Ep003 - You Are Browning Meat Wrong
In episode three of the Okayest Cook Podcast, titled 'You're Browning Meat Wrong,' host Chris Whonsetler and his co-hosts Corey Cole, Colt Heininger, and Andrew Heiser delve into the nuances of properly browning meat. From personal experiences and tips on thawing meat to discussing the impact of adding fat and innovative techniques like using baking soda, the episode is packed with insights. They also explore various ways to spice up ground meat dishes, including unique recipes and seasoning blends. The episode wraps up with Andy's detailed recipe for making the ultimate taco meat, including his special 'taco wash.' Whether you're a seasoned cook or just starting, this episode offers valuable knowledge to elevate your meat-cooking skills.
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Chris: Corey, push that button for us
Andy: and we're gonna talk. Oh man.
Chris: Yes,
Andy: I am looking forward to the rankings today.
Colton: I look forward to those every week.
Chris: Now, I don't know what we're gonna, the rankings. You might not like 'em. We'll see.
Colton: Depends on if you're at the top or the bottom.
Andy: And we don't ever know which
Chris: way for this. Yeah. You never know. You never know. It's up for the audience to figure that out.
Yeah, so welcome back to the Okayest Cook Podcast. This is episode three. You are Browning Meat, wrong. At least in my opinion at least I was Browning Meat wrong. So I'm Chris Whonsetler, the host, and I am joined by my three co-hosts here. And today I'm ranking them, introducing them slash ranking them by their ability to grow a beard.
Andy: Oh geez.
Colton: Oh, here we go. Not first.
Chris: So we've got Corey Cole. Colt Heininger and Andrew Heiser.
Colton: I know Which way? That one I keep ending up right in the middle every time.
Chris: Yours is better than mine, so I know it's not. I
Colton: know
Chris: where I'm
Colton: disagree. There.
Chris: Consider so the people on YouTube can verify all these facts.
Yeah. I had to do it before it got too warm outside because my beard is seasonal.
Corey: Yeah, you're a seasonal beard.
Chris: I can't do, I can't do a full-time beard. It's just, but I
Andy: feel like if you just think about beard, you'll have a full beard. And for me, this is like a journey.
Chris: Maybe this is like a
Andy: six month
Chris: journey.
It does take some time. Takes some time.
Andy: This is about three weeks. Yeah. See, I can't do that.
Chris: It's solid. It's solid. Yeah. Nope. But seriously, if it gets like. If it gets above 50, 60 degrees, like my lips start sweating, it's gross. So the beard needs to come off. It's essentially a free scarf is all my beard is that's where I'm sitting on the beard.
Yeah. So what let's talk food. What did you guys eat, drink this week? What are tell, talk to me here.
Andy: Which one do I want to talk about first? Let's talk about tributary. 'cause that was the one that was recently A try for me. I so I love Jimmy Cherry. I've got a buddy of mine that makes some killer Jimmy Cherry and I tried a recipe and in typical Andy fashion, I just sped red through it.
And I was like, I'll just do all this and I'll throw it right into a blender. And you're supposed to like slowly add these ingredients in there and chop them in using a food processor like slowly. And I went with the blend method and brought it here for the boys to taste. We had some back straps, so we were able to That's good to try that.
Chris: It's good.
Andy: I think it turned out okay, but I was really not happy with my initial take on it, to be honest. I think
Colton: we all thought it was better than you did.
Andy: I know. I was by far the hardest
Corey: part. Are you, do you feel like it, you, the consistency or the taste?
Andy: Consistency. The flavor is good. It's very limey, which I did on purpose.
There's more lime in than I called for, but I wanted it to be that way. I thought
Corey: it was great.
Andy: But I like, I didn't have that chunky like. Chunky ingredient from like a, I
Chris: could see that, yeah. Being a little smooth, but yeah, I wouldn't say that's a turn off. I say you could have gone a little hotter and some red pepper flavors.
Yeah.
Andy: There is
Chris: spice it
Andy: up a little bit is, believe or not, there is a a chili pepper. I can't remember which one I grabbed. I just got, I didn't go hot and narrow. It's just what I wanted to do because I was hoping that Krista would. Partake.
Chris: She still
Andy: she did not. So I was just light. Light and limey.
Oh boy. How about you guys?
Corey: I didn't have anything super crazy this week, but last night Jess and I got to partake in one of our favorite little hole in the walls. Tie orchid. Oh yeah. When we're in cast. Heard of it. Yeah. Man, their pad tie so good.
Andy: Yeah.
Colton: I didn't make anything of note this week, but I saw a recipe that I want to try.
My wife is getting really into the sourdough, so we end up with, at least a sourdough loaf a week. And there's only two of us eating it, so we end up throwing some out a lot 'cause it goes stale. I was
Andy: really upset. There wasn't any of that today.
Colton: Oh, I brought some. Oh you did? Yeah. It's over on the island.
Yeah,
Andy: I was gonna say make crouton. You said it was coming.
Colton: Yeah. So c That's a good idea, Chris. Yeah, we need try croutons. But I saw online 'cause I was just Googling, what can you do with stale bread? Hank Shaw's got a recipe out for this alpine bread soup that uses Okay. Old stale bread. So I'm curious to try that.
Chris: Okay.
Colton: It looked pretty simple too. So I'm a fan of Hank, so
Chris: I would say, yeah, I would say croutons. If you don't do soup, do croutons or have you tried like breading, like making your own?
Colton: I have
Chris: not. That's
Colton: another
Chris: well breading.
Andy: And then I know you have some seasonings you were talking about playing with too.
So that might be a way to make Oh, definitely make some good breading for
Corey: definitely
Andy: recycle that stuff.
Corey: But I, you guys
Colton: are giving me lots of good ideas for the future
Corey: here. Instantly was like, man, that would be perfect in some French engine suit.
Andy: Now, like the one, I don't wanna I don't know if you're not gonna talk about this later.
Laura will talk about it now. Yeah. The, that one that you weren't sure about, what you were gonna do with. That could be a really good opening. Oh yeah, the orange one.
Colton: Derrick Wolf, Tennessee smoke.
Chris: Yeah. We'll bring that up later here. Yeah. So I also did not do much cooking this week. We preschool, the gift that keeps on giving, we had a nasty round of the stomach bug.
So fun. Literally there was like no cooking in my house whatsoever. So it was a lot of research online. And interesting. I saw the. It's this. So we're going to like the dessert category, which we've haven't gone quite yet, but I saw somebody make a bourbon root beer float. Oh,
Colton: yes.
Chris: And I almost got all the supplies, but I just skipped the store.
Colton: Could use that tonight,
Chris: dude. It looked amazing. Sounds amazing. Maybe next week I'll bring the bourbon root beer floats. But I wanna try that real bad. So that's my only food thing for the week. Hopefully next week the stomachs will be feeling better and I'll be in the kitchen a bit more.
Let's get straight into the meat here and talk about grind. So as a, I guess a generic okayest cook, like we're grinding a lot of meat, right? How much meat would you say you guys like grind? Like on a, we do it like a monthly or grind yearly or
brown.
Chris: Like using ground meat.
