Are your salads looking tired and predictable? Your pizzas a bit drab and uninspiring? Then how about adding some zip with a sprinkling of powdered olive oil. In the second of our videos on Harvard’s pioneering undergraduate course on science and cooking, teaching fellows Naveen Sinha and Michael Petralia conjure up a dressing with a difference and show what happens – and why – when you whisk one part tapioca maltodextrin with two parts olive oil. Tasty stuff.

See also “Ready, steady, cook: a fresh take on science teaching” for an exclusive interview with course organizer David Weitz, professor of physics and applied physics at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.