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Comment by turbinerneiter | Hacker News Reader

I defrost my fish in the package by putting it in hot tap water.

You, sire, drastically reduced my chance of dying. Thank you very much.

Do not do that. Defrosting should be done slowly in the fridge. Or you can cook frozen food directly. But do not defrost at or about room temperature, this will breed bacteria like crazy.

Wouldn't the food need to warm up to room temperature before bacteria would breed like crazy? If you defrost it from frozen to cold-but-defrosted, shouldn't you be ok, even if the surrounding air is room temperature?

The bacteria on the surface of the meat will hit room temperature in a few minutes, long before the entire piece is thawed all the way through. So it gets an hour head start.

No, it will not. But it depends on the shape of the meat. So if you are not monitoring the surface temperature, go with cold water or the fridge.

By that logic no one could ever safely eat steak tartare, which obviously you can without any issue. There will be bacteria growing in the surface, but unless someone fucked up somewhere along the way, they won't be harmful.

The issue is the timing. If you defrost in the fridge, it will eventually reach ambient temperature, but that's still safe. If you defrost on the counter, it will briefly be cold-but-defrosted, but rapidly progress to room-temperature-petri-dish.

> If you defrost it from frozen to cold-but-defrosted, shouldn't you be ok, even if the surrounding air is room temperature

Yes, that's my point. If you defrost in the fridge it's ok. If you defrost at room temperature then it's dangerous.

It's not extremely dangerous. Many people do it every day and don't die. But it's better not to.

No, what I meant was, if you defrost it at room temperature, it will not instantly warm up to room temperature - it will slowly warm up. You're not forced to leave it on the counter until it reaches room temperature, you can choose to use it before that point (even though it is surrounded by room-temperature air). It's possible to have a less-than-room-temperature fish inside a room that is in room temperature.

defrosting under warm water takes about 5 minutes, if you cook it immediately it's perfectly safe

Very much depends on what you're defrosting. A piece of meat frozeon at -20C will not defrost in 5 minutes under warm water.

It mostly depends on how large (or rather how thick) the chunk is. If you're talking about wafer-thin slices of salmon, then it'll defrost in about 30 seconds in cold water, even if it was frozen at -20C. If you're talking about a whole large turkey, then it'll probably take more than a day.

eep, my girlfriend insists on leaving meat out on the counter top for most of the day to defrost. I mean it feels cold to the touch still when we're ready to cook, and everything is cooked thoroughly, and we've never gotten sick yet but. Still dubious.

Putting it in the fridge to defrost takes 24 hours or so though.

Put it in cold water in the fridge, it goes pretty fast that way. It has saved my bacon a few times (both literally and figuratively).

defrosting in cold tap water also works just fine. I noticed that this keeps the fibres and cells intact which is advantageous for frying afterwards as the filet won't fall apart so easily.

> drastically

If it was that dangerous you'd have heard of dozens of deaths and it would have been banned a while ago. People don't read instructions

Put it in cold tap water in the fridge and it will also defrost much faster than in the air, while staying at a safe temperature the whole time and it also won't be partly cooked already.

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