It would seem that among all the culinary tricks and secrets, cooking vegetables does not require any special knowledge and is subject even to completely ignorant, novice housewives. Not everything, however, is so simple, for example, how to cook beets for a vinaigrette or bright, with a rich, flawless color, borscht or a characteristic beetroot? So that the proper crunch is present, both elasticity and vitamins are preserved.
If beets should be boiled for cooking on its basis or as an additional ingredient in a salad: a traditional vinaigrette, with apples, with garlic and sauce, with herbs and aromatic olive oil, for everyone’s favorite herring under a fur coat, etc., you need to get a bright vegetable , a certain hardness. Hard enough (vinaigrette) or, on the contrary, soft (fur coat). The most common typical mistakes when cooking beets are stiffness, heterogeneity of structure, and pallor. Then how to cook beets correctly in order to avoid them? Should:
Water should slightly cover the vegetables, at the same time you need to monitor the water level, and periodically add cold water, since the vegetables must always be completely in the water.
When boiling several root vegetables, they should be approximately the same shape and weight.
Beet tails cannot be trimmed.
It is preferable to select undamaged root crops, clean them well before cooking from contamination, rinse.
The most optimal form of beets for cooking whole (not for soups) is cylindrical, elongated, rich red, sweet.
Cook should be on low heat, avoid boiling, under the lid.
You can check the softness and readiness traditionally - with a knife, a toothpick (pierce). As a rule, the beets are definitely ready, if the root crop slides off the knife on its own, it is not necessary to shake it. Just don't do it every four minutes. Ideally, check the readiness once. Otherwise, the root crop will be completely exhausted, the juice will flow out, the brightness and integrity will be lost. You should calmly, without disturbing, cook the beets for 40 minutes, after which you can check for readiness if the fruits are small or a slightly harsh, crispy structure is required.
Salting water for cooking beets is not worth it, firstly, it is practically useless, and secondly, it can somewhat affect the taste of the vegetable.
Often there is a need to preserve color, how to cook bright and beautiful beets? To preserve the color, boiled water can be acidified or sweetened. Add a couple of tablespoons of table vinegar or lemon juice, or sugar per 3 liters of one liquid (excluding the volume of vegetables). Citric acid or sour kvass is also suitable.
There are no strict requirements for the material of the dishes, however, it should be understood that the decoction turns out to be coloring and saturated. However, it is not recommended to cook in metal utensils. There are requirements for the size, the smaller the useless volume of the container, the better. Ideally, a couple of cm should remain from the surface of the liquid to the lid.
When cooking beets, there is a somewhat specific smell, it is easy to get rid of it by putting a bread crust in the pan.
In order for the finished beets to be easily and quickly cleaned, after cooking, rinse them or dip them for 8-10 minutes in cold water. The vegetable is cooked separately from the rest, and the sliced prepared beet slices / cubes are smeared with any vegetable oil in order to preserve the color and not stain the rest of the salad ingredients.
If you want to cook beets very quickly, you can also boil chopped peeled root vegetables. fast? The main thing is a minimum of water, a small container, a closed lid. Enough 15 minutes. After boiling, you should definitely add a spoonful of vinegar and mix - the color will be restored. For salads, beets can also be boiled / baked, stewed, baked in a conventional oven.
We all love beetroot for its unique, unlike anything taste and a lot of useful properties. Most of all, it is valued for the prevention of diseases of the heart and blood vessels, as well as anemia: beets are rich in substances such as iron, potassium and magnesium, which favorably affect the processes of hematopoiesis in the body.
Unfortunately, we are used to thinking that boiling beets is long and tiring: indeed, if you just put them in a pot of cold water, they will cook for 2 to 3 hours, which cannot repel everyone who values their time from this product. .
We decided to collect the most effective tips on how to cook whole beets as quickly as possible and at the same time preserve all of its unique beneficial properties.
temperature fluctuations
This method is ideal for those who decide to quickly cook whole beets in a saucepan.
