Vegetables, there is science to best enhance them in the kitchen – Food

Do you keep the tomatoes in the fridge? Get them out. Are you used to boil asparagus? Bad: throw away a lot of flavor with the cooking water. Much better to use the microwave for the stem and skip the tips in the pan. Garlic and onion cut them roughly, or finely, crush them or grate them before using them? Because yes, it makes a difference. Do you cook the potatoes by throwing them in boiling water or starting with cold water? Because, even in this case, there is a difference. Eggplants are best salted before frying them, but it is not to remove the bitterness, which must be done. And while we're at it, it's better not to use extra virgin olive oil to fry them. These and many other tips you will find in the book are based on what science has discovered about the various plants we use to enrich our diet. He tells them Dario Bressanini (formerly best seller of La science della pasticceria and La scienza della carne) in the new book The science of vegetables (Gribaudo) with the delicious photos of Barbara Torresan. The book is very practical but the advice rather than gourmet is scientific. The tomato sauce, told as Bressanini does, is a focus between the historian and the academic but interesting as a short story: when we return to cook it our own way (because in every Italian house we do differently) the idea to change it for following the scientific advice will come naturally.
In the book we talk about the use of fridge and freezer, microwave and oven, potatoes, tomatoes, aubergines, quinoa, onions, garlic, peppers, courgettes, pumpkin and much more according to a selection of vegetables made by the author (many but not all , is not an encyclopedia!), with a predilection for recipes and scientific experiments for sauces, soups and soups that are easy to prepare. "A properly prepared onion soup – says Bressanini – is a concentrate of flavor and, at the same time, a lesson in applied chemistry. Alongside experiments and recipes, there are also what I call non-recipes: such simple preparations and quick to execute so as not to require particular accuracy in measuring the ingredients, or even in the preparation. The goodness is enhanced by the quality of the starting product: if the tomatoes do not know anything, you cannot remedy them in any way. for example, it is essential that tomatoes and mozzarella are not cold, in order to taste their flavor. And it would be better, as you will discover, that tomatoes have never been chilled ". Some scientific information:
The artichokes and broccoli are the flowers of the plant, as are the cauliflowers. We also eat flowers of pumpkins and courgettes but more often we consume fruits. Courgettes are already the fruits of the zucchini plant (Cucurbita pepo), which among other things belong to the same species of pumpkins. When a gastronomist and a botanist talk about fruit they can mean two different things. From the biological point of view, the fruits are the seeds and the ovaries of the flowers of plants. We could call all the other edible parts of plants that are not fruits: for example, leaves (such as salad or basil), flowers (such as artichokes), roots (such as carrots), pods (like green beans), bulbs (like onions) and tubers (like potatoes). Or we could narrow the definition by using it, in accordance with the name, only if they are green. In the kitchen, in any case, this rigid distinction is not followed: tomatoes, olives, peppers, cucumbers and aubergines are, botanically, fruits. Gastronomically speaking, however, we are used to considering only those vegetables that have a high sugar content and that are more or less sweet to taste. But sometimes even a fruit, gastronomically speaking, is not a fruit, botanically speaking: the fruits of the strawberry plant are actually those little yellow-black dots we see on the surface. And then there are fruits, called fruits both from botanists and cooks, but they are not at all sweet, like avocado, which in fact is used much more for sauces and salads than as a dessert. Science has many things to say about how to make the most of onions, basil, carrots and aubergines and this regardless of the label we decide to give them.