Abstract
Vegetables are essential in our diet to maintain health, partly due to their antioxidant properties. A well-known Javanese salad called “Pecel” is prepared by boiling the vegetables and dressed with seasoned peanut sauce. Cooking can reduce or improve the antioxidant properties of foods; therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of brief water boiling (1 min), steaming (1 min), and water blanching (20 s) of the Javanese Pecel vegetables, with or without the peanut sauce. We assessed the in vitro antioxidant capacity and lipid peroxidation inhibition of the salad samples prepared using each cooking method. Six vegetables, i.e., Sesbania grandiflora (turi) flower, Amaranthus hybridus L. (spinach), Carica papaya (papaya) leaves, Cosmos caudatus L. (kenikir) leaves, Vigna unguiculata ssp. Sesquipedalis (yard-long beans), and Vigna radiata (mung-bean) sprouts were cooked by boiling or steaming for 1 min or blanching for 20 s. Peanut (Arachis hypogaea), the raw material for peanut sauce, was fried in either fresh palm oil or repeatedly used palm oil. Our results revealed that the highest antioxidant capacity (percent inhibition of DPPH radicals) was observed following boiling for 1 min in case of spinach (41.94 ± 9.8%), papaya (59.04 ± 5.35%), kenikir (54.93% ± 6.32%), and yard-long beans (70.21 ± 8.91%); steaming for 1 min in case of turi flower (60.25 ± 3.63%); and blanching for 20 s in case of mung-bean sprouts (49.27 ± 3.69%). Peanut sauce prepared by frying peanuts in fresh or repeatedly used palm oil reduces the natural antioxidant and lipid peroxidation inhibition properties. However, seasoning the peanut sauce with fresh garlic and lime leaves can restore the lost antioxidant properties. Our study provides the first and clear evidence of the optimal cooking method for Pecel vegetables and sheds light on the wisdom behind the existing traditional cooking method.
Highlights
Vegetables are well-known key components of the human diet and are beneficial because of the presence of diverse phytonutrients, such as polyphenols, flavonoids, and carotenoids, which have strong antioxidant properties [1,2,3]
We considered two treatments: (1) combined vegetables mixed with first oil (FO) peanut sauce, hereinafter referred to as “Pecel FO,” or (2) combined vegetables mixed with repeatedly used oil (RO) peanut sauce, hereinafter referred to as “Pecel RO.”
The results show that the cooking method can significantly affect the water content of Pecel vegetables (p > 0:05) for turi flower, spinach, papaya, and kenikir leaves
Summary
Vegetables are well-known key components of the human diet and are beneficial because of the presence of diverse phytonutrients, such as polyphenols, flavonoids, and carotenoids, which have strong antioxidant properties [1,2,3]. These ameliorate, prevent, or reverse several undesirable effects of metabolic syndromes, such as dyslipidaemia, oxidative stress status, hyperglycaemia, and obesity [4,5,6,7]. A traditional Javanese (people living in Java island of Indonesia) salad called “Pecel” is one of the oldest known salad dishes in Indonesia and has been consumed for decades It consists of a variety of cooked vegetables dressed with seasoned peanut sauce [8]. Pecel has been a part of the daily diet of Javanese people, no data
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