Part 12 (1/2)

SALT: I pity those who lack it. Cooking salt is sodium chloride, which, in solid form, is composed of a network in which chloride ions and sodium ions alternate. Chemists also call salts those substances obtained by the reaction of an acid and a base (cooking salt can be obtained by the reaction of hydrochloric acid and soda).

SALTPETER : Pota.s.sium nitrate. This is an explosive, but it is very useful in the salting process.

SAUERKRAUT: A food obtained by fermenting cabbage in a brine (which see). Have you ever tried stuffed pheasant on a bed of fresh sauerkraut?

SKIMMING: The process by which a sauce is refined.

SOLID: A cl.u.s.ter of molecules very close to one another and immobilized by intermolecular forces.

SOLVENT: A liquid used to dissolve molecules. Lipids (which see) are good solvents of odorant molecules, as are terpenes (which see). Water is the main solvent of foods.

SOUFFLe: Has only one fault: it collapses.

STARCH: Granules made of two kinds of molecules, amylose and amylopectin (see both). Starch granules make gels when water diffuses into them.

STOCK: A concentration of flavors and gelatin that is obtained by browning fish or meat in a very hot oven and then cooking it for a long time in a large quant.i.ty of water in the presence of carrots, onions, and ...

SUCROSE: This is table sugar, a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose residues. SUGAR: This is the crystallized form of the sucrose molecule. Sugar deposited on the surface of fruit or meat extracts the water from it by the phenomenon of osmosis. ”Sugar” is also synonymous with ”glucide.”

SURFACTANT: A molecule composed of one part that dissolves easily in water and one part that is happier in fatty substances like oil. This kind of molecule can stabilize small oil droplets in water by coating the surface of these droplets, with the hydrophobic tail in the oil and the hydrophilic head in the water. Conversely, surfactants, also called surface-active molecules, can disperse drops of water in oil by arranging themselves with their heads in the water droplets and their tails in the continuous phase of oil.

SWEETENER: A compound that tastes like and is used as a subst.i.tute for sugar.

T.

TANNIN: Tannin's astringency is due to its property of binding itself to the lubricating proteins in the saliva and blocking their functions. These molecules are phenolics.