— Roxane Daoust

Salt is added to water for seasoning. Um, and so with that, I, I will say that salt is optional, okay? Um, you know, when simmering or blanching or boiling or, you know, otherwise cooking a product in water. Okay? Uh, and then, um, why blanche festivals for crude days? So, um, we blanche for a number of different reasons, okay? And, you know, we, we think about blanching as, um, one type of submersion cooking, right? There's, there's par boiling or power cooking in water, and then there's fully cooking a product in water, uh, just to, uh, you know, reference one of our assignments. Um, but blanching, um, you know, is done to remove harsh tastes and flavors, uh, that we might associate with certain products like, uh, garlic cloves or, um, and even carrots, uh, and, and so many other things, right? They have a, a kind of a harshness to them in their raw state. And so, blanching will pull out some of those harsh notes, bringing a softer, more rounded edge to the flavor perception, the flavor experience in the mouth, um, you know, so that, uh, uh, it's more enjoyable for the diner. Uh, blanching, uh, can also, um, sort of neutralize enzymes and stabilize color change or color shifting, uh, whether it's due to oxidation or, or something else. And so that's another reason why we might choose to blanch. And, and so those two reasons are, um, specific reasons why blanching is applied to crude tastes. Okay? And, uh, um, when it comes to color, when it comes to the green items that contain chlorophyll, uh, blanching will brighten those greens, and it really, uh, livens up broccoli, for example. Um, and other things that, uh, are, are green. Um, now the, the important thing is that you do it for just a few seconds. And so, uh, it really, it could be depending on, on, on the batch size, uh, of the vegetables that we're talking about. You know, it could be, uh, anywhere from, you know, let's say five seconds for a, a pretty small batch at home, uh, to maybe, uh, 10 or 20 seconds for a larger batch for, um, you know, some sort of, uh, an event in a restaurant, for example. And then the goal is to shock that food product in ice water. And, uh, the goal is to stop the cooking process as we draw out the heat, right? That was absorbed by that food item, okay? And so, again, that's going to brighten the color and then stabilize it in that state, um, you know, with the shocking. Now, I also wanna explain the shocking process. I, I see it done suboptimally, um, from time to time in student photos. So, um, ideally your water is gonna stay as cold as possible as the food product, you know, is in the water. And, um, so in other words, as the, the cold water is pulling heat out of the food item, the water itself is gonna warm up. Um, but we still wanna keep it as cold as we can. And so therefore, lots of ice is going to be the best practice. Um, and not, not exclusively iso, we must have water, uh, in the bowl, um, because, uh, water will, you know, completely envelop the food product and therefore make full surface contact and at a maximum level draw out the heat, okay? But it, uh, then we need to provide adequate ice in that water to maintain cold water as the heat is drawn out of the food product into the water, okay? So keep that, uh, tip in mind and, uh, the shocking process will go shockingly well. All right? Uh, so hopefully that answers your question, Roxanne. Um, and, uh, yeah, I guess the other, other thing I'll add here regarding blanching is it should be done very, very, uh, shortly again, uh, it's, it's, uh, measured in seconds. Um, so that we, um, really, you know, we're not cooking the product per se, okay? Uh, because generally speaking, on a, on a crew dete, uh, platter, we're, we're not trying to present cooked product. There are exceptions, of course, you know, there's exceptions with everything, uh, we talk about in cooking, it seems. But generally, uh, we just want to freshen up or brighten up, um, that, uh, carrot stick or, uh, broccoli, um, for example.