27 February 2009 12:44 a.m. i know, cutting and pasting is so unoriginal, but i had to share this. i only wanted to know what the difference was between a piece of fish coated in batter and one coated in flour and turned up this abstract -
unsuspectingAdhesion in fried battered nuggets: Performance of different hydrocolloids as predusts using three cooking procedures - by Albert et al., 2009. Food Hydrocolloids
Batter systems have to turn into a crisp crust after frying and they have to adhere to food substrate surfaces which are sometimes very smooth. As a result, treating the substrate with a predust is highly recommended. Predust agents act by absorbing the moisture on the substrate surface, creating a rough outer surface on the substrate and ensuring optimal binding between substrate and batter. Normally, the same wheat flour used in the formulation of the batter is used for dusting. In this study, three different hydrocolloids were used as predusting materials for battered fish nuggets and their performances in three different cooking procedures were evaluated. Oxidised starch, xanthan gum and HPMC were compared with wheat flour (control), using deep frying, conventional oven and microwave oven. Image analysis, an innovative method in this area, was used to quantify adhesion. The performance of the hydrocolloids used as predusting agents depended on the cooking procedure.
Keywords: Adhesion; Predust; Hydrocolloids; Batters; Nuggets; Frying; Oven; Microwave
a whole journal on adhesion in consumables!!
HPMC is hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, "a semisynthetic, inert, viscoelastic polymer used as an ophthalmic lubricant, as well as an excipient and controlled-delivery component in oral medicaments, found in a variety of commercial products."
eh?
"As a food additive, hypromellose is an emulsifier, thickening and suspending agent, and an alternative to animal gelatin."
OMG
i think i need to lie down and listen to some Vivaldi. this is all Nodame Cantabile's fault. stupid anime, why are you so squee-some? why is Master Chiaki such an ass? why does Rachmaninoff keep playing over and over again in my head? why---
i would drown my irrational self-pity, but i have no taste for alcohol. or is that beside the point. there are people to be scolded and dvds to be watched.
20 February 2009 6:20 p.m.time out
Nury Vittachi is one of my favourite writers. i even have his book (Dead Eric Gets A Virus. go figure) but he must be terribly under-rated here, because i got it at a warehouse sale. sorry dude. he should go in to life coaching. that's where the money is. one of his articles states -
Proof that all dogs are male: (...) They often consume ill-advised items until they are sick, give you a sad "never again" look, and then do the same thing again the next day.19 February 2009 4:48 p.m.
~ Mr Jam he say: dogs are male, cats are female. ~
self-apparent only once you start on it
the problem with revising an article you wrote eons ago is that you need to dig the up the same sort of literature you read when constructing it. forgetting where you put them and protocol amendments aside, there's the task of actually reading said literature because you can't just pluck things out of thin air. you can't have any output without some bloody input. same with eating. that makes sense somehow.
in other news, the front page for the varsity mail runs a quote-a-day thing. i saw this yesterday -
Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.
-- John Maynard Keynes --
also, the Great Hall, okay, Dewan Tunku Canselor, the chancellory building, as well as the experimental theater; all within UM grounds, have all been designated national heritage sites. i don't know why, i just report it. shouldn't the Learning Forest/Hutan Rimba Ilmu take precedence over them?
i've never tried this free writing lark, but it seems to work for me (i may have been sitting here too long though) -
guided essay
on a day full of FAIL; when you have to revise a paper and the words just aren't coming because it was written aeons ago and you're taking the reviewers' comments personally (reviewer #2 sounded a bit snippy but who knows how many papers they get flooded with, right? that's why you're advised to put some distance between receiving the review and commencement of revision), it is good to have a boyfriend full of win who sends you pictures like this because banana bread is not enough sometimes (and he's easy on the eyes too) -
the one and only Fernando Torres of Liverpool FC, obviously wondering why so many people want to take his clothes off
