Boiling and stewing: pros and cons



Cooking in water is one of the most practical and used cooking methods. Along with baking, boiling foods is one of the most widely used possibilities in Mediterranean cuisine, where cereals, both whole and processed into flour and derivatives (pasta, etc.) and vegetables in every season abound.

Boiling and stewing are therefore ways of cooking the foods we have all seen use and that we can reproduce without too much effort.

Boiling and stewing

The boiling consists in immersing the food in hot water already brought to a boil, and possibly salted, and let it cook for a few minutes.

Grain cereals, pasta and vegetables are boiled; cooking times vary from the type of food to be cooked, and for the vegetables, from a few minutes, up to about twenty. It is a light cooking method that does not add fatty toppings and enhances the flavors of vegetables .

It is necessary to soak the vegetables in the already boiling water and not let them cook too much, since they lose precious nutrients with temperature and water: the water-soluble vitamins and mineral salts dissolve in water and therefore leave the food impoverished. To overcome this loss of important nutrients, you can decrease the water in which you cook and the amount of salt.

The resulting water from steam cooking can be reused in soups and other recipes, thus recovering some of the dissolved nutrients.

Stewing consists of simmering a food immersed in a liquid, which can be, as for boiling, water, or various seasoning, such as sauces, sauces.

Unlike boiling , stewing involves the use of fatty and tasty sauces; it is therefore not a cooking method particularly used in recipes that want to be light and healthy.

Vegetables can also be stewed, especially the harder and crispy ones, but the loss of minerals and vitamins is greater than other types of cooking, such as steaming and boiling.

Boiling: how to avoid losing nutrients

The changes that vegetables undergo during boiling depend on some factors:

  • the water temperature and the time it takes for the water to reach a boil (100 degrees) after the food has been immersed: the more the food remains immersed in water at a temperature below 100 degrees, the more it loses nutrients, without however cook;

  • the amount of salt : the salt impoverishes the vegetables of some minerals;

  • the cooking time at the actual boiling of the water : the vegetables must be cooked for a short time, for a sufficient time to leave them still slightly crunchy;

  • the size of the vegetable cuts : fine-cut vegetables have more surface free from the outer skin through which, by osmosis, the nutrients in the cooking water pass, and therefore lose;

Find out how to cook vegetables in winter

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