Cooking For A Home Freezer - 2

Useful tips on freezing for the home freezer

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Here are some more ideas and tips on cooking for a home freezer.

Accompaniments and sauces

Breadcrumbs for stuffings should be put in polythene bags in 6 oz quantities. As they remain quite loose and dry it is possible to open the bag and take out half the quantity if that is all you need for a dish.

Finely chopped onion, which has been softened in butter before being packed into containers, is a great help in the quick preparation of stuffings. Chopped onions should be frozen in small amounts as unlike breadcrumbs they set hard and are difficult to separate.

Fresh herbs from the garden can also be frozen in a home freezer, but do not blanch them. Crumbling parsley while still frozen will have the effect of chopping it. Horseradish cream is worth making if you have a root your garden or can buy one from the greengrocer. Freeze in containers that will hold enough for four servings.

Mint sauce, made with fresh juice and rind of an orange and redcurrant jelly, also freezes well.

When cherries are plentiful, freeze two or three containers of cherry compote. This is good to serve with duck or with baked ham for a special occasion.

Hollandaise sauce when frozen is not easy to get back to the consistency and temperature needed to serve it as a straight sauce. If brought back to room temperature, however, it is excellent for adding to veloute or wine sauces to give richness and flavour. A spoonful of hollandaise on top of plainer dishes will give a touch of richness; it tastes very good if the whole dish is put under a grill long enough to melt the sauce and glaze the top.

Freezing food for parties

When making advanced dishes which need a lot of preparation and hard work could be made up to a certain stage four to five days before the party, frozen in a home freezer, and then produced and finished with no effort on the day of the party.

Page 1 of this article on cooking for a home freezer can be found on the previous page.

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