I have always just boiled my mince in boiling water and drained it off.
However someone recently told me to brown it in a frying pan then simmer it in water for at least an hour and I would taste the difference. I did this and I didn't!
How do you do yours?
|
|
Dry fry it with a chopped onion in the pot or pan you are going to cook it in anyway until brown and the onion is soft. Then add water and gravy browning. Simmer for about half an hour. Sorted.
|
|
If you want to add some flavour, fry in batches (to keep the heat up) to get the maillard reaction. Critical to the taste of fresh bread (see thread) coffee, numerous other edibles. Google for the story. This is not to mention onion, garlic, herbs. Essentials in a dish based on minced meat:)
Last edited by: NortonES2 on Tue 4 Jan 11 at 19:29
|
Steady on Norton, he's Scottish, one step at a time on the fancy food tips eh ?
:-)
|
|
Friend of my Daughter eats it raw!
|
|
Indeed, makes the basis for steak tartar.
|
|
The Alba connection. That might explain it:)
|
Make sure you get decent mince to start off with...... not as easy as you think. I have a lady working for me who raises sheep and I buy half a lamb at a time which includes mince....but I do not have it as just plain mince.
First fry off some onions plus a clove or two of garlic then add mince to the frying pan and fry until brown , add a sprinkle mixed dried herbs and a half pint of stock , bring to the boil and simmer gently until cooked but why have it plain? Make it into shepherds pie.
Boil and mash some potatoes mixing them with some butter and milk .
Grease a pyrex dish and pour in your mince,cover with the mash and stick in a preheated oven at gas Mk 3 for around 40 minutes until the mash topping is crispy ...remove and eat.
Yum .....
|
First, do brown it well in a heavy bottomed pan.
400 grams of mince is the norm for the quantity I make.
Second, chop a good sized onion finely.
Third, dice finely a carrot or two, depending on their size.
Take the meat out and into the pan put enough oil to soften the finely chopped onion, by gentle cooking.
After a while you can add your diced carrot. Stir it around a bit for a few more minutes then add your browned mince. Mix well. Add some mixed herbs - one or two teaspoonsful, a couple of bay leaves, around a teaspoonful, or a little more, of Worcestershire sauce,a measure ,or a little more, of meat stock powder, (Knorr is the one I use), some ground black pepper and just enough water to barely cover the mince mixture. I also use Crosse & Blackwell gravy browning to give a nice rich colour. (NOT Bisto, please!)
Simmer this gently for at least an hour, until the meat is soft and the carrot well cooked.
If the resulting mixture is too runny (it shouldn't be if you have judged the water input correctly), you can thicken it with around a teaspoonful of cornflour, slaked in a little water. Make sure the mixture boils after adding the thickener to ensure the cornflour is cooked.
Never had a complaint on this method - I use the mince cooked like this in my #1 in the world favourite food: Cottage Pie!
Last edited by: landsker on Tue 4 Jan 11 at 19:39
|
|
Recipes for my famous Chili-con-carne and Bolognese sauce available on request!
|
A small amount of of olive in in the pan, then fry it till it all changes colour.
Drain the fat rendered from the mince into the dog bowl. Put the mince to one side.
Fry some finely chopped onions and chopped garlic in the pan, gentle heat till it goes soft and transparent, tip the mince back in, mix together and fry again till the mince is a darker brown,
The above makes the basis for spag bol (add chopped tomatoes and oregano) quick chile (add tomatoes and chile flakes) Shepherds pie, etc etc
|
Mince just boiled in water must give off an enticing aroma :-(
I know not a lot of the principles but I do make the spag bol in our house.
I always fry the onions first (with the bashed garlic if required) usually in olive oil before adding the mince. I'm convinced that the more you brown the onions the richer the eventual flavour. I do chuck the mince in and brown it but I'm not convinced that matters as much.
Mince can be a bit flavourless, especially the extra lean stuff, so I usually add an Oxo or two, and/or a Knorr beef Stock Pot (as cringingly advertised by Marco Pierry White).
