What mincer?

After much faffing around the half pig is ordered (more on that in another post), it will be ready on Friday afternoon, which left me with a bit of a problem as I had not got my mincer/sausage stuffer combo organised.

I have done quite a lot of research, originally I was going to buy a sausage starter kit with the classic bolts to a table cast iron type, like the ones they sell here, most likely as part of a kit with skins and rusk.

I would have preferred a stainless steel one though as it would be easier to maintain, they can be found here, but were a little out of my price range.

During my research I had seen various plastic mincers, but written them off as flimsy, until I came across this one on the Lakeland website. It had excellent reviews apart from people having issues with the suction fitting. Since time was short and there is a Lakeland shop nearby (ish, its in Nottingham) I rang them to check there was one in stock and went to collect it yesterday.

It is variously called a meat mincer (the shop and website) a health mincer (the instructions) and a pasta maker (??!! the box).

It does have three pasta attachments, but I would say it is a mincer that does pasta, rather than a pasta maker that does mince (does that make sense to you?). It also comes with two grades of mincing blade, a chopping blade, a meat tray, meat poker/suction cup key and a sausage nozzle. The nozzle is not overly long, but the skins I have come in short lengths so that is fine.

I picked up some beef to give it a trial run, just in case it was a disaster I didn't want huge amount of pork sat waiting while I frantically tried to find an alternative.

It was not a disaster, and so far I am very impressed, a huge advantage over the alternatives being that it comes apart completely and being made of plastic and stainless steel (the blades) it washes easily, no worries about stuck bits of meat in the machine.

The suction worked perfectly on the granite slab, but also seem ok on my slightly textured worktop.

The only slight problem is that the crank handle is longer than the machine so it has to hang over the side of the work surface, but I guess that does give more leverage and it was not an issue.

It will get its real test when the pork arrives, but so far it has a big thumbs up.