1,608 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 77 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies that are necessary for its operation.
By continuing to browse, you agree to their use (learn more...).

Using stretch food film effectively

Maybe you use food film in your own kitchen. You know, the very thin, clear plastic stuff that you can stretch, often used to cover food and protect it from the air.

It’s become so widely used that it’s now an essential item for pros. They even have a verb for it in French: “filmer”: to wrap or protect with this famous stretchy film.

25 K 1× 4.9/5 (16 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Material Film Plastic Stretch Roll Protection Air Oxidation

Last modified on: May 12^th 2018

For this post Comments Lasts posts Follow

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

An indispensable aid in a professional kitchen, it’s also very useful for amateurs like us. If we need to put something in the fridge, such as leftovers, it’s very convenient to cover it with film first.

So let’s imagine that you have a portion of shepherd’s pie left (for example), still in its serving dish, and you want to keep it in the fridge for later in the week. You leave it to cool completely, just as you should, then cover with film and pop it in the fridge.

Naturally, you will cover the dish by stretching the film across the top, pull it down tight over the edges to seal it, then into the fridge it goes – quite normal.

But this method, though it does work after a fashion, is not very effective – and that’s what this post is all about. When we wrap or cover something with film, the idea is to seal it off from the air to reduce oxidation (of fresh produce) or stop it drying out (cooked food). If the film is simply stretched over the top of the container, some air (even if only a little) will be trapped inside with the food and the protection is not very efficient.

Here’s the trick: to protect food effectively with film, it is better to have the film in direct contact with the food. Stretching it doesn’t help; on the contrary. Pressing the loose film onto the food isolates it completely from the air.

Let’s look again at the shepherd’s pie example: you should lay the film over the top, of course, then make sure it follows the “cut” edge down, over the shape left by the serving spoon, to protect this exposed part.

Here is an illustration showing a strawberry coulis. This tends to oxidise rapidly if prepared in advance. The photo on the left show the “traditional” way to cover; the one on the right shows the film in direct contact with the coulis which, protected like this, will keep both its red colour and all its flavour.

strech film not close to food strech film close to food

To sum up: To protect food with plastic film, it is best to have the film in direct contact with the food.

Lasts posts

Season to the right level

When you need to salt something—for example, fish fillets before cooking them—you’ll naturally sprinkle them with a pinch of salt using your fingers. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about this very ordinary gesture, which is done all the time in the kitchen, and yet there’s a...
October 14^th 20261,1055

How to Properly Fill a Jar

When you have a jar in your kitchen that’s almost empty—flour or almond flour, for example—you’ll probably refill it before it’s completely empty. And that’s a great way to go about it—no one wants to run out of an ingredient right in the middle of a recipe. Once you’ve...
October 2^nd 20269335

Serving Temperature for Wine

When it comes to serving wine, you may (like me) have a fairly simple rule of thumb: red wine at room temperature, and white, rosé, and yellow wines in the fridge until it’s time to serve them. It’s very easy to remember, but it’s a bit simplistic, and you’ll see that there’s a much...
September 23^th 20261,0335

Hot Emulsified Sauces

In French cuisine, sauces are a very important part of a recipe—not just a side dish. In fact, they’re so important that, especially since the time of Auguste Escoffier, they’ve been classified into categories. And among these categories are “hot emulsified sauces,” or lukewarm ones. ...
September 9^th 20261,4385

Hot Dishes and Cold Dishes

When plating or serving a dish—whether hot or cold—on a plate, it’s very important to make sure they’re both the right temperature; in other words: if the dish is hot, the plate should be hot, and conversely, if the dish is cold, the plate should be cold. Is this really important? Let’s...
September 2^nd 20261,1783

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other articles you might also like

Candied fruits: don't get ripped off

Do you like candied fruit? You might like to nibble a handful or add it to a recipe, like a classic fruit cake or delicious Italian specialities like panettone or sicilian epiphany pie.
June 21^th 201772 K 24.2

Stand mixer tools

Whether we call it a stand mixer, food processor, or simply refer to it by brand (Kenwood, KitchenAid, etc.), this machine is a valuable tool for amateur cooks, bakers or pastry chefs like ourselves. All these machines come supplied with 3 different tools. Let’s take a look at their names and...
November 2^nd 201940 K4.5

Parsley stems

Parsley, whether curly or flat, is a delicious ingredient in many recipes, where it is used both raw and cooked. When used raw, in a salad for example, where it always provides, alone or with other herbs, a remarkable freshness, only the leaves are kept. And when used cooked?
July 28^th 202512 K 13

Making the most of seeds: Dry roasting

In cooking, and particularly in baking, there are a lot of seeds we can use, such as linseed, sesame, poppy, etc. Usually, recipes simply say to add them just as they are to the mixture or dough. To make a seeded loaf, for example, prepare a plain bread dough as usual, then, towards the end of...
January 30^th 201566 K4.0

The 3 essential knives

You must have heard a chef or cook say: "There’s no good cooking without good ingredients". This is very true, of course, but for any amateur or beginner it is equipment that really counts to start with. What I mean is that you should not skimp on kitchen equipment, good utensils, a food...
May 30^th 201827 K5

The 1 comment already posted on this page

Thank you very much!!
Posted by Kotalakidou effi may 23^th 2018 at 09:13 n° 1

Follow this page

Receive an e-mail as soon as this page is modified or receives a new comment.

We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.

Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.