Bernie

If the meat was pretty cold when you vacuum bagged it there may be a very small amount of air trapped in the process. The vacuum formed will be good at the temperature you bagged it but that little bit of air will expand when heated you know "volume of gas=temperature and pressure"..... and other mathematical stuff you can google ( because I forget ) Basically half the temperature double the Vacuum (or if you are pedantic half the pressure) but I did work in a field of super cooling where we needed super high vacuums and the best way to get super high vacuums is to form the vacuum in the chamber at room temperature (or above) the cool it down. Works for freezing foods too. Make sure you vacuum pack them at close to room temperature (if you can) then as they cool the vacuum actual increases. The resultant vacuum is really high while it remains frozen. But it works in reverse. Double the temperature and you double the pressure so a little air becomes a big bubble when its heated. As longs as the meat was handled and treated properly (clean hands, clean utensils) then you should have bacteria counts not high enough to cause decay (and gas off) as it is heated. Brings back memories, getting really good vacuums but have them lose vacuum because the materials used "gas off" (release various gasses used in manufacture) and realize you used some small component that was not actually specified for vacuum use...weeks of work down the gurgler...

Vegetarians is an old English descriptive word for members of a tribe who can't hunt. (and vegans are vegetarians who are also scared of chickens...)😂

As far as the original topic goes I have also been working on converting older recipes into SV methods. So far the best approach seems to be to make the sauce on the stove top, cook completely, cool and use it in the SV bag to cook the meat. It is not quite the same because the meat juices are added during the SV. The sauce will be thinned down by the SV cook, so needs to be fairly thick to start with. So far It is not the same as the older slow cook but perhaps adding osmazome might make a difference. Trouble is I don't have a dog so what to do with the mince. Perhaps make chilli adding lots of peppers so all you taste is the heat?

I have been fiddling with making terrines with chicken, pork & beef minces, wrapped in bacon. (I add boiled egg quarters, asparagus, bell pepper slices, beans, peas). I make it as most would make it normally, but then vacuum bag it (in its dish) with the intention of compressing the meat. I then SV it for 6 hours or so then remove it from the bag and cook in the oven as normal but for a shorter time. Where its relevant to this topic is that the meat initially shrinks and produces a fair amount of liquid. This is probably osmazone and fat. I poured off the liquid, allowed to cool and removed the fat once it solidified. I added half back to the terrine in the oven. The remainder I put in the fridge to cool further and it solidified into a gel. It was pinkish in color and had a lot of flavor. It would make a wonderful sauce but it also improved the terrine by adding it back after the final cook. It formed a wonderful gel (i guess like a pork pie). I may have to investigate further the idea of cooking mince simply to obtain ozmazone

Be a bit careful of simply dismissing "processed" as bad. Most milk is "processed" by bringing to moderate temperature (pasteurizing) to kill bacteria (originally cow pox). Homogenized means mechanically breaking up the fat globules into smaller and smaller sizes. In fact I would suggest you might be horrified to learn that most milk will be initially broken down int all its constituent parts and then reassemble with different ratios of these parts (it why we have all the different types of milk). Some of the proteins that are extracted have other uses and are highly priced and are left out of the final reassembly. You may have heard the term "permeate". That's the bulk water part of the milk with most of the proteins removed. All milk has permeate. Homogenizing means you can thoroughly remix the various bits with some different volumes and no one will notice the difference. The processor can skim off some of the cream and still sell the milk as "whole milk" and sell the cream separately. The consumer cant tell because the cream no longer separates and floats to the top. So don't be put off by the word processed. Cooking is a process. So is washing. So is ripening using gas. Most of the ingredients above you eat every day but they are known by other names. So what are "Natural Flavors"? We are talking about meat substitutes here and so are they using beef flavor? Or are they using a chemical to simulate flavor and they are not going to tell you because its a proprietary chemical combination, or is it one of the "nastier chemicals"? To me the term "natural flavors" is what rings my alarm bells. On a closing note, Super phosphate is bad but aged chicken poo is good for the garden. Things are not always what they seem.

I do whole mushrooms in a covered pan in the oven. Knob of butter in the pan, small knob of butter in each (skin side down please) and cook for about 25 mins. Then remove the lid for turn the heat up a bit for another 15. This way the mushrooms are initially steamed in their own juice, which is evaporated and you are left with moist mushrooms with really good concentration of flavor. The butter on top stops them drying out and lets face it more butter is ALWAYS good. Butter left (not much, but usually brown/black) is used to cook fried eggs or add to sauce.

