Why Water Is the Most Important Ingredient in Your Kitchen
We talk a lot (maybe too much?) about the importance of salt and oil when you cook, but what about water? The unsung, practically invisible hero of the kitchen, you won’t get very far without it. (Just try cooking—or cleaning up—without using any and you’ll see what we mean.)
Below, we’ll explore some of the ways that water is indispensable in the kitchen—from refreshing stale bread to blanching precious spring peas—and answer your burning (ha!) questions, like whether cooking water should really taste like the sea.
Dive in! The water’s warm.
1/15The way your water tastes will affect the way everything tastes.
Water doesn’t just carry flavor—it’s also a source of flavor itself. Especially in delicate broths and teas, like dashi and sencha, water that doesn’t taste great to drink won’t produce something that’s good to sip. The same goes for ice—if those cubes have absorbed eau de freezer, cocktails and ice baths will have an unwelcome something. That doesn’t mean you have to shuttle water home from a local mountain spring (or grocery store)—even a filter that attaches to your tap can help improve its taste. —Sarah Jampel, Basically editor
Illustrations by Tim Lahan2/15Most vegetables are mostly water.
The way a vegetable behaves—will it brown or weep when roasted? How long will it take to become tender on the stove? Do you need to add water to speed up the cooking process, or will it release enough to cook itself?—depends, in part, on the amount of water it contains naturally.
In general, the more water a vegetable has, the quicker it will cook but the harder it will be to get brown or crispy. (Think lettuce and zucchini.) The lower its water content, the longer it will take to become tender, but the more prone it is to browning (and, on the downside, drying out).
Take spinach versus kale: Spinach, which is up to 91% water, wilts and sogs in the oven; kale, coming in at 84% (parched, in comparison), holds its structure and gains burnished edges. Add spinach to a soup and it will slink to tenderness in a matter of minutes; with kale, you could add it to the pot, watch a television show, and it still might need a couple more minutes.
Use this handy graphic to figure out what you’re working with.
—S.J.
Photo by Joseph DeLeo3/15Know your techniques.
Water can do it all. Well, almost—it’s pretty useless when it comes to crisping or browning. But it can help you cook your vegetables, proteins, and leftovers to tender perfection with no risk of them drying out or burning. We’ll break down some of the most common ways we cook with water so that you can finally understand the difference between blanching, steaming, poaching, and boiling asparagus. (Haven’t you always wondered?) Here’s how—and why and when—to put these four techniques to use.
Photo by Emma Fishman4/15Should your cooking water really taste like the sea?
Maybe you’ve seen the videos: A cooking show host empties an entire box of salt into a pot of water because, they say, it’s gotta taste like the sea. So then you go to boil a pot of rice and dump in ½ cup of kosher salt, which renders the rice practically inedible. So how salty should cooking water really be? Read on to find out.
Photo by Laura Murray, Food Styling by Pearl Jones5/15Is it necessary to rinse rice?
Some people say you don’t have to do it, but it’s likely worth it: Rinsing cleans the rice and removes any excess starch that causes the grains to glom. For chef Christina Nguyen of Hai Hai in Minneapolis, rinsing—three times, or until the water runs clear—is the difference between glutinous rice that’s pleasantly sticky versus gummy and gluey. Read more about the advantages of rinsing rice at the link below.
Photo by Heidi's Bridge6/15Is it ever okay to rinse pasta and noodles?
If you’re serving the dish chilled or at room temp—think soba, rice noodles, pasta salad—rinse: You’ll get rid of excess starch that will cause the strands to stick together in a nest. But when you’re marrying those noodles with sauce—say, for penne alla vodka—skip it: The starch helps the sauce thicken and cling. Read more below.
Photo by Chelsie Craig, Food Styling by Kate Buckens7/15If a recipe calls for vegetable broth, can you use water instead?
Whenever the flavor of the dish is coming mostly from broth (say, a three-ingredient puréed soup), don’t substitute—and make sure you like the way that stock tastes. But if the broth is just a supporting player, feel free to use water instead: In those cases, broth is mostly adding salt, which you can do yourself. Read the article below to find out more.
Photo by Chelsie Craig, Food Styling by Kate Buckens8/15When should you have the pot covered, uncovered, or slightly ajar?
Less coverage = more evaporation = more concentrated flavor. Keep your pot covered if you want the ingredients to meld, cook, and warm without reducing the amount of liquid. When the precise amount of water matters—like when making rice—you’ll also want to keep that lid on tight: The grains have to absorb every last drop. On the flip side, if you’re looking to deepen or strengthen flavors—or introduce new textures, as in a braise—open the lid and let some water bubble off. And when you’re making noodles, keep the lid off so that the water stays at a brisk boil. —S.J.
Photo by Chelsie Craig, Food Styling by Pearl Jones9/15When should you add ingredients to hot water versus cold water?
If you’re working with hard, fairly dense, slow-cooking ingredients—say, whole potatoes, chicken breast, hunks of roots, dried beans—start in cold water. If they hit hot water too fast, the exterior might overcook before the interior is finished. But for quicker-cooking stuff that could get bloated—green beans, cauliflower florets, oats, corncobs—you’ll generally want to start hot to avoid mush. —S.J.
Photo by Emma Fishman, Food Styling by D'mytrek Brown10/15For better steaming and roasting, just add water.
We’re taught that moisture is the enemy when roasting or frying foods that we want to get perfectly crispy and/or golden brown. So the two techniques we’re about to discuss may seem counterintuitive: In each of them, a splash of water improves rather than sabotages a batch of crispy roasted potatoes or lacy pan-fried dumplings. Read more about steam-roasting and steam-frying at the link below.
