What is Blanch Cooking Method, How Is It Made?

by Abbas Jahangir · July 8, 2021

With the increasing number of cooking programs and cooking competitions, many professional cooking terms come into our lives, including blanch or blanching. If you’re wondering what it means to blanch, you’ll find the details in our article.

The word Blanch is translated into our language as bleaching. The reason why the term Blanch is used as “bleaching, whitening” is that the word means white in French. In addition, this method is named with different definitions such as shock boiling and pre-scalding.

In response to the question of what is blanching, it can be said that this method is a preliminary preparation, not the main cooking step. It is aimed to preserve the color, nutritional values , and appearance of the blanched foods.

What Is Blanch?

Blanching is the method used in the kitchen in order to preserve the liveliness and liveliness of the color of any product to be cooked.
Blanching is done simply by removing the food from the hot water and immediately transferring it to the cold water.
Thus, the brightness of the food can be preserved with the effect of shock. In addition, blanching in hot water and oil can also be done.
Blanching vegetables, in particular, is a method used by many large restaurants.
In order to preserve the mineral and vitamin values of vegetables in the kitchen, it is recommended that the water to be boiled be less in order to preserve the attractiveness of their appearance at the same rate.

How is Blanch Made?

Blanching can be done in oil, cold water, and hot water. Here are the details:

1) In oil

Thanks to the short-term frying of vegetables at an average of 130 degrees, their nutritional values are preserved and the brightness remains the same.
Since this is a pre-preparation method and also provides some cooking, it is also a method that helps the main cooking stage to take a short time.

2) In Cold Water

Blanch in cold water is used to obtain bone broth from bones. The main purpose of this process is to make the bones clean.
After washing in cold water, it is boiled in cold water again.
When the water starts to boil and its color becomes cloudy, the bones are drained and finally washed in cold water.

3) In Boiling Water

The method of blanching in boiling water is suitable for vegetables.
The pores of the vegetables thrown into the boiling water are quickly closed and the nutritional values are trapped inside.
Afterward, the vegetables transferred to the ice water are ready to be used in recipes with their sparkling appearance and healthy structure.

On Which Products Can Blanch Be Applied?

Blanching is a method applied for different purposes and in different ways for different foods. It can be applied to open the pores in some foods and to close the pores in some foods.
It is aimed to protect the nutritional values by closing the pores of the vegetables from the blanch in oil or cold water blanch process used for vegetables.
The Blanch process can be applied especially for vegetables that want to look fresh and bright in recipes.
In the cold water blanch method used for bones and some meats, it is aimed to open the pores.
Thus, heavy odor, excess blood, unwanted excess and if the meat is salted, excess salt is expelled.

Tips of the Blanching Method

Especially when green vegetables are blanched, if acid-containing products such as vinegar and lemon are used, the colors of the vegetables may turn yellow. This is an undesirable situation in the blanching method. Therefore, alkaline auxiliary substances such as salt or baking soda should be added to the blanch water to balance the amount of acidity.
When blanch white vegetables such as cabbage, onions, and cauliflower, add lemon or vinegar to the water to preserve the color.
If the residues and white foams accumulated on the water during the blanching process are taken with a colander, more intense efficiency is obtained from the process.
The boiling process should be slow, a rapid bubbling is not preferred and the products should be removed from the water immediately after boiling.