I find that ground turkey can make an excellent loaf, one that is lighter and captures flavorings well. I think I even have successfully used it as a replacement for ground pork, when I didn't have any available to blend with some beef.

@Toronto Veterinarian you may be encountering Lean Finely Textured Beef, which is used as a filler in ground beef in the US (but mostly not in Canada and is banned in the EU). It is possible the use is increasing even further with the rise in beef prices.

" Lean Finely Textured Beef "

I don't think so, or not exclusively, because I've been seeing it in ground pork and turkey. I first encountered it when Costco switched to selling ground turkey in chubs, but later discovered it sold in smaller quantities in different places too.

Elmer I have used the baking soda trick many times with vaying results.Thanks for the video. I now see the mistake I have been making. I have not been mixing the bicarbonate soda well enough with the meat , I have just been sprinkling it on. Also, I have also been using too much bicarb UGH it give everything an off taste. It does make things juicier and more tender.

Re: the finely textured beef: Im wondering if it's an attempt to emulate the iconic taco bell mystery meat.

I made loose meat meals like shepherd's pie, sloppy joes and beef tacos with a good dose of cooked lentils, which increased the fibre and vitamins

I tried this yesterday with tacos and it worked well, the tacos were so highly seasoned that the lentils went unnoticed. Thank you for the idea!

Why are yall hammering on Sherry. It is her opinion. Why take it personally. She did not spit in your soup.

I’m sure everyone has their favorite chef(s). Calling people “closed minded” when they don’t like or don’t care about your (favorite) chefs is uncalled for, IMO.

Happy Friday!

I see her opinion mattering to her. Not agreeing with you is part of that equation because she doesnt agree with you.

so as to not deflect

Meatballs that I do not like to make is not the mixing or forming of them it is the browning and mess of that and chasing these round objects on your plate and it is a lot of work and I might as well be eating some simpler version of ground meat. I mostly use it for chili or spaghetti sauce because my husband likes those. He would gladly eat meat balls. I had to make too many of them when I was a kid. I started cooking very early. We used bread crumbs and sauteed onions in them. We grated the heel ends of loafs of bread.

Elmer, you need to separate yourself from popular chefs. They arent you and you are not them and her opinion about them has nothing to do with you. You get your opinion and she gets hers. If you think she is gratutiously flagging talk to the minders about it. I will say you are prone to tell people they are jealous orcrazy or some weird thing and maybe you could give that up. I doubt you realize you are doing that.

I intensely dislike Chris Kimball, the person who must have had a great deal to do with hiring Kengi when he worked for Test Kitchen. Feel free to throw rocks.

Nicely stated Patricia. I totally agree with you about Kimball...never been a fan of Test Kitchen because of him. There is a "type" that seems to be elevated on many cooking shows and I don't care for any of them. I never saw Kenji, but see from your post that he must have been or is on ATK. That's why I don't know him. Flay, Robert Irvine (I had to search for his name) Batali (had to look him up, too) Alton Brown, Gordon Ramsey all fall under the unwatchable umbrella for me.

Patriciae, I'm not saying you need to in any way change your stance on meatballs, but do you remember when meatcubes were in style?

Amazon has this meat flat hexagon mold, which looks quick and easy;

https://www.amazon.com/Shape-Store-Master-Meatball-Making/dp/B076158F22/ref=sr_1_10?crid=2T1RLSF3C6WS1&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rgvloY91lD3qv3TY07zLOcnztIMDIUsv7bqKGCBKyyQo3nsNvCq87HfAlvo_SMyBKfzdPhb8dK36mI9WiiT_-qB7BcZZZv01rZEDhA2iUp9J_NksU1ZNmxeMNfoTWZqWUgM1ni4n20silDXh7hulsF9nfZQJdaus2gY4AzLi3uW2tF_TLUxsquKPKIyU_uTjRhTZ582Oh2cm-lkKB-wGcWvo05c_cSrH2pjuf_RzIJdbFh2bxhWwVKan7I_VVRIsWVK1I7boDyIvxwITUi2fXoyAo4yWTOgSjbV2Oq0zGOc.KUXgpqJf-SDFeuqQ68O0QXf97j2yE3OyEu9FXEn0AUU&dib_tag=se&keywords=Meat%2Bcube%2Bmaker&qid=1777081674&sprefix=meat%2Bcube%2Bmaker%2Caps%2C208&sr=8-10&th=1

Or you could fill a loose bottom or silicone square cake pan and cut squares like brownies.

