Easy Bake Oven, Mexican Coke, and Cury

I had these subjects on my show during the first week of school, and this was a particularly crazy day, as I was running back and forth between school events, and I even got to go to the successful attempt at a world record dodge ball game!  It was awesome but a few months later I found that the 2012 Guiness book of world records still had the University of Alberta's record and not UCI's which was sad.  Any way on with the topics of the show.

The Easy-Bake Oven gets a makeover

Introducing the kitchen of the future, for kids. The Easy-Bake Oven, the original cooking coach, has gotten a 21st century facelift. The new model is sleek, compact, purple and eco-friendly. Remember that hot yellow bulb responsible for making those brownies rock hard? It's no more. The new internal heating mechanism works more like an actual oven than a lamp. Snazzier recipes for "checkerboard" cakes and whoopie pies, as well as larger portion sizes, are also part of the update on the classic.

The kids' kitchenette, which first debuted in 1963, has surfed the wave of adult kitchen trends through the decades. It turned avocado green in the' 70s and microwave-friendly in the '80s. More recently it weathered a recall after kids complained of burns and pinched fingers.

This new proto-type, two years in the making, offers a kindler, gentler approach to cooking. While it can heat up to 375 degrees, the outside of the oven stays warm to the touch, and the light-bulb free design means an even temperature internally.

Technologically, it's a testament to today's toy innovation. Socially, it's still behind the times. Boys cook now too. If the design was a little less Miley Cyrus and little more gender neutral, it'd really be up to date. Maybe next year.

Taste Test: Is Mexican Coke Better?

If there's one thing this country is really great at, it's coming up with clever new ways to take what is a completely normal product, apply a bit of subtle psychological manipulation, convince people that it's something special, and sell it at a jacked up price.

I'm talking here about Mexican Coke, and I do so not without a hint of irony, because I myself am a firm believer in its superiority over regular old American Coke. I mean, how could it not be better? Real sugar instead of corn syrup. Glass bottle instead of aluminum or plastic. The cachet of seeing the words refresco and no retornableprinted instead of plain old pedestrian "refreshing."

But here's the thing. More than once in the past, I've discovered that the brain has a powerful effect on the taste buds. Free-range eggs taste better? Nope. Darker colored eggs taste better. Is New York pizza better when made with New York tap water? Nope. At least my panel of experts couldn't tell the difference. I've done tests where I've fed an entire room full of people two batches of identical carrots, labeling one as organic and the other as conventional. Unsurprisingly, they unanimously pick the carrots labeled organic as superior in flavor every single time, even when they are two halves of the same carrot.

Is it possible, however unlikely, that somehow we—the cult of Mexican Coke lovers—are all being hoodwinked? Does Mexican Coke really taste better? This week, we're gonna find out.

Behind The Bottle

First off, before we even get to the tasting, let's examine the differences between regular old American Coke and Mexican Coke.

• Mexican Coke contains: Carbonated water,sugar, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffeine.
• American Coke contains: Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffeine.

The Tasting

For the purposes of my taste test there were a couple of criteria I had to set up first:

• Mexican Coke would come in bottles, American coke would come in cans.Of the packaging widely available in America (plastic or aluminum), aluminum is less reactive, less porous, more opaque, has a longer shelf life, and is thus more likely to give me a product that simply tastes more like it should.
• All Coke must be served ice cold. Bottles and cans would be stored in the fridge then placed in an ice water bath for at least 1 hour before tasting.
• All Coke must be as fresh as possible. According to Annette, canned Coke and Mexican glass-bottled coke both have a shelf life of 9 months (plastic bottle coke, on the other hand, starts losing bubbles after a mere 10 weeks). I managed to find cases of Mexican Coke and American Coke with expiration dates within a week of each other next April.

Here's what I tested in my first round. All tests were carried out completely blind. Tasters were brought one at a time to taste and did not discuss their answers with either myself nor any of the other tasters until all responses were completely collected. For each taster, tests were administered in a completely random order (both in terms of test order and sample order), and fresh bottles and cans were opened for each taster. In cases where liquid had to be poured from one vessel to another, the utmost care was taken to ensure a minimal loss of carbonation. Tasters were asked to pick their favorite from within each sample set of two.

The Tasters and the Feelers

The spread of results I got from this initial testing was surprising to say the least, and answered one thing for sure: There is a perceivable difference in the flavor between Mexican and American Coke, despite the best efforts of the Coca-Cola company to convince us otherwise.

So that settles it. America reigns supreme in the Coke flavor wars, right? Not so fast. Looking closer, we see something even more interesting: Half of the tasters seemed to have no real preference between American and Mexican Coke, while the other half of the tasters unanimously chose American Coke as their favorite for nearly every test, regardless of the vessel it was served in. We'll call these folks the Tasters—the ones who let their tongues and noses do all the deciding.

