Knowledge Base > Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

This event was on Tuesday, January 18, 2022 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to cours… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

How do I cook spinach so that it is not waxy and chewy?

— Faith Dunning

Answer:

The sauteing and water probably be the way that I would recommend that I think that You know probably what's happening. There's this. Grittier chalky feeling that kind of happens with your teeth called spinach teeth, which is kind of a crazy. phenomenon but it actually Super harmless side effects of eating spinach but it's caused by a high level of oxalic acid. If I remember correctly and that all oxalic acid is actually something that actually prevents, you know, calcium from being absorbed and stuff like that. But the best way to be able to get that off of spinach is to be able to cook them in water, right? So either sauteeing and water or you know, putting a like I'll often have a pot of boiling water and just put the spinach in and literally take it right back out. It'll help take a lot of that off of it. And if you're going to do something that has you know, and that the baby spinach I think always works better for that kind of tooth feel so it sounds like you're doing a couple things right and if you're doing the Teriyaki spinach side, what I would probably do is, you know, I probably saw today up a little bit of onion for that and then have my Teriyaki at the ready and then just do that bath put the spinach in real quick. Take it back out put it into my sautee pain with the Teriyaki and Lost that and I'll probably come up pretty close to what you're thinking of there. To be able to get rid of that waxy and chewy that's what the water helps to be able to do. So if the sauteing and the pan didn't work and try the water bath instead, but again just super fast in and out to be able to rinse some of that off and then cook it slightly. You know, you just don't want to cook it too far down.
Dan Marek

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

rouxbe.com