How to freeze food

Despite that for several years it has been possible to freeze our food in the Fridge, many of us still having some doubts how is the best to freeze food and how to unfreeze. Freezing  food is a great way to save money and keep your favourites ingredients fresh for longer.

The freezer 

Photo by Neff

Before you freeze your food you need to know what are the freezer levels of your fridge, if your freezer only can produce -12ºC you need to know that you just can keep your food for only a couple of weeks. The ideal is having a freezer with at least - 18ºC for keep the food fresh for several months. Freezer with anti-frost features improve the freezer process and avoid that the food is contaminated with another food odours and also avoid that some food kind of food get stick each other (meatballs, burgers). Also is important keep the internal walls of your freezer ice free. The ice act like an insulating making more difficult to keep a stable temperature and also make your freezer use more energy.

The containers

Photo by Rubbermaid

_Whatever the container you use, this must have a hermetic close.
_For liquid and already cooked dishes plastic rigid container or Tupper ware are ideal.
_For liquid or sauces you can also use freeze bags or plastic container, but remember that that sauces and liquid increase their volume in the freezer, so don’t overfill.
_Fish and meats for their irregular form is best keep it in bags or in aluminium foil.
_Vegetables in plastic bags.
_Label your container with the dates and the product name in it.

How to freeze

Poster by limegreen367

Vegetables: For keep the entire colour and flavour is best blanch first the fresh vegetables, drain and dry before to freeze.
Meat:  Before you freeze you should be remove any fat excess and divide in size portions for no need to unfrozen a whole kilogram of meat that you won’t need soon.
Fish: If you fishmonger didn’t clean the fish, you should be clean it before freeze. Oily fish because have fat can be frozen just for 3 months. Salmon, hake and cod will lose in the unfreeze process.
Fruit: You must peel the fruit before and cover with sugar (250g sugar for 1000g of fruit) if not the texture and flavour will change too much. I peel the bananas and I cover in foil paper for make the perfect smoothie. No sugar needed in that case.
Bread:  Just freeze bread suitable for freeze or those from an artisanal bakery, because much of the bread that is sold in supermarket was previously frozen.
Pasta: Just homemade fresh pasta or fresh pasta suitable for freeze like the bread.  You can freeze pasta after cooking but the texture is no very nice.
Dairy:  Semi-skimmed milk, butter and cheeses are also good for freeze with some exceptions.
Fresh Herbs: Washed and drained can be freeze until 6 months

Don’t Freeze

Photo by Alyssssyla

* Never freeze any kind of food that was previously frozen because the flavour and texture will deteriorate even more quickly than in a fresh state.
* Whole milk because the fat can curdle and Soft cheeses also will lose.
* Cakes, if you make a cake keep in the fridge if you freeze the cake, when is unfrozen will become crumble and difficult to slice properly.
* Stews will lose flavours.
* Eggs, fresh eggs are not suitable for freeze, they lost texture and flavour.  Same for mayonnaise.  You only can freeze the white egg.
* Pasta and rice’s. Even they are part of a soup of a stew, the pasta or rice will lose flavour and texture.
* Fresh potatoes are not recommended because the texture will be very hard after defrosting, instead mash potatoes keep very well in the freezer.

How to Defrost.

- The best way to defrost your food is in the top shelf of your fridge until recover their fresh texture.
- Never defrost at room temperature or under running water because the food will reproduce bacteria.
- Using microwave is also a good method.
- Some vegetables like peas and beans can be cooked without defrost.

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How to freeze food

Chicory health benefits

Photo by  by chez loulou

 Most probably originated in the Mediterranean, chicory was already in the Egyptian, roman and Greek kitchens consumed in their wild form.  The today chicory started to be cultivated in Belgium only in XIX century. Today, Belgium, France, Holland are their main producers and have also a great market in North America.

The common chicory is white in the bottom with the top of the leaves with a green yellow colour. The red one is a mix between chicory and radicchio. Both have crunchy texture and fresh light bitter flavour.

