Help in the Kitchen Trivia Quiz

Answer: According to its optimal humidity level

Crisper drawers allow you to control the humidity, or water content, of the air that your produce is stored in. Usually, you want one high-humidity drawer and one low-humidity drawer; many modern refrigerators have toggles so that you can open or close ventilation gaps to set the humidity level. A drawer that's entirely closed off to air flow is high-humidity, because of all the water in the produce; a drawer with air flow will have lower humidity.

So, what belongs where? In general, it depends on how the item goes bad. If it tends to rot (like bananas or apples), it belongs in the low-humidity drawer. The flowing air will help carry away the ethylene that fruit naturally produces as it ripens, slowing the rotting process.

Meanwhile, anything that tends to wilt (like salad greens or citrus fruit) belongs in the high-humidity drawer, so that it won't lose too much moisture too quickly. These items are also often sensitive to ethylene, so it's also helpful to isolate them from the ethylene producers in the low-humidity drawer.

Answer: I need to add ice water

Fats are essential to a good pie crust, although opinions differ about whether butter is the best choice; lard and shortening (like Crisco) are also popular choices. Pie filling will come much later, after the pie crust is done and laid out in the pie plate for baking; it doesn't get mixed in. And you certainly don't need masonry or mosaic skills to make a good pie crust -- just a rolling pin!

Small amounts of cold water, added after the other ingredients are mixed, helps the fat and the flour combine in the right way. When the flour gets wet, it forms gluten, the structural element that defines the consistency of pie crust (and most other baked goods, unless of course you're cooking gluten-free). A perfect pie crust dough ends up with thin layers of fat encased in sheets of gluten, producing a flaky, layered crust after baking.

When you're adding cold water to your dough about a tablespoon at a time, there's a magic moment when the crumbs just seem to melt together. People add water so slowly so that they can be sure not to miss the moment, because you don't want to overwork the dough. (If you do, the flour and fat are too well mixed, and you won't get the flaky, layered effect.) The specific amount of ice water varies depending on how much flour is in the dough and how well it's already mixed (or "cut") with the fat.

Once I've got good pie crust, I give it a light roll into a disk and then put it in the refrigerator to chill overnight. Tomorrow it'll roll out beautifully!

Answer: By boiling with the pan uncovered

When I first put my sauce together, it's mostly liquid, of course. I can get a richer, more intense, more densely flavorful sauce by boiling away a large amount of the water, leaving a higher concentration of other ingredients behind. Covering the pan during this boiling process wouldn't get me very far, since I would just trap the steam with the sauce!

For a proper reduction, I'll want a large saucepan, so that my sauce is shallow (not deep). I'll also want to allow at least 15-30 minutes, though timing will vary depending on the ingredients, the depth of my saucepan, and the heat of my stovetop. You can generally tell when you've reduced the right amount just by looking at the pan, since sauce residue will show you the high-water mark you had at the beginning. Overdoing it is dangerous: if you boil away too much water, the other ingredients will burn.

Answer: Corn starch

This trick is a "slurry," and the key ingredient is a starch: corn starch, arrowroot, or even flour. (It's best to avoid extra flour, though, if there's already flour in the sauce.) You don't just spoon your starch into the saucepan, though, as it won't mix well and you'll just end up with lumps.

Instead, put the starch in a separate bowl, and add a few spoonfuls of the hot sauce, a little bit at a time. Mix the starch in well, and then add the resulting slurry to the main sauce in the pan. "Slurry" may not be an appetizing word, but the results will be!

Answer: With clean dishtowels

Baking and frying will result in a very unusual-tasting salad, as the greens are generally supposed to be fresh (not cooked). Letting the salad drip-dry (in a colander or by hanging the leaves) will work, but it's slow, and it's incredibly tedious just to think about individually tying strings to the ends of a dinner party's worth of lettuce.

A much better trick is to use a clean dishtowel. The standard method is to spread the leaves out on the towel, in a single layer, and then to roll the towel up from one end like a burrito. After that, you can gently, lovingly pat the roll to apply pressure. Moisture from the wet leaves is soaked up by the dry side of the towel, and unrolling the bundle will reveal dry leaves.

An advanced method, which I've never seen done in person, is to place the wet leaves in the middle of the towel, and then gather up the four ends like a sack. With these ends clutched in your fist, you can then swing the whole thing around, using centripetal force to help drive the water off the leaves. If the Internet can be trusted (and on this, I think it can be), you'll end up with dry leaves -- but a very wet kitchen.

Answer: A rolling boil is hotter.

To boil water is to convert it from liquid to gas. In general, when you're bringing water to a boil on the stove, you know you've done the job when you see bubbles -- that's where rapid phase transition is occurring. There aren't firm boundaries between the different types of boiling, but simmering liquid has a few bubbles that often go away when you stir, and a rolling boil has lots of bubbles that don't go away when you stir. (For your own safety, please use a long-handled spoon!) A rolling boil is often used when you want to maintain the boil even while you're adding cold or room-temperature ingredients (like pasta, for example).

Answer: Add shavings of the outer orange peel

Zest is just scrapings or shavings from the outer surface of a citrus fruit; you'll see recipes that call for lemon zest or lime zest, not just orange zest. The peel of a citrus fruit has two parts -- the outer, colorful flavedo and the inner, white pith -- and there's quite a lot of good flavor in the flavedo. The pith has flavor, too, but that flavor is bitter, so it's best not to zest that.

Zesting is often accomplished with a paring knife, a grater, or even a specialty tool called (what else?) a zester. Singing is optional. It is a good idea, though, to scrub the peel before zesting anything, to wash off fungicides and pesticides.

Answer: Put the meat on a plate and let it stand at room temperature before cutting.

Resting a meat is all about getting its juices in the right places. As my roast beef cooked in the oven, the proteins in the meat "set" -- became firmer -- starting from the outside and going in. As the cooking progressed, the juices in the beef were driven deeper and deeper into the center of the cut. When I let the meat stand for several minutes at room temperature, I'm letting the juices diffuse back out into bulk of the meat, redistributing more uniformly. Of course this process will stop when I cut the meat -- the juices can't jump! -- and that's why it's important that I wait.

Many cooks will place foil over resting meat, in a loose, tent-like configuration. This keeps the meat warm, but will affect crispiness at the skin or edges of the cut.

Answer: Salmonella

Salmonella bacteria can infect hens, and the infection is passed on to any eggs that they lay. The bacteria are killed by the heat of cooking (or pasteurization), but they can infect anyone who eats an infected raw egg. For most people, the result is a very unpleasant stomach infection; for some, the consequences are more severe, including hospitalization and even death.

In the US, a wave of salmonellosis cases in the 1980s left a generation of parents nervous. Improved food- and farm-safety protocols have decreased cases significantly, but licking the spoon is still a risk. Better to add the eggs last, and get the tasting done beforehand!

Answer: By inserting a toothpick and seeing what it looks like when it comes out

If the toothpick comes out with wet batter on it, the brownies are not done yet! Put them back in the oven. If the toothpick has a few moist crumbs on it, the brownies may be done, if you like a fudge-like, gooey texture (like I do). If you prefer a taste and texture more like cake, bake the brownies until the toothpick is clean.

A toothpick isn't the only tool you can use, of course. Many kitchen stores sell metal cake testers. I like to use pieces of uncooked spaghetti. The main idea is to use a probe to see what's happening inside the brownie. A thermometer won't tell you much -- the important thing is how far the baking chemistry has progressed -- and checking for redness will be much more productive with meat than with brownies.