I need help convincing my husband that leaving a frozen hunk of pork at room temperature all day is NOT the safest way to thaw meat for dinner. He thinks that any bacteria that might have grown throughout the day will be killed in the cooking process.
Our fridge is quite cold - it’s finicky - if you turn the dial even just a bit, then it’s too warm. So taking meat out of the freezer in the morning (or the night before), and putting it in the fridge to thaw, just doesn’t work. It’s still pretty much rock solid by dinner time.
Our microwave is a good one, but using it to defrost meat just doesn’t work - except for hamburger. It just seems to dry things up a bit and for something like a pork tenderloin, that you can’t break up while thawing, it just doesn’t do the trick - we can’t get it to thaw evenly at all.
I use my microwave on the lowest possible power setting. Not the defrost setting built in, which I find tends to cook things. With my oven, something like a frozen whole chicken breast will defrost nicely on the “1” power setting (my oven’s lowest power setting) in about 12-15 minutes.
Another thing you might try is tossing the item into the microwave like I described below for 5-10 minutes and then putting it in the refrigerator until you need it. Sometimes the head start will be enough to let the fridge do its work.
I have neither the foresight nor patience to thaw in the fridge. I just set it out until it thaws, then wash and cook thoroughly. Never a problem…bacteria grows in the fridge, too, just not as fast, anyway.
How about putting it in the fridge couple days before? That’s what my wife does, as she is much better at planning such things in advance than me.
Everything I’ve heard/read on this topic says you need to thaw the meat while keeping it under 40 degrees F to suppress bacterial growth. So don’t leave it in warm water or room-temperature air. Cold water is the fastest safe method to thaw meat. Water has significantly higher heat capacity than air, so even cold water can deliver heat (or “carry away the cold”) more effectively than room-temperature air.
So I usually put the meat (still sealed in packaging, or in a ziploc bag) in a tub of cold water. Preferably still (not running) water - that way the frozen meat helps keeps the water cold.
When I cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving for my in-laws, I was extra cautious and thawed it in a bucket of ice water. It still thawed completely in a day or so.
But it won’t be at room temperature - it’ll be, in effect, self-cooling. Leaving meat with a hunk of ice in the center out on the counter is just as safe as cooling it. No bacteria will grow there that wouldn’t grow in the refrigerator.
The trick is to wait until it warms to refrigerator temperature, and then either put it in the fridge, or cook it.
The fastest safe way short of nuking it is to put it in the sink and run a trickle of cool water over it. Some people find this wasteful, though, and it can be less successful with thick cuts like a pork loin.
As for the safety of leaving it on the counter, what is its temperature when you get home in the evening? Is it room temperature, or is it still cool to the touch?
Yep, cool water here, too. If I have the foresight, I’ll thaw in the fridge a day or two before, but usually it’s a bowl of cool water. Hot water does weird things to the surface of the meat and changes the texture and color. If you’re in a bigger hurry, you can thaw meat under running water. Works faster, but I don’t like using all that water. (edit: Ah, I see I’ve been beaten to the punch.)
yesterday I found that, to my dismay, my planning had backfired and I had NOT actually removed to hamburgers from the freezer compartment of my fridge so that they might thaw. Not being in possession of a microwave, and being every bit in the mood to do rash and unwise things in a manner that was not in the least well thought through, I decided to just put them on the grill pan and put that on the stove at its lowest setting. I flipped them regularly for about 10 to 15 minutes by which time they became less rigid and more … well, like thawed hamburgers. I then turned up the heat and grilled them for another couple of minutes.
That was good eating, I’ll tell you that. It also shows that planning or thinking things through in order to avoid rash and unwise action are a total sham.
Years ago I bought a defrosting plate, which is just a piece of coated conductive metal. Warm it up under hot water, set the meat on it, and it defrosts much more quickly than just setting it on the counter.
You can also put it in a bowl with room temperature water and change the water when it’s gone cold a few times. Probably not as fast as using running water, but it does speed up the process.
I believe the problem with letting it stand on the counter is the possibility of contaminating other things with the bacteria that will grow. The meat, as your husband points out, will be disinfected by cooking, but if you have contaminated your salad, you are going to get sick. Most of the time, if you are careful, you will be fine, but it only takes a moment of inattention to make a mistake. As far as using hot water is concerned, every article I have ever seen recommends against it, probably for the same reason.
For large pieces of meat I have always found the microwave to be a disaster. Basically, I never freeze large pieces of meat for this reason. Smaller pieces of meat can be successfully defrosted in the microwave on very low settings, as mentioned before, but I think that even these suffer from the process and your meat is drier than would otherwise be the case.
The heat of cooking will kill the bacteria on the meat, but it won’t do a thing to all the toxins those bacteria produced while they were having a grand old time on your roast.
If the meat never gets above fridge temperatures before you cook it that’s fine, but if you come home and it’s warmed up past that you could be taking a big risk.
We’re dealing with a pork tenderloin about 10" in diameter and about 14" long. So we’re talking 18-20 ounces frozen solid.
I leave said meat in it’s wrapping that I froze it in (the new Glad food wrap that sticks to itself, the non-transparent stuff) on a plate on the counter.
When I come home after 9 hours, the meat is still cool to the touch and if any meat juice has left the meat it is pretty much self contained in the Glad wrap (the odd time the juice las leaked onto the plate).
Next I extricate the meat from the wrap over a garbage can so the meat juice falls into the garbage, I put the meat on the same plate (if no meat juice escaped the wrapping) or a fresh plate if it did.
Next I season the meat, then cook it.
Obviously if I left thawed meat on the counter for 6-8 hours there is a risk for bacterial growth. But the “thawed” meat may only be on the counter for 1-2 hours tops.
For a small chunk of meat, such as a steak or a couple of chops still in their freezer ziploc bag, I put a paper towel under it (to absorb condensate and any accidental leaks), and an oven mitt on top. The oven mitt insulates it, but still permits it to thaw during the day. When I come home, the meat is still quite cold to the touch, but it’s usually completely defrosted. I don’t know that this will work with bigger things, like a pot roast or a whole frozen chicken; those would probably still be frozen due to the insulating qualities of the mitt.
On the counter. I don’t give a fuck. I don’t believe in “thawing bacteria” because I’ve never been stricken with anything and I’ve been doing this my entire life.
If I forget, I use that thaw setting in the nuker, however, that’s not ideal. Sometimes it cooks the edges of the meat.