How to use the online timer
Ten minutes covers most vegetables cooked in the ordinary way — steamed above a pan, boiled in salted water, or roasted in pieces small enough to cook through. Beyond that, the useful distinction is not the vegetable but the size of the cut. Broccoli in florets and broccoli in wedges are two different cooking times, and no recipe can guess which one is on your board.
Get the water boiling or the steamer going before anything goes in, and count from that moment rather than from when the pan went on. Cooking in batches beats overloading a steamer, since crowding drops the temperature and everything ends up unevenly done. The countdown lives in this tab, so keep the page open while you get on with the rest of the meal.
Colour is the clearest indicator you have. Green vegetables brighten as they cook and then dull as they go past their point, which is a more reliable signal than the clock. Draining them the moment they are ready, rather than leaving them sitting in hot water, is what keeps them from turning soft in the four minutes between the pan and the table.
Common questions
Does the same time work for every vegetable?
No, and the size of the cut matters more than the vegetable itself. Florets and wedges of the same broccoli are different cooking times, so keep pieces even and check the largest one.
How do I stop them going soft?
Drain them the moment they are ready rather than leaving them sitting in hot water, where they carry on cooking. Green vegetables brighten as they cook and then dull, which is a clearer signal than the clock.
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