Chainsaw Its going to make an inedible mess but it will reduce your stress levels......😁

Umm.....seems to me it's not blending hot foods in a blender that is dangerous, it's the no thinking, non common sense people using it that is the problem.... The same thinking that says the lid should have an interlock to stop people from stirring the mixture with their fingers when the blender is running......

The reason I soak my wood chips is quite simple. I am using hot smoking and I want the meat with some temperature (to soften the fat) so I want some initial heat before the smoke. As it is the temperature only gets to 80~90C (I can ventilate to allow more air in the and keep the temperature down but then I need to smoke for much longer to get the flavor. I have used cold smoking in the past particularly for fish. Then the firebox was quite separate from the smoke enclosure so I didn't soak the wood. I am after the smoke flavor rather than the curing process, the meat ends up cooked, rather than cured

Perhaps its appearance in Japan had more to do with starvation of a defeated population and the sudden excess of the product in the "winner" countries? Certainly as a child, after the second world war, Camp Pie (pretty sure it was the same as spam) was a poor peoples food, whereas during the war it was a way to feed the troops, because it kept so well.

I think if you use green timber (as apposed to wet timber) you are likely to get a lot of evaporation of the sap, which is likely to have a lot of sugars or resins that will burn with a acrid or "oily" smoke. The meat will get covered in it, and have an off taste. Its the same reason you have to dry pine when using it in a fireplace or slow combustion heater, the chimney will get coated in pine resin and eventually catch fir. I use wood chips and either rinse them in plain water or add a couple of cups of water to the wood box. The initial heating of the chips produces steam and it slows down the burning process so there is more smoke for longer. My smoker is gas powered (propane not petrol).

Crumbs in the butter? Its super easy. Just lick the knife.......☺️

A meat pie is to be eaten at the 'footy'. Its always way too hot, its held in one hand (there is a beer in the other). The meat/gravy should overflow at each bite and will usually burn your lips/jaw before it drips down on your T-shirt, the overflow of course drips on your hand first and you have to put up with the burn or drop the pie (its not a good look - manhood would be questioned by your mates) It has tomato sauce on the top (too much) that also drips down but only if you are wearing a white T-shirt.😁 It is NEVER to be eaten with tools! That pie has suspiciously lot of meat. There are regulations about the ratio of meat,gravy, pastry. A mate of mine who ran a bakery got fined for having too much meat🙄 A report several years ago on massed produced pies found the meat to be of very dubious origins. One manufacture was using imported meat that included camel testicles. (they did DNA test!).

I usually do a whole piece, roasted slow in a conventional oven. When its sliced I would usually treat it like pork spareribs. The conversion/rendering of fats takes a long time and I am not sure you would get the same effect in the SV as the temperature is not going to be hot enough. I am after the skin side to be crispy/popcorn crackling and it only really gets that way by the fat being rendered out of that section and the inner fat layers are converted into that yummy protein. With the amount of fat, they are never going to dry out with long slow low temperature cooking. Asian spice flavors always go well with fatty pork.

OK to clear up the confusion a the fillet steak I was referring to is sometimes called the eye fillet. I think in USA its called a filet mignon but in the past (at least in Australia) this was often a filet steak with mushroom, though that differed by restaurants. (my guess the mignon was added to give a french feel and so add to the price charged) The whole piece of meat is the tenderloin itself, when the small end is sliced cross grain it becomes "eye fillet"or "fillet mignon". Note that it is not cut from all the tenderloin only the small tail piece. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-a-filet-mignon-and-a-top-sirloin A tenderloin would have to be huge to produce a eye fillet steak to be 8 inches in diameter. The beast that it was cut from would be impressive indeed. The ribeye & sirloin and scotch fillet are different not cut from the same place although depending on the butchering technique (and the country I suspect) the tenderloin may be part of a cut of meat called a different name. An example is the T-Bone which has a section (small bit) of fillet steak (tenderloin) and a section of strip loin (sirloin). Even were it cut from the thick end of a tenderloin, I cannot imagine why it would ever be brined.

While traveling, we had a meal at a restaurant where "she who must be obeyed" (search for Rumpole of the bailey) had a fillet steak & I had a lamb back strap. Mine was great. Hers not so great. When it was first served, I thought it looked big. About 1.5 inches thick but about 8 inches in diameter. It must have been a very large beast to have a fillet that big! I like fillet steak and have never seen one this diameter. It was not pressed down or flattened. It was supposed to be medium rare and was coated in a re hydrated? dried shiitake mushroom sauce. The outside of the fillet was a little chewy and the inside was not tender like a fillet should be. She complained to me that the sauce was overpowering but when I tried it the sauce didn't seem to have much flavor, but the steak itself was very salty. I immediately thought it was corned beef. Its fibers were running the correct way but they seemed overly large & course. If I didn't know better, I would say it had been over brined. The saltiness was in the meat itself not on the outside. It was not juicy like a medium rare steak should be. Has anyone come across brining a fillet steak? For the life of me I can't imagine why you would want/need to. Maybe it was from the last runner at the local thoroughbred races.

