Students from the Edge Hotel School have brought us some that can improve the quality of roasted potatoes the world over.
The theory is that maximizing the internal surface area of the tuber will maximize the crispiness and therefore the desirability of roasted potatoes. Most of us cut our potatoes at 90Ëš angles, in half, and then into quarters. These students realized that just by cutting at 30Ëš angles, an increase of up to 65% internal surface area can be achieved!
You can view their method in the images below. Their calculations are based on a 5 cm by 11.5 cm potato, so the specific numbers will differ depending on the spud, but since most potatoes are spheroids the principle will hold true.
Photos sourced from
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Science can also help us out with how to improve the pizzas we bake at home.
A traditional Italian pizza oven features curved stone walls, a stone floor and a wood fire burning in one corner. These ensure that heat radiates uniformly throughout the oven. When the heat of a pizza oven is 615 – 625 ˚F a traditional thin crust margarita pizza will be completely cooked in 120 seconds. The heat can be increased to 730 ˚F, in which case the pizza will be cooked in only 50 seconds, but the quality will be poorer. Pizza restaurants will often do this during rush hours in order to keep up with demand, leading pizza aficionados to recommend only getting pies before 8 or after 10 pm.
These temperatures and times only hold true for a wood-fired oven. When cooking pizzas at home, most of us will place them on a metal tray or oven rack. Metal, however, has a different heat conductivity than stone, so that tray or rack will heat up much faster than the stone floor, and your pizza winds up overcooked.
This can be remedied by decreasing the temperature. Knowing by how much was the hard part, but luckily the researchers have solved the complex thermodynamic equation for us. In the end, cooking your thin crust pizza in a convection oven for 170 seconds at 450 ËšF (although any toppings added will increase the time needed to cook the pie).
Trying these methods, you may just wind up with a better dinner, all thanks to science.
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