In the market, pick those chicories that the leaves still very tight and with a golden yellow colour, chicory is cultivates in dark environment, so in the direct light their colour starts to become greener and bitter. Store in the bottom fridge covered for avoid light

Nutritional Facts x 100g

Kcal	Vitamin A	Vitamin C	Calcium	Potassium
21,7	251 mg	10 mgc	58,5 mg	322 mg

Health benefits

Chicory is 94% water, for that reason have little calories, fat and sugar content, ideal for keep a good diet. The Chicory Vitamin A is good for the sight, recommendable for people with dry eyes or nocturnal blindness. Also have the properties of the Vitamin C.

The bitterness of the chicory is caused for a component that helps to have an easier digestion.

Also the high folates content (115 mcg x 100g) makes the chicory important ingredients in a pregnant diet.  The potassium content act like a diuretic.


More: Chicory Recipes by top European chefs

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Chicory health benefits

Recipes for entertaining friends

Nachos with Guacamole

Guacamole is today a classic snack that taste even better if you pick the perfect ripe avocados and make at home.  For me sea salt is a must in the recipe and also choose the chilli variety that adjust more with your taste. Guacamole is to  enjoy with your friends. Also you can make your home-made nachos if you want to skip the artificial nachos. The precooked white maize flour is not easy to find in regular supermarkets, try gourmets places like Taj in Brighton.

For the Guacamole you need:  1-2 serrano chillies to taste or fresh green chillies (finely chopped) -
 ½ red onion (finely chopped) - 2  tsp sea salt - 3 Hass avocados (ripe) - 2 ripe tomatoes (peeled, deseeded and chopped) Juice of 2 limes – 3 tbsp fresh coriander (chopped) or parsley -

Guacamole in a pestle and mortar

1. Put half of the chilli and half of the onion with the salt in a pestle and mortar and mash to a rough paste. Check the seasoning
2. Cut open the avocados and put  the flesh into the pestle. Roughly mash the flesh with a fork or the mortar leaving some texture, add half the lime juice as you are mashing.
3. Stir in the remaining chillies, red onion and tomatoes, and half of the coriander and mix very well. If your mortar is no big enough continue the guacamole in a bowl.
4. Sprinkle over the rest of the lime juice and coriander, and season with black pepper. Check is the season, coriander or lime adjust to your taste, if not you can add more.

For the home-made nachos you need:   2 cups of Precooked white maize flour – 2 ½ cups of lukewarm water – 1 tsp salt – Corn oil or vegetable oil to fry

Flatten Nachos dough

Nachos triangle shape

1. In a bowl pour in the water, and the salt, slowly add the maize flour mixing with a wooden spoon as you go. Then with your hands make the dough.
2. Move the dough to a working surface and knead for about 7 minutes until you have smooth dough. Leave to  rest covered  in the fridge for half an hour
3. Put the dough between 2 cling film sheet, and with the rolling pin flatten the dough to about 3-5 mm (kitchen towel thick)
4. With a sharp knife, pizza cutter or a triangle shape cutter cut the flattened dough in nachos triangles (about 4cm base x 5cm side)

Home-made nachos

Deep frying nachos

5. Heat your oil until smoky and deep fry the nachos in batches. A minute each side will be enough to be golden brown.  Keep warm the first batches over a kitchen towel.
6. When you have all the nachos ready serve with your guacamole!

Quick Pizza dough

My alla diavola pizza with fennel tomato sauce

This  quick pizza is in the Jamie´s 30 minutes meals book and I really love it, choose the topping that you or your mates most like, because the dough is quick and dead easy.

You need for the dough:  215g of self- rising flour and 150ml tepid water with 2tbsp of olive oil
For the tomato sauce:  1 can chopped tomatoes -   6 sprigs of basil with leaves – 1 garlic clove (peeled) – 2 tbsp. olive oil - 1 tbsp.  Red wine vinegar – 1 tsp. fennel seeds

Making the sauce

1. With a mortar crush the fennel seeds and keep apart.
2. Put the remaining ingredients in a blender or liquidiser, and smooth nicely. Season.
3. Add the fennel seeds.

