week 11: cauliflower golf balls and ‘blue’ cabbage

April 8, 2009

as we entered the first week of cooking methods class, i was eager to make fresh pasta, prepare risotto and rice pilaf, and sear, grill, deep-fry, braise and roast all sorts of meat. starches and protein are, after all, what we typically seek for sustenance. not to mention the fact that i considered myself already well-versed in vegetables, since i prepare them fresh at home almost every day. but on day one of cooking methods, meat and starch took a backseat as we prepared vegetables every which way: steamed, sautéed, covered in mornay sauce, honey-glazed and braised with bacon and apples. and much to my surprise, i learned a little chemistry along the way. we heat vegetables to make them digestible and tasty enough to eat, but it is equally important when we cook that we maintain their vibrant colors.

the acid or alkali content of cooking liquid affects the color of most vegetables. the only class of vegetables that is unaffected by acid or alkali is the carotenoid group–known to most as orange and yellow vegetables. green, chlorophyll containing vegetables like broccoli and spinach, turn a drab olive color when acid is added to their cooking liquid, which is why you should add a liberal shower of salt to the cooking liquid when preparing green vegetables. quite the opposite is true for red, purple and white vegetables like beets and red cabbage, which get their color from flavenoids. cooking them in an alkaline liquid makes them look like something out of a dr. seuss book–thus leaving them fit only for the bravest of eaters.

Chef quickly demonstrated this strange, blue cabbage phenomenon, dumping a handful of kosher salt in a pan of simmering water and red cabbage. almost instantly, the cabbage turned a bruised bluish purple and tinted the water a Windex blue. “Chef, what happens if you cook down all the water?” i asked. “probably not much–maybe it will get a little darker. but let’s see, eh?” he replied, taking the pan over to my station and setting it on the range. 15 minutes later, the cabbage was still blue, and it had bled a nice blue crust onto the pan, which i then had to scrub clean. Chef plated the blue red cabbage next to some red cabbage that had been cooked properly.

red cabbage (left) cooked with acid and blue cabbage (right) cooked with alkali

simply adding a little acid to these vegetables would have helped them retain their proper color as they cooked, but it is more memorable to learn the hard way, and come away with blue-tinted fingertips, eh?

but we didn’t come to class just for chemistry. next, Chef demonstrated cauliflower with mornay sauce, a bechamel-based sauce that is mixed with gruyère cheese and a little mustard powder. the sauce nappes, or coats, the parcooked cauliflower like a thick, silky blanket. the cauliflower are then placed in the oven for a few minutes until a slightly brown crust forms on top, rendering them irresistible to even the staunchest of vegetable haters.

some weeks later, some classmates and i visited get fresh produce, a distributor of fruits, vegetables and dairy in bartlett, ill., far north of the city. in this giant, climate- and ethylene gas-controlled land where all the produce is vibrant in color and uniform in size, we learned that persnickety chefs and restaurant operators can demand that every button mushroom, beefsteak tomato and asparagus spear that comes through their door is the same size and shape, and farmers will comply with these wishes through controlled growing techniques. “steakhouses only want the gigantic asparagus spears for their customers, so that’s what we get them,” said get fresh president jim costabile.

strolling through the different rooms of this impeccable fruit and vegetable haven, we learned that Nonpareil potatoes from Idaho are the number one choice for restaurants because they have less water content and higher starch reserves–and restaurants will pay extra to get them. but they have to be stored at 48 degrees F or their starches will begin turning to sugar. we learned that the abundance and bright colors we see in the produce section of the grocery store pale in comparison to sand dollar-sized portobello mushroom caps, ruby strawberries and sweet cherry tomatoes that taste almost like they’ve been injected with sugar. we learned that one client actually purchases potatoes by the ton (in a one-ton sack, to be exact) for potato salad that it prepares from scratch and sells to costco (see below).

we learned that tomatoes, bananas and melons can’t be stored near delicate vegetables like greens because the high amount of ethylene gas they emit, which causes the greens to ripen quicker and possibly spoil. each of these lessons came from a group of guys who grew up working in the produce industry alongside their parents, and they learned many of these tricks of the trade the hard way.

but if we are unable to get our hands on flawless produce in the chef world, we can sometimes fake it. for a head of cauliflower with inconsistently sized florets, we can intervene after they’ve been cooked and make uniform “balls” with the help of a towel. during the cauliflower demo, Chef plucked one of the parboiled florets from the ice bath where it was cooling, gingerly covered it with a towel and wrung it near the base so the small, tender little blossoms tucked themselves under the head of the floret, leaving a perfectly round ball. “we might do this for a banquet so they all look the same,” he said. mother nature, with all its tricks, still can’t fool a chef.