How Many Burners Does a Man Need?

This weekend I realized why people have those fancy
six-burner stoves—to impress their neighbors. But seriously, folks, this Sunday morning was the first time I can remember that I did so much cooking at the same time
that I ran out of burners. Other people go to church–I go into the kitchen. My four-unit Jenn-Air just wasn’t enough. I had a
tagine going, a Bolognese simmering, and a pot of black beans humming along,
and I wanted to start my lentil-bulgur soup. That dish needs two burners to get
going—one for the lentils proper and one for the base of the soup, and I was
one burner short.

What did I do? I took the black beans off the heat and let
them sit, and went on to make the soup. That was an easy decision, because most
of the cooking that’s taking place with those black beans is really just
driving water into the center of each bean (I never soak the beans first) and
if the pot just sits there, the same thing keeps happening, only more slowly.
Problem solved.

That little problem was nothing compared to what happened
the day before. On Saturday—a day for me that involved getting up at 5:45 a.m. to take
care of the weekly food shop, then doing some business in Manhattan in the
morning before coming home to take the kids to swimming lessons in local high
school, whose pool is in a heated basement that I swear must have been an
inspiration for Dante.

No, my real problem started when I set out to make a simple
dinner of coriander-and-cumin crusted pork chops, green beans, and my signature
Thanksgiving (give thanks to Sam Sifton) corn bread. It was the cornbread that
gave me conniptions.

Now, the thing about this cornbread is that is super easy,
and super delicious—provided you get a few basic things right, such as the
leavening. One time, in Pennsylvania with my inlaws, I completely forgot to put
in the leavening, and the bread came out flat and heavy. It was like Southern
matzo—yuch, as they might say.

Another time, Santa Maria made the cornbread, and she did it
in a rush and she substituted baking soda for baking powder. It looked right that
time, but tasted very strange—double yuck, as it were as baking soda is much
stronger, and much more alkaline than baking powder. It had a bitter aftertaste
that had us scratching our heads, until Santa Maria realized the error of her ways.

On Saturday, when I was trying to make the cornbread, I
didn’t have enough baking powder. I was one tablespoon short, but Santa Maria
came to the rescue. Somehow, she knew how to substitute one for the other. Here’s
how she did it:

You’ll find various ratios on-line, but the one that worked best for us is mixing half baking soda and half cream of tartar.  For example, if you need to make one
Tablespoon of baking powder, mix 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda with 1 ½ teaspoons
cream of tartar.

And now that I’ve had a chance to calm down, and consult a
few other resources, I’ve since learned that baking powder is basically baking
soda (an alkali) combined with an acid (typically cream of tartar), with a
stabilizer and a moisture-absorber, such as cornstarch.

I also learned that many people combine the baking soda with
the cream of tartar at a 1-to-2 ratio, and not a 1-to-1 ratio. At this moment, I can’t find a reputable source online to tell you what is correct, but I
promise to look. Just know this—the way we did it Saturday worked out just
fine.

So, more on the baking powder/baking soda substitution
shortly, along with details on where cream of tartar actually comes from. I was
surprised to learn. Do you know?