Episode 149 Transcript

Episode 149 How to Cook Ground Beef(.mp3 – Transcript

Welcome to the feed, your family tonight, podcast. Do you dread hearing the question? Whats for dinner? Whether you spend your days, keeping up with toddlers, running kids to after-school, activities are juggling, a career and family getting dinner on the table. Can be a struggle for us all. Im a Rafi box. A business owner wife, and mom of four. Im on a mission to build stronger families. One dinner at a time. And Im here with tips, tricks and inspiration. You need to feed your family tonight. Hello friends, welcome to the feed, your family tonight, podcast, episode 249, and Im so happy to be here with you today. If youre listening to this in life time. Its the day after Labor Day and I have chosen to spend some time with my family this weekend, but I have a great replay episode for you. It is all about how to cook ground beef. And there are some real practical tips in here that are just tiny little tweet that will make your food taste better. I bet when you listen to this episode, youre going to either think I never thought to do it that way, or thats why my food tastes so good. I have everything from, how to thaw, ground beef to how to add extra layers of flavor. We get into hamburgers and meatloaf and meatballs. Its all things ground beef and it should get you set up ready for the fall. So sit back, relax and enjoy this episode on. Ground beef. We talked about grumpy. The first thing we need to talk about is thawing meat. I talked about frozen meat before but it needs to be said. Because so often times, especially if youre like me and you get your corned beef from a local farmer. Its coming to you Frozen. And we need to talk about the diet. Of course, always the best way to thaw, meat is slowly in the refrigerator. I have found that one pound of ground beef, takes a little bit longer than a day and buy jam-packed refrigerator to get fully thawed. So when you are doing your weekly meal planning sheets, and you know, that youre having something with ground beef and youre using ground beef from your freezer, you might want to take it out 2 days in advance. So write that on the prep section of your weekly meal, planning sheet, two days before the meal that youre going to cook it. If you dont have a copy of the weekly meal planning sheet, you can get it free at feed your family tonight. Cobbs plan and if you find that you are using that Weekly meal planning sheet and it really works for you. You probably want to look at getting that meal planning notebook. Its on Amazon in the show notes here. But if you type it feed your family tonight meal, planning notebook. Itll come up on Amazon and it is $12 sometimes Amazon. Theyve been running sales on it. I seen it as low as $8 to have the sheets already there in a notebook ready for you just makes me a planning a little bit easier. If you want to Give It 2 Days in your refrigerator, the thought if you are anything like me, sometimes we forget to do things that were supposed to do when it comes to us all and its 5 at night and you have a pound of frozen ground beef. What do you do? Well, microwave is your friend. I have a setting on my microwave which is a 1lb frost taste like For 3 minutes. I usually just put the beef in, click that button and it usually gets the outer part sod, and then theres still a little bit in a part. So I can appeal off the part that says that the inner part back in for another 30 seconds and call it quits, anytime. Youre thawing meat in the microwave. If you want to make sure that you are cooking it properly. You dont want me to be heated up to a dangerous temperature, and then just put it back in the refrigerator. So if you are using the microwave, make sure that youre cooking it promptly. Another way, if you think about it at like lunch time or earlier in the afternoon, you can put it in a bowl of cold water. In your sink and just change the water, every 30 minutes, and that will usually get it to follow. Those are both safe ways to thaw ground bees. Once youve talked about several ways to cook ground beef at the first one is just Browning it. So, this is when youre Browning it to make tacos or youre Browning it to make chili. Or my tater tot casserole or cheeseburger baked potatoes. Youre just cooking the ground beef through. Theres a couple of things that you want to do to enhance the flavor of the ground beef that you cook it. The first thing is that you want to put the ground beef in the pan and spread it out into a flat disk all the way to the corners of the pan. I have a nice 10-inch Skillet and I can usually do ground bees in my 10-inch Skillet, before it gets to be too much. Youre going to put it in the pan. Youre going to turn the pan on medium-high and youre not going to touch the beef, but you are going to Salt it that rule of thumb for ground. Beef is about 3/4 of a teaspoon to 1 teaspoon of salt per pound of beef. And the reason I have kind of arrange. Their the first