As food prices continue to rise these days, ``refrigeration’’ is the most powerful weapon to protect your household finances. Even if you buy large packs of meat and vegetables at a cheap price during weekend sales, you end up putting the cart before the horse if you end up spoiling them in the back of the refrigerator without being able to use them all. However, if you simply throw the packaged ingredients into the freezer, the flavor will become dry due to freezer burn (drying and oxidation) and dripping. By learning the correct preparation and packing techniques, you can preserve the deliciousness of your food for a month and dramatically shorten your cooking time on weekdays. In this article, we will explain the secret of frozen stock that will save you money and save time.
The golden rule of “freezing seasoning” to protect the freshness of meat and fish
The biggest secret to freezing meat and fish deliciously is to coat it with seasonings before freezing. By placing seasonings such as soy sauce, mirin, sake, miso, and ginger in a zippered storage bag and massaging them, the surface of the food will be coated with the seasoning liquid, strongly preventing oxidation and water evaporation due to contact with air. Furthermore, the salt contained in seasonings and the alcohol increase the water retention of the meat, resulting in a juicy finish that won’t dry out even when thawed and grilled. When cooking, just move it to the refrigerator in the morning and let it thaw naturally, or thaw the whole bag under running water and fry it in a frying pan. You don’t even have to worry about measuring seasonings, and the main dish is ready in 5 minutes.
Is it OK to leave it raw? Is parboiling necessary? How to sort vegetables by freezing
Freezing methods for vegetables vary depending on the moisture content and hardness of the fibers.
- Vegetables that can be eaten raw or frozen: Mushrooms (shimeji, enoki, shiitake), green onions, onions, green peppers, cherry tomatoes, etc. Freezing mushrooms in particular destroys their cell walls, and when heated, the umami components (guanylic acid, etc.) increase by about three times as much as in the fresh state, which is a wonderful scientific benefit.
- Vegetables that require par-boiling (blanching): spinach, komatsuna, broccoli, etc. By quickly boiling them in salt for about 80% of the time, cooling them in cold water, squeezing out the water, and then freezing them, you can stop the enzyme activity and maintain the vivid color and vitamins.
Tips for storing and defrosting your freezer without turning it into a “black box”
To prevent frozen food from turning into fossils deep inside, we make sure to store them upright. Stretch the food as flat and thin as possible, wrap it in plastic wrap, put it in a zipper bag, and then quickly freeze it on a metal tray. Once frozen, use bookends or divider stands to line up the bags vertically, and mark the opening of the bag with masking tape to write the date and name of the ingredients. Professional wisdom is to make sure the thickness is uniform so that there is no uneven heating when defrosting, so that you can eat every last bite deliciously.
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