Text 263, 146 rader
Skriven 2008-01-05 19:40:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Grocery Guy 1
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Lately, I've been checking out a lot of food blogs, looking for the
best of the best. Here's one guy with a few interesting articles:

Grocery Guy, the Chuck Norris of bad food writing: Tha Grind!
 
I spend a lot of time thinking about ground beef. About an hour a
day which is how long it takes me to trim and grind the meat that
will become the burgers that day at Diner.

Ground beef is one of those things that people either love or fear
like no other meat. I've heard at least 10 people tell me about some
relation of theirs, usually a dad or uncle, who eats or ate raw
hamburger right out of the foam tray. Of course we all know people
who would never think of eating a hamburger that was anything but
well-done.

So what IS the deal with commercially produced ground beef anyway?
Should you fear it? Should you eat it raw? What are "best practices"
for making it? Let me tell you.

What goes into ground beef anyway? Like hot dogs and breakfast
sausage my father would always say "lips and assholes" whenever I'd
ask him. Most ground beef, no matter how dubious its origins,
contains neither lips nor assholes. What goes into most grind is
lean and fatty beef trim (the stuff they trim off large cuts to make
them free of sinew and gristle or to make them look prettier) and
tough meat from the fore quarter of the beef, aka arm chuck. None of
this stuff is super scary sounding right? Oh, yes... arm chuck. That
sounds very wholesome and mid-western how could that be bad? If you
only knew.

What could go wrong? Why is important to know and trust the person
who makes your burger or sausage? Turds. Blood. Hair. Filth. Dead
cows. Green meat. What?

Turds, filth, hair: Slaughter houses, no matter how well run and
clean, are still pretty dirty places which is fine since the animal
is essentially sealed off from the gastro-intestinal content, blood,
hair, etc. that may splash up onto the hanging carcasses as the
slaughter men hose the above items into floor drains. Also, your
steer might also have been dropped onto said kill floor. Don't
forget about what it may come in contact with during transport in
the back of some delivery truck. Have you ever seen the floor in the
back of the average delivery truck? All that seems pretty gross.
Nothing that you'd want in your meat. This is where love and trust
for your butcher comes in. When your butcher is taking apart
sub-primals (chances are he will never get quartered beef) he should
be shaving off whatever part of the cow that was on the outside
(where the turds and blood are) and throwing it away. It doesn't
add-up to much waste-wise but it takes time and when a butcher is in
a hurry it is seldom a good thing.

If that outside is not trimmed off it IS going into your ground
meat. What did you say? You don't have a butcher to love and trust?
Well then you are getting nasty stuff in your meat, I guarantee it.
You can talk local and organic all you want but, if you eat meat,
you need to be intimate with your butcher. Otherwise you have
absolutely no idea the character of the man you are entrusting your 
digestive tract to.

"What bout the dead cows and green meat!" There are companies that
do nothing but pick up dead cows from farms across the U.S.. Where
do you think that two day dead dairy cow ends up? Chances are you've
eaten one.

Green meat is basically meat that is about 35% rotten and has
started to turn a shade of ghostly Lunesta Moth green. It smells
quite bad. OK, it smells like a dumpster full of dead rats. It is
not something you would want to eat. I knew a grizzled old butcher
that looked like Edward James Olmos who used to work at a packing
house that made Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage. He swore that they had 
piles of green, stinking meat, and I quote "as big as a house" on
the bare concrete floor that they would then feed into the huge
industrial meat grinder that made the sausage.

You think that stuff sounds yucky, it doesn't even include the
"mechanically separated" meat by-product pudding that places like
McDonalds or any other huge chain uses to make their burgers. This
process involves the bones of the animals to be crushed and forced
under high pressure through a sort of sieve. McCorprate food
companies love it because it produces a very consistent product that
takes the various meat flavorings and texturizers better than real
meat.

I would imagine that if you don't have a butcher you trust and you
still want a burger you're going to have to start doing it yourself.
So how does one make proper ground beef?

Cuts: I like a fatty burger so my choice would be something like
untrimmed brisket or trim from the belly. If you want less fat I
would just get the cheapest pot roast type thing. Not too lean now!
Most ground beef is at least 20% fat. If you're having trouble
finding a cut with enough fat ask the guy at the meat counter if he
has any untrimmed cuts (i.e. they have much more fat on the
outside).

Trimming: You know that you need to remove the stuff that was on the
outside of the animal but how do you tell which part it is? Well,
number one, it will likely be a darker shade of white than the
natural color of the fat. Sometimes it will be reddish from blood
splash. The best way to tell is, of course, the go old USDA blue
stamp. Once the outside is shaved off you will also want to get rid
of any tendons, connective tissue or gristle that will gum up your
hand crank meat grinder and end up as what Aaron calls "bullets" in
your cooked burger. Also cut out any glands that you may find buried
in the thick potions of fat. They will look like tan cancer blobs.
Don't worry, they're just part of the lymphatic system.

Cut: Now cut your meat into 1 1/2 inch cubes. The smaller you cut
them the easier it will be to grind. I only had to take apart a
grinder full stuffed full of meat once to learn to cut them into
smaller pieces. While you're doing this remember that if you run
into any gristle that is hard to cut through it will be hard for the
grinder blade too. Trim it out and toss it. (Or listen to Michael
Loo and reserve it for the stock pot. - JW)

Grind: Any new hand-crank grinder you buy with come with several
grind plates with holes in them in various sizes from large to small
depending on what size ground meat particle you want. I would
recommend using a large plate and then running it through once more
using the smallest plate. Trying to use the smallest plate right of
the bat may result in a clogged grinder. This is only necessary with
beef. Pork is much softer and doesn't need a second pass.

Other advice, tips, etc: If you plan on seasoning the meat do it
before you put it through the grinder as it will be more evenly
distributed in the grind just make sure that you don't over season!

Red wine vinegar helps give hamburgers a bit more punch with a touch
of red wine beefiness and acid.

To get burgers to stay together on the grill let the meat warm up
before you make patties and make sure to work it into a ball well.

That's ground meat in a nutshell. Questions? Comments? Better tips?
Let me know! I'm new at this stuff too.


Cheers

YK Jim


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