Favourite application is in a pot of boiling potatoes to break down the cell structures just on the outside layer, cook them only half way, drain, toss in a sieve or collander to rough up the edges, then into the oven to roast. The baking soda breaking down the surface of the potatoes will create a more craggle-y texture to facilitate that amazing exterior crispiness we all love in the best roast potatoes.
@@wrinklesandsprinkles J. Kenji Lopez-Alt he worked at cooks illustrated years ago and does personal videos now here on YT. He is much like Alton Brown a food scientist and has done a ton of testing. He frequently makes his videos highly informative both from the science of it and history of a dishes origin. Edit: I forgot to mention he was even on an episode of What's Eating Dan ua-cam.com/video/D8BXYIZ_7sE/v-deo.html The one about MSG and they made 3 things with it.
In "The Long Winter" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Ma Ingalls is making baked beans and pops a spoonful of baking soda into the water in which she is boiling the beans first. Once she can "blow the skins off the beans," ie, cooked until fairly tender, she drains the beans, seasons them and makes baked beans.
This is a common trick for chickpeas when making hummus: I little baking soda in the water while cooking helps remove the tough outer skins. Essentually they just rinse off.
Рік тому+39
A trick from Modernist Cuisine is that baking soda allows for all sorts of caramelized soups - carrots, pumpkin, bananas, onions ... - in a pressure cooker. Maillard reaction starts at a low enough temperature for that to work then. Total game changer.
I use it for food, but I fell in love with it when I found out it can also be used to treat indigestion when you have perhaps eaten too much. Seriously, it has conquered bad heartburn as well as made delicious chocolate cakes.
@@akogarehouse I use about a tablespoon in a cold small glass of water. I don't really measure. Mix, swirl to suspend the rest, and down in a chug or two. You could use lots of warm water if you want - but cold and a small quantity just helps with the taste. Do it again later if you need more. The largest dose I see in a quick look on the Internet is 5 teaspoons. #notadoctor
I first fell in love with sodium bicarbonate when I used it in a recipe for roast potatoes. Adding it (along with salt) to the pot of boiling water to precook the potatoes before roasting them was a game-changer - they browned so much more than I expected!
As a baker, I also found that baking soda will cause cookies to spread in the oven. You have to be aware that that too much will cause your cookies to spread paper thin. But when developing my keto chocolate chip cookies, I added baking power for lift, and baking soda for a nice spread, since most recipes by keto bakers only use baking powder and then smash them to get them to spread a little. Min bake up perfectly and they taste and look like regular chocolate chip cookies, but with only 3 net grams of carbs per cookie, they are a real treat.
I have Gerd and I was told by doctor to avoid citrus, vinegar, tomatoes, and other acid foods. I make my own tomato sauce by adding carrots, and a pinch of soda to up alkalinity. I ordered on Amazon a acid/alkaline test. Soda has literally saved my cooking and health.
Turns out the lower oesophageal sphincter only closes when the stomach is acidic enough. Check out the video "30 Days of Apple Cider Vinegar vs 15 years of GERD/Reflux". A less acidic stomach makes your food harder to digest and absorb, further down the line the less digested food then becomes food for unwanted pathogens causing potential other issues.
@@RVlietstra Precisely. Antacids are one of the medical industrial complexes great lies. If you suffer from GERD take a teaspoon of ACV in a little water 15-20 minutes before you eat. Your digestive system will understand the signal and produce what it needs to properly digest your food.
Acid Reflux is a mild burning sensation while GERD is a much more serious burning sensation due to the chronic backflow of acid. That's a small but important difference distincting the similar conditions. @@charlenebrooker4492
I use baking soda, aluminum foil and HOT water to get tarnish off my silver. Simply put a bit of aluminum foil in a tub, pour in nearly boiling water, add baking soda and then your silver. AMAZING!
I fell in love today. Hat a pot of beans boiling for 2 hours and still hard. I added 1 1/2 tsp of baking soda to the pot and a little water and immediately saw a reaction. 10 minutes later and the beans are so much softer! This should be mandatory knowledge for any cook. THANKS A MILLION!
You can use baking soda to transform simple boxed spaghetti noodles to a lo mein / Ramen noodle for Chinese cooking as they both are basically flour and water. I saw this on a video here on UA-cam by someone I follow about making Ramen and it works. Bring to boil 2 L of water, salt to taste and 2 tablespoons of baking soda. Use thin spaghetti for a thin ramen noodle or regular spaghetti for thicker one. Follow the directions on how long to cook 4 and add about two minutes. The noodles will change color to a light brown like they were stirfried in sauce. Do a quick rinse and then add them to whatever you’re making whether it’s a lo mein or a ramen soup you will be pleasantly surprised and may not be able to taste the difference between those noodles and a Roman noodle you buy in the store to cook up or from a restaurant. One thing do not add too much baking soda or you’ll get a weird flavor.
Hint: If you (for some reason) end up trying to cook dried beans in an acidic environment, and find that they simply *WON'T* get tender, *FREEZE* them! The freezing creates thousands of tiny ice crystals which pierce and break down the beans' skins and cell walls creating tender beans once thawed, and reheated.
I have another use. Sometimes you use something from a can: corn, peas, artichoke hearts, etc. ... and canned food has a "canned" flavor. Soaking the canned food in a baking soda solution for a while and then rinsing it off will remove that "canned" taste. I suspect there is some acidity from the can or the canning process that it removes. Just be sure to rinse before adding the corn or whatever to your chicken soup, or it will foam up. I forgot last week. I joked to my GF that the soup came with a built-in antacid. (It tasted fine.) One another note, I thought for for a second that Dan said "human beef" -- I can't say it as well as Chinese people, but I know that it's "hoo-nan" not "hyu-nan."
In addition to neutralizing acids, baking soda was first popularized due to its ability to remove metals during radioactive testing. My guess is that tinny “canned” flavor is due to trace metals the baking soda then removes. This is a great tip that I didn’t know before, thanks for sharing!! 💜🥳
I'll second that about it sounding like he said "human beef!" There isn't enough baking soda, or anything for that matter, to make "human beef" palatable. Well, maybe starvation, but even then for me I'm not so sure! 😮
I never knew the cooking benefits of sodium bicarb until I started watching the top-drawer ATK videos & digging in to the websites. Bicarb has been the only anti-acid that has been beneficial to me for decades. Your (and Lam Lan's) promoting Bicarb have been an eye-opener. Many thanks.
That spoon of baking soda at the end made me think of my experience as a kid who reached into the back of the refrigerator for a bowl of powdered sugar, licked his finger, dunked it, and took a big pull. Woooooow! Not all lessons are learned from a book.
I fell in love with baking soda by cleaning with it! It cleans and deodorizers everything! I just learned about what it can do to cooking. Thank you Dan!
Thanks Dan! Great video as always. You and Lan are definitely are the shining stars of the "new" gen of America's Test Kitchen! The videos featuring both of you are the most watchable for sure. Keep up the great work.
Surprised this wasn't mentioned in the video, baking soda can make sauces less acidic, great if you don't want to add anything sweet which seems to be the normal approach
Two really excellent kitchen uses which aren't exactly cooking but close are using baking soda to put out a fire and also using baking soda, aluminum foil, and boiling water to polish silver. This was a great video, Dan Souza. Glad you got to express your love of baking soda.
"I want to give a big shout out Nicolas Leblanc for first isolating baking soda in the late 1700's. I'm dying to know when you first fell in love with sodium bicarbonate" Let's see if he answers. On a more serious note, I love this series! Educational and extremely entertaining.
Didn't know about the browning benefit of baking soda! Besides it being useful in cooking of course, I find it indispensable in the kitchen and household in general, as a mild, non-abrasive cleanser on dishes and other surfaces, as well as a deodorizer. Good stuff.
Dan Sousa is a national treasure! Informative & attractive, he's one of the most useful sources of online cooking information, recipes and encouragement. I only wish I'd know about baking soda's uses, other than leavening & cleaning, decades ago. I love the way Dan, like Alton Brown, has mashed up Julia Child & Mr. Wizard.
I've been watching many 'how to' chinese recipes, etc. When chicken is used, they always add a little bit of baking soda. It makes that chicken more tender. 👍 🐔
Maybe people already know this, but a combs of baking soda and an acidic solution like lemon juice is great for cleaning up scum and grout around the house. The acid and base reacts with scum and grout rather than just wiping it down or scrubbing. This ensures it is fully removed leaving you with a shinier surface for longer.
Love these. I've added baking soda to beans because my mom claimed that it will reduce the after gas. If that's true, perhaps it's because the baking soda begins to break down the beans pre-stomach?
Dan, You’re simply the Best! Always excellent presentations and a wealth of information. Especially like how you explain the chemical process in most videos. Keep it up my friend!
Other uses for baking soda in the kitchen? People tell me that it is a fantastic Odor Eater for the refrigerator or freezer. I'm skeptical of that one, but I have also accused a solution of vinegar and baking soda in my stainless steel pans to remove stains and restore the shine. This seems particularly effective if I let it sit in the pan overnight before washing it. It would be interesting if you guys did some experimentation on this as well.
I first realized how cool baking soda was when, after using my mom’s pancake recipe forever, I saw your pancake recipe and decided to try it. The only difference was the baking soda, but I was hooked. My pancakes are much better now. Thanks a bunch. After seeing this I have a few more things to try. I love your channel.
A great book out: Baking Powder Wars talks in depth about history of the usage of baking soda and baking powder. Even if you don't read it all, the first 25% is a great walk through of this miracle compound!
Love all your science based ideas Dan, I usually use baking soda for cleaning mugs and cups and washing fruits, now I am going to use it more in my cooking!
I use Baking Soda with Cream of Tartar as a leavening agent, since my baking powder is always flat when I go to use it. Perhaps a video on Cream of Tartar? I'd also be interested in ingredients that release gas upon heating.
Restaurant queso dip usually uses sodium citrate as an emulsifier. To make a gooey cheese dip at home, you can either add some sodium citrate in the form of a slice of American cheese, or combine baking soda (0.5 tbsp) and lemon or lime juice (1 tbsp) in a pan over low heat and add that to your cheese sauce. The sodium bicarbonate in the baking soda combines with the citric acid in the citrus juice to make sodium citrate. (This is an Adam Ragusea trick btw).
My grandpa, who was born in 1897 in Vietnam, would take 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and a cup of water to treat upset stomach and other digestive issues. And thanks to Dan and other chefs on ATK, I now use baking soda as ingredient in few of my recipes. Thank you chefs for the knowledge.
My grandpa showed me the same thing when I was 5 years old. I was born upper GI problems. Sodium bicarbonate mixed with water has saved my life and I still use it sometimes!
I tried the baking powder in ground chuck this afternoon. I previously cooked ground chuck in the microwave and broke up the chunks to use in chili, lasagna, enchiladas, etc. at a later date. (I freeze it by the pound.) I cooked the first batch with the baking soda in a skillet. It worked beautifully. The next batch I tried cooking in the microwave and I wasn't happy with the way it turned out plus some of the meat stuck to the paper towels. I cooked the next two batches in the skillet. Lesson learned.