If you urgently need boiled beets to prepare a dish, we advise you to act like a professional chef: leave it in boiling water for half an hour, drain the water and immediately put it under a stream of ice water.
Leave the beets to cool under water for 10-15 minutes: such a sharp temperature drop will bring them to readiness.
Boiling water
Bring the water to a boil and, placing the beets in a saucepan, cook for about 40 minutes, maintaining a large fire. Pour water with a margin, because from the high temperature it will boil away very quickly.
big fire
To quickly boil beets on the stove, you need a large fire and 20 minutes of free time.
It is very important to pour plenty of water: the roots should be covered with about a ten-centimeter layer of already boiling water. Otherwise, the water will boil away long before the beets have had time to cook. Do not cover the pan with a lid and cook for 15-20 minutes, then place the root crops under an ice cold stream of water for 5 minutes. The candle is ready.
The only drawback of this express method is that nothing of useful vitamin C remains in the product.
Baking in the oven
Try to quickly cook beets in the oven using a baking bag. This method is as fast as boiling, and, most importantly, just as (if not more) tasty: baked beets are sweeter than boiled ones, which can be successfully used in cooking, for example, vinaigrette.
Put the washed, unpeeled beets in a bag (you can also use foil) and place in the oven, preheated to 180–200 degrees. Small young root crops will be ready in half an hour, and large and ripe ones in 40–50 minutes.
in the microwave
If you want to quickly and tasty cook beets in the microwave, you will need about 20 minutes.
Put the unpeeled, washed beets in a special microwave-safe container or a plastic bag, without tying it, but folding it. Set the microwave to medium power and cook for 7-10 minutes. Check readiness and put the beets for another 5-10 minutes, if they are still half-cooked.
In a slow cooker
In a slow cooker, you can also cook beets quickly and easily. The easiest and "fastest" option is to cook whole vegetables of approximately the same size in their skins.
On the "Steam" program (which can be completely replaced with the "Soup" or "Cooking" programs), the beets must be completely filled with water and boiled for 40 minutes. After the end of the program, check the readiness and, if necessary, add another 10 minutes.
Never cut off the tail or peel the beets (unless, of course, you plan to stew them for your dish). It will be enough to wash it thoroughly with a sponge and send it to boil in this form: this way it will retain its beautiful rich color.
By the way, about the color: add half a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice to the water after boiling - so it will become even brighter.
If you are cooking the beetroot for a vinaigrette or other salad and don't want it to color the rest of the vegetables, soak it well in vegetable oil after it's cut, and only then mix it with the other ingredients.
Hello, friends! Today we will learn how to properly cook beets quickly and tasty in order to preserve the maximum of useful components in beets. We will learn how to choose the right beets and discuss 6 ways to cook beets, their advantages and disadvantages.
How to choose the right beets.
There are 3 types of beetroot: table red beetroot, fodder beetroot (for livestock feed), sugar beetroot (white in section) used for sugar production.
The table red beet, which we will consider today, has many varieties, they differ in health value.
The most valuable beets for health are maroon in cross section, without white veins, small in size, slightly larger than a chicken egg. If the beets are large, larger than the size of a fist, then it can be suspected that they were grown with an artificial excess of fertilizers. It takes more time to cook a large root crop, and if it is cut during cooking, then some of the nutrients are washed out.
Beets without white circles in the context are healthier
We choose beets that are firm, not sluggish. Sluggish beets have already lost a lot of their nutritional qualities.
First, the beets must be washed thoroughly with a brush or wire wool. You need to wash with gloves so as not to damage and preserve the beautiful.
When peeling beets, the upper part from which the tops grew must be cut off, it can accumulate nitrates.
Beetroot is a unique vegetable, because during heat treatment it retains almost all of its trace elements and vitamins, i.e. thermally processed beets are just as useful and healing as raw beets.
To preserve the healthfulness of beets, remember the rule: do not heat the oven above 180 degrees when baking beets, otherwise the most valuable substance is destroyed - betaine, which saves from obesity and liver problems, as well as vitamin C.
Ways to cook red beets
We will choose such methods of cooking red beets that will preserve the beets in all their healing properties.
