CCST9045 SCIENCE AND LORE OF

CULINARY CULTURE
Questions to be discussed
 How heat is transferred so that the food is cooked?
 What are the different cooking methods?
 How does pressure cooker work?
 What is induction cooking?
 What is “smoking point” in cooking oil?
 Why do we cook food?

 Food needs to be cooked for it to be tasty, and

easy to digest, and to kill the pathogens which
are found in raw food. The heat used in the
cooking of food kills the germs most commonly
found in uncooked meat.

Bacteria, viruses, or parasites: e.g. Bird Flu Viruses

 Thermal Energy Transfer
 Thermal energy transfer is heat moving from a
warmer object to a cooler object.
 This is known as thermal energy transfer.
Pan handle is made of insulator
Do not conduct heat very well

Water is heated in the

pan by convection.
The hot water rises.
Cool water sinks.

Heat Energy from the stove is

transferred to the pan
How is Heat Transferred?
There are THREE ways heat can move.

 Conduction

 Convection

 Radiation
3 Ways Energy (Heat) is Transferred

Conduction Convection Radiation

 Energy is  Energy is  Energy is

transferred by transferred by transferred by
direct contact mass motion of electromagnetic
molecules radiation
 In-class activity
Who will burn their hand first?

Glass Rod Metal Rod

CONDUCTION

 Heat is transferred from one particle of matter to

another in an object without net movement of the
object.
Have you ever…
 Touched a metal spoon sitting in a pan of boiling
water only to be surprised by HOW hot it is??

Wood: Thermal Insulator Metal: Thermal Conductor

 Poor Conductor of Heat
 Microscopic Picture
Heat conduction (or thermal conduction) is the transfer of energy by
microscopic diffusion and collisions of particles with a body due to temperature
gradients.
 Wood
When heat energy is
supplied, the atoms vibrate
faster. This passes
vibrations on to the next
atom

Metal
Energy is
transferred from
hot parts of the
metal to cooler
Free electrons parts by the free
electrons.
Thermal conductivity
 Heat transfer occurs at a higher rate across materials of high thermal
conductivity than across materials of low thermal conductivity.
 Thermal conductivity is measured in watts per meter kelvin [W/(m·K)].

Common
Materials for
Cookware
In-class activity: A temperature
problem
 Touch a piece of metal and a piece of wood at
room temperature. Which material feels warmer
and why?
What are thermal insulators?
Some materials are very poor
conductors of heat. These are called
thermal insulators.
Examples include plastics, wood,
ceramics and air

Air becomes a very effective insulator

when it is trapped and stopped from
moving.

This is how your clothes keep you warm:

Air is trapped between the fibres and so acts as an insulator.
In-class activity: Charlie the Chef and
his frozen chicken!
Charlie forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer last night!
Will his plan to defrost the chicken in time for lunch work?

A B
How to thaw frozen meat?
 Cold water method:
 Put the food in a
watertight plastic bag,
and use cold water to
thaw it.
 The fastest and safest way
to do this is to put the food
in a sink or shower, and
run the water over it,
turning the package over
every few minutes so that
both sides thaw evenly.
How to thaw frozen meat?
 Metal pan method:
 Food will thaw faster on metal than on a plastic or
tile countertop—metal’s a better conductor so it
transfers heat to the food more quickly.
How is a vacuum flask able to keep hot
drinks hot and cold drinks cold?
1. The plastic (or cork) lid is an
insulator and the screw top
prevents convection currents
escaping from the flask.
2. There is a vacuum between
two layers of glass or steel,
which prevents heat leaving
or entering by conduction.
3. The walls have silvery surfaces,
which prevent heat leaving or
entering by radiation.
CONVECTION
• Convection is the movement that transfers heat within
fluids and air (gas)
• Heat is transferred by currents within the fluid or gas

• Convection moves in
a circular pattern
RADIATION

 Radiation is the transfer of

energy by electromagnetic
waves
 Radiation does NOT require
molecules or atoms to transfer
energy
 Can transfer energy in vacuum
What is electromagnetic radiation? Is it
light?
 What is light?
 Not just the visible light but also electromagnetic
waves of different wavelengths!

