Common Nonsense...

[fresco]

Out of curiosity, why would you boil vegetables rather than steam them?

Also you get even cooking.

And you don't with steam?

[ExtraMSG]

What about the practice of slowly drizzling oil into vinegar to make an emulsion when making a vinagrette? I always do it, but Christopher Kimball (America's Test Kitchen) says it's a crock (but maybe not in those words), just dump everything together and whisk.

I think CI/ATK even says not even to whisk vinaigrettes together -- that you can just drizzle the ingredients on the lettuce and toss. Although I just looked at their salad dressing 101 article online and there was nothing to that effect. But I seem to remember it. If they do say it, it's something I disagree with. Whisking together right before service makes a big difference in keeping the greens lightly coated without all the vinegar going to the bottom of the plate. Drizzling in oil for a vinaigrette is unnecessary, though, unless you're not using pre-defined ratios and just want to test along the way. However, for mayonnaise and such things, drizzling is very important.

[fresco]

And I'm pretty sure a papaya-based marinade, or, as chinese cooks have been known to employ, a bit of baking soda, would tenderize meat to the point of mush.

Why do you think that? I can tell you the tenderest goat satay I ever had was in a place on the outskirts of Jakarta where the meat was wrapped in papaya skins overnight before cooking, but the meat was nowhere near tenderized to the point of mush!

As Dave pointed out, it works well, but you have to be careful. The active ingredient in papaya is, I think, close in chemical composition to pepsin in the human gut, which breaks down food as part of the digestive process.

[chefreit]

Out of curiosity, why would you boil vegetables rather than steam them?

Also you get even cooking.

And you don't with steam?

When cooking in large batches.

No..... You don't.

[fresco]

You know, I could be wrong, but most of us don't, as a matter of routine, cook in large batches. Perhaps you could have specified this to begin with.

[SiseFromm]

Doesn't Thomas Keller suggest heavily salted water, because you don't lose the boil when the vegetables are added?

I think that keeping the water temperature up is only part of this equation. His big-pot blanching method using plenty of heavily salted water, so it tastes like the ocean, also helps to give blanched vegetables plenty of amazing color. Peel asparagus and blanch them quickly in water salted at a ratio of 1 cup to 1 gallon of water. Shock them in ice water to stop the process, and you'll have wildly green vegetables. You'll wonder why you didn't employ this method earlier.

R. Jason Coulston

[chefreit]

You know, I could be wrong, but most of us don't, as a matter of routine, cook in large batches. Perhaps you could have specified this to begin with.

Sorry Fresco..... Let's start over.

Hi! My name is Harry. (I went through this once already with Tommy)

That got a little heated and I'm still new to this whole message board thing.

Anyway, I usually speak from an industry point of view.

Harry Reiter

Executive Chef

Sodexho

NBIMC

[Jinmyo]

You know, I could be wrong, but most of us don't, as a matter of routine, cook in large batches. Perhaps you could have specified this to begin with.

Sorry Fresco..... Let's start over.

Hi! My name is Harry. (I went through this once already with Tommy)

That got a little heated and I'm still new to this whole message board thing.

Anyway, I usually speak from an industry point of view.

Harry Reiter

Executive Chef

Sodexho

NBIMC

Hi Harry, welcome.

Yes, it's good to bear in mind the difference between methods that work for two or three plates and twenty-five or fifty or five hundred.

Still, when steaming greens I use some huge Korean layered pots that allow us to do the stems first, toss, and then lay the leaves in another layer. Works very well. For up to forty plates.

[fresco]

You know, I could be wrong, but most of us don't, as a matter of routine, cook in large batches. Perhaps you could have specified this to begin with.

Sorry Fresco..... Let's start over.

Hi! My name is Harry. (I went through this once already with Tommy)

That got a little heated and I'm still new to this whole message board thing.

Anyway, I usually speak from an industry point of view.

Harry Reiter

Executive Chef

Sodexho

NBIMC

Fair enough. It is easy to convey exactly the meaning you don't intend, as I well know.

[fifi]

Someone mentioned the problem with beans up-thread. Well, that could be a whole 'nother thread. But I will jump in anyway.

The whole problem with beans is that they contain oligosaccarhides that are not easily digested in the upper GI tract and arrive later where the normal bacterial flora makes a lot of gas. All of the "tricks" to make beans less gassy are not effective. The use of an enzyme preparation, like Beano, is. Those folks that eat a lot of beans eventually develop more effective bacterial populations and don't have a problem. What happens to the occasional bean eater is that they avoid them further exacerbating the problem by not allowing the good little buggers to set up residence. For example: In Mexico, it is common to use the herb epazote when preparing beans. "Hey! We have no problem! Epazote works." What is more likely happening is that they eat beans frequently and have a population of bacteria that takes care of the problem. It just "appears" that epazote works.

The whole thing about not salting beans while cooking so they will get tender is crap, too. It is the age of the dried bean that matters. An old bean will never cook up right. I always salt my beans. Much tastier.

[tommy]

although i've never noticed much of a difference, it makes sense to me that the steam closest to the water is going to be hotter than that further up the pot. and since there's a flux associated with steam, i can see how veggies on the bottom would obstruct the flow of steam to the veggies on the top.

Edited December 20, 2003 by tommy (log)

[Jinmyo]

That's right, tommy. Which is why it is best to put stalks and such at the bottom, tender leaves on top.

