Tricks to freeze correctly

If one day you have to cook for the whole week and you have a freezer, the ideal is that you have some knowledge to freeze food correctly.

Thus, if one day you receive unexpected visitors or arrive late from work, you have lunch ready. You just have to defrost it and serve it on the table.

En Hombres con Estilo We will give you some basic rules of freezing.

• Packing: A container to freeze must be airtight, rigid with a secure lid or made of PVC film that is thick enough and has a good seal so that the content is totally isolated. The cold air of the freezer absorbs all the humidity that it finds, therefore it dehydrates the food that is not well insulated; That is why they are later dry and tasteless.
• Time: The freezing time should be as short as possible so that small ice crystals are formed that, when thawing, do not damage the fibers of the product. This depends on the freezer having adequate cold capacity and putting small amounts of food at a time.
• Hygiene: Before preparing food, the kitchen and hands must be impeccable. Vegetables and meats should be handled separately and with different elements to avoid cross contamination. The containers must enter the freezer as soon as the preparation has cooled, without delay. A frozen food should never be refrozen unless it has gone from raw to cooked in the meantime.

Foods that cannot be frozen:

• Gelatin (loses liquid)
• Mayonnaise (separates)
• The white of hard-boiled eggs (becomes stringy)
• Raw salad greens (wilt)
• Boiled potatoes (they get soggy)
• Italian meringue (flattened)
• Whole fruits to eat fresh (they take on an ugly consistency).

Good ideas for freezing:

• Homemade gnocchi: Freshly prepared, they are frozen, unwrapped, on a plate until hard as pebbles, then bagged and stored. At the time of use, they are frozen in boiling water. The sauce is frozen separately, just like the grated cheese.
• Lemon juice: Freeze the juice in a tray to later use it in sauces, desserts, drinks. Once formed, the cubes must be bagged so that they retain their flavor.
• Lemon or orange peel: Freeze it just grated in airtight jars to have it on hand when preparing desserts and sauces.
• Chicken livers: Put them together in a container or bag until you have enough to prepare a pate.
• Onion and chili: Chop them and store them separately to have them available for sauces and other dishes.
• Sweet and savory cake dough: Prepare them and store the bun bagged or freeze the tarts already lined with dough in an airtight bag.
• Sauces: Freeze sauces should be thickened with cornstarch instead of flour. The Bolognese, pesto and tomato sauce freeze as is without problems.
• Baby food: All vegetable porridges and purees, with or without cooked meat, can be frozen but in small fractions so as not to reuse the leftovers.

Do you have any new trick to freeze?