thing is, if you are using table salt, you definitely want to go closer to 3/4, maybe even a half. I like to use that coarse sea salt, so its a little bit higher in volume, but lower and sodium. If you are doing something where you are, adding other ingredients to the ground beef, then you can go with the higher salt level, because the salt is going to kind of thin out. If youre doing just a grumpy straight kind of, like, in cheeseburger, baked potatoes. You might want to go lower. You can always add more salt later, but its important to have the meat salted as it Cooks ground. Its even better to Salt it like a day ahead of time. So the thought has a chance to penetrate deep into the meat. Theres something that happens when you put salt on me it immediately draws the moisture out of the meat but then as it sits the moisture, Goes back into the meat. So you either want salt, the right before you cook it, or when youre using large cuts of meat, you want to sell that a few days ahead of time with ground beef. Its best just to Salt right before cooking or right. When you start cooking. It dont wait, until after its cooked to the Salt to penetrate deep into the, and its going to taste a little bit Bland. So its really important to Salt, cure meat. I cant tell you how many my friends I talk to you. I was shooting video at a friends house. We were cooking some beef for cheeseburger baked potatoes and I sense some salt and she was like, salt and I was like, oh my gosh, you got to Salt cure meat. So, thats a really big things Salter meet people, probably time for another episode on salt. Maybe, Ill have to add that to you, because salt is so important to having deep flavor. Okay, so kind of back to this ground beef. Ive got a little off. Tractor. But its important to talk about salt. You have it spread out into your Skillet and it is kind of in a Despair and you turn the heat on medium-high heat. And then I said dont touch it. And when I say dont touch it, I mean just let it cook there for like 5 to 7 minutes and your nose is going to tell you youre going to start smelling it and its going to start cooking. And then youre going to leave it alone. Just a little bit. Longer takes a little bit of patience. But what youre doing is youre creating the action, which is a technical term for when the meat Browns and youre going to have a lift at the edge of the meat and see if you have a nice thick brown crust. If you dont have a nice thick branch Crest, step away and dont touch him and keep it cooking until the bottom part has a nice thick brown crust. And then you can take your spatula and you can kind of cut it into chunks and flip it over. So that the other side of the meat starts to cook or you can get one of these gadgets. I do not have one. So I cannot say that I have a person. Use one Bible link to one that I really really trust recommends. Its called shop and it looks kind of like a pinwheel almost on the end of the stick and use it to cut the meat into smaller chunks. If one of you have one of them, let me know how you like it again. I havent used one but I heard theyre wonderful. So you flip it and you start chopping it into smaller pieces, you use this technique, youre going to get a really deep deep sea flavor from that Browning that happens on that crust that you get on the bottom. But you are going to end up with chunks of meat that are little bit bigger. But if you like me, you really soft like the taco me that you get at Taco Bell. If you like your meat, to be really soft. This other techniques, for cooking. Ground beef is going to be better for you, and that is to cook it in water. So, instead of putting the meat into a skillet, you could use a still up for this, but you could also use a pot and I usually use a pot for this technique because Im usually going to be flavoring the meet afterwards. And I want to have enough room, but you put the meat in the bottom of the pan and you kind of take a special or one of those chopped answers and kind of cut it into smaller chunks. Then you cover the meat with water, bring the water up to a boil and then slowly turn it down to a simmer and let the meat Shimmer as it is simmering. Youre going to want to stir it every 2 or 3 minutes and start breaking them down into smaller pieces. And as it Cooks in the waters are going to get this really soft. Now. Remember I said, salted assault this water, but you dont want to over salted. So were kind of back to that 3/4 of a teaspoon to 1 teaspoon per pound of meat, youre going to add that salt and let that cook in that. Salty water. The meat is going to simmer for 20 or 30 minutes, and its going to get soft texture and youre going to get smaller pieces of me. So thats the text you that you desire. You want to cook it in water. Is going to dictate whether or not you need to drain off fat from our butcher pretty late. So it doesnt have very much fat. So I usually dont have to drain off that, but if you are ordering, meet are buying meat, that is a