For spag bol I use Schwarz Italian seasoning bought in catering sized jars which has basil as well as origami in it. It has a bit of garlic in as well but very little helps.
Last edited by: Manatee on Tue 4 Jan 11 at 20:14
|
The knorr stock pots are far too salty, both for taste and health IMHO. Vegemite reduced in hot water with some tomato paste mixed in makes a good savoury stock thing.
I have never heard of anyone boiling mince, thats disgusting frankly.
|
>> The knorr stock pots are far too salty, both for taste and health IMHO.
That explains why I never have to add salt when I use one. I'e just been and checked and you're right - a 28g one is 21.5% salt which makes up to 500ml with about 5.7g of salt in it. I'll stick with Oxos (don't tell me).
>> Vegemite reduced in hot water with some tomato paste mixed in makes a good savoury stock thing.
I take it that has less salt in it than Marmite then?
|
Mince made by home mincing a cooked joint is far superior to the stuff sold raw in trays.
|
|
And proper butcher sold stuff is better than awful Supermarket sold crap.
|
>> And proper butcher sold stuff is better than awful Supermarket sold crap.
That's championship Z. Premiership meat comes from a farmer's market.
|
Absolutely right, Iffy. Minced meat made from a Sunday joint was how Shepherd's Pie was made originally, Cottage Pie was made from fresh minced meat. The problem is that few have proper mincers at home and ground/shredded meat made in a processor just does not work.
|
>> Absolutely right, Iffy. Minced meat made from a Sunday joint was how Shepherd's Pie was
>> made originally, Cottage Pie was made from fresh minced meat.
Now I thought cottage pie was made with minced beef, and shepherds pie was made with minced lamb.
By way of a change sometimes I make my "pie" with minced pork, and put a little bit of cranberry sauce in the gravy.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 5 Jan 11 at 08:47
|
...The problem is that few have proper mincers at home and ground/shredded meat made in a processor just does not work...
I use a simple, manual die-cast mincer which clamps to the edge of the table.
tinyurl.com/387lpfg
The mincing discs have holes, not blades, so there's nothing to sharpen.
The machine will literally last a lifetime in domestic use.
Modern ones are plastic, which is OK-ish, but the suction cup grips are not much good.
I suppose everyone these days has fitted kitchens which don't have a sturdy ledge for clamp.
Cottage pie made from a minced joint is really delicious
Beef, particularly when it's cold, can be tough, so I reckon it was minced to make it more palatable.
It was also about economy, when meat was rationed you had to make the most of what you had.
Everything could go through the mincer.
|
...My mother had a spong...
Mine's a Spong.
Never seen one with feet.
|
|
No idea about marmite, vegemite is 3.5% salt.
|
>>No idea about marmite,
A little less than 10% salt, as far as I can tell.
|
Brown it in the bottom of the pressure-cooker. Add onion and flour. Pressure-cook it.
Edit: Don't forget a little pepper too.
Last edited by: FotheringtonTomas on Tue 4 Jan 11 at 21:10
|
If you put it in PU's breadmaker, would you get a meatloaf?
|
|
I was thinking of posting something similar - but I decided not to. :-)
|
In my Safeway days we had one customer who insisted on getting minced sirloin.
He would pay the price of the steaks from the counter as they were, and then our butcher would run them through the mincer for him!
|
Flame resistant suit on.
Some of the best mince we've ever bought is the Scottish beef mince sold at Lidl's, SWM always drains any fat off once the cooking has started, virtually none in this though.
|
>> Some of the best mince we've ever bought is the Scottish beef mince sold at
>> Lidl
What a coincidence. I have just been cooking some mince from Lidl, "Strathvale" - "typically less than 10% fat. It's good. The obsession with low-fat is not always reasonable, though, and sometimes leads to lrage amounts of fat being "hidden" in other things (read the label on some liver pate sometime - brace yourself for a shock - it's not at all like home-made).