When young and first married (and broke) the special meal was T-Bone steak, chips & eggs. We saved the cooking fat the steak was cooked in in the ''steak cup' in the fridge. The steaks would always be cooked in this then the eggs. The white would be brownish colored by this fat. It was delicious. Trouble is all fried eggs I now have must be compared to these and fail the memory taste test. Even the bacon fat comes a long second place to the remembered taste.

Actually I was trying to be kind.😀 A ""normal"" fillet steak for me is about 200 gms. A nice rib fillet is about 350~400. Presumably a roast would be sliced and as such a few slices probably smaller, particularly on a plate with good servings of a good number of vegetables.

Depends a lot on the guests... Good appetites (big eaters) with red meat will be 100~200 gms per person. If the main part of the meal is the vegetables then 150gm is probably going to be enough. Kids its a lucky dip. Some quite young children I know will eat 250gms of meat but others will eat only 75gms. If the children are middle age then allow 100gms for them so 4 adults at 150, 4 kids at 100 = 1kg. Better cook some sweet potato, perhaps parsnips, pumkin and turnips, something with some carb "body", maybe some greens like beans & broccoli or such, even a cauliflower bake, to pad out the plate. If you reckon the children will have chicken only then its probably going to be enough, especially if the adults are having chicken as well. If there will be drinking (not just with the meal but before) allow a little more. The roast is going to lose some volume during cooking, whichever way you go, so its probably only going to end up at 800gms cooked. Might be fine if you are having starters. An easy top up is shredded cabbage cooked in a covered frypan with bacon pieces and spices. I like the SV but its going to take 24 hours or so, because you don't want much temperature. In the oven for that long its going to lose maybe a 3rd of its volume, even if its covered. Drop the temperature uncovered for the last hour to 140C to thicken up the broth. Perhaps if you decide on the dutch oven then put some barley/rice/pasta in the bottom to produce a thick broth type gravy which will add to the volume. I always found mushrooms go a little tough and chewy with long slow cooking.

If you do a search on the aging process of wines, the majority of the research seems to be in China. I guess like all things china takes a pragmatic approach to Wine making. What I found interesting was the finding that the production of the volatiles/aromatics in wine during aging is dependent on both time and temperature, and they can be interchanged (within reason). So the aging process can be accelerated by storing at a higher temperature. They relied on chemical analysis rather than taste. However, whether the conversion process of the individual sugars to aromatics proceeds at the same rate is open to conjecture. Trouble is that the acceptance preference for wines & their taste is as much to do with perception, culture, history, romance, advertising and economics. The Chinese market has the potential to grow into the world largest consumer base and may well determine what the winescape looks like. When I was young my preference was for some truly appalling (now) wines but I like to think my palate is maturing and ageing well. Perhaps there is about a half a billion consumers at that first stage?

Mace & Nutmeg? (though its a different part of the same fruit/nut)

I guess if you know for certain what has happened to the ground meat before you processed it with flavorings etc and you were fairly diligent in cleanliness and temperature control, the bacteria counts should not be of concern. Perhaps some of the sauces etc might have lower freezing points and would act like a marinade, although a lot slower. I will freeze raw ground beef itself, but only when fresh. If I add things to the meat to make burgers or patties, I tend to cook them and then freeze them. I usually vacuum pack them as well.

By far the most helpful of all the advice here.......ice in it (if you must) but for the first day put the Scotch in the freezer for a few hours. It will go thick like a liqueur and you can drink lots...you will need more Scotch though (must have for the pantry anyhow...)

I have the same with Lamb rumps. When I get them I individually package them with a few branches of rosemary and freeze them. To use I usually just thaw then SV. As they thaw they end up with some liquid. I just SV as is. The liquid will "cook" somewhat but it would probably be OK to use to make a sauce. I usually discard it. If the meat in your picture was partially frozen or even very cold, then as it warms the liquid will come out more than "normal" In lot cases of meat we buy already packaged has absorbent material to sop up the liquids that come out naturally. This improves the "look" and handling for marketing purposes.

Not sure the "original" ever had bacon. I think it was always cold meat, chicken, corn beef or pastrami, tomato, lettuce, mayo. Like all these things, as clubs evolved perhaps many added grills for toasted cheese or toasted cheese & tomato, all the ingredients would have a relatively long shelf life in a drinks fridge.