7 replies to this topic

[Abbylovi]

Years ago a meat-head told me that he grinds his own hamburger in the food processor. I"m thinking of doing this with pork, so my questions are:

1. Is this unwise?
2. If 1 is no, what cut should I use?

[Orik]

It's really hard to get everything ground evenly in the food processor (without a meat grinder attachment, I assume) - either you have mush, or you have long strands of connective tissue. The only thing that would work is if you take a really clean and lean cut, grind it, then mix it with ground fat.

[g.johnson]

What orik said.

Supposedly you get something that's more like hand chopped but I've never managed a satisfactory result.

[Suzanne F]

You could use loin, which is very clean, and trim it even cleaner, to get around the problem that Orik cites. But then you'll absolutely have to add fat.Shoulder might work--that has good internal fat--but again, clean clean clean.

Cube it evenly, fairly small (less than 1 inch, 1/2 is better), then partially freeze the cubed meat. That will help counteract the heat generated by the processing. You could even add some ice to the bowl.

And pulse, don't run it continuously.

[Abbylovi]

Thanks all. I don't want to screw this up so I'm going to leave the grinding to the professionals.

[mongo_jones]

hmm strangely, we've never had a problem with this, even with our old cheapo "food processor". we chill the meat in the freezer first. then again, perhaps we have low standards.

[Ron Johnson]

yep, you can't get a real butcher quality grind from the the old cuisinart. I've had the best success when cubing the meat first and adding it in rather small quantities, but that is time consuming. There is a grinding attachment for the Kitchen Aid mixer (I think there is an attachment for every purpose, including tumor resection, available with this mixer), but I am not sure how well it works.

[Suzanne F]

yep, you can't get a real butcher quality grind from the the old cuisinart. I've had the best success when cubing the meat first and adding it in rather small quantities, but that is time consuming. There is a grinding attachment for the Kitchen Aid mixer (I think there is an attachment for every purpose, including tumor resection, available with this mixer), but I am not sure how well it works.

Quite well, I find (well, never tried the resectioning one yet, although I bought it years ago). Comes with two dies for finer and coarser. I use it quite a bit. But you do have to cut everything into fairly small cubes, or into thin long pieces. It has yet to take my fingers in as I trail a long piece in.