In many recipes you can find such a phrase: "Vegetables need to be blanched in 3-5 minutes." For some housewives, especially beginners, the question arises: "Blanch is how?" In fact, blanching is nothing more than short-term heat treatment of products. You can use steam, hot water, just high temperature for this. Blanching are not only vegetables, but also fruits, and fish, and meat. The objectives of this process may vary depending on the recipe. So, the meat is blanched to give it a white color, this process, on the contrary, helps vegetables and fruits to maintain their color, and unnecessary peels are removed from tomatoes using the above procedure. Thus, blanching is like scalding a product from all sides. There are several blanching methods for different product categories. Let's consider some of them.
How to Blanch Tomatoes
Tomatoes are blanched in order to get rid of their harsh skin. For the process you will need two containers with water. We pour very cold in one (you can throw a few ice cubes), put the second tank with water on the stove and bring to a boil. In prepared tomatoes, remove the stalk, and on the reverse side we make a cross-shaped incision with a very sharp knife. Tomatoes are placed in boiling water one at a time and kept for half a minute, then we are transferred immediately to cold water. You will see how the skin begins to curl up, now it remains just to remove it. Such tomatoes are used for sauces, homemade ketchup and gravy.
How to Blanch Cauliflower
Cauliflower is most often blanched before freezing to preserve its snow-white color. This should be done as follows: a cabbage head should be disassembled into inflorescences and placed in water heated to 98 degrees, kept for two to four minutes, depending on the length and thickness of the inflorescences. You can add a little citric acid to the water - it will improve the color of the vegetable. You can also blanch with very hot steam. This is just very effective, but, unfortunately, is not always feasible at home. This method is most often used in factories, and we can observe the result in the store, in the department of frozen vegetables.
How to blanch pepper properly
Peppers are blanched in order to give it softness and remove some bitterness. There are several ways to do this. The first (easiest): put the washed peppers in a colander, and the colander, in turn, put in boiling water, hold it for a couple of minutes and remove. You can blanch peppers directly in boiling water, without a colander. By the way, this method is also used for seaming. Cut the pepper into large slices and blanch. This is how to cook, but not for long. Then place in sterilized jars, add spices to boiling water and pour pepper over it, then roll up. Some housewives resort to blanching in the oven: clean whole peppers are placed on a baking sheet and kept for several minutes at high temperature. Ready-made vegetables can be used in your favorite recipes.