pasta sauce recipes

crafty*kate

If they have not been cooked and then re-frozen, then no, it's not safe.

BitterAndTwisted

It's not recommended to freeze any food product in the same state twice. I think a lot depends on how long the meat was at room-temperature before being frozen again. It's a risk but probably one I might be willing to take for myself but I wouldn't feed those burgers to small children, just in case. How much money are we talking about here?

bananadog

thanks bitterandtwisted
That's what we thought....2 packs of meat were defrosted in the fridge, had burgers straight away with 1 pack but there were too many so hubby refroze the rest for another day, then wasn't sure about it.
The meat was all well in date, defrosted and refrozen quickly but still don't want to take the chance then....shame he didn't cook them through I suppose otherwise they would have been ok...oh well you live & learn!

The only reason why we thought twice about whether it is ok or not to do this was because many times I have been to Tescos and bought fresh chicken, fresh chicken breast, and bacon to find that it is actually slightly frozen! I shopped so early on a couple of occassions that their stock was actually frozen on the shelf - then we take it home and think it's ok to refreze! One chicken I bought from there was so frozen that I actually had to wait until the next day to eat it....I didn't think they would be allowed to do this as we customers regularly freeze their so-called 'fresh meat'!

lilbert

wow, thanks for letting my know! I had no idea tesco pre-froze their meat and i always freeze it when i get home as i shop once per month :eek: That not good at all.

bananadog

Thats what I thought lilbert...maybe it's worth asking them (unless it was a fault with their fridges - but I doubt it as the bacon was in a different fridge to the chickens and I've had it with both, oh and with the milk too on numerous occasions)
I don't go their at the moment as I have just sold my car so I'm shopping at Morrissons as it's closer - only thing with Morrissons is I find the frozen stuff is not-so-frozen, and you have to dig around to the bottom of their freezers to make sure the food is actually hard.

angeltreats

If it was defrosted overnight in the fridge, made into burgers very quickly and put straight back into the freezer, I'd eat them - but I'd make sure I cooked them right through so there was no pink in the middle.

That's only at home though - I would never ever do this at work (if the environmental health bloke is reading, please don't shut us down!) and I wouldn't feed the burgers to anyone young, pregnant, old etc. Also I would only do this with beef or lamb, and never EVER with chicken.

PennyGSD

I admit to doing this sort of thing on a fairly regular basis, although I would never feed the results to anyone but myself or my OH - who is well aware of what I do.

I only ever defrost in the fridge unless I'm cooking and eating it all immediately.

The only issue is the amount of time you are allowing for bacteria to multiply - they exist in the meat even in a frozen state, they just don't multiply. Once they get up to a certain temperature they can start to actively multiply again - but defrosting in the fridge is the safest way as it delays/slows down the multiplication.

By cooking at a high temperature, you kill the vast majority off, which is why it is then safe to re-freeze as you are in effect re-setting the bacteria counter.

I would still go by the 'if it looks and smells OK once defrosted, then it probably is OK'. But agree with the other poster - cook them good and proper when you do come to serve them - you want a good well done result under a medium grill in preference to leaving any pink at all - so no BBQing at a superhigh heat so it's black on the outside and only just warm on the inside...

BitterAndTwisted

Alas, it's not always about the actual numbers of bacteria that can cause problems. Some bacteria exude/produce toxins and these cannot be destroyed by heating at all and are not discernible by looking at or smelling the product. That is where most of the risk lies, I would say.

PennyGSD

Oh dear.

If this turns out to be my last post, you'll know I've done it once too often...

davholla

davholla wrote: »

I bought some lamb and it was in the fridge for 3 days too long.
(My mistake).

Do you think we can still use it?

Thanks for all who answered. I cooked and it was fine - very nice.