Hey everybody itís Jennifer and Matt here in the discovery kitchen and today weíre
talking about probably the most important part of healthy eating. So one thing that
you have to do it youíre going to be a healthy eater. What is that? Cook! Itís cook. And
really cooking is definitely a lost art. But weíre hoping to bring you back to it because
itís so important, so today Matt is going to show us a few different techniques about
cooking vegetables. Because if thereís one question that Iím asked all the time, itís
well you want me to eat vegetables but I can make a salad but I donít know what else to
do with the veggies. And there are so many different vegetables and so many different
delicious ways to prepare them that itís really important that we get these healthy
basics down. Right. Yeah the key here is that people say well my favorite vegetable is this
or itís that, but sometimes you get tired of that and so these are different methods
that you can cook similar vegetables from one method to another and get different results
that can be very delicious, you can different flavor profiles, different textures. And itís
a lot of fun to experiment. And easy, super easy, I promise you this is easy, I can do
this OK so what do we have? Well I mean besides the vegetables I mean the only ingredients
you really need are olive oil, salt and pepper. The different techniques that weíre going
to talk about today will take you from dry methods and moist methods and as you can see
we have a different array of things here. So Iím going to start over here and talk
about one of my favorite vegetables which is collard greens. So you have collard greens
or you have kale, you have swiss chard, or you have spinach. Very nutritious vegetables,
and a really good way to get them in is to not only cook them but you can also find different
ways to preserve them. So one of my favorite things to teach people is that when you go
to the farmers market in the summer and you see a great deal on a particular vegetable,
buy a lot of it, what Iím about to show you is a good way that helps you preserve it for
use months down the road. Great. So with the collard greens what Iíve got here, theyíve
been chopped and cleaned. And Iíve got a boiling pot of water here. Now the boiling
pot of water is not to fully cook the greens but itís going to blanch the greens. And
what this does, is from a preserving stand point, it stops the growing process and basically
gets the vegetable to a point where you can preserve it.
So what weíre going to do is take some of these collards and weíre literally just going
to put it some boiling water. Now what have you done to the collards? You just washed
them and cut them up? Well these are organic so I didnít even wash them, since Iím putting
them into boiling water, you know itís kind of like washing them all at the same time.
Pretty much, yeah. Not blanching does a couple different things, one it stops the ripening
process, and so from that point you can preserve it. So if you go ahead a freeze it like this
theyíre going to get mushy and they are not going to store well. But also if in the middle
of the summer some of these hearty greens can be a little tougher or a little bit more
bitter, is that by blanching them before you sautÈ them really sweetens them up takes
the bitterness out, actually makes them nice and plump. So what most of you maybe donít
know is that when you buy a bag of frozen veggies at the grocery store, itís actually
just a blanched product. So really whatever that particular vegetable is theyíve just
blanched it and thrown it into a bag. And itís interesting to note that sometimes depending
on where you live, those frozen vegetables can have as much or more nutrients than the
fresh version. If youíre buying things that are out of season or come from a faraway place,
sometimes frozen can actually be better because they are blanched and bagged at the peak of
ripeness. Correct, correct. Great. So now again the difference between blanching and
boiling is that Iím done. Now if I was going to boil these to cook them, Iíd probably
want to cook them a little bit longer, but only about 2 to 3 minutes, depending on the
vegetable. The big thing weíre looking for here is color; we want to see the bright green
color come out. We donít want to see the color running out and itís very dull and
you can see a lot of the color going on in the water. If your water is a color chances
are youíre taking a lot of those nutrients out, so you want to be careful. So now Matt
is going from the hot boiling water to the ice water. Ice water. Why are you doing this?
To stop the cooking process. So this gets the vegetable to exactly the point where you
want to stop cooking, and where you want to pick up next time so when you pull it out
of the freezer you know how far along itís been. So if Iím doing this method, I put
it in, I stop the cooking I wait until that vegetable is cool, take it out of that water
try to get some of that excess moisture out. As much as possible, and put it in a bag.