Making the dough and pizza

Sprinkle some parmesan and pepper and ready to bake

1. Put 215g of self-rising flour in the food processor, start to whiz meanwhile you are adding the water, with the olive oil and a pinch of salt. Whiz until you have smooth dough.
2. Then sprinkle with some flour a working surface, move in the dough and sprinkle some flour over, also flour a rolling pin and start to roll the pin until the dough is 1 cm thick.
3. Heat a pizza tray or a big pan brushed with olive oil in the oven or on the hob (if the pan is not big enough split the dough in 2), when it is very hot move the flat dough to the pizza tray or pan. With your finger push down the edges of the dough into the sides of the pan.
4. Pour over the tomato sauce just in the middle of the dough, spread evenly all over.
5. Add your favourite topping, mine is alla diaviola!

More: Cornichons burger - Fish Finger sandwich - Organic home-made chicken nuggets

Recipes for entertaining friends and TV Sports Sea...


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Recipes for entertaining friends

Recipes for entertaining friends and TV Sports Season

Finnegans Madrid Irish Pub

We are in this part of the sport season where we are reaching a turning point, where every football league game, or Six Nations rugby match counts, and this special regular NBA season with fewer games counts much more than previously years. In just one week the Champions league starts the final 16 and in month the F1 is back. So plenty of sport action to watch and have a good time with your lads.

Some time ago when I was living in Madrid, I was every sport weekend in my favourite Irish Pub to have a good time and some of the best Irish pubs in Madrid on Sunday and Saturday  are packed with the british Spanish community and also some Spanish that like the Premier League or international Rugby and also to try to improve their English. Much of the time the atmosphere is great, the beer is well served and the food, well the food.. you need to know what to ask for such as sausage and mash.

So when I moved to London I was in the paradise of the Sport Pubs, but unfortunately economic times have arrived, plus the alcohol taxation in England is like you need to manage very well your pub visits, and if you are hungry now you need to add at least 10 extra pounds to your bill.
But don´t spoil the fun, just invite your friends come by to your house, they bring the beers and you prepare your favourites lad´s foods for a much more affordable price!

Burger with pickled cornichons

Cornichons Burger with TV sport program 

Adding the cornichons (pickled gherkins)  and the shallots you will have a burger full of flavours with a good size with much less meat, that means less calories and more easy to digest and also you reduce the burger costs. Who needs a 8oz pub burger?

You need:  500g beef mince –  5 cornichons (finely chopped)  - 150g shallot (finely chopped) – 1 tbsp. parsley (chopped) – 2 tbsp. Worchester sauce – 1tbsp grain mustard – Tomatoes slices  – lettuce leaves and  mayonnaise

1. First is very important that you finely chop the cornichons and shallot very finely, if the pieces are not chopped enough the burger can fell apart in the cooking process.
2. In a bowl mix the shallots, cornichons and beef. Then add the parsley and Worchester sauce. Mix with your hands very well and form 4 patties. Brush the burgers with olive oil.
3. Heat your grill pan until is very hot, the best way to know is hold your hand few centimetres above the pan, when you can hold the heat means that the pan is hot enough.
4. Cook each burger approx. 4 minutes each side, just for make it marked outside and juicy inside.

Remember that beef mince , unlike steak,must be cooked through to kill all the bacteria . Serve!

Chicken Nuggets

Home-made Chicken Nuggets

Even chicken nuggets are quite cheap, it´s difficult to find free range or organic chicken nuggets or find some that animal cruelty is not involve or just only find chicken nuggets that taste like chicken.  This recipe is a tasty and crunchy one with no need of overpowering sauces

You need: 500g chicken breast (diced in 2x2 cms) – corn flakes without sugar – Ground cumin – smoked paprika – 1 tsp of chopped oregano or parsley – 2 beaten eggs- Olive oil to fry.

1. In a big bowl mix the diced chicken with the spices. Season and add 2 tbsp of olive oil, mix and coat the chicken very well. Set aside.
2. Finely ground enough corn flakes for cover all your chicken, if you dont have a blender, put some corn flakes in a frozen food bags or similar, close it and roll over a pin roll until grounded.

