Everyone understands that perishable foods should be cooked for food within an hour. If not, they should be frozen. This is especially true of seafood. After all, the fish cannot be at a positive temperature for a long time. And while it gets to the consumer’s table, it takes more than one hour, and sometimes several days.
If river, lake and coastal fish has a chance to get to your kitchen fresh, then sea and oceanic fish can sometimes wait this month. But this does not matter, the modern technology of dry freezing fish helps floating plants (ships) still freeze it fresh and deliver it to consumers in good condition.
The right choice of frozen cod
Cod meat is a favorite food all over the world, and this love has been going on since ancient times. In the world's oceans and seas there are a lot of it, every 10 fish caught is cod. Her meat is considered a delicious treat on the table of any person, and the price is affordable for everyone.
In any supermarket, the buyer has the opportunity to purchase dry-frozen cod. Even at floating plants, this large ocean fish is cut into fillets, frozen and delivered to our stores.
Connoisseurs of white layered, boneless meat should know if you are offered it under the guise of "chilled" - do not believe it. The cod was thawed, cooled and overestimated several times more expensive. You should know that dry-frozen fish should not be thawed. It is recommended to defrost it just before cooking. Otherwise, she will smell foul, and her meat will lose its white color.
The best option is ship freezing. Such floating plants apply the following types of processing to cod:
- Natural freezing. In this case, the fish is exposed to natural frost in the winter season.
- Artificial freezing. It occurs in freezers in containers with sea water at a temperature of -12 ° C.
- Dry freeze. This is the most modern technology, which is carried out in special equipment with strong dry blowing at temperatures up to -30 ° C.
Fresh-frozen salmon from the genus Salmon
Everyone knows and loves salmon meat, although not everyone can afford it when he wants to. Most people buy it to decorate it with a festive table.
On the oceanic expanses, this salmon reaches one and a half meters in length, and its weight approaches 43 kg. Usually it is recognized by its light red (almost orange) meat fillet with characteristic white layers.
Like any other fish, during normal freezing, fresh-frozen salmon should have icing (thin ice covering the carcass), the weight of which cannot exceed 5% of the total mass of the product in the package. And also the fillet should not look dry, or have dark spots on the surface. If the fillet is noticeable color inhomogeneity, then the storage procedure was violated.
If you are offered red salmon fillet, this is not salmon, but ocean trout. This meat is much cheaper, so be careful when buying.
Do not be alarmed by the pale color of the fillet, this is due to prolonged freezing. After all, until it reaches the store counter, a lot of time passes. But a too bright shade, on the contrary, should alert. It happens that for a better look, unscrupulous sellers tint dry-frozen fish fillets with dyes.
The nuances of freezing fish
Everyone is already tired of frozen fish, which is enveloped in a thick layer of ice, and yet, as buyers, we want to pay for fish, not for water. Unscrupulous sellers use various tricks, and this in many cases "gets away with it." They got the hang of increasing the weight of fish from 200 g to almost 600 g, while using chemicals that are harmful to the human body.
Refineries now use the fast processing method. Such shock freezing equipment instantly allows you to freeze fish in order to store it much longer. At the same time, icing does not form at all, which does not allow sellers to increase weight by stuffing the product with water.
The principle of operation of intensive freezing equipment
Modern specialized equipment is a shock freezing chamber. In it, dry ice air is evenly distributed by the fans throughout the volume.
Dry-frozen fish after such a quick and uniform treatment retains its natural appearance. It does not lose taste. Preserves more nutrients and vitamins than after freezing with icing.