Question: My husband is a fishing fanatic, and by the end of the summer our freezer is loaded with fish, which we eat all year. But I'm concerned that I may not be using the right method for freezing. I hear there's a way to coat the fish with ice that supposedly works well.
Answer: That method is called "ice glazing." It takes more time than other ways of freezing fish, but it's probably worth the effort, especially if you plan on keeping the fish for more than a couple of months. It is very effective at preventing fish from drying out during long term storage.First, freeze the fish, unwrapped, on a tray covered with wax paper. Next, dip it in ice water to coat it with ice. Put it back into the freezer for 20 minutes or so until the glaze is solid. Repeat the process up to six times, or until a thick coating has formed. According to some authorities, the fish will keep even better if you add commercially available anti-oxidants normally used to freeze fruit to the solution in amounts of 4 teaspoons per gallon of water. If you do use them, rinse the fish in cold water after you thaw it.
Once it has been glazed, the fish should be wrapped tightly and stored in the coldest part of the freezer. The coating is fragile. Handle the fish carefully during both packing and storing.
Question: I'm trying to cut down on the amount of red meat in my diet. Recently I tried ground turkey for the first time and it tasted pretty good. What is its nutritional value?
Answer: That varies slightly depending on the type of meat used, leading to minor differences in the amounts of fat and calories. Some is made entirely from dark meat, usually deboned drumsticks. At other times it is a mixture of white and dark meat. On average, however, 31/2 ounces of ground turkey meat will have 125 calories, 22 grams of protein (which is about half the daily Recommended Dietary Allowance for an adult, non-pregnant, non-lactating woman) and about 4 grams of fat.
Ground turkey can substitute for beef in many dishes.
Question: My sister and I always argue about which tastes better, black olives or green ones. I was wondering, other than color, is there any difference between them?
Answer: All olives start out the same color: green. They are also quite bitter when they are picked and must undergo several processing steps before they can be packed and sold. First, the bitterness is removed with a diluted alkaline solution. Next, the olives are rinsed and put into brine. At this point, those that are destined to be black undergo an extra step: air is bubbled through the solution to oxidize the fruit, and a compound called ferrous gluconate, which contains iron, is added to fix and retain the color.
Green and black olives are nutritional equals. You can't count on them to give you anything but calories. How many depends on the size. For marketing purposes, olives are divided into nine size categories, the smallest having just 4 calories each; the largest, 18 apiece.
If you are trying to watch your sodium intake, olives are a bad bet. Just four of them contain about 400 milligrams of sodium - about as much as you would get from an ounce and a half of ham.