Non-cooking aplications too, and not just cleaning. Also useful as an antacid. 1/2 tsp. In 1/2 cup water will help neutralize heartburn and acid reflux. I use this all the time. Also, my mom used it to brush her teeth when she was a child. I also use it to take the sting out of bug bites. Especially useful for fire ant bites. Make a paste with water and rub over bites. My grandkids think this is magic.
if you bake baking soda, you get sodium carbonate, which when in solution makes a stronger base.. its used in making ramen noodles to get them firmer without adding egs
On a whim, I added some baking soda when trying my hand at pinakbet. Got the onions browning very nicely at the start. Half the vegetable pre-pack is eggplant by volume, but it seems the leftover alkalinity turned that all into a thick paste. Personally, I much prefer that over actual eggplant. Also forgot to add water, but so much was released by the vegetables that it wasn't a problem. Might be buying more eggplant from here on just to make dishes thick and creamy.
I have had no use for baking soda except to put a new box in my fridge every so often for some reason. I now have a couple of new uses, thanks to you all! Definitely going to try them in stir-fried meats and for cooking beans. As far as pancakes... nah. I started making yeast-leavened pancakes not too long ago and like them infinitely better than baking powder and soda.
can't forget sodium bicarbonate's incredible cleaning abilities too!! i was sceptical for years of "natural" cleaning products but sodium bicarbonate works so well to get off tough sticky things on pots, hobs, or countertops. it works as an amazing non-abrasive non-damaging alternative when cleaning cast iron etc. it makes the sink shiny, it gets the gooey residue from labels off of jars, and it's so cheap!
Thanks, Dan (and crew.) Your videos always keep me interested and learning without taking itself too seriously. As someone with issues with focusing for more than, say, a minute or two, you've got a formula that keeps me on track. Keep up the great work
Dan and Lan are the most watchable for sure, not a pretentious moment in either of their videos. Always was an issue in the "old" days of the PBS ATK and still is with a few of the Next Generation. I can't watch even a couple of minutes with some of them.
I used to weep when trying to cook chickpeas for hummus. I'd cook them for hours and they'd still be hard even though the recipe said cook for 45 min! Then a waiter in a middle eastern restaurant told me the secret. Baking soda changed my life. Its magic is second only to salt. But I didn't know about the meat tenderizing. Must try that. Thanks!
You forgot using as an abrasive for cleaning pots, and it's good for brushing your teeth, and neutralizing of acids, even as an antacid substitute for Tums
Be careful,using baking soda as an antacid. If you take more than 1 TBSP every 6 hours, you can rapidly OD on sodium. Yes it is something that can land you in the ICU
Love your videos Dan 🥰 I will definitely make better use of baking soda now…when the video illustrated the stir fry all I could think was my 🇵🇪Peruvian “Lomo Saltado” (beef stir fry) have you tried this dish Dan? I think you should ❤️ It is a dish that Chinese immigrants brought to Peru. Thanks for most valuable information!
I use the test kitchens recipe for pancakes , it calls for 4 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of baking soda, they come out perfect every time, i put lemon juice into the milk
I make a cashew chicken recipe from Recipe Tin Eats that “velvets” the chicken in baking soda. I also put 1/2 tsp of baking soda in the boiling water of my classic English Roast Potatoes, following a tip from J Kenji Lopez-Alt. I am renowned in my family for my roast potatoes.
I forgot the baking soda in a batch of Toll House cookie bars once. The flavor difference was remarkable, and I’ve never forgotten baking soda in a recipe since then.
Favorite application: when sodium bicarbonate saved my patient! All of your information recommendations are defiantly going in my recipe folder!! Thank you, Dan!
Also can help with mild to medium nausea. I had bad sinuses growing upband often had a sour stomach. I tablespoon if baking soda in a couple shots of water and many belches later and I was relieved
And to think I just had Chinese chicken with broccoli and wondered how they made the chicken breast oh so tender and well now I know!!! Thank you for unlocking the secrets and the power of baking soda… …wish you’d also covered why it turn biscuits yellow if too much is used…
thank you Dan, you totally answered my question about baking soda and ground beef! And even polenta, wow I never knew! I'm very excited to start using it in many of my dishes! 👍👍👍
I fell in love with baking soda after watching Gino’s italian escape and learning about the Limonata a Cosce Aperte (legs apart) drink. I drink it all the time and it led me to this video.
I add it to sef raising flour with a splash of vinegar when making batter for fish ,or anything else that needs batter. Mix with water to the consistency of thick cream.
I like the scientific explanations so much. Thank you! As an aside; I love the exact measurements used. “smidge” is one of my favorite measurements, right up there with a “schmeer” of a spread. I often go with my mother’s favorites: “Add it until it looks right”…. You may substitute “looks” with smells or tastes as well!
I have countless videos saying it should be rinsed off when velveting beef for beef and broccoli to avoid the meat tasting bitter. Are these videos wrong? Does it depend wholly on how much baking soda is used in the tenderizing process? TIA. Awesome video!!
When I was a kid, around 55 years ago, my mother used baking soda with water and a bit of vinegar as an antacid when we had an upset stomach. Kind of like a homemade Bromo-seltzer.