Andy: Oh,
Chris: we'll just say that like for us. Okay. We're hunters. So like we're getting venison. Are you grinding your whole venison? Or
Andy: this was a great year for me in the woods. So I had, 'cause I had, I got four deer this year, so I have a lot of ground meat to go around. Even last year though, we I would say that, there's a good 90 pounds of ground meat that I'll eat throughout the year that's impress. But I'm I like the roast, I like the steaks, I like the Yeah. The bone end stuff too. So I have a lot of that. But the, but ground, like ground meat makes the rota. There's two pounds of a t thong for tomorrow in the fridge right now.
So I, I do anywhere from a pound to two pounds a week, I would say. Nice. Because it's just. You can. It's so versatile. I
Corey: was gonna say, you can do so much with it.
Andy: That's why. And that I use it in my omelet. I can use it, just throw, make it, put it over rice. And I have just what I call dirty rice, which is usually just.
Eight ounces of venison, a cup of jasmine rice mixed in together. And I throw a little bit of the, like some like Japanese barbecue sauce that'll pour on top of that, mix it all in there together and looks like dirty rice and it's delicious. Yeah. So but then you can just do so much with it. So it makes my rotation every week for sure.
Yeah,
Colton: we're probably in a similar boat, probably one to two pounds a week. And we get part of a cow every year too. I'd say we go through about a hundred pounds per year minimum. Between kind of all protein sources.
Corey: Yeah. I'd say I'm probably pretty close to you 'cause we get a cow as well.
And then I think I got, I think I got 60 pounds of ground last year, and then I think I got another 70, I think I did 70 pounds of ground this year. On, on what I got. Yeah, we go through it a lot.
Andy: Your buck was big, right?
Corey: He was,
Andy: yeah. That's awesome.
Corey: Monster. I think he field dressed at 2 0 5.
Chris: Yeah.
Corey: And then my mom, of course. That's a lot of me. Then my mom, of course, the next day dropped at two 30.
Chris: She, yeah, we, I asked you guys, but I haven't actually like mentally tallied what I go through. My, my wife's a huge fan of the chicken, so we do a lot of that, but yeah, definitely like ground meat is so easy to use, like it's hard to not talk about.
And especially, like I said for the Okay as cook, like the average person who doesn't really know what to do in the kitchen, yeah, a roast might be intimidating or, saving. Anything but the backstraps for steak might be a little intimidating. And we're gonna talk about that in a future recipe.
So hang on to bets here for talking about steak. We will discuss like all the cuts and stuff, but today's ground meat. And I would say correct me if I'm wrong, like we don't care if you wanna grind your whole deer. If you wanna grind up the back strapp. Your tacos are just gonna be the best tacos you've ever had.
Colton: Make some good tacos.
Chris: I personally would never do that, but we're not gonna,
Andy: yeah. I don't like that idea.
Chris: We're not gonna drive a bus over you. If you, it's what my, you decide to do that with your deer.
Corey: It's what my parents do. They'll keep four roasts and then they grind everything.
Andy: I had my,
Corey: that's where they're at in life.
Andy: My honey buddy Nick down in Texas, his had a little bit of a miscommunication with butcher. Oh no. And they ground the whole thing. Oh.
He's got really good tasting.
Chris: It's gonna be phenomenal. That is sad though. And another point to do it yourself.
Andy: Yeah,
Corey: exactly.
Chris: Yes. That's why we do this. I know. Not everyone's able to or doesn't have the equipment to. It is tricky. It does take, a little bit of gear but learning to process your own animal, like we'll prevent such instances from happening to you in the future. But yeah, that is sad.
If you're expecting a bunch of stakes and then you just get. A box full of ground meat. That's sad. That is sad. But yeah, literally the list of uses for ground meat is like endless. Just in my house we do like tacos and spaghetti and pizza and ronza and put it in cheese dip. I could go on and on.
Yeah, ground meat is literally king, I would say pound for pound. Like it's the most,
Corey: I would say definitely it's the staple.
Chris: Yeah.
Corey: Yeah. That we
Chris: like across the board, absolutely. Like across the hunting board. I would even agree with
Andy: I think it's kind one of the things we've talked about as far as like why we wanted to do the podcast in general is that this is a staple, is the and not that we want to get people away from that.
We're hopeful to give some folks to maybe experiment with some things outside of just this, but we, it would be bad if we didn't talk about. All
the
Andy: tips and tricks of maybe doing this a little bit better.
Chris: Oh yeah. We'll definitely talk about such topics like smoking entire front shoulders or
Turning Corning it what'd you do? You grinded it.
Colton: Yeah. We made that
Chris: Hamed back
Colton: hind quarter
Chris: ham. Yeah, it was crazy. Hamed it And that was nice. It was good. And for somebody who has a huge pork allergy, like that ham, it was like, I haven't had to ha I haven't gotten ham.
Colton: That ham surprised me with how good
Chris: it was.
It was so good. That's a future episode. We're yes. I know we're dropping hints here for future conversations.
Colton: But that's where, so like this is an episode all benefit from personally because I was looking through my list of what I use ground meat for. We use, we do it for tacos, burgers, that's pretty much it.
Andy: Yeah.
Colton: And just ground meat. Part of what we're about is how do we. I wanna learn from you guys and find some fun things to do.
Andy: So I meant, I wrote this in my notes and I didn't say it for the intro story, but this is a thing that I wanted to talk about. Actually, my experiment for the week actually was better than what I was I led with earlier, and that is that I got a chance to play with.
On accident, a thing with ground with browning meat.
Chris: Okay.
Andy: Here, so well
Chris: We do need to segue into how do you ground or how do brownie meat,
Andy: okay. So this is, I'll take us there. We'll talk about this US experiment of a, of how I brown my meat. So typically I'm. You put the meat in the pan and you brown it.
That's the, that's everyone's go to. Yeah. But this was one of those things where I wasn't sure if it was a good idea or not a good idea. And it turned out to be a phenomenal idea. So first off I love my cast iron skillet. We talk about this a lot, right? I had the cast iron out outside on the grill, so I had to burn her out on the grill inside.
And I was like, you know what? I had made some mok as I, I don't think we've talked about that on the podcast yet, or not, but some breakfast sausage that I enjoy making. And I had made that earlier in the day, so that had been in the pan still, and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go ahead and just use this pan and start putting my onions in there.
I'm a big fan of putting onions, and you'll hear about this later on in the episode when I give the recipe about how I like onions in my, ground meat, and I put the onions in there with some butter and just kinda got those things rolling. And they got nice and dirty looking.
I loved it. How was I was going? And I was like, normally I pull 'em out and then I brown the meat and then I put it all back together.
But this time I was like, what would I, what would happen in a world if I just popped the meat right inside of there and just kept the whole thing rolling there? It's, so I just put it inside dropped the ground ground venison into that.
Now this ground venison has a little fat added to it. Beef tallow and just kept it rolling and as it browned, just kept the onions going in there, it got really fine.
And I was like, I should probably drain this. I was like, but what if I didn't drain it and I just left the fat in it?
