Insect-Free: A Guide to Home Vegetable Inspection - Miscellaneous Produce (3 of 4)

okay so we are now in our third section of discussing produce claiming produce as it's understood that it would be impossible to go through the entire line of the bounty that we have available to us so we've chosen a different combination array of vegetables that are widely used and we have now in front of us five of those miscellaneous widely used vegetables we have our broccoli we have our cauliflower portobello mushroom scallions your standard onion now two of these vegetables the broccoli and the cauliflower our vegetables which are tightly packed the florets are tight however even though the florets are tight not tight enough for the insects not to be able to crawl in let's begin with broccoli broccoli a Fleurette such as this a beautiful Fleurette came from a bunch of broccoli it's about a three inch cut and this is about an inch and a half cut we've removed it from the broccoli Bunch and now we're ready to par boil it we're ready to blanch it we're ready to steam it and perhaps at this point of time you're even ready to crunch on it raw so let's discuss a little bit about the challenge of broccoli and the solution on how to use this very valuable vegetable we take a vegetables such as broccoli and the first thing we need to do is to identify what insects could be found in a bunch of broccoli we have a broccoli head fresh beautiful you ready to cook it put it on the plate and eat it but it needs to be checked and the reason why is because there are three types of insects that could be inside a broccoli floret the three insects which we're going to see them now are sometimes buried in the very depth of Verret Fleurette washing won't help soaking won't help any putting in an ice water won't help the only thing that's going to help is a visual inspection to actually look at the fleuret open up the fleuret and examine all the different parts of the floret how do you do that you have to separate the florets pieces from the bunch okay now we're ready to go to the next step we have our broccoli florets cut into the proper sizes we're gonna take our bowl we're gonna place a couple of these florets right into the bowl we're gonna go over the microwave I'm gonna pop them in not more than a minute and a half to two minutes we remove it let it cool for a moment or so now we're ready for the last step the most crucial step let's take out the broccoli and let's begin our inspection our first place that we look at the broccoli is we look at the under part the other part of the broccoli to make sure that there's nothing on the stem of the under part the insects at this point of time the aphids the thrips are going to be now instead of green and black they're going to be brown they've been discolored by the heat of the microwave or the heat of cooking them for two minutes and then we're gonna open up after we've finished looking at the under part we're going to open up the depths of the fleuret in several areas we're going to open up in this area and we see it's clear and of course all of this is being done in the proper well illuminated area so you could see freely and we're gonna look I'm gonna look and then all of a sudden we're gonna discover possibly right over here a whole menagerie of insects Wow a perfectly good looking broccoli with at least one two three four five insects we're gonna take another look at another piece of broccoli I'm gonna open it up in the different florets at this point of time it's pliable that's what the microwaving that's what the cooking did native pliable versus if you try to take a raw piece of broccoli that has been unprocessed not put into the right microwave not boiled at all it's gonna shed when you open it it's gonna crack because it's brittle but now that it's soft its pliable you could look at it you could examine it and after the proper examination and looking remember you're looking for something which is obvious it's gonna look Brown because of the contrast it's gonna be linear if it's a thrips it's going to be round if it's an aphid and we have a beautiful piece of broccoli over here and we're gonna look at another piece over here and we're gonna see what do we see here you see over here we open this up and we see a worm a white worm which started off green but became white due to the cooking and that's what we're looking for so once again we're removing the broccoli from its stem we're parboiling it whether it's in a microwave whether it's on the stove for about two minutes making the broccoli pliable flexible we're then opening up the florets in all the different areas after we examine the very simple examination of the stem opening it up we're looking we're looking for one of three types of insects we're looking either for the round aphid we're looking for the thrips or we're looking for the worm now of course you have to realize that if it goes into your microwave and you do find it it does not compromise the Costra status of your microwave if you want a full explanation of why that doesn't please ask your local rabbi but this is a process that you have to follow for broccoli now you ask does that have to be done to every piece of broccoli the answer is yes it does because you could have one bunch of broccoli that is perfectly clean healthy and you could have another bunch of broccoli like this one that we have in front that came from a quality store but this bunch happens to be infested with these worms with these broccoli worms that are so visible to the eye that holding at holding it at this length an arm's length with average eyesight will spot those worms buried in the depth of the fleuret a Fleurette not visible not able to be seen and less you open up the floret and you've discovered that worm now we're ready to go on to the similar vegetable cauliflower also having a potential insect issue not anywhere as prone to insects as broccoli is but nevertheless a checking should be done we remove the florets from the stem take several florets remove it different parts of the cauliflower we first begin by examining the under part over here the insect presence will be extremely noticeable the cauliflower is why the thrips that you're gonna find are generally gray generally black could be brown very discernible able to be spotted just with the skin of the eye and that's what we're doing when we look at the under part but then we just have to also just pry apart and this could be done wrought this doesn't have to be done boiled pry apart the different areas of the fleuret looking for the presence of insects you take a cross sampling of the cauliflower we don't have to take off the whole cauliflower we take off four to six pieces of the average size of cauliflower and we examine it by again looking at the other part prying apart the cauliflower florets looking inside and then we could continue and use the cauliflower as desired a another perhaps practical recommendation if you want to take the cauliflower place it into a bowl please take the bowl fill it with water cook it for about two minutes in the microwave remove the cauliflower look at the water if there is insect presence in the cauliflower they're gonna pair in the water that's another way that one could just ascertain and be ensured that their cauliflower is insect free