How much water should be added to beef filling? What should I do if I add too much water to beef filling?

As we all know, beef filling is a common meat filling. There are many ways to make it. You can add a lot of side dishes, such as radish, mushrooms, celery, etc. It has a rich taste and is very popular. When making beef filling, you usually need to add water. So how much water should be added to beef filling? Let's take a closer look!

How much water should be added to beef filling?

People who often prepare meat stuffing usually follow a principle when doing so: add water in small amounts and multiple times. Each time you add water, use chopsticks to stir the meat stuffing in one direction to allow the beef to fully absorb the water before adding the next batch of water. This way, you can add water while observing the process, and usually you won't add too much water.

In order to avoid adding too much water to the meat filling in the future, I will tell you a ratio of beef to water: generally, 500 grams of beef filling requires 200 grams of water, and the amount of water should not exceed 300 grams. This amount of water seems to be a lot, but in fact, it is because the beef itself has a strong ability to absorb water, and more water is needed to make it not too dry to eat. If you use pork filling instead, you don't need to add so much water.

What to do if you add too much water to beef filling

1. Stirring and absorbing

If the excess water is within a controllable range, you can use chopsticks to stir the beef filling in one direction to see if the water can be absorbed by the beef filling. It is best if it can be absorbed. This way you can use it to make dumplings or buns. It has more water and tastes like soup dumplings or soup buns. However, because the meat filling is too watery and cannot be shaped, it may not be suitable for making beef balls.

2. Add meat filling

If there is any leftover beef, you can chop it up and add it in, and stir all the ingredients together so that the meat and water are fully mixed and absorbed. In this way, the proportion of water is reduced, but the meat filling exceeds the expected amount, so you need to prepare more dumpling skins or more dough to wrap the meat filling. This method is suitable for a variety of cooking methods such as dumplings, buns, pies and meatballs.

3. Freezing

If the beef filling is used to make buns or dumplings, and there is too much water to make it inconvenient to wrap, and you don't want to add more meat filling, you can put the meat filling with too much water in the refrigerator and freeze it for a while, let it solidify slightly, and then take it out to wrap it. This way, the cooked dumplings or buns will taste more soupy. This method is not suitable for making meatballs and pies.

4. Use gauze to squeeze out some water

If there is too much moisture in the minced meat and it cannot be stirred to absorb and you don't want to add more meat, you can wrap the minced meat with a piece of clean gauze, squeeze out some of the moisture, and then use it. This method is still very useful and is suitable for whatever the minced meat is used for.

5. Add side dishes

If you start with pure meat filling, you can add some side dishes, preferably some side dishes with strong water absorption, such as shiitake mushrooms (squeeze out the water before adding).

The above are several feasible solutions to the problem of adding too much water to the beef filling. It is not recommended to add flour or starch, unless no starch was added when the beef filling was first prepared, then you can add a small amount of starch. Otherwise, adding too much flour and starch will affect the tender and smooth taste of the beef, and it will taste very dry.

Homemade beef mince

First of all, you need to choose the right meat. Beef neck is the most suitable meat for stuffing.

Secondly, you have to chop the meat yourself. The meat minced by machine is not as delicious as the one you chop yourself.

Finally, it is time to adjust the filling. The specific steps are as follows:

1. Wash the meat, chop it and set aside.

2. Wash the white radish, peel it and shred it. Boil water in a pot, blanch the radish, remove it from the water and let it cool, squeeze it half dry and chop it for later use.

3. Peel the onion and ginger, wash them, and chop them for later use.

4. Prepare 2 star anises, 10 peppercorns, and 2 bay leaves. Pour appropriate amount of oil into the pot, put the star anise, peppercorns, and bay leaves into the oil, simmer over low heat until fragrant, then turn off the heat, remove the star anise, peppercorns, and bay leaves and discard them, let them cool for later use.

5. Add green onion, chopped ginger, salt, thirteen spices, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil and cooked oil to the meat and mix well.

6. Add the chopped radish and stir until well combined.

One more word:

There is no need to add water to the meat filling, because the radish is half dried and still has some water, so the meat filling will be tender and juicy after it is seasoned.