Sponsored Post: Cool ideas—The many ways to use ice in the kitchen
Ice can be used in the kitchen for more than just cocktails or for keeping food cool. Almost every kitchen and restaurant is equipped with a nugget or sonic ice machine , and those tiny frozen blocks can aerate caffeinated drinks, preserve the snap of green beans, protect the texture of a sauce, and crystallize into refreshments. Let’s see how we can use ice to come up with some cool recipes.
Crunchy Vegetables
You can use an ice bath on vegetables to achieve two things. First, you can bathe raw vegetables in ice to make them extra crispy sincewater is restored to the cells of the vegetables. You can also plunge the vegetables in iced water after blanching them to stop the cooking process. This is used when you want to preserve the texture and color of vegetables while also properly cooking them.
Sauce Emulsifier
Oil and water may not mix, but oil and ice do. This is because colder temperatures are conducive to emulsions. For example, when you make a vinaigrette, you can combine all of the required ingredients with a single ice cube and justshake the mixture.You could also add ice to an aioli for a delicious sauce that will not separate.
Easy Peel
Tomatoes ,peaches,, and eggs can be made easier to peel if you use ice. For peaches and tomatoes, you blanch them before putting them into boiling water,. Then you transfer the ingredients to a cool bath of iced water. Their skin will slide right off.For eggs, all you have to do is transfer them to a bowl of iced water and wait for them to cool down.
Cool Hot Custard
Ice creams require a custard base. These bases have to be chilled before making the actual ice cream. Obviously, you can use ice to speed up the custard’s cooling process. Do this by placing the hot custard bowl into a bowl of iced water. Rotate the bowl of custard and stir the base until it cools.The bottom line? Don’t rely on ice only for cocktailsand cool drinks – it has so many other uses from preserving the crunch and color of your vegetables to making the laborious task of peeling them easier.