The Christmas season is just around the corner and the sooner we start preparing the Christmas fish and seafood meals, we can save money by buying it before the predictable price increases that will occur during the month of December. Although it’s still a little early to start, we leave these tips for you to study and be clear when the time comes. A good time to start with the process is during the month of November, just a month before.
So, if we decide to buy fish and seafood in advance, we will have no choice but to freeze it. In the last post of our blog we tell you the guidelines for freezing the fish correctly and this time it is the turn of seafood.
How to freeze seafood?
The first thing to keep in mind is that you have to respect the cold chain, important to keep the food in optimal conditions. In addition, not all species support the same freezing method, so you’ll need to consider a number of guidelines.
In this sense, food safety and the preservation of the qualities of the product are only possible if they are frozen with a specific method according to the species (we tell you in detail below). As a general rule, although its flavor is very different from fresh seafood, any seafood can freeze. The temperature must be -18 oC or lower.
In addition, we recommend that you do not store freshly cooked (still hot) food in the fridge or freezer. You should also remember not to store fresh seafood (with the warmest temperature from outside) in the freezer in direct contact with frozen foods, because by thermal exchange, the fresh food superficially defrosts the frozen food and it spoils it.
So let’s see how to freeze the different types of seafood.
Freezing bivalves
The first rule we must remember is that we must freeze them raw and live, otherwise they will lose properties. Be very careful! We need to pay attention and check that none of us are dead.
Ideally, vacuum pack them if we have a machine, but if we do not choose to wrap ourselves very well and tight with a transparent film, previously washed. In the case of barpers and oysters we recommend not freezing them.
Freeze crustaceans
In this case, we will have to pre-cook the product to freeze it. After cooking it is soaked a cloth with the cooking water and with it wraps. Then he goes around with film paper and we put him in the freezer. In this case, they last three or four weeks without losing their quality, but more time we do not recommend it, because we will be losing quality in the product.
Freeze prawns, shrimp and lobsters
Here we can choose two options: both raw and cooked. We wrap them in a tight film or a bag with airtight closure.
Finally, it is important to keep in mind that to taste frozen seafood in optimal conditions, we recommend not to keep the products more than three months.
