Thread: Economics of your own meat grinder

Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst

Do you add fat to your mince? I picked up a hand grinder a while back and have tried to make mince a couple of times with venison but always found it cooks really dry, I don't really like fat off venison, tried using fat off the backsteaks of a real good condition spiker way back when I was a young fella and it put me off leaving too much fat on venison anyhow.... yuck!
I was thinking of giving the mince a go again but adding some beef tallow?

We don’t add fat to the burger recipe posted in #1 above, or to any of the other dishes we make. Not overcooking it is quite important. IMO there’s no need to add fat if you use the right recipe, it would kind of negate the whole point of healthy low fat super tasty burgers. They really are bloody good. Like I said we don’t add the parmesan cheese, but use a thin slice of Tasty cheddar in the bun instead.

The burger aficionados might be a bit sniffy (you know who you are gimp, I’ve seen those tasty looking burgers in your videos), but no one I’ve fed the bite.co.nz burgers to have ever complained! When we’ve had a feast at our place in the last couple of years the first thing that always goes first are the venison burgers. They are never dry due to the milk soaked breadcrumbs.

For meat sauce used in bolognaise, lasagne, etc depending on what we have in the freezer we’ll usually use a mix of beef and venison. Shepherds pie likewise. For bototie, a lightly curried flavour, you can use either.

the bacon off cuts you can buy cheap go really nicely in venison mince too.

Originally Posted by gimp

Bull tahr fat can be super rank, mixed some in with a batch of tahr mince once and it was overpoweringly bad. Summer bull.

Never eat bull Thar unless in a sausage or salami mate.
Nanny fat is pretty yum and best to steak and mince.

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Originally Posted by 25/08IMP

I'll have to dig it out as we are moving house and all things are packed away but I'll try and fish it out.

If you can, that would be great. Sounds delicious.

I think the old timers had it all worked out, some of the traditional recipes we use from are fantastic. But there’s also no doubt that the liberal additional of fats in whatever form contributed to shorter life expectancy! So we find ways to get around the added lubrication if possible and generally speaking we don’t notice the lack of added fats at all.

(We are far from super health concious, my standard brekkie is 3 eggs, 3 toast, cheese, beans, a banana and a giant pot of English Breakfast Tea. Theres no tofu, lettuce with green tea to start the day in this house....)

I guess the thing we notice most with venison mince, used either exclusively or in a mix, is how much less chunky fat there is sitting on top of a pot of sauce when its cooled down, which can only be a good thing. For added flavour we’ll use an Oxo cube, homemade meat & vegetable stock, liberal garlic, lots of home grown fresh herbs.

Flyblown.....next time you or Mrs is in spice section at supermarket...look for red lids masterfoods mild steak seasoning is my "go to" for plurry near everything...... dont need a whole heap to get a really nice flavour.

Originally Posted by R93

Never eat bull Thar unless in a sausage or salami mate.
Nanny fat is pretty yum and best to steak and mince.

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You just like fat chicks......



(Does that mean you don't like your wife? )

Venison fat from around the kidneys and fillets is THE best thing to cook the fillets in,mouthwatering.

Originally Posted by Beaker

You just like fat chicks......



(Does that mean you don't like your wife? )

Pretty sure she doesn't like me. She asked me a 100 times when I am leaving. That was just in the last hour

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Originally Posted by R93

Pretty sure she doesn't like me. She asked me a 100 times when I am leaving. That was just in the last hour

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I think that's more to do with your skills - lying on her for a hour and wriggling a bit, must be a bit boring for her
...........


Onto topic though, duck fat is also good to add....
Bacon fat or even just pork belly (skinless) is also good minced up, as a additive for patties or mince.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Flyblown.....next time you or Mrs is in spice section at supermarket...look for red lids masterfoods mild steak seasoning is my "go to" for plurry near everything...... dont need a whole heap to get a really nice flavour.

Will do! Haven’t tried that one I don’t think. For a long time we made up our own seasoning - a South African braai spice formula - don’t know what happened there, it just stopped happening probably due to arrival of children which is when lots of things just stopped... and a whole load of other stuff started...if I can find the ingredients again I’ll post it as it was quite unusual but outstanding with venison.

Originally Posted by Beaker

I think that's more to do with your skills - lying on her for a hour and wriggling a bit, must be a bit boring for her
...........


Onto topic though, duck fat is also good to add....
Bacon fat or even just pork belly (skinless) is also good minced up, as a additive for patties or mince.

I must have wriggled properly at least twice?

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As per Micky Duck. I buy a couple of kgs of bacon bits for 8-10 bucks and smash them through mincer and freeze them in roughly 200g portions.

Only add it for mince that will be used for sausages or salami or occasionally for man sized meatballs/ any lasagna type dish. For burger patties I prefer to use straight venison and only add just enough fine breadcrumbs to bind, along with whatever seasonings I require.

Never ever add eggs as a binder. Requires the patties to be cooked far past what is needed and in my opinion ruins the feed.

No eggs means you can effectively medium rare that sucker, and if you do then you will never go back.

Originally Posted by Preacher

No eggs means you can effectively medium rare that sucker, and if you do then you will never go back.

I was taught you should never have any mince products rare as by being minced bacteria can be spread all threw the product where as on a steak it is only on the outside where the bacteria can be killed by the heat.

Happy to be corrected on that tho. @Angus what are your thoughts?

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Originally Posted by R93

Never eat bull Thar unless in a sausage or salami mate.
Nanny fat is pretty yum and best to steak and mince.

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I don't mind bull tahr steaks, just age 'em well, a marinade doesn't hurt either. Only ever had that one that was bad

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

I was taught you should never have any mince products rare as by being minced bacteria can be spread all threw the product where as on a steak it is only on the outside where the bacteria can be killed by the heat.

Happy to be corrected on that tho. @Angus what are your thoughts?

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That's an interesting point.

I'd struggle to get medium rare mince of any kind past the food police in my family. They just don't like pink mince, period. But also for those venison burgers, the overall texture and additional ingredients of the mix we use, eggs and all, just works, if they love something and demolish a plate of it and go back for seconds and thirds then I'm happy. They're growing like weeds at 12 and 10yrs old so lots of good food available in the fridge at all hours for when they're hungry is important. With the kids though, one thing I've learnt with some of my more experimental efforts is one bad experience with a new food can make it bloody hard to get them to accept having another go next time, so I'm pretty careful when we try something new not to push the boundaries too far.

That sometimes entails simply not telling them what they are eating.

Beef sweetbreads, heart, tongue, liver and kidneys, etc etc goes down a treat as long as I lie about what it is before they eat it. (And sometimes afterwards too...) They flatly refused tripe though.

I'm not doing too bad. My 12yr old will take on a half teaspoon of Blair's Death Sauce on a lump of beef. That's pretty hardcore.