Hail to the Great Culinary Horde,
Last time we talked about why you shouldnt boil your vegetables, and I mentioned a little case study that I did with green beans.
In my restaurant we cook over 120 pounds of green beans every day. This kind of volume is bound to give even the most amatuer cook a little bit of experience in this area.
Our process is rather simple. We blanch the green beans for a minute or two, then transfer them to a pan and saute them with olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper. The whole process takes less than 3 minutes and the end result is fantastic. The beans are crisp, crunchy, full of flavor, and as green as fresh cut grass.
To give you some ideas as to what you can expect to see in both the blanching and boiling processes, I’ve got some photos.
We start with a large pot of fresh clear water. After just 8 pounds of beans have been cooked (remember we only blanch them for about a minute or two, 4 pounds at a time) you can already see some of the leaching taking place. However the water is still clear enough that you can make out the bottom of the strainers.
And here is what the first 8 pounds looks like…
You can see by the vibrant color that the chlorophyll pigment is really coming through. While this picture may not be worth 1000 words, I can tell you that the beans are still firm and crisp. They POP when you snap them.
The other end of the spectrum is the way over leached water below…
This is our pot after almost 80 pounds of beans have been run through it during a busy dinner service. No, you cant see the bottom… and yes, a single batch of green beans at home can make your water look like this if you leave it too long.
For the sake of our case study, I let about a pound of green beans boil for 8 minutes, and then prepared it in the exact same finishing manner as we had for every other batch of green beans that night. Side by side with a portion of properly prepared beans, some of the differences are very clear.
The properly prepared Green Beans, Ready to be enjoyed
The Boiled to death (ok, only 8 minutes) Green Beans
Hopefully this all gives you an idea of expectations for when you blanch and not boil your vegetables. Perhaps it will even have you trying some veggies that you previously didnt like because of how they were cooked.
Until next time… Enjoy your veggies, keep cooking and…
May The Food Be With You.