Blanching

mp3ireland2

Just wondering how people blanch stuff and how it turns out. We blanched broccoli and cabbage last year and they are very soggy when cooked, seem to contain a lot of water or something.... Put them in boiling water for a couple of mins, cooled them in cold water and then frooze them. Anybody any tips?

The Sweeper

Hmmm - my version of blanching is basically too long for a scald and too short for a simmer. Anything I blanch hits the boiling water for around 30 seconds and is then strained. It would include things like blanching beansprouts for 20 seconds before use in the sort of cooking where they go straight into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients and then straight to table with no further cooking.

If you're looking at cooking and freezing veg for later reheating, I'd take the route of prepping and chopping veg, then blanching for 30 seconds in water at a rolling boil that doesn't come off teh boil while blanching, then into ice water, then into a sandwich bag and into the freezer. If you have a 'fast freeze' setting on your freezer, use it.

Two to three minutes in the water isn't blanching, that's parboiling or boiling. So you've cooked the veg, it's taken on some water, you've cooled it in cold water and it may have taken on even more water, then you've frozen it and all the water it's absorbed has expanded on slow freeze, destroying the cellular walls of the vegetable as it freezes. Then on defrost the water has leaked out while the damage (making the veg floppy and sad) has remained, and if you then go on to heat it for cooking it may have just turned into a watery, wilted mush-mess of sad vegetables.

Minder

As a general rule, green veggies should be cooked by plunging into boiling salted water, just enough to cover them. Root veggies are generally cooked by starting in cold water. As above, blanched veg is scalded in boiling water for a minute before immersing in cold water to stop the cooking, then frozen.

mp3ireland2

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll try shorter time and colder water after, hopefully this years frozen veg will be more successful!

the beer revolu

Sweeper's advice is spot on.

To make sure the water doesn't go way off the boil when you plunge your veg into it have a large amount of boiling water and don't put too much into it at a time.
Same goes for the cold (or even iced) water.