Cooked all the way through. When i was preg with DD1 I ordered a burger at a pub. That meat pattie was pink, so I called over the waitress to get another. Her response was that I did not ask for well done. Well I went off and explained to her that mince has to always be cooked, that I had never had to ask for a well done burger in my life as it should be cooked through in the first place. Also went on that I was pregnant and if I lost the baby due to this, the pub would be in trouble. She quickly took back the meal and got me a another fully cooked one.
Really depends what is in the mince - most mince mixes used in sausages, rissoles and burgers contain pork or chicken fat to stop them drying out as they cook - in which case they must be cooked through in order to be safe.
However if it's good quality beef mince, then it really doesn't need to be cooked that much - at one extreme you have dishes like steak tartare where the beef mince is served completely raw. There is nothing wrong with serving a good quality beef burger medium rare - but you must really be confident in the quality of the product.
For dishes that incorporate mince as part of a sauce, the initial browning of the mince is an important part of creating the flavour base for the dish - if the mince doesn't get browned then the whole sauce will seem a bit aneamic and lacking in flavour.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks