Odd sensations

[Michael S.]

A few weeks ago I made a risotto (single serving) and I had about a litre of already very dark chicken stock to use up, so I reduced it down and it all went I to the one portion of rice. When I was eating it, I had a very odd sensation in my mouth, almost painful but not quite.

It was probably down to the combination of relatively high salinity (I have a high salt tolerance) and the sheer amount of flavour hitting my taste buds all at once. My question is, has anybody else accidentally conjured up any surprising sensations whilst cooking? I mean apart from the obvious Szechwan pepper and capsicum heat ones.

[liuzhou]

You have pre-salted chicken stock? That could be dangerous.

I never salt stocks for the very reason that when I make them I don't always know how they will be finally used. A salted stock intended for soup will be ridiculously salty if reduced for a sauce, say.

I thought that was a basic.

Edited May 12, 2012 by liuzhou (log)

[Michael S.]

Salted with around 5g/l so not particularly much. I tend to use a fairly high amount of salt in dishes I prepare for myself, so this wasn't too high up on the scale. Dish would have ended up around 2-3% salt.

[Toliver]

I experienced a very odd sensation while eating, not cooking. I had eaten something spicey hot and the burn in my mouth was quite bad. A woman I was dining with said to take a drink of my hot tea. I did so and felt the oddest sensation as the hot tea washed away the spicey oil in my mouth. I really can't describe the sensation other than saying the burn of spiciness was replaced by the temperature/heat of the tea, which was quite (temperature) hot. The hot tea wasn't scalding hot...just hot. The remaining spiciness in my mouth was comparatively subdued after that.

[&roid]

Salted with around 5g/l so not particularly much. I tend to use a fairly high amount of salt in dishes I prepare for myself, so this wasn't too high up on the scale. Dish would have ended up around 2-3% salt.

3% in the final dish? That is a LOT! Seawater is 3-3.5%.

[Michael S.]

So I just went and made up a glass of 3% salt water, it is indeed noticeably salty, though not unpleasant/painful on my tongue. I have accidentally made some very salty things before which proved almost impossible to eat (I got the salt measurements for sauerkraut wrong once and it wasn't pretty). I'm still holding out that it wasn't just the salinity I was experiencing though.

Edited May 14, 2012 by Michael Speleoto (log)

[Mjx]

I once got a packet of tuna jerky, by a brand that that makes beef and turkey jerky that I love, and it was... bizarre. It made the inside of my mouth feel incredibly dried and puckered, as though I'd consumed something aggressively astringent/tannic (I'm actually extrapolating from the most tannic things I've ever consumed, none of which came close to this). I couldn't even taste it, because my mouth was tied up by this sensation, which persisted long after I stopped eating the second or third piece, and binned the bag (regretfully, because I got it as my lunch/dinner, and it wasn't cheap, so that was it for my late-day meals that day). Spectacularly strange and unpleasant.

[ChrisTaylor]

How do you make your stock?

[Michael S.]

Roast x amount of chicken bones with some skim milk powder until browned, then simmer in the slow cooker for around 8 hours with a little salt.

Edited May 15, 2012 by Michael Speleoto (log)

[phatj]

What's the skim milk powder for?

[Karri]

What's the skim milk powder for?

It promotes the Maillard reaction.

I had my very first dish with real Sichuan peppers, the first time I bit in to one it felt like licking a battery and suddenly my tongue started going numb and I had this very interesting pulsating sensation travelling down my tongue. We did all kinds of experiments with the peppers after that, it was quite funny, the taste of the peppers was nice, but the after effects were not.

[JAZ]

My guess is that it might be the level of glutamates. We do an experiment with salt and glutamate (we use MSG) with our beginning cooking students in which we give them plain water, then water with a pinch of MSG so they can experience the difference. One time I over-measured the amount of MSG, which resulted in a very odd mouthfeel.

[Toufas]

was it similar to eating jamon or parmesan?