Because at this point it's just practically beef,
it's beef fat, so that's gonna be flavor right. So I just kinda left that going in there. And then I did what we'll see in my episode later, what I call a taco wash, which is just seasonings and water mixed together, right?
Dumped that bad boy in there, just kept it going and let this stuff simmer down.
So the moisture was basically out of it and oh my god, like just crazy again, worked out. That's, I had thought about bringing some tonight for you guys, but I ate the last of it
Chris: this morning. Oh, geez. For breakfast. Come on.
Andy: Sorry.
Chris: So the onions didn't burn?
Andy: No,
Chris: They kept, I don't know
Andy: if it was magic,
Chris: they
Corey: just kept caramelizing.
Andy: They just kept caramelizing, basically.
Chris: Yeah, because I could see, yeah if I brown my onions the way I typically brown them and then I add the meat, like that'd be far too gone.
Andy: Yeah. Now keep mind,
Chris: I'd like to remember to add
Andy: them. They were like barely translucent when I added the meat in there, so they were still rolling in there.
Okay. So
Chris: see in my mind, like they were a lot browner than that.
Andy: They were browner in color because of the,
Chris: because of the other.
Andy: The sausage there, the brown butter and stuff
Chris: in there. The, yeah. Yep. Interesting. Yeah,
Andy: it sounds awesome. I dunno if it's a one time AC occurrence or if I'm gonna try to do it again, but that was, try again, let experiment.
That went well.
Chris: Yeah. You, so you mentioned adding the beef towel. Is that something you ground?
Andy: Yes.
Chris: You do grind that in with your venison.
Andy: So as you guys know, on our deer. So not this season, but season. Prior to that, I just went straight venison, no fat added, just as clean as possible. That's what I typically do, which is typically what I do.
But this time around I had three different deer worth because I had the fourth one in Texas. I had butchered down there. And then my buddy Nick brought it up when he came to visit. So I had three deer worth of venison to, or to grind, or three deer worth of ground to grind. And so I was like, I wanna, I want a little bit more flavor to it this year.
I didn't wanna go crazy, so I popped onto my local butcher shop. They hooked me up with some beef tallow, and I just, I mixed it into what ended up being basically 90 10. So it's not it's not super duper fatty. You're actually a little spoiler alert. I have some for you as a thank you for letting me use your grinder.
Okay. So you can check it out. Lemme know you think, but honestly, the flavor profile it gives and also the ease of cooking now that there's some more fat in there is actually really nice. So I probably won't do, I think next year I'll do half and half. I'll do half regular. Yeah. Half with some fat added I this year I committed to all of it, but
Chris: yeah.
What about you guys?
Andy: Fat in your
Chris: ground or No?
Corey: I put fat in my ground simply. Yeah. Because it's the easiest way to get my wife and daughter to eat it.
Chris: That helps.
Corey: So I don't mind, it does
taste
Chris: a little better.
Corey: I don't mind it by itself. Yeah. But I put it in there just to, 'cause I know they'll enjoy it more.
Chris: Yeah.
Colton: Yeah. I put, I'm probably 90 10 as well. Something I tried last year for the meat I knew I was gonna make burger out of is I I put my. Leftover brisket, trimmings from a brisket I smoked and ground those into it. That turned out really well.
Chris: Yes. You give was some really good flavor.
Colton: Oh, yeah,
Chris: Yeah.
So I honestly, I've been in the camp of just like straight venison, like just not adding any fat at all. I just I wanted it to be pure for whatever reason. In my mind I was like, if I put fat in this, most of the stuff I'm cooking, I'm just draining the fat out anyways.
Andy: Right.
Chris: But then out of nowhere, I just.
Melted some fat, cooked my venison into fat and holy crap, that was good. It adds a ton. It makes a big difference of
Andy: flavor. So if I don't have, again, as you guys know, the, I love pork, who doesn't love me, but every now and then, playing with some bacon grease Yes. Is the best. So yes, I, every time we cook bacon for a Krista in Austin I'll save the grease bit later.
I love cooking with
it.
Chris: Yeah.
Andy: Does it bother you?
Colton: Eh,
Andy: a little bit. A little bit. I'm no quitter, Cory.
Chris: You don't have to answer that.
Andy: Ice cream bothers me too, but I still love it.
Chris: Yes. Yeah so I'm honestly on the fence. I don't know what to do. I think 90 10 is a great ratio if I'm gonna add fat.
I've been super lazy with processing the rest of ideas. So I've got just a bunch of bags in the freezer that I need to grind still. And I need to work through in my head am I gonna add fat to this or not?
Andy: And I will say just the nutrition side of this too. Yes you're adding fat in there.
Fat is predominantly bad if you're overusing it, but you need fats. It's good for your body, it's good for recovery. And the problem with super lean meats is that you don't have to get those fats in there and so you're getting your proteins, but it doesn't actually help break down. You actually do need to have some fat.
That's
Chris: why. Yeah, if you watch the Alone series Co Colton's, our expert on alone here, but like love that series, love it. People that like end up shooting these animals. End up like starving, like you're getting a ton of protein, but yeah. You're not getting
Andy: the fat from it
Chris: all the fat.
Andy: I, so
Chris: you do need fat.
You, you
Andy: need, you need fat and you should definitely I think that's the other reason why I wanted to try it, just from a standpoint of what's actually helping the meat be better for me? Yeah. Is putting a little bit in there. Yeah. I think we could probably get away with even going a little bit less not like a 95 5 type of scenario.
That way you're at least cooking with it, do what you're doing. We were draining most of it out anyway.
Colton: And I will say, so I don't own a grinder, so I tend to have to grind all my meat at one time. So sometimes I'll do different batches with different ratios. 'Cause a good point there is even if you want less fat in your ground, like if you're doing something like sausage, you're gonna need more than 10%.
Chris: Yeah. That's probably where I'm gonna end up because I love burger. And I love Burger with 20% ratio.
Colton: Heck yeah.
Andy: 80,
Chris: 20
Andy: baby.
Chris: I do know a lot of people that do like a straight fat list burger and they say it holds up, but false. False.
Colton: Yeah,
Chris: that's, it's possible. But I have not mastered that quite yet myself.
But I'll probably end up doing like maybe half and half. Half 90 10, half. Yeah. 80 20. We'll see.
Colton: And if, I don't know, some of it's I'll just grind some with no fat, just if I don't know what I'm gonna do, I'd say that's
Chris: always the best bet. If you don't have a clue what you're gonna do, just keep it neutral.
You, you can always grind it again. You can
Andy: always add fat later.
Colton: And maybe this is too much of a tangent here too, but I mix meats a lot. So if I'm making chili, I do half innocent, half beef a lot. So if I pull out a bag of innocent and there's no fat in it, it doesn't really matter.
Andy: You can add it in the others. Yeah. That's smart.
Chris: Let's go ahead and transition into actually cooking this meat. And Danielle Pruitt has a phenomenal article on the meat Eater. Website about properly grind or properly browning your meat. And if you have not read this article, it is a hundred percent worth the read.
It makes you think a little bit like just slow down, spread things out, maybe get a bigger pan. I'm not gonna spoil it. So you're gonna have to go read this article yourself. But I've. What kind of hit me was like, I'm just trying to rush through it too quick. I'm throwing everything in whatever pan I grab first.
