For most of the Chinese dishes, many are made with strips or slices of meat. The actual cooking part is not that hard but the prepping is not fun at all. The traditional way is to put the meat in freezer until it’s half frozen and then cut it. However, the hardness of your meat is not easy to control. Therefore I invested into a food slicer.

I have been using this food slicer for almost two years now. I am very satisfied. Let me tell you a bit about this food slicer!

I used another food slicer before and it was made of plastic. and I do think it is much better to have the metal finish. It looks much nicer and it is easier to clean.

The brand I choose is Chef’sChoice. They seem to be one of the biggest companies that makes these slicers. It was on sale, so I bought it at about $99 (it’s a good deal actually!)

I found that leaving meat in the freezer for 4 hours  gives the best hardness to cut with kitchen knives. However, I always forget my meat in the freezer and then it got too hard to actually slice them. The way I do it now is much easier. I completely freeze the meat and then heat with microwave for 30 secs. If it’s still too hard for knives or food slicers, you reheat it for another 10 sec or 20 sec.

Here is one thing that you should keep in mind. If your meat is longer than your carriage, you will have a hard time. You cannot use the food pusher to hold the meat and therefore you will have to hold it with bare hands. Remember the meat is half-frozen? It’s way too cold to hold it with hands for a long time and it’s not safe!!

Before you freeze the meat, please make sure the meat is cut into the right size so it fits on the carriage.

After you slice for a few slices, you will have tilted uneven surface. At first I assume that I will set the width and then all slices should be the same width, but later I found myself constantly adjusting the width in order to give the right width everytime due to the uneven surface. Maybe I can control the width if I’m slicing something softer. The plate at the bottom is not as ideal. It’s pretty shallow and it doesn’t hold enough food before it loses balance.

In general, instead of an instant life saver that you can push one button and the machine do it all, this food slicer is more like a powerful tool that takes time to master. Although I mentioned several cons of this food slicer, it is still nevertheless a good tool! Here is the result of slicing.

Even though it’s not that easy to use. Once you master this tool. It’s pretty powerful. I was able to cut it with certain level of precision. The skill here to master is to adjust the width of the blade. Since the surface will be uneven, you have to constantly adjust the blade so it will cut into the frozen meat at the same thickness every time.

By the way, making meat strips is something similar. You slice your meat at a thicker width. After you got your thick slices of meat, simply use your kitchen knife to cut them into strips. Since the meat is still half frozen, you will have perfect meat strips!

Clean up:

Cleaning is definitely my most concern part. I realized that I cannot stick the whole thing into dish washer to clean it. It took me a while to find out the best way to clean it

1. remove all parts and wash it carefully (be cautious when handling the blade)
2. 1st paper towel – use one dry paper towel to remove all meat debris
3. 2nd paper towel – use one wet paper towel with dish soap to wipe all surfaces that touch meat.
4. 3rd paper towel – use one dry paper towel to wipe out all soap
5. 4th paper towel – use one wet paper towel to wipe all surfaces again, let it air dry
6. 5th paper towel (optional) – use one dry paper towel to wipe all surface

If you still concern if there’s any soap left on the food slicer, you can repeat step 5 and 6.

In Summary

Pros:

1. make slices and strips in no time!
2. With proper skills, you can achieve restaurant quality slices

Cons:

1. Not easy to clean
2. Only take small size meat chunk due to the size of the carriage
3. Take practice to cut perfect slices
4. The thickness shifts while cutting which needs constant adjustment

Tips:

1. completely freeze your meat and then heat 30 secs with microwave for perfect slicing hardness
2. cut the meat to fit on the carriage before you throw into freezer

You can pick up your very own food slicer from Amazon.

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