The Principle of Blanching (and Shocking)

Blanching is a principle that works particularly well for green beans.

This is the simplest principle of them all.

Blanching means dunking a vegetable into boiling water for a relatively short period of time without a lid. Boiling for reference is longer time and with a lid. 

The important thing to keep in mind when blanching is to season the water according to how long whatever is being blanched is going to spend in it. The shorter the time the more salty the water should be. 

Blanching is great for things like green beans and asparagus, and also works well for instance with slices of carrot that you just want to soften a little before adding to a salad type creation. Or cauliflower if you just want to take off that slight bitterness that the raw cauliflower has.

Shocking is when whatever has been blanched is immediately put into cold or ice water to stop the cooking process so it retains its colour and bite. 

Other types of veg that benefit from blanching include leafy greens like broccoli, kale and black cabbage, which also improves digestibility and nutrient absorption.

Admittedly this is a lesser used principle than the other seven, but nonetheless important to understand and have in one’s repertoire.