You wouldn’t want to eat starchy vegetables such as potatoes and yams unless you cooked them. You need heat to break the cell walls, so the potatoes can be digested.
Water boils at 212°F (100°C). Your oven can reach temperatures up to 500°F. Which method of cooking is faster-boiling or baking? Find out.
Things Required:
A pot of boiling water
2 small potatoes of the same size
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C).
Carefully scrub the skin of the two potatoes, but don’t peel them. Place one potato on a spoon and lower it carefully into the pot of boiling water. Place the other in the centre of your oven.
Using a long fork, test each potato every 10 minutes until it yields to the fork.
This Is What Happens:
The boiled potato cooks faster-even though your oven is set at more than twice the temperature of boiling water.
Science Behind It:
In both boiling and baking, the molecules of gas or liquid circulate and transfer their heat to the food. But the molecules of bubbling water move more violently than the air currents of the oven. This is because water is much more dense than air (1000 to 1). It delivers heat more efficiently.
