Hello friends,
Today we will go through a few things related to freezing your food.
Frozen food has been demonized for so many years. So many people think of frozen food as low-quality food, on-the-budget food or simply something that is less good than fresh food. (Whatever ‘fresh’ means anyway.) Often times it’s thrown into the same category with processed or canned food.
I will let you in on a little secret. Do you want to know which storage room is the biggest in some Michelin-starred restaurants? Yup. It’s the freezer. Massive walk-in freezer twice the size of an average living room where entire season worth of food is stored. So now you are thinking… defrosted food for a 300€ dinner in a fancy restaurant? What a joke right?
No. Not a joke, but a smart move. Freezing is perhaps the best way to preserve food and extend its shelf life, with the least change in the flavour. I have yet to see a restaurant where the freezer of any size is not fully packed. If you are smart, your freezer is full.
But before you start creating pictures of chefs pulling out frozen ready meals and microwaving them before sending them out to your table, let me clarify.
We are talking about freezing items that are perfectly suitable to be frozen. That is, fresh fruit, some fresh vegetables, herbs, stocks, sauces, reductions, glazes, sirups, flavoured oils, some purees, and for certain purposes, fish and meat too.
A freezer is not used because of laziness, budget, or lack of staff, but because of its effectiveness. Frozen food also often contains more nutrients than fresh food. Fresh fruit will keep losing vitamins and minerals every day, while if you put freshly picked fruit in the freezer, it will retain almost all of its nutrients.
So… restaurant kitchens have fully packed freezers, and your vegetables are rotting in your fridge. Herbs getting mouldy. Leftovers going bad. And fruit is rotten before you even realize it.
Solution? Freeze it.
At home, you certainly have more options of what to keep in your freezer, as for example, I have no problem freezing almost anything. Watermelon. Overripe bananas. Carrot peels. Random leftovers.
Freeze anything, but make sure you freeze it before it goes bad. Don’t freeze mouldy food, obviously.
Also, don’t freeze starchy food such as raw or cooked potatoes or cooked pasta. The texture changes a lot and quality drops significantly, at least in my opinion. Rice is acceptable from the freezer to use in stir-fries. I had the pleasure of eating defrosted potatoes a few times and it wasn’t too enjoyable.
So here is a brief list of things you can keep in the freezer:
Soups and stocks
Pureed food
Fruit for smoothies or cooking
Juices
Any liquid food really
Fresh pasta (uncooked)
Bread and pastry
Vegetables to make stock with
Leftover cooked food
And a few things you shouldn’t keep in the freezer:
Cooked or raw potatoes
Cooked pasta
Deep-fried food
Food that you don’t intend to eat anyway
How to freeze food
Anything that goes in the freezer must be either in an air-tight container or fully wrapped to avoid freezer burn. Freezer burn occurs when food is either exposed to oxygen (= unwrapped, uncovered) in the freezer or sits in the freezer for too long (over a year or so). While freezer burn isn’t a safety issue, it is a quality issue as those parts of food are dried out.
Exceptions: Vegetables and trimmings that are being collected to make stock with. As they will be used to make stock, even if freezer burn occurs it won’t be an issue, and it’s also handier to keep an open container to throw your trimmings into rather than having to open a frozen container all the time.
Glass containers are fine in the freezer, but make sure they are not overfilled as the content will expand when frozen and the glass would break. I usually use the same plastic containers I use in a fridge or sturdy reusable bags.
I would also suggest labelling your food in a freezer as you WILL forget what is what after a certain time.
So with that being said, here is my list of things currently in my freezer, with some comments:
Leftover bread (will use for toasties)
Cooked beetroot (cooked too much, will use for pasta/roast veg)
Fresh dill (good for salsa or salad dressing)
Fresh lovage (wonderful for veggie stock)
Fresh seabuckthorn (great snack)
Vegetable peels and trimmings (for veggie stock)
Open can of chickpeas (leftover, will go into a stew or stir fry)
Open can of sweetcorn (leftover, good for stir fry or a salad)
Whole carrots (for veggie stock)
Whole tomato (was too overripe, will go into veggie stock)
Cashew sauce (leftover, multiple possible uses)
Leftover soy milk (good for vegan mayo or for sauces)
Bananas (too overripe, will go into a smoothie or banana bread)
Banana bread (portioned, will defrost a slice when needed)
Vegetable stock (will use as broth or to cook baby food with)
Courgette puree (leftover, will use with some pasta)
Red pepper soup (leftover)
Frozen berries (from the shop, using it for breakfast porridge)
See? My freezer is very random. It’s not what a freezer in a restaurant look like, as I treat my freezer as a fridge that keeps things fine for longer. If I know that I won’t be finishing something, I put it in the freezer right away. If I am going away for a weekend, I move like half of the fridge content into the freezer and then I have enough food when I come back.
Don’t treat your freezer as a dumpster though. There is no point keeping in the freezer something that you don’t want anyway. And don’t just keep adding to the freezer without taking stuff out. Put a meal together from ‘freezer stuff’ once or twice a week and you have a nice rotation with your cooking.
Freezer is your best friend. Treat it as such.
Got some freezer-related questions? Let me know by leaving a comment on this article.
Until next time,
Vojtech
I have learned so, so much. thank you.