From the sight of it, frozen meat is rock-hard. You cannot use a regular kitchen knife to cut through it. A meat slicer is the best tool to use to cut the meat into your preferred sizes, although with some bit of struggle.
There is a variety of meat slicers in the market, each brand promising to get the job done smoothly, but only a few can. The meat should be defrosted to make it softer so that the meat slicer can cut through quickly and with ease.
Can a Meat Slicer Cut Frozen Meat?
Definitely yes! If you buy your meat in large quantities and love to freeze all of it for later use, investing in a quality meat slicer is the best idea. Freezing meat is a good idea to keep bacteria away.
How to Cut Frozen Meat Using a Meat Slicer
The following tips will come in handy when you want to thaw and cut frozen meat and cook for dinner.
- Defrost the Meat
It is obviously not possible to cut through rock-hard meat because no blade will penetrate. The task becomes tougher if you froze the meat in its packaging. Defrosting the meat will turn it from its rock-hard state to a soft form for the blade to cut through.
Once the meat is soft to your liking, cut your preferred sizes in preparation for cooking. Remember to remove all the bones before you start cutting. Blades in meat slicers are not suitable or strong enough to cut through bones.
- Microwave the frozen meat
Thawing frozen meat in a microwave is the quickest and easiest way of defrosting meat. This method works well if time is not on your side and you need to start cooking immediately.
You need to invest in a microwave that has a ‘defrost’ function that will allow you to get the task done efficiently. Put the meat in a microwave-friendly bowl, then in the turntable inside the microwave, and turn the defrost button ON.
In less than 10minutes, the meat will be ready for cutting. Do not leave the meat in the microwave for so long, it will start to cook.
Defrosting frozen meat in a microwave is the best option if you are running a commercial eatery.
- Soften the meat with a pot
Nothing ever goes wrong when you decide to use traditional means. If time is not on your side, the old traditional thawing trick will sort you out. Use a metal pot to make the meat soft. With this method, you can rest assured that any kind of meat slicer will cut through the massive piece of meat just the way you want.
Using this method, stack the frozen meat in a sealed bag and put the bag on a baking sheet. You can place the sheet on a pot filled with water at room temperature. The water temperature is important.it should not be hot to prevent the meat from cooking. Coldwater will slow down the thawing process.
Place the metal pot on the meat steaks. The baking sheet and steaks should be sandwiched and the pot put on top. Wait for about 5 minutes for the meat to soften then use a meat slicer to cut into small pieces.
How to Cut Frozen Meat With a Meat Slicer
By now, you have realized that slicing meat with a meat slicer is not an easy task, not to say that it is difficult though. When you buy a good machine and you know how to use it, the whole procedure becomes easy. If you do not know how the machine works, the steps below will give you an idea.
Step 1: Place the meat in the slicer
Open the clamp and food the meat in the carriage then close it. Ensure the piece of meat paced inside is firmly held on the surface of the carriage.
Tip: place wax paper on the slicer to catch the meat pieces that fall off.
Step2: Set the thickness you want
It is time to decide how thick you want the pieces to be. You decide the thickness by adjusting the index knob to the level of thickness you want. The knob will move the blade further or nearer you.
Step 3: Turn the meat slicer ON
Connect the meat slicer to a power source and switch on the power button. You will notice that the blade starts to rotate rapidly.
This step is only applicable to electric meat slicers.
Step 4: Make slicing movements
This step works differently depending on the kind of slicer you have. If you are using a manual slicer, this step is as simple as pushing the blade down to cut the meat and backup. For an electric slicer, all you need to do is push the sliding tray forward. The blade will penetrate through the meat and drop the meat slices to the left of the machine. Then pull the carriage towards you.
Step 5: Switch off the slicer
Once you get the meat pieces you want, turn off the slicer and disconnect from the power source. Remember to turn the index knob to zero to prevent your hand from injuries when you get the meat slices.
Once you are done with getting the meat pieces. Be sure to clean the meat slicer and keep it in safe storage for use later. Wiping the slicer is not cleaning!
You need to thoroughly clean with the recommended agent to get rid of tiny pieces of meat left during slicing. This is an important step to avoid cross-contamination.
Conclusion
Cutting frozen meat is not easy, whether you are using a knife or a slicer. You most likely will injure yourself or spoil the machine. You can get the whole process a lot easier to complete if you defrost the meat first.
Pick one of the three methods mentioned above to soften your meat before following the steps of using the meat slicer listed above. You will spend less than 20 minutes getting your meat ready for cooking.
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