How do you defrost stuff ? Is is always necessary ?

[Tillyscoutsmum]

I am stupidly disorganised. I have been trying to shop more wisely and have a meal plan and it is better. My problem is I often forget to take stuff out of the freezer the night before

Do things like minced/chunked beef have to be defrosted ? What about chicken and fish ? I have never used a microwave for defrosting, but assume I can ...?

Apologies for the, frankly, ridiculous questions

I defrost on lowest microwave setting if I have forgotten to get things out. Takes between 5 mins (toddler size burgers, fishcakes) to 15 mins (large portion mince).

I don't know if things like meat and fish HAVE to be defrosted in safety terms - I guess it depends what you are doing with them - I would defrost if cooking with something else (eg sauce) or if large pieces (otherwise will probably not cook through properly). I make coated chicken strips and fish chunks for DS, freeze raw and then cook straight from frozen under grill in 10 mins.

I find that minced beef is best defrosted slowly because microwave defrosting can result in brown patches and hot-spots... very uneven. A whole chicken I'd let defrost naturally but pieces can be microwaved gently. Fish steaks you can cook from frozen, no problem

We regularly buy the chicken fillets (3 for £10 at Tesco) and at least one goes in the freezer. Quite often, they get cooked from frozen - in a large saucepan with a little oil and the lid on, on low heat, then start to give them a stir when they start to separate. Never have any problems.

Fish fillets can easily be grilled from frozen.

Lamb chops can be cooked from frozen, braised slowly in a bit of beef stock/Oxo.

Thank you all

I usually don*t bother with defrosting. if I cook in the oven I add about 10 min to total cooking time for defrosting.

crumblequeen how do you make your coated chicken strips, would love to make them

You can easily cook mince from frozen - what you have to do is heat a little oil in a frying pan, then fry one side of the slab of mince. Then turn it over and while you're frying the other side, scrape off the cooked part.

Repeat until it's thawed enough to break up with the back of a spoon.

Chunked meat can be cooked from frozen if the cubes are not in a massive lump. You can buy cubed frozen lamb for eg, which is loose, and that can be cooked as is. What you can't do is brown the chunks prior to cooking as it leaks too much water.