Henny's Recipe Corner

Why Engineers Don't Write Recipe Books

 

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:
1. 532.35 cm3 gluten
2. 4.9 cm3 NaHCO3
3. 4.9 cm3 refined halite
4. 236.6 cm3 partially hydrogenated tallow triglyceride
5. 177.45 cm3 crystalline C12H22O11
6. 177.45 cm3 unrefined C12H22O11
7. 4.9 cm3 methyl ether of protocatechuic aldehyde
8. Two calcium carbonate-encapsulated avian albumen-coated protein
9. 473.2 cm3 theobroma cacao
10. 236.6 cm3 de-encapsulated legume meats (sieve size #10)

To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr, add ingredients one, two and three with constant agitation.
In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100 rpm, add ingredients four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is homogeneous.
To reactor #2, add ingredient eight, followed by three equal volumes of the homogeneous mixture in reactor #1. Additionally, add ingredient nine and ten slowly, with constant agitation. Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any temperature rise that may be the result of an exothermic reaction.
Using a screw extrude attached to a #4 nodulizer, place the mixture piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm). Heat in a 460K oven for a period of time that is in agreement with Frank & Johnston's first order rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden brown.
Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25C heat-transfer table, allowing the product to come to equilibrium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Improving fry cooking time

In January 1994, 'The Economist' magazine reported that one of Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary's success stories about government research scientists hired out for civilian business uses was the Argonne National Laboratory's helping McDonald's to find a way to speed up french frying. A team headed by physicist Tuncer Kuzay, who interrupted his work on advanced photons, placed sensors inside the frozen fries and was able to design special frying baskets to deal with the effect of steam created by melting ice crystals and to cut 30 to 40 seconds off each batch's frying time.

 

Purchasing power of burgers

 
Cologne, May 27 dpa - The U.S. dollar is undervalued against the Deutsch-mark based on how many "Big Mac" hamburger sandwiches the two currencies can purchase, said one of Germany's leading institutes. The Institute of the German Economy (IW) in Cologne noted that the popular sandwich by the McDonald's restaurant chain is increasingly being used by economists around the world as a measure of currencies' relative purchasing power. The institute said that currency exchange rates are often unreliable as an instrument to measure purchasing power. At the same time, "baskets" of products used to arrive at comparative purchasing power are complicated to compile. A simple alternative, now that McDonald's has spread to virtually every country on earth, has become to look at what a Big Mac costs, the IW said. "A particularly hungry American can buy five Big Macs for 11 dollars. If he exchanged the money into Deutsch-marks, his 18 marks in Germany can just barely obtain four Big Macs," the IW said. Conclusion: based on the Big Mac index, the dollar is undervalued, the institute said. Americans can get their best Big Mac buy these days in Moscow, where one sandwich costs only about 59 cents. But Russians must "work nearly two days in order to afford this meaty capitalist achievement - longer than people in any other country", the IW said.

 

 

 

Studying the twinkies

 

