Why frozen veggies just make sense

The past few years have yielded significant challenges around price stability and supply continuity for the food service industry. With the outlook for 2023 hinting at similar levels of uncertainty, the benefits of frozen produce have never been clearer

Frozen vegetables receive unfair criticism for being a compromise on quality and nutrition. This is not the case, with frozen veggies fully justifying their place as a worthy staple in every commercial kitchen. Let’s explore why.

Quality and nutrition

Frozen vegetables are blanched and snap-frozen soon after harvest. Blanching destroys microorganisms and inactivates enzymes that cause deterioration to freshness, colour and texture. Meanwhile, freezing puts the brakes on nutrition losses, giving frozen vegetables great nutrition across their shelf life. The Australian Dietary Guidelines recognise frozen and fresh produce as suitable and nutritious sources of vegetables.

Convenience and time

Using frozen vegetables removes the preparation time involved in washing, peeling and cutting vegetables manually. In a busy kitchen facing labour shortages and rising costs, this is a gamechanger. Frozen vegetables also have a relatively long shelf life, providing chefs with access to quality produce at all times of the year, directly from the freezer.

Yield and waste

Frozen vegetables help tackle kitchen food waste because chefs can use only what’s needed while the remainder is stored in the freezer for its next use. For every kilogram purchased there is 100% yield. This contrasts with fresh vegetables, where a portion of produce purchased is inevitably lost to peeling, trimming, removing inedible parts and spoilage.

The value of Edgell Bite-Sized Vegetables

Edgell has created a range of small-cut vegetable mixes that are the perfect answer to the challenges facing kitchens in 2023.

Every 1.5kg pack of Edgell Bite-Sized Vegetables saves around 22 minutes in preparation time, allowing staff to focus on the jobs that really make a difference around the kitchen. Featuring 10–15cm cuts, these delicious veggies can be cooked straight from the freezer whenever they are needed.

Edgell’s expertise ensures that only select quality vegetables are included, which are then snap-frozen to lock in goodness and flavour.

Using Edgell Bite-Sized Vegetable Mixes can give you the edge, saving time and labour, while optimising yield and minimising waste. Use them in stir-fries, pasties, soups, counter meals, curries and more.

Speak to your Simplot Foodservice representative today and find out how Edgell Bite-Sized Vegetables can make your life easier in 2023.

Recently I was lucky enough to be the “and guest” to my UK journalist friend Rhonda’s VIP press visit to Melbourne. A weekend of culinary adventure was curated for us by Visit Victoria, taking in some of the city’s best new restaurants. I jumped at the opportunity to be a tourist in my hometown. Here’s a taste of our itinerary.

DAY 1 13:30 LUNCH@ Big Esso Mabu Mabu

DAY 1 19:00 DINNER@ Farmer’s Daughters

Big Esso (biggest thank you) is the newest venture of chef-owner Nornie Bero, showcasing the food of her childhood growing up on Mer Island in the Torres Strait. The Federation Square restaurant (on the land of the Wurundjeri people) is bright and buzzing, cacophonous with the sound of punters enjoying themselves. A pink neon sign with Big Esso flashes above the blue tiled bar and graphic black artworks by indigenous artists are painted on white walls. Jars of native ingredients line the open shelves, caps with “DEADLY” in gold font are for sale and it feels like a super hip and contemporary celebration of culture.

DAY 15:30

Melbourne Drinking History Tour

Source: goodfood.com.au

Nornie insists on sourcing from environmentally conscious and/or First Nations, queer-led and women-led producers wherever possible.

We kick off lunch by ordering a pepperberry bloody mary each. It is deliciously punchy and savoury and garnished with succulent sea fig. Unfortunately for Rhonda, who is an adventurous gastronome, I can be squeamish, so the emu and crocodile are not on our table today. We instead order spicy, charred chilli brussels sprouts with macadamia cream, rock baked yams topped with piquant sea parsley, saltbush and warrigal greens, chimichurri and a wattleseed crumbed spatchcock on rich, sweet and purple Congo pomme purée.

