A cooking question!

[theweaselking]

I made the Delicious Chicken Sandwiches again.

And a question came up: that marinade is awesome, and I kinda want to do that for burgers.

The immediate thought: Same recipe, toss in ground beef instead of the chicken. When you're ready to make the patties, sieve the marinated beef out and discard most of the liquid (instead of just lifting out the solid chicken breasts), squeeze to remove even more liquid, then make your patties out of that.

So! I'm totally willing to try this, but I figured I would ask the wiser cooking heads of the audience: "Is this completely stupid?" Like, is there some reason this will ruin the beef/prevent the patties from sticking together because all the fat is gone/SET FIRE TO MY KITCHEN that I should know about before I just try it?

Comments

[hwrnmnbsol.livejournal.com]

Spitballing, because I have never done this:

Must be careful to avoid over-marinating. It is all about getting marinade penetration of the meat, but not getting the marinade in so deep that it starts to eat away at the fibers of the meat. Over-marinated chicken is not a delicious thing. Eight hours, sure. Overnight, that's cool. All week? Throw away.

So: my beef (har?) with the concept proposed: ground beef is all about the surface area. It's already been rendered into bitsy bits. It has lots of surface area. Marinade will achieve ideal penetration faster.

CONCLUSION: marinate less. An hour?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Excellent advice! That makes sense. I will try that!

[hwrnmnbsol.livejournal.com]

Report when complete!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

For Science, I should probably try it after an hour, then again after 4-8. So it's a lunch-and-dinner plan!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

(And, y'know, ordering pizza if round 2 sucks)

[sucrelefey.livejournal.com]

The alternative is to marinade cuts of beef and then grind them yourself and continue as usual. Looks like this will also be a good marinade for pork, maybe even pulled pork.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I don't have a grinder, and I don't like that, But marinating steak strips and doing a steak sandwich could work.

[alumiere.livejournal.com]

The one thing you will want to be cautious of is that salting ground beef you can lose a lot of the moisture. Instead of a marinade I would dip the completed patties right before cooking and then baste while they cook.

[cleodhna.livejournal.com]

I concur with hwmmbbsol-- the surface area of the meat will mean it needs very little time in the marinade before it starts to break down. I'd also worry that a mince hat has been put into a liquid marinade even for 10 minutes is unlikely to form a well-behaved patty no matter how much squeezing you do-- you'll likely have to adulterate it with bread crumbs or egg. The dipping method might work, but I'd be prepared for mess-on-a-bun (not necessarily a bad thing).
You could try this with steak strips. Cut steaks thin, marinade, and grill. Turn into sandwiches, or wrap in lettuce with chillies.

[cyprinella]

My husband also said that you would probably need to add some sort of binding agent after marinating your ground. He says it's very easily ends up being meatloaf.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

I'm totally going to try this, and post results.