Spin off from Roast Dinner posts

I prefer veg cooked al dente (pardon my French) but I'll eat it anyway.

I steam carrots and turnips then mash with butter and pepper. I steam greens I don’t like soggy greens I like them with butter and crushed caraway seeds.
I eat any colour pepper raw or stir fried I roast cauliflower to give it more flavour. I shred veg and make latkes very lightly fried they go with any meal beside roast.
I eat lots of sauerkraut and my favourite is a green tomato salad a Polish product in a big jar. I can easily eat half a jar at a time it’s delicious.

I am another whose mother didn't overcook vegetables, and was an excellent and adventurous cook.

My mother didn’t overcook vegetables, I am not sure why as everyone else did.
Cabbage was lightly steamed with a little butter.
My version was discovered by accident, melt butter in a pot with some caraway seeds a good teaspoon full. Cook until the butter is nutty brown and seeds are toasted. Toss in cabbage and steam lightly.
The brown butter and caraway is delicious with crunchy cabbage.

My mother was a very good cook and her cabbage was fine, as were all vegetables. She did use bicarb, though.

I get the best results by boiling them ( not too long) then straining them and immediately running very cold water over them. You can watch the colour brightening up! Then back in the pan with a little butter so they don't cool down too much.

Professionals even use iced water but that's a bit too much of a faff for me. Running the cold tap until it is really cold does the job well enough.

No wonder I had difficulty with greens as a child. They were boiled to a mushy mess. Luckily I persevered and learned and love them now more than ever.

teabagwoman

Discovering that you can cook a whole swede in the microwave without peeling it was a game changer for me. I stand the swede on a plate and microwave on high for 20 minutes, turning it over half way. Once it’s cooled a bit you can either peel it or scoop the cooked swede out. Add butter and pepper as you mash - delicious.

You can also microwave butternut squash. We kept getting them in lockdown veg boxes (no choice) - I didn’t really want them because they’re so hard to cut or peel.,

I stabbed them all over before putting in the microwave for 12-15 mins, scooped the flesh out once cooled, and with onion, chilli, ginger and coconut milk, plus a stock cube, they would make a lovely Thai-style soup. Now and then I’d add some swede, that worked fine with the BS too.

My MIL used to cook her Brussels sprouts until soft and then mash them with butter and plenty of white pepper. They were surprisingly good!

Thanks for that teabagwoman.
👍

Discovering that you can cook a whole swede in the microwave without peeling it was a game changer for me. I stand the swede on a plate and microwave on high for 20 minutes, turning it over half way. Once it’s cooled a bit you can either peel it or scoop the cooked swede out. Add butter and pepper as you mash - delicious.

Microwaves weren’t meant for ready meals, they were made for vegetables. And fish.
Hear, hear!

I’d have more than one in the kitchen but it’s not a good visual. (I have another stashed.)

I have always cooked vegetables very lightly. Potatoes obviously are cooked until soft, but cabbage 5 minutes or less after the water comes to the boil, and I start with boiling water.

Many years ago I had a cookery book - IIRC by a NZ writer - which told you to boil cauliflower for 20 minutes! Or ‘stew it in fat’ 🤮.

If simmered, I do my cauliflower (in florets) for exactly 3 minutes after the water’s boiled - we like it al dente. However my mother (who was otherwise a very good cook) would have said that definitely wasn’t properly cooked - she liked e.g. cauliflower and carrots very soft, aka pretty much boiled to a mush.

In general, I simmer or steam all veg for the least possible time. Frozen peas, once the water’s boiled, for us, they’re done.

If there is any left over, growstuff, dh will have it for lunch next day with yet more bacon on top!

kittylester

Cabbage is delicious very thinly sliced and stir fried with thinly sliced onions, lots of blackpepper and mixed with crispy bacon and it's fat and then a little double cream.

Freezes well.

Lovely with Roast Beef

I love that so much that I sometimes have it as my main meal.

Aveline

Microwave for me. I have a couple of great microwave steamer bowls. Max 4 minutes whatever veg is going and less for some

Microwaves weren't made for ready meals, they were made for vegetables. And fish.