And in her words I'm essentially steaming my meat.
And I saw that and it was like, it just, it comes out gray. It doesn't really get quote unquote brown.
And that, that was where I was flawed a bit, but also using like oil or some fat. To help that browning process.
Those are my big key takeaways from her article there. But any other tips? You guys have
Colton: Her article. So I read that this past week and I've always known what Browning Meat is, but I tend to just throw it in the pan, cook it, and when it gets brown, I take it out. That's what I thought Browning meat was.
I read her article, I tried her tips. And my meat was a thousand times better than it's ever been. Yeah. It actually had that she talks in there again without going through the whole article. She talks about you're going for that crispy, dark
Chris: Yes.
Colton: Color, like you're sear in a steak. And I've never done that
Chris: before.
Before the myriad myrad. Reaction. Like it needs to be like caramelized.
Colton: Yeah. Yeah. Where that meat caramelized, crisp.
Chris: I think maybe the
Andy: fear of a lot of that too is you know, people thinking or maybe pulling it out too early. So essentially staining it is that you're worried about overdoing it.
Yeah. And if we've learned anything about venison, it's oftentimes when you're talking about a steak, like it's hot and fast, right? Basically like cook, cook out the bad stuff on the outside, enjoy the good stuff on the inside. Yeah. But with Browning meat. That's not how that actually works.
Chris: Right. Yeah. You can't treat it like a steak. Absolutely. Like it's not gonna be rare in this. That's
Colton: not gonna happen. And I, not rare, but that's generally how I used to treat it. I used to, I didn't want to overcook it and make it all dry. Yeah. Just
Chris: made as soon as it was brown enough you
Colton: would but it rocked my world this week,
Chris: oh yeah. So if you Yeah go read her article and do her tips, like word for word. So you should be,
Andy: you should be looking
Chris: for
Andy: more.
Chris: Like more, it should look more like a steak and less like a McDonald's hamburger. Yeah. If it's a, that's actually
Corey: a really good analogy.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah you should not be steaming your, when you said steam, that's all I could picture exactly. Was this McDonald's burger? I was like,
Corey: does a steam patty?
Colton: Yeah. Chris touched on it too. He said, slowing down bigger pan, not overcrowding as well. I tend to do that. Yeah. Like I'm making big batch of chili.
Try to do so much at once. Yeah. I'll do two pounds at one time and then I
Chris: Oh,
Colton: for sure. Yeah. It takes forever.
Chris: I've started, like even if I'm just doing one pound at a dime, like I'll split it in half and I'll do really half pound. Get that half pound. Yeah. It makes a big difference. Yeah. Spread it out.
Just, any moisture in the meat, like if it's. Gonna evaporate. Yeah. Like you need space for that to evaporate. If you're like collecting like big puddles, like under your ground meat, like that's we actually, that's a good transition here to talk and to like how to avoid like these puddles like in your skillet.
And I've personally found that thawing meat properly is like a game changer. I dunno about you guys, but anytime I've tried to rush the thaw throw it in a bowl of water Yeah. Or
Makes it never turns out as good. Nope. My, my buddy John, he runs a wild game cook on Instagram.
Gave me this phenomenal idea and he's actually selling cups now with his logo on it, and I'm gonna buy one. But he basically takes like a plastic cup, puts a paper towel in it. You take your game bag with your meat in it, you like slice the top off, or slice the bottom and you just put it in that cup on top of the paper towel.
Just rock hard straight from the freezer and just put it in your fridge. 2, 3, 4 a week later, it's gonna be perfect. You're changing the paper towels as it's draining. Like once a day, change the paper towel, but it'll it'll keep there for a long time. And, I'm referencing meat eater again.
Like they, they talked about packing out meat. And Steve at one point was like, there's a smell
Where it's this meat smells funny. But it's not bad.
And then he said there's another smell where this meat is definitely bad.
Andy: And then we had that experience. I called you about my, my, my deer from Texas.
Oh, yeah. So my deer from Texas had this meat, this smell. And I'd always, at this point, had always processed at this, like all of my own deer and the meat that I got back. Had what I now know is like
Chris: the good smell of it being slightly different.
Andy: Yeah.
Chris: And it's hard to explain, right? I cannot put words to it.
And I want to like, sit down with Steve face to face, like during one of these elk packouts, and I want to smell the smells that he's talking about because I need to know. But I'll be honest, I've had me in my fridge like thawing in this wild game cook way for a long, like over a week like. And it's been fine, like zero smell.
Granted, like I've taken good care of it, like beforehand, so there's, it's not funky, like in the bag.
Andy: Right.
Chris: And I would say like exercise caution. I'm not telling you guys that it's going to be okay. Yeah, take that with a grain of salt. I'm just saying in my experience you've got more time than you think when you're going to fall your meat out, have one in the fridge ready to go. You don't have to use it the same day, you pull it outta the freezer.
Andy: So on that note, again, going back into the, like the new, like the meal prepping side of things too. I try to make a conce. I try to make a real effort to make sure that I'm pulling out what I want to cook on Sunday, no later than Thursday.
Chris: See, I need to get better at that.
Andy: So basically the easiest thing you can do is set a reminder on your phone.
Chris: Yeah.
Andy: For Thursday at a certain time. And go to the fri, I go to the freezer, I pick out what I want to like this is typically when I start doing some planning. I'm like, do I have time this weekend to actually cook something fun?
Or if I'm just gonna do the basics. And then I'll pull out whatever I need and then move it over to the refrigerator. Now I have gotten smart about putting, either putting it on a plate or on a paper towel because sometimes game bags leak. All
Chris: the time. All
Andy: the time. Game
Chris: bags leak. And there's another huge perk of this cup, that's You're not gonna leak any blood. Yeah, that's true. It's true not
Colton: blood. For
Chris: those of you
Colton: that have similar situations, your wife will not be happy.
Andy: Oh
Chris: my God, they're,
Andy: oh it's bad. When
Chris: I've had to pull the whole fridge apart before Yep.
Colton: Stuff on deep clean.
Chris: Yeah. But yeah I'm gonna say this again like I just said it, but you've got a lot more time than you think.
If it's steak Yeah. Just put it on one of those trays, elevate it, keep it out of the, its own liquids. If it's meat. Ground meat in a bag. Yeah. Just keep changing that paper towel, like you've got a lot of time.
Andy: Right on.
Chris: And I'm the king of oh, I want tacos tonight, so I need to thaw something out right now.
And I need to get better at just prepping that ahead of time
Colton: well, with the taco meat too, so I'm always good about fish and steaks, putting those on paper. Towels. Plates. I'm terrible. I just leave the ground meat in the bag, let it thaw, let it sit in its own juices this week for the first time.
I did a similar method, not with a cup, but I put it in a, I never say this word, right? Colander. Colander. Colander,
Andy: first
name.
Colton: Okay. Colander. That's what I was saying. Colander in a bowl. So the juice just drips down into the bowl end. And that, I think, is a big reason why the meat turned out so well too.
