Oven – How to cook tubular ground beef using only disposable items

ground-beefoven

How do I cook ground beef (in those 1 pound tubes) using only
disposable items? Details:

  • I can cook pizzas in my oven by putting them directly on the rack.

  • I can cook chicken and toast bread by putting down a sheet of
    aluminum foil, and setting the chicken/toast on top of that.

  • I tried doing the aluminum foil trick w/ beef, but it gave off a
    lot of fat, which hit the metal at the bottom of my gas oven,
    filling the house with smoke.

  • I tried making a little "tray" with the aluminum foil, but the
    beef didn't seem to cook well internally, plus there was a lot of
    fat left in the "tray" (from the outer layer of beef, which cooked
    fine). That's bad because the beef was cooking it its own fat, plus
    getting rid of the fat wasn't that easy (I drained it into a coffee
    can, but that doesn't get all of it).

  • I've tried using lower-fat beef, but it tastes different, and it
    just reduces the problem and doesn't cure it.

I'm willing to buy ground beef in a different (non-tubular) form, but
wasn't sure it would help.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Thanks to everyone who helped. I think sarge_smith's idea of
using aluminum foil (homemade or a pie pan) to raise the beef and let
the fat drip into a broiling pan (which I don't have to clean, since
the fat is disposable) is what I'll try. Some random notes:

  • I store beef in the freezer, so skewering or crumbling it wouldn't
    work unless I thawed it first, which would take time.

  • I normally cook 45-50 minutes at 450F. This works fine for beef on
    flat aluminum foil, but if I make an aluminum tray or pouch, 45-50
    minutes doesn't seem to be enough.

  • Having said that, I haven't tried the tray/pouch trick w/ my new
    oven. The old oven was 30+ years old and eventually broke down, so
    maybe foil pouch cooking will work w/ the new one.

Best Answer

I would suggest the easiest way to cook ground beef with only disposable items is a grill. It's worked great for more than a couple of years.

But... If you don't have that, there are a few other things you can do.

Labor intensive but extremely effective is the raised rack made out of foil. You construct a tray out of tinfoil and add ridges to the bottom every inch to an inch and a half. This will cook your beef and allow grease runoff so you meat doesn't just cook in it's own fat.

The only other thing I could think of would be to cover one of your burners completely with tinfoil and use it like a frying pan, but i'm prertty sure that's gonna result in a lot of cleaning time, so it would probably be a negative once you took it all together.