Right. Salad spinners, roll it in paper towels or towels and squeeze out as much moisture
as possible. Lay it out on a cookie sheet so they donít
all stick together, and you can slide the cookie sheet into the freezer or on a rack
of some sort, and then once itís frozen you can put it in a bag and itíll keep for 3
to 6 months easily. Great. Now if I donít want to do that process, and I want to go
right ahead and start cooking, youíve got another method for me over here, right. Now
the blanching not only does a preserving method but itís also a good way to kind of, again
the bitterness, toughness of the vegetable, it gives it a quick little cooking method
in moisture, and weíre going to go from a moist method of cooking, into a dry method
of cooking which is sautÈing. So what I have here is a little bit of garlic and onion,
and olive oil of course. And Iím going to take these vegetables and add them to the
sautÈ. So straight from here to about 3 to 4 minutes in boiling water, shaking off the
excess water so you can sustain it. And what this is going to do is give it a nice dry
medium cooking; you know you might get a little bit of browning on certain things. Iíve caramelized
the onions and the garlic so theyíre going to be a nice compliment. Now if youíre going
to do leafy greens like this, be careful not to burn the garlic and the onions because
once you burn garlic and onions they get bitter. And if the vegetables have a bit of a bitter
tendency to begin with youíre going to kind of end up with an undesirable result here.
OK so nice and slow cooking with the garlic and onions to start, maybe turn up the heat
slightly once you add the greens. Right, right. OK. Now if by any chance youíre coming home
from the farmers market or the store and you have a very tender and sweet leafy green and
you want to go right to the sautÈ pan, wash them first, get a little moisture on the leaves,
because if you put them in dry first theyíre going to scorch and burn. Youíve got to be
careful. We talked about blanching and shocking, blanching and sautÈing, and from there weíre
going to talk about another moist method of cooking, which is grazing. Now grazing is
more of a method associated with meats, tougher cuts of meats. But Iím sure everyone here,
especially of an Irish decent is familiar with cabbage. So you do grazed cabbage and
carrots with your corned beef. What youíre doing here is low and slow, very very low
heat, with moisture. So youíre going to put the vegetables in the pot, youíre going to
give just a little bit of moisture and turn the heat very very low, you can do this on
a stove top with a lid or you can take this and put it in the oven, 300 degrees, or 325,
and then just doing it for a half hour, hour, until the vegetables are tender. And thatís
a very good way of retaining the nutrient content of the vegetable, and just making
something thatís relatively tougher, kind of like cabbage, and making it very very tender.
Let me ask you a question, can you use your slow cooking too for grazing? Thatís one
of my favorites. The whole, set it and forget it. You wake up in the morning and you can
get all your vegetables and your meal in one place. But a slow cooker is grazing. That
is typical. Great. So weíve got these three and thereís more. Yeah, this is actually
my favorite method. This is oven roasting. So what I have here on a sheet pan is I have
some sweet potato and then I have some brussel sprouts. Again I toss this with olive oil,
salt and pepper and Iím going to pop this into a 350 or 375 degree oven. Maybe stirring
every 5 or 10 minutes, just so they brown evenly. And then after about maybe 15 minutes
youíve got a wonderful, tasty dish here. You get a little bit of carmelization, again
this is a dry method, so with a dry method youíre going to get a bit of browning, whereas
with the moist method youíre not. Itís a another flavor profile, itís another texture
profile, and itís a really great way to do a different variety, you can steam brussel
sprouts or you can oven roast them. And brussel sprouts when you roast them, actually thereís
a sweetness that comes out. If youíve tried brussel sprouts one way and thought they were
too bitter, try them roasted because they are really delicious I guarantee it. The way
you know these veggies are done, and of course the way you can make the process go a little
faster, is to cut everything small. And then you just want to cook them until you can stick
a fork through, right. Right. I mean desired doneness. And then Iím not going to forget
about my favorite winter squash, because these oven roasted are so delicious, and theyíre
beautiful and very nutritious. So donít forget about the winter squash when it comes to oven
roasting. Same thing, so you just slice those in half and gut the seeds out of the center?
Yep, so what I did was cut these in half, I scooped out the seeds. I have them in a
sheet pan, Iíll put some water in the sheet pan before I put it in the oven, so they donít
dry out. And maybe you just do it to a point where you can feel the skin giving away, getting
soft and then you can either scoop it out or you can make a puree, thereís so much
you can do with winter squash. Absolutely, and they make nice little bowls, so if youíre
doing some kind of meat dish you can put them in the center and it would look beautiful.
So the next time I see you, donít ask me what else you can do with your vegetables.
Donít tell me the only thing you can eat are salads because youíve got a lot of different
ways to cook a lot of different vegetables. Thanks weíll see you soon. Bye-bye