Frozen Specialty Vegetables are Hot

By Scott Adair

I collect vintage cookbooks. As I was flipping through Fannie Farmer's classic, "The 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book," I came across the following quote that made me realize how lucky food scientists and research chefs are today: "Summer vegetables should be cooked as soon after gathering as possible; in case they must be kept, spread on bottom of cool, dry, well-ventilated cellar, or place in ice-box," reads a portion of a section entitled "Care of Vegetables." It continues: "Winter vegetables should be kept in a cool dry place. Beets, carrots, turnips, potatoes, etc., Should be put in barrels or piled in bins, to exclude as much air as possible."

Luckily, we no longer have to do as Ms. Farmer suggested thanks to an innovation by Clarence Birdseye. Birdseye developed and commercialized a method for quick-freezing food products without altering the original taste, as demonstrated in his "quick freeze machine" released in 1925. That technology has evolved to help form today's world of fresh-frozen vegetables that are at our fingertips on daily basis.

Today's increasing variety
When thinking about frozen vegetables, the first that come to mind are often carrots and peas. However, today's lesser-used vegetables could have more widespread appeal to the consumer. In the past, some vegetables, such as bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, artichoke hearts and tomatillos, were only available fresh and canned or jarred. Today, they're available in a fresh-frozen state with a flavor and texture that only fresh products surpass. These individually quick-frozen (IQF) vegetables do not require a brine or have the negative aftertaste that inevitably comes with the old-fashioned retort-canning process.

Consumers today are becoming more adventurous in their food choices. This has opened a lot of doors to formulating with frozen specialty vegetables. Whether Latin American, Pan-Asian, Tuscan, Spanish or North African, an increasing variety of ethnic foods are making specialty frozen vegetables hot in today's marketplace. Consequently, more companies are now promoting specialty niche items, which helps product designers create and manufacture authentic products. This allows the consumer to try an increasing number of ethnic and diversified foods -- and possibly take a mini culinary adventure by combining one or two global tastes with their familiar foods.

Latin American flavors have been growing over the past decade. This growth has introduced many new frozen vegetables to product designers. The first to hit the market was assorted bell peppers. In a manufacturing setting, use of fresh peppers was practically prohibited, because handling and prepping of these products was a nightmare for manufacturers.

IQF bell peppers offered product designers   the ability to formulate with such great flavor that they demanded different types of IQF peppers. Ingredient suppliers responded by introducing IQF Anaheim, poblano, serrano, jalapeño and habenero peppers. The market responded, and these items are now standard in many manufactured products.

The world's garden
Latin-flavored items are still on a positive growth path. In the wake of considerable national attention given to the large Cuban influence in South Florida, the use of even more exotic IQF items is now becoming more widely accepted. Green plantains, although technically a fruit, work as a great starch that could be treated as a vegetable for a unique presentation. Plantains are now available in an IQF form and the flavor and texture are very good. Such ingredients add a touch of the exotic to any dish.

Pan-Asian flavors are hot now, which provides a whole new area of flavors to work with and introduce to the general public. With low production costs and new technology coming out of China, product designers have an abundance of IQF vegetables that create great flavors and textures for healthier dishes. IQF ingredients like shiitake mushrooms and diced garlic make great flavoring agents. These dishes benefit from IQF water chestnuts and bamboo shoots, which display superior flavor to those in a can. These items all help create authentic Pan-Asian dishes, as well as Americanized versions, in a manufacturing setting.

With the introduction of tapas bars around the country, more Mediterranean dishes from Tuscany to Spain are coming into favor. With this trend, we get to experiment with roasted, smoked, grilled and caramelized IQF vegetables, including eggplant, bell peppers, onion, tomato, artichoke hearts and asparagus. Various combinations of these ingredients might make logical choices for stews, couscous, flat bread, pasta dishes and many more potential retail and foodservice products. Combining fire-roasted and caramelized flavors creates a unique, upscale and exciting way to highlight vegetables.

