Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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The present invention relates to a processed meat
product and to a process for forming such meat products.
Traditionally butchering of mammalian stock involves
removing the primal cuts of meat, which are relatively lean
and unsinewed, from the animal for sale as individual items
and utilising the remainder of the meat in a minced or ground
form for use in sausages, rissoles, forcemeat and the like.
The primal meat cuts achieve premium prices though in many
cases they are not ideal for the consumer containing, as they
can, significant quantities of bone and also a certain amount
of fat. The minced product, which is usually made of sinewed
meat, ~ends to.sell at a relatively low price. These minced
products are normally produced by mincing the sinewed meat to
a degree sufficient to render the presence of the sinews,
gristle and the like undetectable to a consumer. The
necessary result of this very fine comminution of the sinewed
meat is that the meat loses its fibrous character and becomes
amorphous in character.
The present invention is directed to a meat product
which includes both sinewed and sinewIess meat and in which
the fibrous character of the meat is retained.
The present invention consist~ in a meat product
comprising intima~ely mixed together sinewed meat which has
been finely ground to render the sinews therein substantially
organoleptically undetectable and essentially sinewless meat
which has been coarsely severed and subjected to a physical
disorientation while substantially preserving its fibrous
character.
In another aspect the present invention consists in a
process for forming a meat product comprising grinding or
mincing sinewed meat to such an extent that the sinews
therein are rendered substantially organoleptically
undetectable, coarsely severing substantially sinewless meat
and subjecting it to a physical disorientation while
substantially preserving its fibrous character, and
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intimately mixing the sinewed and the sinewless meat together.
The terms sinewed and sinewless meat are Lelative but
are well understood in the meat trade. The sinewed meat will
have a relatively high proportion of sinews or tendons
traversing the meat while sinewless meat will be free, or
substantially free~ of such sinews. As the sinews are formed
of collagen the collagen sinewless meat will always have a
lower collagen content than the sinewed meat. In
conventional terms the sinewless meat comprises the main
muscle bundles which, in the case of cattle, might be sold as
fillet, rump, T-bone or the like. The sinewed meat may be
typically respresented by shank or the like.
The product and process according to the present
invention have the advantage that all of the meat from an
animal may be sold as an essentially premium product free of
bone, low in fat and with a pleasing texture and flavour.
- The preservation of the essentially fibro~s character of the
sinewless meat allows the product to be formed into a wide
variety of saleable products which are essentially
~-20 self-supporting i.e. the meat product does not require to be
contained within a supporting package such as a sausage skin.
~-Ideally the process according ~o this inven~ion will
utilise all of the lean meat from any butchered beast, both
-~the sinewed and the sinewless. Typically this will give to
the present product a content of from 60 to 80% by weight
sinewless meat and 20 to 40% by weight sinewed meat.
Obviously there are situations where this is not ideal and
the proportions may be varied widely within the broad ambit
of this invention. The meat included in the product is
preferably trimmed if necessary to give the product a fat
content of 10 to 30~ by weight.
The sinewed meat is most readily processed by being
manually stripped from the carcass of the animal, trimmed to
remove excess fa~ and finely minced in a conventional
mincer. In a particularly preferred embodiment of the
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invention this meat is passed once through a mincer such as a
"~obart~ (Registered Trade Mark) mincer having a four bladed
cutter and fitted with a number 5 plate. The minced product
is in the form of small pellets having a maximum particle
diameter of, say, Smm. When smeared between the fingers this
ground sinewed meat, in common with traditional "sausage
mince", has no clearly distinguishable fibrous character and
the sinews, gristle and the like has been sufficiently well
disintegrated as to cause no disagreeable organoleptic
sensations.
The sinewless meat is severed into lumps and
simultaneously or subsequently subjected to a physical
disorientation~ The expression "physical disorientation"
means any step which breaks up the meat lumps substantially
without destroying the essentially fibrous nature of the meat
proteins. When pressed between the ingers the treated
sinewless meat should freely smear apart while showing
clearly visible meat fibres. Ideally the treated sinewless
meat, in an uncooked and chemically untreated state, will
contain fibres of from 2mm to 20mm and possibly even longer.
