My Aunt Kathy makes this amazingly yummy cranberry salad during the holidays. She’s made it for decades, I believe. I know when I was little I always looked forward to the white covered dish with the blue square design, because that (usually) meant Cranberry Salad lay hidden within. Sometimes she would put something else in there instead…a crushing disappointment. I remember one time she shared that the secret is using one of those old fashioned hand grinders, not a food processor, because the texture is better…more “rustic” I’d call it. Food processors make everything uniform in shape, this puppy cranks out wonderfully random chunks of texture. I love it!
My husband’s grandmother has one, and I borrowed it one year to make Aunt Kathy’s Cranberry Salad and never gave it back. Not because I’m a thief though, I’m just forgetful! One day, my mom surprised me and gave me one she picked up at an auction, for something like $2. I couldn’t believe it, it was in excellent shape and she only paid a couple of bucks for it. Awesome bargain shopping mom!
I’ve wanted to try making my own ground beef for a while, but a couple of things kept me from it…I wasn’t really sure how to do it, I feared it would be a humongous pain to clean the grinder, and flashbacks from years ago when I used an electric meat grinder to grind venison. Blech. I don’t want to talk about that. At ALL.
Today was a great day to give making my own ground beef a try, since I wanted to make something with hamburger for supper but didn’t want to go to the butcher shop and spend money. I was blessed to receive a bunch of good quality meat (as in local, grass fed) from a friend who was cleaning out her freezer to make room for the annual meat order she does, so I got out a chuck roast to thaw in the morning. Then, I searched online for “how to grind your own hamburger with an old fashioned grinder”…turns out it’s pretty straight forward. Cut the meat into chunks, freeze it a bit, then grind it. What was I worried about then? Ok right…
So, here is how you use that cool antique grinder your Great Aunt Tilly left you…
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| Cut mostly dethawed meat into chunks. Mine were about an inch square. If your meat is fresh, cut into chunks and put into the freezer for a bit to harden them up. Be sure to spread them out so they don’t freeze together into a big clump. They’ll also begin freezing sooner if there is space for air to circulate between the chunks. |
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| I got about eight cups of chunks and a couple nice meaty bones for broth out of my chuck roast. I’m just guessing at the weight, seemed like a couple pounds or so by the feel of it. |
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| You’ll want to attach your grinder to the edge of your kitchen counter with the clamp that is on the grinder. If your counter edge is nonexistent, or too big, you can use the edge of a table. I always put a towel or newspaper underneath the clamp, because any juices in whatever you grind will leak out as you grind. If you’re doing cranberries, I highly recommend a bucket. Seriously…those guys are JUICY. And STICKY. And I should have taken a better picture of this. Sorry!! |
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| Put a few chunks of meat into the hopper. I think I put about five or six chunks in there. Start turning the handle. One piece of advice, if the handle doesn’t want to turn away from you, check the nut on the front of the grinding plate. If it’s too tight, it will only turn backwards, which of course will not work. Just loosen it up a bit. You’ll have to push down on the meat some, I always get horrible visions of my fingers getting caught in there, but I still use my fingers. You are probably more safety conscious than I am and would think to use a wooden spoon or something. I thought about getting the wood thing that goes with my food sieve, but I was too lazy to get it. Hey, I’m human…what can I say? Anyway, keep adding chunks of meat and grinding until you get it all ground. |
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| I was really pleased with the result even though this ground beef looks nothing like what I buy at my local butcher shop, or even the grocery store. I love my butcher shop, local meats and amazingly friendly service. I’m going to really, really miss that place when we move! |
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| I couldn’t remember if I read you should grind it more than one time or not, so I ground a tiny bit twice. The piece on the left was ground twice, it looks less “chunky” than the only-one-time-through piece. |
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| Since I wanted to make hamburgers for supper, I decided to try out the two different grinds to see which texture I liked better. I made the cutest itsy bitsy burgers I’ve ever seen! I seasoned them with salt and pepper and cooked them. I actually like the coarser ground burger better. It was amazingly tender, which is what I’ve read about grinding your own burger. |
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| This is Chloe, “the quicker picker-upper”. She is always ready to lend a tongue in the kitchen and knows right where to station herself when I’m cooking. She was a big help today with helping me clean up ground beef mess. |
This was a bit labor-intensive, but worth the effort. I couldn’t believe how tender this ground beef was! We’ve been wanting to try the Mythbusters method of tenderizing meat with high explosives, but grinding it ourselves is probably a much more legal and safe way to do it. Some day, though…
I used this ground beef to make Home Ground Burgers with Caramelized Onions for supper and have decided that when I want to make hamburgers, I’m going to make my own ground beef. It was seriously that good! Next time, I will add a bit more seasoning. The test burgers were terrific, and I didn’t think they needed anything but salt and pepper. The full sized burgers needed a bit more salt…but I’ve been over-salting stuff lately so I didn’t want to overdo it. Easier to add salt than take it out!
Do you have an old-fashioned hand grinder? What do you grind with it?
Katrina Weghorn says
How excellent!
I love being able to try something like this at home, making my own ground beef. I haven’t run across one of the grinders like you have, but I’ll keep an eye out.
Thanks for sharing! I’m saving this post.