ISO help/tips for freezing food
- Thread starter sundowner
- Start date
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have a food saver unit, you can use that to store/freeze your food. No air, no freezer burn. Since you are using plastic containers, it may be kind of hard preventing freezer burn or the layer of ice that forms. The only suggestion I can think of is before freezing, put a layer of plasting wrap on top of the food, press it down on the food so there is no air between the plastic and food, then freeze.
Hi Sundowner,
How cold is the mixture before you freeze it? If you are going to make a mixture to freeze, try placing a 1-2 inch deep stainless steel, metal tray in the freezer for about I hour at some point when you are cooking the mixture that you intend to freeze. Allow the mixture to cool by turning into a cold pot/bowl as soon as it is cooked and then place the mixture you want to freeze in the chilled tray after about 1 hour. Spread to a thin layer, place in the fridge and cool. Stir a couple of time whilst it is cooling.
Now, I accept that this might seem to use a lot of pots/bowls but if you are making a quantity then all you need is a sink of hot soapy water to clean the pots/bowls that you use as you progress from one stage to another. Consequently, you will simply clean up as you cook! I don`t find this a problem as, as an ex-chef I always have a sink/plastic sink bucket of VERY hot soapy water in which to place utensils that I no longer need or wish to wash before using again!
The next stage is to pack.
Herein comes the difficulty. For soups and stews I keep all 250 ml sauce cartons and all 500 ml cartons of Greek yogurt that I buy from a supermarket for future use when freezing sauces and soups.
Make sure that you wash them out very carefully using a brush (sterillised) to get into all corners and very hot water. Dry and set aside. Place a freezer bag in your chosen pot - 250 mls or 500mls. Fill with the sauce (250mls) or soup (500mls) to fill the pot and just 1/4 inch less for a 250 ml pot and 1/2 inch less in a 500ml pot, than the level of the pot. Carefully, insert a plastic straw, gently twist the poly bag around the straw and then suck out any remaining air. How do you know when this has been achieved? Actually, it is vey easy. When the soup or sauce enters the straw, air has been removed. At this point you should remove the straw and seal the bag. Freeze the soup/sauce in the sealed bag, in the container. Next day (or 2 in my case) remove the bag from the pot and LABEL with the contents. Clean the pot - sauce or yogurt carton, dry and set aside for use on another day.
This method should reduce freezer burn and give you labelled items which are easy to stack in the freezer.
I cannot stress enough the need to label foods when placing in the freezer. The sermon from Mount Archiduc comes from bitter experience! I recently removed what I thought was a savoury mince and then carefully cooked potatoes to add to make a nice, tomato enriched, mince and potato (mashed) pie. I was horrified to discover I`d defrosted (in the fridge) and lusted for 12 hours over a big pot of curry sauce - not my savoury mince. And this for neighbours who had asked for my jazzed up "Cottage Pie". They laughed, I didn`t. They had an egg curry and I had egg on my face!
The straws that you need to remove the air are simply plain white bulk buy straws. Cooling the mixture as advised above and using straws to remove air from a cooled and chilled mixture should ensure that freezer burn and the development of ice crystals is kept to the minimum.
Hope this helps,
Archiduc
mcnerd
Head Chef
You can reduce some of the ice by pushing some plastic wrap down against the liquid, basically removing that air pocket. It's not air tight, but the best thing you've got other than vacuum sealing.
Yep - me too! I use zip-lock FREEZER bags ... ladel my room temp stuff (soup/stew/chili/etc.) into the bag - seal it almost closed (all but about 1/4 inch) and gently squeeze the air out until the stuff comes just up to the open portion of the bag (if you hold the top of the bag at about a 45º-degree angle it works best to forch the air toward the opening) and then finish closing it. You wind up with a very small bubble of air. Significantly smaller surface area than using a bowl.
And then, lay flat on a baking/cookie sheet, freeze and label. A quart of stuff frozen this way can be stored in smaller places than a bowl of stuff can.
Done right - you'll wind up with less than 1/8th teaspoon of ice along the top edge of the bag after 6-months.