This severed and disorientated sinewless meat should not be
confused with meat which has merely been diced without having
been subjected to the physical disorientation. In the case
of meat merely diced it would not be possible to bring about
an intimate mixing between the sinewed and sinewless meats
which is essential to this invention.
The sinewless meat is most preferably boned from the
animal in a conventional way, trimmed of excess fat and
passed once through a mincer, such as a "Hobart" mincer,
fitted with a two bladed cutter and a plate having 12.5mm
diameter holes. The passage through such a mincer produces
not only a severing of the meat but also an initial physical
disorientation of the meat fibres.
The intimate mixing of the finely ground sinewed meat
and the sinewless mea~, together with a further physica~
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disorientation of the fibres in the sinewless meat, is
brough~ about by roughly mixing together ~he sinewed and
sinewless meats and passing them at least once, and
preferably up to four times, through a mincer fitted with a
two bladed cutter and a 12.5mm apertured plate. Obviously
the exact mechanism for achieving the mixing of the meats and
the disorientation of the fibres in the sinewless meat may be
varied widely within the broad ambi~ oE ~his invention.
If desired flavourings and other ingredients may be
added to the product at the time of mixing the sinewed and
sinewless meats together. Such ingredients may be dry or
liquid. Typical drying ingredients may be rice flour, plain
flour, garlic or onion flakes~ lemon flavouring, seafood
spice, salt and other seasonings. Typical liquid additives
include smoke flavourings.
The product according to this invention may be extruded
into "meat fingers" such as by a machine the subject of the
present applicant's copending Canadian patent application
497,660 entitled "Material Forming Apparatus" or may be
foemed into a block by a machine the subject of the present
applicant's copending Canadian Patent application 497,661
entitled "Method and Apparatus for Meat Processing". In the
latter case the block of meat may be cooled and sliced. In
either case the formed meat product may be battered and bread
crumbed or otherwise coated. Such products may be developed
as boneless lamb cu~lets; steak fillets; kekabs or shashliks;
poultry roundlings; chicken "steaks"; plain, battered or
crumbed meat fingers; matured veal fillets.
The meat used in the product and process according to
this invention may come from any suitable source including
butcherable mammals, birds, reptiles or fish. Normally the
sinewed and sinewless meat will come from the same animal
type though this is not essential and one could draw the
sinewed and sinewless meats from different animal types. In
a further embodiment the product may include sinewed meat
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from two or more sources and/or sinewless meat from two or
more sources.
The meat product and the process for making the meat
product according to this invention will be hereinafter
described in detail with reference to the following example.
A meat product based on lamb having a slight onion
flavour was made as follows:
lkg of sinewless meat derived from the fillet of a lamb
carcass was prepared by trimming the excess fa~. lkg of
sinewed meat derived from the shanks of a lamb carcass was
similarly prepared. An 8009 portion of the prepared
sinewless meat was then passed once through a Hobart mincer
fitted with a two bladed cutter and a plate having 12.5mm
holes,in order to produce an initial disorientation of the
meat fibres~ The length of meat fibres after this treatment
were estimated to be in the range of 2-20mm.
An 800g portion of the prepared sinewed meat was th~n
minced by being passed once through a Hobart mincer fitted
; with a four bladed cutter and a ~o. 5 plate. A 6009 portion
~ 20 of the treated sinewless meat and a 400g portion of the mixed
-~ ~sinewed meat where then mixed in a Hobart mixer. Whilst
mixing, a small amount of dry onion flavouring was added.
Once they had been roughly mixed, the mixture was passed four
times through a Hobart mincer fitted with a two bladed cutter
Z5 and a plate having 12.Smm holes.
The resultant product was found to have a fat content of
15% by weight and an organoleptically acceptable profile.
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