Best-value "value" meat

beautiful_ravens

Good thread.
I gave up buying value mince, because of the moans emanating from my OH about the gristle. Same for cheap sausages.

For beef mince:

I buy lean stewing steak (maximum meat), slow cook it with bit of water, a bit of beef suet (got a chunk for free from the butcher one day) stock cube, few lentils, onion and any small amounts of leftovers like beans/kidney beans/carrots etc.
When its cooled, I get the food processor and mince some bread [to make crumbs] and add in the meat and anything else thats solid, and I mince the whole lot. The bread crumbs bulk it out a bit, dissapear when cooked, are a good thickener and stop the mince becoming too soggy.
It gets divided into bags of just less the amount needed for 1 meal or pie, then its frozen. When using in spag bol or whatever, I make up some soya mince to bulk up the amount to enough for one meal - so far, no one has noticed the soya mince OR complained about gristle, and theres still some real meat in there. WIN!
Oh also, the leftover meat juices from doing this go in the freezer to be used as a 'ragu' type base.

Sausages we rarely have now, occasionally we buy in bulk from a farm, or from the village butcher for one meal (yummy venison and pork sausage!) I do use cheaper sausages for sausage casserole, but not value gristle sausages.

I used to use turkey instead of chicken until it seemed to be the same price, I used to beat it with a tenderizing hammer thing before cooking it!
I do have to buy value frozen chicken portions, for chasseur etc, but I'd rather not. Once a month I get a butchers chicken, and it is much tastier.

Value cooking bacon is great for the price, but you never really know what you're going to find in there. I once got a pig nipple, which I can cope with, but not sure the OH could if I had shown him!