Veggie Cooking Tips Part I
We thought it might be helpful to share some cooking tips and vegetable-forward recipe inspiration for everyone cooking at home more. These are some things we have learned and some recipes we’ve enjoyed recently. This is a 3 part series - so more tips coming soon!
Size matters.
When roasting or sautéing any vegetable, the size of the dice (or mince, or whatever) really matters. This might seem obvious, but it wasn’t for us until we started doing recipe development. The size of the cut should be fairly consistent or else some veggies will cook much faster than others. Even though it might take a little more time, we have found that cutting the veggies into smaller pieces creates more surface area for flavor, and hence, more delicious vegetables. But smaller vegetables also cook faster so you need to keep an eye on them.
Don’t crowd the pan.
If you are following a recipe that calls for browning your vegetables, be careful of trying to cook too much stuff at once. Vegetables contain a lot of water, and that water gets released as vegetables get cooked. As the water is being cooked off, it uses up the heat provided by your stove/oven, lowers the cooking temperature of your vegetables, and prevents browning. The more veggies you add to your pan or roasting sheet, the more time and heat you will need to cook off that moisture before you can achieve golden brown deliciousness. Even the commercial ovens that we use struggle to properly brown vegetables when we crowd our sheet pans.
Quality matters.
We are always struck by how important the quality of the food is to any dish. There are certain brands/providers of products we prefer just because the quality is so much better. This of course includes produce as well.
How do we determine quality? Taste things! Finding quality produce and ingredients takes time and experience; try things out and trust your gut. We always encourage folks to shop at farmers markets. They are reliable sources of quality produce and value-added products (breads, cheeses, etc), plus by shopping there you support local farmers and artisans!
You can also look at the certifications to learn how it was grown and processed, but we find that those aren’t always signs of quality. we’ve had plenty of organic lettuce and greens that were somewhat tasteless - likely due to the fact that they were intensively grown in large quantities and took many days to get shipped across the country (amongst other reasons).
Frozen veggies?
Although we prefer in-season fresh fruits and vegetables, we often use frozen produce as well. They are easy, and enable us to cook nutritious dinners with less time spent on prep and clean-up. During the off-season, frozen produce can oftentimes be higher quality than fresh produce as well because they can be picked and preserved at peak times. Zoe used frozen mixed peppers in a Peanut Tofu Stir-Fry the other week. Even though the peppers didn’t look so great - they had been in her freezer for too long - they added nice color and sweetness, and the dish was delicious. Jason has been loving frozen corn in esquites lately. Cooking tips part II coming soon!
Photo courtesy of @thehappyveganbelly