Eggs are a very versatile ingredient to cook with. From sweet to savory, the list of dishes you can make with eggs to add eggs to is endless. But what is the second-most versatile kitchen ingredient?
Baking Soda or Cooking Soda.
Isn’t baking soda what restaurants use to make you feel all bloated and uneasy and eat less food as a result (order more, eat less)?
Nope, that is not what restaurants do. The bloating you feel after eating out is a result of eating too much food, so maybe observe the portions on your plate.
The two most common applications of baking soda, and the second one might surprise you, are:
- To make cakes or as an additive to anything that requires bubbles or fluffiness (like instant idli or dhokla)
- As a reliever of symptoms of acid reflux
Chemically, baking soda is sodium bicarbonate and it is alkaline in nature. If you remember the chemistry you learned in school, you can recall that alkalis neutralize acids to produce a salt molecule and water. The eno sachet you tear open and add to a glass of water is baking soda that fizzes up immediately and then neutralizes the acids causing you discomfort when you get ‘acidity’.
If you want to cook chana or rajma without waiting for the next ice age, what do you do to speed up the process? Add a tiny pinch of baking soda. This baking soda would break down the pectin in plant cell walls, thereby reducing the cooking time by about half.
Do you want to caramelize onions but don’t have the luxury of spending the very long time required to do it? Add a pinch of baking soda to the pan and see the caramelization happen so quickly, it will blow your mind.
Do you want your pakoras to be light and fluffy? Add a pinch of baking soda to the batter just before frying.
Do you want to cook your meat quickly? Add a pinch of baking soda.
Do you want to brown your butter quickly and efficiently? Add a pinch of baking soda and accelerate the process immediately.
Have a smelly microwave oven with stubborn food stains? Mix vinegar and baking soda, microwave the mix for a few seconds, and then wipe it clean. You will see a shiny, new surface before you.
Does your fridge smell bad? Stash a container of baking soda in the fridge and see how it removes all the odors.
Now, wouldn’t you call such a versatile ingredient a real superhero?
There is no ingredient more unfairly maligned, unjustly slandered, inappropriately blamed, falsely defamed, and needlessly castigated as baking soda. The degree of character assassination is so high that many Indians will happily use what is otherwise the single most versatile ingredient in the kitchen only if it’s not directly called Baking Soda. Call it Eno or fruit salt and it is widely used as an antacid as well as a leavening agent (for cakes, appams, dhoklas, and such).
Baking soda’s bad name comes from how low-cost restaurants sometimes overuse it to save cooking fuel. Baking soda breaks pectin in plant cell walls and thus saves restaurants lots of money and time in energy costs. People overeat this food, as they usually do in restaurants, and blame the use of baking soda.
If you overconsume baking soda, which is hard because it tastes metallic and bitter, it will react with stomach acids and produce carbon dioxide that will cause discomfort. But most culinary uses require a very tiny amount of baking soda. If you still believe it’s some kind of poison, consider its chemistry – one part sodium, which is essential for our bodies (we get most of our sodium from salt, but baking soda will also taste salty to our tongues because of the sodium) and one part bicarbonate. The pancreas in our body naturally produces bicarbonates to bring down the acid levels of the food that is passing from your stomach, which is super acidic, to the intestine. If the pancreas didn’t do this, the intestinal lining would get dissolved if that strong acid made it downwards! If your pancreas thinks bicarbonates are safe for you, it’s ok for you to consume a tiny bit!
