Ground Beef

Look, good ground beef tells you everything before you even cook it. Press it with your finger — it should feel slightly springy, not slack, not wet and slippery. Smell it close, right at the surface: clean, faintly sweet, nothing sour, nothing sharp. The colour alone won't tell you much — it changes with air and light — so don't judge by that. Judge by smell and by touch.

Here is the thing people get wrong. Some say the leaner the ground beef, the better, the more "proper." No! Not in the pan. Fat is not a flaw here, fat is flavour. A hundred grams of this ground beef carries twenty grams of fat and seventeen of protein — that fat is exactly what keeps your kotleta from turning into a dry, crumbly puck.

And here is the mistake that belief leads to: a cook buys the leanest ground beef they can find, shapes it, fries it, and wonders why the result is tough and tasteless. Cut into that lean patty and you'll see hardly any juice escape, and the bite is dry, grainy, bland — no richness on the tongue at all. Choose ground beef with some fat in it, and respect it — don't overwork it, don't overcook it.