What's the solution? Grind your own meat. It's not hard and it doesn't require expensive equipment. I've been saying to myself that I was going to grind my own meat for a long time, well the time is now. Alton Brown did an excellent tutorial on his show Good Eats about using a hand grinder (he was making pork sausage but it's the same technique), which I found on Youtube. Please view the clip, the part about grinding meat start at the 5 minute mark.
I found the exact grinder that he's using in his video on Amazon and it's only $35. I will be ordering one as soon as I finish this blog post. You can also "grind" meat in the food processor if you have one, it's not going to be as fine of a texture but it will get the job done.
Pass the word!
Until next time,
Kellan
Thanks Kellan!
ReplyDeleteThe so-called "pink slime" that has been in the news so much recently is actually finely textured lean meat. I learned about it when I visited a slaughterhouse with my ruminant (cattle) anatomy course in veterinary school. The people at the slaughterhouse who process the sides of beef into steaks, roasts, and other cuts are amazingly fast at what they do, but that also means that when they are trimming the meat off the bone, there are still sizable chunks of meat left on the bone! This occurs for all cuts, from filet mignon down to brisket. The bones get whirled around in what is basically a giant food processor to get all the pieces of meat off, and then the chunks are ground and added to other ground beef. It's a great way to make sure all the protein from the animal gets consumed and doesn't go to waste!
ReplyDeleteAlso, if you already own a KitchenAid stand mixer, you can buy a grinder attachment (they have a sausage stuffer attachment too if you're into making sausage). I've used mine for years, even before all this gross-out pink-slime business came out, simply because it's cheaper by the pound to make your own ground meat (beef, chicken, turkey, pork) and you can decide whether or not to add fat, and how much. Love your blog, btw... found you via Pinterest. :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I get that pink slime is still an economical way to get the rest of the meat or whatever, but I'm not a fan of the extra cuts. It's kind of pricey but I don't eat ground beef often. I'd just rather have the butcher toss a few cuts in for me until I find a good enough grinder. There are lots of sanitary issues with some of the home sets. =(
ReplyDelete