vegetable and make it less watery. However,
such vegetables are best crushed gently,
without breaking open the cells. Thorough
pureeing that liberates the gelated starch turns
the vegetable into a super-thick potato gravy,
gluey and stringy.
Even though fruits are presoftened by
ripening, cooks often heat them to improve
their texture, flavor, and storage life. One of
the most popular cooked fruit sauces is
applesauce, which is meant to have a certain
coarseness and yet not seem grainy. The cells
of different varieties have different tendencies
to adhere to each other, and that tendency can
change with time in storage. Most of the soft
varieties used to make sauce produce finer-
grained purees with time, while the Macintosh
produces coarser ones.
Tomato Sauce: The Importance of Enzymes
and Temperatures The most familiar
vegetable puree in the West, and perhaps in