How to cook beets: tips

Beet - a useful, but difficult to prepare product. Often, newcomers fail to properly cook the root vegetable so that it becomes soft, but retains its elastic structure and does not turn into mush. How to choose a tasty and sweet vegetable? How much to boil the workpiece so that it does not remain too hard and tough? What to add to the boiling water to improve the taste of beets? And how to speed up the preparation of the root, but to preserve all the useful properties?

Perfect taste and quality

For salads, stews and first courses use small and medium vegetables. If the beets are too large and round, then it refers to the feed type. Such root vegetables are unsweetened and bland, they are cooked for a long time and contain less vitamins than table options.

The basis for the salad is carefully inspected. Copies with rot, green dots and pale skinned are not worth buying.A regular beet has a uniform, saturated red or burgundy hue. Which varieties are tastier? Round or oblong and flattened? The second. They are juicier and sweeter.

It is easy to check the taste of the billet: remove the peel from one vegetable or cut it in half. If the color of the pulp is bright and saturated, from the root get a perfect salad. Pale beets are usually fresh and tasteless, like grass.

Cook the workpiece with damaged skin can not. But what to do with the control copy? Use to make fresh juice. Or cut into strips and fall asleep in a double boiler or a slow cooker. Vegetable softened for 20-25 minutes. Preparation can be added to a dietary salad or smash with a blender with vegetable oil and salt. It turns out a diet snack, however, with a minimal amount of vitamin C, because ascorbic acid evaporates during steam treatment.

Vegetable preparation

Vitamins are contained not only in root vegetables, but also in the leaves. The old tops are tough, but the young ones are tender and juicy. Fresh and green tops are not thrown away, but added to cold soups and vegetable salads.

Beet billet is washed under the tap. The peel is carefully polished with a soft brush in order to wash off the stuck earth, but not damage the top layer. Root vegetables before cooking do not clean. The washed blanks are put in a pan and brought to readiness.

Quick way

How to save half an hour and get a soft juicy vegetable, whose skin is removed in seconds? Use the secrets of professional chefs. It takes only two ingredients: boiling water and 40-60 ml of vegetable oil. Plus a large saucepan and a bowl of ice.

At 2–3 medium root vegetables take about 4–5 l of water. If there is a lot of liquid and few products, the moisture evaporates quickly and heats up more strongly. First, pour oil into the boiling base. Stir, and after 3-5 minutes put the beets. Catch half an hour, drain the liquid, and hot root vegetables are thrown into the ice.

Pulp due to temperature changes remains elastic, but not too hard. And the peel exfoliates and is easily removed even without a knife. The method has only one minus. Ascorbic acid evaporates due to a sudden change in temperature. But in boiled beet remains iron, potassium, beta-carotene and calcium.

Option for vinaigrette

In order for the root crop to retain its rich color, it is placed not in hot, but in cold water. And add freshly squeezed lemon juice or vinegar. Acid retains vitamins and coloring matter that is contained in the beet pulp. At 3-5 liters of liquid will need 30-40 ml supplements. And so that the vegetables remain sweetish, the cooking water is filled with 1-2 tbsp. l Sahara.

Washed beets are placed in a saucepan and put on maximum heat. When the liquid base boils, mark 2 hours. Capacity necessarily cover with a lid to raise the temperature of the water and speed up the preparation of root crops. In the blank stick a match. If it is easy to enter, remove the pan. Beets can be poured with cold water to peel the skin from the pulp, but this is not a prerequisite.

If you want vegetables to become sweet without sugar and honey, then they need to be baked. First bring to half-ready in boiling water.Then take out and put on paper towels for 5–10 minutes so that they absorb moisture. Half-dried root vegetables are placed in foil or baking sleeve, and sent to the oven. Choose a temperature from 190 to 250 degrees. Preparation will need from 30 to 40 minutes. Old beets come to readiness longer, and young - faster.

Additional tips

1. To preserve the vitamins, vegetables are brought to a boil at maximum heat, and then switched to the minimum temperature. The product languishes from 3 to 4 hours, always under the lid.
2. Reduce the cooking time can salt. In boiling water add 25-35 g of seasoning, stir 5 minutes. Spice purifies water from oxygen, due to which trace elements evaporate. Beets put in salted boiling base. But so that she does not lose the sweetish taste, add sugar and a little vinegar.
3. To remove the characteristic beet smell can black or rye bread. The crust is put into the boiling base 30–40 minutes before the root vegetables are ready.
4. Cooked vegetables are stored only under the lid, no longer than 2 days. They quickly lose ascorbic acid and beneficial properties.
5. If the beet has become dry and shriveled, it is not necessary to throw it away.The billet is doused with boiling water and then placed in warm water to allow the product to swell.
6. The broth remaining after cooking the root, you can not pour out, and use as a laxative and diuretic. Just add a pinch of cinnamon or a few tablespoons of lemon juice to your drink.

Beets are cooked in various ways: in a saucepan, oven, steamer and even a microwave. The main thing when cooking is not to cut off the tails and the peel, so that the workpiece does not lose vitamins and color. A hot root dipped in cold water or ice. Then the color of the product will be saturated, and the peel is easily separated from the pulp.

Video: how to cook beets quickly