Then put them on a parchment lined (for easy cleanup and no sticking) baking tray and brown them in the oven. I do that often with meatballs with good results. Not ultimate perfection, but certainly good. I also use crumbled matzah instead of breadcrumbs. It's a lot easier than grating. Just saying, there are easier ways to get a good meatball...

No, no, it is not shaping the meatballs. It is the browning and fussing with saucing them and they roll around when you try to eat them. So much bother for something that tastes like spaghetti sauce. I know it is weird. Maybe it is that I am not really on board with the product. I do all sorts of complicated cooking things. When I met my present husband he thought I was pulling his leg when I talked about making puff paste and Brioche. Fussy stuff but...

I looked up this Kenji person and he was behind the scenes working I think on the magazine. Presumably a nice capable sort of person or not. Chris Kimball is horrible. He has made himself famous by being dismissive of the mothers of America saying they are incompetent incapable cooks. So who is he? He goes to some other country and watches some one make some amazing food and goes back to his place and does horrible things to it in the name of making it better as in not. Have you noticed he hires really short people? He is only 6 feet but towers over those tiny women and men he favors. Very weird guy.

That's why I suggested flat sided meatballs. You can also just kind of squish them to make a flat side or two, and browning in the oven works....So I think you're right, that you just don't want to make meatballs. :D No issues with that! I love baking and I'm good at it, and while brioche isn't harder to make than any other bread, any kind of baking that requires yardsticks is something else again. Making puff is easy. Making it well is brutal. :) All admiration!

The only time I fooled with ground poultry is when my BIL developed a nasty red meat allergy after a tick bite. Family gatherings became a problem to be solved, menu wise. I actually found it to be gag-worthy. Just the texture of ground turkey puts me off. I find that you have to add A LOT more seasonings to it than you would to the same recipe using ground beef to make it tasty. And it is harder to work with if you have to shape it in some way. I usually made turkey meatballs, and would use a cookie scoop and really press it in the scoop to get it to keep its shape. Other things that usually required pork sausage i would substitute turkey sausage, but again would have to add more spices and herbs to make it taste "normal." Luckily, he went and had some sort of weird experimental treatment as a last desperate effort to return to a normal life, and it worked. Though he still reacts to nuts and sometimes dairy. I am happy to not have to worry about it anymore.

I know some people think it is healthier, but it really depends on what you deem "healthy." Beef tends to have more nutrients than poultry, even if poultry has less fat. So I guess whatever makes one feel better about their diet......

@Toronto Veterinarian

" I don't think so, or not exclusively, because I've been seeing it in ground pork and turkey. "

Sorry, I thought you were talking about beef. Ground turkey (and pork) can contain a similar mechanically separated paste, as well, but I don't know how much it differs in Canada.

Apparently, organic versions may not contain this paste (at least for beef).

That explains why I've never seen it.

I have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer and the meat grinder attachment. I prefer to buy the chicken breasts and grind my own. I have bought the pre ground, and it is convenient, but contains more water.

The odd thing is, both the boneless breasts and the pre ground are the same price per pound! It just costs a bit of my time.

I do the same with pork. I used to do venison, but hubby no longer hunts.

" And it is harder to work with if you have to shape it in some way. I usually made turkey meatballs, and would use a cookie scoop and really press it in the scoop to get it to keep its shape. "

That's what I found when I bought that super-fine mince that was almost like a paste, but I switched stores to buy my ground turkey, and now it's the same texture and work-ability as every other ground meat (beef, pork, etc). I have to admit I never thought about grinding my own.

"Luckily, he went and had some sort of weird experimental treatment as a last desperate effort to return to a normal life, and it worked. "

That is awesome! I thought Alpha-gal Syndrome (the allergy from tick bites to mammalian meat and dairy) didn't have a cure, so it's great to hear about an option that might be helpful, maybe even a cure.

I also use a Kitchen Aide. I have the grinder that they make and also a larger heavier duty one in metal that fits my machine. I use the larger holed blade and put the meat through twice. It gives a nice consistency. As an everything in moderation person I dont worry about the health aspects. I was just on a very tight budget back in the day and beef was expensive. We ate a lot of overaged lamb as I knew someone who raised sheep. $25 for a sheep. Still young enough to not be too strong. I made a fair amount of sausage and smoked it. As a person who spent time on a farm as a child who scraped hogs and chopped fat for rendering I was not squeemish about cutting up my own animals.

I looked up that meat paste stuff. Sounds gacky to me. They do not allow it in the EU at all. It is treated with chemicals to disinfect it. The ground I get from Costco is a reasonably coarse grind. They do not use this goo.

The technical term is ”lean textured beef”. The real term is ”pink slime” .

ETA: Everyone used to gag at hot dogs. This is a 1000 times worse than hot dogs.

Funny story about ground chicken, I was looking after the two kids of a neighbor whose MIL had died and they had to go spend ten or eleven days dealing with stuff and she told me her kids liked spaghetti so I made it but with ground chicken and they acted like I was trying to kill them. They told their mother afterward and she ran around telling everyone she met how much her kids hated staying with me and how bad the food was. Nice right? Do a good deed and get grief. So I ran into a friend of hers and she said I hear you looked after the kids, Did they treat you like you were trying to poison them?

. They told their mother afterward and she ran around telling everyone she met how much her kids hated staying with me and how bad the food was.

Don't do them any more favors. Sorry your efforts and good intentions got trashed like that.

" The ground I get from Costco is a reasonably coarse grind. They do not use this goo. "

They do for ground turkey, unfortunately. They used to offer a reasonable price on (regular) ground turkey, but not any longer.

Ah. I've heard of pink slime, before. Never seen it. I'd rather buy less quantity of better meat, but I do appreciate one thing said above--it's good (relatively) that they bleach it. Even with regular ground meat, the large processors have had deadly scandals about their ground meats. Bleach is better than death. But eww.

I appreciate when the butcher says to finish your shopping because it'll take awhile to clean the grinder.

I've tried many recipes using ground turkey, but as much as I wanted to, I've never liked any of them and have since pretty much given up my experimenting. Ground chicken, however, has been a different story and buffalo chicken meatballs, chicken piccata meatballs, and chicken cordon bleu meatballs are in the (somewhat) regular rotation at our house. The difference may be in the recipes and not the meat -- who knows, and I'm not sure I care enough to figure it out.

lettersatoz, I tend to agree about ground turkey. Chicken has been better for me, too. You mentioned buffalo chicken and chicken piccata meatballs. I’ve made both and they’re tasty. I have a book called The Meatball Shop Cookbook that’s been a good one when it comes to all kinds of meatballs…beef, lamb, pork, chicken, turkey, veggie…everything. I made these Reuben Balls from the book not long ago in mini size. I halved the recipe and served them as an appetizer.

IME, combining ground chicken and ground turkey is better than either no its own.

" The difference may be in the recipes and not the meat -- who knows, and I'm not sure I care enough to figure it out. "

LOL. Makes sense. I mostly use ground turkey instead of ground chicken because I generally eat turkey and never chicken - it's sort of a habit to choose turkey over chicken.. I personally think the difference between meatballs, meat loaf, and hamburgers is about shape and seasoning. There's no reason one couldn't substitute for the other (i.e. what you use to make meatballs could be used to make hamburgers).

Except that burgers generally cook up drier, and by being in a sandwich need to eat firmer, so there's a different texture required. I pretty much agree that eaten with a fork differs in requirement mostly in shape and seasoning, but can be made wildly differently.

I was tied up for awhile, doesn't seem I missed all that much.

" I intensely dislike Chris Kimball, the person who must have had a great deal to do with hiring Kengi "

I agree with you about Kimball, Patricia. As for Kenji, I’m not sure Kimball was very involved. He was owner and Editor in Chief of Cook’s Illustrated magazine but was a journalist with no professional cooking experience. I'm not sure he had much involvement with recipe development and its experimental approach, other than to be visible on the TV programs. His full-page columns in Cooks Illustrated magazine usually wandered into personal reflections and musings about his life and travels that had nothing to do with the magazine’s core content.

Kenji, on the other hand, came from an scientific academic family and background and developed his skills through curiosity and experimentation. His first restaurant work was a side gig to earn money during his time at MIT. He experimented with alternative techniques, approaches, etc., That mindset aligned well with Cook’s Illustrated. He's been on his own for awhile, of course, now affiliated with Serious Eats (a very useful recipe site), a YouTube channel, and the NY Times, among other things.

His Food Lab book—over 900 pages—combines recipes with detailed insights from his iterative testing.

America’s Test Kitchen, a consumer-facing activity Cook’s Illustrated, reflects a similar approach, with often complex recipes. Kenji’s beef stew, for example, includes an “umami bomb” of tomato paste, anchovies (or fish sauce), soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce.

I appreciate his methods just as I do someone like Jacques Pépin’s—rooted in classical French training and hands-on experience, building from tradition into personal innovation.

