What is the best way to defrost meat from the freezer? Why You Shouldn't Defrost Meat in Hot Water

Every lover of delicious and satisfying cooking often faces the need to defrost meat. Many people think: what could be easier than defrosting a beef steak or a pork escalope? You just need to put the meat on a plate, pour it with hot water - and soon it becomes soft. Unfortunately, not every housewife knows that the use of such a defrosting method significantly worsens the properties of meat.

Why is this method unsuitable for defrosting meat?

Appearance becomes less aesthetic. Hot water makes the color of the meat pale, it loses its natural color. In addition, when ice crystals rapidly thaw, they destroy the integrity of muscle fibers. As a result, the meat preparation is shapeless.

The meat is deprived of a large proportion of valuable substances that move into the water during the defrosting process. A portioned piece loses all the necessary juiciness, richness of taste and becomes hard.

Protein elements on the surface of the meat tend to coagulate, which may not be the best way to affect the taste of the finished dish.

Meat thawed in this way can be fraught with danger to the human body. The fact is that under the influence of hot water in the product, the active reproduction of various bacteria begins. It may happen that the meat is frozen in the middle, but its edges reach a temperature of more than 4 ° C (this environment is comfortable for the growth of bacteria).

If, after such defrosting, the workpiece is not immediately cooked, then it acquires a characteristic smell of a stale product. Eating a dish of such meat is unsafe for health, it can lead to food poisoning.

Obviously, defrosting should be avoided hot water. It is better to use a more efficient and “useful” way of defrosting: transfer the required amount of the product (preferably in vacuum packaging) from the freezer to the refrigerator 12-18 hours before cooking.

Happy Friday is coming to an end and I'm in a hurry to go home. I decided to cook a family dinner, so - grain-fed, good marbling, in general, what you need for a grill in the backyard, a glass of dry red and a warm blanket. One "but" - the steaks are frozen, but I'm not too worried because I know a few professional secrets defrosting. I will share.

Rule #1:

How to defrost meat properly? It is never to use hot water and never even leave it at room temperature. As a result of heat treatment (over 35 degrees Celsius), protein denaturation occurs in the upper layers of meat and the cooking process begins. There is also the formation of bacteria, which is unsafe. Take the time to properly defrost meat - this is vacuum packaging and the zero zone of the refrigerator. A beef steak of medium thickness, and this is usually 2-2.5 cm, will take about 12 hours.

Rule #2:

Do not store frozen food for too long after defrosting. Poultry and fish can stay fresh and usable in the refrigerator for 1 or 2 days. Thawed meat - beef, pork, lamb or veal will keep 3 or 4 days after thawing.

Rule #3:

You only have 2-3 hours before dinner, and the meat is still frozen? The correct option looks like this - we take large saucepan, fill with ice water and put the steak in it without removing the vacuum film. No hot or even warm water - this can lead to heating the top layer of meat to a temperature at which bacteria on the surface begin to actively multiply. I recommend changing the water every 30 minutes to make sure it stays cold enough. It will take about 2 hours to defrost meat. And finally, after the meat is completely defrosted, we will open the vacuum packaging and let the meat breathe. It will be saturated with oxygen and reach room temperature. The meat is ready for frying.

Bon appetit and have a great weekend!

Chilled and frozen meat can be purchased in our store:

P.S. Never, please, never re-freeze meat! This deprives him of tenderness and useful properties. The steak will turn into a “sole”, which, alas, you will never make juicy and truly tasty.

Whatever you are going to cook from meat, this product is necessary prepare in advance. There are a considerable number and types of spices that make any meat tender, juicy and fragrant. They are well known to many housewives. And if you are looking for a new one, you are always welcome to our website. But the very first step is defrosting the meat. Of course, if you do not cook from fresh.

Defrost - very long process. At least that's what we're all used to thinking. Personally, I always take the meat out of the freezer a few hours before preparing the dish, to be one hundred percent sure that I will have time to prepare the treat on time. But not so long ago, I learned that you can cope with a multi-hour task in 5 minutes. Did you know about it?

Five Minute Task

It so happens that you simply forgot to get the meat from the freezer. And it still needs to be marinated. What to do: quickly redraw the menu, run to the store for ready-made treats, cancel the feast? Neither the first, nor the second, nor the third, and the fourth - defrost in 5 minutes.

You may need to wait a little longer, because it all depends on the size of the meat. But 15 minutes is the maximum. After the specified time, the product will be completely defrosted. How so? The heat is trapped between the metal surfaces and simply heats up the meat.

I used to just pack the meat in a bag and then send it to the water. When the water boiled, I waited a couple more minutes and took out the already defrosted product. But if you compare this old method with the five-minute method above, it is clearly inferior. Tell me about your secrets. We'll be glad to know how do you defrost meat.

It is generally accepted that fresh meat is better than frozen. It is difficult to argue with this, and there is no need. The truth is that if you cook and serve properly thawed meat, 9 times out of 10 you will not even guess that it has been frozen. All the defects that are usually attributed to thawed meat - lack of juiciness, loose fibers, and so on - are due to either improper storage or improper defrosting. So how do you defrost meat the right way?