Chris: Oh, yeah. I will say that I don't think it's, I might be shooting myself in the foot here. I don't think it's bad that it sits in its own juice. But I will say it, I'm gonna follow it up with this next tip that I've got, unless anyone's got more thoughts on following.
Andy: I would just say the, I think it goes back to your, like, how was it prepped on the way in when?
Absolutely. I'm just thinking about like the, when we did our three, our deer here we had, we were putting it right from the grinder, right into the like, and it was as tight as it possibly can be sealed up right away. If you were, if that were, like, if you were putting into a giant tub and then it sat out for a little bit and then you throw it in some bags, there's a bunch of air.
Yeah. And now there's that's when you're gonna a bacterial situation with things for sure floating around in this. But if, like this time around I, my meat I use day a vacuum sealer for it. So I don't think it, I think thawing it the way, like bringing it out on Thursday, letting it sit for a couple days and just in that packaging alone is probably.
Not gonna cause any not gonna cause any issues at all there. Yeah. But the way you're going about it, you're just re you are re remove, removing a lot of that stuff that you're gonna probably cook off
Chris: Yeah.
Andy: In the pan. Which can, I'm always, I always butcher the name of the word.
I can't even think of it now. That what, it's not blood. I always tell my wife when she sees that it's not blood that you're seeing coming outta the bag there, but I know this word too. Yeah.
Colton: It's like the muscle fibers. Yeah. Or something like that.
Andy: Starts with an m. I think this is where we're gonna sound silly and someone's like screaming at us on this podcast.
Idiots. Yeah. But but but I think if you myoglobin, is that it? Something like that?
Colton: No, that sounds familiar.
Andy: Maybe. I don't
Colton: know. My myoglobin, yeah, myoglobin
Andy: got it put to the Googles. But that's what it actually is. But by removing it and not cooking with that, you're probably getting a better flavor.
Chris: Yeah. I will say like that, the steamed meat, that's definitely where that comes from. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, again, removing that from the equation, a hundred percent, it's gonna be good.
But with this tip, and I told you guys to try this. I'm hoping you did America's Test Kitchen put out this article.
I, I don't know where it came from. I don't know who did this thing, but putting baking soda in with your ground meat, like before you start browning it, in my opinion is a game changer. Like I loved what it did. And they actually said,
Andy: did you do this in conjunction with the dripping thing?
Chris: Yes and no.
I did. I've done it a couple different ways and theyve, they've, in my mind, they've both been successes. So I, they, on the the article I saw they recommended anywhere from a half teaspoon or a quarter teaspoon to a half teaspoon. I've only used a quarter and. I think that might be a bit too much.
Like you can taste the baking soda. That's a little bit what I wasm afraid of bit. But so stick to a quarter teaspoon baking soda. So this is like a
Andy: minimal amount of baking soda.
Chris: It's a tiny bit, yeah. Per pound of ground meat.
So it's a quarter teaspoon. Mix it with a tablespoon of water, massage that into your meat in a bowl, let it sit for five to 15 minutes and then brown it.
And I tell you what, like the meat chunks you get like a read their article. Like it, it does something to the pH, so it browns better like that mi that myrad, what's the word? Tell me. Myoglobin. No the reaction. Like the caramelization. What's the word for caramelization?
Colton: I don't know.
Chris: That reaction scientist caramelization there's a word for it. It's my myrad myriad. It's not myriad. The
Colton: specific reaction to the meat.
Chris: A myriad of words we're, it's the name. If the word for browning meat, like there's a word for it like it, it does that better. Like something about the pH, like it browns better, it caramelize is better, but it also like just locks in moisture.
It's it was literally like, like each little clump of a ground meat was like juicy, as I was eating. Interesting. And it, I'm, I'll never not do it again. Like it was great.
Corey: I did mind little bit different. And so I probably should have just done it that way. But I have found. If I want my kids to eat it, I have found that brown sugar Okay.
Is really incredible with it. And so
Chris: getting into that sweet, savory
Corey: world it doesn't turn to a sweetness. Like it, but it just, for whatever reason, it takes that. Quote unquote gamey.
Chris: Yeah,
Corey: it neutralizes a little bit. So I did the baking. So I
Chris: will say the baking soda like doesn't do anything for Yeah.
The gaminess.
Corey: So I did the baking soda. Okay. With my brown sugar.
Chris: Okay. Okay.
Corey: And I don't know, I. I'd be lying if I said I noticed a difference. I didn't necessarily notice a difference, but it may be because
Chris: Do a side by side.
Corey: I did the brown sugar. Yeah,
Chris: yeah. Do it. Do a side. I did a side by side the first time I did it, and it was like night and day.
Like one was like literally dry and gross and the other one was just juicy and
Corey: have to try. I'll
Chris: have to try it do side by side. Legit. Good. Have
Andy: you tried this with burgers yet?
Chris: I've only done it with ground meat. I wonder what it would do in a burger
Andy: to hold in
Chris: juice. There's there's something about, and so in their article.
I read a couple different articles about this and it was like, didn't you do it?
Colton: You're all looking at me like, I did this and I didn't do it this week, so
Chris: I didn't do it. I literally about it and I was like, I don't want to put this in my meat, but also try it for a quarter pound. Like just try it.
So I think it's hundred percent worth
Colton: it. I will say I, I did try it this week. Listening to you now, Chris, I realize I did it wrong, which is probably my did not turn out well.
Chris: You didn't do a tablespoon, did you? No,
Colton: No. I did a teaspoon of baking. Soda to a tablespoon of water, but I did it for a half pound of meat.
Oh man. Not for a foba. So not only did I do the top end of that range, you're quadrupling it. Yeah. You
Chris: made bread, meat.
Colton: Yeah.
Chris: You made meat bread.
Colton: And I will say that's
Chris: all way too much. Making soda,
Colton: everything you described, it did perfectly. It locked in moisture. I won't say it browned better. Because I think they both brown.
The same.
Chris: Okay.
Colton: But I could definitely taste the baking soda, and I did not love the flavor
Chris: that, that's a lot of baking soda.
Colton: The other interesting thing it did, which maybe this is 'cause I use too much, I'm curious if yours did this. So my meat was a different color.
Chris: Oh,
Colton: the same pound. Like I split the pound in half and did a side by side.
Chris: What color?
Colton: Like orange. Like it was like pork colored, like almost a like white, not like a pink. That like white meat,
Corey: but that would make sense though.
Chris: Yeah. Because you
Corey: use that much baking soda.
Chris: It's a lot of baking
Colton: yeah. So it, it turned out if you pulled a pork shoulder of the smoker
Chris: Yeah.
That, that's a little scary. It's not gonna hurt you, but it's, it probably not gonna be good.
Colton: Definitely preferred the normal brown meat at that point, but I'll have to try it with a lesser Do it
Chris: again with a quarter teaspoon per pound
Andy: of meat. Yeah. That's a that's very minimal amount. It's a tiny bit quarter.
It's a tiny bit,
Okay.
Chris: But again I don't think I will ever brown meat without doing this again. Like it was that good. I'm definitely try it.
Andy: I've got two pounds on, try it right now for tomorrow for, tomorrow when I'll actually
Chris: cook.
Andy: And I actually try for one of them.