I are do also have been cooking a quantity of sausages in the electric oven. The air's thick and blue in the kitchen, and makes my eyes water and sting, you can hardly see across the room, pooh er gosh. *That's* fat! Should've done them in the range, but it's on "low".
|
'insisted on getting minced sirloin.'
Perhaps he liked Steak Tartare which is raw fresh steak - sirloin is good, mixed with seasoning and a few herbs. Surprisingly delicious.
|
>> Perhaps he liked Steak Tartare which is raw fresh steak
I like raw steak - sliced fairly thinly with a knife, made into a sandwich with butter in it, and that's all. I don't like steak tartare, due to all the stuff in it.
|
Here we go then for the NON cooks way of doing it:)
Take one frying pan with a lid ( I think you posh folk call it a Sauté pan)
Throw in the mince sliced onion and mushrooms along with the diced carrot.
Look at the herb rack and add garlic and any others you need to get rid off.
Fry quickly until it smells good and it looks all brown,
Take lid and drain of any fat down the plughole with the hot tap running.
In a jug add boiling water to Marigold Boullion and gravy granules until nice and thick. Pour over mince and put lid on.
Leave on lowest setting forever and ever but every time you walk past the cooker, you have to have a spoon and taste it to see if it's OK:)
On a serious note, I often never know withing a 3 hour time slot what time Ian will be getting home and we'll be eating. If that's the case I tip it into a small casserole and put a lid on it and leave it in a low oven until needed.
I agree, the browner the onion the better the taste, but always remember my mantra...
When it's brown it's done, when it's black it's burnt !
Pat
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 5 Jan 11 at 10:14
|
|
Some sound advice here. Just to amplify what Norton says on the Maillard reaction, when you put the meat in the hot oil, it pretty soon changes from dark red to mid-grey. This is not browning - you need to give it a good three minutes without moving it, then flip it over and repeat on the other side, breaking it up as you go. This will form a rich, glossy brown crust, and some bits will probably stick to the bottom of the pan; not a problem - you can loosen them with a spatula when you add your liquid. The caramelized sugars will dissolve and add to the flavour of your gravy.
|
Brown mince.
Add onions chopped fine. Fry .
Ass cheap red wine. and bisto. Cover and simmer for 30 mins...
|
Boiled mince... my God!
1. Heat a pan with a mixture of unsalted butter & olive oil. Chop a garlic clove and put into pan for 30 seconds, then add a chopped onion and turn the heat down to minimum and cook very gently until the onions have gone transparent, NOT brown. This will take ages but is important as brown onions are bitter.
2. Separately fry the mince (1 lb) in a frying pan, a little at a time otherwise the temperature of the pan drops and you end up with water coming out. Fry until brown - i.e. leave it undisturbed until it goes properly brown. Also fry briefly a chopped carrot and a stick or two of celery.
Then combine 1 & 2 in a casserole dish, and add: Tin of tomatoes, two glasses of wine and a glass of stock. (The best wine you can - I generally find that if you go round after a dinner party and gather up the dregs from bottles/glasses that I always have good wine for cooking. It doesn't matter if it's corked/turned to vinegar, the better the wine the better the food. No "cooking wine" in my house.) Salt, pepper, fresh herbs from garden. Dash of Worcester sauce if you fancy.
Then cook in a low oven - about 150 degrees for three hours until the sauce is syrupy and the mince is tender, and serve with some linguine.
Boiled mince, wow! I thought such things had gone out with rationing. Even workhouse scouse sounds better than that: euphoricarythmia.com/showthread.php?t=21333
|
>> 1. Heat a pan with a mixture of unsalted butter & olive oil. Chop a
>> garlic clove and put into pan for 30 seconds, then add a chopped onion and
>> turn the heat down to minimum and cook very gently until the onions have gone
>> transparent, NOT brown. This will take ages but is important as brown onions are bitter.
