Blanching is a cooking process that improves the color, flavor, and texture of vegetables. It involves quickly cooking vegetables in boiling water or steam, then dipping them in a cold bath. Blanching makes peeling easier, improves flavor, and helps retain color. It’s recommended before freezing food and is useful in food preparation. Blanching keeps vegetables crisp and fresh for crudité plates. All you need is boiling water, an ice bath, and a slotted spoon or removable steamer tray.
Blanching is a cooking process that aims to improve the color, flavor and texture of vegetables. Blanched vegetables are quickly cooked in boiling water or steamed before being hit with a dip in a cold bath that halts the cooking process. After blanching, vegetables can be served on crudité plates, frozen, or used in food preparation. There are a number of reasons a cook blanches vegetables and it’s an easy skill to learn.
When foods need to be peeled, blanching makes the process much easier. Tomatoes, almonds, broad beans and other foods can be blanched to loosen the skins. Blanching can also improve the flavor of food and will help the food retain its color as it cooks. Blanched and peeled foods can be used immediately or stored in a freezer. In the case of pesticide-treated fruits and vegetables, blanching is an excellent way to remove the peel without transferring the chemicals into the edible part of the fruit.
Before freezing food, blanching is highly recommended. The blanching will neutralize the bacteria and enzymes in the food that could be causing it to malfunction. Plus, blanching will ensure that your food stays crisp, flavorful, and colorful in the freezer, rather than leaving it graying. Typically, a small amount of salt is added to the bleaching water in this case, as it aids in preservation.
For food preparation, blanching is very useful. Cooks who are making a pan or similar dish that involves the use of foods with different cooking times can blanch foods so they remain crispy and tasty. By converting blanching to parbroiling, a cook can also reduce the time it takes to cook a food. In busy restaurants, blanching is used in setting up a cooking station, to ensure it has attractive looking food ready at hand throughout the evening.
Bleached foods can also be eaten out of hand. The vegetables on crudité plates are often blanched because the blanching keeps them crisp and fresh all evening. For things like broccoli and carrots that can be eaten raw or cooked, blanching takes the raw edge off the food while leaving it crunchy in texture.
To blanch food, all you need is a pot of boiling water, an ice bath, and a slotted spoon or removable steamer tray. Submerge the vegetables you’re blanching in the water until they’re just cooked through, then quickly dip them into the ice bath or run cold water over them. Let the vegetables drain and use as desired.
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