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I'm not an experienced cook, but I cook a lot of ground beef/turkey (mostly turkey for tacos). I notice I cook much differently from nearly everyone else I've seen cook ground beef/turkey.
Most people I see will chop up the ground meat a little, then let it sit in the pan untouched for a couple minutes. Then when they shovel it around with the spatula, the part of the meat that was closest to the pan is already fully cooked, while there's plenty of uncooked meat attached to it.
My whole philosophy of cooking ground meat has been the opposite. I like to put the meat in the pan and immediately add some sort of liquid seasoning mixture (example: for taco meat i use ground red pepper, chile powder, onion/garlic powder, pepper, gravymaster, and water). Then I shovel around the meet and chop at it to make sure it's fully coated with the seasoning before putting it on the burner.
Then while it cooks, I'm constantly scraping/flipping/chopping/spreading the meat so that no surface of the meat stays in contact with the pan for more than like 10 seconds. I'll scrape under the pile of meat with the spatula then flip it over, and it's just slightly changed color around the edges. Then I mash it all together and chop/mix it around and flip again ~10 second later.
(I add in an additional shot of liquid seasoning after the meat is 80% cooked, which includes the ingredients mentioned above, plus a little of that taco seasoning you buy off the shelf)
The result is that the entire portion of meat gets cooked evenly and moist.
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Basically, the real question here is when cooking ground beef/turkey, do you let it sit in the pan for a while between flipping? Or are you constantly scraping/shoveling/chopping the meat around the entire time to make sure that no part of the meat touches the pan for too long and overcooks?
As an inexperienced cook, constantly flipping and mashing/chopping the meat gives me the best results and assures that all the meat gets cooked at the same rate, but I've seen other people, and even cooks in restaraunts who don't pay the meat this much attention.
Any experienced cooks have some thoughts to share?
I'm not an experienced cook, but I cook a lot of ground beef/turkey (mostly turkey for tacos). I notice I cook much differently from nearly everyone else I've seen cook ground beef/turkey.
Most people I see will chop up the ground meat a little, then let it sit in the pan untouched for a couple minutes. Then when they shovel it around with the spatula, the part of the meat that was closest to the pan is already fully cooked, while there's plenty of uncooked meat attached to it.
My whole philosophy of cooking ground meat has been the opposite. I like to put the meat in the pan and immediately add some sort of liquid seasoning mixture (example: for taco meat i use ground red pepper, chile powder, onion/garlic powder, pepper, gravymaster, and water). Then I shovel around the meet and chop at it to make sure it's fully coated with the seasoning before putting it on the burner.
Then while it cooks, I'm constantly scraping/flipping/chopping/spreading the meat so that no surface of the meat stays in contact with the pan for more than like 10 seconds. I'll scrape under the pile of meat with the spatula then flip it over, and it's just slightly changed color around the edges. Then I mash it all together and chop/mix it around and flip again ~10 second later.
(I add in an additional shot of liquid seasoning after the meat is 80% cooked, which includes the ingredients mentioned above, plus a little of that taco seasoning you buy off the shelf)
The result is that the entire portion of meat gets cooked evenly and moist.
* * *
Basically, the real question here is when cooking ground beef/turkey, do you let it sit in the pan for a while between flipping? Or are you constantly scraping/shoveling/chopping the meat around the entire time to make sure that no part of the meat touches the pan for too long and overcooks?
As an inexperienced cook, constantly flipping and mashing/chopping the meat gives me the best results and assures that all the meat gets cooked at the same rate, but I've seen other people, and even cooks in restaraunts who don't pay the meat this much attention.
Any experienced cooks have some thoughts to share?
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