[Jonathan Day]

I must admit that I've heard dozens of pieces of advice about cooking green vegetables with water. The advice is always delivered in an authoritative voice:

• always boil them, never steam
  
• always steam, never boil
  
• no salt in the water
  
• salt to taste like the ocean
  
• salt only with sea salt, iodised salt, kosher salt, fleur de sel, salt gathered by elves, etc.
  
• use Evian water, Perrier water, rainwater, heavy water, water gathered from dewdrops, etc.
  
• cover the pot to maintain a rolling boil
  
• don't cover it because nasty acids will condense and fall back in
  
• add bicarbonate of soda to neutralise the acids
  
• never add soda as it will turn the vegetables mushy
  
• boil no more than 1 green bean per litre of water
  
• boil in just a bit of water.
  
• And so on
  

In general, with beans and broccoli I use a large pot of rapidly boiling water, heavily salted, uncovered, shocking in ice water afterwards, and the results are pretty good. But I haven't experimented much.

McGee writes that steaming has the disadvantage of retaining the vegetable's acids, rather than diluting them. A French chef told me: never use a rolling boil, the water is no hotter than at a gentle simmer (this makes sense: the water certainly can't get much hotter than 100C without turning to steam) and the fast moving water will damage the food. Thomas Keller, according to Michael Ruhlman, insists that his cooks discard vegetables where the water doesn't instantly return to a rolling boil as the food is thrown into the pot.

How about an eGCI course (or just a thread) with some systematic experiments, cooking the same vegetable, purchased in the same place on the same day, trimmed identically, with steam and a range of boiling techniques?

[ExtraMSG]

I'm willing to take part in such experiments. I'd like to see picture proof, though.

[Jonathan Day]

Pictures would be essential. I do not have a digital camera, otherwise would volunteer to do these experiments. It would also be good to have a recording thermometer, so that you could plot the temperature of water over time as the vegetables are dropped in and the water returns to the boil. Surely one of the scientists on the site has this kind of kit.

[tommy]

That's right, tommy. Which is why it is best to put stalks and such at the bottom, tender leaves on top.

yeah, even in less-than-large batches.

[fifi]

Um... I think we need to review the objective if this proceeds. When it comes to cooking vegetables there may be a different objective with the same veggie. For example, green beans. There is the "perfectly" cooked, bright green green bean and then there is the smothered and long cooked green bean (e.g. my recipe in RecipeGullet). They are entirely different dishes. Both great.

[chefreit]

That's right, tommy. Which is why it is best to put stalks and such at the bottom, tender leaves on top.

yeah, even in less-than-large batches.

Did you just take a poke at me, Tommy?

[megaira]

I keep my onions in the refrigerator.  I almost never have an issue with tearing.  I forget that fact, too, when I cook at other people's houses that keep their onions in a pantry.  I end up crying like a baby.  That could just be that I'm very emotional about my knife skills, though.

Off the top of my head without grabbing a book: apparantly temperatures below 50 degrees or so break down the sulfer compounds in the onion making it more sweet than sharp. I'll cut onions in half and store the other halves in the fridge and I notice they tend to be sweeter and "lighter" tasting raw after time in the fridge. I'm not sure if there's an overall giant leap in oniony flavor in the final cooked dish, though. I usually grab what's on hand and throw it in there -white or yellow, refrigerated or not. Shame on me. But that's laziness for you.

What has worked best for me has been the "onion technique" for quick dicing. Breathing in through my mouth and out through the nose helps a little bit, but not enough to pass it on. the candle, water, etc. has never worked for me either, so I just try to get it over with as fast as possible and hope my fingers stay intact.

Edited December 20, 2003 by megaira (log)

[fifi]

The onion and eyes problem is well known. The sulfur compounds are released into the air, contact the eyes, and in the presence of the moisture on the eye, are converted to sulfuric acid causing the burn. Anything that disrupts the transmission of the sulfurous vapors to the eyes will work. Think: holding your breath to not cause local air currents, cold onions, goggles, whatever. What I want to try is a little fan. I bought one to use on brined salmon to dry the surface before smoking. I am thinking that if I set it up to blow air across the cutting board and away from my eyes that that might work.

BTW... Another onion tip. Mexican cooks almost always use white onions that can be quite strong. They also rinse the diced onion in cold water before using. The strong flavors are produced when the cell walls are disrupted by chopping and the various sulfurous compounds come together and react. The rinsing removes this reactive soup and results in a much fresher and brighter onion flavor.

[Katherine]

I learned from personal experience (and then later read on the Internet) that the most effective tear-prevention method to use when peeling onions is contact lenses.

Contact lenses = no tears

[tommy]

Contact lenses = no tears

is that true? i thought they don't cover the whole eye, but rather only a bit in the middle. if so, i have to think that the exposed parts of the eye will burn.

Edited December 20, 2003 by tommy (log)

[fifi]

I dunno about that. I wore contact lenses for years and would always have to take them out when I got into a really bad onion attack.

[hjshorter]

I wear contact lenses, and onions always make me tear up.

Edit: does it matter what kind of lenses?

Edited December 20, 2003 by hjshorter (log)

[ExtraMSG]

I wear contact lenses, and onions always make me tear up.

Sounds like one of those myths that just got debunked.