A good friend of mine, today, told me that he was very happy because he was eating a lot of vegetable done “a la plancha” (griddle).

My first nutritionist reaction was to ask him how he was cooking the vegetable, which means, with what??

Classic answer: “with oil! But it’s very good, right?”

Oups….

Plancha is a very good way to cook some foods, and still more in summer! However, as everything in food, what is used to cook and what is put inside is essential to decide if it is a healthy or not healthy recipe!

To come back here at the plancha: If 1 liter of oil is using to cook vegetables, at the end, it is everything but healthy.

This is a simple advice (for vegetables but also for fish, shrimp and meat):

• Cook first with a little bit of water to avoid burning the vegetables and to begin to cook its, if you want to cook more the vegetables. To grill, normally, there is no need to add a liquid, but the vegetables can stay undercooked or burned, and above all, a little bit tasteless. When using oil at first, vegetables are drinking all the oil and then you will need to add more oil to really cook the product.

• Add some spices/herbs/ garlic in the water preparation if you need some flavors and/or fruits and fruits squeezed (lemon, orange)*

• Once your vegetables are almost cooked, then add some oil (olive oil at best, but also sesame oil, nuts oil – as you wish – and even less salty soya sauce) just to fry a little bit the vegetables.

* The preparation can be use also to prepare a marinade for vegetables before cooking its.

I will come back with more tips and pictures in the next posts.

❤