It comes in handy for psyching out opposing football teams, but other than that, it's not something I give much thought to.
That is, until it comes to cooking. You know, for years I just thought that people who wrote cookbooks were either crazy or overly optimistic in terms of the suggested cooking times. "Bake for 20-25 minutes" Ha! If it says that, I generally check it at 40 minutes and often it takes an hour to cook fully.
It didn't really occur to me that this might have something to do with the altitude. I mean, if your're baking at 350 degrees, it ought to work the same way, right? The oven isn't any cooler than it would be at sea level, but for some reason it doesn't work that way.
For the non-scientifically inclined out there - there's less air pressure at higher altitudes, so water (and everything else) boils at a lower temperature - which wreaks havoc on cooking instructions that were written for people living at sea level.
I guess baking is a complicated process and the boiling point of water must figure into the equation somehow.
So, last week the big health headline in the news was the new FDA guidelines about acrylamides. In case you don't subscribe to "news for the paranoid" acrylamides are a chemical substance that is formed when high starch foods are cooked at high temperatures. The browner and crispier it gets, the more acrylamides it contains.
Anyhow, acrylamides have been shown to be carcinogenic so the FDA is now recommending that people try to reduce their exposure.
Mostly they occur in processed foods like french fries and other high carbohydrate snack foods that are fried or cooked at high temperatures, but they also show up in coffee & nuts (formed when the beans/nuts are roasted) and any carbohydrate rich food that is baked, broiled or fried.
So it got me to thinking that I do have a tendency to fry things more than is probably healthy. I don't mean deep fat frying or anything... just stovetop cooking, but still... In fact, one of my favorite breakfasts is fried eggs with home fried potatoes.
So I started thinking that perhaps I should try boiling the potatoes instead. And even though eggs are not a food that forms acrylamides, it's still probably healthier to boil them than it is to fry them.
Thus began my quest to see if I could create a soft boiled egg. When I lived in Norway people ate soft boiled eggs all the time... they even had these cute little egg cups and you'd just peel the top of the egg and then scoop it out with a spoon... yum!
Anyhow, the standard rule that it says in cookbooks is that a soft boiled egg should take 3 minutes. Figuring this would never work here in Denver, I started at 6.
For the sake of consistency, I took the eggs directly from the fridge and dropped them into the boiling water (with a little pin hole poked on each end to keep it from splitting.)
At six minutes the eggs were decidedly runny. The yokes were completely liquid and the whites were solid on the outside but runny closer to the middle.
I kept upping the time and finally this morning I believe I hit upon the magic number! Here's my 8.5 minute egg! Woo Hoo!
So I'm curious... how long does it take things to cook where you live?
We live at about 800' above sea level and a large hard boiled egg takes about 8-9 minutes to cook. That leaves nothing soft at all. I have read the news for the paranoid about salmonellae and don't eat soft eggs anymore (which is a bummer.)
ReplyDeleteAlso, growing up, I remember that most things, especially baked things, had high altitude directions. I haven't noticed those for a while. I don't know if that is because I'm not looking or they are not included any more. Do you see instructions for high altitude cooking these days?
Wow... that's quick for a fully hard boiled egg! It takes about 30 minutes here. It's funny, for a while I was terribly paranoid about eating eggs with soft yokes because of Salmonella, but the truth is I just hate them with the yokes cooked solid, so I guess I'm sorta living on the edge!
DeleteI don't know if things come with high altitude instructions these days - I haven't bought food that had instructions for a very long time. I'm pretty much a cook from scratch kind of a girl, and I don't think the Joy of Cooking has high altitude instructions. They do sell something called high altitude flour in the grocery stores here, but it's only white flour which I never use, so I've never tried it. I do wonder how it's different from regular flour though.
I love the cats sleeping in the baking dishes - adorable! :)
ReplyDeleteI see high altitude notes in recipes sometimes, but I never pay attention to them because I live pretty much at sea level. My only exposure to mountain cooking was on camping trips as a kid (when I wasn't particularly attentive to cooking times) and we did a lot of burning things over the fire rather than boiling or baking.