The Tasters pick out American Coke as superior to Mexican Coke a full 7 times out of 8.

When you take the Tasters out of the pool in order to determine what the other half are basing their tasting decision on, everything becomes clear: the other half of the tasters unanimously picked Coke served out of a glass bottle as their favorite for nearly each and every test, regardless of whether the liquid in there was Mexican or American Coke. We'll call these folks the Feelers—the ones who care more about the tactile sense of the bottle against their lips or in their hands than the minor differences in flavor or aroma that the product inside may have.

So just to sum up here:

• People prefer American Coke to Mexican Coke from a pure flavor and aroma standpoint.
• People prefer glass bottles to aluminum cans from a purely tactile standpoint.

Japanese style beef curry

Makes about 6 to 8 servings.

    * 450-500g / about 1 lb stewing beef cubes (chuck works well; it should be a cut with a bit of fat in it and not too sinewy)

    * 6 large onions, or about 6 cups sliced

    * 3 cloves garlic

    * An adult thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger

    * 2 cups of crushed tomatoes (1 small can, or 400g)

    * 1 beef or vegetable stock cube (I prefer Knorr)

    * 1 bay leaf

    * 1 star anise

    * 2-3 Tbs. garam masala (see notes)

    * 3-4 large carrots

    * 1 medium eating-type apple

    * 3-4 medium potatoes

    * Oil or butter

    * Optional: 1 cup frozen green peas

    * Salt and pepper

For the curry roux:

    * 3 Tbs. butter, ghee, clarified butter or oil, or a mixture

    * 4 Tbs. white flour

    * 1 1/2 to 2 Tbs. curry powder, or more to taste (see notes)

To serve with:

    * Plain white steamed Japanese rice, or plain brown rice

    * Garnishes: fukijin zuke, rakkyou

Special equipment recommended: a heavy-bottomed enamelled cast iron pot (Le Creuset etc.) (but any decently heavy pot will do. A thin walled pot leads to burned curry. Burned curry ranks near the top of things that are Not Nice.)

If the meat is in one big chunk, cut into cubes about 2 cm / 1 inch square. Pat dry with paper towels, and brown in a little oil on all sides in a frying pan. Set aside.

Slice the onions thinly. Grate the ginger and either grate or finely chop the garlic. (A microplane is great for this task, if you have one.) Peel and cut the carrots into chunks. Don't peel the potatoes yet: this will come later.

onionsaute2.thumbnail.jpgHeat your heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat, and heat up some butter, ghee or oil. (Butter or ghee will add some richness but oil is fine - you will barely notice the subtle difference since the curry will overwhelm it.) Add the onions and a pinch of salt, and lower the heat to medium-low. Now comes a period of long, slow cooking of the onions that can take up to an hour or so (the salt helps it along as it extracts the moisture in the onions). At the end you want to end up with a much reduced mass of onion that is a light caramel brown in color, as in the photo.

currystewing1.thumbnail.jpgOnce the onions have reached this stage, add the ginger and garlic and cook a few more minutes. Add the canned tomato and 6 cups of water, the browned beef, the stock cube, the bay leaf and the star anise. (If you are particular you can put these in a bit of cheese cloth or a tea ball for easy extraction later.)

Peel and grate the apple and stir in. (This is optional, but adds to the depth of flavor.)

Bring up to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for at least 1 hour, or more if your meat is a bit tough.

About 30 minutes into the cooking process, dry-roast about a tablespoon of garam masala powder in a small frying pan until it starts to get very fragant, and add to the stew pot. Add the carrots around then too.

curryroux1.thumbnail.jpgIn the meantime, make the curry roux. In a small frying pan, melt the butter or ghee or clarified butter (note that ghee is basically clarified butter) and heat until any foaming subsides.

curryroux2.thumbnail.jpgAdd the flour, and cook the mixture over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until it becomes a light brown in color. (See these very detailed instructions for roux if you aren't sure.)

Take the pan off the heat, and add the curry powder (the more the hotter.) Stir until the whole kitchen and beyond smells like curry. Set aside.

When the meat is about as tender as you want, peel the potatoes, cut them into chunks and add to the curry. Continue simmering until the potatoes are tender.

Take the pot off the heat and fish out the bay leaf and star anise. Stir in the roux carefully until it's completely melted into the stew and the liquid is thick and very brown. Return to the heat and simmer a few more minutes.

At this stage you can dry roast another tablespoonful or so of garam masala and add it to the curry.

At the last minute, add the optional frozen green peas, and stir - they should cook almost instantaneously. Serve immediately.