How do you suppose blanching works

And, it is important to follow the recommended times for specific vegetable because over-blanching leads to a loss of flavor, color and nutrients, whereas under-blanching can increase enzyme activity. Check the blanching chart below for the appropriate blanching times.

There are two major steps involved in blanching foods. First, the vegetables must be submerged in boiling water. Second, they must be cooled quickly. For every pound of vegetables, use at least one gallon of water to blanch them in.

Leafy green vegetables require twice as much water — so two gallons of water for every one pound of leafy green. Before blanching, wash vegetables and remove the peels or skins if desired. A quick dip in boiling water helps freeze these vegetables in time, improving their eating quality even days after blanching up until they start to go bad, anyway.

It's useful for similar reasons at home. One big blanching session can save you time preparing dinner later in the week, and ensures all the beautiful produce you bought at the farmers market is just as good once you finally get around to eating it. As any restaurant cook can tell you, there are some very basic rules of blanching that get drilled in from day one: use a lot of water relative to the amount of vegetables you're cooking, salt the water well, and immediately shock the blanched vegetables in ice water as soon as they're done.

Here are the reasons often given for why you have to blanch using lots of salted water, and then shock the vegetables in ice water. The question is, are all of these reasons really true? Can you get equally good results in a small volume of water, or omit the salt? And making an ice-water bath is a pain—wouldn't it be nice to know if you could just skip that part?

There's only one way to find out, so I bought a lot of different vegetables and got to work. Shocking the blanched vegetables in ice water is the last step in the blanching process, but I decided to test it first, since it would help determine how I would run the remainder of my tests.

If any of you are like me, this is the step you're most likely to be lazy about. I can't tell you how many times I've blanched vegetables at home and then stuck them under cold running water in the sink to chill them.

I mean, how much difference can it make? To find out, I cooked a bunch of asparagus in salted boiling water, then removed it all at exactly the same time. One third of it went immediately into an ice-water bath, one third into a colander in the sink under cold running water, and the last third I let stand at room temperature until all of its heat had dissipated. Since temperature differences can influence taste perception, I moved all of the samples to the freezer for just a couple minutes before tasting, so that they all had the same chill on them.

Uh oh. Seeing the results side-by-side, it was immediately clear that all of my lazy tap-water-chilling sessions had been a mistake. The ice-bath asparagus looked and tasted fresher, crisper, and greener. When I called my colleagues into the office for a blind tasting, without telling them what I was testing, they all picked out the ice-bath asparagus as the best. So there you go: Use an ice bath, it's worth it. Cover the pot and keep heat high.

Start counting steaming time as soon as the lid is on. See steam blanching times recommended for the vegetables listed below. Microwave blanching may not be effective, since research shows that some enzymes may not be inactivated.

This could result in off-flavors and loss of texture and color. Those choosing to run the risk of low quality vegetables by microwave blanching should be sure to work in small quantities, using the directions for their specific microwave oven. Microwave blanching will not save time or energy.

As soon as blanching is complete, vegetables should be cooled quickly and thoroughly to stop the cooking process. Change water frequently or use cold running water or ice water. If ice is used, about one pound of ice for each pound of vegetable is needed. I do all of the programming, web design and updates myself.

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