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Some Kitchen Kinks: Blanching
Blanching Vegetables.-Blanching, which in cookery is entirely different from the bleaching or blanching of green vegetables in the garden, is a cooking process often used with vegetables, since it removes the strong or acrid taste and improves the quality. It is also convenient, since blanching may be done at any time, and the cooking completed in a very short time when the dish is to be served.
Have a large stewpan half full of rapidly boiling water. Add a tablespoonful of salt for every 2 quarts of water. Have the vegetables cleaned and well drained. Drop them in the boiling water, and bring the water back to the boiling point as quickly as possible. Boil rapidly, with the cover partially or wholly off the stewpan, five to twenty minutes, depending upon the vegetable, then drain off the water. If the cooking of the vegetable is not to be finished at once, pour cold water over the vegetable to cool it quickly, then drain and set aside until needed.
If the cooking is to be continued at once, it will not be necessary to rinse the vegetable with cold water. To complete the cooking the vegetable should be put in a small stewpan with butter or drippings and the other seasonings and cooked gently until done. A few spoonsful of liquid will be required for every quart of very juicy vegetables, and half a pint of liquid for drier vegetables. The stewpan is to be covered, only a slight opening being left for ventilation. All vegetables cooked in this manner should be cut up rather small either before or after the blanching.
Waste in Preparing Vegetables.- In preparing vegetables for the table there is almost always a larger or smaller loss due to inedible matter, skins, roots, seeds, etc., and also a waste of good material, which is caused by careless paring, etc., all these losses being grouped together in reporting analyses under the name "refuse." The amount of refuse varies greatly in different vegetables. The amount may be very small (7 per cent) in such vegetables as string beans; medium (10 per cent to 15 per cent) in such vegetables as onions, cabbage, leeks, lettuce, cucumbers; or high (50 per cent) in such vegetables as beans in pod, pumpkins, and squash. With tubers, such as potatoes, the average amount of refuse is 20 per cent, and with such roots as turnips 30 per cent.
In preparing vegetables for the table the careful cook will remove all inedible portions and will see to it that the total amount of refuse is as small as is consistent with good quality.
Thin paring of potatoes and other vegetables is an economy which it is worth while to practice, and is an easy way of decreasing useless loss. * ** Changes that Take Place in Cooking Vegetables. - Briefly, these are the principal changes that take place in vegetables during cooking: The cellular tissue is softened and loosened; the nitrogenous substances are coagulated; the starch granules absorb moisture, swell, and burst; a flavors and odors are developed.
As long as the vegetable is kept at a temperature above 125° F. changes continue to go on in the vegetable substance. The most marked of these are in the starch and in the odor, color, and flavor of the vegetable. Starch will not dissolve in cold water, but pure starch gelatinizes readily in hot water, and if the temperature is high enough will become gummy and opaque. starch is cooked in just moisture enough to swell and burst its granules and is then kept hot, but with- If APPENDIX It out additional moisture, a change will continue to take place, though the starch will remain dry and glistening. The flavor grows sweeter and more nutty the longer the starchy food cooks in dry heat. (See Boiled Potatoes, Boiled Rice.) is only vegetables that are composed largely of starch that can be kept hot in this manner without acquiring a strong taste and poor color. Potatoes, if kept in a closely covered vessel or with the unbroken skins on, will become soggy and dark and have a rank flavor. This is owing to the retention of moisture, which changes some of the starch to a sticky gummy mass, and very probably to the noxious volatile bodies which generated by heat and should be allowed to pass away. If the skins are broken and the vessel ventilated, potatoes may be kept warm a long time without spoiling. * ** are Overcooking changes and toughens the texture of vegetable foods and destroys the chlorophyll and other coloring matters and volatilizes or injures the bodies which contribute to the flavor. Overcooked vegetables are inferior in appearance and flavor and often indigestible (that is, promotive of digestive disturbance) as wel' as unpalatable.