Blanching & Earthing Up Gardeners

• Blanching seeks to make pale or white by excluding light.
• Several vegetables need blanching to be made them tender and remove the green parts that cause bitterness.
• Celery and leeks are blanched using the process of earthing up.
• Seakale and rhubarb is blanched by excluding light by an upturned pot usually covered in leaf litter.
• Endives can be blanched by covering with a slate or tile to exclude light for a few days.
• Chicory and lettuce may blanch if the leaves are tied together.
• Exclude light from potatoes by ‘earthing up’ or drawing mounds of soil  around the haulms (stems) to prevent tubers from growing near the surface and turning green.

Blanching Food Treatment

• Blanch vegetable or fruit by scalding in boiling water and finally plunge into icy or very cold water.
• Skin and outer shells are easier to remove on tomatoes and many nuts after quick blanching.
• Fruit and vegetables are treated  to minimize the bacterial content often as a precursor to freezing.
• Blanching helps to retain a green color with asparagus, greens, peas and beans. Par boiling is similar to blanching but without the last step of a quick chill in cold water.
• Blanching food is now a recognised industrial process about which several learned views have been published.