Sea kale is a finished product made from kelp seaweed. When packaged, it can retain all its beneficial properties for a long time. Seaweed in open packaging should be stored correctly so that it does not lose its beneficial qualities. To do this, follow the basic rules and temperature conditions.
Its benefit lies in the content of large amounts of iodine, essential vitamins and other useful substances. To improve the taste, manufacturers add spices and vegetables. The sea plant is suitable for consumption at any age.
How to choose
There are two types of ready-made seaweed: dried and canned. As a rule, they do not sell fresh ones.
As soon as the seaweed is collected, it is immediately subjected to heat treatment to remove the moisture it contains in large quantities. Excess water leads to very rapid spoilage of kelp. The processed seaweed is then sent to a facility for further processing.
When choosing a finished product, you should pay attention to the following characteristics:
- Dried kelp. Sold by weight or in sealed bags. It is worth inspecting the leaves for traces of mold. Make sure that the plant does not crumble at the slightest pressure on it. The surface of the kelp should be smooth and the leaves should not stick together.
- Canned or pickled cabbage is packaged in a container, usually plastic. It is worth carefully studying the composition. Spices and other ingredients may be included in the product.
- Pay attention to the expiration date indicated on the packaging.
- The color of the leaves should be deep green and uniform over the entire surface of the plant, and the size should not be thinner than 1.5 mm.
- If the leaves are brown in color and very thin, then the plant is not yet ripe. It can be eaten as food, but it has little nutritional value.
- The packaging must be transparent and intact. Free from cracks, dents and other defects. This applies to the package and the jar.
- Carefully inspect the seaweed for foreign objects. When collecting it, you come across sand, remnants of a net and other foreign objects. Processing and washing the plant may not be sufficient for an unscrupulous manufacturer.
- If there is condensation or any other deposit on the wall of the plastic container, then the product has begun to deteriorate.
- There should not be a large amount of liquid at the bottom of the jar, and the algae should not look like a homogeneous mass.
When opened, the product exudes a pleasant marine aroma.
You should not buy seaweed if:
- Vinegar acts as a preservative. It eliminates foreign odors, including the smell of mold, and weakens the taste.
- There are pieces of ice in the container. The product was defrosted several times and was not stored at the correct temperature.
The packaging must indicate the place where the kelp was collected. The White Sea and the Far East region are considered one of the best seas.
Mastic toppers
Today I’m telling you and showing you how to make beautiful, spectacular, and incredibly time- and labor-saving fondant toppers for a children’s cake! At the same time, we’ll learn how to work with sugar and wafer paper, the topic is interesting, the material has great potential, but we’ve never written anything about it, we need to improve!
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I will demonstrate it using the example of a children's cake with Fixies. I recently had a story with him that is probably familiar to every home pastry chef. Nine in the evening, the doorbell rings - neighbors. Cake for tomorrow. To kid. With the Fixies! “He’s asking very much - he really wants it - it’s a birthday - how would it be without a cake - help me out!” The situation, frankly speaking, is not pleasant, and the most reasonable thing is to refuse, but how? After all, people are not completely strangers. And Fiksikov, meanwhile, wants almost everyone. In general, in such cases, if you can’t refuse, and you don’t know how to draw, the only way out is printing on sugar or wafer paper and mastic toppers. Well, don’t sculpt the whole company, really?
The only condition is the opportunity to make this same sugar or waffle picture somewhere. To print, you need a printer, and not necessarily a special confectionery one (I’m not even sure that such exist), but filled with cartridges with food coloring. The service of printing on edible paper is provided by some confectionery stores, as well as private confectioners at home, those who have purchased a printer and cartridges. So that the paint does not dry out and the printer serves for a long time and properly, you need to print pictures at least once a day, which is why almost everyone who has this printer does not refuse those who want to make sugar pictures. You just need to find a person who lives near you, write to him, agree on a price, send him the file in a jeep and agree on a time when you can pick up the finished picture.
You can print with food dyes on both sugar and wafer paper. Sugar is denser, the image on it is brighter, but it is usually a little more expensive. What to use is up to you.
