Giving a second life to the pieces of meat, fruit and vegetables that we normally throw away is a fantastic way to reduce food waste at home. The stem of a broccoli can be added to an omelette and the leaves of the artichokes complete a vegetable broth. What we generally don't think can be used is the cooking water for pasta and rice, and it has many uses, some more well-known than others.
The first, and surely the most notorious, is to use it to make pasta sauces. If we add a little water to these dressings, we will make them silkier and tastier thanks to the starch (which will help thicken them and bind them better) and the salt that this cooking liquid contains.
Another way to take advantage of it is related to legumes. Despite the fact that it is increasingly common to buy them packaged and ready to eat, resorting to this product in its dry version can have several advantages. To begin with, if we buy them in bulk, it is likely that we can choose from more varieties and prepare more diverse dishes. The downside is that they require soaking, but here the cooking water can be useful and serve to rehydrate them.
This liquid that we normally throw away can also be used to start a broth or stew, because it already contains salt, in addition to the starch, nutrients from the pasta or rice, and some flavor. It will also serve to boil vegetables or fish. Other of its functions can be watering plants, washing dishes or making bread or pizza dough, because starch is a binder and they will remain more bound.
The canning liquid can also be given a second life. The oil from a canned tuna, for example, is completely edible and can be consumed without any problem, pouring it directly into the dish that we are going to prepare with it, or later in some preparation, raw or cooked.
It has been proposed by such renowned chefs as the British Gordon Ramsey or the Galician Pepe Solla, convinced that it is not only a way of making the most of it, but that it even improves some recipes.
The uses are varied and serve both to incorporate into a mayonnaise, which will give intensity to the Russian salad, to a vinaigrette or simply to dress a green salad with it.
