Blanching is a cooking process where in you submerge a food substance, mostly veggies and fruits, in boiling water for a few minutes then placed under cold running water to stop the cooking process. Why you should practice blanching? Because it is a tried and tested time saver! Maniwala kayo sa akin mga inay!
Akalain mong 3 minutes lang may guinisang gulay na kame. Chopsuey can be done in less than 10 minutes! Promise talaga, this technique is a life saver. This is a must if you are yayaless like me and have mouthssss to feed!
How to properly blanch vegetables? Is there a guide in blanching? Ilang minutes ba dapat?
How long should I blanch? Minutes always depends on the thickness or size of the veggies. Broccoli florets (around 1 1/5 inch diameter) is usually blanched for 3 minutes. Smaller veggies are blanched for lesses time. Thinly sliced vegetables such as carrots are blanched really fast. Yung tipong ilublob mo lang yung veggies sa boiling water then running water na. Always use a strainer, a must have in the kitchen yung medyo malaki na strainer.
Can I reuse the boiling? I do but for veggies that are peeled only. Say, I will use it for carrots, then cauliflower, then broccoli.
Can I blanch all kinds of vegetables? Here are the list of veggies that we tried:
- sigarilyas (because that’s my fave!!) We usually blanch 1 kilos of sigariylas
- sitaw and it goes well with almost anything! Adobong sitaw, sinigang na baboy, guinisang ampalaya, pakbet, guinisang kalabasa, the sitaw possibility is endless!
- Kalabasa
- Sayote, it should be super quick too! Madali sya matunaw
- Patola, I tried pero natunaw na sya agad haha
- Puso ng saging, OK din but nangingitim sya so I would not reco
- Siling panigang. Favorite ng nanay ko mag blanch ng siling panigang, mahal daw kase eh. So pag nagmura na, buy sya mga 1 kg then blanch nya.
- Kangkong and talbos ng kamote, super quick lang dapat
- Baguio beans, also super quick lalo na if sliced na
- Potato medyo matagal, 8-10 min
- Labanos we also tried, dapat sobrang bilis lang
Yan ang naalala ko so far but basically, we blanch veggies based on recipe. So if we have plans to cook chopsuey, will blanched all ingredients then sama sama na sila sa ziplock.
Another advantage if blanching is mas maganda yung kulay ng gulay, mas matingkad sya and I do not know why. As to nutrient loss, yes merong loss, but hello, at least hindi sanity mo na loss because with blanching, hindi ka na maloloka sa pag aasikaso ng lutuin.
You will need at least half the day to blanch a 2 week vegetables menu. Isang paguran lang but hayahay na buong linggo di ba. Try mo din and tell me how it went for you.
