All About Veggies
I swear it sounds like I exist lately to complain about how other people do things.
I’m not. I’m not because I used to do all the things I am complaining about. Here’s what really happened.
I got bored. I got bored with routine, with “simple foods,” with batch cooking the same foods, cooked the same way. My meal prep was good – well-seasoned, carefully-prepared, and efficient. I had everything done in an hour and a half.
I am a foodie, in every sense of the word. I watch cooking shows for fun – in fact, it’s about the only type of show I can binge-watch and not fall asleep. I honestly believe that one of the biggest things that is missing from the way we eat in America today is that we are all about convenience, and it comes at the expense of a true connection to our food.
Convenience produces decent food that is readily available. If the majority is nutrient-dense, that’s a plus. But, ultimately, it’s forgettable. It’s food that you can eat while working, or driving, or watching TV. And, that’s part of the problem – both that this has become our eating custom, and that our cuisine has evolved to reflect that. Eating is supposed to be a multi-sensory experience, and, for that matter, a social one. It is supposed to excite us, comfort us, and remind us that we are loved and taken care of, not just fed and properly fueled. Cooking delicious food takes time, effort, and knowledge – which is why the act of it has been entrenched in rules and rituals of hospitality for millennia (in fact, the act of feeding a stranger is directly present in many of the world’s religious customs, past and present). It’s also one of the reasons that food choice is often reflective of, and tied to, emotions.
This all has a more sinister side of course – emotional eating can carry with it a host of psychological components and has consequences on a person’s mental and physical health. It’s a real problem, and I am in no way trying to minimize it. I’m acknowledging it, but also acknowledging that it is far outside of my scope of practice, and I am not qualified to talk about it in that particular iteration.
That being said, outside of the point where it becomes a pathology, eating in accordance with your emotions and tastes, for comfort and happiness in addition to for nutrition, satiety, and fuel, is deeply entrenched in our universal human experience. As I said, the practice has been around for millennia. But, in 21st Century America, there is a bit of dissonance surrounding the custom. America has no sense of a traditional cuisine (outside of holidays). We are after all, a nation of immigrants, but, over time, the traditional dishes of the first immigrants to North America were diminished, and eventually disregarded. What has replaced it is a food culture (and we’re talking specifically on a macro scale here) that can best be encapsulated by the words of Chef Michael Barber: overabundance and mediocrity. This has nothing to do with how food is cooked – it goes further in than that. We can go to a big-chain grocery store any time of year and pick up nearly any product we want, regardless of whether it’s in season or not. Which, by the way, is awesome for many reasons (not least of which is that it has allowed modern life to flourish year-round in harsh climates, like Arizona); however, here’s the less-than-awesome side: food usually doesn’t taste as good when it is out of season. It usually doesn’t taste as good after the long process of being shipped from wherever it is in-season. On the economic side, this modernity has been severely detrimental to small, independent family farms that have been passed down through the generations, in favor of large farms that can mass produce crops and ship them throughout the country. [Here’s the part where someone will start thinking of Monsanto and glyphosate, but I’m not going there. This isn’t the time or the place.] I will say, however, without much detail (as again, not my area of expertise) that modern farming practices, particularly by some large farms, can ecologically tenuous (eg, lack of crop rotation).
This kind of abundance of food product is great for so, so many reasons, but it does come with trade-offs. Does this mean we should shed all modern technology and go back to relying solely on our local farmers for food? Probably not – that would cause a whole host of other issues – but we should probably be aware of all the different ways it affects us as individuals, our country, and the world. With awareness comes more choice about how we choose to interact with our environment, and that includes our food.
For us as individuals, if food doesn’t taste as good, and we don’t have the traditional knowledge of how to work around that, and we don’t really have much time to devote to figuring it out, no wonder eating is reduced to a perfunctory task. No wonder we don’t really have connection with our food anymore.