Here is my sugar picture.
You see, it is packed in a zip bag (in this form, including a large thick envelope, the store where I print gives the pictures to clients is very thoughtful and pleasant). If you are not going to use the picture right away, store it in a ziplock bag: it will not allow air to pass through, and your picture will retain its inherent slight flexibility. From a long stay in the open air, sugar pictures dry out, become brittle and brittle. But this, by the way, does not threaten the waffle, but it is brittle in itself.
Let me show you the sugar picture closer. It is slightly rough, and the print is quite bright. The paper itself is glued to a thick film.
Here you can roughly understand the thickness.
So, let's make a topper for a children's cake!
...along the contour, with a slight indentation, however, as you like.
Take a piece of mastic, which dries quickly. This could be gelatin mastic (but it is not at all tasty, in my opinion, and becomes very hard; I decided that if children decide to chew on the topper, it could simply be dangerous for their teeth)) or purchased mastic like Vizyon or “Top -product”, to which you can add SMS (powder, sold in confectionery stores) to speed up drying. However, if you have time, you can do without SMS, it will just take longer to dry.
I have here white vanilla mastic “Top Product”, probably the most budget-friendly one today, but very good.
I added a pinch of SMS.
Kneaded it. Rolled it into a ball and flattened it slightly.
Rolled it out to a thickness of 5 mm (it can be thinner, depending on how thick your skewers are).
I attached a picture. I drew a stack around the outline.
Cut it out. This must be done very carefully!
I inserted the skewer a few cm deep so that it would hold well. The thickness of the skewer must be completely immersed in the mastic! In other words, when rolling out the mastic, take into account the thickness of the skewer.
Lubricate the mastic with a thin layer of decorgel (can be replaced with honey diluted in water), very lightly and evenly.
We remove the film from the picture.
Carefully glue the image to the mastic.
Our topper is ready!
Let it dry and you can add it to the cake!
Drying time depends on many factors: mastic, topper size, room humidity. This little Nolik made from Top Product mastic with the addition of SMS dried in at most an hour.
And here is the whole bunch. Bright and beautiful! And most importantly - quickly, if there is somewhere to print the picture.
A solution for those who need everything at once for a 1 kg cake)
Here are our fondant toppers on the cake.
Well, the whole cake.
The cake has a minimalist design. The only decorations are toppers made of mastic and screws, also made of mastic. It was an urgent cake, as you understand, so I had to do everything very quickly and a silicone mold from the CakeUp store literally saved me in that situation. I simply sprinkled it with cornstarch, took small pieces of mastic, painted them in the desired colors, filled the recesses with them, ran a knife along the surface of the mold, holding it flat and cutting off the excess mastic, and took out the parts!
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If you have time, you can let them dry a little or freeze them in the freezer, they will come out even better. But even so, in a hurry the result is excellent!
The mold with numbers, by the way, is also from the same store. And the stand))) In short, I have a lot of everything from there) But what can you do if the things are really worthwhile!
We work with waffle paper in the same way. Well, or almost: the image on it is not as bright as on sugar paper, so you can often find a recommendation to cover it with decor gel on top. This way it will indeed become much brighter, but it will acquire a gloss, and not everyone likes it. The waffle also comes in waves more often, but I think it's a matter of practice.
The cake has a minimalist design. The only decorations are toppers made of mastic and screws, also made of mastic. It was an urgent cake, as you understand, so I had to do everything very quickly and a silicone mold from the CakeUp store literally saved me in that situation. I simply sprinkled it with cornstarch, took small pieces of mastic, painted them in the desired colors, filled the recesses with them, ran a knife along the surface of the mold, holding it flat and cutting off the excess mastic, and took out the parts!
https://youtu.be/
How to store seaweed
Freezer storage
Only fresh product that has not been affected by fermentation or other spoilage should be placed in the freezer.
Only kelp leaves are selected without foreign additives: preservatives and other products. If the seaweed was originally dried, then it is first prepared, kept in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 days, and only then moved to the freezer.
