Should I use cold or hot water for blanching?

Blanching means placing the preliminarily processed raw materials in a pot of boiling water and heating them until they are half-cooked or fully cooked, then taking them out for further cooking or seasoning. It is an indispensable process in cooking, especially in cold dishes. In our real life, in order to maintain the color of vegetables, or remove odor, astringency, fishy smell, etc., most vegetables and meat ingredients need to be blanched. So should we use cold water or hot water for blanching? Next I will introduce it to you in detail.

Blanching method

One is to blanch it in a pot of boiling water; the other is to blanch it in a pot of cold water. The general principle is to use boiling water for vegetables and cold water for meat.

1. Blanching in boiling water: Blanching in boiling water means heating the water in the pot to boiling, and then putting the ingredients into the pot. Stir the food over promptly after putting it into the pot, and the time should be as short as possible. Pay attention to color, crispness and tenderness, and don't overcook. This method is mostly used for plant-based materials, such as celery, spinach, lettuce, etc. Pay special attention to the heat when blanching. If you blanch it for too long, the color will fade and it will not be crispy or tender. Therefore, after putting it in the pot, you can take it out and let it cool when the water boils slightly. Do not rinse with cold water to avoid causing new contamination.

2. Blanching in cold water: Blanching in cold water is to put the raw materials and cold water into the pot at the same time. The water should cover the raw materials and then be boiled. The purpose is to mature the raw materials for further processing. Potatoes, carrots, etc. are large in size and difficult to mature, so they need to be cooked longer. Some animal raw materials, such as white meat, beef tripe, and beef tripe collar, are also heated in cold water until cooked before further processing. Some animal ingredients used to make soup should also be put into the pot with cold water so that the nutrients will gradually overflow during the heating process, making the soup taste delicious. If a hot water pot is used, the protein will coagulate.

The role of blanching

1. It can make vegetables more colorful, more crisp and tender, reduce astringency, bitterness and spiciness, and can also sterilize and disinfect. For example, spinach, celery, and rapeseed become more bright green by blanching. The bitterness of bitter melon, radish, etc. can be reduced after blanching. The hemagglutinin contained in lentils can be removed by blanching.

2. It can remove blood, fishy smell and other peculiar smells from meat raw materials. For example, the odor of beef, mutton, pork and their internal organs can be reduced after blanching.

3. The ripening time of several different ingredients can be adjusted to shorten the formal cooking time. Due to the different properties of the raw materials, the time required for heating and maturing is also different. Blanching can be used to make several different raw materials mature uniformly. If meat slices and vegetables are stir-fried together, and the vegetables are half-cooked after blanching, then after the meat slices are cooked, add the blanched vegetables and the dish can be served quickly. If the ingredients are cooked together without blanching, the rawness and hardness of the ingredients will vary.

4. It is convenient for further processing of the raw materials. Some raw materials are easier to peel after blanching, while some raw materials are easier to further process and cut after blanching.