Blanching is a must-know if we talk about cooking techniques. Your veggies will keep their colour, texture and nutrients.
Other reasons to use blanching with your recipes:
This technique will give veggies the perfect texture, it will enhance the natural colour of the food and it will remove dangerous bacteria. With blanching you can:
Cooking tasty warm salads and wok.
- Making aromatic herbs sauces with impressive green colour.
- Peel tomatoes easily.
- Freezing fruit & vegetables.
- Create your own pickles.
- Make candied fruit.
How to do it?
It will just take you a few minutes, literally:
Immerse the piece of food in boiling water for a short period:
-15 seconds – aromatic herbs.
-1 to 2 minutes – fruit.
-2 to 5 minutes – vegetables.
Water must be boiling during the whole process to keep the right cooking time, so the flavour and colour change as less as possible. It is better to use small quantities of food in order to keep the temperature.
Once we have reached the right blanching point, we must quickly plunge the pieces of food in a bowl with water and ice cubes to stop the cooking process. It is important you use enough ice because most of it will melt.
If you are blanching a very small piece of food, use a colander and plunge it into the bowl with ice.
When the piece of food is cool, drain it with paper towel or similar and… done!