Pack the plant in any container: plastic bag, plastic container, film or foil. It is advisable to place the seaweed in small portions so that you do not have to freeze it again.
Store it in the freezer for no more than a month. Defrost at room temperature. To speed up the process, kelp is placed in warm water. The packaging must be hermetically sealed.
The defrosted product is washed under running water and then used to prepare salads.
How long to store seaweed?
Dried seaweed can be stored for up to 3 years. Provided that the integrity of the packaging has not been compromised. All useful and valuable properties are completely preserved in it. Once the packaging has been opened, the shelf life is no more than 3 months. It is placed on the refrigerator shelf.
Prepared dried seaweed salad is frozen and stored in the freezer for up to 1 month. A longer period is possible, but all beneficial properties are lost.
Fresh kelp can also be stored in the freezer for 1 month.
The finished pickled product, it can be either a salad or just kelp, where additional additives are present, has a shelf life of about a month. Provided that the container has not been opened. After opening the package, it is placed in the refrigerator for 1-2 days. Afterwards it begins to deteriorate and is not recommended for consumption.
How to Dry Pistachios If They're Damp
For a long time I thought that pistachios were impossible to find raw. After all, they are sold everywhere fried and salted, and the most I found was unsalted fried. But then in my hometown of Irkutsk I found raw pistachios! True, their price is such that you can’t get much. More than 600 rubles/kg, I don’t remember the exact price. But their quality is excellent - fresh, germinates quickly, and delicious!
I imagined that raw pistachios would be very different from the roasted ones we are all used to, just as roasted and raw peanuts are very different. But they turned out to be very similar, also with a pronounced pistachio taste. Awesome thing! If it weren't for such a high price, I would eat raw pistachios every day.
They are sold in shells, slightly cracked. Externally, raw pistachios are very similar to fried ones; they are almost indistinguishable. Look at the photo to see what raw pistachios look like in shell, peeled, soaked and sprouted.
Some facts about pistachios:
— Pistachios (Pistácia) belong to the Sumakh family (Anacardiaceae).
— Pistachios are considered drupes.
— Distributed in the Mediterranean, Northeast Africa, Western, Central and Eastern Asia. Some types of pistachios are native to Central America.
— Pistachio trees can withstand temperatures not lower than -25 degrees. They are resistant to drought, love light, grow on gray soils, on mountain-steppe brown soils, on cliffs and slopes.
— The fruits of pistachio trees ripen between September and November.
— Pistachios are grown in the largest quantities in Iran and the USA, as well as in Turkey, Syria, China, Greece, Afghanistan, Tunisia and Italy. Pistachios also grow in the Caucasus and Crimea.
— In some varieties of pistachios, the shell itself cracks when ripe, but in others it does not, so this is done mechanically.
— Pistachios are called 'magic nuts' because they contain a lot of useful substances, and the Chinese call pistachios 'lucky nuts' because when they crack, they resemble a contented smile.
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— It is believed that pistachios relieve fatigue and give vigor; they are also useful for high physical and mental stress. They also have a beneficial effect on the brain.
— Pistachios reduce susceptibility to heart disease, perfectly improve the functioning of the cardiovascular system and relieve heart palpitations.
— Pistachios improve liver function, help cure jaundice, relieve liver and stomach colic, treat anemia and ulcers, are very useful for diseases of the respiratory system, enhance sexual potency, improve sperm quality, increase the mobility and vitality of male germ cells.
— Pistachios are very rich in various vitamins and microelements. In particular, they contain a lot of vitamin B6, phosphorus, magnesium, copper, manganese, potassium, etc.
— Pistachios improve vision and reduce the risk of retinal dystrophy.
- Reduce the risk of cancer.
— Slow down the aging process of the body, promote cell growth and renewal.
— Pistachios also clear bile ducts from blockages.
— Composition of pistachios per 100 grams:
Fiber: 10.3 g
Calorie content: 557 kcal.
