Sauted Vegetables

[johnjohn]

At dinner out the other night my girlfriend asked me how to make the vegetables that were on her plate at home. They were carrots, yellow and green squash cut into matchsticks with those tiny French green beans mixed in - I assume they were just sauted. A few questions.

1. Do you parboil the carrots and/or green beans before sauting them?

2. What other vegetables would work in this preperation.

3. Use olive oil? Butter? Add Garlic?

4. What herbs would be a nice addition? Thyme?

5. Do you saute all the vegatbles together at once?

6. I have a Japanese Mandoline that I have never used - I would use this for cutting the vegetables, right? I didn't notice any seeds in the squash - so I assume I only cut until I get to the core - right?

Sorry for such basic questions, but I will make them this weekend for her, and don't have time to practice this week - and I want them to turn out perfect.

Thanks

Johnjohn

[Bond Girl]

Blanche them quickly (to retain the color) and sautee them in sweet butter with a bit of salt and pepper. But if you want restaurant grade taste, you maight want to do them separately and them put them together in the end.

[slkinsey]

Without seeing the vegetables, it's hard to say how they were prepared exactly. But I have some ideas.

Given the delicacy of what you're talking about, it's highly unlikely that they were sauteed at all. Sauteing is a high heat technique where the ingredients are jumped around in the pan (the French verb sauter means "to jump") until evenly cooked on all sides. Matchstick vegetables would totally fall apart if they were cooked this way. (FWIW, I think "saute" is the most incorrectly used term in cooking.)

Most likely, the vegetables were blanched in salted water, shocked in ice water and then gently warmed with butter and perhaps a little stock. For the best control, you would want to blanch each vegetable separately (each one will cook at a slightly different rate). Presumably, you want each piece to still have a little "bite."

Almost any firm vegetable can be cooked this way. You could include matchsticks of red or green pepper, onion, potato, asparagus stems, broccoli stems, turnip, parsnip... whatever. For harder vegetables (potato, carrot, etc.) a mandolin is the easiest way to go. For things like onions and peppers, you're better off going by hand.

I would recommend using at least some butter as the fat, because it will emulsify and coat the vegetables well. Garlic... I'm not so sure about. Mixtures like this tend to be relatively delicate in flavor, and you'd have to have a very careful hand with the garlic to avoid making the whole thing taste mostly of garlic. It would be a real shame to go to all the trouble of selecting an interesting mixture of vegetables only to have the whole thing turn out as "garlic flavor with some other stuff." Same thing with herbs. Thyme and parsley are the first ones that come to mind, but in very small amounts.

Anyway... that's my two cents.

[PCL]

Bravo Kinsey.

Although... saute after parboil if done delicately can work. Paradoxical, but possible.

[slkinsey]

Bravo Kinsey.

Although... saute after parboil if done delicately can work. Paradoxical, but possible.

Grazie.

I agree that it can work... it just depends on the inherrent strength of the food item. Parboiling and sauteing cubes of potato, for example, should work just fine. But with matchstick cuts like johnjohn describes above, I think they would have a tendency to snap in half if agitated.

[PCL]

Prego signore.

But I don't like matchstick cuts. Feels like you're not eating anything. I mean, juliened carrot/zucchini/turnip have been subjected to parboil then ice shocking before a'la minute saute in butter (just a couple flips over serious BTUs to coat and sweat to allow emulsification, one chef I had insisted on a dash of stock pre-flip) but like you said NO GARLIC...

Parboil separate, but jump/heat together.

[devinf]

I've always just parboiled stuff individually and throw it all together at service. Oil, butter, stock... it all depends on the application. I've also thrown veggies into the oven (particularly root veggies) - and get them slightly roasted and then finish it all off in a pan.

Devin

[PCL]

Wouldn't the roast vegetables then lose some of the 'smokiness' and get a little, um 'gluggy' when finished in a pan? Especially with butter, stock etc.

[devinf]

Not that I could tell. A small dice would hold up well and still have a good texture to it when finally presented. I'd do it mostly with fingerling potatoes and pumpkin (pumpkin ended up in a risotto dish). Maybe those types of starchy veggies just hold up better? Not sure of the science of it, but a few minutes in the oven seemed to do the trick. Most everything else gets parboiled or cooked to order.

Devin

[PCL]

Cool, will try that over dinner cooking one night.

[johnjohn]

Would you parboil the yellow and green squash?

Oh, and I meant juliened - not matchstick - size pieces.

Thanks for everyones help.