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To Boil Green Vegetables

A simple boiled green vegetable dish seasoned with salt and soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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To Boil Green Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bring a saucepan of water to a boil.

  2. Add salt and soda to the boiling water.

Cook and drain

  1. Add the green vegetables and boil with the lid off.

  2. Boil young vegetables for about 20 minutes and older vegetables for 35-40 minutes until tender.

  3. Strain the vegetables immediately to prevent loss of flavor and color.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Green vegetables
Are the main food, cooked in boiling water until tender enough to eat.
Soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, which helps green vegetables keep a bright green color.

The step that matters

Boil until just tender. Boiling for too long breaks down the vegetables' cell walls, so they turn soft and mushy and lose texture. Prolonged heat also dulls their green color. Check for tenderness near the lower end of the time range.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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