I have to take issue with that. Garlic needs to be cooked for less time than the onions.
|
|
Disagree. The garlic needs to be cooked hotter than the onions in order to release the full flavour, but just for a moment - hence adding the onion to cool the pan; don't let the garlic brown otherwise the flavour is peculiar. At THAT point turn the heat down as the onion needs to go transparent, not brown.
|
|
Re Zero. Agreed. Burnt/very brown garlic is bitter, to my taste but I think in some recipes (dahl etc) they call for blackened garlic:). Browned onion is sweet. I did some shallots last night for a veggie dish (basmati and wild rice with chickpeas and herbs etc) which require browning. Had to watch that I left some for the meal...
Last edited by: NortonES2 on Wed 5 Jan 11 at 11:49
|
Browned onion is indeed sweet (hence onion marmalade) but not necessarily/IMO generally the flavour you want in your casserole. Transparent is the way forward. Brown the meat for the caramel, leave the onions transparent for the onioniness. Transparent onions never get hot enough to release the garliciness from garlic.
Hence garlic in first to hot pan then add onion. Zero is - for once - absolutely wrong; stark staring bonkers in fact.
|
I beg to disagree, garlic - despite its stong flavour - is far more delicate to cook than than onion.
Ask the chefs.
|
|
Onion first, then garlic, please!
|
Somehow I get the feeling that Booby G doesn't do dinner parties with fine wines or liguine Mapmaker although I stand to be corrected.
Incidentally you should never used corked or stale wine in your cooking. It tastes horrible. The dregs from peoples glasses Yuk. I'd prefer Bobby G's mince.
|
>>Incidentally you should never used corked or stale wine in your cooking. It tastes horrible.
Au contraire. Corked wine leaves no taint whatsoever in cooking. Likewise stale wine. And the dregs from the bottom of the bottle complete with sediment contain good flavoursome bits. Wouldn't want to drink any of it.
Have you ever tried? Or are you just guessing? I once made an "experimental" casserole using corked wine - expecting to ditch it - and have never looked back.
IMO abaondoned good wine is far too good to waste, and gives a far better result in cooking than "cooking wine", even weeks later.
Don't you use the grouse bones from people's plates for making game stock?
|
'If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it' is a good way to look at it.
Corked wine breaks that rule, but I'm sure there's nothing wrong with cooking with it.
Red wine - of any quality or condition - can draw a metallic taint from metal cooking containers.
Best to use glass or earthenware for casseroles.
|
Beg to differ - It give the food the same musty taste as the wine. Depends on your sense of taste I suppose. Best thing to do with corked wine is to take it back to the shop and get your money back. Make sure the next bottle has a Stelvin screw cap
"Don't you use the grouse bones from people's plates for making game stock?"
Nah, I tell my gamekeeper to bring me one or two extra and cook deals with that sort of thing. Still i suppose tis hard times for some. :-)
|
>>Beg to differ - It give the food the same musty taste as the wine
Do you have experience of this? Have you ever tried?
I consider myself extremely sensitive to TCA, and do not consider the taste goes through to food.
Impossible to take wine back if it has been in the cellar for some years, or if purchased from the vineyard or France or auction.
|
Do you have experience of this? Have you ever tried?
Yep
Horrible
Impossible to take wine back............
Ah - Try a supermarket - everyone but everyone is using them these days!
|
Not convinced - one musty casserole is enough for me!
Seriously I don't by much wine now with cork closures. Screw caps are the future even for fine wines. Don't see why we should be buying an expensive product like wine and expecting 5- 10% of the product to be undrinkable
|
The jury is out on whether screw caps will last 10 or 20 years; I suspect they will not - they will rust and then you will lose 100% of your cellared wine. I agree, or course, on the 5-10% loss rate - though I don't think it's that high these days. I remember in the early/mid 90s maybe one bottle in six was corked.
Next time you have a corked bottle, boil a carrot in a glassful of wine. And see what you think.
|
That doesn't rhyme as well as my word did:)
Pat
|
|
No Pat and your word conveyed rather more ! :-)
|
Can't argue with that:)
Pat
|
|
Garlic does not go in ordinary mince!
|
Chili-con-carne.