Chris: Yeah. So I did the experiment a couple times, so I did it, yeah, just with nothing.
And then I did it with a, with the baking soda, and then I did it again, like I did the fast thaw. It's like I really tried to like, let's make this. Ground meat, is the least ideal situation possible. So I fast thawed it as quick as I could and it was like dripping in my hands as I was like trying to work with it, put it in the baking soda at zero moisture there.
There was a tiny bit of moisture leaking there as I was browning it in the skillet. But like it locked in all of that moisture and and that's where we're getting into like the gamey situation. If you've got a really ruddy buck. Might not be a great time to lock in all that juice, but if you've got a dough or a young buck, like it's gonna taste great.
Corey: I would say though,
Chris: almost guarantee it,
Corey: I stand by the brown sugar on a rooty buck.
Chris: I'm gonna have to try that,
Corey: man. It just it makes a difference. You got
Chris: proportion or
Andy: Yeah. How much do you put in?
Chris: You just eyeballed it?
Corey: Yeah, I, no, I would say to a pound, I do. A quarter cup.
Chris: Okay. Just sprinkle it in there and mix it up.
And brown.
Corey: Quarter cup, quarter cup,
Chris: it's
Corey: a lot. It's
Chris: a lot of round sugar,
Corey: bro. It cooks out. I think it, I really, personally, I just feel like it, it neutralizes it a little bit. I'll try. I will tell you. I'll try
Chris: anything.
Corey: It gets my kids to eat.
Chris: We there is a a Feeding Kids episode in the works.
It might not be this season, but we will definitely take all the tricks to, 'cause I've got two picky eaters and like I really want them to start eating better, but we'll do a full episode on,
Andy: I do too. Mine's just my wife and a 21-year-old kid. I'm
Chris: still picky from, so from the Audi. Picky
Colton: kids and picky wives.
Chris: This is a request. If you've got tips to get your children or spouses to eat better. Please send them in. We will do a full episode giving all the tips and all the tricks because I need them bad. Back to ground meat. Wait, what do you guys have on cooking? Any other like cooking techniques or tips, tricks, thoughts?
Corey: I think even, I think just go along with what Danielle's, article is just taking your time. I think that we get, and unfortunately we do live in a world where everything is fast, fast. Yeah. You get off work at five o'clock, you gotta feed the kids by six, they gotta be in bed by eight.
So you gotta be quick. But if you take the time, thaw it out properly.
Andy: Yeah.
Corey: And then take the time, please do not use the
Andy: microwave. Oh
Corey: my God. Now I will. I guess this would be a question for you three. I know my answer. If you do a quick thaw, is it warm water or cold water?
Andy: No. Warmer than lukewarm.
So like you, if you can feel it, it's too hot. Depends on how quick I'm wanting to eat.
Colton: I never, I always use cold
Andy: water. Literally. If I've done this on a handful of times, have I ever actually used water to thaw meat? I'd rather go to the store and buy something that. Is already thawed, then to force it.
Obviously you can't do that with innocent. But I've gotten, for me, I will say, if you can create the habit of pulling meat out on a Thursday,
Corey: yeah.
Andy: Big
Corey: difference.
Andy: It forces you to do the things and obviously for, for all, for anybody who hunts, that's gold. So you're not gonna not eat it like you're gonna, you're gonna make it happen.
But again. And, in a pinch if you have to do something there are
Chris: ways to do it.
Andy: I, but
Chris: if let's say I get home at five o'clock and I'm really craving some tacos. I will get a bowl. And I will put like the hottest water I possibly can get just to thaw it out as quick as possible.
I will say, but I'm using it immediately.
Corey: I will say, I used to actually even throw it under the faucet and just let the faucet run on it.
Andy: That's actually a better way. That's how they thaw meat hit like in like a commercial setting too, that they
It's in running water.
Corey: Yeah, it's running water.
But I will, I, when I have to be in a quake, it is I have transitioned to a cold water, but it's. It, I guess at that point it's not quick 'cause it's still a couple hours.
But I, I'll be honest I've gotten to a point where I've been,
Andy: you check out there, I don't know, I don't have one.
I've not used one yet. But there's thawing pads. Yeah. Those, like these things that you put 'em on and that I don't know how it works, but I know that it essentially pulls 'em moisture out
Corey: quicker. I've seen those. Yeah.
Colton: You guys are all making me cringe with the hot water on
Andy: it's, I feel like you're growing
Chris: bacteria.
We're literally
Corey: trying to, yeah. And that's really that's really when I went away from it. This just 'cause I was like, man.
Chris: We're like, we're not advocating it. Yeah. I'm saying in a pinch, be very clear known. I've been known to do it.
Colton: We, I'll use the cold water, if we're doing something for dinner, I'll throw it in at lunchtime and use the cold water.
But if I don't get to it by then, we just don't eat meat that night.
Corey: I've started just browning it frozen. I've also done that, so I will say just peeling it away.
As I brown
Andy: out, you can brown so if, let's say you have a, take your one pound roll from the venison that, you say you pulled it out.
And you start to squeeze on it ah, I can still feel that it's pretty hard in the middle.
Chris: Yeah.
Andy: You put that bad boy in the fryer or in your pan. Yeah. You can start cooking through it pretty good. You're gonna steam it. Yeah. You're sacrificing a lot of what, like Danielle's talking about in her and what that, that affected your get of actually having like brown meat.
She would
Corey: scold
you.
Andy: She would scold you for it. Yeah,
Corey: for sure.
Andy: But again, I, in my opinion, that would be safer than using hot water.
Corey: Yeah, I agree.
Andy: But I also think that like. When you use
Chris: the hot water, like if you're using it like immediately,
Andy: You're still growing bacteria, bro.
Chris: Like it's not growing in a matter of like minutes.
Corey: You'd be surprised.
Chris: Or half an hour, isn't it?
Andy: I think it a hundred percent. Half an hour. Absolutely. It's,
Corey: I
Andy: know your stomach though, is just like a steel trap.
Chris: Yeah, just grinding through it in my mind. Like I've got a pretty tough stomach. But like I said we did have a round of the stomach bug and it did not come from quick thawing meat.
I will admit that I haven't done that in quite a while.
Corey: So my only tip if we're going back to tips, my only tips would be try brown sugar, especially if you have kids or spouses. Or friends that are
Andy: want
Corey: to try for the first time slow to, yeah. To look, to do it. That brown sugar does make a difference.
And you, and go as heavy as you need to, like I don't feel like with something like that, there's necessarily oh, if you use a cup per pound it's going to destroy it. I think that you can, at the end of the day, it's just gonna make it sweeter at that point. But I will coat, basically, I just coat.
I just, I go until I can't see the meat anymore.
And then put it up. I will say there is one other thing that I do that people probably think that I'm weird.
Colton: Oh.
Corey: But it's very specific for burgers can of cream of mushroom,
Colton: but mushroom fixes anything I can get on that train.
Corey: But it's one, one can to one pound of cream of mushroom when you make your burger, when you make your patties.
Chris: Okay.
Corey: I can see that game changer. I can see that, especially if you're a mushroom person.
