pH and vegetables
An old trick when boiling vegetables is to add a little bit of baking soda to the water. This is supposed to help retain the color in the vegetables better. Now, that should be put to the test. A couple of weeks ago me and a chemist friend did a little testing. We cooked five pieces of broccoli in one liter of tap water, adding a teaspoon of E 500, (B)aking soda, E 335 and E 334 to four different samples. The last was (N)eutral.
Now, E 500, or sodium bicarbonate as it's most often referred to gave the best result. Baking soda did not do to bad colorwise but left a soapy touch on the broccoli. E 334, aka Tartaric acid gave more loss of color, only topped by E 335 sodium tartrate that really messed up the poor broccoli. So to no-ones surprise, the more acidic the worse for the vegetables. Use a bit of sodium bicarbonate in the water (10 ppt) to retain color in the boiled veggies
Comments
have you tried broccoli at 52c, before cooking it.
how was the snail porridge. and if i may indulge ...
tried any el bulli isomalt recipes ... what's your favorite sous-vide recipe
and how fast does a swallow fly ... hehe
I've tried to blanche and even sous vide veggies before flash cooking them. IMHO it gives great results color- and taste-wise. But the point of the post was not the optimal way of cooking broccoli, just a look into the result of pH when boiling them.
The Blumenthal snail porridge is interesting but not a regular favorite :)
The only Ferran Adriá stuff I've done involves spumas and deconstruction :) (e.g the 21th century tortilla)
The best fish to sous vide imho is Haddock. The best result I've ever got with meat was Reindeer.
oh, and the european swallow files at approx. 24mph :)