Cooks Illustrated Recipe: Boiled Water
Cooks Illustrated Recipe: Boiled Water
by Cooky McKitchener
Like many people, I enjoy the moist aroma and sinus-soothing vapors from a pot of boiling water. But it is often difficult to get a roiling boil just the way you remember it as a child. In my quest to perfect boiled water I began by collecting a dozen different recipes ranging from family hand-me-downs to restaurant standbys. But none of these recipes produced a water boil precisely as I remember it. Some were too slow and too dilute while others were dense and tough. All of the recipes shared a few typical ingredients, such as water. But otherwise they had little in common.
In my first effort to produce a reliable boiled water, I began with a cylindrical steel container, or “pot” as often called for in traditional recipes. Placing the pot four inches away from the flame, the water did eventually come to a boil, but it took six hours. This might have been acceptable in our grandparents’ day, but many of us no longer have so much time to spare. I then moved the pot closer, a mere two inches from the flame. Indeed, the water boiled in just three hours – a big improvement.
Still, tasters said that the boiled water exhibited a “metallic” tang. I suspected this off-note might have been imparted by the steel container or “pot” itself. Next, I removed the pot from the equation, pouring the water directly into the flame. As I’d hoped, the water boiled almost instantly, exhibiting just the warm vapor I was looking for.
Although direct contact with the burner did boil the water quickly, testers found it difficult to get close to the liquid without having their faces burned off by the gas flame. Clearly I needed to find another way.
I then remembered a vessel I’d received as a gift from an ex-mother-in-law that has been kept in a remote storage locker for many years. I drove there in my car at a speed of 30MPH. After observing that it was taking a long time to get there, I increased my speed to 60MPH. This worked well and I arrived at my destination in half the time.
The vessel is constructed with a layer of ceramic enamel enrobed over an iron core. It can hold about 8 quarts of liquid and weighs 400 pounds. I strapped the container to a trailer hitch and returned to the test kitchen.
Because of the vessel’s weight, I used a winch to lift it onto the burner. Once in place, I filled it with water and lit the stove. Voila! In just about ten minutes, there was a perfectly boiled pot of water. The steaming vapor had just the level of moisture I’d remembered, and because of the enamel coating, the boiled water did not take on any unwanted flavors.
BOILED WATER
1 heavy enamel-coated iron pot with winch
8 quarts of water
Lift pot onto burner and fill with water. Turn burner on high and wait ten minutes. Serve immediately.
My Year of Cannibalism
It seems like eating ethically is getting harder every day. You can give up meat because animals are treated badly, but then you have to eat more vegetables, which are picked by migrant workers who are treated badly. You can limit yourself to foods produced locally, but then your neighbor’s boy will probably have his legs chopped off in a combine accident, resulting in very awkward conversations at the farmer’s market. “Thanks for the carrots, sorry about your kid. Any plans for more?”
Clearly, people are the cause of all these problems. Without their meddling in the food chain, I could eat my three squares with a clear conscience. So I tried something new. For twelve months, I resolved to eat only my fellow human beings. No farm animals would die because of me. No fruits or vegetables would be harvested by underpaid and undocumented workers on my behalf. You can read all about it in my groundbreaking new memoir, My Year of Cannibalism.
I know what you’re thinking. How did I get enough fiber? My cholesterol must have gone through the roof! But I developed a system.
First, it is important to eat at least five servings of vegetarian per day. If you can eat vegans, so much the better, but they can be a little bland so you need to alternate them with someone tastier, like pastry chefs. When I need a buzz I choose men with large beer guts. On special occasions I like small children. They don’t offer a lot in the way of nutritional value, but their young and tender muscles are like butter. I do not eat actual butter because it comes from cows, and that’s just wrong.
Throughout my year of cannibalism, I learned several tips and tricks that make a manivorous diet more manageable:
- Eat people earlier in the day rather than later. Killing someone just for a midnight snack takes a lot of energy and will keep you up all night.
- Rather than eat a whole person in one sitting, enjoy several smaller meals throughout the day. A few fingers in the morning will get your metabolism started and an eyeball or two in the afternoon will keep you from crashing.
- Many people do not like to be eaten and will become frightened if you come right at them with a knife and fork. Scared humans make for a tough meal because the adrenaline tenses their muscles. Get to know them first and make them feel comfortable. Give them a drink or two first, preferably something mixed generously with gamma hydroxybutyrate.
- Try to eat people who live within 50 miles of your home. They will not have to travel as far, which will reduce your carbon footprint while eliminating theirs.
Now that my twelve months of cannibalism are through, I am often asked if I plan to continue? To tell you the truth, I thought it would be a difficult adjustment. But once you get used to eating people and everything that goes with it — finding them, trapping them, and so on — it really just becomes a part of your lifestyle. I can hardly imagine going back to food produced by farmers.
Le Art Film: A French Guy Looking Out The Window On A Train
Preview the critically-acclaimed Canal+ production, A French Guy Looking Out The Window On a Train.
