What does sauteing veg for a minute or two do?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

redmike

Senior Cook
Joined
May 4, 2006
Messages
120
Location
Nazaré, Portugal
Hi, I haven't been here for a while because I recently moved to Portugal!

From a soup recipe that I just cooked ..

Melt butter in a large heavy pot over medium-high heat; add onion and sauté for four minutes.

Add ginger and garlic and sauté for a further two minutes.

Add chopped carrots, tomatoes and lemon peel and sauté for one minute more.

What effect does sautéing the carrot for one minute have?

The picture is the soup that I just made and ate some of, and it was delicious!

Thanks,

Michael
 

Attachments

  • my-soup-small.jpg
    my-soup-small.jpg
    78.8 KB · Views: 213
To answer your specific question, probably nothing.

I'd sauté the onion and carrot for at east five minutes. then add the garlic and ginger for a minute or two, being careful to not burn the garlic. Then add the rest of the stuff and continue with the recipe.

The purpose of a sauté is to partially cook the veggies to create a flavor base for the soup. I think the recipe you quoted doesn't cook things long enough to accomplish this.
 
I agree with Andy on the method. Another purpose of sautéeing is to create a flavorful fond, or browning, on the bottom of the pan. Then usually a little liquid is added and the pan scraped with a spatula to release the browned bits and incorporate them into the soup or sauce. This adds a lot of flavor.
 
I agree with Andy on the method. Another purpose of sautéeing is to create a flavorful fond, or browning, on the bottom of the pan. Then usually a little liquid is added and the pan scraped with a spatula to release the browned bits and incorporate them into the soup or sauce. This adds a lot of flavor.
Me too (agree with Andy, I mean). A minute will barely warm the outside of the carrot. Saute-ing the veg will slightly caramelise it (like when you roast veg) and adds to the flavour. A bit like the Maillard reaction when you "seal" meat by sauté-ing it prior to putting it in a casserole/stew. But you don't have to do it if you don't want to.
 
Last edited:
I agree with Andy on the method. Another purpose of sautéeing is to create a flavorful fond, or browning, on the bottom of the pan. Then usually a little liquid is added and the pan scraped with a spatula to release the browned bits and incorporate them into the soup or sauce. This adds a lot of flavor.

Didn't know about scraping the bottom of the pan and adding the scrapings to the soup or sauce. Thanks
 
It depends - if you saute the carrots for 5 minutes they will be turned to mush in the soup. It's a texture thing. I'd stick with the original recipe, but YMMV - I'm clearly in the minority here. But I ALWAYS saute onions, garlic, and ginger first, and stir fry veggies just to barely cook, even for soup.
 
redmike -

your's is a very open ended question with way many "answers" all highly dependent on "things not specified"

but, that's not all bad. it makes for a thinking point.

not sure that KitBarb is in all that much of a minority. consider what may be the most widespread experience of the onions -

slice up onion slices and plop them in water, you got boiled onion. pretty uniform consistency and taste "throughout"
but sweat/saute the onions slices prior to the water cooking bit - those have a different flavor and texture profile.
ditto for carrots. sauted then boiled is not = boiled carrot bits.....

celery, celeriac, parsnips, ((any of the root vegetables)) is similar.

which indeed does imply a real saute - in a pan dancing on hot fat. in a pan steamed in water . . . well, no - may not make much difference.

garlic and ginger (and a couple more) are a special case. the pre-sauting does rather dramatically change their flavor profile. in big broad brush strokes, make them milder and less pungent. "burning" either is a disaster; toss the burnt stuff and start over.

>>What effect does sautéing the carrot for one minute have
the one minute carrot effect = zero. tomato one minute effect = zero.
zero effect is "within bounds." the size of the "chop" could affect things - minced carrot for one minute = some effect; carrot pennies, no effect at one minute..... etc....

lemon peel - oh boy, saute time is a biggie there. the lemon peel is the "controlling" factor to the suggested saute time; unlikely the author is looking for any 'effect' on the others. burnt lemon is just as "not nice" as burnt garlic.
 
it caramelises the sugars on the surface of the veg.in the case of onions,shallots & garlic it also reduces the water content of the veg,the water in most alliums can be bitter so by driving off the liquid it allows the natural sugars to shine thru'.in a nutshell it sweetens them eg caramelised onion relish.having said that,1-2 minutes isn't really long enough
 
Last edited:
redmike -

your's is a very open ended question with way many "answers" all highly dependent on "things not specified"

but, that's not all bad. it makes for a thinking point.

not sure that KitBarb is in all that much of a minority. consider what may be the most widespread experience of the onions -

slice up onion slices and plop them in water, you got boiled onion. pretty uniform consistency and taste "throughout"
but sweat/saute the onions slices prior to the water cooking bit - those have a different flavor and texture profile.
ditto for carrots. sauted then boiled is not = boiled carrot bits.....

celery, celeriac, parsnips, ((any of the root vegetables)) is similar.

which indeed does imply a real saute - in a pan dancing on hot fat. in a pan steamed in water . . . well, no - may not make much difference.

garlic and ginger (and a couple more) are a special case. the pre-sauting does rather dramatically change their flavor profile. in big broad brush strokes, make them milder and less pungent. "burning" either is a disaster; toss the burnt stuff and start over.

>>What effect does sautéing the carrot for one minute have
the one minute carrot effect = zero. tomato one minute effect = zero.
zero effect is "within bounds." the size of the "chop" could affect things - minced carrot for one minute = some effect; carrot pennies, no effect at one minute..... etc....

lemon peel - oh boy, saute time is a biggie there. the lemon peel is the "controlling" factor to the suggested saute time; unlikely the author is looking for any 'effect' on the others. burnt lemon is just as "not nice" as burnt garlic.

Thanks!
 
it caramelises the sugars on the surface of the veg.in the case of onions,shallots & garlic it also reduces the water content of the veg,the water in most alliums can be bitter so by driving off the liquid it allows the natural sugars to shine thru'.in a nutshell it sweetens them eg caramelised onion relish.having said that,1-2 minutes isn't really long enough

Thanks.
 
It depends - if you saute the carrots for 5 minutes they will be turned to mush in the soup. It's a texture thing. I'd stick with the original recipe, but YMMV - I'm clearly in the minority here. But I ALWAYS saute onions, garlic, and ginger first, and stir fry veggies just to barely cook, even for soup.
If you are blending or putting the soup through a sieve or tamis it doesn't matter if the carrots go to mush in the soup but, in any case, you don't sauté them for that long. You only need to caramelise the outside not cook them all the way through.
 
If you are blending or putting the soup through a sieve or tamis it doesn't matter if the carrots go to mush in the soup but, in any case, you don't sauté them for that long. You only need to caramelise the outside not cook them all the way through.

There's certainly plenty of food for thought here ;-)
 

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom