Using less energy in our kitchen can also help to reduce energy usage, now there are many who will argue that putting their stoves on low heat will not cook their food thoroughly. But on the other hand, cooking on high heat will burn the food as the juices from the food will evaporate very quickly. This is especially true with food containing water soluble vitamins.
Understanding the way foods are and what they are composed of can help us to cook it the right way, this in turn will help us to prevent wastage of energy in cooking the foods. Cooking foods on low heat allows all the juices to flow out and add taste to the dish; this is a great multi tasking method that will help you to save time on a bust morning because you can do other things while the food cooks.ย Cooking on high heat will cause the spices and oils to break down faster leaving deposited on the person cooking the food, probably making them smell like a kitchen. In Sri Lanka, women quite often make this mistake when cooking curries that have fish, chicken or meat.
The Science of Cooking:
Cooking can be seen as a bio-science or a conglomerate of chemicals. It involves a lot of chemistry and chemical reaction. Understanding the chemical nature of foods and how they react with other foods will lead to food that is cooked better, cooked slowly and will give you time to do other things and save energy. Common chemical elements like oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon are found in all food, cooking simply breaks down the bonds through chemical reaction and in the process creating new bonds. This can be seen in the way we make pickles; we combine vinegar, salt, and sugar to certain vegetables. This is warmed by the sun for a few days after which we get that distinct smell of pickle, the smell is caused by the formation of ethyl ethanoate. Food is bad conductors of heat and using low to medium heat setting is the best way to cook them, the juices mingle and get absorbed. Certain aromatic foods and spices have chemicals that are heat sensitive and usually react differently with the foods.
Boling curries should never be opened. This is because the byproducts of the chemical reactions taking place in the pan will be deposited on you face and hands. Wait for the steam to settle and then stir the ingredients. Keep your face away from the steam as much as possible. Foods get cooked using Gay-Lussacโs law on molecule theory, which is that molecules that are heated have higher or increased kinetic energy. These molecules move at increased speeds hitting any surfaces that it comes into contact with, this pounding of molecules against surfaces changes the structure of the food, therefore cooking it.
