Food hygiene

[Babadooba]

HELP! Are there any food scientists on line? My partner and I have been having a heated discussion about fish cakes. This evening he made some 'salmon fish balls' for our ds (12 months). He cooked the fish and potato and then let it cool completely before forming the mixture into balls and coating them with breadcrumbs. He then fried them to brown them - thereby re-heating the fish. NOW, the question is - is it safe to freeze them and at a later date de-frost and warm them up (i.e just a quick 30 secs in the microwave) even though the fish has already been cooked and re-heated once?? By the way he will only accept a scientific answer, not just peoples' ideas!

how do you think commercial frozen fish cakes are made?

Have you tried the Food Standards Agency website?

I know you don't want people's ideas but I personally wouldn't I prefer to only reheat things once and IMO they should be reheated thoroughly, not just a quick blast in the microwave.

Is that a scientific answer?!

Sorry Mrs Spoon - was replying to SP.

My Mum said the same - but boyfriend agrees with you SP.

Food Standards Agency, I'm having trouble with this website but perhaps you can get it to work.

but commercial ones haven't already been fried, so would only have been cooked once and then frozen.
in fact they may not necessarily have been cooked at all- could be made with raw fish(i saw how fishfingers are made on cbeebies lol)

re-heated food should be piping hot

does it make a difference if it is?

but really - you have to cook and cool fish to make fish cakes, even if you are a fish cake manufacturer.

the same goes for fried rice. You have to cook, cool and reheat rice to make it. I know people who will never never never do that, but who will buy frozen, precooked (i.e. pre-cooked, cooled and recooked) rice.

no, most are part cooked aren't they? I know I've bought part or wholely cooked ones, fully cooked inside.

at the bottom of this page "reheat only once"

but I think the point the OP is making is that in this case the fish has already been cooked, cooled and then cooked again.
nnow they want to freeze and then cook for a third time.

a commercial one will be either raw, or only part cooked (once) before being frozen.

I do agree about the rice btw though, think people get a bit OTT with that

Isn't it about giving bacteria the opportunity to grow which tends to happen at room temperature?

Thoroughly heating food kills most bacteria, freezing food doesn't I don't think but it stops them growing. Chilling food also slows bacteria growth.

If your husband prepared his fishcakes today and the ingredients weren't hanging about at room temperature for extended periods of time then there shouldn't be dangerous levels of bacteria hanging about and it will be fine to freeze them.

That's what I thought, Shona.

Also, I know when you cool things you're meant to do it quickly for precisely that reason - so if you cool them in the fridge it's probably better than if you just leave them out in the kitchen.

But I am not a scientist....

I've just been searching the FSA website to no avail but have found some guy's email address who apparently is connected with fish... It is confusing though isn't it? I'm particularly bothered because my ds was in hospital last month for 5 days having contracted salmonella - not my fault I hasten to add as we'd spent the afternoon in a restaurant and he had nibbled various foods. btw we live in South Africa.

No, I'm not a scientist either so I could be completely wrong but thats what I understood the reasoning behind the rules to be.

I'm a bit cavalier with these things though..