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Now top chefs swear by frozen vegetables
Frozen vegetables have been long seen as the poor cousins to so-called "fresh" produce, but now top chefs say we are better off buying our veg from the supermarket freezer because it is tastier and better for us. Marco Pierre White, star of Hells Kitchen, says that veg frozen within hours of picking contains more vitamins and he recommends that families should cook their Brussells sprouts from frozen tomorrow because they taste better. Are fresh peas nicer than frozen ones? fresh peas from your back garden, they're sweet, but if you buy fresh they could have been picked days earlier and taste bitter. Other celebrity chefs agree, Heston Blumentha - whose restaurant The Fat Duck in Berkshire is consitstently voted one of the best in the world - uses frozen peas for his pea and ham soup, he says "Sprouts have to be frozen properly or extremely fresh. Another way to cook them is in the microwave". The nutritional claims for frozen vegetables have scientific value. An estimated 60 per cent of the sweetness in garden peas is lost in just 24 hours and some vegetables lose half their nutritional value in a week. A spokeswoman for food producer Birds Eye has said "We're delighted to see chefs, championing the benefits of frozen vegetables. Our peas, for instance are frozen within two hours." |
