Vinegar can bring sour taste to dishes, increase aroma and promote appetite; Vinegar also has health care function, which can soften blood vessels and prevent arteriosclerosis.
These are all well-known functions of vinegar.
In fact, vinegar is not that simple, it also hides many benefits.
Let's dig up the treasure of vinegar!
Representative food: potatoes, eggplant.
Solanine, also known as solanine and solanine toxin, is a toxic alkaloid. If the intake dose exceeds the human metabolism, poisoning symptoms will appear.
Potatoes and eggplant are vegetables we often eat, but unfortunately these two vegetables naturally contain solanine. If you accidentally touch sprouted potatoes, solanine can cause food poisoning. Even if you don't eat germinated potatoes, there is a small amount of solanine under the skin of normal potatoes and in the pulp of eggplant.
Chemically speaking, it is an acid-base reaction. A simple and feasible way to destroy solanine is to use some vinegar in cooking. Vinegar can create an acidic environment. Solanine in vegetables can be hydrolyzed into solanine and sugar when heated under acidic conditions, and the harm is reduced.
Sweet and sour potato chips, hot and sour potato chips, cold eggplant ...
Knowing that vinegar can destroy solanine, look back at these famous home-cooked dishes. They are delicious and healthy.
Representative foods: pickles, chafing dish bottom materials, vegetables and processed meat products.
Nitrite exists widely in food, including processed meat products, pickles and vegetables.
Exceeding the safe dose of human body, nitrite is not toxic, which may cause cancer risk and acute poisoning.
There are many ways to reduce nitrite, and adding vinegar is one of them.
In the early stage of kimchi, some microorganisms will reduce nitrate in vegetables to nitrite. If vinegar is added to kimchi, the acidic environment can inhibit the growth and reproduction of these harmful microorganisms, which is beneficial to the fermentation of lactic acid bacteria, thus reducing the formation of nitrite.
Vinegar can also decompose and destroy nitrite.
The content of nitrite in hot pot increases with the long-term boiling of soup base, and the vegetables and meat products added are different, so it is also a good way to destroy nitrite by adding garlic, ginger and vinegar into the dip when eating hot pot.
Representative food: bone soup, ribs
This effect has been controversial. Theoretically, calcium can be dissolved, but the experimental results are not ideal.
Can only say that it has a certain effect.
When cooking bone soup, the calcium in the bone will not dissolve into the soup because of heating and boiling. Adding vinegar can improve the dissolution of calcium in bone. (It is worth noting that despite the help of vinegar, the dissolution is still limited, and it is best not to rely on bone soup to supplement calcium. )
When cooking meat dishes such as ribs and small fish, adding some vinegar can promote the precipitation and absorption of calcium.
Sweet and sour pork ribs should be representative dishes.
Representative food: purple eggplant and purple cabbage.
Anthocyanins are all active ingredients beneficial to human body. It has antioxidant effect, can scavenge free radicals in vivo, and prevent aging and diseases.
Anthocyanin is a water-soluble pigment, which will change with different structures of pH value.
Anthocyanin will degrade under alkaline conditions, and maintaining acidic environment can make anthocyanin exist in a single and stable form.
When cooking vegetables rich in anthocyanins, adding vinegar can better protect anthocyanins.
Purple vegetables such as eggplant and cabbage are rich in anthocyanins.
In this way, purple eggplant and vinegar are specially matched, and the destruction of solanine and the protection of anthocyanins are inseparable from the help of vinegar.
Representative food: all kinds of vegetables containing vitamin C.
Vitamin C is a nutrient that everyone is particularly familiar with, so I won't go into details about its efficacy.
Vitamin c is also stable under acidic conditions. Adding vinegar can protect vitamin C in vegetables and reduce the loss during cooking.
For example, bean sprouts and cucumbers are suitable for putting some vinegar to protect vitamin C.
On behalf of food: cold salad
Everyone is familiar with this. Cold vinegar is a standard preparation.
Vinegar can inhibit bacteria to some extent. When making cold salad, adding vinegar can not only flavor, but also play a role in sterilization.
F stands for food: those dishes that you want to reduce salt.
Sugar can weaken the salty taste, while sour taste is just the opposite, which can strengthen the salty taste.
A small amount of vinegar can obviously enhance the salty taste.
Using a few drops of vinegar when cooking can reduce the amount of salt added.