As promised in my Question thread regarding the best ingredients to use in butchery products, I present to you my recipe that can be used for not only a classic steak burger, but also for beef meatballs!
I've gone to the most extreme end of the scale I can possibly go with this (as in the lowest amount of fat, sugars, etc. while maintaining flavour) in order to give you all the chance to be able to play with the recipe a bit and adjust it to how you like it personally, but it is certainly a great base to start from!
I have said use lean beef, but I ended up having to go down the route of using brisket for this as A) It was done at about 8pm on a sunday night, and B) I couldn't get to work to get my hands on some chuck, but any lean steak of your choice will be more than good enough for this. I trimmed ALL fat off of the meat and then weighed out the quantity that I required, but if you like more fat, then feel free to add some in!
Ingredients:
1Kg of lean Beef
1.5g (or a good pinch) Salt
1.5g (or a good pinch) Black Pepper
3g Paprika
1/2 Onion (can be any colour of your choice)
80g Oatmeal
80ml Water (adjust to get the consistency that you like)
Method:
I have my own small mincer (about £35 from a local store) so I have done it based on that, but you can quite easily use the prepacked mince that you can get off the shelf at a supermarket.
Mince the beef through the coarse plate once.
Add in the seasonings, oatmeal, and onion and mix well. Try to keep the mince as loose as possible! The way I do this is to make my hand like a leaf rake, and then mix that way without compressing the mince. The aim is to get the seasonings distributed as evenly through the mince as possible without clumps.
Add the water to hydrate the oatmeal. At this point, you can compress the mince to get a good mix. The key here is to work the meat to extract the Myosin protein (it acts as a binding agent similar to gluten in baking). You'll know when you have it right when the mince starts to bind together, provide some resistance to being mixed, and has a slight bounce to it when pressed.
At this point, change the mincer plate to the medium plate, and then mince the mix once again. You're now ready to make some burgers or meatballs!
For burgers, simply weigh out a ball about 113g (a quarter of a pound), and then simply press this into a burger patty. From there it's a simple case of repeat until you run out of burger mix.
For meatballs, simply roll into balls about the size that you like them to be (you can get about 36 good sized meatballs out of this).
PLEASE NOTE: This recipe has been built around not only my fathers diabetes, but also my mothers preference for a low salt diet. You may like a bigger kick from the pepper, if so simply double the pepper amount.
Based on the nutritional values of what I used, here's a bit of a napkin Nutrition Information table. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of this until I can get a batch sent off to a local nutritional research institute for confirmation:
Per 100g:
Carbohydrate - 4.8g
Of which Sugars - 0.8g
Fat - 0.8g
Of which Saturates - 0.12g
Of which Monosaturates - 0.3g
Of which Polysaturates - 0.22g
Fibre - 0.72g
Salt - 0.15g
As you might agree, these are actually pretty healthy on their own, but having some salad with them will make them even better!
As far as shrinkage goes, you get around 2-5% shrinkage on the burgers, with almost nothing coming out of the burgers - if anything it's just fluid from the onions.
If needed, I can redo this post with pictures to give you a better idea of processes, and what you should be looking for, as well as the finished product!
If you try this, please report back and let me know what you thought of them! I'm always looking for ways to make them better, and it'll also be interesting seeing what variations you come up with!
I've gone to the most extreme end of the scale I can possibly go with this (as in the lowest amount of fat, sugars, etc. while maintaining flavour) in order to give you all the chance to be able to play with the recipe a bit and adjust it to how you like it personally, but it is certainly a great base to start from!
I have said use lean beef, but I ended up having to go down the route of using brisket for this as A) It was done at about 8pm on a sunday night, and B) I couldn't get to work to get my hands on some chuck, but any lean steak of your choice will be more than good enough for this. I trimmed ALL fat off of the meat and then weighed out the quantity that I required, but if you like more fat, then feel free to add some in!
Ingredients:
1Kg of lean Beef
1.5g (or a good pinch) Salt
1.5g (or a good pinch) Black Pepper
3g Paprika
1/2 Onion (can be any colour of your choice)
80g Oatmeal
80ml Water (adjust to get the consistency that you like)
Method:
I have my own small mincer (about £35 from a local store) so I have done it based on that, but you can quite easily use the prepacked mince that you can get off the shelf at a supermarket.
Mince the beef through the coarse plate once.
Add in the seasonings, oatmeal, and onion and mix well. Try to keep the mince as loose as possible! The way I do this is to make my hand like a leaf rake, and then mix that way without compressing the mince. The aim is to get the seasonings distributed as evenly through the mince as possible without clumps.
Add the water to hydrate the oatmeal. At this point, you can compress the mince to get a good mix. The key here is to work the meat to extract the Myosin protein (it acts as a binding agent similar to gluten in baking). You'll know when you have it right when the mince starts to bind together, provide some resistance to being mixed, and has a slight bounce to it when pressed.
At this point, change the mincer plate to the medium plate, and then mince the mix once again. You're now ready to make some burgers or meatballs!
For burgers, simply weigh out a ball about 113g (a quarter of a pound), and then simply press this into a burger patty. From there it's a simple case of repeat until you run out of burger mix.
For meatballs, simply roll into balls about the size that you like them to be (you can get about 36 good sized meatballs out of this).
PLEASE NOTE: This recipe has been built around not only my fathers diabetes, but also my mothers preference for a low salt diet. You may like a bigger kick from the pepper, if so simply double the pepper amount.
Based on the nutritional values of what I used, here's a bit of a napkin Nutrition Information table. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of this until I can get a batch sent off to a local nutritional research institute for confirmation:
Per 100g:
Carbohydrate - 4.8g
Of which Sugars - 0.8g
Fat - 0.8g
Of which Saturates - 0.12g
Of which Monosaturates - 0.3g
Of which Polysaturates - 0.22g
Fibre - 0.72g
Salt - 0.15g
As you might agree, these are actually pretty healthy on their own, but having some salad with them will make them even better!
As far as shrinkage goes, you get around 2-5% shrinkage on the burgers, with almost nothing coming out of the burgers - if anything it's just fluid from the onions.
If needed, I can redo this post with pictures to give you a better idea of processes, and what you should be looking for, as well as the finished product!
If you try this, please report back and let me know what you thought of them! I'm always looking for ways to make them better, and it'll also be interesting seeing what variations you come up with!
