A good sausage or burger begins with the perfect grind

At our butcher shop we have been noticing many of our customers are buying small 1hp or less meat grinders for their homes. Quite often the home meat grinders can serve double duty acting as a sausage stuffer as well.

Our butchers are often asked about meat grinding for hamburgers or sausages and they will answer by asking the customer some more questions, such as; Do you like your burgers/sausages to have a bit of chew or less textured? When you find a good burger or sausage is it a little fatty or lot, Which do you prefer? Do you add spicing ingredients or enjoy au naturel?

When making hamburgers and sausages it is quite important to have your own “perfect grind.” Here are a couple of tips on what we find to be our “Perfect Grind.”

It Is All About The Fat

Use coarse ground chuck, also known as shoulder or blade. This muscle sits beside the start of the highly prized rib loin and makes a top-notch base to your grind. This muscle can be fatty so have your butcher trim the fat well and cubed. Better yet, ask to be instructed on how to seam out each muscle. Meat should be your butchers passion, they are usually happy to share their knowledge. Of course you can experiment with your grind mixture by using ratios of chuck, striploin ends, brisket or short rib meat.

At Olliffe, we start the grinding process by including half the meat with all the fat our recipe calls for and passing (grinding) through a fine plate. This disperses the fat evenly throughout the mixture and the small plate ensures the fat is finely ground and not present when chewing. Spicing may be added in to the mixture but this time passed a coarse plate to be finished.

We recommend you purchase hard fat that is trimmed from either the rib or strip at the loin. This hard fat is the best on the animal, flavorful and will stand up to the heat of a hot grill without rendering too quickly. Be generous when buying your fat, it is “trim” and should be inexpensive.

To Kick it Up a Notch, Or Not?

Many people like to add spices, seasonings and marinades to their burgers and sausages. In our opinion, if you are buying excellent quality chuck with hard steak fat for a hamburger then why mask it?

For sausages spicing and seasoning is perfectly acceptable and fun to have that “eureka” moment when all elements combine to make a great sausage mix.

Adding water to your sausage mix is permissible at times if you do not have enough fat, however bread crumbs or gluten should be avoided.

For instance a happy sausage sales person called on Olliffe with their sausage product. We looked at the package and inquired about the baking soda ingredient. The excited salesman replied, “it is the crumbled Soda Crackers that gives you added flavor.” We then cut the sales call short and stated we make all of our own sausages in-house.To help bind your hamburgers use an egg rather than bread crumbs.

Forming and Pressing

Be very careful to not over mix to the point of kneading your burger or sausage mixture. This will result in a dense and compacted cooked result. When forming your “perfect grind” into patties, whether you are using a patty press or not, be gentle and lightly compact to the patty to the point of light resistance.

Read more: http://life.nationalpost.com/2010/07/22/the-meat-lessons-a-good-burger-or-sausage-begins-with-the-perfect-grind/#ixzz11JGQHbiz

The Secret to Beef Striploin

Tissue steak, anyone? Now that’s a tough chew

Definition: Tissue End, beef — The sirloin end of the striploin that contains a half-mooned shape of very tough connective tissue.

We are going to let you in on a little secret. Armed with this knowledge any person can visit a butcher shop and immediately identify the retailer’s philosophy in terms of both product quality, and how they view their customers. Stop by the beef striploin section and look at each steak closely for a half-mooned perfectly shaped white line; if you see this your “red-flag” should go up.

This is called a “tissue” or “vein” steak. It is very tough and will easily spoil a great backyard barbecue dinner.

Most striploins will cut on average 10 to 12 regular sized steaks. The final three or four steaks running into the tougher sirloin can be called the tissue end. Until recently, the primary measure to rate the quality of the striploin was by how tender it can be (the other measure and growing in clout is flavour).

The tough connective vein in the tissue end left a huge problem for butchers and meat sellers as to what to do with up to 25% of tough (and costly) beef.

Tissue end good for steak burgers and kebabs

Nearly all grocery stores stock and price tissue end steaks on their shelves without discrimination. But at the same time, so do some of the independent butcher shops. At Olliffe, we always separate the end and use it in three ways: send to the kitchen for prepared foods, grind and use in big-flavoured steak burgers or make steak kebabs.

Next time you are at your local meat purveyor, have a look at the tray holding the striploin. If you find a half-mooned line in the centre of the steak, you will know how they not only view their product but also how they view you, the customer.

Read more: http://life.nationalpost.com/2010/08/18/the-meat-lessons-the-secret-to-beef-striploin/#ixzz11JF7gB3o