How should I deal with blood released while thawing meat in the refrigerator?
Saturday I pulled a package of venison from my freezer to thaw and hope to make stroganoff with it tonight. However, this morning I noticed that the package (in a bowl) had really released a lot of blood. I have a few questions here:
It hasn't been above 40° F (4.4° C) much, but am I going to run into a moisture or consistency problem? If so, can I do anything in the stroganoff to balance this out?
Also, assuming the meat is safe, and still worth cooking, should I attempt to utilize the blood in building up the sauce; if so how? (I will likely be preparing the sauce using [drippings/blood(?)], a pound or so of mushrooms, and cream/sour cream.)
Best Answer
To start with, the red, or dark, juice from red meat is not, in fact, blood, which is a common misconception. Most blood is drained from red meat when it is butchered. It is, rather, a protein (myoglobin) and a lot of water.
It is an animal's levels (or lack of) myoglobin, that determine whether it is a 'red' meat or white.
As for its safety after being frozen, this is discussed further here.
Beef stored in the refrigerator for more than 5 days will start to turn brown due to chemical changes in the myoglobin. This doesn’t necessarily mean it has gone bad, though with this length of unfrozen storage, it may have. Best to use your nose to tell for sure, not your eyes
As your venison was frozen, rather than just refrigerated, as mentioned above, I would say you are more than safe to do a nose test, as recommended above.
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Why is my meat bleeding in the fridge?
There is actually a lot of protein content and beneficial nutrients in this liquid. It sometimes is also called purge (blood appearing liquid in a meat package). It is safe to cook and eat this liquid with the rest of the ground beef.Should you wash blood off meat?
While washing meat and poultry to remove dirt, slime, fat or blood may have been appropriate decades ago when many slaughtered and prepared their own food, the modern food safety system doesn't require it. Meat and poultry are cleaned during processing, so further washing is not necessary.How do you get blood out of frozen meat?
Wipe down the inside of your freezer with a clean cloth, dampened with plain water. Pour a quarter-sized amount of chlorine bleach onto the clean cloth to tackle any remaining blood in your freezer. The bleach will remove the remaining stains while disinfecting the area.How do you stop meat from bleeding?
Letting your steak stand for about five minutes after you cook it will allow the juices, which are pushed towards the centre of the cut under heat, to be redistributed and reabsorbed throughout the meat. This way, your steak will lose less liquid when you cut it, leaving you with less 'blood' on your plate.The Best Way to Thaw Meat
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