I have family coming to Christmas Dinner on Saturday but my beef tenderloin, while lovely, is frozen solid. Pop it in the fridge to thaw and hope for the best? Or, can I cook it from its current solid state? How long would that take?
Happy Holidays!
Put it in a plastic bag, and submerge it under cold water. Change the water regularly. Check for it feels, and when it’s defrosted through, you can put it back in the fridge until it’s close to time to cook it
This will defrost it much faster than the fridge, and more safely than leaving it on the counter.
Oh, you want it Saturday? Leave it in the fridge until Saturday morning, then use cold water, if you have timing flexibility to do it that way.
You can cook steak that’s frozen solid. Although since you have a couple days and you probably don’t want to experiment on Christmas dinner, the cold water method that @puzzlegal recommends is probably your best bet.
Still, here’s a recent thread on the matter:
I’m with @puzzlegal’s 2nd review - Saturday should be enough to thaw even in the fridge, size of the tenderloin being the biggest unknown, and even then, a cold water thaw should be more than enough (moving water, while wasteful, is even faster).
If you want to minimize the risks, you could even do a combo. Do the cold water bath all Friday, then let it finish overnight in the fridge if not quite there. That may reduce your worries heading into Saturday.
For that matter, will admit on occasion to doing my thawing OUTSIDE - with caveats of course. I was thawing a 14lb turkey, when the outside highs were in the mid 40s and the lows were about 10 degrees lower. It was on an enclosed porch, in a covered stockpot that was in my sealed cat toy box.
Worked great because that year I just did NOT have the space in my fridge to thaw a turkey and I find that whole turkey volume tends to make a cold water defrost less effective - thawed outside while you still have ice crystals near the core. Heck, I even brined the turkey outside once it was 70% thawed. But I wouldn’t dare this year. Freaky, FREAKY warm weather for front range Colorado. Trees are budding!
Great ideas. Thank you.
My concern is finding a large enough sealable plastic bag that might work.
I often make use of the “big fridge” or the “big freezer” in the winter. Often when it’s below freezing outdoors, my garage is a good temp for defrosting meat – warmer than my fridge, but still cold enough to keep it fresh. (My fridge is close to freezing. The garage is often in the low 40s.)
I understand it works to cook frozen steaks, but roasts are better if they aren’t too cold when you cook them – otherwise the outside gets overcooked before the interior is done.
If you have a thermometer, you can reverse sear meat from frozen. Drop it in a low oven (200 - 250Fish) about 5 hours before you are serving it. Once the meat is thawed enough, pop a probe thermometer in it. Cook it until it’s 10F below your desired temp and then drop your oven down to the desired temp or as low as it will go and hold it there semi-indefinitely. When you’re ready to eat, take it out and sear it for color and then serve. Season it when you put the probe in because seasoning won’t stick to frozen meat.
If your meat comes in a vac bag, I don’t even bother taking it out of the bag until it’s close to done. The probe can go in straight through the bag and it won’t leak juices and it’s a less messy.
In a fit of experimentation a while ago, I made a sous vide unit with an Arduino and an immersion heater. I used an aquarium pump as a circulator. After all that work, I decided I didn’t like the taste of sous vide food. However, I found that a bowl of water (unheated) with an aquarium pump is a fantastic way to quickly defrost frozen meat.