Cooking Meat from Frozen.

After a chat with my friend she was about to leave when she remembered the beef she wanted to cook for tea today was still in the freezer. She complained she would have to nip to the shop and get something else so I suggested cooking it from frozen. She was horrified at the thought and told me with certainty that severe illness/death would be the only outcome of cooking meat from frozen.

I can remember the ad's telling us to make sure the turkey was thoroughly defrosted before cooking it in years gone past but in these tech filled days of meat thermometers I assumed it was standard to cook from fresh or frozen?

I ALWAYS cook beef from frozen due to each of our household liking it different, I can only keep the middle rare and the outside well done if it starts straight from the freezer. Chickens and turkeys I don't mind cooking from fresh or frozen they just take longer from frozen and pork the same. Not being a great cook I use my slow cooker to make casseroles and stews and again frozen meat goes in there. Does anyone else cook from frozen and is there a reason not to or is it just an old, out of date, warning that has stuck with us?

Can't see any reason not to cook from frozen.

I mean, cooked is 'cooked', means any nasty bacteria that was in there is cooked and 'dead'

Possibly the issue is what you are cooking the meat with, and cooking times. Cooking a frozen joint is obviously going to take longer than cooking a fresh joint, so a timetable or rule of thumb (e.g. joint weight divided or multiplied by temperature, that sort of stuff) has to take the 'from frozen' status into account.

In the context of the above, the "defrost turkey thoroughly" thing (I expect, equally applicable to any other bird) was probably to ensure people would not accidentally eat uncooked or semi-cooked bird meat (routinely more laced with nasties than beef or e.g. lamb).

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I can only keep the middle rare and the outside well done if it starts straight from the freezer.

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Start with a hotter pan...

or use a quick defrost. put the meat in a ziplock bag and run under water.. depending on the thickness, how frozen the meat is and weight should defrost in an hour or so.

I do it for convenience mainly, not being a great cook I don't enjoy cooking

I can find at least 28 other things to do at any given time and always put it off to the last minute. I like being able to have it in the freezer for when I want it I rarely plan what we will eat the day before, it's normally when I go and browse what veg we have (a friend gives us a selection of fresh veg each week so I tend to make meals based on what we have/ what's in season)

My ideal stand by is meat/ chicken pieces and one of those maggi so juicy packets they cook the meat nicely from frozen every time and they have a bag so less washing up