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Cooking 101
Kitchen Shop
Featured Recipe
Classic Hamburger
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References...
Food Safety Tips: Handling Raw Ground Beef (Hamburger)
Whenever you work with raw ground beef, make sure you:
- Use fresh meat. Grocery stores put dates on packaged meat to indicate when it was packed and when it should be used or frozen by. Pay attention to the "use by" date, if you haven't cooked the fresh meat by then, don't. If the raw meat smells at all odd or looks brown rather than pink, it's probably not good. When it doubt, throw it out.
- Cook it thoroughly. Some people love pink steaks, but ground beef is not steak, and should be cooked until all of the pink is gone. This kills any possible bacteria. To be positive you've cooked the hamburger enough, use a meat thermometer. Test for doneness by inserting the meat thermometer into the thickest part of the burger and holding it there until the gauge stops rising. For ground beef, the gauge should indicate 170 ° Farenheit when the burger is fully cooked.
- Wash everything that touches the raw meat. Immediately after handling raw hamburger, or any raw meat, use soap and hot water to clean the plates, utensils and your hands. This reduces the possibility of transferring bacteria around the kitchen and reduces the risk of cross-contaminating raw vegetables and other food.
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