Hello everyone!
I used to have a basic, manual meat grinder that's been passed down from my Soviet-era days. My husband would always tease me about it, saying I was stuck in the past. But then we got a new electric one, and it's been a total lifesaver.
Moulinex isn't the cheapest option for meat grinders, but we got ours with a 50% discount five years ago. It was originally priced around 8,000 rubles, but we snagged it for 4,000 rubles.
Name: Moulinex HV 4 ME452839
Country: France
Where to buy: any home appliance store or online retailer, I think we bought it at M-Video
Price: now it costs 6,350 rubles
Technical specs:
Output: 2.3 kg/min
Nominal power: 700 W
Power when the shaft is blocked: 2,000 W
Number of attachments: 5
Design: The meat grinder breaks down into tiny pieces, taking up minimal space when it's apart. I store it inside my kitchen sofa.
The body is made of black plastic, which doesn't show fingerprints easily.
It has a little pocket for storing the grates. There are two of them in the package: a fine one for regular ground meat and a coarse one for chopped meat. I usually stick to the fine one.
The power button is located on the body.
When I unpacked the full kit for the basic build, it looked like this:
Once assembled, the tube is the heaviest part of the meat grinder, while the body with the motor weighs less.
The meat grinder comes with a ton of attachments that let me do just about anything. There are blades for veggies - I can make carrot sticks or Korean-style fries in no time.
I've got a whole list of them:
Large grater;Medium grater;Large shredder;By the way, if I were to buy each of them separately at a specialty store, each would cost almost 1500 rubles.There's also an attachment for making sausages, and for creating hollow sausages that I can fill with whatever filling I like.
At the bottom of the meat grinder, I can see the minimum specs and all the serial numbers.
The cord is pretty short, less than a meter. But it's long enough for me.
My expectations from the meat grinder:
Speed of meat processing;Ease of use;The mince should be ground into fine grains;Easy assembly.Operation. Assembling the meat grinder is a breeze.
It's business as usual - the auger goes in, the knife is secured on top of it, the grid is placed on top, and it's all held together by a ring.
To insert the meat, the guides need to align, which aren't in a straight line but rather at a slight diagonal.
Once everything is in place, you need to turn the handle clockwise until it reaches its normal vertical position - which is actually counter-clockwise, by the way.I mostly use it to make mince, and I always make sure to process the meat thoroughly beforehand, trimming off any excess fat, sinew, and whatnot. I ended up losing some parts, so if you're dealing with low-quality meat and don't clean up the trimmings, they might get tangled around the auger. When we replaced the lost parts with a new set, including a new knife, that problem vanished. The mince turns out nice and tender, with fine grains, but not to the point of being paste-like. When my kid was little, we'd process it twice for him.
This process is incredibly fast - it takes mere seconds per piece of meat. On average, it takes around 7-10 minutes to make a kilogram of mince (with added onion, herbs, and bread, of course). Compared to a manual meat grinder, the time has been significantly reduced. The feeding hole is slightly smaller than on another meat grinder, so you'll need to chop the meat into smaller pieces.
The process is pretty loud and noisy, to be honest.
To make things even easier, there's a special pusher tool that lets you process meat in smaller portions without having to force it through the "meat chute".
It's a big plus that you can add meat to the tray in small portions, which makes the whole process a lot more convenient.
To use the shredder, you need to swap out the metal tube for a plastic one that the vegetable knives attach directly to. I've only used it a handful of times in my life, but it's definitely a lot easier than shredding a kilogram of carrots for a Korean-style dish. The resulting shreds are a bit shorter, but they don't affect the quality of the dish at all.
On my usual setting with the fine mesh, I usually use it to puree berries for jam (like blackcurrants, blackberries, or raspberries).
Or I make pickling mixes, which is what I originally bought it for. It effortlessly purees tomatoes, garlic, peppers, and even grinds up the skins without getting them tangled up in the shredder.
Cleaning. Honestly, it's easy peasy to clean. Just toss it in the dishwasher after each use, and I usually put it back together once it's dry so I don't lose any of the tiny parts.
Pros and Cons.
+
It's ridiculously fast;Super lightweight and compact;It comes with a ton of attachments, so I can prep all sorts of veggies, sausages, and more;It chops really well;Easy to assemble and clean;-
It's pretty loud;The feeding tube is a bit small;Verdict. I'm really glad I picked up this meat grinder. It's been a game-changer in the kitchen - it saves me time and energy, and the variety of attachments means I can whip up all sorts of dishes.