As an aside, the other interesting part about all this is that coupled with this abundance, there is still RAMPANT food insecurity. I brought up in my last post that judgements about eating seasonal/not seasonal, organic/conventional, grass-fed/grain-fed all come from a place of privilege. Yes, seasonal, local can produce tastes better, and can have a higher nutrient content (but not necessarily either) – HOWEVER, and here’s the big caveat, judging people who for whatever reason, choose not to or can’t eat that way wreaks of snobbery.
And, to make matters even more complicated, enter the health and wellness industry to tell us that carbs, fat, sugar, fruit, conventional meat, vegetables, GMOs, plastic, aluminum, and even tap water will make us sick and eventually kill us. And, to cook “delicious food” all we need to do is slather meat and veggies in pre-made sauces and pre-blended dry rubs without thinking, because “ain’t no one got time for that”- but, shame on you if you don’t cook at all, cause “everyone should have time for that.”
I bring all this up to highlight the myriad of very complicated, and inter-connected reasons why our relationship with food, as a collective United States, is, to put it bluntly, messed up. At every level.
I started thinking about all of this late last year when I was trying to figure out what my direction was going to be in 2020. I gotta say, I have about had it with the utter hypocritical crap that comes out of the majority of the loudest mouths in the industry. It’s privileged, contradictory, and most of the time, way out of scope of practice. I started thinking about where all of this crap is even coming from – where is it that we’ve so “lost our collective way” that we’re looking toward voices on the internet to bring us something that we are lacking? Needless to say, I spent a lot of December rather disillusioned.
I also realized that I fell equally into this trap as well. I was doing everything “right:” I had my workout routine that didn’t burn me out, I had meal prepping on Sundays for both me and my husband down to a 1.5 hour SCIENCE, I was getting enough steps, and enough sleep.
But something was missing. I normally love cooking. Toward the end of the year, I found myself not really caring about it. I found myself gravitating to easy, convenience foods because the food I was making just didn’t interest me. Even though it was fresh, and nutrient-dense. It took me the better part of a month to realize it was because the foodie in me became almost dormant. I stopped feeding my creative side, because I wasn’t really cooking or even really eating any more. I was just going through the motions to fuel my body.
And it finally hit me on the head. I needed to get back to my creativity, my bliss, my joy – the thing that started this crazy run in the first place – cooking. Recipe development. Creating.
But this time was going to be different. I vowed to stretch and push myself, to experiment with new flavors, and to truly create.
Which means I had to unlearn everything I knew. And relearn everything again.
That was the thought that re-sparked my creativity again. Because, at my core, I will always love learning.
I love knowing nothing (cue Jon Snow joke).
I happened on someone’s Instagram story one day talking about the book What French Kids Eat. I was hooked in the first few pages. The book described the French love, rather, obsession, with food. They spend what we would call indecent amounts of time planning their main meal of the day, discussing it, and being excited about it. They practice delayed gratification (thus not snacking a lot) in order to be able to truly savor this meal. This stuck me as beautiful – what a celebration of the ingredients, the time and effort it took to create them, and the eating process. THAT’S what was truly missing, that pure joy of the food experience – from preparation to eating.
This all led me to my intention for 2020 – connection. I wanted to be connected to the food I was eating and preparing again. I wanted to reteach myself to truly experience, and thus respect in a deeper and more profound way.
A big part of learning to experience things on that deeper level, is, well, learning. Learning about cooking in a way that I never have before. Learning about the whys and the hows – why different flavors work together, how different methods of cooking change flavors – teaches you a respect for not only people who have mastered the art and science of cooking, but also a respect for the ingredients themselves.
In other words, at its core, learning connects you to what you are studying. And, that connection leads to understanding, which then leads to respect.
I want to give you an example of how all of my learning has affected me: I had a bowl of black bean soup the other day. I love beans, and I freaking love black bean soup. It’s a little mushy, a little mealy, and can have such great flavor, depending on what you add to it.