Ha! My mother always tried to compensate for the slowness of cooking times by upping the temperature. For the record, this is a very bad strategy. Pretty much everything my mother ever baked was burnt on the outside and raw on the inside! Somehow burnt food cooked over an open fire tastes better than burnt food that comes out of the oven though!
DeleteI'll have to keep my eyes out for high altitude instructions on recipes. I think they mostly show up for baked things, and I don't really bake that much, but maybe I just haven't been paying attention.
Not sure where I live in relation to sea level but I must be pretty close to it? Cookbook cooking times are pretty accurate for me, give a couple of minutes here and there. I know that cake mixes come with high altitude baking instructions but I've never had to use them.
ReplyDeleteWe pretty much live on boiled potatoes. Quick, healthy, and cheap. The golden trinity of cooking for me.
I do love me a good boiled spud. The year I lived in Norway we had them for dinner every single night. In Norway it's not dinner without boiled potatoes!
DeleteI live at 64 feet above sea level so I never really thought about it. Definitely would be a problem when it comes to developing recipes. I wonder if those who create recipes at high altitude have to shift them for those who live lower down.
ReplyDeletelove the pics btw.
Thanks Mira, glad you liked the pics. You know, there are a number of Colorado specific cookbooks that I've heard about, but I've never really checked them out. I have a few old standards that I love, but if I'm looking for a new recipe I generally head to the internet. Because of my food allergies I have to modify pretty much every recipe so I sorta consider them hand-wavey guidelines rather than instructions in the strict sense. :-)
DeleteI also love the cats sleeping in baking dishes, especially that lovely ginger one :)
ReplyDeleteBeing on the coast, I live very close to sea level, but still struggle to cook the perfect soft-boiled egg. I prefer poaching them now, because you can see how cooked they are.
Ooooo, I've never tried poaching. Somehow the idea of it sorta sounds like it would be really hard. How do you hold the thing together and keep it from turning into egg drop soup?
DeleteI think you just don't scramble it first and you don't mix it around. I'm sure google knows the answer.
DeleteNo, you certainly don't scramble it first! It is kinda hard, especially as it's easy to break the yolk by mistake. Some people put a little vinegar in the water as it's supposed to keep the white together, but the best way is to use very fresh eggs, as they hold together better. If it's really fresh, the white hardly spreads out in the water at all. With older eggs, you do get water in amongst the cooked white, but you take the egg out with a slotted spoon and the water mostly drips off. It will always be wet, though, and if you put it on your toast, you will get soggy toast. This is why I mostly do boiled eggs, even though I'm not very good at getting them just right.
DeleteSee what I mean... it sounds difficult! I imagine you have to keep the water just barely simmering and not at a full boil?
DeleteWell anyway, I think I'll stick with soft boiled for the moment!
So my reaction to the acrylamides scare is You'll take away roasting and stir frying over my dead body. Seriously, something has to kill me and if it's fried bits of carbs instead of Alzheimer's, then I'm okay with that. I had enough boiled potatoes in Norway to last me the rest of my like (cmon Norwegians, baking or frying them is solo much tastier).
ReplyDeleteHa! I like your attitude, and I totally know what you mean about Norway - boiled potatoes for dinner EVERY. SINGLE. DAY! I did develop quite a soft spot in my heart for them though... especially with those round fish balls... what were those called? Every recipe I've ever found here that claims to be for Norwegian fish balls or fish cakes calls for ground fish, and the things I remember were white and had a completely even texture, almost like firm tofu or something. Anyhow, I totally LOVED them with lots of white sauce, potatoes and "gulrot"... yum!
DeleteI find more of an issue going from an electric oven to a gas oven. I feel like I have to put everything on the highest rack, so it doesn't burn. But doing this makes things take waaaay longer. I love the gas stove, but hate the gas oven.
ReplyDeleteAs for the acrylamides, eff 'em. There is very little I enjoy eating in life...but one of those things is BURNT carbs. I won't even eat potatoes if they aren't almost charred. Maybe the organics I eat will even out the burnt factor. Let's hope because I'm sure as hell not giving that up!