Photo by Ted + Chelsea Cavanaugh11/15Water is precious. Save it when you can.
Whether you’re scrubbing pots or making pasta, pause before pouring anything down the drain.
- Washing produce? Instead of showering it under a running tap, use this tip from cookbook author Amy Chaplin: Fill up a big bowl and dunk each item, working from cleanest (apples, lemons) to grittiest (potatoes, escarole). Scrub as needed.
- When you’re doing the dishes, dip your sponge in a small bowl filled with soapy water to clean plates without running the tap.
- Your pot of pasta water has so much more to give: Blanch vegetables or boil eggs before you add that bucatini, then use the starchy water to make soup.
- Feed your plants the mineral-rich water left over from soaking and cooking beans and grains. Set a bowl beneath your colander or invest in a two-in-one with a spout for splash-free pouring, like the Water-Saving Colander + Mixing Bowl Set ($39; goldune.com).
—Aliza Abarbanel, contributor
12/15Turn water into
goldbroth.You don’t need to run to the store for broth. Powerful ingredients—those with a lot of salt, heat, umami, or even sweetness—will lend their concentrated flavor to a pot of water, transforming it into something unrecognizably delicious:
- Kombu, the basis of the family of Japanese broths called dashi
- Bonito or dried shrimp
- Dried shiitakes
- Dried chiles
- Sun dried tomatoes
- Nutritional yeast steeped in hot water, like cookbook author Andrea Nguyen does for her chickenless “chicken” broth
- Smoky tea, such as lapsang souchong
- Charred onions, carrots, mushrooms, and peppers
- Roasted garlic
- Miso or doenjang
- Soy sauce
- Bay leaves
- Peppercorns
- Parmesan rinds
- Leek tops (Wash them first—they can be gritty!)
- Corncobs
—S.J.
Photo by Laura Murray, food styling by Susie Theodorou13/15Try using water to…
- Revive stale bread: A tip from Courage Bagels in Los Angeles. When faced with stale bread or bagels, use your fingers to flick the slices with water. When toasted or baked, they’ll be refreshed, as if your carbs got a facial.
- Perk up wilted greens: Food writer and cooking teacher Sonoko Sakai plunges her fatigued leaves, from salad greens to basil, in hotter-than-lukewarm water for 2–3 minutes. “I didn’t believe it for a long time, but warm water actually works!”
- Make root vegetables extra crunchy (and less bitter): Sakai also soaks sliced root veg in ice water to make them crisper and remove residual grit and bitterness (called aku in Japanese).
- Speed up the cooking time of grains and beans: After an overnight soak, rice, hominy, chickpeas, steel-cut oats, polenta—nearly any legume or grain—will cook more evenly and in a fraction of the time.
- Reheat leftovers without a microwave: For stews, braises, and other gloppy leftovers that fall out of the container and into the pot in one solid mound, add a couple tablespoons of water, cover the pot so that it warms the food (no scorching!), and stir to combine.
- Soften up dried chiles/mushrooms/seaweed: These pantry staples stay good for practically ever and only need a bit of water to reconstitute. (Rock-hard dried fruit will also benefit from a hot water bath before going in muffins or granola.) Save that soaking liquid—it can be the base of sauce or soup.
- Deglaze a pan: When potato pieces are charred but not cooked through or onions are sticking ferociously to the pan, cookbook author Kristen Miglore doesn’t reach for wine: Water is readily available, neutral in flavor, and can dislodge any flavorful browned bits and prevent burning.
- Get a head start on cooked greens: For robust greens that you’ll braise, stew, or sauté for some time—kale, collards, mustard, escarole, broccoli rabe—leave water clinging after you rinse. It will help them soften as they cook, just like you’re steam-frying.
—S.J.
Photo by Chelsie Craig14/15Simple syrup is simply the best.
When you add sugar straight to a cold drink, the granules sink to the bottom like sand on the ocean floor. Useless! But simple syrup, a viscous liquid composed most often of equal parts sugar and water, disperses evenly for iced coffee, lemonade, and cocktails sweetened to your liking. Learn how to make it, store it, customize it, and put it to use in the article below.
Photo by Emma Fishman15/15Sometimes, water is not welcome.
Anyone who’s ever tried to bathe a cat knows that sometimes water is the enemy. In the following cases, you want as little water as possible for best cooking results.
- Frying: Really drying off ingredients you’re about to fry or pan-fry, from buttermilk-brined chicken to tofu to salmon skin, is crucial for crispy results.
- Fritters: Whether they’re potato, beet, corn, or zucchini, you’ll want to squeeze out excess moisture and add some starch (like cornstarch or breadcrumbs) to soak up any that threatens to escape.
- Fillings: When stuffing dumplings, ravioli, or enchiladas with vegetables, cook out as much water as possible before you fill to avoid soggy, floppy results.
- Melting chocolate: The easiest way to melt chocolate is in 15-second increments in the microwave—adding hot water will only make the chocolate separate and “seize,” a.k.a. get grainy.
- Baking: You ran out of buttermilk and you’re wondering if you can replace it with water in your favorite chocolate cake. Don’t. Another fat, like sour cream or an additional egg, will yield a richer and more flavorful result.
- Really good bourbon: Add a few drops of water to whiskey to bring out its flavors (Is that crème brûlée? Oooeee!)—but only a few drops at a time, please, to respect the whiskey gods.
- Putting out a grease fire, yikes! Water won’t stifle the flames and might make the fire grow. For small fires, cover the flame with a lid, baking soda, or salt—and be more careful in the future.
—Alex Beggs, senior staff writer