I was reading up on a recipe recently that called for frozen spinach. I don't usually care for frozen vegetables, especially spinach. The recipe mentioned that frozen spinach was preferable to fresh spinach because of the extra water it retains. So I figured if it was about extra water then I'd just blanch it.
When I was about to get started on that I remembered what it was like when I started out cooking from recipe books. I'd often see recipes I wanted to try but wouldn't because they required you to blanch vegetables, something which I'd never done at the time. At some point years back I decided to man up and try it and add the technique to my repertoire. It was surprisingly easy and very quick!
All of this made me think that there must be other aspiring cooks out there who want to work up the courage to try some recipes but aren't familiar with the basic cooking techniques required. To address this problem I decided that today's post would be the first in a series of how to perform basic cooking techniques. So without further ado here's how to blanch:
Get fresh spinach. Remember that once cooked the spinach will reduce in volume so use a lot of spinach!
Bring the water to a boil and season with salt.
While the water heats to a boil prepare a large bowl of ice water, you'll be needing it soon.
Add (at least) 2 cups of spinach to the boiling water.
Leave it in the boiling water for 30 seconds.
Quickly move it to the bowl of iced water.
Take it out of the iced water after 30 seconds,
Congratulations, you've just learned how to blanch vegetables! Now you can use them in a new recipe or freeze and store them!
Cool!
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