Blanching is a short-term heat treatment that allows you to preserve most of the vitamin complex and minerals in the products. After blanching, vegetables, fruits and berries can be frozen for a long time.
Blanching is a culinary term for short-term boiling of vegetables, fruits and berries in boiling water. Some products turn white during processing. This phenomenon gave the name to the process, as in French the word "whiten" is translated as blanchir.
What is vegetable blanching for?
Blanching allows you to disinfect products without compromising their quality. With prolonged culinary processing, vegetables and berries lose most of their nutrients. Scalding or short scalding not only preserves up to 70% of vitamins and minerals, but also creates a kind of protective film on the surface of the fruit, increasing its juiciness and enhancing the taste.
It is especially recommended to blanch asparagus, spinach and other tender vegetables. Prolonged boiling destroys their structure, while blanching, on the contrary, retains its original softness.
Blanching vegetables is often used as a pre-treatment before freezing. The process slows down fermentation, leading to the gradual destruction of the structure, aroma and taste of the products. In addition, cooking reduces the volume of vegetables, which allows them to be frozen in more quantities.
How to blanch correctly
The water in the saucepan is brought to a boil. The washed vegetables are cut into small pieces, slices, strips. It is advisable to prepare vegetables so that in the future it is convenient to cook them without subjecting them to additional cutting.
Prepared products are transferred to a colander or a special metal mesh and dipped in boiling water. Optimum processing time is provided for each product. After its expiration, remove the colander from the boiling water. For example, it is recommended to process small inflorescences of Brussels sprouts within 3 minutes, and carrots cut into strips - no more than 2 minutes.
It is advisable to place vegetables under ice cold water to stop cooking. Otherwise, vegetables will lose much more nutrients, and may also become soft, unsuitable for freezing. The heated water must be changed until the food has cooled completely.
It remains to dry the blanched vegetables, put them in separate bags or plastic containers and freeze. Having performed the blanching of vegetables correctly, you can always have a supply of food in the freezer that practically does not differ from fresh ones in the presence of vitamins and minerals.