400 to 600 grams good mince – all beef or 50/50 beef & pork.
1 good sized Spanish onion, chopped very finely.
4 to 6 good juicy garlic cloves, chopped very finely.
½ , or more, depending on size, of a red or green pepper, chopped.
400 to 600 grams of cooked red beans. (I like lots of beans in my chilies.)
2 reasonably well heaped tablespoonsful good bright red paprika.
1 (or more to taste) flat teaspoonful red chilli powder.
½ to ¾ teaspoonful of smoked paprika (Pimenton “La Vera” may be bought in the UK in the spices section of Tesco or Sainsbury).
This smoked paprika gives my chilli its own special taste. Don’t overdo it as the flavour is strong.
Knorr meat stock powder.
Corn oil for frying.
Red or white wine vinegar.
Into a small dish put the paprika, hot chilli powder and smoked paprika. Add enough vinegar to make a slightly runny paste. Set aside.
Brown the mince well and set aside.
Add enough corn oil to the pot and cook the chopped onion and garlic until softened. Add the red or green pepper and saute for a few minutes.
Add the browned mince and mix well. Add the bright red pepper/vinegar slurry and mix well. Add just enough water to cover the mince, together with the stock powder to taste. (No extra salt needed!).
Cook until very soft and then add the cooked red beans for the last ten minutes or so.
Adjust thickness, if necessary with a little cornflour slaked in water.
NOTE: There are NO tomatoes in this recipe!
|
Chile con carne has no mince in it.
Chopped stewing steak and belly pork. And some extra pig skin/fat too, for good measure.
|
Bolognese Sauce.
400 to 600 grams of a mix of beef & pork mince.
A large Spanish onion, or two small UK onions, chopped finely.
At least 6 good juicy garlic cloves, chopped finely.
Two medium carrots, grated.
Two 400 gram tins of chopped tomato.
Tomato paste.
A glass of decent red wine.
Olive oil – ordinary for cooking, best for seasoning.
Knorr meat stock powder.
Ground black pepper.
Mixed herbs.
Brown the mince and set aside.
Put some of the ordinary olive oil in the pan and soften the onion and garlic.
Add the grated carrot and saute for a minute.
Add the mince and mix well.
Add the red wine and the chopped tomatoes.
Add enough stock powder & herbs to taste, with a good grind of black pepper.
This mixture should be wet enough not to need water adding.
Cook until soft. Check the tomato taste and seasoning generally, adding tomato paste if you consider it necessary (I usually do).
Thicken with cornflour slaked in water, if needed.
Finally, take the sauce off the heat for a minute or two and add around a tablespoonful of the good extra virgin olive oil. Mix well.
(Cooking olive oil actually destroys a lot of its flavour: I think a good Bol. Sauce NEEDS to taste of quality olive oil, but perhaps I’ve been spoilt by years in Spain where excellent oil may be had for around 15 to 17 euros for five litres. A can of Oleo Cazorla extra virgin is coming back to Britain with us!)
|
Browned onion is certainly sweet but only if it's first cooked till it's fully soft and transparent; then you can turn up the heat to caramelize the sugars. But too soon and it just burns, which is when it gets bitter.
Frying onions seldom gets the attention it deserves. Recipes say 'fry gently for 3-4 minutes until transparent', but it can easily take 20 and it may not happen at all if they're too thinly spread in a big pan. They'll come out much better over a moderate heat in a deep 20cm pan than over a low flame in the 28cm frying pan you might use for the meat. And yet crunchy or burnt onion will ruin a dish just as surely as perfectly soft, slightly browned onion will enhance it.
|
1 large onion.
500g mince, lean though not too lean.
Chop up the onion and fry it with a little olive oil in a larger frying pan.
Once the onion has softened and browned a little add the mince and continue to fry gently until all pinkness has gone.
