Browning meat (merged)

susank

My mince from the butcher is browned but there is never any fat to drain off - its lean mince and lovely and i brown it and add onion, carrot and a tin of tomatoes and a tin of condensed oxtail soup to 2 lbs mince and cook in slow cooker all day - fantastic

tsstss7

PasturesNew wrote: »

Yeah, I was a bit confused, I re-read it and it seemed to indicate "I'd fry it for 10 minutes .... and crock it for 20". It does seem short.... and all the other stuff would still take hours.

I just read it again and it's definitely saying 20 minutes in a crock..... I'd have to play with it I guess. never bought/used veggie mince so that's a learning curve on its own.

let me qualify. Veggy Mince needs to be warmed through but it is not meat you won't get food poisoning if it was still cold...it wont taste so good then though.

20 mins on high for raw (unfrozen) mince would be fine but I always cook mine for at least 40 mins as the taste just wouldn't be there otherwise ..you need time for the ingredients to fuse etc.

If the crock does not have a high setting then it will take longer to get up to temp but as long as its piping hot its fine to eat.

witchwoopiggy

PasturesNew wrote: »

Ah - found somebody who does it

Do you use "good" or cheap mince? How many hours do you do it for? I'm assuming beef mince, but I guess I'd also be interested in finding out about lamb mince .... and possibly turkey mince and chicken mince and pork mince.

Got this pot, never used it... nobody has.

i always use lean mince from the butchers or supermarket either are normally good, the cheaper mince can be fatty as this is no good as then you have too much greese in food. chicken and turky mince are the same not much if any greese, if you were aoing down the lamb route then i would ask a butchen which would be the best lamb for the job. I tend to cook till hot boiling then just give extra 15mins , really it does depend on the size of the crock pot and for how many you feeding i do hope this help

sandraroffey

i always brown all meat and bring it to the boil in a saucepan before i put it in the slowcooker. when i had a pub and did the food handling course, they told us that by not doing that, the meat in the slow cooker is never brought to the rolling boil needed to kill off the bugs that multiply very quickly in the meat when its at that just nicely warm temp for such a long time.

flora48

I never brown mince before puuting it in the slow cooker. Too much of a faff. I buy the lean minced beef which is worth the extra money IMO. Same goes when making a beef stew, just trim off the fat, it is fine.
'Life is too short to stuff a mushroom!'

zippychick

im glad you were able to come to some conclusion

Ive merged this with a thread on browning meat as it's a question that pops up quite regularly and this will help others in future

Zip

Emuchops

I have to make dinner for a family gathering on Sunday. I want it to be as easy as possible, so am doing beef stew. I bought 3kg of "roasting beef" from the Tesco fresh meat counter(looked far too lean to roast, but each to their own, it was on offer at £5kg, so cheaper than their actual "stewing steak").

Anyway-do you brown your meat? I have tried browned and unbrowned and browning makes such a mess and smell I don't know if I can be bothered -not sure I noticed a difference in taste either...

Penelope_Penguin

I don't bother One of the TV chefs tried it both ways and declared that it makes no dirrerence.

I can't find a thread on this, this one is the closest I can get.

bramble1

I don't bother, just bung it all in the slow cooker and let that do the hard work!

Butterfly_Brain

I always brown but that is the way I was always taught to do it. I also add a tbsp of all purpose seasoning in the flour for extra taste and it does help to make a lovely thick gravy