THE RELUCTANT GOURMET COOKING COMMUNITY

[Dilbert]

A Ground Beef for All Season(ings)

this stems from another 'happy accident' - the original intention was meatloaf.

once-upon-a-five-o'clock-flushed-rushed, the danged ground beef had _gasp!_ not thoroughly defrosted.

so I took out my big cutting board, my big chef's knife, and whacked it down into small chunks to expose more surface to allow it to thaw faster.

you should understand, I hate freezing meat - methinks it detracts from the texture
but then and agin, you have to....

after some time I was left with a ca. 1 inch thick "layer" of chunks of ground beef on the cutting board.

so heh what-the-heck...let's work on the spread out beef.....
salted, peppered, sprinkle of whats-this-here-sauce, frozen diced green peppers, applesauce, diced onion, garlic powder, paprika, beaten egg spread over that, used a _dough scraper_ to bring it together.
added a bit of bread crumb to dry it, more smoosh & dough scraper work.

so what happened?

There is this theory one is not supposed to "overwork / overmix" ground beef - I didn't
but I noticed the seasoning / taste was significantly better than prior approaches of gently mixing in a bowl.
confirmed by the peanut galley.

repeated on hamburgers - same result.

give it a go - "mince" out the ground beef into a large flat layer and season ala you like it.
fold it together and see if you think the seasonings did a better job.....

[jfield]

Interesting, Dilbert. What do you think the difference is, especially given that you don't like to freeze meat?

[Dilbert]

the seasoning taste(s) seem to be much better 'incorporated' into the meat - whether meatloaf or hamburger patty.

how to imagine.... okay - (the reverse of) a salty bagel dough vs a normal bagel with sea salt on top....

my impression is mixing in the bowl produces as fairly bland meat with some seasoning present 'somewhere' - whereas the flat mix method makes the meat pe se more gooder tasting....

heh, if taste could be accounted for (a) Wall Street wouldn't have it's today's problems and (b) the IRS would tax all the delectable stuff....

[Reluctant Gourmet]

Interesting technique. It would be easy to test with a couple of hamburgers prepared each way and see if you can taste the difference. You may have come up with a whole new way of mixing ingredients. RG

[Dilbert]

RG -

absolutely no quibble with the "it's a technique" thing.

my family has voted for the 'spread it out, season, fold' technique - I'm curious to see if that hold up through other pipples experience.

there's little 'general' question about how 'technique' can affect a dish - the omelets is really spectacular example.