To ask you if you boil and cool your mince meat before cooking it?

[BigRedBall]

Because this is what mine looks like after boiling and cooling, and I took the pic after removing another heaped spoonful. It's sheep mince from my local butchers which sells halal meat (not that makes a difference). It's always the same.

I wonder what makes it have such high fat content. I think it was meat from the leg.

Thanks OP but I have sufficient cookery books.
However the way you cook mince is not exactly normal and reading a few recipes (either from a book or online) may make you a better cook.

I add fat to mince too - brown it in butter, yum

Washing any meat is ridiculous and potentially dangerous and boiling mince - well that is just utterly bonkers. Through away the fat and liquid and there is all the flavour removed. What an utter waste of time.

OP - as you are so convinced that you are right in your mince destroying cooking method, why the fuck did you post the query in the first place???

FWIW, since you sought our opinions, your cooking "skills" are shite if your mince abomination is anything to go by.

EEeeek no no no! trying to tell myself to not judge as I've never tried it, each to their own and all that, but christ that goes against all my principles as a cook.

Good for you that your friends and family enjoy your food, but I agree with previous posters that you may want to brush up on some techniques before you declare yourself a great cook...

BMW6, I couldn't have phrased it better ....and OP didn't appreciate my genuine comment re a cookery book

When I was a kid my Mum would go to the lovely butchers in our village, all marble countertops and sawdust. She'd buy a shitload of meat; joints, chops, meat for every single day of the week, and have it delivered.

She would then proceed to cook the life out of every single scrap of it. I swear I was at university before I ever tasted a piece of meat that was not dry and leathery.

BIL (a butcher himself, and a cheeky bugger), once told her, "Tinkly's Mum, you are a great baker, and you are lovely, but you cannot cook meat". She was outraged, but I noted that none of us actually defended her.

I think you are taking this very well OP.

Gray by the way kheema (mince) curry is a very popular and authentic indian/Pakistani dish.

"What a lot of farting about! Just buy good quality meat from a good butcher (not halal)."

Topseyt - why not halal? Tastes bloody marvellous to me.

I can't tolerate fat either, and nowadays I mostly eat chicken,turkey, shrimp or some types of fish instead of red meat. But if I do cook mince, I fry with the spices and herbs, then put the meat in a strainer, and rinse quickly with boiling water. It is either than or never having red meat again.

why fry with spices and then rinse all the flavour away with water??

Op boiling mince is disgusting to put it nicely. If that's how you generally cook. As you can see nobody agrees with you.

Got it! All this talk of sheep mince? I knew there's lamb, there's mutton, but I was sure there was a stage between them...haddock? Something like that? Can't be haddock surely? And I've just remembered. It's hoggett! reckon hoggett and mutton make lovely slow cooked sheep dishes

Ps anyone else think the pic resembles that white stuff you get from out of pimples? Or is it just me that follows the Sporners links?

OP, you've done very well defending your right to.cook just as you want to. I also think that your question in your opening post has been answered pretty comprehensively

And I agree that halal meat tastes good. I buy from the halal butcher at our local market.

OP

I like you

OP
I have to say, you've taken the comments brilliantly, with so many childish comments from grown men and women, does make you wonder about the kind of crowd MN attracts...

Yes people, she asked for opinions, not people telling her how disgusting and idiotic her cooking practices are. Sometimes I really wonder about MN, I mean do people go about their everyday lives being so rude, or is it only because they are hiding behind a screen they can manage it online?

Now OP, I don't boil my minced meat but I know some people are not so keen on the smell of minced lamb or mutton. So could boiling it be so you can drain the fat and so reduce any smell that may be there?

DxB you're right, it does reduce the smell too. When I do cook it the "normal way" (yes I occasionally do!) I find the meat gives off a weird waft. Also I agree, I bet half of the prim and perfect ones telling me I can't cook haven't created a dish in their lives. Well I have! Special mince/keema curry that goes down a treat with everyone in my family and outside. That's all that matters really!

I can't be arsed to read through all those self righteous long winded posts ending with how ridiculous my method is! Bla bla blah!

U2TheEdge

Enormouse that's the one haha! I was reading quite embarrassed because everyone was stretching there's out to kingdom come, mine made 3/4 meals . Because we rarely eat it but when we do I want a meaty chilli or bol!

Hogget.

grays I get about the same from my pack of mince and that's for a family of four made up of 2 adults and 2 greedy toddlers. I did a little bit at the claims it could last 10-12 meals

Yuck - when I use the slow cooker, we just eat those tablespoonfuls of fat.
It applies to any meat, I guess. I cooked a chicken in the slow cooker the other day and then cooled it for a pie; there was a thick layer of jelly and then hard fat.

I know people may need to stretch it out because of money and stuff but they might as well just get something else because by the time it's been split into 14 meals there's no point even having it

Bit late to the party but my mum used to brown the beef mince and then boil it for 20 minutes, leave it to cool and then take the fat off the top. It was lovely. A lot tastier than the low fat mince you get these days. I don't do it because I use the low fat mince and I am lazy but back in the day that sort of thing hadn't been invented and mince with the fat left in is grim. Even poured off there is still too much left. She (and I because I often cooked tea and that was how I was taught to do it) used to cook it the night before and then add the flavourings the next day to make the meal.

I am a little bit about all of you who say you don't boil mince. Em, how do you think it is cooking when it is bubbling away on your hob for your chilli or spag bol? It isn't frying or roasting is it? It is boiling. The clue is in the little bubbles that come to the surface as it cooks.

OK, scrummy, but surely the difference is added water. With heat, fat either turns to liquid, or, if near the surface/skin, moisturises the skin which becomes very hard (we call it crackling) and are grateful for it. But, most cooks don't seem to agree with washing it away, because where ever it appears it serves a function, regardless of how briefly.