Sunday, March 6, 2011

[frozen-assets] Flash Freezing

 

The frozen food industry may have super duper flash freezing machines for their foods, but at home we have only our home freezers to accomplish this. Look in the store freezer section to see what foods freeze best, i.e. broccoli and cauliflower flash freeze well, but slices of zucchini squash become watery when thawed. Onions and peppers can be frozen without blanching first, but need to be contained in wrap and bags to contain their odor - especially onions!

In my experience, flash freezing involves quickly freezing individual portion/pieces of meat or single pieces of whole berries, chopped vegetables, or what I call "plops" of semi-solid foods or condiments. Here is how I do it:

Chicken, beef or pork pieces
~ wash pieces of chicken, pat dry well, lay on a flat baking sheet or tray which can be bare or covered with wax paper or parchment paper; pat dry pork or beef pieces before freezing

~ place in freezer, uncovered, and freeze until frozen solid

~ once frozen, place frozen pieces in heavy duty zip bags, label, date and return to freezer

Sausage or hamburger patties
~form patties the serving size you want, lay on sheet (not touching) and freeze solid

~ once frozen, remove patties to a freezer zip bag, label, date and return to freezer

Berries - strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, black berries, chunk of banana
~ wash berries well and air dry spread out on a tray or wax paper covered counter

~ put berries and banana chunks on parchment covered baking sheets and put in freezer

~ when frozen, pour berries/banana into freezer zip bags, label, date, and return to freezer

Vegetables
~ refer to a freezing source book on which vegetables need to be blanched briefly in boiling water before freezing (blanching stops the ripening process in the vegetable cells)

~ chop vegetables in your preferred size, blanch, drain, and pat dry or spin in a salad spinner to dry as much as possible

~ spread out vegetable pieces on a covered baking sheet or tray, and freeze

~ when frozen, loosen pieces of vegetables from the tray, put in a freezer zip bag, label, date, and freeze.

Individual rolls, biscuits, cake squares, and other foods can be flash frozen to keep them separate and allow for easy removal of one or more piece at a time.

"Plops" of 1 tablespoon of tomato paste, curry paste, and other seasoning pastes can be frozen on wax paper on a flat sheet. Put in a container loose and cover with a tight fitting lid to freeze.

When dealing with large quantities, you can put smaller zip bags of flash frozen pieces into a large zip bag so all of one type is stored frozen together.

Others might have different methods of accomplishing flash freezing. Hope this helps.

Teresa C. Rouzer
Burlington, North Carolina

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