To cook nutritious, delicious meals, start with quality ingredients and handle them correctly. Here are some tips on how to do that.
How can you tell good-quality products from poor ones? Let’s take a look at two fish lying side by side. One has bright red gills, clean shiny scales, bulging clear eyes, and a firm belly. This fish is fresh. The other has brown gills, sunken cloudy eyes, a soft belly, scales covered in slime (some of which have fallen off), and an unpleasant odor. This fish is not fresh. In that fish, the flesh easily separates from the bones.
Another example: take meat that’s bright red with a fresh, meaty smell. When you press your finger on its surface, it leaves a dent that quickly returns to normal. This meat is fresh. If meat is left in a warm place for a while, it darkens and takes on a brownish hue, then develops greenish spots, the smell becomes unpleasant, and the dent left by your finger takes longer to return to normal. These signs indicate the meat has spoiled.
Why do products spoil? Why do sugar and salt, when kept in a dry place, last a long time? Why do dry products keep better than salted ones, and better than fresh ones, and why do they last longer in the cold than in the heat?
The culprits behind food spoilage are microbes that get onto the food. As soon as conditions become favorable for microbes—warmth, moisture, and a suitable environment—they multiply quickly and break down the food’s components. In meat, fish, and dairy products, microbes decompose proteins and produce harmful substances that can affect human health.
Salt and sugar are low in moisture, so microbes do not thrive in them. They not only create an unsuitable environment for microbes but can also inhibit or even kill them. Use this property of sugar when making jams and preserves, and use salt for preserving meat, fish, fats, and vegetables.
Cold doesn’t kill microbes, but it slows their reproduction. That’s why refrigeration is used to store perishable foods.
As mentioned earlier, microbes are abundant on the surfaces of products. Unwashed vegetables and fruits, meat, and fish can be sources of illness. Therefore, proper handling of food before cooking is crucial. Soaking salted fish in cold water with frequent water changes preserves the fish’s quality and prevents poisoning from decomposition products. Soaking the same fish in warm water that isn’t changed makes it unsuitable for consumption. Pre-soaking peas, beans, and certain grains in hot water speeds up their cooking and improves digestibility.
The components of foods acquire new qualities during cooking that allow for better absorption. For example, in potatoes the starch granules swell, the cell walls break, and their contents become more accessible to digestive juices.
Improper cooking can significantly reduce a food’s nutritional value. Vegetables started in cold water and vegetables started in hot water will contain different amounts of vitamins once cooked. Vegetables started in hot water will retain more vitamins. In potato soup, if it sits on a hot stove for three hours, only one-fifth of the vitamins remain.
Extended cooking also alters the proteins in meat, legumes, and other products, diminishing their nutritional value. These considerations about cooking time are especially important when preparing food for children and infants.
The quality of food is also greatly influenced by the dishes in which it is prepared and stored. Containers made of galvanized iron are completely unsuitable for this purpose. When vegetables are prepared and stored in galvanized buckets, or when fats are stored in them, zinc oxide can leach into the food and make it unfit for consumption.
Copper cookware is harmful, especially if it is tarnished. Copper oxidizes, and its oxide can transfer into food. Cookware with damaged enamel is even more dangerous: pieces of enamel can injure the stomach and intestines if ingested, and vegetables and fruits cooked in it lose their vitamins.
Certain types of ceramic dishes (glazed clay) may contain lead. If jam, preserves, or compotes are stored in them, this harmful substance can leach into the food and pose health risks.
Safe options include aluminum, well-enameled cookware, glass, and properly treated copper and cast iron cookware.
The cleanliness of the people preparing and storing food is essential. Clean dishes, kitchen counters, meat grinders, and other utensils, as well as a clean space where food is stored and prepared, are necessary for good, healthy nutrition.
Home cooks often need to store hot food. In most cases this is done in the oven or over an open flame. However, that can lead to overcooking, drying out, burning, and loss of flavor.
It’s better to keep hot food on a “water bath.” For this, place the container with food inside another container filled with water and heat over low heat.
Hot food can also be stored in a thermos.
You can make a thermos yourself. First, construct an outer box from boards that are 2–3 cm thick. Place a 10 cm layer of insulating material at the bottom. Put a smaller inner box made of plywood (4–5 mm thick) inside, 15 cm lower and 26 cm narrower than the outer box. Fill the gaps between the walls with insulating material (dry sawdust, hay, cotton, ash, peat, etc.). Cover the inner box with plywood on top, and cover the outer box with wooden slats lined with felt.
