Steak Mince

Hey guys,

I plan to cook Steak Mince tonight with carrots and I was wondering - The steak mince is 2 days past its "Use by" date however it has been left unopened in the freezer.

The color is pink all around with red in the center and it has this sort of meaty smell (This is the best I can describe the smell since it reminds me of the smell when I go in a butcher shop)

(This is my 1st time cooking Steak Mince) So I was wondering should I throw it in the bin instead of cooking it?

If it was put into the freezer unopened you should be fine. The color and smell sound even more promising (brown and a rancid spoiled smell are bad signs). I've done it quite a bit in the past whenever they had meat on sale or I had no room in my fridge (use to live with roommates so it get's hard to store too much).

What do you want to make with it??

Well I'm planning to make a sweet and sour meatball with chopped carrots inside + White Jasmine Rice.

Sounds delicious!! Do you have a recipie for it somewhere??

And honestly the meat should be fine, but go with your gut feeling on it if you continue to question it.

Steak mince? Also i age my beef for a week anyways. Unless it gray it ok. Also long as it doesn't smell rancid or your fridge isn't above 40f/4c your fine. The use by dates are just the store way of not selling old meat. Meat would rot that quick in in their fridge. Just like milk in my fridge is two day past date and smell good.

I googled mince steak... ground beef. If it smell bad throw it away. Cooked it complete and the Bactria is dead.

Well I used this one http://allrecipes.com/recipe/lanas-sweet-and-sour-meatballs/ with some changes.

Careful even so.

Simple raw meat and minced meat are a bit different :

• When just dead, most of intact cells or tissues are not that easy to digest by a bacteria (ex : blood is more fragile than meat).

• When you mince any aliment, bacteria can enter deeper.

• Cells are also greatly messed up if not destroyed by the mincing processus.

That is to say : one day or two after the use-by date may be fine -- or not ? Since the use-by date is over, no rare meat, only well-cooked.

Do not use mince meat if it's been a week the date has past or if there was any cold break before -- like transporting meat in car or by foot when it's 25°C or above outside.

Sometimes grey isn't bad, if it is only spots of grey in the package, and you open it and let it air out, it can regain some of the redish color and it's all good

But grey through and through is bad


and just like Freak said, make sure to cook it well throughout since minced/ground meat is a combination of the bits that wouldn't sell so there could have been bacteria on other pieces that have now been mixed and contaminated the good meat- unless of course you ordered a cut and got it ground

Just when you thaw it, either keep it in the fridge to thaw overnight, or while still in the pack, run it under slightly cold/room temp-ish tap water till it defrosts

also I am like 3 days late on this, but how did it all turn out?

Well I didn't get any upset stomach so I suppose it went well and although I didn't picture my food (Since I don't like picturing foods) this is how it looked...Well minus the Brussels sprouts (Hate those little suckers)

Try to not repeat that situation, we never know :-)

Well, at the very least, Beef is remarkably forgiving. I've stored mine properly and even 7 days past the recommended use by date, its still showing all signs of being perfectly edible.

Chicken on the other hand, is a, for lack of a better word, total BITCH. For some reason, I get any cut of Chicken and store it, fridge or freezer and it magically goes off, even if rock solid. Suppose the local guys don't know how to treat Chicken like actual food. Freakin kick it around or summin...

Also, kickass looking dish! I'm an italian kinda guy myself, so it would have been some kind of meatsauce meatball deal for me, but i'm not gonna complain at that beauty :P