Which is better: a meat grinder or a food processor?
Labor-intensive chopping of food with a kitchen knife takes a lot of time. This is why the meat grinder and food processor were invented. This technique quickly won the love of chefs, because in addition to speed, it also significantly improved the quality of preparing ingredients.
As time passed, kitchen equipment improved and became capable of performing new, previously inaccessible tasks. Modern meat grinders and food processors bear little resemblance to the first prototypes and can even cope with some of the “enemy’s” functions, which sometimes confuses a potential buyer.
Knowing the family’s culinary preferences will help you navigate and choose between them in a situation where there is not enough money to purchase both types of equipment.
The content of the article
How does a food processor differ from a meat grinder?
They are designed for chopping food, they do this using the cutting edge of knives, but, due to design differences, they do it in different ways. The meat grinder produces a homogeneous mass in which intact fibers are preserved. The particle size depends on the diameter of the holes in the filter sieve, which passes through the mass that is ready for further processing.
A food processor is designed to cut food into pieces of various shapes and sizes. In the field of chopping vegetables, it has no equal.But when working with meat, he can either cut it into relatively large pieces, or completely kill all the fibers. It will be more of a puree, unsuitable for making cutlets, than the usual minced meat.
Advantages of the combine
Removable bowls and replaceable blades cope with cutting vegetables and meat into slices or cubes. The food processor also combines the functions of a juicer, mixer and blender, which eliminates the need to buy a large number of kitchen accessories. Thanks to the transparency of the bowls, it is easy to control the process of chopping products. And thanks to a large number of different knives, it is easy to create a beautiful base for a salad or a delicate filling of vegetables and fruits.
The complete set of the combine includes a set of bowls for all occasions, so there is no need to purchase additional dishes separately. And low power, up to 800 W, helps to avoid excessive waste of electricity.
Advantages of a meat grinder
If the daily menu is dominated by meat, poultry or fish dishes that require chopping the main ingredients, but there is no frequent need for a mixer, blender and juicer, then you won’t find a better assistant than a meat grinder.
Great power, together with design features, allows it to quickly cope with chopping fairly tough types of meat in the shortest possible time.
Thanks to special attachments, you can easily prepare homemade sausage. For occasional cutting of vegetables into salad, there is a special drum that chops them into cubes or strips. A modern meat grinder can even grind coffee, flour and herbs efficiently.
Conclusion
In a situation where the ratio of fresh salads and meat dishes in the daily diet is approximately equal, it makes sense to think about purchasing a food processor combined with a meat grinder. This technique is more expensive than each of its predecessors, taken separately. But it will be cheaper than purchasing both assistants at the same time.