Learn One Thing A Day

Today I want to discuss a tip that can be very useful in the kitchen. How can you test if an egg is fresh or, at least, still eatable? There are some ways to check it but the one I like the most is the sinking test. Take a transparent bowl and fill it with some cold water. It can be also a big glass, but it's important that you can see through it. Put your egg *gently* in the water. Now, three things can happen: A) if the egg sinks to the bottom, it's fresh. Very fresh! B) if the egg sinks but stands on its point, it is about 7 days old and it's still eatable. C) if the egg floats to the top, guess what?, you have to throw it away. To make everything clearer I made I nice drawing :) (source: myself ) This test works because the egg shells are porous and over time the liquid inside slowly evaporates ( being replaced by the air) making the egg buoyant. As I told you, this is not the only way to test egg freshness, but it's the one I like the most. ...

Did you know that methane and propane are actually odorless gases?! If this is the case, what is that awful odor of rotten eggs you smell in your kitchen if you accidentally leave the gas open? It is an odorant (usually tetrahydrothiophene) having the only purpose to make detectable the flammable gases it is mixed with, whenever a leak occurs! The same trick applies for natural gas that is mostly methane or  GPL (or LPG or liquified petroleoum gas) that is mostly propane or butane. (image source ) References http://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/eh/chemfs/fs/Methane.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_petroleum_gas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrothiophene