Pasta,” here). On the other hand, the temperatures of the
pots with very little water dropped much more precipitously
when I added the beans to them. Not only did the beans
cooked in less water take longer to tenderize, they also
ended up cooking to a drab army green instead of the
brilliant shamrock green of those cooked in a gallon of
water or more.
To understand why this is the case, let’s take a look at the
outside of a green vegetable. Like all living matter,
vegetables are composed of many individual cells. With
vegetables, these cells are bound in place with pectin, a
glue-like carbohydrate-based molecule. Within vegetable
cells, there are various pigments, enzymes, and aromatic
compounds. Green vegetables in particular contain
chloroplasts, the tiny organelles (that’s a small organ)
responsible for converting sunlight into energy through the