Okuzeka
Culinary Arts & Cooking vocabulary · Cooking Methods & Techniques

Blanch

Meaning in culinary arts & cooking, with examples

/blæntʃ/verbCommon term

In culinary arts & cooking, blanch means: To put food briefly into boiling water and then usually straight into iced water to stop the cooking, fixing the colour and partly cooking it.

In Turkish: blanşlamak, haşlayıp şoklamak

How it is used

Used for green vegetables before service, for loosening tomato and almond skins and for preparing chips. The cold-water step is called refreshing (UK) or shocking (US). Blanched vegetables are finished quickly to order.

Example sentences

  1. Blanch the green beans and refresh them in iced water.

  2. Score the tomatoes and blanch them for ten seconds so the skins come off easily.

Common collocations

  • blanch and refresh
  • blanched almonds
  • blanch in salted water
  • blanched vegetables
  • boilTo heat a liquid until it bubbles strongly, or to cook food in such a liquid. Water boils at 100°C at sea level.
  • prepShort for preparation: the work of getting food ready before cooking or service, such as washing, peeling, cutting, portioning and making sauces. Also used as a verb.
  • peelTo remove the skin of a fruit or vegetable. As a noun, peel is the skin of fruits such as oranges, lemons and potatoes.
  • mise en placeThe preparation and organisation of all ingredients and tools at a station before cooking or service begins. From French, meaning "putting in place".

More terms: Cooking Methods & Techniques

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: