"Cook from frozen", or "Defrost thoroughly"

Bogof_Babe

I often buy from the chilled section in supermarkets pies, pasties, quiches etc. on their sell-by dates as they are reduced in price. I only buy them when they are "suitable for home freezing".

I've noticed that some of them give instructions for cooking from frozen, while some require defrosting before cooking. Is there any particular reason for this, as obviously it is less hassle to cook from frozen, even if it takes a bit longer?

Wizwoo

I think it's mainly do to with the quality fo the meal on recooking. Most frozen meals will have been rapidly frozen at the factories (in less than 30 minutes) whereas they take much longer to freeze when you freeze them at home.
Although I think on many cooking guidelines it's just an easy option - preparing the cooking guidelines does take some time (with oven and 2 or 3 microwave guidelines to prepare) and adding the cooking from frozen guidelines would involve even more work.

Anyone else got any ideas?

Bossyboots

I would have thought it was to do with eveness of cooking.

For example, if you put a frozen pie in the oven, the pastry will heat up far more quickly than the frozen filling so you could end up with cold middle and burnt outside. So unless the pieces are small enough to melt down quickly in the oven, you would be better off defrosting the pie to get a more even result.

Mr_Proctalgia

Unless it is a large item that will take days to defrost or heat through to the middle I put all items into a cold oven frozen and let the two things heat up together, 99% of the time it is OK but I have a simple gas oven without fans and stuff and I will shift shelves up and down to finish things off.

HTH

ivyleaf

I remember buying a couple of things whose instructions said "If frozen, defrost thoroughly before cooking" but then it also gave instructions on how to cook it from frozen .