higher percentage of fat and it really we need is like 95 to 99% lean moderate is about 85%, lean 15% fat, and then you start getting into fatty or cuts, which are 70%, lean, 30% fat, if youre in the 70 to 85, youre probably going to want a drain off. Some of the fat, you will take me for this, not poor fat down your sink because eventually over time, it probably wont do it the first time or the second time for the fifth time that someday when its a holiday, your pipes are going to clog in. Youre going to have to call a plumber and hes going to say And youre going to release date. Yeah, and hes going to chastise. You guys buy your plumber. Do you have the water is near that fat is going to Bubble to the top of the water, and you can use a spoon to kind of skim off the top of the fat. If you have a skillet and theres just fat on the edges. You can tell the skillet up and you just too slowly scoop it out or you could put a paper towel inside of a colander but the colander on top of a plate or a bowl and pour the meat into the colander. The paper towels going to absorb most of the fat and anyone else is going to drip onto the plate or into the bowl and then you can return them back to, youre still at to finish whatever you are doing with the cooked ground beef. Some of my favorite recipes that use ground beef that are cooked by either of these two methods depending upon The texture that you want, our cheeseburger baked potatoes tater, tot casserole in my class of chili and Ill link to all of those in the show notes. I talked about how to cook ground beef when youre just Browning it for recipes. The second way that were going to talk about ground beef is the classic hamburger. Burgers in the summer. There are several different ways to cook burgers, including grilling, broiling and pan-frying and Im going to talk about all three of those in a little bit. There are also three kind of ways to deal with the feet as you form them into patties and were going to start with that. The first way that you can make hamburger into patties is to take the ground beef and shape it into patties without any seasonings without any additives. This is going to give you a very but its not going to have a lot of residual flavor. Oftentimes, when you have that type of a Patty where its just beef, like the ones that you buy premade in the grocery store, you are going to want to see the nose with a minimum of salt and pepper on both sides as you cook them. But a lot of people like my father will doctor them up with like seasoned salt or garlic salt or something to add more flavor to just a slab of meat without any labor camp to of how to make your hamburger. Patties is a recipe that can originally from Cooks Illustrated and they made up a nod to mix with the beef to make extra juicy burger. That could be cooked fully through to have a burger that is super juicy that experts quote on quote to say that you dont want to cook it to fully well done, but they arent super Juice. That way. And so they created this. But Im going to talk about the here first. Empanada is a mixture, usually of bread and liquid. The liquid is usually milk because of milk has a little bit of fat and protein in it and you mix the bread or bread crumbs with. And it creates this kind of gelatinous space that you mix with the beef and that moisture to the meat, which gives you the mouse deal of juiciness in your hamburger. I have made these burgers with Cooks Illustrated where you mix salt and pepper and some spices in this pain. And mix it with the ground beef. And it makes a really good burger. It makes an extra juicy burger. I will talk a little bit about making Burgers ahead the patties and freezing them. I have done this technique with frozen patties. And it totally worse. This is a really good way to get a juicy burger is to mix it with a pen. My favorite is the feed. Your family tonight, make-ahead hamburger, patty, recipe, garlic powder, and onion powder, and salt, and why a, I dont really know the science behind it. If you want, to be honest, but my father, always use an egg when he made hamburger patties and it helps him stay together and it gives the moisture. I feel like its kind of the same idea. Is that panod where youre adding a little bit of fat from the egg yolk. Youre getting a little bit of protein from the egg white and it makes really great burgers. Burgers. I usually make in a large batch in the late spring or early summer, and I will make dozens of patties. And I will freeze them on sheets of parchment paper. And then after theyre frozen solid, I will put them into zip baggies and all summer. Long. I pull out these Frozen burgers that I put on my grill, straight Frozen. Its just so easy and so convenient. Hamburgers, which is one of our familys favorite meals and that is how I like to do that. I will link to my recipe in the show notes for you. Now, weve talked about how we form the path. Now, were going to talk about how to cook the patties. When you cook the