Make bitter coffee taste better and check whether eggs are rotten without cracking them open. Thanks to the American Chemical Society’s “Reactions” video series for most of these tips.
Add a tiny pinch of salt to coffee that's too bitter to sweeten it up.
If you brew your coffee with water that's too hot, you'll extract more bitter compounds leaving you with a less than ideal cup. But it doesn't have to go to waste – just add a tiny bit of salt. Sodium ions from the salt will stop you tasting the bitterness when the coffee reaches your tongue. Sounds counterintuitive, but it works.
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Keep your onions in the fridge to help stop the waterworks when you cut into them.
When you cut into an onion, it sets off a chain of events that ends in the production of syn-propanethial-S-oxide, which irritates your eyes and makes them water. You can't stop this, but you can slow down the release of the volatile compounds that make it happen by keeping your onion cold in the fridge before chopping it.
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Cook green veg for seven minutes or less to keep it looking bright and fresh.
This one sounds like common sense – but I bet you've never given a second thought to why cooking veg for less time keeps it greener.
Here's the deal: Green vegetables get their hue from two different types of chlorophyll. Chlorophyll A is responsible for blue-green colours and chlorophyll B takes care of yellow-green. Each molecule of chlorophyll has a magnesium atom that, when the veg is heated up during cooking, gets replaced by a hydrogen atom. This means the veg loses its lovely green colour. You can stop this happening by cooking your veg for just a few minutes to limit the damage to cells.
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Check whether eggs are rotten by putting them in a glass of water.
If they sink, you're good to go. If they float, throw them out. The American Chemical Society explains that eggs go bad because bacteria gets in from outside through their porous shells. This causes a build up of hydrogen sulfide, which is what makes rotten eggs smell, but, handily, it's also what makes them so buoyant.
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