How to germinate pistachios:
You need to soak them overnight or for a day, right in the peel. After this, peel the pistachios and place them in damp gauze or a napkin (even toilet paper folded in several rows will do). You need to make sure it doesn't dry out and add a little water if necessary. The pistachios will sprout in a day or two, depending on their freshness.
How to germinate pistachios:
Sea kale (kelp) - main beneficial properties
The composition of seaweed includes iodine and a large number of macro- and microelements. It is beneficial to the human body and is suitable for daily use for adults and children.
The main component that makes the product especially valuable is iodine. More than half of the planet's inhabitants lack it. The benefits of seaweed are especially valuable for residents in iodine-deficient regions. The product will help cope with thyroid diseases. To replenish the daily requirement, it is enough to eat about 30 g of the product.
The high content of vitamins such as A, B, C, E and D, iron, phosphorus, sodium, amino and fatty acids exceeds those of ordinary white cabbage.
Sea kale is included in the daily menu by people on a diet for the purpose of losing weight. The sterols included in its composition fight “bad” cholesterol. Alginate helps remove heavy metal salts.
By eating kelp every day, you can significantly improve immunity, increase performance and speed up metabolic processes. The product is indicated for people with disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, especially those suffering from constipation.
Laminaria normalizes metabolism and normalizes blood pressure.
Tips for storing and eating seafood
You should adhere to basic recommendations related to product storage:
- do not leave opened packaging near heating devices or in direct sunlight for more than 1-2 hours;
- Store the packaged product in the refrigerator or in a dark and cool place;
- kelp leaves are not able to absorb salt, so excess salt used for preservation can be easily removed.
Sea kale is a healthy and tasty product. It can be given any taste by adding spices and other products. Salads are prepared from kelp, it is added to soups and other dishes. The finished product contains many useful ingredients and is suitable for daily consumption.
Changes in the properties of frozen fish during storage
Physicochemical characteristics
Physicochemical changes include shrinkage, changes in color and histological structure.
When storing frozen fish, there is always a difference in water vapor pressure above the surface of the fish and the surrounding air environment of the refrigeration room. The pressure difference causes the evaporation of moisture from the surface of the fish and, as a consequence, its movement from the inner layers of the fish to the surface, i.e. internal diffusion. This difference can be reduced by lowering the storage temperature and increasing the relative humidity.
As a result of the evaporation of moisture, the fish shrinks, which depends on its type and chemical composition, properties and size, type of packaging, temperature and duration of storage, method of stowage and location in the chamber or hold, cooling system, refrigeration room, degree of loading, amount of heat inflow etc. The surface of the fish and nearby layers of muscle tissue are mainly subjected to shrinkage.
The color of fish meat dehydrated during refrigerated storage changes. It becomes spongy, and after thawing and cooking it becomes dry and fibrous.
The degree of shrinkage and quality changes depends on the storage temperature and the range of its fluctuations. As the storage temperature decreases, the shrinkage of frozen fish decreases: when storing frozen fish at a temperature of -30°C, the shrinkage is 3 times less than at -18°C. A decrease in storage temperature from -30 to -40°C is accompanied by a decrease in shrinkage by 0.013% each month of storage.
The amount of shrinkage depends on the chemical composition of the fish: the more moisture the fish contains, the more it can evaporate, so shrinkage is greater for lean fish than for fatty fish.
The drying of frozen fish also depends on the method of cooling the refrigeration chamber and hold. With a panel cooling system, shrinkage is less than with air cooling. Dense stacking of frozen fish helps reduce product shrinkage.
Factors such as glaze thickness, storage time, relative humidity and air circulation speed also play an important role. When storing frozen fish packed in polymer film, dehydration occurs during storage, but the moisture evaporating from the product remains inside the package in the form of frost.
One of the most effective ways to reduce the shrinkage of frozen Ufi fish during long-term storage, along with lowering the storage temperature, is its glazing using water-soluble polymer materials, as well as packaging in gas-vapor-proof films.
