This will be a quick and easy post just as it's a quick and easy answer to a problem most of us have had at one time or another. You need to cook something and the meat is frozen. Ugh!
In the past I have done the slow and tortuous microwave method. I have even tried the soaking in warm water method.
But high school chemistry came come to the aid of us all.
Plop your frozen meat upside down into a room temperature cast iron pan.
That's it! Don't preheat the pan. Don't try to pry the packaging off the meat.
For my experiment, I took 2 separate packages of frozen ground beef out of my freezer. I put one upside down directly in my pan and I put one on my cupboard.
The one in the pan defrosted in about an hour and the one on the cupboard took over 3 hours.
What's happening here is basic physics.
Metal is a wonderful heat conductor. The cold from the meat meets the warm from the pan. It creates a cold spot on your pan and the cast iron wicks the cold away in an effort to return to room temperature.
They actually sell products for meat defrosting which is one more thing you don't need in a cluttered kitchen. Even though you don't need it, you can read more about it here.
I prefer to have items that serve multi purposes and now my cast iron pans serve even more purposes. Yay!
I have only tried it so far with meat. Have you tried it with other foods? The physics should stay the same.
I will also take a moment here to tell you about one of my favorite kitchen gadgets. When I first heard about it, I thought it would be silly and add to my clutter but this tool really helps when you are frying up ground beef. It makes the meat mix and cop so easily and uniformly. I mix onions in with this and it makes it super easy. I used this tool when I made ground beef rocks and it was super fast.
It's a Ground Beef Meat Chopper and Mixer. Love it!
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