Depending on the size of the beets, it takes 1-1.5 hours to boil the beets.
If you follow the secrets of cooking, the healthiness of cooked beets will increase.
Secrets of boiling beets in water:
Secret 1. We boil water, add salt, let it boil for 5 minutes and only then lay the beets. What is achieved by this? The usefulness of boiled beets improves, as oxygen, which binds nutrients, is removed from boiling water.
Secret 2. If the root crops are small, it is enough to boil them for 30 minutes, and then unload them into a pot of cold water. When the water becomes warm, it is necessary to replace it with cold water and soak the boiled root crops in it for about 5 minutes. The beets become soft. Do not keep beets in water for a long time, so as not to wash out the beneficial substances
Secret 3. We cook the root crops under the lid, this will protect them from the harmful effects of light and air.
Steamed beets.
Steamed beets
For steaming beets, use a double boiler, but if it is not there yet, then it does not matter: put a colander in the pan, put the washed, unpeeled root vegetables in it and cover with a lid. When steamed, unpeeled root crops retain significantly more nutrients than when cooked in water. It is not necessary to trim the tips and tails of the beets.
Advantages of steam cooking:
1. Vitamins and microelements are preserved in much greater quantities than when boiled in water
The steaming time is shorter than when boiling in water. Small beets should be boiled for 15 minutes, and then put in cold water for 5 minutes.
Cooking beets in the microwave.
Cooking beets in the microwave
Beets are pricked in several places with a fork, placed in a bag (preferably in a baking sleeve, now they are widely sold in supermarkets, for example, in Pyaterochka) and tied. Turn on the microwave power of 800 watts for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, the beets are soft and the microwave stays clean. If your microwave has less power, then the cooking time is proportionally increased.
Attention: Do not burn yourself with hot steam when opening the package!
However, the taste of beets cooked in the microwave is different from those cooked in the steam or oven.
Roast the beets in the oven.
A common method of roasting beets in foil.
Wrap the beets in foil and put them on a baking sheet in the oven.
Each prepared root crop is wrapped in two layers of foil, with the matte side facing the beets, and baked on a baking sheet.
The advantage of roasting beets in foil:
Beets are tastier than boiled.
Its color remains richer.
Beets are baked quickly - in 30-40 minutes.
The baking sheet stays pristine clean, the oven too, less hassle with cooking.
The disadvantage of the method of baking beets in foil:
Food foil is made from aluminum, and aluminum tends to accumulate in the body. The association of Alzheimer's disease with an increased content of aluminum in the body has been proven.
It is possible that our average body can cope with a small amount of aluminum, but people with weak kidneys can be severely affected by aluminum. Scientists have proven the connection between the accumulation of aluminum in the body with the weakening of the growth of brain cells, with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
And how trustingly and thoughtlessly young people drink drinks from aluminum cans! How blindly people trust their health to beverage manufacturers!
Have you noticed that Alzheimer's disease has become more and more common? This disease is called the disease of industrialization.
Therefore, I threw away all aluminum spoons, saucepans and try not to use food aluminum foil, especially since there is an alternative, namely:
Roasting beets in a roasting sleeve.
We bake beets in the oven in a baking sleeve
The best way is to roast beets in a roasting sleeve. The baking sleeve is not afraid of high temperatures up to 230 degrees Celsius, does not emit harmful substances, it can be reused, it is environmentally friendly. When baking beets, the sleeve can not be pierced. The sleeve must be cut to the size of the baking sheet with a margin for the lapel and wrap the edges without even tying them. We place the sleeve with root crops on a baking sheet and put in a preheated oven. The baking sheet stays perfectly clean after baking. Beets are very tasty and healthy.
If we want to make a vinaigrette, put several sleeves with potatoes, beets and carrots in one baking sheet and bake all together. They are not dyed.
Results.
Today we reviewed:
- How to choose the right beets.
- How to cook beetroot - 5 ways to cook beetroot.
- We learned the rules of heat treatment of beets to preserve the maximum of useful substances.
