High Altitude Cooking

Boulder is 5,430 feet above sea level, so the air is pretty thin. This means all sorts of interesting things happen. I get winded walking up the stairs, and even when it's cold out, if the sun is shining it still feels decently warm. It also means that cooking is affected, since the lower air pressure means that water boils at a lower temperature. There are also consequences for baking, which I'll discuss in a later post. Since water boils at a lower temperature, most things take longer to cook then you would expect. For things like pasta, it's pretty easy to get it right, since you can just taste it every so often. Other things, though, are not so easy. I tried to make a hard boiled egg last night. I boiled the water, put the egg in, and let it sit. Mark Bittman recommends letting it sit for 10 minutes for a perfect hard-boiled egg. Knowing that it would take longer, I kept it in for 13 minutes, and still got a not-quite hard boiled egg. So, if you ever find yourself at altitude, just keep in mind that everything will take longer than you expect it to.