It is great to be eating the native produce of this land with a visitor from the UK and feels like the most appropriate way to be introduced to Australia’s culinary scene.

1 13:30 LUNCH@ Esso Mabu

DAY 1 19:00 DINNER@ Farmer’s Daughters

DAY 2 15:30 Melbourne Drinking History Tour

The menu at Farmer’s Daughters is a celebration of the Gippsland region, with provenance its guiding principle. What a perfect place to go as a visitor to Victoria!

The lighting is intimate, and the restaurant exudes a sense of restrained elegance. We are seated at the bar, with a view to the open kitchen, mesmerised by the meditative and perhaps misleading calm of the chefs at work.

DAY 2 19:30 DINNER@ BKK Thai at HER Bar butter. It is heavenly and is quickly joined by a plate of thinly sliced ethical ham, green olives, mustard leaf and radish.

Every dish that follows—organic broccolini with a jammy egg and aioli, crumbed monkfish with hollandaise and herbs, flank steak with red cabbage and fried Jerusalem artichokes, caper-berry salad and skin-on fries—is a swoon-worthy example of produce-led, unfussy food. The final course of a honey panna cotta with toasted hazelnuts and golden raisins is sublime.

The first plate of our Deli Chef’s Selection Menu is a fat wodge of malty, warm soda bread and a generous pat of cultured

We leave feeling wonderfully spoiled and, while Rhonda is falling in love with Melbourne for the first time, I realise that after two years of being locked in isolation from the city’s embrace, I am happily succumbing back into its arms.

Rock baked yams, Big Esso cont’d cont’d 1 19:00 DINNER@ Farmer’s Daughters

DAY 2 15:30 Melbourne Drinking History Tour

DAY 2 19:30 DINNER@ BKK Thai at HER Bar

We are back in Fed Square, meeting our moustachioed host, Daniel. He is as irreverent and knowledgeable as you would hope of a drinking history tour guide, bringing to life the gold rush days when Melbourne’s population exploded and the newfound wealth funded booze and flooze in equal measure.

We see the urban art of Melbourne’s famous laneways and Daniel takes us to some hidden gems, including the city’s only gin producer, Little Lon Distilling Co, where drinks are named after the characters that once inhabited the surrounding redlight district. We drink cocktails until night falls and our dinner booking awaits.

DAY 2 15:30 Melbourne Drinking History Tour

DAY 2 19:30 DINNER@ BKK Thai at HER Bar

HER is described on its website as “an entire building dedicated to the things Melbourne loves—modern classic food, sophisticated drinks, art, design and music”. It might be the three cocktails speaking but we instantly love HER.

Housed in a heritage-fronted former cigarette factory, HER is a multi-level venue housing a basement bar, an all-day bistro, a Bangkok street-food restaurant and a rooftop bar.

At BKK (HER’s Thai restaurant), we have a fantastic banquet meal of small courses, including oysters bathed in coconut and kaffir, light-as-air fried curry puffs, grilled sausage sliced with green papaya salad, powerfully hot larb and sweet creamy jackfruit green curry. We are advised by our charming host Rudolf to pair the food with a lightly spritzed soft red.

As if in a dream by now, we descend the custom-lit stairwell by French designer Herve Descottes to the Music Room, a soundproof space boasting an entire wall lined with records. The room fills steadily with people and before we know it, we are dancing with strangers and letting time dissolve. My time as a tourist in my own town has ended, and I can’t wait to visit again.

Burgers: 12686

Mince: 12969

Schnitzel: 12687

Chicken Strips: 12693

Meatballs: 12970

Lamb Strips: 13183

As cooler nights and shorter days roll in, hearty and soulful food beckons. Curries of all styles meet the call for simplicity, delicious flavours and textural contrasts, offering the perfect complement to Autumnal menus.