Browning mince

quintenmyth

I've often encountered recipes that instruct one to cook minced meat until the water evaporates as to intensify the flavour. However, this doesn't make sense for most dishes as water or tomatoes are added later on - thus diluting the flavour again. See i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkK7BbBNPaY

Now, I can imagine that evaporating the water allows for better browning of the mince, which also gives more intense flavours, but this makes the mince very dry as well (this is why even burgers are cooked sous vide by some people nowadays!).

How far do you guys go with browning your mince?

tshewman

The idea with browning mince as I understand it is to create the caramelization of the meat to add flavor and texture (not water). One thing I do (especially for my beef stock and other dishes that use ground beef) is to cook the mince SV for ~60 minutes (usually while I'm prepping everything and roasting bones if it's for a stock), then strain the meat and keep the beef jus. Then I caramelize the mince ( and add back in the beef jus to everything. I do this mostly with stock and red wine glaze, but can't see why we can't do it elsewhere. I try not to use too much water anywhere but rather use a flavored liquid to compliment the dish (e.g. most recently roasted veggie stock to the mole'). Food for thought.