Serious Eats
Come on in 'The Kitchn'
This week, The Kitchen teaches you how to make a basic crusty sourdough loaf, perfect for beginner bakers.
Also on The Kitchn, a guide to folding batters, tips for organizing your kitchen, recipe for making straight syrup, and information on why chocolate seizes.
- Tips and Techniques: Folding: Folding seems like an easy technique when preparing batters, but people keep doing it wrong. Here are some tips on how to master the technique for fluffy pancakes and light mousses.
- How To: Organize Your Fridge: Professional kitchens organize their refrigerators with food safety in mind. You can do the same in your kitchen; from top to bottom, start with prepared foods that will be served cold or re-heated; then whole cuts of meat and fish; then ground meat; and finally, chicken and other poultry on the very bottom.
- Straight Up: DIY Simple Syrup: Straight syrup, a mixture of sugar and water, is a basic ingredient used in summer cocktails. Here's a basic recipe along with simple variations.
- Food Science: Why Chocolate Seizes: Why does a few drops of stray water turn your smooth melted chocolate into a chunky mess? Chocolate is actually a dry ingredient, even when liquid; adding water causes it to turn into a paste like it would to a dry ingredient, like flour.