I sort of followed a recipe while I was making it. Sort of. I mean, I intended to, but then I got distracted, and the recipe was all the way over on the other cabinet, and there were a lot of words…. So, long story short I got the amounts of some of the ingredients wrong – mostly the heat (chipotle powder), being that I dumped about twice as much as I should have, and the acid (sherry vinegar), again, dumped about twice the amount that I should have in there.
Oops. Drinking vinegar with spicy beans in it? Not appetizing. Not remotely.
Having studied and learned how the different flavors interact and balance each other, instead of trashing the soup, I set out to save it.
I balanced the spice and the acid with some sweetness – honey. Much tasting later (between both me and my husband), we had determined it was in balance, and it went into the refrigerator (and half went into the freezer for later).
Awhile later, I was eating a bowl of this soup as I was working. The most amazing thing happened. There was so much going on in that bowl – it started off sweet, from the honey, and all of a sudden there was the acid from the vinegar, followed by the smoke and spice from the chipotle. I stopped what I was doing, just so I could concentrate on how the flavors changed in my mouth as I was eating. I looked forward to each bite. It was interesting, and enjoyable to eat. I was even smiling as I ate it.
Somewhere in there, I had stopped just eating food – I started to experience it.
That’s the power of great cooking. Great cooking is intentional in its creation, and is interesting in the eating. It makes you put down your work and your phone, turn off the TV, just so you can taste each flavor in each bite.
And, you don’t have to be a chef to cook great food. I’m not a chef. I’m actually just a nerd who likes to eat (and knows a little bit about nutrition and exercise), and loves to experiment and grow. And so I am passing along what I learn to you.
Today (at very long last), we’re going to talk about vegetables. Vegetables are such a critical component of our diet nutritionally, because they contain fiber (to help regulate digestion and to feed our gut microbiome) and micronutrients (which are important for, well, lot of things that go on in our bodies).
But, lots of people hate vegetables. For some, it’s a texture issue – vegetables can have horrible textures when overcooked, or even when cooked the wrong way. For others, it’s about taste – many vegetables have bitter or very earthy undertones that just don’t taste very nice on their own.
Cooking vegetables in a conventional American kitchen usually boils down (pun intended) to the choosing one of six different methods: boiling, steaming, grilling/broiling, roasting, sautéing, and stewing/braising.
Note that you can also pan fry, deep fry, or stir-fry your veggies, but since you need specialized equipment (a wok) for the latter, and more temperature control for the oil (a gas stove) than I currently have for the former, I am going to leave them out. I may revisit them. Possibly in a different post. Once I convince my husband that we have enough room in our kitchen for an induction burner (we don’t).
Moving on.
Some vegetables work better than others with each of these cooking methods. So, for each, I’ll talk about the types of veggies that the method is appropriate for, how and when to season, what to do for maximum flavor, and things to watch out for/avoid (if any). I’ll also feature some of these techniques in a recipe to come out later this week.
Boiling
Boiling vegetables is simultaneously one of the worst things you can do to a vegetable, and one of the most under-rated cooking methods because of it.
Bear with me.
Everyone in America has that one memory of trying a boiled [INSERT NAME OF VEGETABLE HERE], and thinking that it was the worst substance in the world. For me, it was brussels sprouts. Though, in retrospect, they may have been steamed. I’m not sure – let’s go with boiled though, for continuity’s sake. These are the veggies that were SO bland and mushy you fed them to your dog when your mom wasn’t looking – that you refused to touch ever again because the memory was so strong (score one more for food is memory, though, right?).
Boiling vegetables is awful when you don’t do it right, ie when you overcook your vegetables, and turn them into bland baby food mush.
Boiling veggies can also be a useful tool to par-cook a vegetable, so that it can finish cooking using another method and cook evenly (and not burn on the outside while being raw in the middle).
It’s also coincidentally, the best way to cook frozen peas (and since peas are incredibly delicate with a very short season, they are usually only widely available frozen).
Dunking vegetables in boiling water for 30 seconds to 1 minute, called blanching, is also a great skill for reducing a strong odor and/or flavor in a vegetable, or helping to remove a thick skin (like a tomato).
