Carnivores-Cryovac packed meats-Yuck!

14 years ago

With the economy the way it's been, I've been even more vigilant in searching out food sales. Love to cook (and eat), and prepare a lot of meals that many people don't like.

I found a killer sale on Lamb shanks. They were $2.99 a lb. instead of the $5.99+ I usually find. Stocked way up and froze a bunch. When I went to cook them and opened the packages up, this putrid odor was released into the air. It was just yucky!

I browned them and then braised for just under two hours. I could still smell the odor and could taste it in the final product.

The meat was not bad and we love the gamier taste of lamb. It was from the cryovac.

I did some research and found that this is a common occurance. Has to do with oxygen depletion (or some other cr*p, was really boring reading so started to zzzz). You're supposed to let the meat air out for a half an hour. Some suggested washing it. I've noticed this smell with vacuum packed spareribs, too.

I now have a freezer full of them.

Has anyone else had this experience or do I just have an extra sensitive sniff & taste?

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Comments (3)

mcmann
14 years ago
We always buy whole beef tenderloins that come in the Cryovac and have never noticed that. But we also open them at home and then trim them. We cut them into individual portions and then grind the smaller pieces into ground meat- they make the most tender hamburgers.

When we buy spareribs or pork tenderloins we toss them into the freezer in the cryovac and when we open them months later they're fine.
DLM2000-GW
14 years ago
I buy cryovac meat, (beef, pork and lamb - do they do poultry?), and have never noticed an unpleasant odor, but then I don't expect raw meat to smell especially nice anyway! If you're perceiving an unpleasant odor, why don't you try the suggested remedies and see if that helps. And there's always garlic - works every time.
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johnmari
14 years ago
I've never had that problem either, and buy cryovac meats a few times a year when I am feeding a crowd (I don't much care for the taste/texture of meat that's been frozen). Washing meat before I cook it is SOP though. I have found that lamb is far more prone to "funk" than almost any other typical retail meat except organ meats, though, even at the retail-cut level, and especially shanks.

FYI, though, virtually all the meat that arrives at your grocery store's meat department (unless you go to really high-end butchers) is cryovac-packed in large pieces until the butcher opens the cryovac package, recuts the large pieces into the "retail cuts" and to put on the little plastic-wrapped styrofoam tray with the "diaper" underneath. Sometimes with large chains it's fabricated into the retail cuts at a central facility, but it almost always comes from the processor in cryovac.

Carnivores-Cryovac packed meats-Yuck!

Comments (3)

mcmann

DLM2000-GW

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johnmari

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