Refreezable dish from frozen fish fillets?

[relocater]

I need to defrost the fridge freezer. I've used up most of my frozen food but still have cod and salmon frozen fillets left and would like to get the job done today.

Is there a dish I can cook them into while the freezer is defrosting, that I can freeze in portions afterwards so I don't have to eat them all today or waste them?

Wrap them in foil and a towel and put them outside. They’re not defrosting out there today in a couple of hours whilst the freezer defrosts.

Fish pie
Thai fish curry

@TerfTalking there's an idea, it's forecast 11 degrees here today, do you think that's ok to put them out in?

@sgvibes these both sound great, I'm not much of a chef so will need to hunt easy recipes.
Only thing is having googled people are saying not to refreeze things made from frozen fish so I don't know what to do now! I cannot be doing with food poisoning and some of this may be eaten by a toddler who I also don't want to poison.

If the fish was raw when frozen then its fine to cook and refreeze the finished product. Do you have a cool bag? If so, I'd stuck all your freezer stuff in there with some ice packs (if you have them) while you do your defrosting. I used to speed up defrosting using a hairdryer (carefully!)

A bowl of boiling water sat in the freezer is also supposed to help.

Sorry, my bad. It in the minus here today!

That said, when I defrost my freezer even in summer, I put everything in a bin bag and take them into the garage and cover the bag in towels then defrost the freezer and take them back. Apart from the odd bread roll, they're always fine. However I am in Yorkshire :-)

Probably the reason google is saying not to refreeze things made from cooked frozen fish is to do with flavour, frozen fish is seldom as good as fresh and there are very few dishes made with frozen fish that are great when reheated, it's like it gets fishier every time it's frozen so quite strong over fishy taste I think.

That said if you really wanted to cook something and freeze I'd make fish cakes with mashed potato, that dilutes the fishiness at least.

Although I'm with other posters, I never use up the food in freezer to defrost, I take out all the drawers, stack them up and cover with a load of towels to insulate. If the chest freezer I put it all in big cardboard box and cover. But I do help speed up the thawing by placing containers of hot water in the freezers, close them up and give it 20 minutes and repeat, that usually loosens the big ice enough to be chipped off easily, I can have the big one done in easily an hour so nothing has even begun to thaw at that stage.

Thank you for all the tips! Operation defrost has begun. I was doing boiling water which was helping, but hadn't thought to close the door so will try that to get the last remaining thick ice.

And I have found some interesting fish recipes to try in coming weeks (Spanish fish stew anyone?) so hopefully next time I come to defrost the fish will have moved on!

A lot of fish is frozen shortly after being caught, often whilst still on the trawler. So if you buy frozen fish it has never been defrosted at all, so it is absolutely fine to cook and then refreeze. A lot of fresh fish you buy however, was previously frozen and has been thawed out by the retailer before going on sale. So buying fresh fish and then freezing it isn't always recommended because you're not supposed to thaw something out and then freeze it again without cooking first. Perhaps this is where the confusion lies.

Ah, got you. My fish came frozen so should be fine to refreeze leftovers of whatever I eventually cook then.