Whether you enjoy eating a salad for good health or because you enjoy a bowl of food without having to feel the guilt, there are rare instances when anyone has enjoyed a salad that is soggy and wilted. Cooking, when it really comes down to it, is about the finer details that go into making your plate an experience to remember. From the selection of crunchy vegetables we have at our disposal – think beets, radish, carrots, beans, broccoli, fennel, celery, enjoying them for their actual texture, as opposed to cooking with them, makes it a more satisfying experience. But if you’ve ever ended up making a salad or stir-fry, you’d know that adding dressing or seasoning and leaving the bowl out for too long means that the vegetables begin to release their moisture and turn gloopy and wilted. The solution? Pre-soaking them in an ice bath.
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An ice bath is simply a process of filling up a large bowl with cold water or regular water and ice, and soaking the vegetables after they have been cleaned and trimmed, for a period of 2-3 hours under refrigeration. The longer the vegetables are soaked, the more water they absorb, making them juicy and causing the pectin in the vegetables to firm up. The extra liquid from the ice bath restores and increases the water pressure in the cell walls of vegetables (also known as turgor), which releases when the vegetables are cut.
The chilling of vegetables in ice water allows the vegetables to also retain their colour, to a large extent, while cooking. Adding a couple of teaspoons of salt in an ice bath, decreases the temperature and not just prevents the ice from melting faster but also infuse more flavour into the vegetables. The ice bath is not just perfect for soaking raw vegetables, but also to stop the process of overcooking vegetables or eggs. Ice baths are also a great way to immediately cool down the temperature of cooked food and prevent further increase of bacterial presence in them.
So, bid goodbye to frantically assembling a pile of soggy vegetables and only drain yours for a salad, right before you’re ready to serve. What’s more? You could serve up your veggies directly in the ice water bath, for people to make themselves individual servings from an ‘ice water salad’.
