Cooking For Geeks, Cookbook Review

By: Jeff Potter
Publication Date: August 3, 2010

Pros: a lot of extremely detailed information about cooking methods, equipment, reactions, etc., interviews with people who cook creatively

Cons: not many recipes, some information is well beyond what most cooks will use/need

This is an interesting cookbook. I would consider the first 5 chapters worth reading if you plan to do any cooking and want a better understanding of what's happening or if you like experimenting.

If you REALLY like experimenting the last 2 chapters will be perfect for you. If you don't feel like buying lots of chemicals to try new (and not necessarily edible) things, they're not as

useful.

The cookbook was written specifically for computer geeks who are afraid of doing things in a kitchen. The opening chapter has a lot of references to thinking of cooking techniques with regards to computing. If you don't know computer programming, you might consider this chapter skippable, but you'd miss out on some hidden gems of information, like the difference between all purpose and baking flour (gluten content).

Chapter 2 is an overview of cookware, a chapter I'd normally not find interesting. Here again, there were interesting tid bits of information, like what to look for in knives, how they get teflon to stick to the pan, and the 1-2-3 crepe recipe I posted about recently.

Chapter 3 is where the experiments start. This is not so much a recipe book as it is an experimentation guide. Mr. Potter explains the theory behind something and then gives you a recipe with which to test that theory out. Often there are two recipes to compare and contrast. It's here I found the watermelon feta salad recipe, as an example of how you experience taste. I tried it, and it was very surprising. I would never have expected raw red onions (soaked in water to take the sting out) to work well with

watermelon. And the saltiness of the feta added something that the watermelon alone couldn't do. In the end, it was a great experiment and I learned a few things about taste combinations.

Also from this chapter, I tried the white bean and garlic soup. It was different (a thick, almost gravy consistency) but worth trying again.

Cooking times, heat and food safety are dealt with in chapter 4, followed by the necessity of air in baking. If you're like my friends, though you've used them often you probably don't know the difference between baking soda and baking powder. This book will teach you. It will also tell you what gluten does, and how to use different kinds of yeast.

Finally, the two chapters that require a lot more specific ingredients and equipment. Chapter 6 deals with chemicals in cooking (notably food additives, which is interesting even if you don't do any of the experiments - I wanted to try the s'mores ice cream, but couldn't find liquid smoke anywhere). Chapter 7 explains the principles of sous vide cooking and other specialized techniques.

I highly recommend the book for anyone serious about cooking. The tips and tricks it teaches are useful for everyone. And if you're adventurous, some of the experiments sound like a lot of fun.

Crepes from Cooking for Geeks

I've been going through several cookbooks, looking for new - good - recipes to try. One I got as an eGalley from NetGalley is Cooking for Geeks. It's coming out August 3rd. I'll have a full review of the cookbook once I finish reading it (there's more text than recipes, but as it's fascinating text I don't mind).

The recipe I tried is crepes. I've never made crepes, despite their relative simplicity and ability to adapt to the occasion. Now, though the author, Jeff Potter, emphasizes reading the recipe through before starting, I didn't. Which caused problems when I got to the actual directions. So, the recipe, as printed in the book (*actually it's pretty long so I'll condense it after the ingredients and the 'let rest' segment I messed up).

1-2-3 Crepes

Whisk or puree untilentirely mixed, about 30 seconds:

1 cup (250g) milk (preferably whole milk)

2 medium (70g) eggs

1/3 cup (40g) flour (all-purpose)

pinch of salt

Let rest for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, so that the gluten in the flour has the chane to thicken the batter. (Stash the batter in the fridge if you're going to leave it for more than half an hour.)

- ...expect to completely screw up the first few you make...

Butter: Grab a cold stick of butter with the wrapper partially pulled back, and using the wrapped part as a handle, spread a small amount of butter around the pan.

Wipe down: Use a paper towel to thin out the butter over the surface of the pan, wiping up almost all of it (and on repeats, any crumbs left behind from the previous crepe). The pan should look almost dry; you want a super-thin coating of butter, not noticeable streaks

Pour: Pour in the batter while swirling the pan: pour about 1/4 cup /60ml of batter into a 10"/25 cm pan, adjusting as necessary...

Flip: Wait until the crepe begins to brown. ... Once the crepe has begun to brown around the edges, use a silicone spatula... to push down the edge all around the circumference. This will release the edge of the crepe so that it lifts off the pan. Carefully grab that little edge to flip the crepe with both hands.

Flip again: Let the crepe cook on the second side for half a minute or so, until it's cooked. The first side should come out a uniformly brown tone, so flip the crepe again before adding the fillings. This will leave the better-looking side on the outside of the finished crepe.

Well, the author was right on that first point. My first crepe looked pretty horrible.

But first, my adjustments and what that meant for the crepes. Instead of all-purpose I used whole wheat flour. I also 'messed up' my packaged hollandaise sauce (for the better) by adding all but half a cup of my remaining milk. So, while the sauce was very creamy, the crepe batter ended up a mix of half milk and half water. Which probably explains why the half hour I letit stand didn'tthicken the batter as much as I expected.

Oddly enough, this didn't cause any problems. Yes, the batter was thin, but it worked. Instead of using butter I used oil on the pan, and after using too little for the first crepe and trying to turn it too soon, I added more oil and waited until I could swish the crepe around the pan (indicating the bottom was cooked) before I tried to flip the rest.

The recipe gave 4 large crepes. I filled two with sauteed asparagus and mushrooms, topped with the hollandaise sauce, and the other two with a nutella/milk cream spread and bananas.

Guess which one tasted better?

The cookbook gave some ideas for fillings, but I picked the meal one from a website, and the desert one from memories of crepes I'd had in the past.