- We learned how the beet readiness time differs with different cooking methods.
- We learned that the most environmentally friendly way to preserve nutrients is to roast beets in the oven in a roasting sleeve.
Beetroot is one of the most useful vegetables that preserves our health: it cleanses the blood, saturates us with useful substances and heals the body. Therefore, it must be present in our diet every day.
Next time we will look at a variety of beetroot recipes so that it never gets bored.
Sources:
Your cook
Boiled beets, as a component, are part of many different dishes (, salads,), so many are interested in how to cook beets properly. If you don’t cook it, it will be uncomfortable to chew, digest it - some of the nutrients will collapse, the taste will worsen, and, again, chewing overcooked root crops is not very pleasant.
In order for dishes that include boiled beets to turn out tasty and healthy, we choose fruits that are not too large and preferably not fodder varieties (that is, dark in color), young root crops are best. In principle, fodder varieties are quite edible, but with they don't taste as good. In addition, standards for the application of chemical fertilizers for forage crops are somewhat different from the standards used for feeding food crops. That is, fodder beets may contain more unhealthy substances.
How to cook beetroot?
Consider ways to properly and quickly cook beets. Some advise boiling beets for up to 2 or even up to 3 hours. Of course, you can no longer think about the usefulness of the product after heat treatment for such an amount of time. How much to cook beets in time depends on the variety and the size of the root crops. Professional cooks cook medium-sized beets for 20-40 minutes, without cutting the tail, in a peel, then pour cold water and after 15 minutes the beets are ready, precisely due to the temperature contrast of the procedures. It remains only to clean it and cut or grate. Let it not seem to you that the beets will turn out to be too tough - our teeth are just for chewing, moreover, more vitamins will be preserved.
Cooking
We select fruits of approximately the same size and rinse thoroughly. Pour the beets in a saucepan with cold water, bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the fire. When cooking, the water should completely cover the fruit. Cooking is best on low or medium-low heat. This method of heat treatment is optimal. If the root crops are large, of course, they can be peeled and cut into pieces, but it’s better to just cook a little longer, I think 40-60 minutes will be enough.
To improve the taste when boiling beets, you can add a little fennel and dill seeds (about 1 teaspoon per 2 liters of water). This technique not only improves the taste of the finished product, but also promotes the absorption of vitamins and other nutrients.
How much to cook peeled beets, again depends on the variety and size of the fruit. Peeled medium-sized beets are cooked for 20-30 minutes, no more, this is quite enough, especially if the beets are young. So that when cooking, the peeled beets do not lose their characteristic bright burgundy color, you can add 1-2 teaspoons of vinegar to 1 liter of water.
To determine how much to cook beets for a salad, you need to decide whether you boil the whole fruit or pre-cut it. In general, beets for salad are boiled for the same amount of time as for cooking other dishes.
How much to cook young beets?
To prepare young root crops, it is enough to boil them for 20 minutes. Then we cool the beets in cold water for 10 minutes, peel them, and you can use them: chop, grate, punch with a blender.
Many are interested in how to cook beets in a bag. Some cook beets in cellophane and even plastic bags. It seems that this method is not very healthy, but using cellophane is somehow still acceptable, but polyethylene, when heated, will definitely add unhealthy substances to the beets. We put the beets in a bag, make a few holes with a toothpick, put it in a pot of boiling water and cook as usual. It is better, however, to build a foil bag, place the beets in it and bake in the oven at medium temperature for 40-60 minutes. This method is a great alternative to boiling.
The calorie content of boiled beets is approximately 44 calories per 100 g of product.
How to cook beets quickly and correctly is a question that is asked not only by "teapots" from cooking. There are enough subtleties and tricks in the preparation of beets. Their knowledge will facilitate the achievement of the result, make it tasty and healthy. So, how to cook beets quickly and easily?
How long does it take to cook beetroot?
Beets are cooked from 20 minutes to 3 hours depending on the method, size and age.
