Beetroots on our tables often serve as vegetables for dinner, but we also use them to cook borscht or use them in salads. They contain a lot of iron and vitamin B and are easily digestible, so it is worth knowing how to cook them so that they do not lose too much of these benefits.
The cooking time of beets is never universal, because the size and maturity of the vegetables play a key rolea. Small beets, often sold in bunches, have delicate flesh and thin skin, which makes them soften the fastest. Usually enough 30-40 minutes of cookingso that they are perfectly tender and juicy. Medium-sized beets, which most often end up in shopping baskets, need about an hour. However, a lot depends on how fresh the vegetables are and how long they have been stored. Large, hard tubers need the longest processing. Their flesh is compact and dense, which is why they can cook even an hour and a halfespecially if they are older and less juicy.
For this reason, it is a good practice to sort beets before cooking. If we put vegetables of different sizes into one pot, some will be soft, while others will still remain hard inside. Separating them into small, medium and large allows not only to shorten the cooking time, but also ensures that all pieces reach perfect softness at the same time. It is also worth remembering not to peel the beets before cooking and not to cut off the stalks too short. The skin and root tip create a natural barrier that retains the juice inside the vegetable and protects it against loss of color and aroma. Thanks to this, cooked beets are not only prettier, but also fuller in flavor.
The biggest enemy of the intense color of beets is the loss of juice into water. Once the skin cracks, the pigment begins to leak out immediately and the vegetable turns pale. You can prevent this by using a simple kitchen trick: Add two tablespoons of lemon juice to the pot with water and beets. This additive stabilizes the dyes, enhances the natural shade and at the same time makes the beets soften faster. The acidic environment helps preserve betacyanins, natural pigments responsible for the deep, burgundy color. Lemon juice also has the advantage of speeding up cooking.
Thanks to this trick, the vegetables look beautiful and their flavor remains expressive and full. You can also slightly increase the burner power. The sooner the water reaches a boil, the less time the beets will stay in the zone where they lose color. This method works not only in a pot, but also when roasting beets. Many chefs use it every day in their work.
Source: Terazgotuje.pl
