Dear Reader,

I watched my friend add an extra three tablespoons of olive oil to her broccoli with a mixture of amazement and skepticism. She then broiled it in the oven until the florets were basically charred through, and the stems soft and wilted. Then she added a dollop of butter and a dash of salt.

The broccoli tasted good, but it didn’t quite taste… like broccoli anymore, I suppose.

The best vegetable cooking tip I’ve ever received was also the simplest

Watching my friend cook broccoli, at first, it occurred to me that my friend was simply picky and didn’t like the taste of broccoli. But when I realized that she cooked all of her vegetables in the same way, I understood that broccoli wasn’t the issue.

She assumed she didn’t like all vegetables.

Plain vegetables are not bland vegetables

I no longer click on articles with titles like, “How to Make Vegetables Actually Taste Good” or “20 Vegetable Dishes That People Will Surprisingly Want to Eat,” because vegetables shouldn’t be treated like the necessary-evil food.

Such a perspective is the antithesis of healthy cooking because it results in vegetables that are overcooked and covered in some sort of heavy oil or sweet-salty dressing. It becomes normal for broccoli to be cooked with lots of olive oil or salads drowned in a creamy ranch. To prepare them otherwise is considered unappetizing or bland.

In contrast, I have found Japanese food to rarely use oil or heavy seasonings in vegetable dishes. In fact, it often embraces the natural taste of them: It’s why plain, shredded cabbage is often served as a side dish, or why raw grated daikon is used as a condiment to saltier dishes.

Popular Japanese movies will include scenes of children biting into raw vegetables and enjoying them, not as a statement to encourage children to eat more vegetables, but simply because vegetables are already seen as something delicious.

The best healthy cooking advice I’ve ever received

I hadn’t always paid attention to the flavor of vegetables. If someone told me, “Wow, this broccoli tastes so good!” I would have thought they were referring to its seasoning rather than the vegetable itself.

While I never actively disliked vegetables, somewhere I had learned that the taste of vegetables was something to be masked, not to be enjoyed.

It was only when I had the opportunity to speak with a Japanese kaiseki chef, that I began to pay closer attention. I was eating at the counter, enjoying a beautiful meal when I decided to ask him in a half-serious, half-joke way, “What makes your vegetables taste so good?”

He quite simply responded, “You have to allow the flavor of the vegetable to come out. And to do this, you’ll find that the most important ingredient is the one you leave out.”

I pondered this response for a bit, as I was expecting him to say something about the freshness of local ingredients or the meticulous detail that went into the cooking process.

Was I really enjoying the flavor of vegetables?

I decided to really pay attention, and search for the taste of vegetables in the dishes I ate.

Slowly I began to notice how the slight pepperiness of shishito peppers was further enhanced with a light grilling, or how the grassy citrus flavor of asparagus was brought out with a squeeze of lemon. I noticed the sweetness of the carrot was amplified in a slowly-cooked stew, and the umami of the shiitake mushrooms was perfectly balanced when served in a kombu clear soup.

Oh, wow.

When was the last time you allowed yourself to taste the flavor of a vegetable?

So if you're thinking you think you don’t like vegetables, you might just need to try them a different way. Simple, small additions -- like a dash of soy sauce, a sprinkle of salt, or pat of warm butter -- can do a lot to bring out their natural flavor.

Vegetables offer more than fiber and nutrients. They can be truly delicious, especially when you remember that sometimes the most important ingredient is the one you leave out.

Warmly,

Kaki

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