SMORGASBORD: Frontier food . . . Kitchen geeks . . . Better with Butter

Frontier food

Ree Drummond, Oklahoma’s Pioneer Woman, is back with another book of ranch cooking.

“The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier” (William Morrow, $29.99) follows the familiar format of her previous books and her blog: step-by-step photos and instructions for every recipe, with stories and scenes from the ranch thrown in.

She has a big brood to feed — four kids and her rancher husband, aka Marlboro Man — so her recipes tend toward comfort food that’s filling and easy to make.

Her Fancy Mac and Cheese contains five kinds of cheese, mushrooms and bacon. And her Crash Hot Potatoes have been making the rounds on Pinterest, and for good reason. They’re easy and fun to make. The secret: Leave them in the oven until they’re browned and crisp.

Kitchen geeks

In “The Kitchen as Laboratory: Reflections on the Science of Food and Cooking” (Columbia, $29.95), editors Cesar Vega, Job Ubbink and Erik van der Linden have a simple goal: Explain why food behaves the way it does when prepared.

For example:

— Why doesn’t the ice cream in a baked Alaska melt in the oven? It’s all about heat transference: The meringue coating the outside is an inefficient conductor of heat and so is the cake base. Together, they insulate enough so the ice cream melts only slightly (just 6 percent!), despite the high temperature.

— Adding a little baking soda will brown onions faster. The baking soda, a weak base, makes the onions less acidic, which speeds browning, called the Maillard reaction. Just a pinch, though. Too much and the onions become wet and mushy. Other ways to speed browning: adding protein or sugars (an egg wash or sugar water on baked goods), increasing temperature, using less water.

Better with butter

Butter has always had a place on the table, and now it has a new home online. GoBoldWithButter.com follows a team of popular food bloggers as they explore the all-natural taste, texture and performance of butter in everyday recipes.

The team:

— Kristin of Iowa Girl Eats.

— Taylor of Taylor Takes a Taste.

— Annie of Annie’s Eats.

— Bree of Baked Bree.

— Lori & Paul of Burp! Where Food Happens.

— Karen of FamilyStyle Food.

— Jennifer of Bake or Break.

— Kirstin of It’s Not You, It’s Brie.

Presented by America’s Dairy Farmers, the blog features a growing collection of recipes, including Deconstructed Chicken Kiev; Parsnip, Kale and White Bean Soup; and Double Chocolate Pie.

Tags: life, updates, food, smorgasbord