What is the minimum required boiling time for fiddleheads before they are safe to eat?
Answer
15 minutes
Safety protocol mandates specific cooking times to mitigate foodborne illness risks associated with consuming raw or undercooked fiddlehead ferns. To ensure safety and palatability, the instructions clearly indicate that one must boil the fiddleheads in a large pot of salted water for a minimum duration of 15 minutes. This procedure must be followed even though steaming is listed as an alternative (10 to 12 minutes); the critical requirement for boiling is explicitly set at 15 minutes. Furthermore, it is imperative to discard the cooking water after this process to remove any leached compounds.

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