It is not bad to be a vegetarian. In fact, this habit is very good for health. This trend has been going around all over the world since the past few years. Having green vegetable oriented dishes at your dining table may be preferred by some people, but it cannot be expected the same reaction from everyone. Because everyone is not vegetarian and I am sure you’re one of them and so am I. Therefore, it is not possible for you to keep yourselves away from tongue wagging delicious recipes of meat, either it’s beef or pork. Meatball, meat pie, sandwiches, curries all mouth-watering items are your favorites and you want to relish the taste of them whenever the opportunity comes.
To prepare all these items you must slice the pieces of meat evenly and the thickness of them depends on what kind of food you’re going to make. For this reason, your kitchen must be equipped with different types of meat slicers and cutters to make your work easy and convenient.
But sometimes you will find yourself in such a condition where you can’t get the support of these kinds of tools. Every time you cannot depend on such a machine, sometimes most of the job should be done manually too. In this article, we are going to find out how to slice meat thinly without a slicer. Come on let’s join the search party.
How to Slice Meat Thinly Without a Slicer
How to Slice Frozen Meat
If you have prior experience of cutting frozen meat, then you’ll agree at one point that it is one of the difficult tasks to cut. Several times even the sharpest knife fails to dig into the frozen block of meat. Therefore, if you want to cut the frozen meat manually, you have to use a special tool that can make your job easy.frozen meat
The Butcher’s Knife
A strong and durable butcher knife made of heavy duty steel is an ideal tool to cut the chunk of frozen meat with ease. Its edge is sharp enough so that it can dig deeper of the piece rather smoothly than others. But sometimes, the chunk seems harder than you thought; at this situation, you have to keep the chunk of meat under the cold running water. This will soften the chunk so that your knife can easily dig into it.
Also Read: How to Slice Cheese Thinly
Knife with Serrated Blades
The knives with serrated edges are also proved very effective for slicing frozen meat. This kind of knife can easily go through the chunk of the frozen piece and produce slices of your desired thickness. This tool is also very useful for producing thin slices out of frozen meat.
But in both cases, you may face problem for cutting bones. Here you need a sterilized hacksaw to cut through the bones. Apart from that, you have to take care of the sharpness of the edges, because a dull knife can make your cutting time miserable and finally you have to give up the idea of doing the job all by yourself.
The Cutting Board
Apart from a sturdy and sharp knife, a cutting board also takes an essential part for slicing a chunk of frozen meat. In most cases, you may have seen frozen meat quite slippery on a cutting board. It is proven that using a wooden board instead of other materials provides more grips to the chunk. Besides, you have to make sure that the cutting board is properly leveled with the kitchen top so that it doesn’t move while cutting.
Also Read: How to Sharpen A Meat Slicer Blade
How to Slice Raw Meat
Hot Pot is one of the best dishes that you may enjoy when the weather is cold. The recipe provides enough warm so that you can bear with the chill easily. To make this kind of dish you need meats sliced thinly and of course evenly. To make this possible you need to follow these steps.
- If you want thinly sliced pieces then you have to keep the chunk of meat into a freezer for at least 2-4 hours. In this way, the meat becomes hard enough to produce paper-thin slices without any hassle.
- Unlike the frozen meat, this kind of chunk doesn’t require any special type of knife. If your regular knife is well-sharpen then you can easily slice out the paper-thin pieces without applying enough pressure.
- Next is to check the direction of the grains of the meat. Always you have to slice against the grain so that you can get the slices in perfect shapes and sizes.
How to Slice Cooked- Meat
Slicing cooked-meat is not very different from slicing raw meat. Here also you have to follow some steps. They are-
- When the cooking job is over, take out the meat pieces from the pot and leave it for a few minutes for cooling.
- At the same time check the grain of the meat and slice towards the edge keeping the grain against of it. During the job, you have to hold the meat by one hand on the chopping board.
- While slicing makes sure that every piece you get will be equal in thickness.
Some Important Tips
- Using a knife means you have to be alert and careful always. Because of a slight lapse of concentration end you cutting finger and that also sometimes deeper enough for badly bleeding.
- All kinds of knives no matter what type of it is needs to maintain sharpness to get the perfect slices of meats.
- The chunk of meat must be wrapped in a foil or plastic before placing into a freezer to maintain its flavor.
- Make sure that the chunk of meat is not kept in the freezer for too long as it may get the microbial effect. Having this meat may upset your digestive system.
Conclusion
In this article, I have tried to share all my experiences so far about the slicing job and that also without using a slicer. It means now you have the only option left- a knife. I have told you about the different conditions of meats and the ways to slice them thinly. Hope, that’ll be enough to provide you the vital information that’ll be useful for you. Thanks for following all these.
John DiBella is a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America, a cooking enthuthiast and a writer. When he’s not writing blogs about home kitchenware, he enjoys hiking, camping, sailing and cooking.