Blanching is one of those cooking techniques that sounds complicated but it really isn't. However, in order to use this technique successfully, it is useful to know WHY you are doing it.

Blanching is a culinary technique which when used for vegetables is a way of preserving colour, flavour and texture usually crispness. Blanching may be done to vegetables you wish to freeze or to vegetables you intend to use almost immediately perhaps to make tempura, for example. For tempura you would want to make sure the vegetables are not so crisp and crunchy as to be raw but by blanching them before dipping them in batter and deep-frying them, you can then cook the tempura just long enough for the batter to cook. If you had to cook the vegetables from scratch you would have raw batter by the time the vegetables were cooked.

These days, when many of us are having a try at growing our own vegetables, knowing how to blanch is a useful skill because you can then freeze any quantities you cannot immediately use. It is important to know how to blanch properly because under-blanching will not remove the enzymes that can cause impairment of flavour or produce unpalatable looking colours and it can even mean that you have dangerous bacteria lurking in the food that you then transfer to the freezer which could be reactivated on defrosting.

On the other hand, over-blanching will probably result in a fading of colour especially with greens and will cause a massive reduction in the vitamin and mineral content.

So just how do you blanch your vegetables?

First off, make sure you have plenty of ice made up in your freezer there's no point in starting this job unless you've checked first. Next bring a pan of water to a rapid boil. While this is happening, fill a bowl about two thirds full of ice and then add cold water up to the top of the ice.

Next up trim your vegetables; you may not think this is the time to do it but if you possibly can you should do it just before you blanch them because the trimmed ends will then be fresh and crisp oxidisation starts quickly and can have an effect on the vegetables if you leave them before you blanch them.

Is the water ready? Then start to add the vegetables in small batches doing it like this will ensure that the water will not lose its boil. Cook the vegetables in the water until just barely cooked. The time will differ depending on the vegetable as with any other method of cooking vegetables. It will range from as quick as a minute and a half for shelled peas to something like forty to fifty minutes for dense vegetables like beets.

Once just cooked, remove them from the water as quickly possible and transfer them to the ice water you should leave them in there until they are no longer warm. To make best use of your hot water, add the next batch of vegetables straightaway.

Some vegetables do blanch better than others things like asparagus, cauliflower, carrots and broccoli are especially good but you should try whatever you can and you will find for yourself what works best.

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