Blanching opens the door to one of the most nutrient dense families of vegetables: green vegetables. Other, non-green vegetables may also be blanched, but green vegetables are particularly suitable for blanching.
Green Beans, Asparagus, Broccoli, Carrots, Cauliflower, Spinach, Swiss Chard, Beet Tops, Peas, Kale, Tomatoes
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Basic Blanch
Fill a large pot with water and add enough sea salt so that the water tastes slightly salty, like sea water. Place it on the heat and bring it to a boil; a lid will help this to boil faster and thus save energy. Use a large bucket, pot, or bowl for an ‘ice bath:’ fill it 2/3 full with cold water and add some ice. Take your chosen green vegetable--green beans, asparagus, broccoli, spinach, swiss chard, beet tops, peas, kale, mustard greens, etc.--and plunge it (them) in the boiling water. This is the time for ‘full blast’ boiling. You want the vegetables to cook as fast as possible. You must train your eye to see the point at which the vegetables have reached their most bright and brilliant green color. Use a pair of tongues or another utensil to take one piece of the blanching vegetable (one bean or broccoli floret) and taste it. If it is softened but has the most delicate crunch on the inside, it’s done. Drain the vegetables (but save the water to be thrifty and clean the dishes with it later) and plunge the vegetables into the ‘ice bath.’ Leave the vegetable in the ice water until the pieces are icy cold all the way through…about 5 minutes or so. On the waste water: this blanching water makes a perfect base for a vegetable stock.
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Now you know how to blanch green vegetables. Buy them cheap, blanch them and use them throughout the week. Or, blanch a lot at the end of the season and freeze them for winter.
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Carrots can be prepared as above: so can parsnips, pearl onions, mini squash, squash pieces…any vegetable really.
The term ‘blanch’ applies to the same technique, but for the purpose of removing the skin from a tomato. Say you find a great deal on some beautiful ripe tomatoes. They were so cheap that you bought 50 lbs of them. But what are you going to do with them? If you don’t do the right thing, you will lose some of them to age and the average price per tomato will rise, thus defeating your purpose of buying in bulk at a great price. You have to act quickly. Set up a blanching station: the largest pot you own, 75% full of seasoned (salted) water, on the heat with a lid and brought to a boil; the second largest vessel you own, bucket or pot 2/3 full of icy cold water; a slotted spoon to remove tomatoes from water and a tray or bowl in which to put the tomatoes. Score each tomato (slice a small x on the bottom so that the skin peels easily) and remove its core (the point where it was attached to the plant). Plunge the tomatoes, 20 at a time, into the boiling water and allow them to blanch for 1-3 minutes. You’re looking for the skin to begin to come off; just beginning to come off, not off and floating in the water! Immediately remove the tomatoes and plunge them into the ice bath. Then, quickly plunge the next 20 into the blanching pot, while the others cool. When the first batch is cool, remove them from the ice bath. Then, if ready, remove the second batch from the blanch pot and plunge them into the ice bath. Repeat until you’re finished blanching.
With a small paring knife, remove all of the skins from the tomatoes; they will pull right off. The process for preserving the tomatoes falls outside of this section on blanching, so we will delve into it only a little. You have choices for how to preserve: remove seeds and make sauce, jar and seal, remove seeds and make tomato paste, etc. You must decide what you want to do with them. Make pizza sauce and jar it? What?
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