How to fix a thin stuffing for meatballs? What to Add for Thickness

Stuffing is a semi-finished product of minced meat, fish for the preparation of cutlets, meatballs, fillings for pies, dumplings and other dough products. Stuffing is not always the right consistency. If it is liquid and does not hold its shape, the error is corrected by the introduction of binding ingredients, additional actions.

Why the minced meat turns out liquid

Common mistakes, causes, ways to prevent them:

Excessive onion

The vegetable reveals the taste of the meat, makes the semi-finished product juicy. With an excess of onions, the consistency of the product becomes not dense and viscous enough. To avoid this, after chopping the additional ingredient is squeezed to get rid of excess liquid.

Adding eggs in excess

The product is necessary to bind the components, preserving the shape of the cutlets. If there are a lot of eggs, the mince liquefies, and after heat treatment it becomes rigid. With normal consistency, but insufficient viscosity, the situation is corrected by the introduction of flour to the mince.

Lots of broth, milk, water

To increase the fat content, to make the ground dry poultry meat more tender, the semi-finished product is diluted with liquid. Incorrectly calculated proportions lead to excessive liquefaction of the product. It is possible to prevent the mistake if broth or milk is introduced in small portions, the next one is added after stirring the mass.

Long soaking the bread.

The product is added to the stuffing to loosen, glue the components, form crusts on the cutlets, which retain the juice released during frying. A couple of minutes is enough to soak the bread. If it is kept in milk for a long time, the consistency of the cutlets liquefies. The solution to the problem is obvious - the bread crumbs should be squeezed after soaking.

Incorrect defrosting of meat

Meat that is not completely defrosted or dropped into the boiling water retains a lot of moisture inside, passing into the mince. The mistake can be prevented by moving the product from the freezer to the refrigerator shelf until it is completely defrosted.

Excess Vegetables.

To increase the volume of the cutlet mass, make it more juicy and lush, add raw tubers of potatoes, carrots, zucchini or white cabbage. Vegetables tend to release juice after being passed through a meat grinder. To get rid of excess liquid, juicy additives after chopping send in a colander for 10-15 minutes, before being introduced into the mince squeeze.

If the minced meat with vegetables is salted before time, it will become excessively moistened. Professional chefs recommend using seasoning immediately before cooking.

What can be added if the minced meat turned out liquid

A liquid semi-finished product is corrected by introducing additional ingredients into the recipe:

Bread

Dried white loaf, wheat bread is added to meat, fish or chicken mince after cutting off the crusts, so that the dense surface layer does not interfere with the absorption of excess moisture. The product does not change the taste of ready meals, makes them juicier and tastier, if the amount of bread does not exceed 40% of the total weight. When the introduction of the additive in a larger volume, the semi-finished product becomes coarse and sour.

Potatoes

Tubers are boiled until tender in the skin, cooled, peeled, mashed. Starchy product is combined with cooked meat or fish semi-finished product, stirred. To the predominance of meat flavor in the cutlets, and products held their shape, mashed potatoes are added in the proportion of 1:5.

Turnip

Turnips are boiled, kneaded and injected into the mince. For seven parts of the ground meat, there should be no more than one part of the vegetable. If you exceed the recommended amount, the cutlets will be difficult to form, when frying they will fall apart.

Corn

Unsweetened cob grains are steamed, after cooling through a meat grinder, observing the proportion of 1:10. Stuffing with corn is thicker and acquires a yellow hue.

Pumpkin

The vegetable is peeled from the skin, cut into pieces and baked in an oven heated to 180 degrees for 20 minutes. You can use the microwave. In a microwave oven with a power of 800 watts pumpkin cooks for 10-12 minutes. For 800 g of half meat, you will need 100 g of pureed pumpkin of unsweetened varieties.

Carrot

Another way to fix liquid minced meat is the introduction of carrots. The root vegetable is boiled whole, peeled, chopped on a grater. In order not to interrupt the taste of the meat, 100 g of carrots per 1 kg of minced meat is enough.

Legumes

Thicken the meat semi-finished product with boiled beans, pulses or peas. After preparation the beans are ground with a meat grinder or chopped to a purée with an immersion blender. The additional ingredient is introduced into the meat mass in an amount not exceeding 10% of the total volume. If there are more legumes in the semi-finished product, the product will not only change color, but the taste of the meat will be neglected.

Flour, starch

The gluten of the products when swelling takes away excess moisture from the minced meat. The advantage of this method of thickening is that no time is spent on heat treatment, chopping new components. For 1 kg of semi-finished product we need 40 grams of flour or starch.

Cereals

Liquid minced meat is combined with raw semolina, oat flakes, with half cooked rice or buckwheat, cooked pearl barley. The last 3 types of cereals are passed through a meat grinder before adding. After introducing one of the proposed components of the meat mass for 20-30 minutes to absorb moisture. For 1 kg of stuffing we need 100-150 g of semolina, buckwheat, rice, barley, 200 g of oat flakes.

Mushrooms

Chopped dry mushrooms are hygroscopic, they rid the meat mass of water in 1 hour. After swelling 50 g of the ingredient, 1 kg of minced meat should be grinded again in a meat grinder. Mushrooms not only absorb moisture, but also enrich the semi-finished product with new flavor, mushroom flavor.

Other ways to thicken minced meat

If there is no desire or possibility to boil, chop vegetables, cereals or dilute the meat flavor with the smell of other products, do without additional components. To correct the consistency you can use other ways.

Beating

When the consistency of minced meat is not dense enough, housewives practice battering. The lump of meat mass is lifted above the working surface for 20 centimeters, thrown down with the use of force. The action is repeated 25-40 times until a homogeneous viscous structure is formed. This option is not suitable for fish semi-finished products.

Decanting

Stuffing will become thicker and denser if you put it in a colander covered with several layers of gauze, tie its ends and hang it over the sink for half an hour. It is important that the liquid does not drain completely, otherwise the cutlets will turn out dry, unpalatable.

Chilling

Another way to correct the mistake is to send a container with minced meat (not fish) in the freezer for 20-25 minutes. The container with the contents hermetically closed so as not to penetrate foreign odors, cutlet mass stirred several times for even cooling. A piece of butter and cellophane bag, in which the semi-finished product is distributed in a thin layer, accelerate the process of thickening.

Where to use liquid ground meat

Liquid minced meat, which could not be thickened, is added to the batter for pancakes, fried with onions for pasta flotsky. Half-finished product is used in cooking: lasagna, pizza, stuffed peppers, stuffed cabbage rolls. Stuffing with other additives is used to fill pies, pies, dumplings, chebureks.

What to do to prevent stuffing from sticking to hands

Meat or fish semi-finished products do not stick to your hands if it is well beaten, grease your hands with vegetable oil or water before forming each subsequent cutlet.

Before frying meat products use breadcrumbs or flour. It is better to choose not wheat flour, but rice or corn flour with a coarse grinding, a slower absorption of moisture.

If you are smart, listen to the advice of professionals, you can find a suitable way to correct the error or cook another dish, no less delicious than cutlets.