Coating chicken nuggets in corn flakes

3. Deep one by one the nuggets in the beaten eggs and then coat in the breadcrumbs.  Shake any excess.
4. Heat the oil, when it is very hot fry the nuggets by batches, be sure they have enough space in the pan. Cook 2 minutes each side. Keep them warm until you finish with the rest.
5. Serve with ketchup or mayonnaise and also prepare some salad leaves even if nobody asks.

Fish Finger

Fish Finger Sandwich

Fish finger is another great snack that the food industry transform in something very unhealthy, the fish if it is a suitable catch is allright but much of the fish finger sold in supermarket hardly have more than of 50% fish, so the problem is the rest.

You need: 700g skinless fillets of cod or salmon – 2 beaten egg – 100g breadcrumbs

1. Cut the fish fillets in a finger size.
2. In a bowl beat the eggs, in another bowl put the breadcrumbs. Dip one by one the fish finger in the beaten eggs and then coat in the breadcrumbs.  Shake any excess.
3. You can deep fry them as well, but for a really healthy snack pre-heat the oven at 200ºC, and put the fish finger in a lightly oiled baking tray and bake for 5 minutes each side.
4. Serve alone with salad or in a sandwich with tartar sauce or ketchup.

More recipes for entertaining friends: Nachos with guacamole dip - Jaime Oliver quick pizza

Post dedicated to Diana&Shane ◦

Recipes for entertaining friends and TV Sports Season

Perfect cup of tea with jam biscuits

Perfect afternoon tea with jam biscuits

Since I moved to England my friends or my family always asked me how the English make the perfect cup of tea.  England’s national drink to be honest doesn't have a precise formula, something uncommon for the English culture, in Mediterranean countries is very common to find every popular drink or dish prepare in a different way , just not north to south, we can say in every town just separates for a few miles.  But that continental or European rules like the English wasn´t  part of the European continent, something that First minister David Cameron seems to have very clear doesn't apply to England where everything have rules or formula. But not for the tea.

First of all I need to say very few English of the new generations or at least from the last 20 year knows very little about a really nice cup of tea. Homes and offices are invaded by the tea bag, very pragmatic for these times; but is like a fast food drink, just an intense flavour without balance and flavours, and unfortunately much of the restaurant don’t really bother to offer a nice cup of tea either, a pot of hot water and a cup with a tea bag inside.

Anyway after 3 years in England I started to figure out how to make my own perfect cup of tea.

Tea Pickers, Photo by dmahendra

You need: Organic English breakfast loose leaf-tea  (to taste) – Splash of milk – Purified boiling water – China Pot (pre warmed) and preferably a mug rather than a cup

1. Boil the water in your kettle or similar just when reach the boiling point and let rest for 1 minute.
2. Add the English breakfast leaf tea to your taste in a pre-warmed the pot, like a guide is recommended 1 tsp. by cup. But every brand with different tea consistency will need different measures to you taste or your like weaker or stronger. Pour in the water.
3. Let steep for 3:30 minutes, exactly, this one of the few things on which the majority of tea drinkers agree. Even if you see that the tea become very dark after 1 minute, leave to rest because the tea flavour needs more time for be released than the colour.
4. Serve in individual’s mug rather than a tea cup. For some reason taste a little better.
5. Add a splash of milk (to taste), no sugar please!

Notes.
• I use purified water because in south-England the lime scale is so bad that left a film over your brew.
• Earl Grey tea is a very good alternative to English breakfast.  Herbal tea such as mint or green tea are been drinking more and more in office and at home
• Do you know that the majority consumption of  energy in England is around the traditional tea time?  So many kettles are on that some time that England needs to buy extra energy to France.


Italian Jam Biscuits

Also I would like to share one of my favourite’s homemade cookies of my child-hood, I am pretty sure that my mum got the recipe from the strong Italian community living in Uruguay.  The Uruguayans are well known for another brew the “mate”, but for reason they are also attached to the afternoon tea with cake or biscuits. Seems that they incorporated the tradition after the brief English invasion in the River Plate (1807) and the new free commercial relationship between them. (Please don´t confuse with the Falkland conflict)

Jam biscuits recipe  – Makes about 15 cookies. Oven at 180ºC

You need: 3 boiled eggs – 150g plain flour – 80g caster sugar - 50g butter (softened) – 1tsp vanilla extract - 30 ml whole milk – Apricot or quince jam.