patties. You can Grill them, you can broil or pan, fry them. I really dont. See the point. If you are a die-hard broiler with a gas grill and tan frying. Now, if you like charcoal, Im not your guy out cuz I just dont know how it work with charcoal. So if you are charcoal person replying, the comments of the blog post because I would love to hear about charcoal, but I know how to use gas. So thats why Im going to talk about a cappuccino friends. Gas grills. Need to be pre-heated. You want to preheat your gas grill for at least 10 to 15 minutes. Four, turn all the burners on, turn them all on high and get your gas grill, screaming hot, and then you want to clean your grill with a wireless grill brush. Now. This is my public service announcement to you. We had a friend of the family, if you know, Grill brushes that usually are little tiny wires that are on a long handle that you use to scrape off. Anything that has accumulated on the grill. And the easiest way to do it, is right before you grill, the next food with the gorilla screaming hot. You just scrub it with a scrub brush and all of that crustiness from your last cooking episode just melts away, but hes a little tiny metal hairs. Break off. And if you ingest one, it can cause a horrible issues. Our friend ended up having to have it surgically removed. She had months of health issues lost tons of weight and he is on a mission to teach people to use Grill brushes. That have one continuous wire so that the Little Liars dont break off. And you dont, ingest doesnt cause problems to the grill brush that I use in the show notes. It is a safety thing, and I want people to stop using the regular Grill brushes because I dont want anyone to accidentally ingest and its so easy to happen. Google it, youll totally see it. All horrify you, and then go and buy this grill brush because the one that I have doesnt have little pieces, it just has one continuous wire and it works really well on the grill. Heated, up your grill. You cleaned it with your safe grill brush. And then you put the Patties on. Im usually putting them on. Frozen, you can let him cook if theyre frozen, theyre going to cook for about 7 minutes at medium heat. So they all the burners on high heat, youre going to turn the burners down to medium heat side. Flip them, cook for 5, more minutes. If you want to talk with some cheese or something, great, your burgers are done. So thats kind of how to cook them on a gas grill. If you are pan-frying them. This is a messy and ever, and your house is going to smell like burgers for days unless you have a really good Hood, but you can get this really nice, deep brown, crust on your burgers. And sometimes that is the case youre going for and by golly, it is worth the best. So heres tips on how to pan, fry Burgers. My son will pan. Fry one burger at like midnight, and I can start smelling it in my sleep and Ill start dreaming of burgers. He is, thats one thing. He makes late at night. You want to get a heavy Skillet. If you have a cast iron skillet, that is the best, you want to heat it up. On medium-high heat until it is screaming hot and then you want to add your burger patty and you want to put a ladder guard on top because it is going to spot and spatter, fat all over, unless youre using like 99% lean beef, which is going to give you a burger. Thats kind of dry. I wouldnt recommend it, put a splatter guard on top to save yourself some of the cleanup. If you have an exhaust Hood, make sure that you turn it on as high as it will go because this is going to create a lot of grease and a lot of mess in your kitchen. If you dont have your exhaust Hood, going to let it sit in that skillet for at least 5 minutes and get that deep brown crust. Kind of like when we were Browning the hamburger before, then flip it. But it took for a couple minutes on the other side and you end up with this crusty hamburger, that is delicious. And while I am talking about hamburgers, we need Discuss the golf ball issue. Have you ever had a burger? And it popped up more like a ball and it shrinks and it doesnt go to the edge of the pond and you got this big thick Burger. Thats kind of hard to eat. My friends, that is a common issue with hamburgers and there are two really simple ways to deal with it. The first way is to make patties, extra wide berth. What happens when these hamburger patties turn into golf balls, is the outside of the hamburger is. Starting to cook the inside isnt and the proteins are shrinking on the outside and theyre coming in coming in. And then be only has one place to go which is to the center and it pops up in the center. If you make hamburger patties, extra thin and super white Frozen in the grocery store. I usually make my make ahead hamburger patties and I make them extra wide and extra thin, and then they usually shrink in and get a little bit thicker and they make perfect hamburgers. The other way to do it is youre making your patties. It can still be a little LPS sticker Patty and you just take your stuff and put a little divot in the center of the meat and youre going to have like a little they are and its going to fill with fat as that fat is rendered. Then eventually, when you flip it, the meat is going to fill in that space when youre going to end up with a flat Burger, but youre not going to end up with a burger. Thats life is like a golf ball. Another thing about Flipping burgers is when you flip your spatula and push down on it because what you are doing is you are releasing all of the fat that is inside of proteins. And youre going to end up with a very dry hamburger is going to be less packed and use a leaner meat. Do not push down on it with your spatulate either, when you are grilling them or pan-frying them. The last kind of techniques for cooking ground beef that were going to talk about today, is meatloaf and meatballs, and I touched on it a little bit earlier, but meatless and meatballs are usually some type of a pun. So, you have a bread and liquid usually milked. And sometimes theres some eggs and other ingredients mixed in, with the meat to bind it together or give it flavor. Its really key to have some type of an odd because it is going to give structure and its going to give moisture to the meatloaf for the meatballs. By the way, are basically the same thing. Its just about how theyre shaped and how theyre cooked. My dairy-free meatballs, which are linked to in the show. Noahs actually use water rather than milk for the pain. And Im not using fresh bread. Im using dried Panko bread crumbs. I have seen people, do it with gluten free bread crumbs. So if you need to be gluten-free, you can make a gluten-free pan odd with either milk or water and it still should come out pretty well. Send me Allrecipes old Pioneer Woman recipe for these barbecue meatballs that had oatmeal in them. Its the same concept youre mixing the oatmeal with the moisture of the water or the milk, and theyre going to absorb. And its going to create moisture in the meatballs. When you are dealing with meatloaf or Meatballs 2 key is surface area, service area is what gives the meatloaf or meatballs that crust? Which is the best part of the meatloaf or meatballs. So when you are making a meatloaf, do not put it into a loaf pan because youre only going to get a little Crest on the very top because that is where the meat is exposed to the air of the oven, make a free-form loaf and put it on a rimmed baking sheet. And youre going to have a greater surface area, which is going to give you greater Crest, which is going to make a better meatloaf. When you are doing me all you basically take meatloaf mixture and you shape it into balls and I am too lazy to shave it into balls. So I have a number 42 and I use that to make the meatballs. If you do not have a number 40 scoop. It is an indispensable tool. In my kitchen is linked in the show notes. I used it to make little lumps of my ginger garlic paste, that I freeze. I use it to make cookies. I use it to make meatballs. Its the perfect size for my mini muffin tin. It is such a handy tool and Im not one about having a lot of extra kitchen gadgets. But my number for the kitchen, scoop is something that I use at least weekly probably two to three times a week. When youre making the meatballs. You can cook them in one of two ways. You can cook them. The marry Sheldon way. Sheldon is my mother and when she makes meatballs, she individually fries and the meatballs in a skillet. She put maybe 12 and theres lots of air around them and deep crust but theyre not particularly which doesnt bother me because that thick crust again. The key is you let him cook and you dont touch them until the thick crust. Form, then you flip them and you cook them on the other side and you cook them until theyre cooked through. It is a messy Endeavor. It makes wonderful meatballs, but I dont have time for it. So I like to cook mine in the oven and you can see the technique in my dairy-free Italian, meatball recipe, but I basically scoop them and I put them onto a cookie sheet and then I bake them in the oven. If your oven has a convection feature where the air circulates use that convection feature because its going to create more air, which is going to get you a slightly thicker crust on those meatballs. That is the easiest way to cook meatballs. Princesses are really long talk cast. Im looking at my timer and I cant believe Ive talked to half an hour about how to cook ground beef. But I think that there are some key techniques that we can all learn from as we kind of digging deeper to make wheat to our cooking techniques that make our food taste. Just a little bit better or make our lives just a little bit easier. So, I want to know in the future family tonight. Facebook group, if you learned anything from this episode or if you said, yeah, I do that, that still good. I want to hear it in the future family tonight. Facebook group. Do I need there for now friends? I hope you have a great weekend. Take care.