let's go on to mushrooms generally mushrooms do not need any type of inspection that goes in regard to button mushrooms shiitake other mushrooms which are more complicated is a portobello mushroom as we have here moister mushrooms can be a problematic but let's talk about the portobello mushroom a very widely used mushroom very important to anyone's kitchen the insects the fly actually could be found in the fan and the brown fan what we do is we break off the stem of the mushroom and then we just clean the fan could be done either with a knife as we're doing now just easily removing the brown without too much damage to the mushroom you could take it off also with a spoon and scoop it out great job no Brown you just proceed by going to your sink just washing it washing the surface you're gonna wash it well anyway because a mushroom does tend to be a bit dirty and then you're left with a perfectly clean mushroom ready for sauteing ready for cooking ready to be put in any salad now let's discuss the last two items and that is scallions and onions a scallion in the family of an onion over here we have two types of insects we have the insect which could be generally found in the in the bottom portion of the scallion and the scallion bulb the type of insect that we're looking for is a type of thrips but their baby thrips they're translucent they're very small green thrips the good news with scallions is it's extremely easy to clean and to wash being that the primary insect on a scallion is that baby thrips is that translucent little green thrips they have very little gripping power they don't stick to the bulb but they could also be on the inside so what do you do so we take the scallion over here a very healthy beautiful looking scallion generally coming in 6 or 7 - a bunch we begin by removing the bottom undesired part now if you want to use the whole scallion as is you begin just by simply slicing open the shoots vertically as such opening up the shoots could still remain attached to the bulb then we proceeded to carefully with the slice of the knife to vertically continue the cut all the way to the bottom so now you have a scallion that has been completely opened the area where the thrips can be lodged can be in between these very thin layers comprising the scallion over here we have the solid part so you have sometimes 2 to 3 to 4 layers of thin layers of the scallion now we have one more insect to deal with that's found in the green chute extremely visible these leaf miners are tough to get out but the Robo - Lila Mae made it very easy for us because they are extremely easy to identify as I said before when we spoke about basil and spinach the indication of these leaf miners are these squiggly lines these trails you see a trail you just either cut away the portion where the trail is in or you could just remove that entire green chute so now we take the scallion that is now opened up vertically has been exposed we loosen those several layers of the bulb and now we go to our faucet going from the bulb to the top or vice versa you begin washing the scallion opening it up making sure the water is cascading downward is covering the different layers of the scallion it's not a pretty sight but it's certainly a kosher way of eating your scallion at this point of time you've washed your scallion very thoroughly the pieces the layers are loosened and this is a guarantee that you have now just taken care of your scallion and now it's ready to be the next item the last of the items are onions a couple of years ago there was a discovery of thrips being part of an onion in the inner layers a lot of research was done during that period of time and the research concluded with the following discovery that a regular hard firm onion that's hard like a hard ball needs not to be looked at you could just the regular cursory scan as you're just processing your onion removing the Lay's that you normally remove peeling it away and just looking to see any problem on the onion and the onion that is nice and firm hard onion at any signs of any problem could just be cut up and used without any concern the problem that we that was found and this was the common denominator in all the onions that have that had presence of thrips were certain telltale signs they either were soft the onion was soft able to squeeze your finger into the onion or the onion already had signs of rotting with either these two signs that rotting has begun or the onion has now become soft that is can be a sign that can be an indication that inside those layers of onions can have thrips so what should you do throw away the onion that's no that's not what we're suggesting cut cut the onion of course you're gonna cut away the rotten portion take a look what we found the rotten portion right over here you're not gonna use it anyway cut it away get rid of that rotten portion and as we're gonna use the rest of this onion you're just gonna be a little more careful you're gonna look it as you cut cut it up you should look at some of the inner layers quickly to examine to see if the onion is clear free and clear from any signs just a little one more layer you see it's totally free and clear just put you on yin together slice normal let's have a look at asparagus very popular item asparagus interesting nope how did we discover that asparagus has an insect issue many years ago goes back about 19 years ago do you we got a call in the office it consumer purchase joint asparagus canned asparagus and the consumer said that he emptied the content of the asparagus can right into his pot and all of a sudden you saw an Olympic team swimming right in his kitchen we immediately took that call seriously we did a very in-depth research we show his cans from all different areas of the country we opened those cans and lo and behold those cans quite frequently showed up with those thrips so we immediately the oh you took off its certification from asparagus cans and giant no longer had the oh you on it's asparagus is there any way to eat asparagus the answer is yes if you don't mind a very closely shaven asparagus stem then there's no problem it works perfectly for an asparagus soup looks a little bit flimsy for a side dish let me just show you very simply how to clean the asparagus the asparagus thrips actually as we found out during our research to figure out why didn't we see why didn't the mushiya going to the plant discover the asparagus having thrips the answer is because when the machiya picked up the asparagus stem he saw perfectly healthy looking stem little did we know that under these triangles is a very small ledge it protrudes from the asparagus stem and the thrips as the asparagus crown the ground the thrips migrate from the soil on to this little ledge and then all of a sudden the triangle grows over that ledge and the thrips stay there until it gets confronted with intense heat and then it will go out from its slumber right on to the stem and that's why the only way that one could be assured that the thrips have been removed is by removing the triangles from the stem and removing the breaking the top off and just shaving the side either by physically removing the triangles or by taking a vegetable peeler with a couple of strokes your asparagus is prepared now just concluded the third section of our presentation