Food and Stories: Home Ground Beef

Fresh Ground Beef for Burgers, Meatballs, etc.

This is the basis for any recipe that requires ground beef. It is especially wonderful for burgers or meatballs. Once you have eaten a burger made from your own ground beef mixture it will be hard to go back to store bought beef. Sorry about that, but not really.

You will need a meat grinder or the attachment for your home mixer, but its worth the investment.

Ingredients:

4 lb. Chuck Roast
1 lb. Sirloin (Or Beef Brisket)
4 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce (More if you like)
Salt/Pepper

Special Tools: Meat Grinder

Total Time: 1 hour (1/2 hour marinating the meat, 1/2 hour processing)

Yield: 5 lb. ground beef

Chuck Roast

Good fat lines for making burgers

Start by cutting the chuck and sirloin into 1 inch cubes or less. Be sure to use all the fat from both pieces as they are very important to the mixture. If I have purchased extra sirloin I often cut the fat on the edges from the other steaks and add that in as well.

Chuck sliced into steaks

Cubed sirloin

Place all the cubes in a large bowl and add 4 tablespoons of worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly and let sit for about 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Obligatory pouring pic

Spicing the meat

Cubed meat with spices, marinating

Have a beer while the meat marinates, and set up the grinder.

Place the meat cubes in the hopper and grind the meat using the largest setting or plate. I rotate my receiving bowl to help out the distribution of chuck to sirloin.

Ready to grind

The cook at work Nice work photog!

Even frozen and thawed it's better than the pre ground

You can use the ground beef right away or freeze it for a later use. I grind beef about every other month and freeze it one lb. units, usually in sandwich bags.

A Delightful Burger Recipe

When the meat is this fresh and made with ingredients that I control, I like to use a very simple recipe to make burgers. Just a little additional flavoring, a binder, and some bread crumbs.
The bacon pictured here is for an accoutrement when cooked.

Ingredients

1 lb. fresh ground beef (above)
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup bread crumbs (plain or seasoned - I prefer seasoned)
salt/pepper
3 Tbsp. grated onion - Optional (grate an onion on a cheese grater to get liquified onion)

Mix all ingredients until the burger meat is only slightly wet and holds together well when balled up.

Split into thirds and flatten out into rounds. Creating a small indentation or well in the center will help to keep you burgers flat and even when cooked.

If cooking on a stovetop I suggest using a flat bottom cast iron skillet. A cast grill pan will work also.

Heat the pan on medium high heat and add burgers when hot. I prefer the once only flip method as with steak.

Cast Iron Pan will hold the heat better for cooking meat

For cheeseburgers, after the final flip add cheese and other items on top of burger, cover with a lid that will not touch the top of your deliciousness. For better results, squirt a little water under the lid and the steam will help melt the cheese.

Once flipped, I add toppings that I will melt cheese over

Add water to hot pan and cover to steam melt the cheese. Helps avoid over cooking.

Accoutrements are a dealers choice, some go better under the cheese, and others as a add on the final product. Be creative. A few of our options are shown below.