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Ground meat is the fastest to cook and the one everyone eats. It is cooked three ways: as a patty in the pan, crumbled into a sauce, or as meatballs. In all three cases, a very hot pan, and you let it brown before stirring. It is also the most fragile meat: it keeps a day in the fridge and is cooked through for children.
Let it brown without touching it. Ground meat stirred constantly releases its water and turns grey. One quiet minute in a hot pan, and it takes a brown crust that makes all the flavour.
100 to 125 g of ground meat per adult, 60 to 80 g for a child. 500 g makes a bolognese or meatballs for four.
A patty, five minutes. A bolognese, ten minutes of cooking the meat and the rest simmers on its own. Meatballs, twenty-five minutes, fifteen of which in the sauce.
The meat is grey and boiled: pan not hot enough or too full, turn the heat up and let the water evaporate, it will brown after. The meatballs fall apart: not enough egg or breadcrumbs, or too much mix at once. Crumble them into the sauce, it makes a bolognese. Overcooked and dry: in the sauce, they recover.
The grandma-style bolognese sauce, or beef meatballs in tomato sauce. Both freeze.
Ground meat is eaten cooked through, with no pink, for children under five, pregnant women and vulnerable people: that is the official recommendation in France, and the same rule applies in Canada and the United States. Ground by the butcher, cook it the same day or the next; in a tray, the date on the packaging applies. It is not refrozen after thawing.
Easy