273—Blanchings

The essentially unsuitable term blanchings is applied in the culinary technology of France to three classes of operations which entirely differ one from the other in the end they have in view.

1. The blanching of meats.

2. The blanching, or, better, the parboiling of certain vegetables.

3. The blanching of certain other vegetables, which in reality amounts to a process of cooking.

The blanching of meats obtains mostly in the case of calf’s head and foot and the sweet-bread of veal, sheep’s and lambs’ trotters, and lamb’s sweet-bread. These meats are first set to soak in cold, running water until they have quite got rid of the blood with which they are naturally saturated. They are then placed on the fire in a saucepan containing enough cold water to abundantly cover them, and the water is gradually brought to the boil.

For calf’s head or feet, boiling may last for fifteen or twenty minutes; veal sweet-bread must not boil for more than ten or twelve minutes; while lamb sweet-bread is withdrawn the moment the boil is reached.

As soon as blanched, the meats are cooled in plenty of fresh water before undergoing their final treatment.

The blanching of cocks’ combs is exceptional in this, namely, that after the combs have been cleansed of blood—that is to say, soaked in cold water, they are placed on the fire in cold water, the temperature of which must be carefully kept below 113° F. When this degree is approached, take the saucepan off the fire and rub each comb with a cloth, dusted with table-salt, in order to remove the skins; then cool the combs with fresh water before cooking them.

Many people use the blanching process with meats intended for “blanquette” or “fricassée.” I regard this procedure as quite erroneous, as also the preliminary soaking in cold water.

If the meats or pieces of poultry intended for the above-mentioned preparations be of a good quality (and no others should be used), they need only be set to cook in cold water, or cold stock, and gradually brought to the boil, being stirred repeatedly the while. The scum formed should be carefully removed, and, in this way, perfectly white meats and stock, with all their savour, are obtained.

As to meats or pieces of poultry of an inferior quality, no soaking and no blanching can make good their defects. Whichever way they are treated they remain dry, gray, and savourless. It is therefore simpler and better to use only the finest quality goods.

An excellent proof of the futility of soaking and blanching meats intended for “fricassées” and “blanquettes” lies in the fact that these very meats, if of good quality, are always perfectly white when they are braised, No. 250, Poëlings, or roasted, notwithstanding the fact that these three operations are less calculated to preserve their whiteness than the kind of treatment they are subjected to in the case of “blanquettes” and “fricassées.”

Mere routine alone can account for this practice of soaking and blanching meats—a practice that is absolutely condemned by common sense.

The term “blanching” is wrongly applied to the cooking of green vegetables, such as French beans, green peas, Brussels sprouts, spinach, &c. The cooking of these, which is effected by means of boiling salted water, ought really to be termed “à l’anglaise.” All the details of the procedure, however, will be given when I deal with the vegetables to which the latter apply.

Lastly, under the name of “blanching,” there exists another operation which consists in partly cooking certain vegetables in plenty of water, in order to rid them of any bitter or pungent flavour they may possess. The time allowed for this blanching varies according to the age of the vegetables, but when the latter are young and in season, it amounts to little more than a mere scalding.

Blanching is chiefly resorted to for lettuce, chicory, endives, celery, artichokes, cabbages, and the green vegetables; carrots, turnips, and small onions when they are out of season. In respect of vegetable-marrows, cucumbers, and chow-chow, blanching is often left to the definite cooking process, which should then come under the head of the “No. 174, Anglaise (for Egg-and-bread-crumbing)” cooking.

After the process of blanching, the vegetables I have just enumerated are always cooled—that is to say, steeped in cold water until they are barely lukewarm. They are then left to drain on a sieve, previous to undergoing the final cooking process to which they are best suited, this generally being braising.