Andy: Yeah. I would say like my secret ingredient, I mentioned this earlier and you'll see it'll be in the taco recipe in a little bit, but I, there's something about a diced onion. And I love yellow onions.
It's a sweet that comes from the yellow onion from like a sweet onion. It's just, man, it's so good. It just, it adds a little bit of dimension to your ground, especially if you like, like what we're talking about, where, we go through a pound to two pounds a week. Man, that's a lot of, that's a lot of, it's a lot of ground meat.
Chris: It's a lot of repetition.
Andy: So you can play with throwing things in there. I love throwing cement, garlic, and love throwing in something. Oh yeah. With my onions, with my dys onions and I best, cook it down first and then pull those aside, brown the meat, and then combine everything. And just even if that's just use, just general purpose eating meat at that point.
Yeah. That little bit of onion I think probably puts a little bit of that sweetness in there.
Corey: And I think it just to be honest. I love that smell oh yeah, that's probably, when it comes to cooking, it might be my favorite smell.
Andy: Onions, cooking
Corey: browning, onions. When you know there's gonna be some meat going in after it.
Yeah. Heck yeah. I love that smell. And I think it just excites. 'Cause let's be honest, especially when you're cooking game
Sometimes when you're cooking the gr you're grind and browning your meat. It's, it doesn't have the most pleasant romance. That's why I do it outside.
And so when you throw, there's there no
Chris: fat.
Corey: Yeah. When you throw those onions in there with it, man, it just takes that as weight. Yeah. Takes job a little bit. I like it.
Chris: I see it. Yeah. Sick. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. So I guess we can move into like a. What do we do with our ground meat?
Anything cool outside of just like throwing in hamburger helper or like making meatballs, making hamburgers? Like I, what, do we have any tips to the listeners to like, what can you do with your ground meat that's. You're gonna spice up your taste buds a little
Andy: bit. I would say don't sleep on an omelet.
Like this is a thing that this makes the rotation in my breakfast almost every week, especially with the ground meat. And again, it's basically the same stuff that I can use on a taco, that I can use on my rice and I can use in an omelet and just let you know. I do a four egg omelet, so two eggs, two egg whites, and mix it in there get it going in the pan there and then.
Bef as you would add in anything else inside of an omelet, you, that's when you would just sprinkle some of that ground meat in there.
Colton: Yeah.
Andy: If you want cheese, if you're into that sort of thing, add that in there too. When you flip that bad way over, it just, it like goes so well with eggs, oh yeah. I, I'd even brown, just warm it up in the pan next to your scrambled eggs or over, or just with, over easy eggs and it's it's just so good. Yeah.
Corey: Don't sleep on the pro protein bowls either.
Andy: Yeah. You
Corey: know? If you're gonna have, some type of little protein bowl.
Man it's easy. Just throw it in there and mix it in there and give it a little bit of extra protein.
Andy: Yeah. I would, my wife makes fun of me for being, I eat like a dog where I will eat the same thing over and over again. And, but that, what I call dirty rice is just, like I said, it's just, it's eight ounces of.
Of ground meat, and some jasmine rice. And then sometimes I'll just mix it and I won't even put anything else in it. But you can mix up with some flavors. You wanna throw some sriracha on that bad boy? Make it a little hotter. You can do that. You can just
Corey: throw some chickpeas in there.
Andy: Yeah. Literally stick, like a quick stir fry, if you will.
But I don't even fry the rice. I just, put the, put it over the rice. And that is a easy, especially from an, like a balanced meal scenario there too. Yeah. You're carb to. Meat to fat ratio is like perfect in that scenario. Yep. Nice. Colton,
Colton: I told you guys at the beginnings. Yeah.
Smash burgers. Chili, these tacos. Those are my three staples.
Andy: How do you make your smashed burgers? Do you have Blackstone?
Colton: I do not. I use my cast iron. Okay. I would love to get a Blackstone same.
Chris: That's on a list of, but your process for the smash is a little different than what I've heard.
Yeah. Or what I've attempted in the past,
Colton: Do you mean the, like the onions?
Chris: Yeah. Give us your process.
Colton: You
Chris: tell.
Colton: So my smash burgers, I love, I put a crap ton of onions in them.
Which I think is considered an Oklahoma style smash burger.
Chris: Okay.
Colton: I forget the history there. I think there was a famine or something and people ran outta meat, so they started using more onions to make their burgers go longer, or something along those lines.
But we've all mentioned it, we have wives that maybe don't love the taste of some of the wild game and whatnot. Especially with my venison smash burgers, the onion gives it a different flavor. But then when you smash those burgers down real thin, that onion crisp, or caramelizes not crystallized.
Caramelizes on the outside, and then you still have the crunchy onion right in the middle. So it gives it a really good texture.
Yeah.
Andy: Love it. Now are these stacked, you stack these up on one sandwich or is this, are they like, what's your. What's your patty to bun ratio on this now? I'm just
Colton: curious.
So now you're getting into some, it's an interesting question. Some family arguments here, so I know I tend to not eat burgers on a bun 'cause I'm a weirdo and I love, I don't, I feel like bread on top of my meat mass. The meat flavor, which I don't like. I'd prefer just the straight meat. My wife.
It complains because I'll say
Chris: It's not a burger.
Colton: I'll make, I'll say, Hey, we're having a burger tonight. And she's did you get bun? Ah, crap. No.
Corey: Listen, I grew up super poor. We didn't ever, I don't remember ever getting hamburger buns.
Andy: You had bread,
Corey: Bread, bro.
There's like slice
Andy: bread.
Corey: Not you're, when you're poor, dude, you get bread. And then if you do get buns, guess what those buns are now? That's your peanut butter and jelly bread. Bread and everything else bread. And there's no such thing as hot dog buns.
Andy: That's a piece of bread folding now.
Corey: Yeah, dude. Oh yeah. I get it. It works. But I will tell you, I'm a Royale fan. I love. Royale Burgers throwing, what's a Royale burger? It's an over easy egg on top of Oh, whoa. Yeah. Oh,
Colton: okay. I didn't know what they were called
Corey: with cheeses. Australians
Chris: like it
Corey: royale with cheese. It is good. Super good.
Chris: Good. Only bad thing about that is in beard season. Yep. It doesn't work out so well.
Corey: That's every
Chris: season. Little too messy. Little too messy for the beard. Yeah. Honestly I don't have any like special tips or tricks for ground meat. It's just I will admit that my wife isn't a fan.
Of wild game in particular. But she will eat tacos with ground venison. She will eat chili. And it is you, that melding of flavors blending
Andy: it
Chris: all together.
Andy: Well on the chili side I know we talked about this and the chili episode, but also we, I'd love mix and meats.
We will
Chris: talk
Andy: about it. We'll talk about in the future. We
Chris: will cut that
Andy: out. We'll cut that out or leave it. But with chili, it is a great opportunity to mix your meats in there and give some of that flavor profile as well. Especially if you're thinking about your your friends.
If you're serving something to a group of people, Chili's an easy thing to do. And mixing in some stuff that's, maybe more normal, quote unquote to them. Yeah. Things like Turkey and.
Yeah.
