Cooking greens and keeping the color

I love greens. Chard, kale, beet, mustard... they're all great accompaniments to a piece of chicken, steak, or fatty pork. But I don't love how ugly they can end up looking after they're cooked. I used to start them out relatively early and sautee them down quite a bit in olive oil and bacon fat, but they'd invariably end up browning and looking awful. My solution has been to basically cook them off last minute before plating so that they cook long enough to soften but don't completely wilt. This usually works, but it can be a pain if I'm trying to keep my eye on other things, and if I hold them for five minutes longer than I intended they can end up looking sad. If I add acid (usually sherry or balsamic vinegar, or lemon juice) I do it a minute or two before serving. Are there any tips for keeping the color on greens? Should I blanch them and do an ice bath before sauteeing them? Is there some magic I could perform using acid or alkaline to keep them looking fresh? Or is the solution to cook them off at the very last second so they don't lose their vital color?

Also any tips for keeping sous vide rainbow chard stems looking fresh and sexy would be appreciated.

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Brendan_Lee_56950

Blanch away. A quick blanch and ice bath will set the color for you and it won't look like compost. It may not be 100% as vibrant as the raw ingredient but it will be much more color resistant.

Samuel_68313

I have heard that ascorbic acid is added to things like pesto to help keep the colour but I have no idea if that would work in this scenario (I actually don't know if this works in general but I have heard of it).

I would blanch with no salt, into an ice bath. Then just finished off gently in a pan with some butter, season at the last second before plating.

com-chefsteps

+1 on the ice bath. It's magic, and hey, the par-cooking decreases a-la-minute time, so bonus - and I'd say that for many greens, the post-blanch/shock color will be more vibrant than raw.

Brandon_Byrd_40557

Thanks for the feedback guys! I'll try a blanch/shock next time I try cooking greens... I know that this works well for raw or pseudo-raw applications (e.g. pesto or purees) to stop the enzymatic reactions, but I wasn't sure if the same benefit would occur if you went on to further cook blanched greens.

I'd still be keen to hear if there's any relationship between pH and color for cooked greens/stems. I feel like I've noticed things browning quicker after I've added acids (e.g. lemon, sherry/balsamic vinegar) to greens, but it might just be confirmation bias on my part. I know that for some things like apples and avocados, malic or citric acid will slow (or stop) the enzymatic reactions related to browning, but it seems to work in reverse for greens. Then again, I haven't done controlled tests... so I may be off base here. Any further input would be appreciated!

davidattala

The addition of an alkaline (ie baking soda) will give you a more vibrant green, but it also has the side effect of altering the texture of your greens to a mushier one. That's fine if you're ultimately gonna blend the greens up, like a pesto, but if you're serving the vegetable as is, not great.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

@Brandon: Oil, not vinegar, tends to make greens 'cook' or wilt (There's a blurb in Heston Blumenthal At Home that mentions it). Not sure about color.

tjdubas

Alkaline's will make it more vibrant green yes, but the texture will become slippery and mushy. Also it destroys the nutrient content. I find Thomas Keller has the right idea of a quick blanch in A BIG POT WITH LOTS OF WATER. Cooking for extended time will leech nutrients and colour into the water. That said if you do it in the aforementioned big pot of water you actually cook it faster because you don't lose as much energy by adding in the vegetables and therefore keep the colour more intact. Acids are not good for the chlorophyll and will turn it a more olive drab colour. That said, I find adding a bit of acid at the end (lemon juice) helps flavour but you're not cooking with it per say.

com-chefsteps

@Brandon Byrd, I forgot to mention that there is a maximum amount of time you can cook vegetables before the color becomes unpleasant even if you shock in ice water afterward. Shirley Corriher's Cookwise says it's about seven minutes, with minor variations.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

4 minutes is more like it, you can do it in bag.

Karen_Schneider_23594

As long as you don't over-cook the greens, I've never found that adding baking soda makes the dish mushy

crimsonfancy

We do it almost every day. Chards, kale, mustards, collards, turnips, cabbages, brussels, etc

Young greens, very fresh, washed and trimmed.
Big pot of boiling salted water (like the sea), dropped in and lightly stirred. Not crowded. Cook stirring.
Plunge into ice water just until they're chilled.
Drain, spin in a salad spinner, store wrapped in clean towels.
Pick up in appropriate fat and garnish, re-season, finish with whatever acid right at the end, taste, re-season, sell.

Chris_Young_80640

Not a big fan of salt myself, but agree with trying to keep the water at a full boil. The cation in both sodium chloride and other salts like calcium chloride ultimately will bind to the chorlorphyll pigment and cause brown discoloration. Now, ff you serve them fairly quickly after blanching, it's not a big deal. But blanch and store chilled and it can be an unsightly problem. Harold McGee has a nice discussion on the science.

At The Fat Duck in England our water was so hard that we blanched green vegetables in deionized water to preserve their color. That's a bit overkill, but then so was a lot of the stuff we did for Heston.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Haha like eating those hot peppers in the chile con carne episode, you looked miserable.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Brendan, where can I find all of the "In Search of Perfection" episodes? Is there a YouTube channel for it? Thanks!

Brendan_Lee_56950

you can find most of them by just searching for "in search of perfection" on youtube, I don't think they're exactly legally uploaded but they're available nonetheless.

Jack_Mayer_85396

cool, thanks! Netflix maybe?

Matt_67991

@Jack Youtube and dailymotion.

tshewman

Buy the book(s) as well. The recipes are fun (minus trying to source a devils penis). :-0

crimsonfancy

@Chris Young.
Interesting and I'll do some control and variation this week. I'm curious of the length of time I can store blanched and chilled before pick up. Funny that this is the way I've always prepared green veg blanching, even trained in school (1994-1996). I wonder if now days they've come to remove the salt.
We have a high mineral content well water at work that's now filtered, but when we need to recharge, it's easy to notice.

robert.c.brown15

Yeah, the blanching without salt thing always threw me when I read it in the past on another thread. I also learned from cooking Thomas Keller's recipes that the water needs to be heavily salted (once again, "like the ocean"). Doesn't salt season the vegetables as well as enhancing their color? I know the purpose of salt has nothing to do with raising the boiling temperature because it can't raise it high enough to make a discernible difference.

For whatever reason I haven't tried blanching without salt yet. Stuck in my ways. Can't believe Thomas Keller would leave me astray!;)

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Todd - I have one of the books, just waiting for the others to get cheaper on Amazon.

@Henri, Thanks!

Tom_Champion_14732

I hope I didn't miss someone else's suggestion; but I've had great results sous vide veggies, maintaining color, still crunchy, and easily pan fried for crispy if I needed it. To me the leafy greens work very well sous vide. I'm usually loose with the temp and quick qith time 5 minutes or less.