You mix together chemicals and compounds, delicately adding them and heating them at specific temperatures to get a desirable output. You often have to care for other factors like air flow (how much to leave the pot closed or open) and material weight (like not adding too much in a cake or it’ll all sink to the bottom).
A kitchen is just a laboratory, and chefs are just scientists that focus on taste. I get it now.
I like scientific cooking. I’m a big fan of Sebastian Lege, who is a cook and food designer, and who knows all the little chemical tricks of the food industry. I wish he would publish a cook book: On the left, a recipe for the dish as made by a professional chef with normal ingredients, on the right the recipe for the same dish as made by the food industry.
I remember one show where he made “Banana Milk”. The banana flavor was made from vinegar, some alcohol, and some other acid…
Just today, I applied one of his ideas. I made a Chinese dish with chicken, and added baking powder to the marinade made from soy sauce, ginger, garlic, honey, salt, oil, and chili. And it was amazing!