How- to 12: Braise Vegetables

Braised vegetables can be a side dish or just add a sauce and incorprate them into your main course...

Braising is a great way to cook veggies when you want something a bit more interesting than steamed veg but not complicated to do, and still healthy. The word "braise" comes from the French verb "braiser", meaning to cook over charcoal, or "braise". Although you can use a barbecue and then a pan to braise this way, most braising nowadays is done indoors in one pan. The food is first seared then cooked in liquid with the lid on until the liquid is absorbed. Although originally done with meat, braising also works very well with vegetables and if the liquid is absorbed it should retain more vitamins than boiling. So here's how to do it:

1: Prepare a selection of veggies: shown here are sweet potato, broccoli, green beans and white cabbage. Bell peppers, courgettes (zucchini), cauliflower and fennel are also very good braised.

2: Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of a large , shallow pan.

3: Once chopped, thinly sliced or shredded, put the veg in the pan and sear in the oil until just softening/ slightly browning. We always put the lid on for this.

4:  Add seasalt, pepper and soy sauce or liquid aminos- that's the only liquid we use, as the juice from the veg will add moisture too. Stir well then pop the lid on again and cook on a low heat so as not to scorch the veg. After a few minutes remove the lid. If you have used juicy veg like courgettes you may want to continue to cook it with the lid off so that the excess liquid disappears. Be careful not to overcook at this stage though, as nothing is worse than soggy veggies!

5: The finished braised veg- they should be tender and succulent but not mushy and will have absorbed  some great subtle flavours from each other, the oil and the seasoning.