Editor’s note: The theme of Gohan Lab is to help people make simple, tasty “gohan” (meals).

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Our latest series focuses on the art of freezing to strike a good balance between storage and good taste.

Chef Kuniaki Arima, in this installment, will show you a freezing method that enhances flavor, using a chicken breast.

A key factor is your ingredient’s water content. When the water freezes, the cells of meat are broken, and when the meat is thawed, its juice flows out and its taste is lost.

To prevent this, freeze the meat after draining an appropriate amount of water. Doing this serves the dual purpose of giving the chicken long life and boosting its flavor. The meat’s savory “umami” will become concentrated when the water is reduced.

Simply wrapping the chicken breast in kitchen paper or cloth will work, but unless they are changed often, the drained water will oxidize on the surface and the meat will end up absorbing the odor.

To avoid that, we used a special item called a dehydrant sheet (“dassui shiito”).

All you have to do is wrap the meat in the sheet and place it in the fridge for a few hours. Then rewrap it in regular plastic wrap, freeze and thaw before cooking.

Why not try it out to experience a new flavor in a familiar ingredient?

HOW DEHYDRANT SHEETS WORK

Dehydrant sheets are structured so that starch syrup and other components are fused in layers of semipermeable film with holes too small to be apparent, according to Okamoto Industries Inc., which makes a dehydrant sheet called “Pichitto.”

While water and odors are absorbed by the starch syrup due to osmotic pressure, the umami in larger molecules cannot pass through the holes and remains in the food.

The umami will be concentrated, and the food will become tasty, a spokesperson for Okamoto Industries said.

Dehydrant sheets are available at stores selling kitchenware or fishing gear, among others. The popular “Pichitto Regular 32R” is available on Okamoto’s online shopping site for 2,310 yen ($21.20) for 32 sheets.

BASIC COOKING METHOD

(Supervised by Kuniaki Arima in the cooking aspect and Kazuhito Kajiwara in the cookery science aspect)

Ingredients (Serve two)

1 (250 grams) chicken breast, 2 small tomatoes, 2 to 3 slices garlic, 50 ml white wine, 10 grams butter, 1/4 lemon, 1/2 tsp olive oil, bit of salt and pepper, 1 dehydrant sheet

About 265 kcal and 1.5 grams salt per portion

1. (Freezing) Roll chicken in dehydrant sheet (PHOTO A) and leave in fridge for a few hours. Rewrap in plastic wrap, place in freezer storage bag and freeze. (PHOTO B).

2. (Thawing) Move to fridge between half to full day before cooking.

3. (Cooking) Remove calyx from tomato and cut in half horizontally. Remove skin from chicken and cut meat into widths of 2 cm. Set skin aside.

4. Lightly sprinkle salt on tomato and chicken. Place olive oil and garlic in pan over low heat and when aroma rises, add chicken skin. When fat is released, throw skin away. Turn up heat and add chicken.

5. Add tomato and continue to cook. Add white wine and bit of pepper (PHOTO C). Squeeze in lemon juice, add butter and melt. When chicken is done, remove and serve. Reduce sauce until it thickens and pour on meat. If available, grate some lemon zest over it.

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Kuniaki Arima is the owner-chef of Passo a Passo, an Italian restaurant in Tokyo’s Fukagawa district. Kazuhito Kajiwara is a former professor at the Tokyo University of Technology who specializes in the study of food preservation.

ARRANGED VERSION

Roasted pork tenderloin (Serves two)

You can season the meat before freezing. Pat 200 grams pork tenderloin (“buta-hire”) dry, dust with a bit of sugar and leave for 20 minutes. Pat dry again and cover closely with plastic wrap, place in freezer storage bag and freeze.

Thaw in the fridge. Pat dry and sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper. Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in pan, cook pork while turning. Remove pork. Add 100 ml red wine, bit of salt and pepper, 1/2 tomato, 10 grams butter and bit of sugar in pan and reduce to make sauce.

COOKERY SCIENCE

Due to its different function, each compartment in the fridge varies in temperature.

When thawing food, move it from the freezer to the main compartment. Since enzymes and bacteria will start working when the temperature rises above 5 degrees, avoid thawing in the vegetable compartment.

If ingredients are frozen quickly, damage can be reduced. Use the freezer, not the partial freezing compartment, when freezing food.

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From The Asahi Shimbun’s Gohan Lab column