What are the tricks to achieving vegetables that both look and taste fantastic?. We’ve all read enough books by big-name chefs to know that when you cook a green vegetable, you’re suppos
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BLANCHING/STEAMING
Is there anything more beautiful on the plate than emerald-green, perfectly tender-crisp stalks of blanched asparagus? What are the tricks to achieving vegetables that both look
and taste fantastic?
We’ve all read enough books by big-name chefs to know that when you cook a green vegetable, you’re supposed to use a large pot of heavily salted water But why? And is volume the only thing that matters? What about lid-on
versus lid-off? Does pH play a role? And do I really need to
drop my green vegetable into a large bath of ice water immediately after cooking? I gathered up a few pounds of vegetables and headed into the kitchen to answer these questions
Volume and pH
I cooked a half pound of green beans in amounts of water ranging from 2 cups all the way up to a full 2 gallons, noting both the temperature of the water and the time it took
to cook the beans to tenderness in each case Some trends immediately started to surface No matter how much water I started with, the energy needed to bring the pot back to a boil after I added the beans was the amount of energy it took to raise the ½ pound of green beans up to 212°F, which meant that every single pot returned to a boil at around the same rate (for more on this, see “The Best Way to Cook