The food lab better home cooking through science ( PDFDrive ) 497

EssentialVEGETABLETechnique
#1:
BLANCHING/STEAMING
Is there anything more beautiful on the plate than emeraldgreen, perfectly tender-crisp stalks of blanched asparagus?
What are the tricks to achieving vegetables that both look
andtastefantastic?
We’veallreadenoughbooksbybig-namechefstoknow
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
versuslid-off?DoespHplayarole?AnddoIreallyneedto
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.
VolumeandpH
I cooked a half pound of green beans in amounts of water
ranging from 2 cups all the way up to a full2 gallons,
notingboththetemperatureofthewaterandthetimeittook
to cook the beans to tenderness in each case. Some trends
immediatelystartedtosurface.NomatterhowmuchwaterI
started with, the energy needed to bring the pot back to a
boil after I added the beans was the amount of energy it
tooktoraisethe½poundofgreenbeansupto212°F,which
meantthateverysinglepotreturnedtoaboilataroundthe
same rate (for more on this, see “The Best Way to Cook