others, we separate the food’s flavor or color from its flavorless, colorless cell-wall fibers or abundant water, and produce a concentrated extract of that food’s essence Purees The simplest deconstructed version of fruits and vegetables is the puree, which includes such preparations as tomato and apple sauces, mashed potatoes, carrot soup, and guacamole We make purees by applying enough physical force to crush the tissue, break apart and break open its cells, and mix cell innards with fragments of the cells’ walls Thanks to the high water content of the cells, most purees are fluid versions of the original tissue And thanks to the thickening powers of the cell-wall carbohydrates, which bind up water molecules and get entangled with each other, they also have a considerable, velvety body — or can develop such a body when we boil off excess water and concentrate the carbohydrates (Potatoes and other starchy vegetables are a major exception: starch granules in the cells absorb all the free moisture in the tissue, and are best left intact in unbroken cells so the solid puree doesn’t become gluey See the discussion of mashed potatoes on p 303.) Purees are made into sauces and soups, frozen into ices, and dried into “leathers.” For purees as sauces, see p 620 Many ripe fruits have sufficiently weakened cell walls that they are easily pureed raw, while most vegetables are first cooked to soften the cell walls Precooking has the additional advantage of inactivating cell enzymes which, when cellular organization is disrupted, would otherwise destroy vitamins and pigments, alter flavor, and cause unsightly browning (p 269) The size of solid particles in the puree, and so its textural fineness, is determined by how thoroughly ripening or cooking have dismantled the cell walls, and by the method ... exception: starch granules in the cells absorb all the free moisture in the tissue, and are best left intact in unbroken cells so the solid puree doesn’t become gluey See the discussion of mashed... cooked to soften the cell walls Precooking has the additional advantage of inactivating cell enzymes which, when cellular organization is disrupted, would otherwise destroy vitamins and pigments, alter flavor,... destroy vitamins and pigments, alter flavor, and cause unsightly browning (p 269) The size of solid particles in the puree, and so its textural fineness, is determined by how thoroughly ripening or cooking have dismantled the cell walls, and by the method