With prolonged storage, as well as with temperature fluctuations in the refrigeration room, chamber or hold, structural changes occur in the muscle tissue of frozen fish, which are caused by recrystallization of moisture: the number of large ice crystals increases; the fine-crystalline structure turns into a coarse-crystalline structure.
The longer the storage of frozen fish and the more unstable the temperature, the larger the size of the ice crystals in its tissues. In this case, the integrity of the muscle fibers is disrupted, which leads to large losses of tissue juice during thawing and, consequently, to a deterioration in the quality of the fish. After heat treatment, fish meat becomes drier and tougher, and its nutritional value decreases.
Recrystallization of ice in fish tissue causes a change in the color of the product due to unequal refraction of light at different sizes of ice crystals. The color of the fish may also change due to the formation of a dehydrated surface layer due to shrinkage.
Biochemical properties
During refrigerated storage, biochemical processes occur in frozen fish, leading to fat oxidation and protein denaturation, and for frozen fish with a high fat content, changes as a result of oxidative processes in fat are more typical, and for lean fish, denaturation changes in the protein system of the raw material are more typical.
The degree of these changes largely depends on the chemical composition and properties of frozen fish, temperature, duration of refrigerated storage, etc. The lower the storage temperature, the slower the denaturation and enzymatic processes in frozen fish. Fat oxidation in fish occurs even at very low temperatures (below -30°C).
Oxidative deterioration of fat is accompanied by yellowing and the formation of rusty spots on the surface of the fish. At the same time, fat oxidation products accumulate in the fish, worsening its taste and giving it an unpleasant odor.
However, subcutaneous yellowing is not always a sign of oxidative deterioration of fat. The skin of some marine fish contains fat-soluble substances - yellow and red carotenoids. During storage of frozen fish, protein-carotenoid complexes are destroyed, carotenoids pass into the subcutaneous layer of fat, causing subcutaneous yellowing in frozen fish. Subcutaneous yellowing, unlike oxidative spoilage of fat, is not a defect, since it does not impair the taste and nutritional value of the fish.
Drying fish during storage has a direct effect on fat oxidation and denaturation changes in proteins. With excessive shrinkage, not only weight loss is observed, but also accelerated fat oxidation as a result of the evaporation of ice from the surface layers of frozen fish, which facilitates the access of air oxygen to muscle tissue.
During long-term storage of fish, fat hydrolysis occurs, which is accompanied by oxidation, resulting in rancidity. To slow down the oxidative deterioration of fat, rapid freezing of fish to low temperatures, glazing, packaging of frozen fish in gas-vapor-proof polymer materials, as well as various antioxidants and low-temperature storage are used.
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Conditions and periods of storage of frozen fish
One of the most important factors determining the optimal conditions for long-term preservation of the quality of frozen fish during storage is the temperature and humidity conditions of the air in holds and refrigerated storage chambers. During storage, the optimal temperature and humidity must be maintained constant. In accordance with the technological instructions, the fluctuation in air temperature should be no more than ±0.5°C, and the relative humidity should not be more than ±1%. When loading and unloading chambers at 50% of their capacity, the air temperature is allowed to increase by 3°C, and above 50% by 4°C.
Frozen fish, the average final freezing temperature of which differs by more than 2°C from the air temperature of the refrigeration room, cannot be loaded into chambers or holds.
To equalize the temperature and humidity in the storage rooms of frozen fish, natural air circulation of 0.01-0.08%) must be maintained.
During the entire period of storage of frozen products in holds or storage chambers, the air temperature is systematically, 2 times a day, measured with remote temperature sensors or conventional mercury thermometers, and relative air humidity is measured once a week using a psychrometer. Temperature and humidity conditions for refrigerated storage of frozen products are recorded in a special log.
Boxes with frozen fish are stacked flat (lids up) with slats or floor gratings placed under the bottom row (Fig. 55), which are necessary to ensure free air circulation between the boxes and the floor of the refrigeration room. The height of the stack depends on the strength of the boxes and the height of the refrigerator chambers.
Rice. 55. Frozen fish storage room: I - stacking of boxes with frozen fish; II - laying in plan
When stacking boxes, there is no need to make spacers for each row: the denser the frozen products are stacked, the better they are preserved and the less shrinkage.
