Where did the Romanesco cabbage come from? Calorie content and chemical composition of the vegetable. Useful properties and possible harm when used. Roman cabbage recipes, interesting facts about the culture. If you introduce roman cabbage into the daily menu, you can not only enjoy its delicate nutty-creamy taste, but also replenish the reserve of nutrients in the body.
Useful properties of Romanesco cabbage
Dishes from all types of cabbage, first of all, stimulate peristalsis and accelerate metabolic processes in the intestines.
Other effects on the body can also be mentioned:
- Improves the condition of hair, nails and skin, normalizes the secretion of sebum.
- Promotes an increase in the immune status.
- Increases the tone of the body, eliminates lethargy, prevents the development of depression.
- Normalizes blood clotting.
- Increases stress resistance, reduces the risk of developing diseases of the respiratory system.
- Improves the functioning of the hematopoietic system, accelerates metabolic processes.
- Prevents the deposition of salts in the joints, gall bladder and kidneys.
- Reduces the production of histamine, significantly reducing the possibility of developing allergic reactions.
- Reduces cholesterol levels, which helps to stop the possibility of hypertension, vascular disease and heart disease.
- Strengthens bones and teeth.
- Normalizes heart rate, eliminates insomnia, regulates the function of the thyroid gland.
With the regular use of dishes that contain this Roman cabbage, the protective properties of the body increase, damage to the skin heals faster.
Improving peristalsis and accelerating metabolic processes prevents the development of colon cancer, helps to get rid of constipation, and eliminates the risk of hemorrhoids.
As a complementary food for children, this vegetable can be introduced into the menu already from 8 months - dishes from it are easily digested.
In the store, this vegetable is rare, but it is quite easy to grow it on a personal plot, and then lose weight and recover.
Harm and contraindications to the use of Romanesco cabbage
Not everyone can add Romanesco dishes to their diet. The use of the product rarely causes allergies, but individual intolerance does occur. In this case, the vegetable must be ruthlessly expelled from the diet.
Contraindications to the use of Romanesco cabbage are also the following:
- Cardiological diseases in the acute stage and problems with the thyroid gland. The accelerated work of the cardiovascular and endocrine systems creates an increased load on the inflamed organs, exacerbates the condition.
- If there is a tendency to gas formation, you should refuse to use the product in its raw form.
- If you have a tendency to diarrhea, Romanesco should be introduced into the diet with caution to avoid digestive upset.
There are special cooking rules that help minimize the harm from eating roman cabbage. It should not be combined with legumes. Such a tandem significantly increases gas production and can cause an attack of flatulence with painful sensations even in a completely healthy person. Also, do not combine fried mushrooms and fatty meat - pork, goose or duck in one dish. This combination creates digestive problems. An adult's body will be able to cope with such a condition on its own, and children and people with diseases of the digestive tract are at risk of developing intestinal obstruction.
Romanesco cabbage recipes
Romanesco can be cooked in the same way as cauliflower - boil, stew, steam, grill or bake in the oven. It is introduced as an ingredient in salads - fresh and after heat treatment, in hot dishes, in soups and casseroles. Coral cabbage is combined with meat of all types and varieties and fish. To improve the taste, the dishes are seasoned with various types of sauces.
Recipes with romanesco cabbage:
- Salad … Cabbage is boiled in a head of cabbage, without disassembling into inflorescences. It should be dipped in salted boiling water for 10-15 minutes, as soon as the pulp has become soft, it must be removed so that the Romanesco does not have time to fall apart. Turkey fillet, about 300-350 g, cut into cubes and stew with vegetables: onions, bell peppers and carrots. All vegetables should be finely chopped - the seeds are removed from the bell pepper. The meat should be brought to full readiness. Beans are also boiled until fully cooked. The ingredients are mixed - the vegetables are not removed. If a lot of oil was used during frying, then it is better to leave the frying in a colander for a while - the oil will drain. Salt is added, pepper to taste, chopped garlic is added.
- Cabbage in cheese sauce … While Romanesco is boiled in boiling water (you do not need to disassemble the inflorescences), you can deal with vegetables. Carrots - 1 large or 2 medium - cut into cubes, onions - 1 onion - finely chopped. Add 100 g of frozen green peas to the slicing and fry everything together in a deep frying pan in vegetable oil. Stir vegetables periodically. Romanesco is sorted into inflorescences. The sauce is prepared separately: hard cheese, 100 g, grated on a fine grater, pour in 20% cream - just over half a glass, put on low heat. As soon as the cheese is melted, the sauce is poured into the pan, add some salt, bring the contents to a boil and turn off. You can add toasted flour to the sauce to make it thicker. Before serving, the dish has to be cut - the cheese binds all the ingredients.
