Cooking Experiment: Salisbury Steak

[tuftears]

Sometimes I am remiss in posting when it gets a little bit busy, so I have to post a slew of journal entries to get them all out the door. This is one of those times!

For this particular experiment, I was trying to make salisbury steak, using (if I recall right) a mix of turkey and beef. It wasn't very successful.



This was my first attempt, using the drippings from the patties and beef stock to make the gravy. I discovered that when I used a substitute for Worcestershire sauce, which I don't normally keep stocked, I may have used too much vinegar-- I could taste the sourness in the burger patties. Ouch.

Fortunately, I hadn't prepared all the patties immediately, I'd just fried them and then set most of the remaining patties for later use. So I could try again, this time trying to get a better gravy to counteract that!



For this attempt, I used a boxed gravy from Whole Food Market, since I was out of gravy from the first attempt. (turns out drippings don't make that much) This gravy turned out to be too liquid and probably in need of thickening with cornstarch. Now I know for the next time I try using this stuff!

Finally, I gave up trying to make salisbury steak and just made fried rice with the remainder. That part worked fine, at least!

So what have I learned for next time? Mostly to skip the Worcestershire sauce, or at least be more sparing in its use. I imagine the real stuff is still pretty acidic.

Comments

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I am unfamiliar with black bean paste! From Google, it seems to be a 'sweet bean paste' meant for use in pastries. How/why would you use it in a meat dish?

[merrycalliope.livejournal.com]

OOPS. I meant black bean sauce! Black bean sauce is savory and used a lot in Chinese cooking - you'd probably recognize the taste. M convinced me to get some and when I tried it I was like "Oh! So THAT'S what that flavor is!" Now I use it in a lot of stuff because it has a great flavor and a little goes a long way.

It's really thick so that's what made me say "paste". ^_^;

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

I'll have to get some of that!

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see! I've been using oyster sauce when I want a umami taste, but that sounds worthwhile stocking.

[rowyn]

Oh, interesting! I may have to try that sometime.

I think I'd like fried rice better than salisbury steak no matter what sauce went into it, though. :D