Jam biscuits roll log

Jam biscuits thumb indentation

1. After you boiled the eggs, remove the white and set aside the yolks.
2. In a bowl sift the sugar and flour. Now sift in the yolks, is a bit slowly but is worth it.
3. Make a well, and add the softened butter, milk and vanilla extract. Mix all together until you have dough. Work the dough for about 5 minutes pressing with your hands firmly.
4. Move to a work surface, sprinkle some flour and make a log roll of about 3 cm od diameter 20cm long. Roll in a cling film and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Filling Italian jam biscuits

5. Remove from the fridge and cut the roll in pieces of 2cm long. Gently with your hands roll each piece in a ball.
6. Put the ball in a greased baking tray with enough room. Best if you baked them in batches or in 2 trays.
7. Pressing down with your thumb to make an indentation in the centre of each ball.
8. Fill each whole with your favourite jam. Each whole will need about ¼ tsp.
9. Bake in the oven for 17 minutes, until golden and the jam is bubbling.


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Perfect cup of tea with jam biscuits

Easy Salad for a gum infection

The last week I went to a restaurant in Brighton and  very crispy prawns caused a Gum infection, at the beginning I didn't give too much attention because  I wasn't felling any pain at all and I didn't feel that I had any food stuck, so I was taking care cleaning my mouth with toothpaste and mouthwash.

But I was wrong, 4 day later after I had for dinner a Galician Turnover for my next Spanish Turnover Special, I started to feel some pain, so I took Ibuprofen and went to sleep. I awoke at 3 Am of the morning with an unbearable pain, even worse than any toothache I had suffered (lucky just one in my life). So was impossible to sleep and pretty soon I find out that wheat and caffeine (Ibuprofen has) are very bad when you have a gum infection. The only good news was that I was sure that the gum infection was caused by the food. Hopefully I had just the medication that is needed in this case and I went to sleep.

Two day later my dentist in Brighton, cleaned my mouth and confirmed that I had a little piece of prawn shell stuck in my gum.
When I came back I was very happy and also very hungry, the past day I didn't manage to have too much food, I still I don't feel confident to have pasta, cake or steak, after 2 days eating soups, juices and some chicken that I managed (eat protein with gum infection really help you) I really was looking for something tasty and nutritive, I was thinking in my vegetarian cottage pie leftovers but I really wanted something refreshing, so I make for myself an easy tasty salad that really challenge my best Winter Salads.

Easy Salad recipe


You need for 2 serves: 50g salad leaves - 4 milano salami - 2 boiled eggs - 3tbsp of olive plus 1/2 tbsp of truffle oil for the dressing.

1. For the dressing mix the two oils and season. Set aside
2. Boil your eggs just for 6 minutes if you like them a bit runny. Let them cool down and cut in quarters.
3. Already in the serving plates, spread the salad leaves and salami, sprinkle with the dressing and top with the quarter eggs. Easy, healthy and tasty!


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Easy Salad for a gum infection

China Iberian ham

Photo by kisocci

Some time ago the Spanish crown visited China with the important task to open the Chinese market to the Spanish product. China is a country that consumes around 2 million pigs a day so was very easy to think that the famous Spanish ham will be have a great market to explode. So the Chinese government sent to Spain to inspect the Spanish ham producers for health production reason. Apparently more than healthy inspector China sent spies. A few year later China start to produce Chinese ham that look very similar to the Spanish ham, of course produced in half of the time and 10 times cheaper, they use Chinese pig breed but how they produced the ham is very similar process to the Spanish and they will be soon exporting to the rest of the world. As far I read some people say that the flavour is not even close and other that for not expert consumer or new market consumer will be taste all right.

Anyway the Spanish start to fear like happen before with another products that the Chinese Ham overtake the global market , so the Seville University already is working in project through a chemic identification process to determinate the authenticity of the famous Iberian ham and another Spanish traditional food products,  where  it came from and which product has been used.

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China Iberian ham