Making high-quality frozen-food at home?
There's a french chain, picard, which sells gourmet frozen food , for the french. And they really like it - so it must be really tasty. But it's expensive.
On the other hand ,some families , that want to save time and money, cook food in large batches and freeze it for the whole week.
Assuming those families know how to cook great food(say they are the top 20% of home cooks), what are the missing pieces/technologies for them to make really high quality, gourmet FROZEN food ?
Is it only flash freeze tech ? or something more ?
Best Answer
Flash-freezing equipment wouldn't hurt, but for the normal home cook, the main things are to chill it as quickly as reasonably possible, package it with as much air removed as possible (vacuum sealers help here) in individual meal-sized portions, then freeze.
Thaw in the fridge if possible, or by heating your vacuum-sealed bag in a water bath. (Microwaves are pretty bad at heating frozen blocks of food and even with a lot of attention paid will tend to overheat part while other parts remain frozen.)
Choose recipes that work for the equipment you have, and adapt your weeknight process to combine the frozen ingredients with fresh ones.
Soups, many sauces, chilis, beans and rice dishes freeze well under normal home conditions, as do some meat preparations (the texture can change, and usually, the larger the cut of meat, the more likely it is that the change from freezing will be negative). Without flash-freezing, foods with a high water content tend to become mushy, so that the broccoli you steamed to perfection will most likely thaw out to be limp and potatoes may be mushy.
Pictures about "Making high-quality frozen-food at home?"
Can I make my own frozen food?
If you have some fresh veggies, herbs, or fruit lying around the house, a few sprinkles or squeezes can instantly elevate a frozen meal. "Even just some basil or cilantro, or anything you can get your hands on like citrus, garlic, onions," S\xe1nchez told Insider.How do I make frozen food better?
As for the money-saving benefits, frozen foods can be 50% cheaper than their fresh counterparts, if not more. And since they can be stored for weeks or even months without spoiling, you cut down on waste and the cost of having to toss fresh items that have gone bad before you had the chance to consume them.Is it cheaper to buy frozen food or make your own?
The process involves placing the food inside a laminated pouch and subjecting the packaged product to vacuum before sealing. The sealed pouch is then cooked in boiling water. After cooking, the pouches are quickly cooled in a stream of cold water prior to freezing.How to Start a Frozen Food Business | Including Free Frozen Food Business Plan Template
More answers regarding making high-quality frozen-food at home?
Answer 2
Flash-freezing is a large part of it. Being somewhat energy/equipment intensive, it's hard to imagine a good "home scale" approach to that (well, I can imagine a Dewar of liquid nitrogen, but I'd find it hard to justify the expense of keeping it filled for improving one's home-frozen meals.)
You can purchase "laboratory freezers" that will hold -70C or even -150C, but they will be expensive to buy (low volume production) and expensive to run. Depending on model they may not deal well with quickly cooling to those temperatures (rate of cooling may not be as high as in needed, even if ultimate temperature is cooler than needed.)
Since you seem to be nibbling around the edges of "and turn that into a business selling frozen food" you have:
- first, the need for a commercial kitchen, with all appropriate licenses and inspections. In most places you cannot cook commercially out of "your home kitchen" and need a second kitchen just for the commercially prepared foods.
- second, the need for salespeople.
- third, the need for distribution. Refrigerated warehouses, refrigerated trucks, etc.
- fourth facing previously established competition.
I make great sorbet. I don't even need a flash freezer, it being a frozen product. I'd more than likely go broke trying to make a commercial success of selling it (and I might grow to hate making it, too, especially if I was losing money to do so.) I much prefer to have a hobby I enjoy than a business I might end up hating. I can afford to lose money at the scale of the hobby (or even consider "saved money .vs. buying commercial product" and call it a win some days.)
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.