The BIG trick with boiling veggies so they’re actually good? Don’t overcook them. You want to cook them so they are al dente, just like pasta – so they have a little bit of bite (like a raw vegetable would).
How do you ensure that your veggies will stay al dente, you ask? Cook your veggies to the desired texture (which can only be determined by taste), and then IMMEDIATELY transfer veggies from the boiling water to ice water – this stops the cooking process, which would otherwise continue, even if the veggies were removed from the water. Also, make sure that you salt the cold water too (because salt = flavor. And also salt balances bitterness.)
How about another big trick? Boil veggies in small batches (so they have room to move around), and salt the water before you add the veggies (2 oz salt for every gallon of water). You water should never stop boiling, which means, after the first batch of veggies is done, you need to give that water time to return to boiling before you add more veggies in.
You can also add flavor to the cooking water by adding stock, juice, or acid to your water (or replacing the water with it). Here are some basic recipes for most types of vegetables (formulas are for 2.5 lbs of veggies each):
Green Vegetables
Enough COLD water to generously cover vegetables (6:1 ratio water to veg is best)
2 oz salt per gallon of water
Root Vegetables
Enough COLD water to generously cover vegetables
2 oz salt per gallon of water
Red/White Vegetables
Enough water to hold vegetables without crowding
4 oz vinegar/lemon juice per gallon of water – At the end. Cooking acid makes it bitter.
FORMULA:
1 boil base liquid (stock/water)
2 salt water
3 add vegetables
4 cook until vegetables have reached desired texture
5 add acid for last 5-10 minutes
6 if not serving right away, place vegetables in salted ice bath
7 drain
Steaming
Steaming cooks food via direct contact with hot steam, versus submersion in liquid. Generally, steaming makes vegetables less soggy (particularly vegetables that absorb a lot of liquid, which aren’t suited to boiling).
Like boiling, to make steamed vegetables more flavorful, you can manipulate the liquid that is boiled to create the steam. You can substitute some (or all) of the water with stock or juice, or add mirepoix (carrots, onions, celery) and/or herbs (like bay leaves, garlic, parsley, thyme, coriander, pepper, cumin, ginger, or citrus zest) to scent the broth, thus the steam, and thus your food, adding to the eating experience.
Steam also brings out the most vibrant colors in vegetables, which visually adds to the eating experience (remember, we eat with all of our senses).
Watch out for the liquid levels during the entire cooking process – since steam is evaporated liquid, there needs to be 2-3” of liquid in the bottom of your pot to make said steam, so always have a reserve of liquid available.
To truly steam, you do need a steaming basket so that the vegetables are above the water, though, in a technique called pan-steaming, you can place the vegetables directly into the liquid (you just use less liquid) – essentially, you are half-boiling, half-steaming your vegetables. Since you are using less liquid, be sure to watch it more closely and add more as needed, so the liquid doesn’t completely evaporate. In pan-steaming, the leftover liquid can be reduced (boiled down) and used as a pan sauce (we’ll talk more about sauces later).
Keep in mind that you cannot season raw vegetables (the salt falls right off). Season with salt and pepper to taste after cooking and before serving.
FORMULA
1 heat liquid
2 add steamer basket
3 cover and cook to desired doneness
4 season
5 serve
Grilling/Broiling
Grilling or broiling vegetables produces a browned outside (from the natural sugars and proteins caramelizing), and a tender inside with an intensified flavor.
This is my favorite way to eat vegetables. It makes sense, I’m pretty intense, grilled veggies are intense. It just fits.
High-moisture/tender vegetables (like eggplant, zucchini, peppers, and mushrooms) can be grilled/broiled from raw, but dense/starchy vegetables (like fennel, sweet potatoes, carrots, and beets) need to be par cooked before grilling (so they cook all the way through).
