Everyone knows that vegetables that are frozen, after thawing, retain almost all vitamins, the original color and even the smell. And blanching is what? And why is it needed? Many housewives are still tormented by this question.
So, blanching is an operation that involves preparing products for further processing.
Vegetables, berries are usually processed with boiling water, just hot water or even steam. Why is this done?
The fact is that blanching is a kind of help for the further use of products. During heat treatment, air is removed from all tissues, microorganisms are destroyed, and some enzymes are destroyed. Most often this is done with vegetables that you want to keep.
So, blanching a tomato is as follows. On each tomato, you must first make a cross-shaped incision. However, it should not be deep so as not to cut the tomato itself. Try to touch only the skin. Boil the kettle and pour the prepared vegetables with boiling water. They must be completely immersed in water! If you plan to use tomatoes for soup, then hold them in boiling water for five minutes; for salad, the blanching time is reduced to one minute. As you can see, everything is quite simple. Some advise adding salt or citric acid to boiling water, but this is already a matter of taste. Now it remains only to remove the peel (it will easily come off) and take out the seeds. You will get excellent workpieces for different dishes.
Is it possible to blanch berries?
Yes you can. Blanching is an almost universal process. The fundamental difference from processing vegetables is that the berries should only be slightly doused with steam, and not doused with boiling water. And even more so to keep in it. You can take an ordinary colander, pour clean berries in it and hold them a little above the pan with hot water. This is blanching berries. If they have a delicate skin, then the processing time will be one minute. But as for, for example, cherries, it can be sprinkled with steam for about three minutes.
A little more about blanching
The term itself came to us from France. Now not only vegetables and berries are blanched, but also fish, and even greens. What are the goals of this process? Firstly, the aesthetic side. Vegetables should maintain a pleasant color. This is especially important for restaurants and cafes. But meat after such processing becomes, on the contrary, white. As already mentioned, heat treatment helps the skin easier to descend from the fetus. At the same time, any bitterness and unpleasant odors, if any, are removed. As for berries, the removal of oxygen leads to the fact that the vitamins in them are preserved in their original form. If you are not a fan of asparagus or spinach, then try to blanch these products. Their taste will improve significantly. Knowledgeable housewives have long resorted to this trick in order to accustom the family to a healthy diet. It is only necessary to take into account the properties of the product and select the optimal processing time. Apricots are blanched for forty seconds, but cabbage can be processed up to six minutes.