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.

In answer to the OP, I've never boiled mince. DW is South African. In South Africa, any fat in the meat is a hanging offence unless it is in certain kinds of sausage. So I buy minced topside (beef), which is what the local butchers here in NZ generally offer. Very little fat in that.

However, I use mutton quite a lot as it is cheap and very flavoursome when cooked properly (in my case by casseroling). It does yield a horrendous amount of fat. I can assure all the fat advocates on this thread that you really do need to remove most of the fat unless you want to end your meal by sticking your head in the toilet. I either skim it when it is cooked or (if making a big batch for freezing) put it in the fridge overnight and remove it once it's hardened. If you want to create a fatberg in your very own oven, casserole mutton.

BTW, someone mentioned further up the thread that there were no recipes for boiling meat. Actually there are - in very traditional English cooking. I have one. You cook beef very slowly and - over the course of the cooking - add onions, celery and leeks plus a bay leaf. It is surprisingly nice, and very suitable for cold weather.

I boil everything before cooking. Sausages, chops, steak, chicken, waffles.

Takes away any of that flavour they have in them.

OP when you say that friends are lining up at your house to eat with you, do you mean a workhouse and are the friends inmates. Because boiled and drained mince meat sounds like a Dickensian grimness to me.

My XH thought you did that, I'd never heard of it.

God, that sounds rank! In the whole of both my professional & domestic career, I've never ever heard of anyone boiling mince. Why would you do that?

Lamb/sheep is fatty, if you have a fat aversion, fry it lightly & drain off the fat. Some fat is good for you.

I made spaghetti bolognese tonight, and as I had tons of mince I got some ready for a cottage pie that we will have later in the week. In both cases I fried up the mince with onions. No need to remove any fat as it was lean mince, and browning the mince took at the most 5mins or so. I didn't (and won't) boil it at any time. The bolognese was simmered for an hour or so, and the cottage pie will have veges and stock added before it goes in the oven.

My ILs boiled everything for ages. It really wasn't nice. It used to be that was quite a standard way to cook food in the UK, and was one of the reasons why English cooking was panned pretty much across the world!

OP if you really really want to go on with your mince boiling and cooling ways then you'd do better to pour the cooking liquid into a separate pan or jug, put it somewhere cold (freezer for speed) and then when the fat has solidified scrape it off and into the bin. Then recombine the mince and liquid later on as you do now.

Still sounds like a bad cooking method to me though!

Ahhh this brings back memories of the meat washing thread!

Lamb is generally fattier than beef isn't it? I don't really use minced lamb as IMO lamb should be roasted with tons of gravy and mint sauce but I can imagine that there is a lot more fat.

I never drain mince - mmmmmmm fat.

Why would the fat in mutton make you ill? I have eaten my parents' home produced mutton without skimming fat off for years and have never been ill. Is it produced differently in NZ?

This thread is hilarious!

'Picture this'

OP you are awesome!

"Lamb is horrible? What kind of statement is that? I'm pretty sure that a lot of people in the Middle East, who rely on it, are going to be pretty disappointed."

I wasn't proposing a worldwide ban on anyone eating minced lamb. Middle Eastern folk and anyone else who likes it is welcome to it. Nobody needs to be disappointed. In my unimportant opinion though, the stuff is pretty revolting. I did say I'm a shit cook!

If I could only ever eat one type of roast dinner again, it would be lamb!

Ok I have read the whole thread. I am not sure which to comment on first.... ok i will comment first what is annoying me the most.....on 'sheeps mince'. This is MUTTON, you don't go to the butcher and ask for leg of sheep now do you? Mutton, its mutton. Yes you get MUTTON mince.

I have lots of Indian friends, most of their curries are made with MUTTON note, not sheep

Phew, now i got that out.... no I have never boiled mince (of any variety) and would never consider it at all.

We don't have lamb because it's expensive (and because the girls will only eat chicken and fish fingers without a fuss). But, I'm going to spend some hard earned cash on lamb that I neither want nor need and boil it, because I'm starting to think that it can't be beyond the wit of man (and woman) to do something nice with boiled mince, can it?

There are stock cubes. Spices have been copiously mentioned above. You can buy Magi in a bottle.

It's some sort of a challenge.

Surely you can cover most things in enough spice and make it taste ok.

But I also like to have the taste of the meat in there as well, otherwise why bother eating meat at all?

I don't know, tradition? Mincemeat, the kind we eat at Christmas used to be made with real meat.

PongPong and willferrel

At least some good has come of this thread.

Add message | Report | Message poster PuzzleRocks Tue 13-Jan-15 23:12:19
Op you are bloody bonkers for boiling mince but you are an absolute sport and I for one would very gladly eat your food and then possibly my hat.

I LOVE this. Incidentally, aren't you the poster that used to bump the unanswered threads? I was thinking I've not seen you for ages. I still go on unanswered threads obediently every so often.

OP, fair play to you, you definitely fuck up your mince but you've taken this better than I would Bit rude to suggest you have food issues though.

This thread has reminded I've got an unused mincer in my cupboard under the stairs that's been there since summer. Fil bought me it.

Come back here for unwanted advice on how to use it INickedAName, if you can't figure it out.

We need that picture minimising as an emoticon for future use.

The 'picture this' one, not the boiled sheep mince obvs...

Sorry rumbelow I missed your declaration of love comment. It's ok. You can love me. And you can try some of my lovely mince too. (That's not a euphemism for anything btw!) My door is always open .

People clearly DON'T queue up to eat your food, OP - they queue up because you are fabulous and your company is enough to make them put up with minging mince curry. Stop boiling your mince and you'll have to introduce a reservations system.

Ah thanks Amethyst but I still disagree, I think it tastes bloody marvellous. As do other people.

OP are you the poster that got a bit upset about the horse doing a poo in front of your drive and people stealing your free apples?
< Makes note to self to take some time away from MNet >