Need Advice on Workflow: Thawing Meat Day of Cook

cocktails42

If you decide to cook something frozen, and you want to get it going in a couple hours or so, How do you thaw it?  How do you work it into your workflow of grill prep?

I've searched and found a lot of great info on freezing meat here.  I have vacuum packed and frozen a lot of raw as well as cooked meat.

My problem is, I decide what's for dinner late in the day and I always fear that I'll try to thaw something in the microwave and end up cooking the corners and messing it up.  This happens to ground beef on the 'thaw' cycle and annoys me.

So my question is, for relatively fast thaw, how do you do it?  How do you build that 'lost time' into your workflow?  Or do you advise against the last minute thaw thingie?

Thanks for considering my question.

Squeezy

A lot of guys like to hot tub (in the sink with warm water) steaks before searing them on the egg.

Can't see why that wouldn't work for thawing steak, chops, or other reasonably small pieces. May try it myself sometime, and if you do in the meantime, let us know how you made out ... eh?

Good luck!

stike

what squeezy says.

Little Steven

Not sure but I think stike was being facetious. He is a real kidder

stike

Nah. You can thaw stuff in cold running water. But if it's a steak, i just hot tub it

Little Steven

I'm not sure but I think it dries the **** out of the meat. Breaking fibres in the fast transition and so on.

forty_crk

What every one else says plus ditto on little steven...don't rush the thawing process too much or you will mess up the meat.  I do hot tub from time to time...I keep the meat in a zip-lock bag tryin to keep from breaking down the meat fibers...