You can marinade your vegetables briefly in oil/spices, or salsa, soy sauce, vinaigrettes, butter, or a butter sauce – but no more than 15-30 minutes (or the veggies will take on too much liquid). Your marinade can also be brushed on during the cooking, if desired (though be careful not to drip into the flames if you are grilling, as it can cause flare ups).
If you don’t want to use a marinade, lightly coat your vegetables with olive oil before cooking, and dust with salt/pepper and other desired spices after cooking (the salt will not cling to the raw vegetable).
If you are grilling delicate vegetables (ie ones that will fall through the grill), you can use a grill plate (or aluminum foil) to support them. You can also add a wonderful smoky flavor by adding woodchips, or herb stems to the grill fire.
FORMULA
1 marinade vegetables
2 heat grill/broiler
3 add veggies
4 cook to desired doneness
5 taste and season (fresh herbs, salt, etc)
Roasting
This is perhaps the easiest way to cook vegetables in larger quantities (for example, for meal prepping), and the way that the majority of people do.
The formula is easy:
FORMULA:
1 preheat oven
2 coat vegetables in oil or marinade (season with salt and pepper)
3 cook to desired doneness, adding aromatics at the end
4 season to taste (fresh herbs, salt, etc), add sauce
Roasting is best for thick-skinned vegetables, like root vegetables, winter squash, and eggplant (so, you know, not for everything), as well as vegetables that are hard to peel. It’s also great for halved, cut, sliced, and diced vegetable pieces – roasted vegetables need to be cut into uniform pieces to ensure even cooking (so all of your pieces are cooked to the same doneness).
Before placing in the oven, vegetable pieces need to be coated evenly with oil, which promotes more browning, and prevents the vegetables from drying out. Marinades can also be used, but remember that vinegar turns bitter after prolonged cooking. You can add aromatics toward the end of the cooking process (like garlic, and onions/shallots) so that they don’t burn (they will most likely be much smaller pieces than your main vegetables. If they are the same, you can add earlier).
When you remove your vegetables from the oven, that’s the time to add chopped fresh herbs, more strongly flavored oils (or infused oils), butter/compound butter, or a sauce. Add this in after cooking, as cooking can change the flavor of these ingredients.
The biggest mistake I see with people roasting vegetables is trying to cram everything into one pan. Easier for clean up, yes, but terrible for roasting. If you have more than one layer of vegetables in a pan, or one layer that is too crowded, the moisture in the vegetables cannot escape, and you end up steaming the vegetables instead of roasting them (and missing that delicious roasted flavor) – which is fine, but not what you are going for. Remember, it’s all about being intentional. Likewise, if you pan is too open, the juices that come out of the vegetables will burn, and that’s not a great aroma or flavor.
Remember to also rotate your pans as you are cooking so that your food cooks evenly – everyone’s oven has a blind spot (where food will not cook)!
Sautéing
Any vegetable can really be sautéed (or, cooked in a hot pan with fat). However, some must be par-cooked before they hit the pan (thick, dense, big vegetables – squash, beets, etc), since the outside will cook faster than the inside.
The most important part of a sauté is choosing the right cooking fat. The more delicate/thinner the piece of vegetable, the quick it will cook, but the higher the temperature can be. Choosing a fat with a higher smoke point (which we will talk about a little later) would be an appropriate choice. If you are sautéing a vegetable that takes a longer time to cook, or is in a bigger piece and not par-cooked, than you will want to cook at a lower (but not low) temperature, and so a different oil might be more appropriate. You’ll also want to consider the flavor of your oil, and how it goes with the flavors of the food you are cooking. Coconut oil is delightful, and has a high smoke point, but remember it has a pretty distinct coconut flavor, and it may not be appropriate for every dish you are making. Experiment with different oils, and diversify.
Here are some common oils that are used in sautéing:
Olive
Peanut
Canola
Corn
Safflower
Butter
Ghee
Animal fat (lard, duck, tallow)
Season your vegetables with salt and pepper at the end of cooking (remember, it will not stick to raw vegetables, and adding salt too early will bring too much moisture out of the vegetable and the vegetables will not sauté). You can also add lemon juice at the end of cooking for a hint of acid (again. Acid at the end, otherwise bitter-town). Fresh herbs can also be added, but again, add them at the end of cooking, because cooking changes the flavor (and not for the better).