Dan! Bringing the science! Love it. I have a cooking problem that I hope Baking Soda can solve. I cook the ATC recipe for chili, starting with rehydrating anchos. I've played with many kinds of chilies, but they all have the same problem: TANNINS. After the soak, the liquid could cure leather. Even if I toss the soak liquid, the pureed chilies are rough. The bitterness magically goes away, however, once they are added to meat. I do know that tannins react with proteins, but that's all I could find. That works, but that doesn't seem right. Why should I be compelled to add protein to my chilies to make it palatable? Would Baking Soda neutralize those tannins, so that I can keep all that chili flavor in the soak liquid? Well, maybe, yeah, we'd get salt + water + other stuff, but what kind of salt, and what kind of other stuff? See??? We need MORE CHEMISTRY!!! And probably a visit from the Baking Soda Caped Crusader.
Many, many years ago, our cook taught me to add baking soda to the water when I cook beans for bean soup. I add about a tablespoon to the pot containing the beans, bring it to a boil and pour it off, washing the beans under cold running water, then doing it all again. Three or four times. At the last rinse, I add cold water to the pot and pour it off, also pouring off the husks of the larger beans. Then I fill the pan with water and whatever else I'm adding to make the final bean soup. Nyda called that "de-gassing the beans" and I can attest, it really does. I've made my bean soup this way for forty years. The only other person I've ever run into who uses baking soda when making bean soup is a cousin who soaks her beans overnight in a pot of water with baking soda.
I LOVE bicarbonate of soda for miriad reasons. However, my very favourite thing about it is that when combined in a mix 1 teaspoon bicarb to 2 teaspoons cream of tartar to a cup of plain flour, it makes the BEST raising agent. Regular baking powder contains bicarb soda and sometimes also cream of tartar, but usually it also contains a type of phosphate acid which doesn't commence the raising effect until heat is applied to the mix. However, while that's handy, it is the phosphate that leaves a metalic taste on the tongue, which the home made mix of bicarb and cream of tartar doesn't. We are in Victoria, Australia and we always bought locally produced flour from the McAlpin's Company. They produced a Cream of Tartar SR Flour up until the late 1980's but the company was sold to Nabisco and the McAlpins brand disappeared from the shelves along with their Cream of Tartar SR flour. I had always used it to make scones, or what Americans call "biscuits" (we Aussies call "cookies" biscuits - weird huh!). Anyway I always disliked ANY scones made with regular baking powder because of that horrible tongue-gripping metalic sensation and aftertaste. For anyone who notices this too, try the bicarb/cream of tartar mix, but be aware you cannot leave your mix sit for too long before baking as the raising reaction will be done and dusted before you get it into the oven because it commences as soon as the acid and alkaline are moistened.
Love this tip! But wondering why both you and Lam have raved about baking soda, but when Erin shared her red beans and rice recipe, there was NO MENTION of baking soda when she talked about brining the beans to make them creamy? Is it maybe because that recipe was shared years ago (it’s even printed in the cookbook), and y’all only discovered the wonders of tenderizing with baking soda more recently? Ah well, I’m definitely using baking soda in my beans!
Great episode, one of the best What's Eating Dan episodes in a looooooooong time. Interesting and lot's of information delivered, and it was useful information for us home cooks.
Favourite application is in a pot of boiling potatoes to break down the cell structures just on the outside layer, cook them only half way, drain, toss in a sieve or collander to rough up the edges, then into the oven to roast. The baking soda breaking down the surface of the potatoes will create a more craggle-y texture to facilitate that amazing exterior crispiness we all love in the best roast potatoes.
I see you are a Kenji fan
Yaaassss. Kenji tip!
@@squeektheweek6949 Who’s Kenji? Pass on your genius.
@@wrinklesandsprinkles J. Kenji Lopez-Alt he worked at cooks illustrated years ago and does personal videos now here on YT. He is much like Alton Brown a food scientist and has done a ton of testing. He frequently makes his videos highly informative both from the science of it and history of a dishes origin.
Edit: I forgot to mention he was even on an episode of What's Eating Dan ua-cam.com/video/D8BXYIZ_7sE/v-deo.html The one about MSG and they made 3 things with it.
@@wrinklesandsprinkles Kenji Alt-Lopez, from serious eats and other food channels
I've watched 5000 cooking videos over the last 10 years. NOBODY has ever mentioned this. Thank you, thank you, thank you again!
I use 1/2 tsp for making pea soup. It helps to both reduce cooking time, and it gets rid of the gas issues that legumes cause.
We know it's gonna be a good day when we get another episode of What's Eating Dan. All of these more "specialized" ATK videos have been great!
Lies again? Batman Superman Big Shot
In "The Long Winter" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Ma Ingalls is making baked beans and pops a spoonful of baking soda into the water in which she is boiling the beans first. Once she can "blow the skins off the beans," ie, cooked until fairly tender, she drains the beans, seasons them and makes baked beans.
This is a common trick for chickpeas when making hummus: I little baking soda in the water while cooking helps remove the tough outer skins. Essentually they just rinse off.
A trick from Modernist Cuisine is that baking soda allows for all sorts of caramelized soups - carrots, pumpkin, bananas, onions ... - in a pressure cooker. Maillard reaction starts at a low enough temperature for that to work then.
Total game changer.
Oh that's /insane/
Great tip! Thank you 😊❤
Mmmmm pumpkin soup ❤
I use it for food, but I fell in love with it when I found out it can also be used to treat indigestion when you have perhaps eaten too much. Seriously, it has conquered bad heartburn as well as made delicious chocolate cakes.
Agree. Not a fan of the taste, but it's the nuclear option.
I use for antacid too. Works great against reflux before bed.
but explain exactly you use it (incl dosage pls)
@@akogarehouse I use about a tablespoon in a cold small glass of water. I don't really measure. Mix, swirl to suspend the rest, and down in a chug or two. You could use lots of warm water if you want - but cold and a small quantity just helps with the taste. Do it again later if you need more. The largest dose I see in a quick look on the Internet is 5 teaspoons. #notadoctor
I first fell in love with sodium bicarbonate when I used it in a recipe for roast potatoes. Adding it (along with salt) to the pot of boiling water to precook the potatoes before roasting them was a game-changer - they browned so much more than I expected!
I have recently cooked a steak and sprinkled a pinch of baking soda on both sides of the meat. I was stunned of how much that improved browning.
I was wondering why I've never heard it used with steaks to help browning and possibly help keep it even more tender
As a baker, I also found that baking soda will cause cookies to spread in the oven. You have to be aware that that too much will cause your cookies to spread paper thin. But when developing my keto chocolate chip cookies, I added baking power for lift, and baking soda for a nice spread, since most recipes by keto bakers only use baking powder and then smash them to get them to spread a little. Min bake up perfectly and they taste and look like regular chocolate chip cookies, but with only 3 net grams of carbs per cookie, they are a real treat.
This might be the most life-changing episode of Whats Eating Dan yet!
I have Gerd and I was told by doctor to avoid citrus, vinegar, tomatoes, and other acid foods. I make my own tomato sauce by adding carrots, and a pinch of soda to up alkalinity. I ordered on Amazon a acid/alkaline test. Soda has literally saved my cooking and health.
What is Geri?
@@jeanlaubenthal698 Acid Reflux
Turns out the lower oesophageal sphincter only closes when the stomach is acidic enough. Check out the video "30 Days of Apple Cider Vinegar vs 15 years of GERD/Reflux". A less acidic stomach makes your food harder to digest and absorb, further down the line the less digested food then becomes food for unwanted pathogens causing potential other issues.
@@RVlietstra Precisely. Antacids are one of the medical industrial complexes great lies.
If you suffer from GERD take a teaspoon of ACV in a little water 15-20 minutes before you eat. Your digestive system will understand the signal and produce what it needs to properly digest your food.
Acid Reflux is a mild burning sensation while GERD is a much more serious burning sensation due to the chronic backflow of acid. That's a small but important difference distincting the similar conditions. @@charlenebrooker4492
I'm glad you didn't stop making these videos. You know a lot, but also present it in such a compelling and didactic manner.
I use baking soda, aluminum foil and HOT water to get tarnish off my silver. Simply put a bit of aluminum foil in a tub, pour in nearly boiling water, add baking soda and then your silver. AMAZING!
Use an aluminum pot, it leeches the tarnish better and the water can remain at a constant temperature.
Great tip!
I fell in love today. Hat a pot of beans boiling for 2 hours and still hard. I added 1 1/2 tsp of baking soda to the pot and a little water and immediately saw a reaction. 10 minutes later and the beans are so much softer! This should be mandatory knowledge for any cook. THANKS A MILLION!
I add baking soda to my coffee grounds - three shakes from a salt shaker with larger holes. Coffee is less acidic
Helps stop soy milk from curdling
Mmm….never thought of that one thanks!
You can use baking soda to transform simple boxed spaghetti noodles to a lo mein / Ramen noodle for Chinese cooking as they both are basically flour and water. I saw this on a video here on UA-cam by someone I follow about making Ramen and it works. Bring to boil 2 L of water, salt to taste and 2 tablespoons of baking soda. Use thin spaghetti for a thin ramen noodle or regular spaghetti for thicker one. Follow the directions on how long to cook 4 and add about two minutes. The noodles will change color to a light brown like they were stirfried in sauce. Do a quick rinse and then add them to whatever you’re making whether it’s a lo mein or a ramen soup you will be pleasantly surprised and may not be able to taste the difference between those noodles and a Roman noodle you buy in the store to cook up or from a restaurant. One thing do not add too much baking soda or you’ll get a weird flavor.
Here is the link for the UA-cam segment about transferring Spaghetti into Ramen noodles
ua-cam.com/video/8CvrAlklZO0/v-deo.html
@@mrdonnyb6704❤❤❤
Hint:
If you (for some reason) end up trying to cook dried beans in an acidic environment, and find that they simply *WON'T* get tender, *FREEZE* them!
The freezing creates thousands of tiny ice crystals which pierce and break down the beans' skins and cell walls creating tender beans once thawed, and reheated.
Good to know, thank you ❤
I have another use. Sometimes you use something from a can: corn, peas, artichoke hearts, etc. ... and canned food has a "canned" flavor. Soaking the canned food in a baking soda solution for a while and then rinsing it off will remove that "canned" taste. I suspect there is some acidity from the can or the canning process that it removes. Just be sure to rinse before adding the corn or whatever to your chicken soup, or it will foam up. I forgot last week. I joked to my GF that the soup came with a built-in antacid. (It tasted fine.)
One another note, I thought for for a second that Dan said "human beef" -- I can't say it as well as Chinese people, but I know that it's "hoo-nan" not "hyu-nan."
In addition to neutralizing acids, baking soda was first popularized due to its ability to remove metals during radioactive testing. My guess is that tinny “canned” flavor is due to trace metals the baking soda then removes.
This is a great tip that I didn’t know before, thanks for sharing!! 💜🥳
I'll second that about it sounding like he said "human beef!" There isn't enough baking soda, or anything for that matter, to make "human beef" palatable. Well, maybe starvation, but even then for me I'm not so sure! 😮
I never knew the cooking benefits of sodium bicarb until I started watching the top-drawer ATK videos & digging in to the websites. Bicarb has been the only anti-acid that has been beneficial to me for decades. Your (and Lam Lan's) promoting Bicarb have been an eye-opener. Many thanks.
