3955 The Cooking of Dried Vegetables

It is a bad procedure to soak dried vegetables in advance. If they have been processed during the previous 12 months and are of good quality it should be sufficient to cover them with cold water, bring them very slowly to the boil, skim, add the usual vegetables and flavourings and simmer very slowly with the lid on until cooked.

Should the dried vegetables be old ones or of poor quality they may be soaked but only for the time strictly necessary to swell them which would be for 1½–2 hours.

Prolonged soaking for several hours causes dried vegetables to start fermenting thereby altering their chemical structure and thus losing much of their goodness; this can even give rise to discomfort in the person eating them.