Vive las verduras

Analysis of water and borage

Enrique Martínez and Ramiro Sánchez, from the Maher restaurant in Cintruénigo (Navarre)

The chefs from the Maher Restaurant in Cintruénigo (Navarre) found themselves faced with the problem that their vegetable recipes were turning out very differently depending on where they were made. There were differences in colour, texture, flavour and even appearance, according to Enríque Martínez. They finally discovered that it was due to the water used in the cooking process, and decided to commission the National Technology and Food Safety Centre (CNTA) in San Adrián (Navarre) to carry out an analysis, which came to the conclusion that pressure cooking at low temperatures is the best way of retaining the colour, texture and vitamins of vegetables, and that waters with different levels of hardness should be used depending on the material of the pan: for steel, the pH should be around 8, a bit higher for glass and lower for aluminium.

« Return to the programme for the 12th