The packing density of frozen products per 1 m 3 of cargo volume depends on the type of fish, freezing method, type of container or packaging, as well as on the stacking method. Existing norms for the specific loading of frozen fish products per unit of cargo volume of storage chambers are given in Table. 29.
Table 29
Frozen sturgeon fish (glazed and unglazed) are stacked unpacked on racks covered with matting. A stack of frozen fish is covered on top and sides with matting, on top of which an ice crust (glaze) is frozen. Glazing of the stack is carried out evenly by irrigating the matting with cold water at a temperature of 2-3°C.
For better use of refrigeration space, it is recommended to place frozen fish at a distance: from walls without cooling devices - 0.3 m, from ceiling without cooling devices - 0.2 m, from cooling devices (wall and ceiling) - 0.4 m, from air ducts (bottom surface) - 0.3 m. In chambers with a heat-protective casing, no indents are made. The presence of indentations (gaps) promotes free air circulation between the walls to stacks of frozen fish products, as well as cleaning cooling devices from frost.
For cargo trolleys in the chambers, one passage 1.2 m wide is left for every 10 m of the width of the refrigerating chamber.
On a ship, boxes with frozen fish products are stacked from side to side evenly across the entire area of the hold to avoid the formation of a list. Each type of frozen product is placed separately.
To mechanize loading and unloading operations, a batch method of storing frozen fish products on pallets is used. To form packages, two types of pallets are used: standard international pallet 2P-04 (800 X 1200 X 150 mm) and 2P-04 (1200 X 800 X 150 mm).
The shelf life of frozen fish depends on its type and chemical composition, initial state, type of cutting, method and modes of freezing, type of packaging, storage temperature and other factors.
In table Table 30 shows the shelf life of some types of fish at different temperatures.
Table 30
Packing frozen fish in gas-vapor-tight films, especially when vacuum sealed, allows you to increase the shelf life of both lean and fatty fish. Thus, when packing frozen fish in bags made of polyethylene-cellophane, lavsan-polyethylene without vacuuming, the shelf life increases 2 times (with vacuuming - 3-4 times compared to packing frozen fish in bags with paraffin and silicone coating). The use of Saran-type shrink wrap helps extend the shelf life of frozen fish by 3-4 months compared to storage in parchment.
Evils of frozen fish
Dehydration (shrinkage) of the surface layer
- a defect in which, due to shrinkage of the surface layer, a thin white coating appears in the form of a “cold burn”, completely or partially covering the surface of frozen fish. The fish meat becomes discolored and acquires a dry, hard consistency. With excessive shrinkage, not only a loss of fish weight is observed, but also a deterioration in the hydrophilic properties of meat, as well as an acceleration of oxidative deterioration of fat.
Oxidative deterioration of fat
occurs during long-term storage of frozen fish under the influence of atmospheric oxygen and oxygen contained in the tissues of the fish. As a result of oxidation, the odor of the product deteriorates.
Subcutaneous yellowing of fat
unlike oxidative spoilage, it does not impair the taste and nutritional value of frozen fish.
Subcutaneous yellowing of fat is caused by the transition into the subcutaneous layer of fat of carotenoids - fat-soluble substances of yellow or red color, contained in the skin of fish in the form of protein-carotenoid complexes, which are destroyed during storage. Subcutaneous yellowing occurs only in fish that have a subcutaneous layer of fat and whose skin contains at least 0.8 mg% of carotenoids.
Old smells
are a sign of denaturation changes in the protein system of frozen fish, especially manifested during long-term storage in fish with a high moisture content. With the appearance of the “old smell,” a change in the consistency of fish meat is observed, which after cooking becomes fibrous and tough.
During refrigerated storage, biochemical processes occur in frozen fish, leading to fat oxidation and protein denaturation, and for frozen fish with a high fat content, changes as a result of oxidative processes in fat are more typical, and for lean fish, denaturation changes in the protein system of the raw material are more typical.