In an effort to clarify questions about the purported durability and unusual physical characteristics of Twinkies, we subjected the Hostess snack logs to the following experiments:
Exposure
A Twinkie was left on a window ledge for 4 days, during which time an inch and a half of rain fell. Many flies were observed crawling across the Twinkie's surface, but contrary to hypothesis, birds, even pigeons, avoided this potential source of substance. Despite the rain and prolonged exposure to the sun, the Twinkie retained its original color and form. When removed, the Twinkie was found to be substantially dehydrated. Cracked open, it was observed to have taken on the consistency of industrial foam insulation; the filling however, retained its advertised "creaminess"
Radiation
A Twinkie was placed in a conventional microwave oven, which was set for precisely 4 minutes - the approximate cooking time of bacon. After 20 seconds, the oven began to emit the Twinkie's rich, characteristic aroma of artificial butter. After one minute, this aroma began to resemble the acrid smell of burning rubber. The experiment was aborted after 2 minutes 10 seconds when thick, foul smoke began billowing from the top of the oven. A second Twinkie was subjected to the same experiment; this Twinkie leaked molten white filling. When cooled, this now epoxylike filling bonded the Twinkie to its plate, defying gravity: it was removed only upon application of a butter knife.
Extreme Force
A Twinkie was dropped from a ninth-floor window, a fall of approximately 120 feet. It landed right side up, then bounced onto its back. The expected "splatter" effect was not observed. Indeed, the only discernible damage to the Twinkie was a narrow fissure on its underside; otherwise, the Twinkie remained structurally intact.
Extreme Cold
A Twinkie was placed in a conventional freezer for 24 hours. Upon removal, the Twinkie was not found to be frozen solid, but its physical properties had noticeably "slowed". The filling was found to be the approximate consistency of acrylic paint, while exhibiting the mercurylike property of not adhering to practically any surface. It was noticed the Twinkie had generously absorbed the freezer odors.
Extreme Heat
A Twinkie was exposed to a gas flame for 2 minutes. While the Twinkie smoked and blackened and the filling in one of its "cream holes" boiled, the Twinkie did not catch fire. It did, however produce the same "burning rubber" aroma noticed in the irradiation experiment.
Immersion
A Twinkie was dropped into a large bucket filled with water, the Twinkie floated momentarily, then began to list and sink. Viscous yellow tendrils ran off its lower half, possibly consisting of a water-soluble artificial coloring. After 2 hours, the Twinkie bloated substantially. Its coloring was now a very pale tan - in contrast to the yellow, urine-like water that surrounded it. The Twinkie bobbed when touched, and had a gelatinous texture. After 72 hours, the Twinkie had increased roughly 200 percent of its original size. The water had turned opaque, and a small, fan-shaped spray of filling had leaked from one of the "cream holes". Unfortunately, efforts to remove the Twinkie for further analysis were abandoned when, under light pressure the Twinkie disintegrated into an amorphous cloud of debris. A distinctly sour odor was noted.
Summary of Results
The Twinkie's survival of a 120-foot drop, along with some of the unusual phenomena associated with the "creamy filling" and artificial coloring, should give pause to those observers who would unequivocally categorize the Twinkie as "food". Further clinical inquiry is required before any definite conclusions can be drawn.

 

 

You can now eat your own plate

 
Taipei, Taiwan (AP) -
Diners tempted to lick a plate after a delicious meal can now go a step further - eat the plate. Chen Liang-erh, 50, an amateur inventor, announced Friday that he had perfected an edible plate made from wheat grain, and that he planned to mass-produce it and other edible crockery including cups, bowls and food containers.
Chen spent six years developing the plate, which he said would retail at about 7 cents each. Diners who don't want to eat the items - which taste like unsalted popcorn - can boil them for a nutritious meal for animals, he said. Chen said this can help reduce pollution caused by discarded crockery.
The only disadvantage, he said, is his crockery cannot be washed and reused.

 

L'atitude.....

 

The young teacher of the earth science class was lecturing on map reading. After explaining about latitude, longitude, degrees and minutes, the teacher asked Morris, "Suppose I asked you to meet me for lunch at 23 degrees, 4 minutes north latitude and 45 degrees, 15 minutes east longitude...?"
After a confused silence, Morris offered this as his answer...."I guess you'd be eating alone."

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The truth about Asparagus and your pee..

 

Asparagus is filled with sulfur-containing amino acids that break down during digestion into six sulfur-containing compounds. These can impart a unique smell to urine as they are excreted.
"It's the same sulfur group that makes skunks smell," said Barbara Hodges, a dietitian with Boston University's nutrition clinic, Evans Nutrition Group.
Scientists remain divided on why people have different urinary responses to eating asparagus. One camp thinks only about half of the population have a gene enabling us to break down the sulfurous amino acids in asparagus into their smellier components.Others think that everyone digests asparagus the same way, but only about half of us have a gene that enables us to smell the specific compounds formed in the digestion of asparagus.
According to Harold McGee in "On Food and Cooking -- The Science and Lore of the Kitchen:", from 1956 until 1980, it was thought that the excretion of odorous methyl mercaptan after eating asparagus was a dominant genetic trait; if you had the particular gene, you were a 'stinker.' But a recent study found that all asparagus eaters excrete methyl mercaptan; it is the ability to detect its odor that varies from person to person. The sulfur-containing amino acid methionine is suspected as the precursor in asparagus."

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