Ha! I know what you mean... I LOVES me some nice crunchy potatoes. Sigh.
DeleteI've never actually cooked in a gas oven, but that's interesting that it's so different from an electric one. I wonder if they make combo ranges with an electric oven and gas stove.
I was going to say something about the difference between ovens, too, but I'm really puzzled by your comment, Megyn. I used to have an electric oven with a fan, and that was pretty even temperature throughout. The gas oven I have now (no fan) has different temperatures on different shelves, which I actually quite like, as I can roast my potatoes at a higher temperature (gotta love those acrylamides!) than the meat, all in the same oven. The thing is, the hottest shelf is at the top (even though the gas burner is at the bottom).
DeleteAnother difference is that it takes a lot longer to get up to temperature than the electric one did - about 15-20 min. Just wondering, Megyn, are you sure yours is fully hot before you put things in? While mine's still heating up, the flame at the bottom is huge and that will burn anything on a lower shelf. Once it's up to temperature, the flame calms down a bit and then the hottest shelf is the top one. Maybe your thermostat's not working and the flame never calms down.
And yes, there are combo ranges with electric ovens and gas stoves, at least here in the UK. They are fitted in the kind of kitchens that get replaced every five years because the colour's out of fashion.
Haha! We have one to those gas hob/electric oven combos...installed by previous owners of house, who left us the curtains because "they've been up for a couple of years, and are a bit old".
DeleteGuess what we have still hanging, three and a half years later?!
I still have the curtains that were here when I bought my house 17 years ago! It would never even occur to me to replace them... though I did actually wash them a few years back! :-)
DeleteI'm not sure of the exact altitude of my house, but given that the highest point in Suffolk is apparently 128m/420ft, it is something less than that! Hence, cooking instructions generally work ok for me. (Or at least, failure is not due to altitude!).
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in Mongolia, which is on a high plateau, I remember water for the morning tea taking AGES to boil- we'd climbed a hill/mountain, and were thus at even higher altitude.
I have plenty of childhood camping memories of waiting a seeming eternity for water to boil. But now that I think about it... it doesn't really make sense. I mean if water boils at a lower temperature at high altitudes, wouldn't it take less time to reach boiling point? Hmmm... I wonder if the cooking apparatus was to blame and not the altitude.
DeleteThat was the other thing I was going to tell you about! A couple of years ago, I thought it would be cool to climb up a nearby mountain by the light of the full moon then drink tea and eat bacon sandwiches while watching the sun rise. I even persuaded my husband to join me... in December (well you'd have to get up ridiculously early to do it any other time of year). What I'd failed to account for was the freezing wind. We just could not get that kettle to boil! Even the bacon took ages to cook. Huddling round a small camp stove in the freezing wind NOT drinking tea or eating bacon sarnies was not quite as romantic as it had been in my imagination!
DeleteSo yes, at the top of mountains, there are other factors that affect cooking times.
Yes... freezing one's ass off does tend to put a bit of a damper on romance, doesn't it? :-)
DeleteMan, I do not like hearing scientific evidence that crispy outsides are not good for me. They are the best part!
ReplyDeleteI do like the idea of a soft boiled egg though. When we get back, I'll give it a go and we can compare the times.
Or you could boil an egg in Peru! :-)
DeleteI thought it was only the blackening that was bad. All crispiness being bad is sad news indeed. I do prefer my carbs to be cooked. Highly prefer it.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question, I live near sea level (hmm, let me look that up--looks like about 500 feet above sea level) and things take too long to cook, of course! I don't notice cooking times being off except things often take longer to cook in my probably not fully preheated gas oven.
You can probably search for "high-altitude [whatever kind of dish] recipe" to get a more appropriate estimate on cooking times for whatever you're making.
I love the fact that you consider 500 ft to be near sea level! You have such a different sense of scale than we do here on our little island (Great Britain). I live in the mountains... at 680 ft. I used to live near sea level, at about 60 ft. I cannot even imagine living a mile up.