As withMastering the Art of French Cooking, some of the recipes in these books are longer and more involved that most people are interested in doing. Or, may only want to do for special occasions. Some can be truncated, some not. Even when not following a specific recipe, there are things to learn.

For example, I learned his "reverse searing" approach which is now my standard, failsafe way of cooking thick pieces of beef or pork chops. I've adapted it to make it my own, no recipe references needed. Access to reading information or listening to folks with vast expertise always results in my learning new and useful things. As I'm sure it does for others.

There are people who think cooking is nothing more opening cans and adding prepared foods, flavor packaging, and purchased grated cheese, into a crock pot. That's fine. Those kind of people have no use for a 900 page cook book nor do they know or care anything about learning from others. The science and discovery involved in developing recipes for preparing food from real ingredients doesn't interest them. That's fine.

I believe a lot of pink slime is obtained by pressure washing carcasses to retrieve every last little scrap left on the bones. Often this is added to commercial prepared meat products such as meat pies to boost the meat content cheaply.

The 'pink slime' is known as mechanically recovered or mechanically separated meat here. It can't be legally added to minced meat (ie ground meat) sold as such. It can only be used in highly processed meat products like cheap sausages or pies and it has to be declared on the ingredients list.

The use of chlorination (bleach) in meat products is banned. Risk of contamination is mitigated by high hygiene standards at source rather than post hoc sanitizing.

" There are people who think cooking is nothing more opening cans and adding prepared foods, flavor packaging, and purchased grated cheese, into a crock pot. That's fine. Those kind of people have no use for a 900 page cook book nor do they know or care anything about learning from others. The science and discovery involved in developing recipes for preparing food from real ingredients doesn't interest them. That's fine. "

Wow, that's dismissive of people who don't use recipes...........I have no use for a 900 page cookbook, or even for a 90 page cookbook, though I cook from scratch almost 20 meals a week. I virtually never use prepared foods or cans (though I did use canned clams when I made clam chowder earlier this week), but I am interested in learning from others after I've tasted something I found really good.

Cooking is an art, and not everyone needs a model in front of them. Some use a paint-by-number canvas, too, like my best friend. The woman with the full time job, a husband who works night shifts, and a special-needs son.

My cookbooks.

Other than the small local cookbooks and maybe BG&G, most are useless. In the top shelf, left third is the ATK. It is red. As a cookbook, it is a great doorstop. I have gleaned one recipe from it and had to totally redo and rewrite to make edible and usable. They used a huge amount of pans and you only need one skillet.

I wanted something for young grandkids with one allergic to a lot of things. It gasp, uses canned tomatoes and canned chicken broth. So much for cooking from scratch, right!

ATK called Chop Suey.

ETA: I would toss, but I cannot get rid of a book.

I also have no interest in a 900 page cookbook. Some of us love to cook, others prefer to read about others cooking. I’ve learned a great deal about cooking from a large number of people. Just because someone doesn’t want to genuflect at the feet of a particular tv cook doesn’t at all indicate an unwillingness to learn.

I reckon some people must follow every single step from a 900-page cookbook because they’re incapable to think for themselves. I have at least half a dozen cookbooks but rarely look at them. Mostly I learned cooking from my mom, even then she complimented me after I mastered her techniques.

A chef may not be everyone’s favorite on some dishes when he uses a short cut rather like a necessity- like adding gelatin to his stew meat dish like Kenji does. Also some chef just has too much drama to watch them in the act, like Gordon.

My FIL was told to quit eating pork or beef. The beef he was okay with, but he was very set in his ways and ate for breakfast every morning, two fried eggs, Dean (not Jimmy Dean) sausage, and biscuits. He was miserable. I came up with this.

Copycat Deans Breakfast Sausage

1 pound ground boneless chicken breast

1 teaspoon salt, if chicken is enhanced omit salt

1/2 teaspoon dried parsley

1 teaspoon ground sage

1/4 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 teaspoon ground coriander

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 teaspoon sugar

In large bowl combine all ingredients. Shape into patties and freeze on cookie sheet.

When frozen, store in ziplock bag. To cook, spray pan with Pam. You can thaw first or just add when pan begins to heat. Use medium heat.

Weighing in on chefs, mostly I don't watch them but I have to admit I love watching Julia Child. She may have been doing fancy French cooking but she always looked like real down home people, and like she was enjoying herself.

I do appreciate some of the recipes tried and true that I have found on KT. A moment of thanks for our dear Glenda who was always happy to share and talk about her recipes and who was a wonderful person herself.

