Traditional British Breakfast Fare Ingredients

[badjak]

I learned that from…America’s Test Kitchen.

Even a "proper" meat grinder prefers the meat to be close to frozen.
Any sausage maker will tell you to keep everything cold

 

[JAS_OH1]

Even a "proper" meat grinder prefers the meat to be close to frozen.
Any sausage maker will tell you to keep everything cold

Even the equipment. I'd forgotten that I put my food processor blade and container in the freezer, too.

 

[Barriehie]

I have grinder and cold is good!

 

[SandwichShortOfAPicnic]

I discovered it’s better semi frozen accidentally when I used my food processor to slice some chicken breast. Much better results when semi frozen

But you akready knew that, I'm sure

I can’t/wouldn’t in Spain because the Spanish don’t trust pre ground meat so they don’t sell it. They buy the actual piece of meat and grind it themselves.
The only ground meat they do sell is ‘burger meat’ which is pre-seasoned, full of other preservatives, bulking agents and colouring -

Here’s the standard mince ingredients in Spain -
48% pork, 32% beef, water, rice, vegetable fibres, pork protein, antioxidants: sodium citrates, sodium ascorbate; aromas, preservative: sodium sulphite; salt, colouring: carmine.

I discovered that after buying some pork mince and wondering what was wrong with it. It was very soft and didn’t cook like normal mince. I read the ingredients (not something I even considered I needed to do with a pack of raw meat) and was dumbfounded.
Looked it up and sure enough ground meat is not something the Spanish buy.

 

[karadekoolaid]

I can’t/wouldn’t in Spain because the Spanish don’t trust pre ground meat so they don’t sell it. They buy the actual piece of meat and grind it themselves.

Many people do that over here as well. Suspicious of the ready minced meat (they might put too much fat or poor quality meat in the mixture), you'll see people ask for a piece of round or sirloin, watch the butcher like a hawk as he removes silverskin, tendons, whatever, and then tell him to mince it. Twice!

 

[Barriehie]

I like to buy stew meat to grind and I'll add bacon in the mix for the fat percentage.

 

[badjak]

I always bought mixed cut (stewing beef) and added left over fatty pieces of rump steak to keep get the fat percentage I wanted and keep it all beef.
We are getting cooler now, so soon I will bring out the mincer again

 

[Barriehie]

I always bought mixed cut (stewing beef) and added left over fatty pieces of rump steak to keep get the fat percentage I wanted and keep it all beef.
We are getting cooler now, so soon I will bring out the mincer again

Reminds me I've got 4 lbs. of frozen beef fat chunks in the freezer from the oil/grease/lard challenge.

 

[SandwichShortOfAPicnic]

Sausage blocks.
Each log is approximately the equivalent of 1½ normal bangers.

Apparently because they are skinless they can become dry when cooked. A couple of sites suggest steaming them first so they only need a brief fry and retain more of their juices so that’s what I did.

Before steaming

Post steam showing the expected shrinkage.

And a couple after a brief dap into the frying pan.

They taste great, very happy with them, they’ll do nicely for a Full English.
I kept it simple this time so I’m going to adjust the herbs and seasonings a bit next time to make the flavour bolder.
I might add in some mace along with the rosemary and thyme.
They are very juicy so that’s a good win in my book.