Types of Cooking in Water

Hi! I'm Elena, your nutrition expert from Castelló, and today we're going to look at the tools water gives us in the kitchen: cooking techniques in water-based media.

This morning, while I was preparing some broths in my kitchen in Novelda, I was thinking about how water is not just a carrier, but a heat-transfer medium that transforms food in a radical way. Depending on whether we want to soften a legume, keep a vegetable's color, or achieve the perfect egg, water and its temperature will be our best technical allies.

Types of Cooking in Water

It's not all just "boiling". Depending on heat intensity and time, we have different processes:

• Poaching: A slow cook, just below boiling point. It is ideal for delicate foods such as fish or eggs, since it improves digestibility and softens them without breaking them.

• Scalding or Blanching: A very brief immersion in boiling water. Its purpose? To deactivate enzymes before freezing, enhance the color of vegetables, or make it easier to peel tomatoes and shellfish.

• Boiling: Complete immersion. Here the key is the starting point:

  • Starting from cold: For legumes (rehydration) or stocks (we want the flavor to pass into the broth).

  • Starting from boiling: For pasta and vegetables, aiming for proteins to coagulate quickly and nutrients to be preserved.

• Pressure Cooking: In a sealed pot, the water exceeds 100 °C (reaching 120 °C). This drastically reduces cooking times and is a very efficient technique for tough meats or legumes.

Factors That Influence It: Water and Seasonings

The result of your dish depends as much on the technique as on the chemistry of the water you use:

1. Water hardness: In our Mediterranean area, we usually have hard water. This water is alkaline and can toughen vegetable skins (as calcium binds with pectins) or alter their pigments (red vegetables may turn purplish).

2. The Power of Salt: Adding salt to water raises the boiling point. In addition, cooking with salt helps the seasoning enter the food; if you cook without salt, the opposite happens: the food's minerals leave the food and go into the water by osmosis.

3. Acids and Spices: Vinegar or lemon change the color and texture (softening fish), while spices such as rosemary or thyme not only add aroma, but also provide antioxidants that protect the food's nutrients during cooking.

Tools from My Pantry

To make your cooking as healthy as it is tasty, especially if you keep an eye on blood pressure or weight, here are my essentials:

• Technical Sweet Touch: For poached fruit desserts (such as pears in wine or syrup), Stevia + Eritrytol 1:1 is the key.

  • It lets you create the necessary syrup with 0 calories.

Elena's "Life Tip"

The 70 °C rule: If you want your pasta or vegetables to retain nutrients, always add them when the water is already boiling. Above 70 °C, the proteins on the surface coagulate instantly, creating a "barrier" that prevents vitamins and minerals from escaping into the water. You'll notice the difference in flavor and color!

Do you prefer using the pressure cooker to save time, or do you prefer the slow simmer of traditional poaching? Tell me your kitchen secrets!