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Comment by az226 | Hacker News Reader

My controversial take: cook ground meat as you would a steak. Toss the whole block in there and get a nice crust on both sides and then once you have gotten that Maillard reaction, then break it into the ground crumbles like usual. Flavor will be so much better.

Most “browning” of ground beef is more akin to steaming than searing.

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This is entirely counter to my usual method of chopping up a block of mince meat before putting it in the pan. I’m going to give it a try next time and see how it goes, I suspect it’ll result in the outer layer being delicious and the rest less so, but we’ll see.

depending on how deep the heat gets in, it might also result in large chunks of meat with lots of interior meat that was cooked but never touched the pan. Personally I've tried this and I don't like it. I have better experience in success by brreaking it up, adding things like onions and garlic as well as spices.

I do a mix between this and waiting for the water to evaporate. After it has evaporated you'll be able to brown it nicely either way.

Browning can also happen after the water has steamed off and you're left with some fat in the bottom.

But I'd rather have nice crusty bits with good flavor and some textural difference and some really juicy meat that didn't get fully dried out vs. having all meat dried out and none really well browned, just slightly browned.

I will try this!

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