I was a cabbage hater for much of the early part of my life. That's because it was always brutally boiled, whether at home, at my Nanna's or at school. Nanna always compounded the problem by serving something like tapioca or sago for dessert. School was even worse because some dinner ladies made you eat it all up before you could have pudding, or made you stay behind and clean the table if you didn't. It made me sick more than once.

I could eat pickled red cabbage. That was fine, in fact I liked that. But my cabbage epiphany came when I was doing some IT contracting for BP Finance – when you're BP and you want somebody to look after the money you don't just ask a bank to do it, you buy a small bank of your own for the purpose. That allowed me to use the free (yes, I know) corporate canteen in Finsbury Circus HQ, which was actually very good. One day there was a tray of what I took to be pickled red cabbage and I put a big dollop on my plate. But when I tasted it, it wasn't pickled. It was also very good. It had some firmness about it, and it didn't have that awful boiled cabbage smell and taste. Just a bit fresh-vegetabley with a touch of nutmeg but not so much it was overwhelming. This cabbage should win awards!

So then I started buying cabbages, shredding them fine, showing them the steam from the kettle, just enough to take the crunch away but still staying firm to the bite, and a wee bit of grated nutmeg. Yum, I couldn' get enough!

These days I'm lazier in the kitchen most of the time. For my winter veg I get big jars of sauerkraut from a Polish grocer – it's called kapusta kiszona there and comes plain or with a choice of additives – and just put a big dollop on the plate with the rest of the meal.

It's a sin to cook carrots, they are so much nicer raw, at least decent varieties are. Parsnips should only be roasted. I only discovered parsnips in adulthood, we never had them at home. I think this was a parental backlash against the wartime surfeit of boiled parsnips everywhere. But I love roasted parsnips, they are the best reason I know for having a roast dinner.

Broccoli and carrots, sometimes potatoes tossed in oil and roasted in the oven with Middle Eastern spices is a favourite in our house.

My Mum also put bicarb in green veg, she was upset when I didn't do it. She also used to peel the veg Christmas Eve and leave them in water, which I also didn't do.

I microwave carrots for three minutes and then add in baby corns and cook for another two. Beans and tender stem broccoli get eight or nine minutes in a steamer with a separator between them. Then I turn off the heat and leave them until I’m ready to serve. I will try your cabbage recipe Baggs. I remember rubbing my mother in law seriously up the wrong way when helping out with Sunday lunch by questioning her adding bicarbonate of soda to the cabbage. She said it kept it green. I said it destroyed the vitamin C. She didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.

Roasted cauliflower with bacon and garlic is great.

Also, broccoli tossed in a small amount of flavoured oil garlic or chili and then roasted.

I'm on a roll now - great beans, steamed and then stir fried with garlic and ginger or with cherry tomatoes.

Broccoli is horrible when it's over cooked instead of that vibrant green, it goes a rather dull colour same with green beans. I call it "Old School boil the guts out of vegetables " destroy any vitamins and reduce them to mush whilst simultaneously giving the home the all pervading essence of boiled cabbage thus signalling to any visitor I'm an old person getting on I don't like my vegetables so al dente that they're barely cooked, although if stir fried with some spices and flavourings then I think they're preferable crunchy, particularly Pak Choi. I really like Savoy Cabbage stir fried and it's lovely as a component of Colcannon. I adore Brussels it's that time of year again! It's funny how almost unanimously the younger generation hate them, along with Christmas Pudding. When I was young such things were put on one's plate and it was just accepted they'd be eaten and they were!

Cauliflower is a boring vegetable if it doesn't have some cheese sauce on it unless it's cooked Indian style ,Cauliflower Bhaji divine!

Oopsadaisy1

My Mum used to boil cabbage to death, she didn’t eat it herself!

And the amount of salt thrown in when cooking (shock)

Ooh, that sounds lovely baggs

kittylester

Cabbage is delicious very thinly sliced and stir fried with thinly sliced onions, lots of blackpepper and mixed with crispy bacon and it's fat and then a little double cream.

Freezes well.

Lovely with Roast Beef

Yes! I do a similar thing with cabbage and onions stir-fried in a wok using lard for the cooking fat. I stir in some ground cumin, ground turmeric, and ground fennel seed before adding the cabbage, and then some butter if it seems too dry. Then I sometimes add broken cashew nuts and/or bits of leftover peppers or chopped tomatoes. Goes with everything.