Unpack your Broad Stripe box and put the meat in your fridge in its plastic packaging. Individual portions like steaks and chops come in plastic boxes, while bigger cuts like joints are vacuum packed. Your meat will stay fresh in the fridge for four to seven days.
To be safe, your fridge should be between 0 ºC and 4 ºC. Put uncooked meat lower in the fridge than cooked and make sure you handle the meat carefully, particularly vacuum-packed cuts. Stacking too many on top of each other can make them split.
Meat really needs to come up to room temperature before you start cooking, as cooking times given are usually based upon starting everything off from room temperature. This will ensure even cooking throughout. So if you’re using individual portions like steaks or chops, take them out of the fridge an hour before, and keep them covered on your kitchen worktop. For bigger, vacuum-packed things, take them out two or three hours before.
If you’re not cooking all the meat in the pack at once, keep the rest on a plate on the lowest shelf of your fridge, loosely covered in cling film. Use it within 48 hours.
When you take meat out of a vacuum pack, you’ll often notice a surprising smell. Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with your meat, and as the oxygen returns to the meat it’ll disappear completely. In the same way, the colour of your meat will bloom. Beef and lamb will go a nice rosy red, while pork will turn a deep pink and veal a lighter pink.
To let all this happen and to make sure your meat is at its best, take it out of the vacuum pack at least an hour before you want to cook it.
Let any hot cooked meat cool down for about half an hour before putting it in the fridge. Wrap it in cling film to keep it juicy. If you decide to heat it up again later, make sure it’s piping hot all the way through.
Make sure you do so on the day it arrives, so that it will be really fresh. If your meat is vacuum packed, leave the packaging on when you freeze it. Once it’s frozen, your beef will stay fresh for six months, lamb and veal will last three to six months and pork two to three months.
When it comes to using your meat, make sure it’s thoroughly defrosted. It’s best not to do this in the microwave as it can dry out the edges of your meat.
Instead, if you’re cooking in the evening, put small chops on the lower rack of your fridge in the morning. Big steaks need putting in the fridge the night before. If they’re still frozen in the morning, put them on the worktop at lunchtime.
Use anything you’ve defrosted within 24 hours and don’t re-freeze it.
Before you start cooking any meat, get it out of the fridge and on the worktop (covered) so that it can come up to room temperature.
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