Browning Ground Beef
This site is called Elementary Chef. Therefore, I would be neglecting my duties to you if I didn’t walk you through this step BEFORE we fix tacos for Saturday night. In many a recipe, you will find the mandate to “brown” the ground beef. First, let’s talk about what ground beef means. There are a number of choices of ground meat available at the butcher. Most of the varieties of beef are differentiated by their fat content. Moment of honesty? The lower the fat, the drier the taste. I’m afraid the fat really does just taste GOOD. Now clearly you should eat 70% lean (and therefore 30% fat) ground beef every day, but if you’re making chili….. It sure is good!
That said, for tacos, you can freely pick any ground beef at your butcher’s counter. I typically buy ground chuck. To brown the beef, you will heat a skillet to medium-high and add the meat. Unless you’re using some super-lean beef (97-99% fat free), you do not need to add oil. The fat will provide plenty of grease. As the meat cooks, gently stir it with a wooden spoon or a spatula to keep the meat from sticking to the bottom of the skillet. As the beef cooks, it will turn brown (hence the term, browning.) You will know it’s finished when all the pink is gone.
The beauty of ground beef is that you can brown it in bulk (several pounds at a time), and then freeze the pre-browned beef in single-meal size bags (1/2-1 pound.) Sure makes dinner easy!
browning ground beef, basic cooking
Leave a Reply