You can also glaze your sautéed vegetables at the end of cooking – basically adding a small amount of butter, and some sweetened (sugar/honey/maple syrup) and allowing the sugars to liquify and caramelize, coating the vegetables evenly. This helps the vegetables have a nice golden color, a little extra sweetness, and a beautiful sheen. It, however, is not appropriate for all vegetables (because adding sugar to some vegetables might not end well – use judgement).
The size of the pan is super important when sautéing. You want your pan to be large enough to avoid having vegetables in more than one layer, but not so large as there is too much space in between the pieces, which causes the juices to burn. The pam material you choose will also play a part – remember some pans have more consistent heat (cast iron), but are harder to control, some are more sensitive to changes in position (copper), but can get too hot very easily. Use what you are comfortable with.
Another form of sautéing is sweating, where you cook vegetables in just enough liquid (cream, stock , broth, water) to coat the vegetables. This is great when you want to add flavor to a dish.
As your vegetables sauté, remember their color will intensify, and they most likely will eventually wilt (which is not good for some vegetables). If you are cooking more than one vegetable at a time, add them in batches, with the one that takes the longest to cook first, so that none of your vegetables will burn/wilt/ruin your dish.
Oh, and watch your pans closely. Some vegetables need contestant attention and movement in the pan, or they burn, others, on the other hand, need to be left alone.
FORMULA:
1 heat pan
2 add fat
3 add vegetables
4 cook until desired doneness
5 glaze (if desired)
6 season with salt, pepper, fresh herbs to taste
7 serve
Stewing/Braising
Braising, or cooking in liquid, is a great way to retain all the flavor and nutrients of the vegetables during the cooking process. Before adding to the liquid, blanch the vegetables to remove any bitterness. Remember also to add aromatics to your liquid (which, again, can be water, stock, or juice) – and, you can even add browned bacon or an acid (at the… wait for it… end of cooking) for some umami and/or acid.
Stews can be easily thickened with arrowroot, cornstarch, or potato starch, and you can also add cream or reduced cream (or non-dairy alternative) at the end to enhance the richness of your stew. You can also choose to blend your stew for creaminess, or keep it more “rustic.”
Stews can be finished in the oven or on the stove. If you want to finish in the oven, try adding bread crumbs and cheese to make a gratin.
In conclusion, and if you have stuck with me thus far, first, I’m impressed, and second, thank you, remember that a large part of cooking is really up to your own tastes. With each cooking method, the flavor of different vegetables changes slightly, and you just have to experiment with different methods to find the ones you like the best. Also, play around with the vegetables themselves – cucumbers are great raw, for example, but they also can be steamed, sautéed, or stewed and can be equally delicious.
FORMULA
1 heat liquid
2 add veggies (bonus points if they are pre-sautéed just until a little brown)
3 cook until desired doneness
4 taste and adjust seasoning
The right cooking method will enhance the flavors of your vegetables, but be wary of when you are going to serve them. Methods like sautéing and stir-frying, don’t particularly keep well, whereas stewing, braising, or even pureeing keep well, and can even improve flavor over time.
The last thing I want to mention is deciding on the doneness of vegetables. A lot of this is really up to your individual tastebuds. My husband likes his vegetables nice and tender (which you can totally read as mushy – bleh – and yes, he is protesting, but I’m keeping this in because, if nothing else, its funny. And they’re mushy to me. And I have his permission.), I like mine on the raw side of done (ie nice and crispy and barely cooked). Some vegetables are “better” when more tender – broccoli and green beans, for example. Others do better barely cooked – snow peas and sugar snap peas – but, in the end, it really depends on what tastes good to you.
Go experiment. Try something new. Connect with your food and cooking.