There are few nuances here, but you need to know about them, otherwise the frozen meat will turn into a piece of nutritious, but not too tasty biomass. Of course, no one forbids you from defrosting meat under running hot water or in the microwave, but if you want frozen meat to be indistinguishable from fresh meat after defrosting (at least after heat treatment), follow a couple of simple rules. But first, about what frozen meat is and in what cases you can’t do without it.

frozen meat

Of course, a piece of the freshest meat, and even from a trustworthy butcher, is the best thing you can imagine, but the opportunity to buy such meat is far from always available. What to do? One of the options that many housewives practice is to buy a lot of meat at once, cook something, and put the rest in the freezer. I believe that this should be resorted to only as a last resort: after all, the freezer of a domestic refrigerator cannot be compared with industrial methods of quick freezing. During such a “home” freezing, irreversible changes occur inside the meat - relatively speaking, microscopic tears appear, as a result of which, during defrosting, most of the liquid that is supposed to remain inside will flow out of the meat, keeping the thawed meat juicy and tasty.

And if you really can’t do without freezing meat at home, I strongly recommend getting a vacuum sealer and freezing meat already in bags: this will prevent excessive loss of the juices contained in it, as well as possible burns on its surface caused by rapid cooling. Meat packed in a vacuum bag is stored much longer than just frozen.

However, the preferred option would be to buy meat that has been industrially frozen. Despite the fact that fresh meat, as we have already found out, is valued higher, frozen meat also has its advantages:

• Frozen meat is usually cheaper, and if you're looking for a way to save money, frozen meat may be the compromise you need.
• Frozen is often easier to find what is difficult or impossible to find fresh. Say, even high-quality meat for - all this is found in the average supermarket or on the market only in freezing.
• Finally, frozen meat keeps longer. It is obvious.

However, it’s not enough to buy frozen meat, you also need to be able to defrost it so that it doesn’t hurt excruciatingly - first of all, you, because a good product was spoiled.

How to defrost meat

Everything is very simple: The main culinary secret fits in one sentence - freezing should be as fast as possible, and defrosting as slow as possible. We have already talked about the advantages of instant industrial freezing, and you are quite capable of providing competent defrosting on your own. To do this, simply move the meat from the freezer to the refrigerator - where the temperature is as close to zero as possible, but still higher. Put it on a plate (leakage is usually inevitable) and leave it alone for a day. You may need more time, depending on the size of the piece - for example, a whole duck or a large cut in my refrigerator thaws in about two days.

You do not need to force defrosting, just wait until the meat is completely soft and cook it at your discretion. The amount of liquid that still leaked out of the defrosted piece will be your assessment of how you thawed the meat (of course, if it was correctly frozen). By the way, frozen fish, whole or fillet, must be thawed in the same way. And of course, as far-sighted manufacturers write on the packaging - re-freezing is not allowed!

The choice of method for defrosting meat largely depends on how urgently you need to cook it. It's one thing if meat dish you need it by tomorrow, and it’s completely different when you have only a couple of hours left. In any case, it must be remembered that defrosting too quickly is unacceptable: this destroys the structure of the meat, makes it tough and promotes the formation of dangerous bacteria.

It is also undesirable to leave meat pieces for thawing at room temperature: bacteria are activated in the heat, which could get into the product if it was cut or packaged incorrectly. What is the best way to defrost meat at home?

Method 1: in the refrigerator

It is this option that experts consider the most correct, simple and safe. It is necessary to take the meat out of the freezer and put it on the shelf of the refrigerator in compliance with the optimal temperature regime - no more than +4 degrees Celsius. At higher temperatures, bacteria are more likely to grow.

The meat will be protected from foreign odors by its factory vacuum packaging. If it has not been preserved, the meat should be put in ceramic dishes, covered with a plate, and a napkin or paper towel should be placed down. Although the liquid from the meat, when it is properly defrosted, should not flow out. It is advisable to wrap the pieces of meat in a waffle towel so that they "breathe" better.

The disadvantage of this defrosting method is its duration (about a day for every 3 kilograms of product). It is suitable only for those cases when cooking can be postponed until at least tomorrow.

Beef, veal, lamb or pork (roast, chops or steaks) thawed in this way will be stored in the refrigerator for 3 to 5 days after defrosting, and poultry, minced meat and fish will lie for 1-2 days. If during this time you change your mind about cooking meat, then you can safely put it back in the freezer.

Method 2: in cold water

With a long defrosting of meat, everything is simple and clear. But what if you need to create a meat masterpiece in a couple of hours? In such conditions, experienced chefs recommend defrosting meat in water. But not hot, as many would like to speed up the process, but cold. This will allow the meat to defrost evenly to the very middle of the pulp. After a hot "bath", the meat may not completely thaw, and after cooking it may become tough and tasteless.

Without removing the product from its original packaging, place it in a container of cold water and lower it into the sink. Slowly open the faucet so that the water running from it constantly maintains the temperature in the meat container below room temperature. Don't feel like wasting tap water? Change the cold water in the meat container every half hour. So small meat pieces will defrost in about an hour, and more massive ones in 2 or 3.

If the factory vacuum packaging is damaged or simply missing, then the product must be placed in a cling film or bag and sealed tightly, protecting it from bacteria attacking from water and air. The packaging will prevent water from entering the structure of the meat. If, nevertheless, this happened, then the meat should be cooked as soon as possible.