Freeze food properly
What is a freezer but for a practical matter. The remaining grilled meats, the vegetables in the special offer, the emergency rolls for the holiday? off in the bag and freeze! So that you do not burn any money during the freezing process and still enjoy your food after thawing, here are some frozen rules and tips.
Can you freeze everything?
Theoretically, you can freeze everything, but thawing is no longer nice with some foods. Meat and fish can safely be frozen. With vegetables you have to be more careful. "Fresh", which is not cooked, usually can not freeze. Not suitable for TK are e.g. Salad, cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes (here there are better flavor shelf life variations). This rule also applies to herbs: what can be boiled, e.g. Parsley, can also ice. Basil and coriander green not. Also not in the chest must and are vegetables that are by themselves very long shelf life such as onions, garlic, potatoes, sweet potato. Onions become mushy, potatoes sweet and glassy. Bread and baked goods can safely be frozen? Just look into the TK chest in the supermarket. By the way, the solution for small households. If it's not worth baking a whole cake: just freeze too much portioned!
The preparation
Everything that you want to thaw undamaged, you have to freeze properly prepared. This includes that meat and fish dabbed clean and next to each other in the bag. Vegetables are cleaned, peeled, washed, dried and best portioned. Some vegetables should be blanched before freezing, that is briefly dip in boiling water. This kills microorganisms, inactivates perishable enzymes and preserves the color. After blanching always frigate ice cold? so the vegetables are not further cooked by the residual heat.
Blanching should be: cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, fennel, cabbage and carrots.
You can freeze raw: asparagus, zucchini and mushrooms. Incidentally, you do not have to defrost most of the vegetables before you cook them, especially asparagus. It is best to put it deep-frozen in the boiling water or steam bath.
The freezer bag, your friend and helper
Frozen food in, out of the air: If you freeze in the bag, should it contain as little air as possible? then no water can evaporate (this also happens at -18 ° C, only slower than at room temperature) and the food does not dry out. Then arises the dreaded "freezer fire"? not, which simply means dried out foods. So that thawing is not an extremely lengthy or muddy affair, you should pay attention to the? Freezing elements? to be brought clean into the bag. For example, you can freeze berries or vegetable pieces such as cauliflower florets on a plate or tray and fill only in the frozen state in the bag, the thawing is then again on the surface, for example on a plate. Place pieces of meat such as schnitzel or steaks and fish fillet next to each other in the bag, so you do not have the problem later, that you have a lump of protein in front of him, which is half frozen at the edges, in the middle stubbornly frozen. As far as the thawing of meat and fish is concerned, it is always said: "best in the fridge overnight." But you do not think so far in advance. Then you can thaw at room temperature? without bag. Or in airtight bag in a bowl of cold (!) Water.
Everything has an end
Although frozen food lasts a long time, it does not get any better over time. Water evaporates, the frozen food dries up, vitamins are broken down. Fruits and vegetables have lost 15% of their vitamins after four months, more than half after one year.
Fish stays at -18 ° C for about four months, meat up to one year. Ice crystals and gray spots (freezer fires) form before, you should defrost, look closely and most likely throw away. Fruit and vegetables can be stored for six to twelve months, but bread and baked goods only one to three months.
The most important thing in the freezer compartment: the overview
Out of sight, out of mind. Especially in larger telecom cabinets or even chests one loses individual bags easily out of sight. What a surprise when the three-year-old sole fillet from the offer falls into the hands of defrosting. First commandment: mark your bag! Written with colored labels or directly on the bag. With as much information as possible: what's in it, how much and when. Eye Care Tricks: Always store the different foods in the same place, meat always in the back left, vegetables in the front right or in the second drawer from the top. Also helpful? especially for those who have other things in mind than the contents of your freezer, is an external inventory. Here you note what you freeze and repaint it when you thaw it. So that the next defrost action does not become an archaeological expedition.
