I have a real stupid question, but it's an honest one. So if it sounds retarded, it's because i'm ignorant.
Is the gist of cooking all sorts of greens to just heat them up until they somewhat wilt and turn tender?
Like, obviously, there is a lot you can throw in there to add flavor, and how wilted they're supposed to be depends on taste and on strange cooking norms, but is the goal basically for all greens to just heat them until they turn tender enough for me? And the rest of it is just extra flavor?
Yeah that was pretty fucking stupid. Steam them if you're trying to keep as much nutritional content possible so it doesn't break down or leach into the water. Also, with greens like kale and chard, you may want to remove the center rib as it's quite tough and fibrous and won't cook at the same rate as the more tender leafy parts.
David Baker
What recipe are you trying to make? Oh wait, you didn't fucking pick one. First tell us the recipe, and then we can tell you how cooked the greens are supposed to be.
Samuel Collins
I'm not asking you how cooked they're supposed to be because i'm talking about all greens in general.
I can look up cooking rates for each vegetable. My concern is for pitfalls.
Like, when you're cooking garlic, it goes from delicious to Pure Evil very fast when it reaches a certain stage.
Is there such a pitfall in greens, or is it mostly just "not done... not done... okay, it's done"?
Jonathan Baker
>but is the goal basically for all greens to just heat them until they turn tender enough for me?
No. For quite a number of vegetables and serving methods, this is indeed most of the answer, but it's not enough of the answer to just go "this is basically true."
The rest of the story:
You cook vegetables with other things to transfer flavor from the veggies to the other thing (E.g. garlic providing flavor to a meat sauce).
You cook vegetables with other things to transfer flavor from the other thing to the veggies (E.g. rice soaking up flavor from being cooked with chicken bones).
You cook vegetables to change their flavor profile (e.g. cabbage and onion becomes sweeter from cooking)
You cook vegetables together for a long long time to make them disintegrate entirely and intermix their flavors to get an entirely new flavor profile. (E.g. vegetable soup stock)
You cook vegetables for a long long time to break down poisons (Spinach and soil bacteria toxins, Cassava and cyanide)
Blake Adams
Yeah i'm just talking about greens. Collard, kale, beet greens, ect. Ya know, crap you eat for entirely its own benefit. Not all "vegetables". Not as an ingredient in something else.
Owen Thomas
Look. I've cooked beet greens and collard in their own recipes, and i've seen other greens in recipes, and it occurred to me that 90% of the recipe is doing stuff to or doing stuff considering the other ingredients, and mostly just what happens to the greens is they wilt.
So i thought, wait, i could make any kind of damn recipe i want with the greens and all i have to worry about with them is that they wilt properly.
Is that generally true?
Samuel Lewis
>Yeah i'm just talking about greens. Collard, kale, beet greens, ect. Ya know, crap you eat for entirely its own benefit. Not all "vegetables". Not as an ingredient in something else.
Spinach is a "green" and needs proper cooking to kill soil bacteria and, more importantly, destroy soil bacterial toxins. This is mainly a problem if you cook it only a little, have left-overs and leave them out to cool before putting in the fridge but it is a real problem.
Jaxon White
You can eat all greens raw anyway so how long you cook them is entirely to your taste. You don't need to worry about if they're done according to some external standard, it's just a question of how you prefer them. No one's judging you.
Like said, when you're cooking big, hardy greens like chard, kale, or collards, keep in mind that the stalks are tough and take longer to soften up than the leafy parts. Normally you want to remove the stalks from the leaves and give them a head start, but whatever. This isn't an issue with spinach or arugula though.
Zachary Wright
>Look. I've cooked beet greens and collard in their own recipes, and i've seen other greens in recipes, and it occurred to me that 90% of the recipe is doing stuff to or doing stuff considering the other ingredients, and mostly just what happens to the greens is they wilt.
I'm not seeing it.
Maybe we're just from different food cultures, could you come up with an example?
Eli Lopez
Wait, spinach hosts especially dangerous soil bacteria? Don't people eat raw spinach?
Anthony Richardson
You didn’t even read OP’s post, did you? That isn’t what he’s asking.
Joshua Cox
they do. user is an idiot
Ryan Harris
>Wait, spinach hosts especially dangerous soil bacteria? Don't people eat raw spinach?
They do, and if you wash your spinach first it should be no problem.
But if you stew your spinach, and don't kill all the bacteria (This is every vegetable ever stewed) then the surviving bacteria can draw nutrition from the stew and produce some nasty stuff overnight.
And you can't wash them (and their toxins) off a stew like you can with fresh vegetables, so if you're serving stewed spinach two days in a row, you need to be sure you bring it the leftovers to a proper boil rather than just re-heating them so you can destroy the toxins.
It's kind of an edge case that exclusively happens when you make a stew, with spinach, have leftovers, don't put them directly in the fridge after eating, and then don't boil them the next day - and even then, it might not happen if e.g. your stew is too salty for the bacteria to regrow fast.
Jason Watson
You also cook veggies to change their nutritional components. For example, steamed spinach is actually more nutritious than raw. I think it also makes the nutrients more easily available for your body to use but I could be mistaken on that. Maybe I’m thinking of mixing fat-soluble vitamins with a bit of fat to eat.
David Hernandez
Not all recipes call for cooking them the same amount of time. The same type of green could be cooked for different times depending on what you're making.
Jace James
get your head checked
Kayden Ward
No, it is true that if you break down the cell walls that you'll get more out of the vegetable than if it was purely raw. Unless you are willing to chew it as long as a cow does. But i'm not overly concerned about nutrition. Mostly just flavor.
Henry Bailey
I shall endeavor not to catch tetanus or botulism from my vegetables. Though mostly because i find dirt to add a limited amount to the dining experience.
>Abstract >Aims: To investigate the changes in bacterial diversity on fresh spinach phyllosphere associated with storage at refrigeration temperatures.
Get ye fucked my dude.
Carson Sanchez
>diversity Warning. Usage of banned words will result in banning. Pls read global rules for more info.
Nolan Thomas
I liked this thread and the foundational nature of OP's question
