Perfect Ground Beef - Part 2 - Frying and Draining Ground Meat

What we're going to do:
Fry ground beef. Sound too simple? Read on and I'll show you an interesting and healthy twist.

Why it's important:
Will show a way that few people know about that allows you to drain the fat yet keep the flavor of the beef juice.

In Part 1 we showed how to select and grind your own beef. So at this point you have the best ground beef possible. You selected the cuts of meat, ground it yourself, and now you have the freshest, tastiest beef possible. Right?

OK, I understand. Not everyone has the equipment, the time or the motivation to grind their own meat. I get that. So if you're going to buy packaged meat at least put the odds in your favor by developing a plan...

• For browning meat you need go no leaner than 85-15. For one thing once you go above that the price per pound of lean meat rises fast. As you will see later we will remove most of the fat so there is less need to pay an excessive premium for lean meat.
• Buy meat ground in clear-see through packages that are wrapped in your local meat store or grocery. That rarely contains pink slime. Pink slime, a.k.a. lean finely textured beef is something that I totally avoid. Most ground beef that contains pink slime - at least to the extent that I'm aware of - comes in those prepackaged boxes that are in the frozen food section.
• Is pink slime safe? Some say it is. I don't know if it's safe but:

1.  I don't want ammonia gas in my meat
2.  When people will add pink slime because they can, what else are they adding?

• If you buy your ground beef in a store that doesn't have an in-house meat department the chances of it containing pink slime are higher.
• Don't take the percentages (e.g., 85-15) that you see on the package as gospel truth. Look at the color of the meat as well as the package. The redder the color the leaner that the grind is. If meat packed in the same locale was packed on the same date and the color is the same I will bet you that the fat percentages are the same. I still won't know what the correct percentages are (and I suspect many of the meat packers don't know either) but I won't pay a premium for meat labeled 85-15 that is the same color as the 80-20. 

Get the show on the road - Let's brown the beef, rid the fat, save the flavor!

The pictures below will tell the story of how to brown meat in a way so that you can keep the flavor and get rid of that disgusting fat. I hope you find this useful.

Into some cooking oil place your ground meat. Here I am using a 50-50 blend of chuck and bottom round that I ground myself.

Brown the meat until it is almost to your level of doneness.

Crank the heat up to high. Add some water. For this one pound batch of meat I used about a half cup of water. Once the heat is high and it starts boiling stir like crazy to try and combine - if only momentarily - the water with the fat.

Once the water is boiling and you've stirred like mad, quickly drain the liquid from the pan into a clear, heatproof container. After sitting for a minute you can see the fat has risen to the top while the meat broth sits below.

This is the secret to flavorful, low-fat ground meat. Using a turkey baster remove the broth and return it to the pan. Discard the fat. Continue with your recipe for chili, tacos, sloppy joes - whatever!

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Hilton Head Vacation Restaurants, 2015

Almost every year I make a trip to South Carolina's lowcountry. This year, as we've done for the past several years, we stayed in Hilton Head Island (HHI). On the way back we passed through Myrtle Beach. Spent one night in Kinston, NC and passed through Raleigh, NC with Pittsburgh as the home destination. What follows is my food itinerary for the week.

I apologize for the scarcity of photos. In September when I ate at these places I had no idea that I'd have a food blog happening in a few months. Next year I'll do better with the camera.


Saturday

Lunch - Bucci's Italian Cuisine. Pizza was good, service was good and the outdoor seating was near the water but there was some intangible that left me a little unsettled. Maybe it was nothing more than travel fatigue.

Dinner - Java Burrito. Just a great place. It is similar to a Chipotle but with local charm and fresh, local ingredients.

The make line at Java Burrito

The beverage menu at Java Burrito. Yes, that is OJ for just $1.00. Yes, that is Dom Perrignon for $225.

Sunday

Lunch - Salty Dog Cafe. A regular stop when in HHI. More for the tradition than for the food, which is perfectly average. With $12-$15 plates and sandwiches, a $6 toll to get there, plus tax and tip it is not bargain eats. Lunch for two sans alcohol, dessert and appetizers can easily push $50.

Dinner - It's Greek To Me. With so many places to eat on Hilton Head we don't get here every time. But the food is good with a fine selection of Greek specialties. The service has always been quick and friendly and the prices fair.

Monday

Lunch - Mellow Mushroom. Another regular stop when in HHI. It is great pizza in a sports bar setting. If you like quiet conversation go for a weekday lunch. If you like a loud sports bar go any other time.

Dinner - Harris Teeter. Don't feel like eating out and don't want to cook? Pick something up in Harris Teeter. It is a large upscale but not snooty supermarket with sandwiches and prepared hot food.

Tuesday

Lunch - Zoe's Kitchen. Fast Mediterranean food.

Dinner - A Lowcountry Backyard Restaurant. This was the undiscovered jewel of the trip. Great food great prices great people great setting. Get here before 6pm, it gets busy very early and the wait can easily be over an hour. Closed Sunday and Monday they are open for lunch between 11am and 3pm, then they open again for dinner at 4:30. I will be back!