Julia Child is a joy to watch - She even has a beautiful & fragrant yellow rose named after her.

That show is a cartoon, It's not a cooking show. The in-Chief guy is acting out a most unpleasant but very popular character. The most of food itself doesn't appeal to me, but wouldn't if he were acting like a good angel and the cooks were on their best behavior. A lot of people really like his food. They're welcome to it.

I love books, so I love cookbooks. I rarely use them for recipes, but usually like the ones I try (I'm good at choosing recipes to try). I mostly just cook. More of the new (to me) recipes I actually use, or use as a guideline, are from CF, or a websearch for something in particular. A lot of cookbook recipes aren't T&T or are dumbed down, but I like looking at the pictures and reading the stories behind the recipes. Sometimes there's something inspirational.

The main reason I watch cooking contests and page through cookbooks is that I acquire little bits of knowledge that come in handy. There's a what to do now notion which bubbles up when I need it, which is beyond the scope of what I learned from my mother. The people in my life, but one, don't cook, and the one who does is mostly a put out fooder (a good one). I love CF, even as quiet as it's gotten since Houzz took us off the topic list, because so many really cook and are interested in the process, have different experiences and knowledge, and share so willingly. I adore hearing how different the "same" foods are on the other sides of the world. I love being the reciever of knowledge and wisdom, rather than being the kitchen boss. None of these things come from books or shows, and rarely from blogs.

Sherry, I think your copycat sausage sounds brilliant! I hope your FIL liked it!

Julia Child is a cook! She cooks real food for real people!

Pillog, he did, He used it and tweeked it with a bit more spice. He has passed now, but he did have his sausage. I am sure it was not exactly the same, but was close enough. I'll not say how much Deans sausage I tasted to come up with this! How many times can you cook a bite of either, lol, barf!

I don't watch Hell's Kitchen because I don't like the nastiness displayed by just about everyone on that show. But I do like Ramsay's other shows, Kitchen Nightmares, where he is happy to teach the chefs his recipes (and also has some pretty good psychological insight) and his travel shows, where he learns from the local chefs in the countries where he travels. He can't be a total a-hole or I don't think his wife would have stuck around for thirty years.

Chefs are essentially very good cooks who had to some kind of culinary instruction and have the papers to show that they learned to cook professionally. Julia Child did go to cooking school in Paris so she could have claimed to be a chef if she wanted to.

I'm not a big fan of US cooking shows because they either seem to produce junk food (looking at you, Rachel Ray) or are nastily competitive (really can't stand Chopped). And I don't care for the very popular Yotam Ottolenghi because he never seems to produce anything that I think "Oh, that looks good, I can't wait to make that."

I've never seen Ottolenghi on TV. I don't know if his show plays here on regular TV (i.e., maybe streaming). I have two of his books (one was a gift), and have made a couple good recipes. Almost everything in them look like I'd like to eat them, but I grew up eating Middle Eastern food. I sometimes play Chopped, when there's nothing else on. The show I really like is Top Chef (though it used to be better), and I like that format. That is, I like it when it's more about the food than playing a game. But I'll watch quite a few others, and buying houses in odd locations shows, because they're not unpleasant, snarky, violent, etc... And I learn stuff along the way.

Still haven't made meatloaf. I have soup in the freezer. Maybe I can do it this week...

" buying houses in odd locations shows"

Those are kind of fun, in a "different strokes for different folks" kind of way.

My vote for most miserable cooking show host is Guy Fieri. He opened a restaurant in NYC,called Guy's American Bar and Grill, and the NYT review of it was a classic. It belongs in the Restaurant Review Hall of Fame. I hope there isn't a paywall.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-guys-american-kitchen-bar-in-times-square.html

Ouch!!! It does seem a bit over the top!! I don't think I would like it at all. Way too pretentious. Can the food even live up to all that hype.

Game show host.

Speaking of Top Chef, I heard Padma Lakshmi on Cherry Bomb podcast talking about her new competition show. I haven't seen it yet

I've been watching it. It's a pleasant pace at breakfast. She's fab. There are some known, high level chefs. The stucture is a bit stuffy, until it goes wild and wooly. It's more about cooking than gameplay, but a tactical error can still send someone out. I like the chefs and seeing them cook, but other than their high competence level to start with, the only thing that really distinguishes it is money. The set is gorgeous and the food is tops, and the prize, being big three network money, is at least four times more than cable, I think. I can't remember the number.