UV lamp for picking out

counterfeit banknotes
Electromagnetic Spectrum
Radiation May Come From Other Sources

Have you ever sat too close to a campfire while

cooking marshmallows? You’re enjoying the
warmth ….. only to notice that your skin is really
warm?
 Hot Object and Infra-red radiation
Temp (oF)

Hot Water Cold Water Hot Water Cold Water

In the infrared image, we can clearly "see" the glow from the hot water in the cup to the
left and the dark, colder water in the cup to the right. If we had infrared eyes, we could
tell if an object was hot or cold without having to touch it.
 Which of the following(s) is/are
examples of radiation?
A. BBQ
B. Heat Lamps
C. Halogen Cooking Pot

B C

A
How does heat lamp warms up the
food?
 The heat lamps emits infra-red radiation
 When food absorbs the infra-red radiation, it is
heated up.
What are the different cooking
methods?
 Cooking Methods
27

 Cooking methods can be

characterized into two main types:
 Dry heat cooking and Moist heat
cooking
 Dry heat cooking heats foods in the
absence of water
 Includes methods such as baking, grilling,
broiling, frying, and deep frying
 Moist heat cooking uses water to heat
food
 Includes boiling, simmering, braising, and
steaming
 Dry heat cooking
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 Frying and Sauteing
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 Frying and sauteing are methods that heat foods for

the most part by conduction from a hot, oiled pan
 Temperatures between 175-225C that encourage
Maillard browning and flavor development
Why frying and sautéing are considered dry
heat cooking despite oil is added?

 Although oil is a liquid, it is a fat, so there is no

water component.
 Oil behaves much differently than water. Water
boils at 100oC.
 If your oil is boiling, look out - it’s way too hot to
cook in! (>200oC) It shouldn’t even be smoking or
the flavor is ruined.
Frying and Sauteing
 The fat or oil has several roles to play:
 it brings the uneven surface of the food into uniform contact
with the heat source
 it lubricates and prevents sticking
 it supplies some flavor
 The trick in frying is to prevent the outside from
overcooking before the inside is done
 Deep frying
32

 Deep frying differs from pan frying by employing enough oil

to immerse the food altogether
 Resembles boiling more than pan frying (food immerse in liquid)
 The essential difference that the oil is heated for above the
boiling point of water, and so will dehydrate the food surface
and brown it
 Baking
33

 Combination of radiation form the heating elements

on the walls oven and hot-air convection to heat the
food
 Easily dehydrates the surface of foods
 Cause a brown surface provided the oven
temperature is high enough
 Typical baking temperatures are well above the
boiling point of water, from 150-250C
 Oven
34

 Electric ovens use two heating coils, located at the top

and bottom of the oven
 The heating coils are simply resistive elements which
are heated by passing an electric current through
them
 In-class activity: Which takes a shorter time,
boiling or baking potato?
35
Which takes a shorter time, boiling a
potato or baking a potato?
 Boiling!
 A potato can be boiled in less time than it takes to be
baked at a much hotter temperature
 Because neither radiation nor air convection at 260C
transfers heat very rapidly to food
 Air in oven is less than a thousandth as dense as water,
so the collisions between hot molecules and food are
much less frequent in the oven than in the pot
 that’s why we can reach into a hot oven without immediately
burning our hand
Grilling and Broiling
 though the air convection contributes some heat source,
broiling is a matter of infrared radiation
 the heat sources used in these techniques all emit
radiators of infrared energy
 the total amount of energy radiated by a hot object is
proportional to the fourth power of the absolute
temperature, so that a coal or metal rod at 1100C is
radiating more than 40 times as much energy as the
equivalent area of oven wall at 260C

Radiation energy = C T4
Carryover Cooking
 Carry over cooking refers to the phenomenon that
food retains heat and continues to cook even after
being removed from the source of heat.
 After being removed from the heat source (oven,
barbecue grill, etc.) the internal temperature can
continue to increase
Why carryover cooking happens?
 Hot air cooks the outside of the food.
 The outside of the food cooks the inside of the food by
conduction.
 When we remove the meat from the heat, it continues to cook
because the heat built up in the outer layers of the meat
continues to be passed towards the center.

100oC 88oC 65oC

54oC 60oC 65oC

 Moist Heat Cooking
40

 Moist heat cooking use waters in various states to heat

food
 Various states (e.g. water vapor, liquid water) of water
are used for cooking, and there are special names for
some of them
 Poaching: cooked by submerging it in liquids (water, milk, wine
& etc) at relatively low temperature (about 160–180 °F or
71–82 °C)
 Simmering: cooked in hot liquids just below boiling temperature
but above poaching temperature
 Boiling: uses vigorously boiling water
 Steaming: uses the water in vapor phase to heat the food
 Moist Heat Cooking
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 Disadvantages for moist heat cooking:

 browning of food (Maillard Reaction) occurs at temperatures
above 150°C
  Cannot be reached by moist cooking, resulting in lack of
browning and the flavors that accompany the browning
reaction
 Steaming
42

 Steam is less dense than liquid water and

so makes less frequent contact with the food
 Steam compensates for this loss in efficiency
with a greater amount of energy
transferred during the condensation
 It takes a large amount of energy to turn
liquid water into a gas (Heat of
vaporization)
 Gaseous water releases that same large
amount of energy when it condenses onto a
cooler object
 This means that steaming does an
especially quick job of bringing the surface
of the food up to the boiling point, and an
effective job of keeping it there
 Boiling
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 Poaching
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Shallow Poaching
This moist-heat cooking method uses a sautoir or other shallow cooking vessel, heat is
transferred by conduction from the pan, to the liquid, to the food. Shallow Poaching is
best suited for boneless, naturally tender, single serving size, sliced or diced pieces of
meat, poultry or fish.

Deep Poaching
This technique is similar to shallow poaching but the product is fully submerged. The
pot used for deep poaching should hold the food, liquid, and aromatics comfortably,
with enough room to allow the liquid to expand as it heats. There should also be
enough space so that the surface can be skimmed if necessary throughout cooking. A
tight-fitting lid may be helpful for bringing the liquid up to temperature. Leaving a
lid on throughout the cooking process may actually cause the liquid to become hotter
than desired.
Pressure Cooking
 What is pressure cooking?
46

 Pressure cooking
 The process of cooking food in a sealed vessel (pressure
cooker)
 the use of pressure cooking reduces cooking times by
trapping the steam that escapes from boiling water
 Increasing the pressure in the system and so raising its
boiling point
 At normal atmospheric pressure, 100kPa, water boils at
100°C
 At twice this pressure (~2 atm), water boils at about
125°C
What is Gas Pressure?
 Gas particles exert pressure by colliding with
objects in their path.
 The sum of all of the collisions makes up the
pressure the gas exerts.
Relationship between temperature and
pressure
Gas pressure increase when temperature increase (keeping
volume constant)

Increase
temperature

T P (at fixed volume)

Saturated Vapor Pressure
 In container A, the liquid  Container B shows the flask
is evaporating. is saturated.
 Some of the molecules  When new molecules of
have enough kinetic liquid are vaporized, the
energy to escape (turn to gas cannot hold additional
molecules, therefore some
a gas) by pushing against
of the molecules condense
the pressure of the back to liquid
atmosphere.

Container A Container B
When will water boil?
 When the saturated vapor pressure equal to the
external pressure
 bubbles can form in the body of the liquid
 the temperature at which a liquid boils increases as
the external pressure increases
 Design of Pressure Cooker
51

 Pressure cooker has a sealed lid with a valve to

ensure that the pressure does not get too high

Sealed Lid
Valve
Design of Pressure Cooker
 Silicon ring in the inside of the lid to ensure the
pressure cooker is sealed

Silicon ring
Design of Pressure Cooker
 Once the cooker has reached full pressure, usually
indicated by a gauge or pop-up rod on the lid, a
release valve opens, letting out steam in a
regulated flow to maintain a constant temperature
inside the pot.
Working Principle of Pressure Cooker

 As the water boils, steam is produced and this raises

the pressure inside the pan and increases the boiling
point of the water

Higher Pressure
 Working Principle of Pressure Cooker
55

 Most pressure cookers are set to operate at 100kPa

above atmospheric pressure,
 i.e. at double the atmospheric pressure (2 atm)
 As the pressure inside the pot increases, the boiling
point rises, and a higher temperature can be
achieved for cooking
119oC
2 atm
112oC
1.5 atm
100oC
1 atm
92oC
0.75 atm
Pressure cookers increase boiling point
of water

(100oC) (119oC)
 Pressure Cooking vs Boiling
57

 Water usually boils at 100 °C (in boiling)

 Food inside a pressure cooker is at much hotter
temperatures (~120oC)
It is not surprising that food cooks quickly
 Steam penetrates food easily under pressure
 so connective tissues in cubes of beef for soups or stews
soften in 15 minutes or less
 What is induction heating?
 The heating element of the induction
stove is the wire coil through which a
rapidly alternating electrical current
flows.
 The current causes the coil to generate a
alternating magnetic filed.
 If a pot is made of magnetic material
(e.g. Cast iron, steel or stainless steel) is
placed on the stove, then the alternating
magnetic field induces an alternating
electrical current in the pot.
 The movement of electrons in pot
generate heat
 Can you recognize some cooking
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technology applied in this rice cooker?
 Vacuum Outer Pot
60
 IH Pressure & Steam

Increase pressure
increase boiling point
of water
61 Result in steam of a
higher temperature
 Steel Pot
62

Fluorinated
hydrocarbon for
the non-stick layer

Aluminum for fast

heat conduction

Steel for induction cooking

(induction heating)