That spoon of baking soda at the end made me think of my experience as a kid who reached into the back of the refrigerator for a bowl of powdered sugar, licked his finger, dunked it, and took a big pull. Woooooow! Not all lessons are learned from a book.
I fell in love with baking soda by cleaning with it! It cleans and deodorizers everything! I just learned about what it can do to cooking. Thank you Dan!
Thanks Dan! Great video as always. You and Lan are definitely are the shining stars of the "new" gen of America's Test Kitchen! The videos featuring both of you are the most watchable for sure. Keep up the great work.
Watching Dan, I am Today Years Old and falling in love with Baking Soda - Well done, chef!
I remember way back on ATK when you told me to rub a little baking soda on chicken, it was great advice!
My Italian friend told me to add a little baking soda when making spaghetti sauce. It takes away the bitter acid taste of the 🍅.
Surprised this wasn't mentioned in the video, baking soda can make sauces less acidic, great if you don't want to add anything sweet which seems to be the normal approach
Two really excellent kitchen uses which aren't exactly cooking but close are using baking soda to put out a fire and also using baking soda, aluminum foil, and boiling water to polish silver. This was a great video, Dan Souza. Glad you got to express your love of baking soda.
I found baking soda fascinating the first time I made peanut brittle and added it to the pot at the end to create that expanded texture.
Oh, I forgot about that. Thanks!
It’s like magic to watch what baking soda does to brittles! 😊
"I want to give a big shout out Nicolas Leblanc for first isolating baking soda in the late 1700's. I'm dying to know when you first fell in love with sodium bicarbonate" Let's see if he answers. On a more serious note, I love this series! Educational and extremely entertaining.
Didn't know about the browning benefit of baking soda! Besides it being useful in cooking of course, I find it indispensable in the kitchen and household in general, as a mild, non-abrasive cleanser on dishes and other surfaces, as well as a deodorizer. Good stuff.
Dan Sousa is a national treasure! Informative & attractive, he's one of the most useful sources of online cooking information, recipes and encouragement. I only wish I'd know about baking soda's uses, other than leavening & cleaning, decades ago. I love the way Dan, like Alton Brown, has mashed up Julia Child & Mr. Wizard.
Except that none of them added obnoxious music to their cooking shows. Dan does. Dan must change that.
Recently added 1/8 tsp soda to six scrambled eggs with milk. It didn’t affect the taste but did make them more fluffy.
I've been watching many 'how to' chinese recipes, etc. When chicken is used, they always add a little bit of baking soda.
It makes that chicken more tender. 👍 🐔
Maybe people already know this, but a combs of baking soda and an acidic solution like lemon juice is great for cleaning up scum and grout around the house.
The acid and base reacts with scum and grout rather than just wiping it down or scrubbing. This ensures it is fully removed leaving you with a shinier surface for longer.
I had no idea about the various uses of baking soda. Awesome video.
Love these. I've added baking soda to beans because my mom claimed that it will reduce the after gas. If that's true, perhaps it's because the baking soda begins to break down the beans pre-stomach?
Dan, You’re simply the Best! Always excellent presentations and a wealth of information. Especially like how you explain the chemical process in most videos. Keep it up my friend!
An incredibly useful video. I sort of knew all this stuff but Dan ties it all together adeptly. Great stuff.
Other uses for baking soda in the kitchen? People tell me that it is a fantastic Odor Eater for the refrigerator or freezer. I'm skeptical of that one, but I have also accused a solution of vinegar and baking soda in my stainless steel pans to remove stains and restore the shine. This seems particularly effective if I let it sit in the pan overnight before washing it. It would be interesting if you guys did some experimentation on this as well.
I first realized how cool baking soda was when, after using my mom’s pancake recipe forever, I saw your pancake recipe and decided to try it. The only difference was the baking soda, but I was hooked. My pancakes are much better now. Thanks a bunch. After seeing this I have a few more things to try. I love your channel.
A great book out: Baking Powder Wars talks in depth about history of the usage of baking soda and baking powder. Even if you don't read it all, the first 25% is a great walk through of this miracle compound!
A very good book!
Love all your science based ideas Dan, I usually use baking soda for cleaning mugs and cups and washing fruits, now I am going to use it more in my cooking!
One of the most useful videos on cooking that I've ever seen on YT !!
I use Baking Soda with Cream of Tartar as a leavening agent, since my baking powder is always flat when I go to use it. Perhaps a video on Cream of Tartar? I'd also be interested in ingredients that release gas upon heating.
I sprinkle baking soda in the water when I boil fresh eggs from my chickens. It helps with peeling.
Restaurant queso dip usually uses sodium citrate as an emulsifier. To make a gooey cheese dip at home, you can either add some sodium citrate in the form of a slice of American cheese, or combine baking soda (0.5 tbsp) and lemon or lime juice (1 tbsp) in a pan over low heat and add that to your cheese sauce. The sodium bicarbonate in the baking soda combines with the citric acid in the citrus juice to make sodium citrate. (This is an Adam Ragusea trick btw).
I always learn something new from Dan and this video is no exception. Great information, thank you!
That was an eye opener! Never knew half of that! I love that it helps browning for crispier food.
My grandpa, who was born in 1897 in Vietnam, would take 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and a cup of water to treat upset stomach and other digestive issues.
And thanks to Dan and other chefs on ATK, I now use baking soda as ingredient in few of my recipes.
Thank you chefs for the knowledge.
My grandpa showed me the same thing when I was 5 years old. I was born upper GI problems. Sodium bicarbonate mixed with water has saved my life and I still use it sometimes!
