CH-114 Lab Blog

 Experimenting with Flavor Profiles Plain Grain: White Rice 1. Rice &  Soy Sauce (+ Tabasco)     At first it was just very salty and gave the rice squishiness. When adding Tabasco to it I expected a lot more spiciness but there wasn't as much as I expected. It was also tingly on the mouth and got pretty sour.      While the soy sauce offers umami flavors from amino acids like glutamate and saltiness, the rice adds starches that can give a delicate sweetness. Tabasco adds heat and acidity to the mixture since it contains vinegar and what I learned as capsaicin from chili peppers. 2. Rice & Guava (+ Butter)      At first with just the guava, it just made the rice taste very sweet and sour. It made it very seedy, mushy, and chunky but yet still pretty bland. When adding the butter, it was bascially the same thing but a little saltier. In the mouth it was more oily and greesy than it looked.      The basic su...

 Whipping Cream! For this Lab I chose to mix and make whipping cream! 1st Picture: I was putting all the ingredients into the bowl 2nd picture: I first started to mix ingredients in the bowl 3rd picture: The bubbles started to go away and the mix became a little thicker 4th picture: I believe this when I should have stopped as the mix reached a good thickness 5th picture: I continued to mix and it started to change its form again 6th picture: The final product of when I actually stopped Taste Test: Very “vanilla” tasting and had the whip cream taste But it was very clumpy & liquidy at the same time which made it very unattractive Kitchen Mixture & Polar molecules Ideally, I found that whisking the mixture causes air to be included into the cream. The cream's fat molecules surround and stabilize the air bubbles. This produces a texture that is light and fluffy. An emulsion of fatty molecules floating in water is known as the heavy whipping cream which are non-polar when whip...

  Jiff Creamy Peanut Butter I chose this item because I have been implementing peanut butter into a lot of my meals recently. I used to try and stay away from peanut butter because of its high fat content but I do have to admit that I do enjoy peanut butter a lot. I understand that in general, peanut butter contains a variety of nutritional value. I would like to understand a little more about it I don’t necessarily understand all of its’ nutritional value that are on the label. I have also been eating organic peanut butter recently even though the Jiff creamy peanut butter may be my favorite. But I did notice the additional ingredients on the Jiff brand and even non-organic peanut butter that would explain the difference in texture. I am not too sure how beneficial or detrimental those additional ingredients are. I am still not too sure about the differences with saturated and trans fats along with the implemntations of added sugars. I am wondering if the added sugars add any calo...

Observation: Last night I got to analyze my mom prepare Pastele Stew which which mostly prepared in the instant pot. This is the first time actually paying close attention to this dish being made. When observing her preparation, I noticed that she cut the pork into one-inch cubes, diced onions, minced garlic, and drained the olives. She then created a type of oil by warming up avocado oil and throwing in annatto seeds to create Achiote oil to brown the meat in. While the meat was browning, she threw in the onions, garlic, tomato paste, and Hawaiian salt. Before cooking in for 30 minutes under high pressure, she used chicken boyan paste with water to create a chicken stock to throw in also. After the cooking was done she finally used cornstarch and water to thicken the soup and let it saute. Once it thickened, she threw in the olives and then let it cool a little until it was ready to eat. Questions:      The purpose for browning the meat is with the intention of soaking i...