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More efficient blanching?


Shalmanese

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After blanching some snow peas today the "proper" way, ie: in a big pot of heavily salted water at a rolling boil, I was struck by how absurdly wasteful this procedure is. Looking at the very basics of blanching, the idea is that you go along for quite a while requiring very small amounts of heat, and then, all of a sudden, you need a huge amount of heat for a few minutes before going back to the previous level of very low heat. Sure, you could do it by having lots of thermal mass and a very big flame.

But my idea sounds a lot more elegant. Why not store the heat outside of the pot, in the form of, say, very hot river stones? Simply put some river stones in a 500F oven or a grill for a few minutes until they suck up the heat. Then, when you go to blanch the vegtables, dump the veggies in, and then immediately dump a load of river stones into the pot. The heat from the stones will bring the water back to the boil MUCH more rapidly than your pathetic non-restaurant quality gas burner could and you get greener, more vibrant vegtables with less water and on a smaller burner. Sounds like win-win to me.

You could also apply the same principle to deep frying which is essentially blanching in oil. In this case, it's even easier because you could just fashion a seperate partition in the fry-basket and put the stones in the pot at the same time as the food. Just take them out again when the oil is back to temp and even the crappy, cheap electric deep fryers suddenly become useful.

Any thoughts? Can you think of another material that would work better than stones? Would cast iron work? copper cubes?

PS: I am a guy.

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But my idea sounds a lot more elegant. Why not store the heat outside of the pot, in the form of, say, very hot river stones? Simply put some river stones in a 500F oven or a grill for a few minutes until they suck up the heat. Then, when you go to blanch the vegtables, dump the veggies in, and then immediately dump a load of river stones into the pot. The heat from the stones will bring the water back to the boil MUCH more rapidly than your pathetic non-restaurant quality gas burner could and you get greener, more vibrant vegtables with less water and on a smaller burner. Sounds like win-win to me.

You could also apply the same principle to deep frying which is essentially blanching in oil. In this case, it's even easier because you could just fashion a seperate partition in the fry-basket and put the stones in the pot at the same time as the food. Just take them out again when the oil is back to temp and even the crappy, cheap electric deep fryers suddenly become useful.

The amount of energy required to get an oven or grill to 500F seems more wasteful. How much wood, gas, or electricity is required to get there? I also don't think putting river stones on or in there for "a few minutes" will suffice enough to maintain the rolling boil for the time required; depending on the item you're blanching.

How would the vegetables become greener? The whole idea behind big pot blanching is to create a salty liquid that has a higher density than the liquid inside the plant. The boiling water along with the salt helps keep the chlorophyll in the plant.

If you want to bring water to a rolling boil more quickly, put a lid on the pot. To keep the veg boiling at a full boil, put the veg in a little at a time, put the lid back on, and remove the veg to an icewater bath. Repeat until done.

To add even more efficiency, once you're done you can use the water as a brine for a protein. This is provided that you've done it correctly and the water isn't green.

Deep frying is not "essentially blanching in oil." Blanching is a moist-heat cooking method that uses water as the cooking medium. Deep frying is a dry-heat cooking method that uses oil as the cooking medium.

I would not mess with using stones to heat oil.

Drink!

I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward. --John Mortimera

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Yes, I'm not so much concerned about energy wastage as time, water & burner space wastage. Half the time, I have something in the oven anyway and I can just pop a tray in at the same time. It might be slightly lower temperature so just compensate with more stones.

Going over some rough numbers, lets assume our veggies are at 25C and our water is at 100C. We lose 75Cal/gm, (assuming veggies have roughly the same latent heat as water) when we dump the vegtables in. Lets go with stainless steel because that apparently has roughly the same specific heat/cm^3 as water.

cookware12.jpg

(water is roughly 4)

Assuming we can heat it to 300C, that means if we got the equivilant mass of water to the veggies being blanched, we would need 1/2 that volume. ie: for every kilo of veggies, you need 1/2 a litre of water or about 1 quart of steel cubes per 4 pounds of veggies.

I think that no matter how good your burner is and how much water you have in your pot, there is at least a few minutes before it returns to a rolling boil. More water doesn't actually help this process, your still taking the same amount of energy out and you need to replace it with the same flame. All you do is reduce the temperature drop. With my method, you can use less water, less salt and get a better result. I don't know where you cook but I don't often find myself in need of 5 quarts of brine every time I blanch a bunch of asparagus so often, all the liquid just ends up down the drain.

I meant that deep frying was essentialling the same as blanching in that you introduce a relatively cold solid to a relatively hot liquid while trying to maintain a steady temperature in the liquid for the entire cooking process. This concept is the same.