Chris: So I will, I'm gonna try this on my wife and see what she thinks. But doing the baking soda trick, like just the fact that it's juicy because again, venison wild game, has zero fat.
So just the fact that hey, when I'm doing ground beef, like it's a little bit juicier because there's a lot of fat.
Andy: You'll be okay with the, because you said it the baking soda will change the juiciness, but doesn't necessarily affect the flavor.
Chris: Yeah, but I don't know why she's not a fan of the wild game.
And I'm thinking like a portion of that could be the fact that it's so drys dry.
Andy: That's fair.
Chris: Compared to a brown Yeah. Ground beef or, but ground Turkey would be the same, right?
Corey: Not, I think ground Turkey would be the same. I wonder if just because it's, I'm new to this and I don't know. I wonder if it would be the same with like ground bison or ground elk.
Chris: Oh, it would be identical. Yeah.
Corey: Be not identical.
Chris: Just as lean.
Corey: So I, 'cause we talked about. One thing that it's not just always just ground beef or ground venison. It's ground Turkey, it's ground chicken.
I've not had ground bison, but I have had seen several recipes recently with ground bison in it.
Yeah. But we also, it's very expensive to get here.
Andy: Yeah.
Corey: Unless you know somebody that
Andy: has a bison
Corey: Yeah.
Andy: Or
Colton: had.
Andy: I
Colton: had to Bison.
Corey: There is a even
Colton: store bought. Venison is expensive.
Corey: Yeah, it's insane. There is a bison farm in Indiana. Did you know that? Yeah. Down in Bargersville.
Colton: New to me.
We'll go find him.
Corey: Yeah it's interesting he's out there are multiple hanging out there with some camels.
Chris: With some camels. All right, let's wrap it up. Ring it in here. Thank you all for tuning in again. Yeah, I love to hear your thoughts, opinions. Definitely give us your brown meat. Processes.
Give us some tips, tricks, I don't know hit us with what you got here. Again tell us how you get your kids and family to eat these things. Andy is actually gonna wrap us up with the recipe this week and it is related to, to ground meat. Is that right?
Andy: It is tacos again.
Probably one of the most popular ways of eating some brown and ground meat. So this is my taco recipe. This is good for, I'm gonna go with the ingredients first and then we'll talk through just the process of what also is in there. But the obviously you're gonna want one to two pounds of a meat.
Substance. I do this, I've done this with Turkey, I've done this with venison. Typically works with ground beef as well, obviously, but again, as you're probably not surprised from earlier parts of this episode, it does also have one onion in it as well. So I like yellow onions. I like the sweet flavor, but.
Just choose your own adventure at this point. Pick your favorite onion, whatever you like. But I would recommend a yellow onion. One lime. You're gonna need two tablespoons of butter. At least I get a little. My tablespoons are a little bigger than most and at least three cloves of minced garlic.
So whether that's outta the jar, you do it yourself. Whatever's clever there. That, that's the ingredients for most of it. Now, the taco seasoning, this is its own separate thing. So what I'm gonna go through here is how you can make your own taco seasoning yourself. And then I also have a little bit of a cheater code here as well.
So taco seasoning. This'll make a, this will probably is good for our. Probably two or three of these taco recipes, but it basically consists of three tablespoons of salt, one tablespoon of pepper, one teaspoon of cayenne. Feel free to experiment with that depending on your hot, your heat level. Three tablespoons of chili powder, two tablespoons of oregano, three tablespoons of garlic.
Three tablespoons of cumin. I back that down a little bit 'cause I don't like the flavor of cumin personally. Oh, I love that. But some people like it, so add it in there. And then three tablespoons of paprika, that's really for the color. But go at, go for it. You can't really go wrong there. But if you're in a pinch and you don't have those things, these guys right here, for those of you watching on YouTube two seasons to mix together basically in half and half.
For your tacos is hardcore carnivores, Tex-Mex taco and fajita seasoning mix. Lemme see this. And then also my favorite and these guys' favorite as well. B extremes. Texas dust this, he's
Colton: brought us all
Andy: of it. I brought us back. From Texas, this stuff is golden. You can literally put it on anything and everything.
But if you're in a pinch and you don't have what I just ran through, or, oh man, please get, put these in your, you're gonna want these things. Texas hardcore
Chris: carnivore, is
Andy: it Phenomen? So phenomenal. It's so good.
Chris: I know the Texas test, that's,
Andy: oh yeah.
Corey: I
Andy: I use it, use
Corey: it this past week or my burgers.
Andy: That one's, yeah. It's a brand new one. Dude, just,
Chris: just the hardcore carnival carnivore by itself would be,
Andy: oh. And it is the hardcore carnivore by itself is also very good. So that's the taco seasoning. Directions on this, you're gonna go ahead and just do your thing with melt melting the butter in the pan.
Cook down your onions and that mince up or chop up that onion and with the mint garlic, throw both of those in there into the pan. Get 'em nice and translucent. Again, you can set these aside. That's what I tend to do is once they're cooked, usually three to five minutes, go ahead and set those aside.
And then do your, do your, everything you learn today on browning meat. Do it right. Take your time, do it properly. Once that's all, or while that's browning, this is a good way to let it sit and again, leave it alone, that sort of thing. We're gonna go ahead and make what we, what I call the old taco wash.
So this is my favorite thing, taco wash. And I do this with all sorts of meats. But go ahead and just take a liquid measuring cup, and you're gonna squeeze that lime juice from that lime into that measuring cup, and then fill it up the rest of the way to three fourths of a cup of water. So the lime juice and the water equal three fourths of cup.
Don't do three fourths of cup of water and the lime juice, it'll be too watery. So combine those two together and then you're gonna take. Of the taco seasoning that we just talked about making. Or half and half of the two cheater seasonings, if you'd like. You're gonna take usually for me, I go about, it's one to two ounces technically.
So if you wanna measure it all out, that's the way you do it. The bold, the more you put in there, the bolder it gets. So I sometimes have experimented and added a hell of a lot more, but it's so good. Add that into that taco wash and mix that up and make that nice and like a, almost like a marinade, if you will, at that point.
At this point you're gonna go ahead and pull your meat off, drain out the fat, put the meat in the onions and the men's garlic all back in together into that same hot pan. Go ahead and add the taco wash and then bring that bad boy up to a nice boil. At that point, let it sit down and then lower the heat back down to a simmer, three to five minutes on a simmer until it's basically all the juices will have absorbed back into the meats or have essentially evaporated away.
And at that point, pull 'em up to the side and serve on your favorite taco shells or on a salad. Sounds good that my friends is the taco recipe. That obviously I think will be in the show notes as well. Yes.
Colton: Here's Andy. I've got a very important question for you. Shoot. What kind of tortillas do you
Andy: use?
I, so I almost said exclusively to only use corn tortillas. Yeah, because, okay.
Colton: Okay.
Andy: So good. Yes. Way better than flour.
Colton: We won't judge, but corn
Chris: is better
Colton: In if you disagree
Andy: And come with a why. Tell me why I'm wrong.
Chris: Prove me wrong. Can't, thanks for being here. Catch you next week.
Corey: Yeah.
Colton: We had this.