I tried the baking powder in ground chuck this afternoon. I previously cooked ground chuck in the microwave and broke up the chunks to use in chili, lasagna, enchiladas, etc. at a later date. (I freeze it by the pound.) I cooked the first batch with the baking soda in a skillet. It worked beautifully. The next batch I tried cooking in the microwave and I wasn't happy with the way it turned out plus some of the meat stuck to the paper towels. I cooked the next two batches in the skillet. Lesson learned.
Non-cooking aplications too, and not just cleaning. Also useful as an antacid. 1/2 tsp. In 1/2 cup water will help neutralize heartburn and acid reflux. I use this all the time. Also, my mom used it to brush her teeth when she was a child. I also use it to take the sting out of bug bites. Especially useful for fire ant bites. Make a paste with water and rub over bites. My grandkids think this is magic.
Great info, thanks.
Definitely learned the value of baking soda while baking with my Nana.
if you bake baking soda, you get sodium carbonate, which when in solution makes a stronger base.. its used in making ramen noodles to get them firmer without adding egs
Now. Fell in love with baking soda now!
On a whim, I added some baking soda when trying my hand at pinakbet. Got the onions browning very nicely at the start. Half the vegetable pre-pack is eggplant by volume, but it seems the leftover alkalinity turned that all into a thick paste. Personally, I much prefer that over actual eggplant. Also forgot to add water, but so much was released by the vegetables that it wasn't a problem. Might be buying more eggplant from here on just to make dishes thick and creamy.
I have had no use for baking soda except to put a new box in my fridge every so often for some reason. I now have a couple of new uses, thanks to you all! Definitely going to try them in stir-fried meats and for cooking beans.
As far as pancakes... nah. I started making yeast-leavened pancakes not too long ago and like them infinitely better than baking powder and soda.
can't forget sodium bicarbonate's incredible cleaning abilities too!! i was sceptical for years of "natural" cleaning products but sodium bicarbonate works so well to get off tough sticky things on pots, hobs, or countertops. it works as an amazing non-abrasive non-damaging alternative when cleaning cast iron etc. it makes the sink shiny, it gets the gooey residue from labels off of jars, and it's so cheap!
Thanks, Dan (and crew.) Your videos always keep me interested and learning without taking itself too seriously. As someone with issues with focusing for more than, say, a minute or two, you've got a formula that keeps me on track. Keep up the great work
Dan and Lan are the most watchable for sure, not a pretentious moment in either of their videos. Always was an issue in the "old" days of the PBS ATK and still is with a few of the Next Generation. I can't watch even a couple of minutes with some of them.
We all love Dan but credit to Lan Lam constantly coming through with amazing recipes
I used to weep when trying to cook chickpeas for hummus. I'd cook them for hours and they'd still be hard even though the recipe said cook for 45 min! Then a waiter in a middle eastern restaurant told me the secret. Baking soda changed my life. Its magic is second only to salt. But I didn't know about the meat tenderizing. Must try that. Thanks!
EXCELLENT VIDEO!!!
You forgot using as an abrasive for cleaning pots, and it's good for brushing your teeth, and neutralizing of acids, even as an antacid substitute for Tums
Be careful,using baking soda as an antacid. If you take more than 1 TBSP every 6 hours, you can rapidly OD on sodium. Yes it is something that can land you in the ICU
You forgot clearing drains and smells in the fridge!
@@cboy5ocdilute it with vinegar or you might create a bigger problem.
Helps get rid of gum disease when made into a paste ( from a dental hygienist- old remedy)😊
Love your videos Dan 🥰 I will definitely make better use of baking soda now…when the video illustrated the stir fry all I could think was my 🇵🇪Peruvian “Lomo Saltado” (beef stir fry) have you tried this dish Dan? I think you should ❤️ It is a dish that Chinese immigrants brought to Peru. Thanks for most valuable information!
I use the test kitchens recipe for pancakes , it calls for 4 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of baking soda, they come out perfect every time, i put lemon juice into the milk
Years ago on one of your shows someone showed how dusting the outside of a chicken or turkey would substantially improve outside browning.
I make a cashew chicken recipe from Recipe Tin Eats that “velvets” the chicken in baking soda. I also put 1/2 tsp of baking soda in the boiling water of my classic English Roast Potatoes, following a tip from J Kenji Lopez-Alt. I am renowned in my family for my roast potatoes.
This is a wondrous compendium of benefits from one product! Thanks!💐
I forgot the baking soda in a batch of Toll House cookie bars once. The flavor difference was remarkable, and I’ve never forgotten baking soda in a recipe since then.
It's also a powerful cleaning agent for your kitchen. The versatility is limitless!
Favorite application: when sodium bicarbonate saved my patient!
All of your information recommendations are defiantly going in my recipe folder!! Thank you, Dan!
AND carmelizing onions! HUGE time saver!
Also can help with mild to medium nausea. I had bad sinuses growing upband often had a sour stomach. I tablespoon if baking soda in a couple shots of water and many belches later and I was relieved
Thank you so much for this info. Would love a whole series on baking soda recipes and how it changes the normal recipe
And to think I just had Chinese chicken with broccoli and wondered how they made the chicken breast oh so tender and well now I know!!! Thank you for unlocking the secrets and the power of baking soda…
…wish you’d also covered why it turn biscuits yellow if too much is used…
This was an awesome video! Thank you so much! Keep them up! ❤
Amazing tips for baking and cooking 👍👍. But on the cleaning side soda is great for laundry and dishes too!