Then either eat with gravy, mash, peas, carrots etc and a little Lea & Perrins (spellin' ?)
Or add bolognaise sauce.
Or add a little brown sauce, HP or similar.
Or add gravy and mash to mahe a cottage pie.
Or ...
|
Dip some home made bread in it...
Pat
|
Well this is all very interesting but we're having fish tonight, haddock to be precise, and I shall cook it in the oven in tinfoil parcels with a little olive oil. Unless anyone can post quick enough to change my mind..... Switching the oven on to pre-heat now....
:-)
|
|
Poached in a little milk - cheaper than heating the oven.
|
>> Poached in a little milk - cheaper than heating the oven.
>>
In the oven for us the add SWMOs special gherkin and tomato topping.
Standard fare at laest once a week in our household.
|
Don't do milk. Can't help thinking about where it came from...
Edit - Cheese is OK though. Doesn't look like milk.
Last edited by: Humph D'Bout on Wed 5 Jan 11 at 18:56
|
...Don't do milk. Can't help thinking about where it came from...
Haddock could be poached in fish stock or grilled, of course.
|
|
Daurade tonight. Never heard of it before: a sort of bream apparently. Couldn't get sea bass at the fishmongers, so thought we'd try it. Simply fried in olive oil and a little butter. Excellent. And 1/3 the price of farmed sea bass.
|
|
Daurade aka gilt head bream. Almost certainly farmed in Greece or turkey. Nice grilled on barbecue.
|
>> Daurade aka gilt head bream. Almost certainly farmed in Greece or turkey. Nice grilled on
>> barbecue.
Yup a nice fish
I prefer red snapper.
|
Dorada or Gilt Head Bream is hugely popular here.
A classic way of cooking it is in a salt crust, which leaves the fish beautifully moist.
Dorada are pretty cheap here. A small, one person, size is about 5€ to 6€ a kilo, whereas big ones for a family, or two greedy people, is about at 15€ to 17€ a kilo.
Sea bass are also often cooked in a salt crust and both types of fish are to be found on the menu of most good restaurants, particularly in Marbella or Puerto Banus.
|
|
Great thread, this. We stayed with friends on New Year's Eve, and we boys went to the pub before dinner. Being like-minded gastronauts, we talked about cookers, pans and venison. When our wives, and the other female guest, found this out (not that it surprised them) they ribbed us nonstop for the rest of the evening. Don't see the problem myself - after all, a cooker is just a power tool, isn't it?
|
|
May I suggest adding a little lime juice and zest, as well as a small amount of grated dark chocolate to a chilli? The lime adds a nice zing and the chocolate adds richness without making the end result taste chocolatey.
|
|
I always add a teaspoon of Marmite and mustard powder to mince after it has been browned.
|
|
I really must either clean my screen or go to Specsavers. I've just done a double-take, wondering why on earth anyone would want to cook MICE.........
|
|
Do you prefer them raw, Harley?
|
|
That's how I originally read it as well.
|
'I've just done a double-take, wondering why on earth anyone would want to cook MICE.........'
Here's how
www.rense.com/general27/ram.htm
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Wed 5 Jan 11 at 22:18
|
>> I really must either clean my screen or go to Specsavers. I've just done a
>> double-take, wondering why on earth anyone would want to cook MICE.........
>>
with two or three mice in one hand, take the kebab skewer.........
|
The world is in a bad way when my reply to a 'cooking mince' thread is number 76 :-)
Now is this minced beef, pork or lamb we're asking about anyway ;-) But I see we are now discussing Béchamel sauce too.
|
Just to bring you all down to earth, and from a female who treasures the time she has too much to spend it faffing about with food, here is what we had last night!
Chicken Kiev from Tesco
Potato Croquettes from Tesco
Tinned tomatoes....from Asda
Cost for two of us ...approx £1.42 each
Time to prepare...4 minutes
It's the New Year economy drive!
Pat
|
How do you cook mince? - Runfer D'Hills
