This Oster meat slicer model 319-66 is not professional but does the job well enough. It is a little hard to adjust and clean, but was inexpensive.
Big Boss likes to stir fry, and so if I cut the meat too thickly, I catch hell. Yes, small but terrifying, and I am not talking about the knife. We want fresh meat sliced very thinly for Chinese stir fry, or for Korean hot pot. Thin enough to be translucent. How do you do this with fresh meat? Buy pork loin, drain liquids, cut in half, freeze, slice with meat slicer, and then if you wish, vacuum seal in small bags, then refreeze.
Preparing the pork in this way allowed the Big Boss to stir fry a very nice dish, though, because I was still experimenting, I was admonished for the odd slice of meat that was still a little too thick. She has high and unyielding standards, and there are no excuses. Little Weed was able to fry up some pork sandwiches. He is much less picky and much more appreciative. His trick for tasty is simple: salt and pepper and nothing else.
I have tried to slice meat very thinly but there was no way my knife skills were up to the task. Since we had a meat slicer, I tried it, but the meat was too floppy to cut nice and even slices. On top of this the fat was tearing, the blood was flowing out of the meat, resulting in a huge and greasy mess. Fresh meat, as is, would not do.
Tools required:
-Pork loin: You can buy this on sale
-Meat Slicer
-Heat Sealer, with thick bag stock
-Freezer
My Black and Decker vacuum food sealer VS200 works pretty well, but you really need to keep the bag opening clean and free of liquids, or the bag will not seal. The vacuum is not super strong but does the job.
Freezing is the key to the process. Buy some pork loin, which often comes shrink wrapped. Open, drain the blood as much as possible, then cut widthwise in half, so that the meat sections look more like squares than thick sticks. I cut the meat in half because the full length of the pork loin is not easy to slice in my meat slicer. Package in individual plastic bags and lay as flat as possible in the freezer. Freezing the meat flat makes it easier to lay it down flat on your meat slicer. Freeze for at least 4 hours, preferably longer. The more frozen it is, the easier it will be to slice. As you slice the unsliced meat will thaw out, making it harder to slice.
Only work on half the frozen pork loin at a time, leaving the second half in the freezer. Unwrap, slice thinly with the meat slicer, place meat slices in a container. There will be some parts of the meat that will not slice into nice, long and even pieces, so save these for the “family only” meal. In frozen form the meat will slice more evenly, as will the fat, and there will be much less blood to make a mess. Note that as you slice, the unsliced meat is slowly thawing out, so work as quickly as possible to keep the meat as frozen as possible.
Vacuum seal the meat into meal sized portions with a vacuum sealer. In frozen form the meat will be firmer, and there will be no blood to get in the way of the heat sealing of the plastic bag. Using thawed meat the blood will get sucked to the open end by the vacuum, preventing a proper heat seal. Use frozen meat to prevent this sealing problem. Keep the open end of the bag clean for a proper heat seal. Label and date the bag and lay flat in the freezer.
I have not thawed out and used the vacuum sealed thinly sliced pork loin, but I expect no issues. I have used vacuum sealed and frozen meats before without problem.
While the process of cutting, draining, and freezing the meat prior to slicing is longer, the results are outstanding. I cannot think of any other way to have thinly sliced meats. If you know of another way please let me know.
