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, [poëled], 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 [131] ]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 “[à l’anglaise]” 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.