking about frying and roasting.

How about boiling? Oh, boiling is a different story, of course. Boiling, you mean to make a mashed potato or something like that, or a boiled potato salad. Yeah, it's straightforward. The important thing is not to overboil. If you over-boil potato, then you end up with... the starts, converts, gets all the fibers have been completely mushed up, they've been completely softened. So at the end of the day, you're going to have a bit of a stodgy mass.

Even if you get to that point, it's probably a good idea to mix it with some full fat milk. Additional butter, of course, I think nearly everyone does that. And the idea is that that actually lubricates the cells that are left over and you can get a much better consistency for the mass potato. But generally, it's never a good idea to overboil anything, to overcook everything. So you mentioned earlier fries. So I think everybody loves, as we call them, chips. But they are deep fried. Is that a bad thing? Is it really that unhealthy? You know, how much fat gets in, etc.? No, no. I think it's a bit of an exaggeration. It depends very much on the type of oil that you use and the temperature you use at. So first of all, you have to choose a type of oil

that does not break down, does not transform to a different, because it's a chemical reaction at high temperature, transformed to something aldehydes or something else. So I use sunflower oil. Other people say that they use corn oil or something like that, but depends. Generally, I'm a little bit against the idea of using any monosaturate type of oil, like the extra virgin olive oil or thing like that for frying. I use it only for salads and for pot cooking, for skews and that. Generally, I'll go for sunflower oil.

And then the idea when you fry is you have to reach at high enough temperature when you throw in the chips, the prepared potatoes, which have to be slightly wet, by the way. They have to be slightly wet when you throw them in. Immediately there's going to be a reaction or rather a frying of the outside in order to seal in the potato. And that's crucial. If you don't throw them in at a high enough temperature and you don't seal them, then you're going to get oil ingress.

You're going to get some oil penetrating and becomes really not very nice and unhealthy. So generally, a fresh sunflower oil, it's very important. You cannot use a sunflower oil or any type of oil, deep-fried oil more than five, six times. That's crucial. And then you throw them in and you wait a little bit, you stir them a little bit, and then you allow them to see. settle and to fry without moving them, except occasional shaking. And then when you take them out, immediately you put some salt, because any remaining water will be sucked out by osmosis, by the salt that you put on the chips. Then you're going to get fantastic chips. You're going

to get crispy on the outside, lovely cooked on the inside and things like that. So yeah, that's the way to do it. So we've started talking about oils now. And I think one, they vary quite a lot, don't they? And I think one thing people talk a lot about is smoke points. Oh yes. Smoke point is it's actually already too high. When we're talking about smoke point, it's already the oil started reacting and forming dangerous compounds like aldehydes and things like that. So we're talking about 160 degrees. Sunflower, for example, has a smoke point which is above 180. So we need about 160. So when you put your hand above the oil, I actually do deep frying of chips. And I don't even use a basket.

I don't need to use a basket. And so when you put your hand above it, you should feel the heat, not too bad. And the oil should have lightened up in color so it's ready for you. But you shouldn't see any smoke coming out. You shouldn't see any vapors coming out of the oil. You're ready to hide them. And then at that moment, you throw in the chips. It's with a bit of practice, you're going to get it right.

It's good fun. So these days, everyone's, you know, very, busy, maybe you've got children, maybe you've got other things going on, work and things. So a lot of people have started doing something called batch cooking, which means cooking a big pot of food and then freezing it. So let's have a look at freezing. I think this is interesting. So what happens when we freeze food? What, you know, what's going on? What does it do to it? Well, it depends what kind of food we're talking about. When a food is fully cooked, like, for example, in a stew or something baked,

there's nothing wrong with freezing it. It's always a good idea, of course, to let it cool down completely to make sure that it reaches room temperature. Then you should put it in the fridge for a while to drop the temperature a bit further, and then you freeze it. Nothing much will happen unless the food contains some fresh vegetables and fresh things. So it's not a good idea at all to freeze anything that has,

sensitive cell cellular structure and a lot of water, for example, fruit and certain vegetables. Certain vegetables like brassicas, like cabbage and broccoli and cauliflower, they have no problem with the freezer. But certain other vegetables that are much more sensitive, baby marrows and obeisines, they would not do very well in the freezer at all. Water will freeze, will expand, will start cracking and crashing the microfrients. the micro fibres, a microcellular structure within the fruit. And when you're de-froasted and the whole thing would be mushy.

And you've probably seen that any type of salad, for example, you can have a fritz. A salad must be eaten very fresh at most a few hours later, unless you've salted it. And if you've salted it within a half an hour, it's already, you know, wilted. So it's not really nice. So sort of off the back of that, a lot of people say that, say they've made a lasagna, a musaka, a stew, or something, that it tastes better the next day. Oh, absolutely.

I make a point of that in the book, actually. Because it's diffusion. Diffusion will continue even at low temperatures. So the diffusion, the more you leave the food, especially at room temperature, so the more the ingredients, molecules as well as atoms in certain cases, will actually diffuse and blend even better. So you're going to have some blending of the ingredients and you're going to get even the a creamy structure will be a lot better,

because slowly this type of ingredients will fuse their aromas and their taste with one another. And they are better. Absolutely, I really believe that. We do batch cooking as well at home in some ways, and we eat it during the week whenever we can. Just yesterday, for example, we made some fantastic. We call it a type of lasagna with cream with baser melon top. And we had it on Sunday, and today we're going to have it two days later, and I know it will be much better.

So, yeah, we're looking forward to that. So let's move on. You mentioned best chamelle there. So let's have a look at sources. So lots of sources are things called emulsions or reductions. You know, what's the difference in chemically what's going on? Well, all types of sources rely on the very fine mixing, a fine meaning at the very sub-submings. micron level of small particles, let's say, not quite bubbles, but globules of oil mixed with water.

So an emulsion is nothing else than very fine mixing of small particles of water with small particles of oil. And the only way you can do that is by very, very severe, very strong whisking. Now, even if you whisk it very strong, unless you put a little bit of lemon in it or some other acidic substance, you're not going to get them to the oil and the water will separate very quickly. So you need to put something that will break down a little bit of the oil surface to allow the water surface, which we know the surface tension is very high, to break up the oil and mix it together in the globals together.

So the idea behind that is you need to reach a smooth texture. So, Hollandeas, for example, or mayonnaise or something like that, that's emulsion. You can do it also, you can cheat. You can put a bit of flour. Now, flour, what it does, it dissolves. First of all, you dissolve the flour in the oil or butter. So you have the flour and the butter now already mixed up. So the oil is a little bit separated, and then you add the milk,

that's to make the Bessamil, for example. So the important thing is to mix it together, first of all, the oil and the flour, and then you add the milk, and then you beat it very well again. And that's the secret, a small secret of getting a very smooth Bessermil. And by the way, if you want to make, for example, a nice pie or something like that, you want to have a smooth elastic dough, then you mix again the oil or butter with the flour very well, mix it with the fingers if you can, and then you add the water to give it the elastic fracture. And that's very important. You need to make sure that you separate the oil

and you do that by cheating a little bit by adding the flour. So we mentioned Hollandeys there. So I think anyone who's made a Hollandease or made Hollandeys on a semi-regular basis at least. They'll have splitter at some point. Yes, unfortunately, it is a horrible thing, isn't it? But it's not a big problem. If it does happen, and you take it out of the fridge because it's got to be kept in the fridge,

cannot be kept for many days, of course. And you beat it very, very hard as hard as you can while you warm it up slightly. When I say, slightly, 30 degrees, maximum 35. And then if it's still there, add a little bit of fresh lemon, and then you keep on beating with a fresh lemon. What happens, the lemon of the oil neutralize one another. And so with the result that the catalytic, if you like to call it, saying that action of the lemon disappears.

So you need to add some fresh lemon. You keep on beating it. It's going to be as good as new again. So we've talked a lot about lemon already, but it has many magical properties in food, doesn't it? So one is, how does it stop food from browning? All right. Well, the way that happens is not only food,

but fruit and vegetables and all that. Essentially, all types of acidic materials, vinegars and I don't know, whatever else you have. Even orange juice, for example, I use for fruit, fruit salad. You essentially stop or reduce the action of the enzymes. Enzymes are proteins, as we all know, in organic materials, that actually catalyze the production of proteins, but nevertheless of other proteins.

So we need to stop the oxidation reaction of sugars on fruit and vegetables, and we need to do that by reducing the pH, make it more acidic. So by putting the acids, we stop the enzymes, the action of the enzymes, so the enzymes who now, the oxidation would not proceed,

we're not going to get any browning. But you need to do it very, very quickly. Seton, for example, set on roots, celery root, for example, celery act, which is fantastic. It's really the best way of doing it is immediately to cover it with lemon.

