Trying to brown ground meat is an exercise in futility.But then I had a thought: why was I bothering trying to
brown the beef after I chopped it? If browned flavor in the
stew was what I was after, did it even matter when I
browned the beef as long as it ended up getting browned? I
grabbed another batch of short ribs, this time searing them
in a hot pan before removing the meat from the bone and
chopping it to size.
The result? Chili with chopped-beef texture but deeply
browned flavor. Yippee ki-yay.