Safe meat cooking 101

There were two things that really scared me about meat when I was first getting into cooking:

1. Not cooking it enough.
I was really scared that I’d make people sick if I got this part wrong.

2. Over cooking.
Nobody likes a tough, leathery steak, well nobody except my Dad. And when you’re cooking with such an expensive ingredient, the pressure can be brutal.

It seemed like such a fine line. But as I experimented, my confidence grew and I realised is wasn’t such a big deal.

If I served something and it turned out to be undercooked, it was no dramas to pop it back in the pan, really. Much better than serving something completely overcooked, with no options to improve it.

And on the odd occasion that I misjudged and overcooked my meat, it wasn’t like it was ever completely inedible and we had to throw it out. I just took it as part of the learning process and moved on to the next thing.

how to choose your meat

ethical
For me personally, I feel that if you’re going to choose to eat meat, then it’s imperative to make sure your meat has come from animals that have been treated humanely as possible. Growing up on a sheep farm, I was lucky to experience that this is possible.

These days I take the time to either buy directly from farmers at my local markets OR from my favourite butcher. And I take the time to ask where the meat is from and whether it has been raised on grass.

why grass fed?
Cattle (and sheep) that have been raised in paddocks, eating grass are more likely to be treated humanely. Their meat also tends to have a better nutritional profile than their grain-fed counterparts with more omega-3 fatty acids and higher levels of vitamins A and E. It also tends to have a stronger beefy (or lamby) flavour than grain fed beef.

Although, if you’re after seriously marbled waygu or kobe-style beef, you pretty much need to go grain fed.

you get what you pay for
I’m happy to pay more for my meat. If I feel like it’s too expensive, then I rethink the meat all together, or choose a smaller portion, rather than compromise with cheap meat from questionable sources.

dry aging v’s wet aging
All meat is aged to some degree because it improves the tenderness of the meat via the action of natural enzymes breaking down the muscle fibres.

The traditional method is to dry age where the meat is left uncovered. With dry aging moisture is lost from the meat as the same time as the enzymes are working to tenderise. This means the final weight of meat is much less and therefore butchers charge more for it. But the benefit is that the flavour is more concentrated in dry aged meat.

Most meat these days is wet aged, where the meet is kept in vacuum packs during the aging process. You still get the enzymatic tenderising effect, but there is no concentration of flavour. It’s worth trying some dry aged meat at least once so you know what it’s like.

thinking about the end use
The best cooking methods are covered in the guide to meat cuts. But I just wanted to remind you that it’s important to choose a cut that is appropriate for your intended type of dish. This can make a massive difference.

how to handle your meat

cross contamination
The number one rule of safe handling of meat is to make sure cooked meat never touches the same surfaces as raw meat.

To keep it simple, I have colour-coded chopping boards for raw meat, fish and poultry. Actually they belong to my Irishman, and I admit that I’d never buy them myself. But they are really useful. So we use these for uncooked meat only and then use other boards for cooked meat.

temperature control
The other thing to consider is temperature. Meat and fish even more so, will keep fresher the cooler the environment they are stored. For more on this see storage tips below.

preparing for cooking
Meat is much easier to cook if it is at room temperature before you start. It’s best to get it out of the fridge at least an hour before you’re ready to cook. Or even longer for larger things like a whole chicken.

I think about it like this, cooking is really all about getting heat into a piece of food. If the middle is really cold, it will take longer for the heat to reach the middle, meaning the outside can be overcooked by the time the middle is OK. If the whole piece of meat is at room temperature, and a little warmer, it won’t take as long for the heat to reach the middle, so the risk of overcooking the outside is much less.

how to store meat

refrigerating
Makes sure you keep your meat refrigerated asap. If you have a meat section in your fridge, it’s a good idea to use it because it’s generally designed to keep your meat as cool as possible and protect it from temperature fluctuations when you open the fridge door.

It’s important to make sure your meat is covered as the dry air inside your fridge will dehydrate the meat if uncovered. I usually leave it in the packaging from the butcher, unless I’m not going to be using it for more than a few days.

You also want to make sure raw meat juices aren’t going to drop onto anything else in the fridge. This is where the meat section can really be useful. If I’m worried that something might leak, I just place it on a plate in the fridge so I’m certain it won’t contaminate anything else.

freezing
Meat can be fine to freeze. Just make sure you freeze it in an appropriate container or bag. Don’t just pop wrapped trays of meat in the freezer – they aren’t designed to prevent moisture loss at very cold conditions. I always repackage meat into small, freezer bags. This also makes defrosting quicker because smaller chunks take less time.

I wish I could say I always labeled the things in my freezer. It would make life easier because most things look the same when they’re frozen but I’m not quite there yet!

defrosting
It is safest to defrost in the refrigerator, but that can take days. For a quicker method, have a look at defrosting 101 on Stonesoup.

how long?
It depends on how fresh the meat was in the first place.

Most larger cuts are usually OK for up to about 5 days. Minced (ground) meat should be used within 48 hours because the mincing process exposes a large amount of the surface area to the air and possible bacterial contamination.

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