Can you please comment on the best cooking methods to preserve nutrients, such as loss of water soluble vitamins while boiling vs steaming or microwaving.

Thank you

Many say that steaming is the best way to preserve nutrients; however I am not an expert in this field.

Hera are a few articles that I found after doing a quick search. These may be of some help to you. I have not thoroughly read them myself, but they are all talking about this same issue.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Minimizing-Vitamins-Loss-While-Cooking&id=1898318

http://www.explorevitamins.co.uk/cooking-preserve-vitamins.html

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/papers/2003/03iftturnipgreensposter.html

Hope this helps!

Thanks very much for the links. This is an interesting one that describes the different nutrients from different color families of produce. It is good to be colorful!

http://www.healthcheck.org/sites/default/files/editor/UnlockYourColours.pdf

I might have missed this, but why would you use cold water to bring to a boil versus warm or hot? isn't boiled water hot anyway?

Here is another thread that asks and answers this question. Cheers!

I have different salts at home (table salt, kosher salt) and know that the difference in weight between them can be significant. In this lesson you suggest 1 teaspoon of salt per liter of water. Can you tell me what weight of salt you have in mind?

In the lesson on "How to Season With Salt" we do talk about the different salts. We mention that we generally use table salt to salt water for boiling.

Some chefs use sea salt to season their water which is fine as well, it just more expensive.

The kosher salt I would save for cooking and seasoning food, not for cooking things in boiling water.

As for weighting the salt, I don't think it is necessary in this case as it is only being used to salt the water. Cheers!

1) There was no mention of using a Microwave to cook frozen vegetables. I find it does a terrific job on frozen peas (& corn), retaining their vibriant colour & producing an al dente texture, saving time & energy.

2)There was also no comment on using the cooking water, as perhaps liquid for a soup, etc. My dear old Mom, used to use potato water when making gravy, presumably to add little starch & flavour?
(or maybe because in her day, you tried not to waste anything)

Thanks for your input. While we try our best to be as concise as possible in our lessons, we simply cannot cover every point. We do not focus on microwave cooking in our lessons; we focus on the methods taught in professional culinary schools. If you prefer to use the microwave, that is fine. What is important is to not overcook the vegetables. And, yes, you can definitely use leftover cooking water for other applications as it often has plenty of flavor and nutrients. Cheers!