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Can you make lean minced beef
bryemycaz
Posts: 11,738 Forum Member
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We are on a mission to start eating more healthly. Now for our spag bol we shold have lean meat but it's expensive. Is there a way of getting the cheaper mince leaner by boiling the fat of somehow?
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Same trick for all mince recipes. You lightly fry up the mince in a nonstick pan - no oil - for a few minutes, boil some water, add the water to the mince and then drain into a sieve which leeches away the rendered fat., Put the mince back in the hot pan to quickly steam off any spare water, then once it is dry again set aside and add to your recipe when needed.
Wouldn't you lose a lot of flavour doing this? I'dve thought the buying lean meat and mincing it to be the best way.
Well, of course you lose flavour if you throw away the fat.....
3-5 hours :eek:, around 20-30 mins in our house
I hour absolute minimum for me. I usually aim for at least two. You'd be amazed how much more flavour you get when you cook it long and slow.
Do what I always do. As soon as you go to the supermarket, head straight for the reduced section and see if they have steak mince ( 5% fat ) in there. Often they have packs of 500gm down from £4 to £2.60, with that days date on. No problem, just store them in your freezer for using later. I've always done this, and got organic steak meat at a fraction of the cost sometimes as well. I wouldn't ever buy cheap value range mince, bits of tube / gristle / bone - would rather not have beef in that case, and substitute lean pork or chicken. They make a delicious Bolognese.
Seriously, cheap cuts need hours to tenderise and render down. Needs much longer. Try it, you will be amazed.
If you buy a hand mincer (like this or this), you can then carefully select, steaks, beef joints or any other piece of meat that has less fat on it, cut it into strips (removing even more fat if you want) and mince it yourself.
A 21-day matured beef joint in Aldi costs about £8/Kg, so 500g of mince could cost £4, with no extra fat at all. That's probably comparable to extra lean minces from supermarkets, and they're probably not made from 21-day matured meat.
But something made with mince containing no fat will lack flavour and be dry.
If they won't then they're not a very good butcher.
Quite.