Back before ground beef doubled in price I would make a huge batch of chili for canning. I did the math in January of last year and it worked out to a 28% savings over buying it but the downside was that it cost $50 to make the batch.

Of course the upsides were knowing every ingredient and here I am two weeks short of a year later eating chili that now costs way more to make because of beef cost increases.

This time I added a can of black beans during the reheat because I didn’t feel like making corn bread.

Cost per person: $3.06

  • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
    3·
    5 days ago

    Not sure what you’re doing to cause the meat to disintegrate, but I’ve never had an issue with the texture. I do try to get a nice deep browning on each side of the flat of ground meat before turning, and cook the onions with.

    • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
      5·
      5 days ago

      I didn’t say “disintegrate.” It’s that the ground turkey just barely registers as an ingredient of the dish.

      But, hmm… browning.
      I’m not sure I’ve ever tried that, and yet I seem to remember OP talking about that as something that can really boost meat’s flavor, I think?

      • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
        1·
        4 days ago

        Brownong meat is an essential step to just about any dish. The maillard reaction does an amazing amount of work.

            • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
              1·
              3 days ago

              Okay, so to be clear-- browning via searing is just one of many, many ways to achieve the result. For example, simply by sprinkling ground turkey in to the chili dish, then cooking around 300°F for an adequate time will produce the maillard reaction in the turkey (plus whatever other ingredients), right?

              • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
                2·
                3 days ago

                No, because the meat won’t actually reach that temperature. Anything simmering on a stove will reach a maximum temperature of 212°F.

                You could spread the meat on a sheet pan and broil it, form it (perhaps with a binder) around skewers and char it on a grill, or set it on a fireproof surface and take a blowtorch to it, though. But browning in a pan, turning, and chunking can yield a more even browning with an end result of chunks of meat at the desired granularity - plus you can do the onions at the same time.

                  • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
                    2·
                    2 days ago

                    People keep asking me that. Nope, just an engineer who really likes food. By learning first principles, I can understand what causes certain results to come from various ingredients and the methods that are applied there to.

                    If you want to start going down the rabbit hole, Alton Brown had made a lot of this very accessible, especially in his show Good Eats; if you prefer textbooks, Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking is a definitive work.

      • kelpie_is_trying@lemmy.world
        2·
        5 days ago

        100%. Its also good for, as an example, cooking whole sausages in soups. The chemical reaction(s) of browning both alters/enhances a meats flavors as well as keeps them generally juicer throughout extended cooking methods by basically making a crust that makes it a bit easier to retain internal moisture.

        And I hear you on ground turkey. Very easy for it to fade into whatever else you’re throwing it in. Browning could help this for sure, but I haven’t worked much with this ingredient, so I cant rightly state what to expect. Id be very surprised if it wasnt worth a try though!

        • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
          2·
          4 days ago

          Okay, thanks, I’ll deffo give browning a try then with some turkey.

          Actually… browned, shredded turkey sounds really interesting in chili, altho I’ve never heard of that before.