Technique: Blanching vs. Boiling… one in the same? ahhh, No!

All this time I had been making recipe number 10 – the Cream of Broccoli Soup by what I deemed was blanching, only to find out just yesterday that in fact I had been boiling the crap out of the broccoli instead of doing what the recipe said. 

The only reason why I picked up on this was due to yesterday’s relish recipe (will feature sometime this week) which required for the tomatoes to be skinned.
'How does one skin a tomato?' I asked myself. Luckily, the trusty web is full of information on cooking techniques and  I find that I should blanch them so the skin comes off easily and quickly. Well, this was something I can do!  So I thought anyway, when what I deemed as blanching successfully gave me slop. Yep, the skins were “easy” to get off, you just picked them out of the bottom of the saucepan after going through the mush.

So back to the drawing board to learn what the difference is.

The term "blanching" refers to the technique of plunging a food, usually a vegetable or fruit, into boiling water until either its color has set or the food has softened slightly. This takes anywhere from a few seconds (30 seconds for a tomato- so I found) to several minutes, depending on what is being blanched.
The food is then removed from the boiling water to an ice bath to "shock," or stop the cooking process and to set color.

Why do you use this technique?

Peeling:  It makes it easier to peel the skin of fruits like tomatoes and peaches.
Colour:  It also enhances the color of vegetables like green beans or broccoli. That is why the blanched green beans shown here look so vivid.
Storage:  It's also a good idea to blanch vegetables you intend to freeze, because blanching inactivates the enzymes that promote spoilage.

Other "boiling water techniques"

Parboiling:  Parboiling is a technique that is similar to blanching, but takes a bit longer. Parboiled food is actually partially cooked. This technique is especially useful when you are stir-frying foods that take different amounts of time to cook. If you parboil a dense food, such as broccoli, you can add it to your wok at the last minute to cook along with a quicker-cooking food, such as shrimp.
Boiling: Well, I think everyone knows this one… food is cooked in boiling water and then served.

I have learnt my lesson- from now on, even if I think I know what the recipe terminology is, I am going to look it up.