DeleteAdmittedly, I live only 12 miles from the coast, so there's a limit to how high we could be, but it's high enough to have a noticeable difference on things like when the spring flowers open - we can see spring arrive at the coast before it gets here. I'm not sure it's enough to have a noticeable effect on cooking times, though.
Huh. I live over 200 miles from the coast, so I don't see the differences!
DeleteHa! You're all lowlanders in my book! Actually, I don't really think of anything below 10,000 feet as being "high altitude" but perhaps I should adjust my thinking a bit!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAfter visiting this blog post three times and commenting twice, I finally got around to looking at the FDA website to see what this acrylamide business is all about. Specifically, I was looking for any new scientific evidence, because we've heard nothing on this side of the pond. And... there's none. Scientifically, acrylamide is still "Probably carcinogenic" - nothing has changed recently. They don't even know for sure that it increases the risk of cancer in humans, never mind by how much.
ReplyDeleteLots of things I eat increase the risk of cancer (and other things), notably alcohol. I bear this in mind and moderate my intake (a bit) but I don't panic and stop eating them altogether. If we avoided all risk we'd never do anything!
Oh, so true. Life is the leading cause of death, as CatMan likes to say!
DeleteI live at sea level - on an island - that will likely be swamped by rising sea levels in the not-too-distant future.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea how long it takes to boil an egg as I cook on a woodstove and my brother gave me a gizmo that you drop in the water, along with the egg, and it changes colour as the egg cooks, so you can have it soft, medium or hard.
Wow! That sounds like a nifty gizmo!
DeleteI used to slightly/greatly overcook everything because I was always distracted doing other things while food was on/in the stove. Now that I cook more, I at least stay in the kitchen and pay attention to the food! But I got so accustomed to dry and crunchy food that I still prefer it. You may as well feed me cat kibble. Any medical advice that warns against coffee is suspect in my books.
ReplyDeleteHa! Well, I think you'd enjoy the batch of shortbread cookies that I just spent 15 minutes scraping the brown off the bottoms of! I don't much like the brown stuff, at least on cookies! :-)
DeleteI use the method where you put the eggs in water and bring it to a boil, then take it off the burner and cover then let sit for ten minutes. In our house, if it doesn't fully cook, you just feed it to the dog!
ReplyDeleteInteresting... does that make a hard or soft boiled egg at your altitude? You're in upstate NY, yes?
DeleteWildly entertaining as always. We love eggs, and eat them in every imaginable way, at every possible chance. But I have to say, we've never had a softboiled egg, and I'd like to give it a try. Runny yolks are actually incredibly healthy and if you buy local/organic, I'm not at all worried about the need for cooking to overwhelm bacteria.
ReplyDeleteHa! I mentioned something about soft boiled eggs at Thanksgiving and my dad and step-mom went apoplectic. They started quoting statistics about how nearly one third of all eggs in this country are contaminated with salmonella. I dunno... I've been eating eggs with runny yokes my entire life and have never gotten sick. Here's hoping the trend continues! :-)
DeleteOh how I wish you had email subscriptions, I wouldn't fall so far behind in your posts.
ReplyDeleteI still remember having to learn how to cook all over again when I moved to Albuquerque. My youngest turned 4 the end of that month and I wanted to bake him a cake as normal. It took me until the third box mix to read the fine print about the altitude. Funny how that works.I'm back at sea level where I know how to cook again. :-)
So....an 8.5 minute egg? I don't know if I would have the patience for that.
OK... I didn't realize email subscriptions was an option in Blogger - but I did some hunting and voila! Your wish is my command! :-)
DeleteFortunately Denver is the only place I've ever really lived - well, I did live in both Norway and Upstate NY when I was in school, but I didn't do much cooking there. I think I'd probably burn everything if I moved to sea level!
And I don't really have any patience at all... but I've stuck a bargain with myself. Instead of tapping my foot waiting for it to be done, I give myself those minutes to clean the kitchen!