Wednesday

Lunch - On the road north we stopped for a quick lunch at McDonald's in Myrtle Beach. Sorry, it happens.

Dinner - Arriving in Kinston, NC we had reservations at Chef & The Farmer. This was the highlight of the trip. This restaurant is featured in a PBS show called, "A Chef's Life." This restaurant is on some lists as one of the top 100 restaurants in the country. We spent $92 for food, soft drinks, tax and tip and left a little hungry. That's not to say that they're expensive or that the portions are small - this is a very fine restaurant. It's only that I wanted to keep our trip on budget by only spending $100 for dinner. Kinston also has a fine microbrewery, a distillery and several shops and stores.

The menu at the Chef & The Farmer changes daily. This menu is from September 16, 2015. The AF before the date stands for "After Fire." The restaurant was heavily damaged by fire in 2012.

Thursday

Lunch - Leaving Kinston at 8am, we arrived in Raleigh, NC at about 9:30am. I visited with a friend and had lunch downtown at the Daily Planet Cafe. An $8 sandwich could have fed two of me. Put enough money in the meter because when you're done eating you'll want to walk through a doorway and into the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. It's free, but in my opinion it's too nice to be free. I was glad to leave a generous donation.

Dinner - Arrived home south of Pittsburgh at about 10pm. Pulled frozen pizza out of my freezer.

Perfect Ground Beef - Part I - Grinding Your Own Beef

What we're going to do:
Grind beef

Why it's important:
Because for equivalent cuts and grade of beef, beef that you grind yourself tastes better than store-bought ground beef, period.

Ground beef is used when making burgers, chili, sloppy Joe's, taco's, empanadas and meat loaf to name a few. In this part - Part I - I will show the simple process for grinding beef at home. In Part II I will show a secret to frying ground beef that few people know about. 

Let me say this upfront. This is not about saving money. On a good day grinding your own beef and buying hamburger will cost about the same. This is about creating a fresh, ground meat whose quality is better than 99% of anything you can find in a store.

So one might ask, "If I'm going to grind my own beef, what of beef should I buy?"

I am not a perfect human being. The fact is that I grind about 60% of my ground beef (40% of the time I am either lazy or running late).  I know of no "one perfect" cut of meat to grind. I'm not saying that what follows is the best choice for ground beef. What I am saying is that it's my choice.

My favorite blend to grind is a 50-50 mix of chuck and bottom round. My preference is on the lean side of the lean-fat spectrum. Chuck provides the fat, juiciness and flavor. Mixing that with the leaner bottom round contrasts that with a rich, beef taste.

That's my preference. Keep it simple. First time out start by buying only one cut of meat. Popular choices are chuck, sirloin and short rib. Chef Jacques Pepin uses brisket. The important thing is to not make it so complicated or expensive that you resort to buying the packaged stuff. Depending on your likes and pricing I'd say start with chuck or sirloin and see where that takes you.

There are, of course, the premium cuts of meat generally used for steaks and roasts. My favorite cut of beef is the rib eye. But running a boneless rib eye through the meat grinder is crazy! Or is it?

I recently (Jan 2016) picked up a boneless rib eye steak at Trader Joe's for $9.99 a pound. I would bet that in your area you can find a rib eye at that price, maybe better, especially on sale. But isn't turning a $10/pound steak into hamburger overkill? Consider this - If you make 8 ounce burgers that's 2 burgers for $5.00 each. Smaller but still respectably-large 5-ounce burgers would be $3.35 each. That isn't much above fast food pricing, yet this is a premium cut of meat. So while it might not be your everyday grind it might be a nice occasional indulgence.

Anyway, back to the grind. The process for grinding meat is pretty straightforward. If you don't already own one, you'll need to determine what kind of meat grinder is best for you. This article will help you decide. I have a Kitchenaid mixer so I use the Kitchenaid attachment. It comes with two metal plates. I use the larger plate for grinding meat. The smaller one tends to plug.

Here I start with four pounds of beef. On the left is the chuck and on the right is the bottom round. Note that the chuck seems to have a higher fat content. It does.

I cut the beef into strips so that it feeds into the meat grinder attachment. I will cube and reserve one pound for beef stew.

Not much to say about this...the beef strips go in the top and the ground beef comes out of the front. Grinding three pounds of meat took me about two minutes. More time was spent trimming and slicing the meat.  Be sure to observe all the safety instructions for your grinder.

When you're done this is what three pounds of ground beef will look like. At this point it smells so fresh. 

Up until last year my sister lived in Connecticut. She took me to a restaurant in Glastonbury, Plan B Burger. Their claim to fame is that they grind their beef fresh - sometimes minutes before cooking it. If at all possible please plan to cook a burger with your fresh ground meat before you store or freeze it.

In Part II of this article I will demonstrate my method for browning ground beef. It is a technique that removes the fat yet keeps the tasty broth.