Do You Knead Ground/Minced Meat?

ElizabethB

ElizabethB

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Back in the day I learned to knead ground/minced meat to incorporate seasonings. In my maturity I have learned to have more respect for the meat. Kneading toughens the meat. Instead of kneading I use my left hand (I am right handed) with my fingers spread like a fork. I turn the meat and seasoning with my spread fingers. The seasoning is distributed and the meat is not abused. I use the same finger/fork method to distribute seasoning in sausage meat.
How do you treat ground/minced meat?
I can see the wheels turning in the twisted minds of TR/CD/ Burt and Russ. I love you anyway.
 
I’ve never heard of kneading ground meat, like you might with bread. I do mix the ingredients together to ensure even distribution, but that’s it. I have not heard about overworking ground meat, the way you might with dough, but I will definitely keep us in mind next time I am working with ground meat.
 
I do mix it, but gently, because overworking, as you say, will make for tough/dense meatballs/meatloaf/burgers. A young Italian(-American) woman whom I was sweet on in my youth taught me that.
 
When I am incorporating ingredients for something like meatloaf, I do work the meat a bit more than I am supposed to, but not the point of what I would call "kneading."

If I am not incorporating anything, I keep it loose. My burgers are usually smashburgers, which I start with a very loose ball of ground beef.

CD
 
I use a dough scraper to fold&chop ground beef - incorporating 'whatever' as needed.
eventually one may 'form it' into a shape - loaf/burgers/etc - but not sure I would call that "kneading"
eg - for burgers, I weigh the batch, do the division, weigh out and use a ring mold to get x number of burgers in similar size and shape.
okay, minor bit of anal retention kind of approach - but seriously not that difficult.....
 
I'm not sure in your application what kneading meat means. I figure that the more you squish and squash a ground meat, the more that the fats will be squeezed out and the fibrous texture will be destroyed. There has been one occasion where I intentionally wanted to reduce a ground meat to a pasty food additive and instead of kneading by hand, I used a blender to do the job. Don't ask what I did at that time, 'cause right now, I couldn't remember, if you tied me to a chair with a bright spot light in my face, gave me scopolamine and stuck bamboo shoots under my fingernails.
 
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