The future netopia is a disruptive steampunk hive hacking the analog hegemony
Forget about web 2.0 or even web 3.0!
Only Web 4.0 evites an “explosive mindshare shift in crowdsourcing,” blogs futuru Nicholas Carr or people like him.
Ubiquitous ultraportable eportals will become the connective tissue of our social neuralnets, driving adoption of optimally monetized platforms. With IP6 on Internet2 absorbed into gigawidth pipes, the edges of userspace and meatspace will melt into a boingboing of meeboplex. Also there will be a lot of porn.
Carr goes on to predict that Internet natives will obsolete new media mashups in favor of personalized pay-per-click vodcasts, that next week’s Pick 6 numbers are 5 21 17 8 11 4, and that filly “Honey I’m Home” will place to show in the Belmont Stakes on June 4, 2011.
Bestselling: How to write a book that flies off shelves, earns millions, and can be summed up in a 500 word title
One of the most secretive and least understood jobs in book publishing is the titleist. You would think that a book’s author comes up with its title, but you would not be correct. Book titles are written by titleists, and experienced titleists can earn more than doctors, although not more than doctors who moonlight writing book titles.
To understand their special brand of magic, compare how skilled titleists have improved on the original efforts of unimaginative authors:
| ORIGINAL TITLE |
BEST-SELLING TITLE |
| Moby Dick | Moby Dick: How the hubris of Capt. Ahab challenged God, defied himself, and endangered a species |
| On the Road | On the Road: One man’s journey through the margins of America while struggling against substance abuse a shot of whiskey at a time |
| A Million Little Pieces | A Million Little Pieces: The fictional story of a real liar |
| The Bible | The Bible: Why Abraham kept God’s covenant, invented circumcision, bought up all the land in Canaan, and begat Isaac, who begat Jacob, who begat Judah, who begat Pharez, who begat Hezron, who begat Ram, who begat Amminadab, who begat Nahshon, who begat Salmon, who begat Boaz, who begat Obed, who begat Jesse, who begat David, who begat Solomon, who begat Rehoboam, who begat Abijah, who begat Asa, who begat Jehoshaphat, who begat Joram, who begat Uzziah, who begat Jotham, who begat Ahaz, who begat Hezekiah, who begat Manasseh, who begat Amon, who begat Josiah, who begat Jeconiah, who begat Shealtiel, who begat Zerubbabel, who begat Abiud, who begat Eliakim, who begat Azor, who begat Sadok, who begat Achim, who begat Eliud, who begat Eleazar, who begat Matthan, who begat Jacob, who begat Joseph, who begat Jesus, and eventually, Paris Hilton |
FOX Reality Presents: Are you dumber than an idiot?
From the network that brought you “Two Contestants, One Cup” and “I’d Kill Myself for a Million Dollars” comes a match of wits against the witless, a test of wills against the unwilling, a mental challenge against the mentally challenged—Are You Dumber Than An Idiot?
In this groundbreaking reality competition, players have the chance to take home six-digit winnings going question for question against opponents with double-digit IQ’s. With mind-numbing inquiries from “How many fingers am I holding up?” to “What color is this?”, nothing is off the table in the ultimate confrontation of cerebral cortexes.
When you’ve got everything to win and they have nothing to lose, only the struggle between synapses will separate the merely stupid from those with serious birth defects such as hydrocephalus, phenylkketonuria, cretinism, and many more cranial anomalies. Are YOU dumber than an idiot? Only on FOX Reality, Sundays at 9PM.
Asian cinema seems so sophisticated…
…until you read what they’re really saying.
Bullet Point Film Review: There Will Be Blood
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Bullet Point Film Review: Gone Baby Gone
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When is HGH not really HGH?
Roger Clemens is telling the truth. He never told friend and teammate Andy Pettitte that he had taken human growth hormone. That Andy is always mishearing things, like the time he thought the Pledge of Allegiance says “and to the republic of witches’ hands.”
What Clemens actually said was that he’d been taking Hunan growth hormone—an ancient herbal remedy for enhancing performance, not on the pitcher’s mound, but rather, ahem, with getting to home base. Which is why he is so reluctant to talk about it. It’s a guy thing.
As for his wife taking it, too, maybe they were just following the directions on the bottle. It is not our place to judge. We cannot read Chinese.
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- MASTERING UPPERCASE LETTERS
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- Cooks Illustrated Recipe: Boiled Water
- My Year of Cannibalism
- Le Art Film: A French Guy Looking Out The Window On A Train
- The future netopia is a disruptive steampunk hive hacking the analog hegemony
- Bestselling: How to write a book that flies off shelves, earns millions, and can be summed up in a 500 word title
- FOX Reality Presents: Are you dumber than an idiot?
- Asian cinema seems so sophisticated…
- Bullet Point Film Review: There Will Be Blood
- Bullet Point Film Review: Gone Baby Gone
- When is HGH not really HGH?
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