What is here:
Boil 2-3 hours
If you put it in a pot of cold water and just put it on the stove, the cooking time will be 2-3 hours (depending on the size). Cook beets quickly it will not work, but, nutritionists say, some vitamins will remain.
Cook in 1 hour
If in boiling water - then an hour. But the process can be accelerated.
Professional approach to cooking beets
Professional chefs cook beets like this: after it has boiled for 30 minutes, drain the water and put it under a stream of cold water (the colder the better) for 15 minutes. The temperature difference brings the beets to readiness. So, the whole process takes 40-50 minutes.
Boil beets in 15-25 minutes!
If you want to cook the beets even faster, put them on a large fire without reducing or covering the pan with a lid. (True, in this case, nothing will remain of vitamin C). But then there should be a lot of water, it should cover the root crops 8 centimeters higher, otherwise it will boil away before the vegetables are cooked. After 15 minutes - under ice water for 5-10 minutes. Everything, the beets are ready.
Boil 40 minutes +
"Long-playing" method: large fire (if thrown into cold water) to a boil - medium fire (40 minutes) - quiet fire (until cooked). At the same time, we pour water 5 centimeters above the level of the beets.
Always end the process with cold water. Then the beets, in addition to what "reaches", are easily peeled.
Not fast, but tasty - in the microwave
Not the fastest, but very tasty way to cook beets - do not cook, but bake in a microwave or oven at a temperature of 200 degrees, placing in a baking bag. It will take 25-30 minutes; if the temperature is not so high or the beets are large and old, then it will take more time.
- Important! Vitamin C is destroyed at 190 degrees C.
By the way, baked beets are sweeter than boiled beets. And it is it that is recommended to be used in recipes for salads and vinaigrettes.
More about the nuances of quick cooking beets:
Choose small, flattened, thin-skinned burgundy roots that are tastier, prettier, and cook faster.
Pour a spoonful of vegetable oil into boiling water along with beets (I found a recommendation on the Internet, I haven’t tried it myself).
Barbaric way: peel the beets, cut into pieces, in a word, do as with potatoes. In a pressure cooker, they cook it for 20 minutes, after cutting it into strips.
10 secrets on how to cook beets correctly, and not only
1. Clean not clean. Firmly, with a brush, wash. We do not remove the peel, we cook with it. We do not cut off the tail. If you break the integrity of the beets, juice will flow out of it and it will turn out watery and whitish. Beetroot is peeled if it is intended for stewing.
2. Salt-do not salt. We do not salt the beets at the beginning of cooking, since the salt will evaporate anyway, and there is no point. In addition, salt will make the vegetable hard, which means it will increase the already long cooking time. Salt the beetroot dish directly. But not all hostesses will agree with this. Some people think that it is necessary to add salt at the beginning of cooking, otherwise it will turn out tasteless.
4. How to neutralize the smell. Not everyone likes the smell of beets. To neutralize it, throw a crust of bread into the saucepan.
5. How to check readiness. The readiness of the beets is checked with a fork: it should gently and easily enter the vegetable.
6. If you have peeled fresh beets, it can not be kept in the air, so as not to destroy vitamin C.
7. If the beets are dry. If your beetroot has dried up, do not rush to throw it away: scald it with boiling water, pour water at room temperature and let it swell. Then put it on fire without changing the water.
8. How not to "color" vegetables in a vinaigrette. WITH going to make a vinaigrette? Cut boiled or baked beets into pieces and immediately sprinkle with vegetable oil, then other vegetables (potatoes, for example) will not stain.
9. About the benefits of beetroot broth. Do not pour out the beetroot broth that remains after cooking the beets! It is better to add equal amounts of lemon juice, cinnamon and ginger to it (how much - adjust yourself, depends on the amount of broth). You get a tasty and healing refreshing drink, no worse, the preparation of which is more troublesome. With diuretic, laxative, antihypertensive and action.
10. About beet tops. Be sure to learn how to cook dishes from beet tops, pkhali, for example, add it to borscht and beetroot, because beets are healthy, and beet tops are even more useful - they contain a shock dose of vitamins. Only young tops will go into food, the old is not good.