With the oil, all you need to do is heat the stones to 375F instead of 500F. This way, your guarenteed not to burn your oil. The stones have just been air-drying in a hot oven for the last 5 minutes so theres no chance of it reacting chemically in any way to the oil. If you feel oogy about stones, use stainless steel instead, after all, it's what your pot is lined with.

In fact, I suspect that stainless steel ball bearings would be an even better choice than river stones and more readily availible to boot.

PS: I am a guy.

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My mother and my aunt separately taught me to just blanch in about 2-3 inches of water. When it boils I throw in the veggies, turn them over with chopsticks so that all the veggies come into contact with the water, and that's it. My greens have always stayed green with this method.

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I do a lot of canning and freezing and need to blanch large quantities of vegetables at the same time.

I use a 34 quart stockpot on the high temp turkey fryer burner out on the deck, with an ice water bath in a cooler next to it.

If I need more than one vessel at the same time, I have two of these immersion heaters which I drop into another large stockpot or this giant pressure canner and get the water as hot as it will go with the electrics, then transfer it to the gas burner long enough to get a rolling boil.

I have large wire baskets to hold the vegetables to dip them into the boiling water, bought at Smart & Final. They had a side handle but I bent it up so it is vertical and added another one on the opposite side to make it easier to dip them.

The turkey fryer burners are a great help. They are low enough so that you can use them safely, without having to chin yourself on the edge of a deep stockpot and I find all kinds of uses for it without necessarily deep frying a turkey.

I have one huge stockpot with a spigot at the bottom and I only use it on the turkey fryer.

Off season you can often find them as cheap as $40.00, and even regular prices are rarely over 60.00. Not bad for such a versatile piece of equipment.

P.S. I do about 10 quarts of green beans in a batch. Just to give you an ideat.

You can use smaller vessels and the water will come to a boil a lot faster, this way your kitchen does not get all steamy, not a problem where I live, in the desert, but if you live in a humid area, this is a very good thing.

big canner

Edited by andiesenji (log)

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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Okay, don't shoot me for this, but I have one of those giant PYREX mixing bowls, which I put in the microwave with saran-covered salted water. Nuke that puppy, 14 minutes in mine, bring it out, CAREFULLY take the wrap back, and use a spider to put the vegetables in. 45 secs. I guarantee blanched,and use your regular ice bath.Works for me.

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This is the giant canner I use:pressure canner

It takes two people to lift it but it has more capacity than any other thing I own, except for the stock tank out back where we wash the stuff that comes out of the big garden.

Edited by andiesenji (log)

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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I think it was Sara Moultin that heated a soldering iron (big piece of copper with a handle) and plunged it into the pot with the veggies to bring the temperature back up quicker.

Makes a lot more sense than rocks or ball bearings.

Cakes

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I think it was Sara Moultin that heated a soldering iron (big piece of copper with a handle) and plunged it into the pot with the veggies to bring the temperature back up quicker.

I remember Sara doing that on her show. Somehow, I also think Julia Child was involved/mentioned (did she use the same trick/truc on her show?). The metal rod was kind of like a red hot poker. When inserted into the water, it came back to a rolling boil immediately. The rod must have been heated on an open flame.

 

“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

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Somehow, I also think Julia Child was involved/mentioned (did she use the same trick/truc on her show?). The metal rod was kind of like a red hot poker.

I saw that last week on Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home; it was their vegetable segment. He sauteed his greens in a little bit of water, she did the BPB thing. Hers were greener. :cool:

I think that no matter how good your burner is and how much water you have in your pot, there is at least a few minutes before it returns to a rolling boil.

What are you putting in the pot that would diminish a boil so much that it would take minutes for it to return? To do it properly you should never break the boil. Add your veg a little at a time; the boil doesn't break and you have a nice green veg.

Drink!

I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward. --John Mortimera

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I do a lot of canning and freezing and need to blanch large quantities of vegetables at the same time.

I use a 34 quart stockpot on the high temp turkey fryer burner out on the deck, with an ice water bath in a cooler next to it. 

I have large wire baskets to hold the vegetables to dip them into the boiling water, bought at Smart & Final.  They had a side handle but I bent it up so it is vertical and added another one on the opposite side to make it easier to dip them. 

I bought a 20 qt aluminum clad stainless steel double boiler from a used restaurant supply store, and an extra insert. I took the insert to a metal fabricator, and had them drill colander holes in it like a spaghetti pot. The shop did a wonderful job, and it looks like it was manufactured that way.

Now I have a big double boiler, and when I need to blanch or steam large quanities of food, I use this colander insert. Works like a charm.

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hey no offense, but why are you blanching snow peas? they loose all their sweetness and texture in a matter of seconds. I never serve them anyway but raw or tossing them AT THE LAST MINUTE with my whatever. no trying to sound like a know it all. :wub:

The complexity of flavor is a token of durable appreciation. Each Time you taste it, each time it's a different story, but each time it's not so different." Paul Verlaine

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