The Simple Ingredient that Will Improve Any Ground Meat | Techniquely with Lan Lam
Browning meat is an essential step in many recipes, but the results are often tough, dry, and gray. Lan Lam breaks down the science behind using baking soda as a tenderizer and browning agent in ground meat to elevate your meal.
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Love it. Southeast Asian making an Armenian guy’s TexMex recipe.
"First you cook the meat,"
No, usually I start with the onion?
Video – "first we'll cook some onion,"
Ah there we go.
Phenomenal!
I found the licorice and jube-jubes added a little Je ne sais quoi to the chili.
I can hear the AI script writing through the various expressions she uses.
It's fine, I guess, it's just hard to unsee once you see it.
Love your videos..❤️
I watched this yesterday morning and decided to try a little baking soda in my ground turkey I was making for tacos. Let me tell you it was LIFE CHANGING. So tender and juicy, zero chewiness. The whole fam was blown away!
So I have a new routine for taco night now!
🌮
Can you do this with bulk sausage?
Yes, ground beef has changed over the years. I remember as a kid (1969), making hamburger patties for my mom, every now and popping a piece in my mouth, and it was good! (remember there is steak tartare) At any rate, in the 90’s I had my own children, and remembered when I was a kid and popping hamburger in my mouth. So then I tried it, and it was gross. Not because I was an adult, but because the hamburger meat had changed. And then in recipes when they say to brown your ground beef, you couldn’t. It was gray, dry and tough, and a lot of watery grease was left at the bottom. So I thank you. Lan Lam for this presentation and understanding how to bring back flavor to our dishes.
I won a chili contest at work in 2020 with this chili recipe (I gave proper credit for the recipe's origin) but I must confess that I did not make the homemade chili powder as per the recipe; I instead used premade chili powder. I did so because I'd made a test batch of the recipe, and the general consensus by those who'd tried it was that it didn't lose too much in terms of flavor by making the switch.
(I *did* use the various spices called for, I just didn't dry-roast the ancho chilies and grind them up.) I also did not include as much of the chipotle peppers in adobo as called for because I wanted to make sure that those with WASP taste buds ( like me 😂) could handle a milder heat.
Even with those changes, I still won, and I was up against some stiff competition, including a very smoky venison chili that was so interesting and different I was sure it would win. But one of my coworkers who was a judge came up to me later and told me he had judged in a statewide chili cook-off before and mine would have won that contest in his opinion. High praise!
The punchline is that the grand prize was a $50 gift card to…Chili's. 😂 (not exactly my favorite chain restaurant; I would have preferred the cash instead. 🤣)
Thanks for not burying the “mystery ingredient “ in the last seconds of the video. I really wanted to watch the rest because I wanted to know how this helps.
Thinking about the Maillard effect, my question is – can I put some baking soda in my dredging mix to help boost the browning of my pounded meat cutlets?
Aromatics are translucent 😅
I love the science behind all of this!
When I brown my mince, it tends to be clumped together, even when pressing and jossling the meat, almost whisking. What am I doing wrong?
Just curious, I wonder if that technique would work with a pound of beyond beef?
Lan you're amazing I love every video you present
One of The Best chef demonstrations ever! She is so clear and I love the science behind the technique. 🙂 🍔🧆🌷🌱
I've used this method a few times and learned the hard way to not use too much baking soda. It makes the meat smell and taste fishy, which is crazy but it will ruin the meat.
Would this technique also work on plant based alternatives for meat?
This series is one of the best cooking shows on the internet
The meat always tastes weird when you add that stuff into it .. don’t like it
Why gelatin in the burger mix, what exactly does that do?
‘Purest Baking Soda’ best for human consumption.
Saponify your meat fat before cooking
Jellatin??? What's that?
I heavily dislike the use of AI in your video scripts. I do not associate it with the high quality videos produced by this channel in the past. Please cease and return to writing your scripts youself.
Click the video as soon as I saw Lan, didnt even think about what this all about lol
Does this work with chicken as well?
90 mins in the oven ?!?!
Just tell me one simple thing WHY in the world would you name a positively charged "yellow" and negatively charged "GREEN" ??? That makes no sense!
I do this with cooking sake. I cut up chicken breast in as chunky bites as I want, let it rest in 1-2 table spoons of sake and let it rest while I prepare the rest of the ingredients. Usually 10-15 mins. No more dry breast ever again. It can just be left in the fridge as well for a day
Fennel seed
…but using baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) destroys vitamin C, vitamin D, riboflavin, thiamin, and an essential amino acid.
This is a Chinese cooking technique. Give credit where credit is due.
This is really cool as I've oten struggles with soggy minced meat. Will use! Quick question: does adding table salt matter for getting the intended effect? We cook with little to no salt because our toddler eats the same as we do, and so, too much salt is to be avoided. (Will have to look up whether the same doesn't hold for baking soda of course).
Oh i enjoyed watching that, i love mince definitely trying that thank you
Or use a good and soft cut of meat. Does the baking soda alter the taste?
Someone needs to put a ring on that woman's finger
Does this work for tofu and vegetarian meat, too? 🙂
Love Lan Lam's videos! Even when it's a topic I think I'm familiar with, I'll still learn something new.
Only note to the editor: could we get unit conversions on the screen? I find myself tuning out to convert the measurements in my head almost every time
Will this work on a steak?