Ground beef: calories, cooking and storage

Minced meat is one of the most popular ingredients in the world cuisine, as it allows you to preserve the meat taste in dishes and at the same time significantly reduce the cooking time. Taste and benefit of such dishes as cutlets, burgers, lasagna, dumplings, cabbage rolls and many others greatly depend on the quality of minced meat. Therefore, it is worth knowing what the calorie content and composition of ground beef and consider the rules for its preparation and storage.

Ground beef is a mixture of ground beef with fat and various seasonings. A quality product is prepared solely from the fillet portions of the carcass, the addition of liver and other by-products is considered unacceptable. The ideal ratio of components:

• 80% muscle tissue;
• 20% fat.

Currently 5 quality categories are distributed:

• And - such stuffing has an ideal ratio of meat and fat - 80% to 20%;
• B - meat content from 60% to 80%;
• B - from 40% to 60% of muscle tissue;
• G - from 20% to 40% meat;
• D - the smallest quality category, which contains only 20% of meat.

Of course, it is best to purchase goods belonging to category A. It is worth paying attention to the appearance and smell of the product. The integrity of the package when purchasing a packaged product should not be violated, and its label should contain all the necessary information, including category, composition, date of manufacture, expiration date and availability of certificates of conformity. The composition should not contain third-party elements - cartilage, fragments of bone tissue, skin scraps, etc. Therefore, you should avoid fine industrial stuffing - often such grinding is used to conceal harmful or low-quality additives.

Consistency and color should be uniform. The presence of a matte film on the surface of the ingredient, as well as a rotten smell, is a sign of spoilage. If spices or onions, rather than meat, prevail in the smell of minced meat, it means that unscrupulous sellers try to remove the smell of spoiled meat by adding these components, so you should not buy such a product. Finally, if during defrosting the product does not emit juice, then undesirable artificial additives are present in its composition. If this juice is cloudy or dark, it means that the stuffing was kept longer than the recommended period, so using it for your dishes is undesirable.

Of course, the composition and calorie content of minced meat primarily depend on the proportion of meat and fat in its manufacture, as well as on the presence of additional components in it. Per 100 grams of a classic product with a ratio of "80 to 20" without other ingredients, BJU formula usually has the following form:

• proteins - up to 19 g;
• fats - up to 25 g;
• carbohydrates - usually absent.

The caloric content of such a product can reach 300 kcal. Of the vitamins and trace elements in significant quantities in this ingredient are present:

• BUT;
• group B;
• E;
• TO;
• iron;
• zinc;
• potassium;
• sodium.

Due to the high protein content, the product is very useful for athletes who want to build muscle. Iron contained in minced meat has a beneficial effect on the condition of people suffering from anemia. The use of dishes from this product has a beneficial effect on the condition of bones, joints, skin, hair and nails. Also mince improves the functioning of the circulatory, digestive, urogenital and nervous systems.

The main problem of the purchase of ground beef is the inability to track its real composition, which is often used by dishonest manufacturers who add to it to save meat of lower grades (liver, udder, cartilage) or of poor quality (and even spoiled), and harmful chemical additives. Home-made mince is deprived of these disadvantages, but even it has a number of contraindications.

Due to the high caloric content, its use should be limited to people trying to reduce their body weight. In this case, the more fat is included in the composition of the product, so it is more caloric.Since the product causes an increase in the acidity of the gastric period, it should be excluded from the diet of persons suffering from gastritis, cholecystitis or pancreatitis. Of course, people with allergies or intolerance to individual components should also avoid foods containing this ingredient.

Many housewives are interested in what part of the beef is better to take for stuffing. First of all, in meat should be as little as possible of tendons, fat and other third-party components. Therefore, neck, back tenderloin and fillet are good for stuffing. Direct grinding carried out in such ways:

• in a blender - allows you to get the smallest composition;
• in a meat grinder - allows you to get a homogeneous product of the moderate degree of grinding;
• manually with two sharp knives - allows you to leave in a rather large pieces of meat.

The more the minced meat is crushed, the easier it is to digest, the body will digest faster, and the consistency of the dishes prepared from it will be more gentle. And the time of heat treatment of such stuffing is less than for more coarse. On the other hand, the larger the product, the more pronounced the meat taste of the dishes containing it.

In addition to the classic one-component mince, you can mix the popular pig-beef option - just add the pork in the proportion you need. This stuffing will be much more useful than the usual pork. Also, cow meat can be mixed with chicken, while pork will increase the fat content of the finished product, and chicken, on the contrary, will make it more dietary. Of the other options are well suited turkey and lamb.

As spices, salt, onion, ground pepper (black and red) and nutmeg are best combined with beef. An exquisite delicious recipe often contains one or more of the following ingredients:

• rosemary;
• marjoram;
• garlic;
• oregano;
• greens and dill;
• Chile;
• tarragon;
• sage.

Some housewives to increase the volume of minced meat and better preserve the shape of cooked dishes make it with the addition of crushed white bread. If you want to make soft and juicy minced meat, you can shift it into a small package and beat it on the edge of the table for 5-7 minutes. You can also add the following ingredients for juiciness:

• some water or broth;
• mayonnaise;
• mustard;
• bow.

Ground beef is good for its versatility, because you can fry it in a frying pan, simmer, steam and even cook. When frying, it is best to add 35 ml of sunflower oil per 500 g of the product, and add spices after the mince is dark. After that, it is advised to add half a glass of water to the pan, cover it with a lid and stew the product for 15 minutes over low heat. If you want to simmer the mince without frying, then 500 g of minced meat will need 45 ml of oil, and the cooking time will be up to an hour.

For more on how to make minced beef patties, see the next video.