Primary food processing

Before starting to prepare a dish, all products must undergo primary processing.

The tasks of primary processing are:

  • thawing of frozen food
  • release products from contamination and inedible parts
  • removal from the products of parts having a reduced nutritional value
  • giving the product dimensions, shape and condition, corresponding to the type of culinary product for which the product is intended
  • application of influences that ensure the acceleration of the subsequent heat treatment of the product.

Usually Thaw frozen products of animal origin – meat, by-products, poultry, fish.

With the advent of vacuum freezing, the shelf life of fresh products not only of meat (meat, fish, poultry, offal) but also of vegetable (vegetables, fruits, berries) of origin has increased. Defrosting products can be done naturally at room temperature or using a microwave oven.

To free themselves from contamination, most of the animal and vegetable food products coming into the primary treatment are washed. When washing, not only visible contaminants are removed, but bacterial contamination of the products is also significantly reduced. To achieve more effective disinfection, the product is washed at various stages of its primary treatment.

Vegetable products are freed from inedible parts by bulkhead, sifting, cleaning, stripping. When bulking vegetables, mushrooms, cereals and legumes from them, foreign impurities, spoiled, unsuitable specimens are removed by hand, etc. Various impurities are extracted by sifting from loose products – flour, cereals. When peeling off vegetables, peel is removed. The cleaning consists in cutting out the spoiled and other unsuitable parts of the product.

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To the methods by which animal products are released from inedible parts, are:

  • plucking – removing feathers from bird carcasses
  • singing – burning of small hairs on the surface of bird carcasses, heads and legs of large and small animals
  • evisceration – removal of guts from bird and fish carcasses
  • cleaning – cutting of films, tendons, cutting marks for meat processing
  • soaking corned beef, salted fish.

Examples of methods for removing products with reduced nutritional value from products are:

  • boning – allocation of bones from carcasses of large and small animals
  • scaling fish
  • fillet removal from fish; while the spine with head and tail is removed.

For the fourth task of primary processing, the following methods are used: