Tips from professional Chef Tallyrand:

Food tips on frozen fish versus fresh

My own personal thoughts on frozen fish versus fresh

Frozen fish fillets can be just as good as fresh as long as they have been snapped frozen professionally; in other words, while at sea on the fish processing trawlers. The rapid process used (10kg boxes in matter if seconds!) ensures the ice crystals within the flesh are minute; this allows for minimum water absorption and destruction of the flesh. If then transported home and stored correctly, when cooked (or defrosted) it should then be virtually indistinguishable from fresh fish fillets.

In fact frozen, in many cases can be better than so called ‘fresh’, unless you are getting it straight from the sea that is, and it is stored between - 1ºC to 1ºC of course, but how many times does that happen? Did you know:

• If fresh fish is kept on ice from the time it is caught it has a ten to fourteen day shelf life?

• Or that for every hour it is not kept on ice that it loses a day off its shelf life?

But normally by the time it reaches us in a supermarket, all nicely filleted, packed etc, you will be lucky to get three days before it starts to go sticky, smelly and ready for the rubbish bin!

As to home freezing fish; I have never had any luck with this. The process takes too long in a home freezer and the results are the opposite of the above: the ice crystals are too large, destroy the flesh structure and when cooked / defrosted one ends up with waterlogged, tasteless fillets.

Cooking frozen fish -  well it is always best to follow the manufacturers instructions. Further to this:

If deep frying in batter	-	cook from frozen
If deep frying in breadcrumbs	-	cook from frozen (although the bread-crumbing is more successful if done with defrosted fish fillets)
If shallow frying	-	defrost first. This is mainly a safety issue: the water within the fillets will likely cause the fat / oil to spit or sometimes the fillet can explode in parts
If grilling	-	cook from frozen if thin fillets / steaks (maximum 3cm) or defrost if thick fillets / steaks
If baking	-	cook from frozen if thin fillets / steaks (maximum 3cm) or defrost if thick fillets / steaks
If baking in tinfoil	-	cook from frozen
If baking in a crust / pastry	-	defrost first or the water within will cause soggy pastry
If making a stew	-	cook from frozen if you can safely cut the fillet to size. Also allow for extra thickening of the sauce just prior to serving

All the above should be carried out at normal cooking temperatures (as per fresh fish).

Defrosting fish

• This should always be achieved slowly in the refrigerator; this minimises any chances of bacterial contamination.

• Defrosting under water is not recommended as all flavour will be lost. The flavour of fish is salt based, which will be washed away/dissolved in the water.

• Defrosting in the microwave should be carried out if the fish is to be cooked straight away (within 10 minutes of defrosting). It should also be done if your microwave has a really good defrost cycle and the fish is no more than 3cm thick; otherwise one finds the fish partially cooks and dries out.

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Published 07 January 2002