- Seafood with Romanesco … The head of Romanesco is disassembled into individual inflorescences - this should be done carefully in order to maintain the original shape. Boiled in boiling water, salting - it is better to use sea salt. The inflorescences are carefully laid out on a paper towel to remove excess liquid and prevent deformation. The carrots are cut into slices, and the green garlic is finely chopped. Peel pre-cooked shrimp or langoustine. In terms of volume, seafood should be the same as cabbage inflorescences. In a saucepan, heavy cream is heated, salt is added, carrots and garlic are added to the saucepan, they wait until the volume of liquid decreases by 2 times. The presentation depends on the imagination of the culinary specialist. You can mix seafood with sauce, and only then decorate the dish with cabbage inflorescences. The second option looks more attractive. Seafood is laid out on a plate, poured with sauce and complements the romanesco decor.
- Romanesco and corn soup … First, a vegetable broth is cooked from several vegetables to choose from. For cooking, you can use carrots, cabbage, onions, beets, zucchini, bell peppers. Vegetables do not need to be cut into small pieces - they are not included in the original dish. Romanesco vegetables and canned corn are boiled in strained vegetable broth - a bouquet of Garni is put in for 3 minutes (as the culinary experts call a bouquet made of aromatic herbs), then it is thrown away. When the cabbage becomes soft, turn off the soup and beat in a blender until smooth. Then pour the blender bowl into a saucepan, bring the contents to a boil, pour in cream - very fatty, at least 33%, bring to a boil again and remove from heat. Chopped herbs can be added to each plate when serving.
- Muffins with romanesco … Ingredients: coral cabbage forks, half a glass of kefir, 2 eggs, a little less than half a glass of flour, a 200 g jar of canned fish in oil, a handful of chopped herbs, sesame seeds and a teaspoon baking powder. The flour is sieved with a baking powder, the cabbage is cut into inflorescences, the eggs are beaten with salt and pepper. Kefir is mixed with flour, add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, bring to a puree-like consistency, add mashed canned food, cabbage inflorescences - not all, and greens. Knead like a dough, then put it in oiled muffin tins, and set a cabbage inflorescence in the middle of each, sprinkle with sesame seeds. The molds are placed on a baking sheet, placed in an oven preheated to 180-190 degrees, baked for at least 20 minutes, checking the readiness with a toothpick. If the toothpick is dry, you can take it out. Remove from the mold after cooling, otherwise the baked inflorescence can be damaged.
One of the strengths of coral cabbage is its color retention after being cooked. The dishes are not only pleasant to the taste, but also pleasing to the eye. The culinary specialist is responsible for maintaining the shape - if the vegetable is digested, the pyramid will disintegrate.
Interesting facts about Romanesco cabbage
Disputes about the origin of Romanesco cabbage are still ongoing. Not all biologists agree that the seeds of plants in the cultural layer, the time of formation of which is estimated at the 1st century BC, is from the Roman cabbage. It is believed that it spread at the end of the twentieth century only because breeders fought over its creation for a long time, combining broccoli and colored varieties. It is such controversies that make one treat Romanesco with caution - buyers fear that the achievements of genetic engineering were used in the creation of the variety.
If you grow Romanesco yourself, you can be sure of its absolute naturalness. On the one hand, it is not difficult to do this: in order to get a decent harvest, it is enough to carry out the same measures as when sowing cauliflower: feeding, processing, regular watering, etc. But it must be borne in mind that culture is more capricious and dies at the slightest heat fluctuations.
Because of its original appearance, the study of Romanesco cabbage was not so much biologists as mathematicians. Its shape completely repeats the Fibonacci spiral. All the radii of the arcs of the vegetable are fully consistent with the calculated sequence. Each of the inflorescences is composed in the same way - that is, its shape completely coincides with the shape of the plant itself. Perhaps it is Fibonacci, the famous mathematician of Medieval Europe, the generic name Leonardo of Pisa, having seen this vegetable in the garden, calculated the sequence of numbers for his pyramid?
For weight control people and vegans alike, this vegetable is the perfect ingredient on the menu.
Watch a video about Romanesco cabbage:
Most teens are equally negative about math and cabbage. The task of adults is to cook Romanesco so tasty that the dish will give children pleasure and restore the reserve of nutrients. In the future, this will help to cope with math problems.