If you have fruit salad, as I said, you can use oranges, and if you're doing something, a stew or something like that, then it's probably a good idea to use some vinegar, wine even, or something like that. So let's look at salt. This is a very sort of, in some ways, controversial subject. So personally, I'm a big fan of salt. So why does it taste so good, and how does it make other foods taste better?

Right, that's a very good question. So a lot of people are scared of souls, and I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. Doctors, and perhaps everyone is a little bit scared because there is evidence of people that have already had some heart attacks or other problems. They are told to reduce the salt, and there are good reasons for it, of course, and one has to listen to doctors. However, if you're healthy, then you should be able to eat as much as five grams of salt a day. In fact, that's recommended because the sodium iron is so extremely. extremely important, together with potassium, is extremely important to balance the electrostatic field across the membranes of the cells.

But anyway, that's something different. So salts are very important, so we need to have lots of salt, at least five grams, which is about two teaspoons a day, if you think about it. That's a lot. Anyway, salt, the main reason that we use salt is, of course, to stimulate the taste buds. Stimulate any taste buds. Whenever we use salt, we stimulate all the test buds, bitter, for sugar, for anything for sour.

So whenever you use, you add a little bit of salt, like they do in chocolates, by the way. What they do is that you stimulate the taste buds with the salt, and then you get a bigger rush of the sweet sugar or whatever you're eating. So salt increases the result, the stimulation by other types of tastes. And of course, the second thing, the reason that we use salt a lot is desiccation. As I mentioned earlier, osmosis is very important. The salt tends to improve removal of water, so it can be used, of course, for long-term keeping of foods as a preservative and anything like that. In the old times, of course, a lot of people knew that and they were doing that all the time.

I think salt is very important also within stews. If you don't put salt in a stew, if you don't put salt in a potato on a potato, you'll know immediately that something is wrong because of the way that the stimulation is not fully, pleasure-raising. Let's move on to equipment then. One thing that I mean I'm sort of obsessed with is different pans. So I have cast iron and enamel. I have many different pans. Well, I'm going to upset you now. Well, the cast iron skillets, for example, or pans. The problem there is that just like the uncoated ceramics, they're very porous materials. So you cannot really cook on them. They're porous. you know, the food will go in there.

So you need to do what they call it. I think they call it conditioning or something like that. Oh, seasoning. Seasoning, that's it, yes. And I think it's a crazy idea. Because essentially what you're doing by seasoning, you're essentially allowing certain oils to penetrate into the pores. You overheat the pan.

And so you convert the oils to aldehydes, and it's polymerization, actually, reaction. And you get some hardened plastics covering and blocking the pores. It's a bit of a crazy idea. And the problem with the skillet having that is that you cannot stop whenever you're frying something additional on top of it now, later on. You are going to get some leaching of these aldehydes into your food. So it's not a good idea. Alderides are dangerous materials.

It's like the result of anything that breaks down and reforms in chemistry. You can have what you call cyclic hydrocarbons. and aromatic hydrocarbons. Actually, the meyard reaction, the aroma that you actually enjoy is an aromatic hydrocarbon, and it's not a good idea. The well-known problem with runaway miyaid reaction. So you need to be careful of that. It contains acrylamide, and it's never a good idea.

But anyway, let's go back to the skillet. Another problem with the skillet is that you cannot control the temperature very well because they have such a high heat capacity. So when it gets hot, it takes time to get hot, but then when it gets hot, you cannot control the temperature. Even if you take it out of the hob, the temperature still remains very high. So the best things are aluminum, I think, coated aluminum. Never use copper or uncoated copper or uncoated aluminum.

Because, again, there is some leaching going on, especially for stews and pot boiling and things like that. And you want to avoid that. But if it's coated properly with a mixture of ceramic and teflon and PTFE, that's ideal because then you have, it's a low-hit capacity. It's easier to cool down. You have much better control. And that's why, for example, professional chefs use special types of aluminum cooking pots, cooking things. And the idea is as soon as you remove it from the gas home, then immediately you cool it down. You need to have control.

Do you have any other tips about other utensils, you know? Oh, lots of tips. Lots of tips. I can give you that. I don't know how much time we have, but, well, the important thing, as we said, is that make sure that you have good stainless steel or coated aluminum pots and pans.

That's the best. You can also use a glazed ceramic oven trays if you want to do a lot of oven work. But stainless steel is probably the best. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius. brought to you from the team behind BBC Science Focus. That was George Vickinis. To read more about the topics we discussed in this episode,

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