For grilled IQF ingredients, the produce is often cleaned and cut to specification and then coated with olive oil to help trap the smoky flavor notes. The product is then roasted slowly over an open flame to develop an intense flavor and add those great grill marks. Sometimes, flavors are added to create a certain desired smoke note.

Traditionally, roasted vegetables have been used as side dishes. However, more and more items, like roasted corn, are finding use as ingredients in other dishes. Some examples of where specialty roasted-vegetable ingredients can spin a product in an ethnic direction include pizzas, salsas, soups, salads and sauces. Roasted IQF ingredients make great flavor modifiers. Fire-roasted vegetables can give any dish a smokehouse flavor that is always popular.

Technical advances
In addition to IQF vegetables, there is a rapidly growing demand for reduced-moisture vegetables like tomatoes, chile peppers, onions, broccoli and zucchini. These vegetables are produced using the combined technology of dehydration and freezing to eliminate some of the free moisture typically associated with IQF vegetables. The resulting control of moisture reduces clumping and also intensifies color and creates a more concentrated flavor. When frozen vegetables are thawed or heated, syneresis, or weeping, is virtually eliminated. This means no soggy vegetables or wet spots. The reduced-moisture process minimizes cell damage and improves the texture as compared to regular IQF vegetables. Additionally, 1 lb. of reduced-moisture vegetables equals 2 lbs. of traditional IQF, and because the product contains less free water, shipping and handling costs are reduced by 25% to 50%.

Reduced-moisture IQF ingredients also remain stable longer due to its lowered moisture content. This opens many new doors for product development. In addition to increased variety, designers -- and the products they create, not to mention the consumers on the buying end -- now benefit from the improved food safety of reduced-moisture IQF ingredients. These products often have an HTST microbial-control step, which gives them lower microbial counts when compared to standard IQF or fresh vegetables.

Many product developers are finding that reduced-moisture vegetables are a way to produce creative artisan items, such as breads, dairy products and egg dishes that appeal to the consumer's taste buds, as well as their visual esthetics, since they don't form puddles by weeping. One item that I recently developed for SupHerb Farms, Turlock CA, is an IQF bruschetta blend. It contains reduced-moisture tomatoes, roasted red onions, roasted diced garlic and fresh-frozen herbs. When olive oil and balsamic vinegar are added, it instantly makes a wonderful bruschetta. This product also works well in pasta dishes, as a pizza topping or as a garnish for center-of-the-plate proteins. Many different fire-roasted vegetables are also available in reduced-moisture versions.

Another benefit of most reduced-moisture IQF vegetables, pastes and purées is that after freezing, the products are tested for aerobic plate counts, yeast, mold, coliforms, E. coli and Salmonella. This helps ensure that only safe products make their way to the consumer.

Formulating without borders
Specialty vegetables are not limited to IQF only. Product designers can add some really good specialty vegetable pastes and purées to soups, dressings or marinades to create authentic and creative dishes that have superior flavor. For some of these ingredients, the vegetables and herbs are very finely chopped and oils are added. This makes all the flavor particulates visible in the finished dish.

In the past, dehydrated, powdered vegetables were a popular way to flavor soups, dressings and marinades. However, those ingredients generally contained sulfites, which can have an adverse impact on the flavor of some products -- and even worse, cause a negative reaction in those who have a sulfite sensitivity. Most of the frozen items contain very little sodium and require few preservatives -- at most, a little citric acid is added to set the color. These items are delivered frozen, but they are usually refrigerator-stable for at least 30 days. The pastes and purées are a quick and easy way to create products with a real kick of flavor.

With the wide variety of fresh-frozen vegetables available to the product developers from coast to coast, we no longer have to limit ourselves to only producing seasonal dishes like Farmer did in 1896. The technology that is available today enables us to produce dishes that are creative, worldly and flavorful year-round.

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