Cooking meat from frozen.

yoshytoshy

Hello ,just a quick one about frozen meats.

I've read this link http://missourifamilies.org/quick/foodsafetyqa/qafs359.htm ,which basically says you can cook meat from frozen.

I've been told by people like cooks ,that you basically get the sh1ts if you do this.

Is there a definitive answer/experience to this .
Thanks.

The Sweeper

Picture it: chicken nuggets, chicken burgers, meat pies, pizza toppings, and all of the other frozen foods containing meat that are designed to be cooked from frozen.

It's more complicated, and yet simpler than you think.

Frozen food doesn't make you sick. Defrosted food doesn't make you sick. Raw food doesn't make you sick.

Bad bacteria and toxins in food make you sick.

Not all food is contamined, and even if you don't prepare it properly it still won't make you sick - however to be safe, you should assume food is contaminated and prepare it properly.

This means cooking food in such a way as to eliminate bad bacteria, kill germs, and get rid of toxins (the last one is more complicated but applies to only a few items).

So yes, you can cook meat from frozen - you just need to cook it at the right temperature, for long enough, to ensure that it cooks through, right to the centre, and that any bad bacteria that may be present have been killed. Then you serve it piping hot, because food that has cooled and left at room temperature can start growing bad bacteria again.

You can even refreeze meat that has been defrosted - you just need to be careful that it hasn't been left in a situation that allows it to grow bad bacteria - so if you defrost meat in the fridge for 24 hours, for instance, you can return it from the fridge to the freezer to refreeze. It damages the texture of the meat but it doesn't automatically render it poisonous.

However there is no set of guidelines that will ever better you using your senses - and your common sense.

Here's an example - how many people do you know will throw out a packet of mince, or a chicken breast, in a sealed container, because it's one day past its use-by date? They won't even open it, they'll just throw it out.

However, if they open the packet and it's a day short of its use-by date, but it stinks to high heaven, will they still cook it and eat it? No, of course not - yet they apparently can't apply that same common sense in the first example.

You need to learn to judge the smell, colour and appearance of food to judge its suitability for consumption. Sharp, sour or generally bad smells, odd colours, shines where there shouldn't be shines, no shines where there should be shines, peculiar textures - these are all indications that food is starting to harbour a civilisation that'll make you ill if you eat it.

Use-by dates have been set by a food industry that wants to protect itself from being sued, so they build in a margin for their own protection. You're far better off using your own senses and your own judgement than you are relying on the dates on fresh produce, tins, bottles or cans - because ignoring warnings on something that's within its use-by date will make you sick, but discarding perfectly edible items just because of a use-by date is a huge waste, costs you money, contributes to landfill and is seriously hurting the planet.

huskerdu

The Sweeper wrote: »

Picture it: chicken nuggets, chicken burgers, meat pies, pizza toppings, and all of the other frozen foods containing meat that are designed to be cooked from frozen.

It's more complicated, and yet simpler than you think.

Frozen food doesn't make you sick. Defrosted food doesn't make you sick. Raw food doesn't make you sick.

Bad bacteria and toxins in food make you sick.

Not all food is contamined, and even if you don't prepare it properly it still won't make you sick - however to be safe, you should assume food is contaminated and prepare it properly.

This means cooking food in such a way as to eliminate bad bacteria, kill germs, and get rid of toxins (the last one is more complicated but applies to only a few items).

So yes, you can cook meat from frozen - you just need to cook it at the right temperature, for long enough, to ensure that it cooks through, right to the centre, and that any bad bacteria that may be present have been killed. Then you serve it piping hot, because food that has cooled and left at room temperature can start growing bad bacteria again.

You can even refreeze meat that has been defrosted - you just need to be careful that it hasn't been left in a situation that allows it to grow bad bacteria - so if you defrost meat in the fridge for 24 hours, for instance, you can return it from the fridge to the freezer to refreeze. It damages the texture of the meat but it doesn't automatically render it poisonous.

However there is no set of guidelines that will ever better you using your senses - and your common sense.

Here's an example - how many people do you know will throw out a packet of mince, or a chicken breast, in a sealed container, because it's one day past its use-by date? They won't even open it, they'll just throw it out.

However, if they open the packet and it's a day short of its use-by date, but it stinks to high heaven, will they still cook it and eat it? No, of course not - yet they apparently can't apply that same common sense in the first example.

You need to learn to judge the smell, colour and appearance of food to judge its suitability for consumption. Sharp, sour or generally bad smells, odd colours, shines where there shouldn't be shines, no shines where there should be shines, peculiar textures - these are all indications that food is starting to harbour a civilisation that'll make you ill if you eat it.

Use-by dates have been set by a food industry that wants to protect itself from being sued, so they build in a margin for their own protection. You're far better off using your own senses and your own judgement than you are relying on the dates on fresh produce, tins, bottles or cans - because ignoring warnings on something that's within its use-by date will make you sick, but discarding perfectly edible items just because of a use-by date is a huge waste, costs you money, contributes to landfill and is seriously hurting the planet.

+1.
Top class post. All round good advice.

yoshytoshy

Thanks very much ,the sweeper.

What had me concerned lately was ,someone told me why you have to preheat an oven for certain foods.

Basically some bacteria can protect themselves in an oven that hasn't been pre-heated ,they shield themselves as the oven builds up heat.

Whereas when you pre-heat the oven ,the shock of the high temperature kills all the nasties.

So this had me worried about defrosting etc.

Thanks.

The Sweeper

yoshytoshy wrote: »

Basically some bacteria can protect themselves in an oven that hasn't been pre-heated ,they shield themselves as the oven builds up heat.

I've never heard of that, and a period of time googling doesn't seem to turn up anything about it either.

However it did bring up some things that may have given rise to that claim that bacteria can 'shield' themselves in a warming oven. It could be that a warming oven risks not cooking frozen food through, and therefore the food won't reach the required temperature to kill salmonella and listeria (common causes of food poisoning).

Not sure if anyone else has heard of this shielding notion?

yoshytoshy

The Sweeper wrote: »

I've never heard of that, and a period of time googling doesn't seem to turn up anything about it either.

Someone I know is doing a safety course as part of their job and this was part of it.
It's only food with pre-heating instruction on it.

I don't know what the name of the bacteria was ,but if the temperature starts to change slowly ,this bacteria is able to protect itself from higher temperatures. If the oven is on full heat ,this bacteria is killed before it gets a chance.