If you wish to have vegetables delicately clean, put on your pot, make it boil, put a little salt in it, and skim it perfectly clean before you put in the greens, &c.; which should not be put in till the water boils briskly: the quicker they boil, the greener they will be. When the vegetables sink, they are generally done enough, if the water has been kept constantly boiling. Take them up immediately, or they will lose their colour and goodness. Drain the water from them thoroughly before you send them to table.
This branch of cookery requires the most vigilant attention.
If vegetables are a minute or two too long over the fire, they lose all their beauty and flavour.
If not thoroughly boiled tender, they are tremendously indigestible, and much more troublesome during their residence in the stomach, than under-done meats.[85-*]
To preserve or give colour in cookery, many good dishes are spoiled; but the rational epicure who makes nourishment the main end of eating, will be content to sacrifice the shadow to enjoy the substance. Vide [Obs.] to [No. 322].
Once for all, take care your vegetables are fresh: for as the fishmonger often suffers for the sins of the cook, so the cook often gets undeservedly blamed instead of the green-grocer.
Vegetables, in this metropolis, are often kept so long, that no art can make them either look or eat well.
Strong-scented vegetables should be kept apart; leeks, or celery, laid among cauliflowers, &c. will quickly spoil them.
“Succulent vegetables are best preserved in a cool, shady, and damp place.
“Potatoes, turnips, carrots, and similar roots, intended to be stored up, should never be cleaned from the earth adhering to them, till they are to be dressed.