Home made minestrone out of the freezer - Gourmets like freezers too
Freezers are much maligned. Their bad rep has been established by the convience meal application. A frozen steak and kidney pie from Iceland is never going to be as good as a home made pie with fresh puff pastry - that's a no brainer.
But let's not overlook their sheer utility - to a gourmet they are a godsend. I'll rank their use to a gourmet in order:
1) Frozen stock
This should always be on hand. A man cannot boil a chicken carcass every time he fancies a risotto. And no gourmet worth their (excesive quantities of) salt uses one of those horrid cubes with excessive quantities of salt. If you are a millionaire I suppose you can buy a pot of Joubiere organic stock from Waitrose for your risotto, but to buy enough for a soup you need to need to be in the super rich league, and then you might as well just head out to Gordon Ramsay's for dinner. Besides, home made stock always seems better. And it's fun to make, and it gives you a sense of pride to start from scratch - nothing makes you feel like a cook as much as boiling some old bones.
2) Freezing left overs
This was the genius of last night's meal. A builder was coming over to give us a quote and there was no time to prepare a proper meal. But wait! Didn't I make a massive batch of minestrone the other night which I froze? Plop into a pan and leave to simmer and voila - lovely wholesome dinner.
Does it lose anything for being frozen? Probably. But it's still a damn site better than most meals which are that easy to prepare. If you follow my "freezer rules" (see below), you won't notice much difference.
Being in a couple, this system offers untold advantages. Firstly, most ingredients come in batches too large to use. So instead of making a soup or stew for one or two nights, and binning half a bag of carrots/potatoes etc. just make a big batch and you have an instant economy of scale. There's also the times when the other half is out and you can't be bothered to cook for one. Then there's a treasure trove of stuff waiting for you.
3) Frozen top quality meat
I bought half a veal for £45. That's about 4 Sunday lunches, 4 weeknight dinners (escalops) and 4 litres of veal stock.
Frozen meat isn't really too bad, if you follow the rules below. Granted, it's not as good as fresh. But given me a frozen top quality meat above fresh cheap supermarket crap any day.
4) Ice cream
5) Frozen bits and bobs
Ginger, lemongrass, herbs etc.
Rules of freezing:
1) Don't refreeze anything - this could kill you. You can freeze food which had frozen ingredients, provided they have been cooked thoroughly. So don't worry about freezing a curry which included some frozen peas and frozen stock.
2) Wrap it up airtight - everyone knows this.
3) Freeze as quickly as possible - for scientific reasons I won't go into food is less damaged if it is cooled and frozen as fast as possible. Industrial companies use "blast freeze" techniques which can freeze food instantly. The best advice I can give is cool your left overs by transferring them to a freezer container placed in an ice bath, then locate the "superfreeze" shelf in your freezer and put the food in there.
4) Portion it out before you freeze - obvious really, but you don't want to be hacking around with a block of meat you only need half of.
5) Freeze as fresh as possible for best results - meat which I buy at the farmer's market freezes briliantly. When I spoke to the farmer I buy it from he explained that this is because it has not previously been chilled. Most supermarket meat has been superchilled to about 1 degree for the distribution process, which can take some time. So when you try to refreeze it turns out horrible
6) Freezing ruins texture but not taste - remember this. That's why frozen stock is basically perfect, because essentially it's just frozen water. My advice is freeze stuff in parts. For example I wouldn't put pasta into minestrone before freezing. Why bother, when you can put a bit in after it's come out, and it only takes seconds.
7) Thaw raw meat/fish slowly - just take it out of the freezer and leave. Takes some forward planning but worth it. Don't defrost in the microwave unless you like eating rubber. Stocks can be thawed just by chucking the ice brick into a pan and heating slowly. Be careful though as the ice can scratch your non-stick surfaces.
Happy eating my fellow gastronauts.
But let's not overlook their sheer utility - to a gourmet they are a godsend. I'll rank their use to a gourmet in order:
1) Frozen stock
This should always be on hand. A man cannot boil a chicken carcass every time he fancies a risotto. And no gourmet worth their (excesive quantities of) salt uses one of those horrid cubes with excessive quantities of salt. If you are a millionaire I suppose you can buy a pot of Joubiere organic stock from Waitrose for your risotto, but to buy enough for a soup you need to need to be in the super rich league, and then you might as well just head out to Gordon Ramsay's for dinner. Besides, home made stock always seems better. And it's fun to make, and it gives you a sense of pride to start from scratch - nothing makes you feel like a cook as much as boiling some old bones.
2) Freezing left overs
This was the genius of last night's meal. A builder was coming over to give us a quote and there was no time to prepare a proper meal. But wait! Didn't I make a massive batch of minestrone the other night which I froze? Plop into a pan and leave to simmer and voila - lovely wholesome dinner.
Does it lose anything for being frozen? Probably. But it's still a damn site better than most meals which are that easy to prepare. If you follow my "freezer rules" (see below), you won't notice much difference.
Being in a couple, this system offers untold advantages. Firstly, most ingredients come in batches too large to use. So instead of making a soup or stew for one or two nights, and binning half a bag of carrots/potatoes etc. just make a big batch and you have an instant economy of scale. There's also the times when the other half is out and you can't be bothered to cook for one. Then there's a treasure trove of stuff waiting for you.
3) Frozen top quality meat
I bought half a veal for £45. That's about 4 Sunday lunches, 4 weeknight dinners (escalops) and 4 litres of veal stock.
Frozen meat isn't really too bad, if you follow the rules below. Granted, it's not as good as fresh. But given me a frozen top quality meat above fresh cheap supermarket crap any day.
4) Ice cream
5) Frozen bits and bobs
Ginger, lemongrass, herbs etc.
Rules of freezing:
1) Don't refreeze anything - this could kill you. You can freeze food which had frozen ingredients, provided they have been cooked thoroughly. So don't worry about freezing a curry which included some frozen peas and frozen stock.
2) Wrap it up airtight - everyone knows this.
3) Freeze as quickly as possible - for scientific reasons I won't go into food is less damaged if it is cooled and frozen as fast as possible. Industrial companies use "blast freeze" techniques which can freeze food instantly. The best advice I can give is cool your left overs by transferring them to a freezer container placed in an ice bath, then locate the "superfreeze" shelf in your freezer and put the food in there.
4) Portion it out before you freeze - obvious really, but you don't want to be hacking around with a block of meat you only need half of.
5) Freeze as fresh as possible for best results - meat which I buy at the farmer's market freezes briliantly. When I spoke to the farmer I buy it from he explained that this is because it has not previously been chilled. Most supermarket meat has been superchilled to about 1 degree for the distribution process, which can take some time. So when you try to refreeze it turns out horrible
6) Freezing ruins texture but not taste - remember this. That's why frozen stock is basically perfect, because essentially it's just frozen water. My advice is freeze stuff in parts. For example I wouldn't put pasta into minestrone before freezing. Why bother, when you can put a bit in after it's come out, and it only takes seconds.
7) Thaw raw meat/fish slowly - just take it out of the freezer and leave. Takes some forward planning but worth it. Don't defrost in the microwave unless you like eating rubber. Stocks can be thawed just by chucking the ice brick into a pan and heating slowly. Be careful though as the ice can scratch your non-stick surfaces.
Happy eating my fellow gastronauts.
posted by foodpete at 2:53 AM
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