Safe seafood

The old proverb, “fish and visitors stink after three days” has a lot of truth to it. Fish is the most perishable of all foods and, if you don’t store it properly, the smell reminds you in a few days. The reasons are both physical and chemical, and have to do with the way fish are built.

Knowing this can assure you that you always have safe and fresh seafood on your table. And if the meal doesn’t taste good, you can blame your cooking. Enzymes in different parts of the fish begin softening and breaking down the flesh immediately after it dies. Bacteria and oxidation join the enzymes almost at once to speed the spoiling process.

Cleaning and washing the seafood as soon as it is out of the water help to reduce bacterial spoilage, but it doesn’t slow down the enzymes and oxidation. The only thing works is to quickly reduce its temperature to near freezing, or even lower. This is the critical step that impacts the quality of all seafood more than anything else that happens from the time it leaves its native waters until it is in your hands.

The muscles in seafood stiffen very quickly after death. Quality is highest if the fishermen freeze it before this stiffening sets in, otherwise freezing can actually damage the meat. They harvest farm-raised fish and shellfish under ideal conditions, and if they designate them for the frozen seafood market, the freezing process is virtually immediate. This assures you the quality of frozen farm-raised seafood.

Seafood spoils so rapidly that it is unlikely you get sick from eating it. If it is well-past fresh, your nose gives you warning. It still may be safe to eat if well-cooked, but the flavor is likely to be bad. Once it develops a really strong odor, it is no longer safe to eat, but by then you are on your way to the nearest trash can.

How to store your seafood

The seafood industry’s motto is: Keep it Cold, Keep it Clean, Keep it Moving. Once you buy fresh seafood, give it the same treatment. If you are planning to use it the same day, you are keeping it moving. If you are planning it to appear on your table in a day or two, keep it as cold as possible short of freezing.

Have you noticed how seafood markets do it? If packaged, they keep it in their coolers with the temperature set to just above freezing, around 34°F (1°C). (If you want to check this, you can usually find a thermometer in a display case in a hidden corner.)

Most home refrigerators run closer to 40°F (5°C), a little too warm for seafood. Now look at the fresh seafood display. Everything is sitting on a thick bed of ice-the seafood is at the ideal near-freezing storage temperature. And that is easy to duplicate home. Just set the seafood on a bed of ice in a pan and cover it. This is the best way to keep it for the longest-lasting fresh flavor.

The back of the bottom shelf of your refrigerator is the coldest, best spot to store. Drain off melted water and replace ice daily. Fishing vessels keep their catch fresh with the same method for up to 15 days.

The only seafood you should not store on ice are live crabs, lobsters and crayfish. They prefer to be at 40°F (5°C), and they definitely don’t want to be set on a bed of ice. Live soft-shell crabs (since they don’t have their coats on) opt for an even warmer climate, if they have a choice. They should be between 50° and 55°F (10° and 13°C).

If you let seafood warm up above 40°F (5°C), the rate of deterioration increases rapidly. On a warm day the temperature of a nice thin fillet can rise above that magic number between the time it leaves the fish counter and when you tuck it into your refrigerator at home. Either take a small cooler along with ice in it when you go shopping, or buy a small bag or two of some frozen food that you can keep next to the fish on the way home.

To keep the seafood clean (the second part of the motto), handle it is little as possible and only with absolutely clean hands so you are transferring little or no bacteria.

Frozen fish is much less troublesome to handle and store. A solidly frozen piece is not likely to defrost much between the grocery store and home, even on a hot day.

Here your concern is to plan ahead so you can defrost the fish slowly in the refrigerator before cooking it rather than on the kitchen counter, under running water or in the microwave. If you raise the temperature too quickly, you lose too much internal moisture and the result is a drier piece of seafood on your plate, no matter how carefully you cook it.

You can freeze fresh or leftover cooked extra seafood, though you cannot duplicate the speed of commercial freezing so essential for good flavor and moist meat. The trick is too freeze it as quickly as you can to minimize damage to the cells that hold moisture within the meat. The worst way to freeze is to wrap up a large piece of fish and place it in the freezer.

It may take half a day or more before the center part is frozen, that is much too slow. Slow freezing causes large ice crystals to form inside the meat, the crystals pierce the cells, and when you defrost it, the cells leak their liquid.

Here are some suggestions:

¨ If you want to keep a large fish whole, place it unwrapped on a metal baking sheet and

put it in the freezer. It freezes faster without the wrapping. Wrap it after it freezes solid.

¨ A still better way is to cut the fish up into steaks, fillets or chunks and place the pieces

side by side on a metal baking sheet so they freeze rapidly, then wrap.

¨ Set your timer so you’ll remember to check the progress periodically. When wrapping, attempt to eliminate as much air as possible, label it and put it back into the freezer.

Ice glazing is an excellent method that eliminates damaging air pockets (inevitable in any packaging) and keeps the seafood from drying out in storage. To ice glaze, prepare a pan of ice water. Freeze the seafood the way I suggested and as soon as it is solid, dip it into the ice water for a few second until a layer of ice coats each piece. Put the pieces back in the freezer for 15 minutes then repeat ice glazing. Then wrap, label and store it in the freezer. If you defrost this slowly, it will be almost like fresh.

You cannot successfully freeze all fresh seafood. As a rule, the fattier the meat, the less amenable it is to freezing. Your chances are better with lean species. Nearly all shellfish freeze well, too. Lobster, crab and crayfish meat must be blanched before freezing to preserve their texture and flavor.

The longer you keep seafood in the freezer, the more flavor you lose. Provided it is well wrapped, and your home freezer’s temperature is 0°F (-18°C) (typical for a good home freezer), you can keep frozen seafood up to a year. But if your freezer is just ten degrees warmer, 10°F (- 12°C) don’t keep seafood frozen for more than two months. If you happen to live on the north slope of the Arctic at an average temperature of -40°F (-40°C) you can store seafood indefinitely.

Check your freezer’s temperature with an accurate thermometer and date every package you put into it.