Meat in a mixer

[chefpeon]

Ok.......so like I was watching my co-worker struggle to mix all her ingredients for Sicilian Meatballs in a giant tub with her latex-gloved hands, and I thought........why doesn't she use

the big mixer? I mean, after all, in all the other kitchens I've worked in, when we had to make

meatloaf or meatballs, we dumped everything in the mixer and sloshed it around a bit. Easy.

So I asked her......"why don't you use the mixer? It'll be so much easier." And she told me

that if you put meat on the mixer with eggs and all the other stuff (like spices and bread cubes), that the action of the mixer toughens the meat. Well I'll be darned....I'd never heard this.....not

even from the chef that instructed me in culinary arts 15 years ago. Even in the upscale places I've been, the meat went in the mixer.....I mean gosh, we had to make SO MUCH of it. Any other way (such as mixing by hand) would be insanity.

So is this true? Any experiences with tough meatloaf or meatballs because you used the mixer?

I'm on the pastry side, so I don't mix meat much. Just wonderin' if any of you hot siders can chime in on this!

[Shalmanese]

Overmixed meat definately changes in texture. I wouldn't say it toughens the meat but it gives it more bite. I think what happens is that as you mix it, the fibers start interlocking.

[cricklewood]

Overmixed meat definately changes in texture. I wouldn't say it toughens the meat but it gives it more bite. I think what happens is that as you mix it, the fibers start interlocking.

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would make sense if you overwork your minced meat and ingredients when making hamburgers you end up with tough patties, but at one point I think convenience and taste need to meet is it really a big difference depending on your preperation

[fiftydollars]

Overmixed meat definately changes in texture. I wouldn't say it toughens the meat but it gives it more bite. I think what happens is that as you mix it, the fibers start interlocking.

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I think you're right... and as the fibers start to tighten they squeeze out the moisture. It makes sense to me...

Meat does not... for lack of a better term... agglutinate does it? By which I mean that it does not contain proteins that through kneading would eventually become more and more cohesive... or does it?

[Shalmanese]

Not gluten, but minced meat is full of long, thin strands of connective tissue. Imagine you have a pile of string loose on the floor. The more you mess with it, the more tangled up it becomes.

[chefpeon]

Not gluten, but minced meat is full of long, thin strands of connective tissue. Imagine you have a pile of string loose on the floor. The more you mess with it, the more tangled up it becomes.

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Oooooh.....I think your "string theory" really explains it well, Shal!

I'm having a meat epiphany now.

[andiesenji]

Even though meat fibers tend to "tangle" when worked a lot, it really doesn't take all that much time to blend meats and other additives.

The trick is to put everything except the bread crumbs/soaked bread or cracker crumbs, etc., into the bowl with the paddle. Turn it on low and let it run for a few revolutions.

Stop, drop the bowl and with a wide rubber spatula (or your gloved hand) scrape the mixture into a ball, start the mixer again and immediately add the bread portion of the recipe and let it go a few revolutions until the top is blended.

Then turn the mass out onto a sheet pan and give it a few folds to evenly distribute the bread component.

This is how I make large batches of meatballs, meatloaf for a crowd and my sausage mixtures.

I have never noticed that there is any "toughness" and in fact I want them to hold together.

In fact, for some meatballs, particularly when they are going onto skewers, I take some of the meat mixture and process it into very fine mince in a food processor. It does become like glue and that is what I need to hold the remainder of the meat together.

An Armenian lady taught me to make kofta (AKA stuffed kibbe) using this method of doing the fine mince in a food processor.

She said that her grandmother and mother always insisted on using a hand-cranked meat grinder and putting it through multiple times using smaller and smaller dies, but she found that the processor did the job better and faster. (She just hides the food processor when they are visiting and makes the kofta ahead of time. Heh, heh, heh!)

I have been in a lot of commercial kitchens where large batches of ground meats were worked in the mixers and I doubt that anyone would have been able to tell that the finished product had not been worked by hand.

[YoChefGregg]

Protein has a coiled structure. Water is found between these coils. As protein coagulates, this coiled structure tightens, forcing out this water. If a ground meat mixture is over worked, there is less natural space for this moisture to remain once it has been squeezed from the protein matrix. If over cooked, even properly mixed ground meat preparations will have a less than desirable texture.

Just my 3 cents worth.

[cricklewood]

definitly if making gigantic batches of meatballs or something like kefte, you want to do it in a mixer and the end result will still come out damn nice, for smaller batches you can put more tlc into it

[RETREVR]

I never make meatballs in a mixer....and I have made some pretty big batches. To mix all the ingredients properly, you will overwork the meat. It will become stringy and tough. I can take one bite of a meatball and tell if it has been in a mixer. It is the most comon mistake when making meatballs.

[Malawry]

I make my meatloaf by hand, but that's 'cause I do 5lb at a time and it's not that hard to do it by hand in that quantity using a big foodservice bowl--and the bowl is easier to scrub than the mixer. But I do use the mixer for a lot of other food jobs fraught with peril if overworked--cutting butter into flour for biscuits or scones, kneading pizza dough, working meatballs. The key is to watch it, run it on fairly low speed, and turn the thing off frequently to check texture and scrape the bottom/sides. I ruined a batch of biscuit dough once by pasting the fat into the flour. Never again.

[Dejah]

When I make dim sum beef meatballs, I use my mixer to mix it after all the ingredients are added. The traditional method is to beat it in a bowl with chopsticks until it is "thready". The KitchenAid works well and saves my hands. I have never found the meatballs to be tough, but they do develop that spongy texture that is required.

[Shalmanese]

When making dim sum meatballs, its desiarable to have that chewy texture. Same with jiao zie/gyoza.

[racheld]

My Dear late first Mother-in-Law, bless her dear Angel heart, would never cook during a thunderstorm. She would even turn off the oven after a cake had ALREADY started to rise--because, as everyone knows, "heat draws lightning."

Though how the storm could differentiate between 350 degrees isolated inside a house from the 100+ temperatures that raged outside from May til October, I have no idea.