I definitely learned a lot in this video, stuff I never knew. Thanks for the info video is saved for future reference.
thank you Dan, you totally answered my question about baking soda and ground beef! And even polenta, wow I never knew! I'm very excited to start using it in many of my dishes! 👍👍👍
I'm old and I did not know much of this. Thanks.
I fell in love with baking soda after watching Gino’s italian escape and learning about the Limonata a Cosce Aperte (legs apart) drink. I drink it all the time and it led me to this video.
Fell in love with Baking Soda when I was first pregnant, suffering with TERRIBLE heartburn. 1/2 tsp mixed with 3-4 oz of ice cold water. Magic. ❤
Excellent!! I've been wanting this information. Great video Dan, Melaney from SoCal
Wow, I never knew. I have 25kg of it in a bucket in the utility room. I use it, with vinegar, as laundry detergent 😊
I add it to sef raising flour with a splash of vinegar when making batter for fish ,or anything else that needs batter. Mix with water to the consistency of thick cream.
I like the scientific explanations so much. Thank you! As an aside; I love the exact measurements used. “smidge” is one of my favorite measurements, right up there with a “schmeer” of a spread. I often go with my mother’s favorites: “Add it until it looks right”…. You may substitute “looks” with smells or tastes as well!
I have countless videos saying it should be rinsed off when velveting beef for beef and broccoli to avoid the meat tasting bitter. Are these videos wrong? Does it depend wholly on how much baking soda is used in the tenderizing process? TIA. Awesome video!!
When I was a kid, around 55 years ago, my mother used baking soda with water and a bit of vinegar as an antacid when we had an upset stomach. Kind of like a homemade Bromo-seltzer.
Mine too, over 70 years ago.
I made the same volcano in grade school. Great video.
I just fell in love with baking soda right now! Thank you Dan!
Dan! Bringing the science! Love it. I have a cooking problem that I hope Baking Soda can solve. I cook the ATC recipe for chili, starting with rehydrating anchos. I've played with many kinds of chilies, but they all have the same problem: TANNINS. After the soak, the liquid could cure leather. Even if I toss the soak liquid, the pureed chilies are rough. The bitterness magically goes away, however, once they are added to meat. I do know that tannins react with proteins, but that's all I could find. That works, but that doesn't seem right. Why should I be compelled to add protein to my chilies to make it palatable? Would Baking Soda neutralize those tannins, so that I can keep all that chili flavor in the soak liquid? Well, maybe, yeah, we'd get salt + water + other stuff, but what kind of salt, and what kind of other stuff? See??? We need MORE CHEMISTRY!!! And probably a visit from the Baking Soda Caped Crusader.
Very interesting! I wish i had this information decades ago when i was in culinary school struggling to write a 6 page paper on baking soda
I also use baking soda to activate super glue! Some materials don't like to adhere with super glue, I add just a bit of baking soda!
Wait... just dry? Do you run it on the surface?? I've never heard of this!
I fell in love with sodium bicarbonate, well, TODAY! After I watched you Dan. Great information!
Many, many years ago, our cook taught me to add baking soda to the water when I cook beans for bean soup. I add about a tablespoon to the pot containing the beans, bring it to a boil and pour it off, washing the beans under cold running water, then doing it all again. Three or four times. At the last rinse, I add cold water to the pot and pour it off, also pouring off the husks of the larger beans. Then I fill the pan with water and whatever else I'm adding to make the final bean soup. Nyda called that "de-gassing the beans" and I can attest, it really does. I've made my bean soup this way for forty years. The only other person I've ever run into who uses baking soda when making bean soup is a cousin who soaks her beans overnight in a pot of water with baking soda.
Very good, valuable, and usable tutorial on Baking Soda with Baking Powder tossed in. Thank you.
Just used this tip on some sauteed onions. Works great!!
I LOVE bicarbonate of soda for miriad reasons. However, my very favourite thing about it is that when combined in a mix 1 teaspoon bicarb to 2 teaspoons cream of tartar to a cup of plain flour, it makes the BEST raising agent.
Regular baking powder contains bicarb soda and sometimes also cream of tartar, but usually it also contains a type of phosphate acid which doesn't commence the raising effect until heat is applied to the mix. However, while that's handy, it is the phosphate that leaves a metalic taste on the tongue, which the home made mix of bicarb and cream of tartar doesn't.
We are in Victoria, Australia and we always bought locally produced flour from the McAlpin's Company. They produced a Cream of Tartar SR Flour up until the late 1980's but the company was sold to Nabisco and the McAlpins brand disappeared from the shelves along with their Cream of Tartar SR flour. I had always used it to make scones, or what Americans call "biscuits" (we Aussies call "cookies" biscuits - weird huh!). Anyway I always disliked ANY scones made with regular baking powder because of that horrible tongue-gripping metalic sensation and aftertaste.
For anyone who notices this too, try the bicarb/cream of tartar mix, but be aware you cannot leave your mix sit for too long before baking as the raising reaction will be done and dusted before you get it into the oven because it commences as soon as the acid and alkaline are moistened.
Thanks. This is interesting. It makes sense that you'd have combine the acid and the base at the last minute.
Love this tip! But wondering why both you and Lam have raved about baking soda, but when Erin shared her red beans and rice recipe, there was NO MENTION of baking soda when she talked about brining the beans to make them creamy? Is it maybe because that recipe was shared years ago (it’s even printed in the cookbook), and y’all only discovered the wonders of tenderizing with baking soda more recently? Ah well, I’m definitely using baking soda in my beans!
Great episode, one of the best What's Eating Dan episodes in a looooooooong time. Interesting and lot's of information delivered, and it was useful information for us home cooks.