Do you know who invented the meat grinder? It was Karl Drais who invented the first meat grinder back in the nineteenth century. Since then meat grinder has become a widely popular kitchen tool. Today seems like every household has one. A meat grinder is a small versatile machine that lets you grind fresh meat in your house. The taste of fresh ground meat is way better than any of those packaged ground meat super mall sells. That’s the reason why meat grinder gained so much popularity.
There are two types of meat grinder available in the market right now,
Manual Meat Grinders
Manual meat grinders are made to grind meat in small quantities. To grind meat, you attached the grinder to a table or a counter and hand-cranked it to grind meat. These machines have several cutting plates that rotate against a cutting knife. As the plate rotates it cuts meat to small (3/16 inch) or large (½ inch) pieces.
An average person can grind 2-3 pounds of meat per minute. The rate depends on the type of meat as well. Chicken, turkey, pork meat is softer than beef, venison, moose, etc. So grinding chicken, turkey is a lot easier than ground beef or venison. So depending on the kind of meat you love and the amount of meat you need per week, you can choose to buy manual meat grinders.
Electric meat Grinder
What if you don’t want to spend your time grinding meat or you don’t like physical labor. Well then, I guess the very best electric meat grinder is for you. An electrical meat grinder is more complex in design compare to a manual meat grinder. But the output is the same, they both grind meats.
An electric grinder uses an electrical motor to rotate the plate. Logically electric meat grinders are more powerful than a manual meat grinder. The cutting rate is far greater as well. Also, electric meat grinders are safer than manual ones.
Which one to choose: So, when it comes to choosing one between these 2 options it gets tricky. Everybody has their personal preferences. But if you ask me I will choose an electrical meat grinder over a manual one.
Now that you know the basics of a meat grinder, let’s talk about its usage. Everybody knows a meat grinder is for grinding meat. But what else can you use a meat grinder for? Allow me to tell you: –
Grinding Bones to make Dog foods: Do you have a dog in your house? Are you interested
To feed homemade diets to your pet? If you are, your meat grinder can help you.
You can grind chicken bones, turkey bones even rabbit bones to feed your dog. These bones are softer than beef-bone. A decent meat grinder is capable of grinding raw bones into a smooth paste. Those grounded bones are nutrient-rich food and a real treat for your pets.
It’s not unusual for dogs to have their teeth broken trying to eat raw bones. They can also suffer from pain if fragments of raw bone stuck into their mouth. You will not have these unpleasant problems you ground the bones in the first place.
You can even put herb or supplement into it. This way your dog won’t get pick out the ingredients he does not usually eat. That’s a win-win for both you. You get to feed your dog homemade food and he gets nutrients.
The blade of your meat grinder may get dull over time. But it’s not a big issue here. Take the blade out of the machine and sharpen it. If it gets unusable you can always buy new ones. Almost every meat grinder company in the market sells extra blades for their grinder. These are easy to find and cheap to buy.
Meat Grinders to grind veggie: It sounds like a joke but it’s true. Your meat grinder is capable of grinding veggies as well. It’s highly unlikely that you eat meat every day. In the time when you decide to make a vegetable dish for your family, you can put your meat grinder to work.
You can grind cucumber, potato, tomato, onion using a meat grinder. You don’t need to cut those vegetables into small pieces. Just peel off the skin, put in the grinder and you are good to go. Your meat grinder will slice, mix those veggies for you.
To grate cheese: Let’s say, you are having a little party in your house and plan on making some burgers. Definitely, you are going to need a lot of cheese. Grating pounds of cheese is a lot of work. Especially when you need it fast.
Do yourself a favor. Put your meat grinder into the work. Just cut your cheese block into small pieces and put it onto the grinder. That meat grinder will grind the cheese into bits. You may expect to have some leftover cheese sticking into the grinder. Cheeses melt very easily and grinders do get hot while operating. But don’t worry it’s not a deal-breaker fact.
To make Peanut Butter: The idea of making peanut butter using a meat grinder is weird. But trust me it can be done. A few years back, there was a rumor about making peanut butter using meat grinders in many cooking blogs. Finally, Basil Bourque tried it himself to prove it.
He used a small plate in his grinder. After the first grinding round, the grounded peanut looked likes spaghetti. But when he looked closer he found smooth but slightly grainy butter. After the second round, it came out like shiny butter. Meaning the oil of the nuts pressed out during the process.
Don’t worry there was no stain the meat grinder. He admitted it was a fun experiment for him.
So, there you go you can peanut butter using your meat grinder too.
These are some unusual but useful things that a meat grinder can do. Do you have any other idea on how to use your meat grinder? If you do, don’t forget to let us know.
