The Hottest Kitchen Tip? Freezing

FOOD for Thought

- Kate Lowenstein and Daniel Gritzer

Our ability to make things extremely cold has granted us modern luxuries such as ice water, Popsicles, and, most important, a way to keep food from rotting. But there’s more to freezing than meets the eye, and chefs and mixologists have been making magic with subzero temperatures for centuries. You can cryo-blanch herbs such as basil for more flavorful pesto, cryo-shuck bivalves such as clams (which pop open as they thaw), and cryo-tenderize notoriously tough seafood such as octopus (thanks to ice crystals that make micro-tears throughout the meat). Freezing also makes it much easier to thinly slice meats and dice slippery pork fat.