Making lumps of meat look bigger...

heretolearn_2

Hi

We need to cut down our meat consumption - both for economy and because we are both getting far too lardy. trouble is OH is a real 'lump of meat' man, will eat mince and cubes in rissotos etc once a week or so, but if I start doing them too often he grumbles.(not seriously, but I like to keep him happy...). He prefers, to have a visually 'big' single piece of meat.

so, chicken I have sorted. Buying a whole chicken and portioning up and serving on the bone makes it look huge. Give him half a chicken breast on the bone and he says 'wow, that looks great' whereas half a chicken breast off the bone and he'd think I was trying to starve him, lol. Likewise I can give him the underneath bit of the chicken carcass (the back?) which actually has very little meat on it but he's happy as larry because it covers half the plate...I guess he's not too smart about these things, bless.

but I can't work out ways to 'con' him with other meats. I've tried buying really thin pork chops instead of chunky ones but no, he notices and complains about supermarket rip offs. I've thought about serving more meats sliced up (like the proper chefs do, take a small bit of beef and slice it and arrange the slices in a fancy overlapping way) to see if I can get away with that? But I'm not the artistic type...:rotfl:

Anyone else got any ideas - how do you present what you could call 'lumps of meat' meals to look more generous than they really are? Bulking out mince/sauces/curries etc is easy. This is a real challenge, especially as I don't want to add more calories by breadcrumbing etc.



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CH27

Buy small pork steaks. Bash them with a rolling pin.
Put some stuffing or apple on & roll them up.
Secure with string a cook in the oven.

short_bird

How about using cheaper cuts of meat and cooking in different ways like a cassoulet?
Until you said "not adding calories", I was thinking sweet and sour pork:D

LondonDreamer

I think you have the right idea with the chicken, i.e. serve more meats on the bone. As an example, get a big bone-in pork chop instead of a pork steak. Far more visually impressive. You might need to go to a butcher for this, as I'm finding supermarkets tend to stock mostly boneless cuts now.

Could you cheat and serve it restaurant style? So on a bed of mash, rather than a lump of mash next to it? This would raise it up off the plate and could look like there's more. Also agree with PP to stuff and roll thinner slices of meat. You could then slice this and fan it across the plate to look like quite a lot of food.

twiz21

I get the cheap pork loin steaks when they're on offer in Lidl.

Bash them out with a rolling pin, and coat with seasoned flour, egg wash and breadcrumbs or crushed cornflakes are delicious. Bake in oven.

They are enormous and can cover a third half the plate! I serve them with a separate small plate of spaghetti and HM tomato sauce.

heretolearn_2

Great ideas so far, thanks, I do buy cheaper cuts and put them in the slow cooker but they tend to be the fattier cuts, don't they, which I'm sure has had something to do with the weight gains...

I like the idea of rolling thinner cuts of meat to make them look bigger, I wouldn't even really need to add stuffing etc to get the effect, maybe some apple slices with pork, or a few veg with other meats...actually, that's a great idea. I love things like smoked salmon or parma ham wrapped round asparagus, I'll have to try and think up a few more everyday combinations. I suppose I could wrap those thin beef frying steak slices around onions? That sounds quite nice.

Bone on pork chops are much nicer, I just need to be disciplined about cutting the fat off (that's the nicest bit, groan) for both of us before cooking, but I hate just throwing it away. Maybe just get used to trimming them more - I had some chops from Waitrose the other day from their butcher counter, they'd left all the bone but trimmed off that little triangle of fatty meat that's next to the main circle of meat, they were delicious and still looked big although actually the meat part wasn't as much as we'd normally have. Perhaps I could start trimming up the chops more and saving those little bits in the freezer for something else.

I can try doing the poncy restaurant presentations, ha, I can imagine his face getting that stuck in front of him. It's true though - it does make even a basic meal look far more interesting. I'll start watching Masterchef...

Any more ideas?

heretolearn_2

Quick question - where do you get that food string from? I guess the normal stuff from the poundshop isn't quite right...

celyn90

I don't eat a lot of meat, but I find stuffing things makes them look larger - for example, splitting chops in the middle, then stuffing them makes them look much thicker.

Or wrap stuff in pastry - you could even add say a mushroom mix under the pastry as mushrooms taste quite meaty themselves. You could also cover in breadcrumbs to add a little bit of bulk or serve with a thick meaty gravy. Sometimes things with a heavy texture, like say green lentils, make for a filling extra that you can make meat flavoured.

Or you could buy smaller plates - that has worked for me in the past

CH27

heretolearn wrote: »

Quick question - where do you get that food string from? I guess the normal stuff from the poundshop isn't quite right...

I use normal string.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

You could always - if he gets stroppy about it - present him a plate of just vegetables.

Then when he wants to know !!!!!! is going on, tell him 'you have a choice, big lumps of meat on some days and nothing on others, or what we can afford. Unless you want to get a second job to pay for it.'


Cooking it and slicing it before it is served makes it look like more - cooking steak with torn pieces of mushrooms in a dark sauce makes it very hard to see what is meat and what isn't - and cutting off the fat saves more calories than you would think.

Lots of very savoury sauces help, too.

thenanny2die4

heretolearn wrote: »

Quick question - where do you get that food string from? I guess the normal stuff from the poundshop isn't quite right...

Ask your butcher or butchery counter staff in the supermarket. The lady in our local Sainsbobs gave me a handful of those elastic bands they use but also offered the string if I wanted.