Thursday, October 20, 2011

Norpro Meat Grinder, Mincer, and Pasta Maker

Norpro Meat Grinder, Mincer, and Pasta Maker
List Price: $39.99
Price: $30.27 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details


Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

7 new or used available from $23.99
Average customer review:
(92 customer reviews)

Product Description

Nor Pro Meat Grinder/Mincer/Pasta Maker. 7" Height. Ideal for meats, beans, nuts and many vegetables! Make your own pasta from your favorite recipe. Includes instruction and recipe booklet. Comes with two screens: Coarse mincing plate, fine mincing plate, sausage funnel and 3 pasta attachments: rigatoni, spaghetti and linguine.

Product Details

  •  #1134 in Kitchen & Housewares
  • Brand: Norpro
  • Model: 151
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: 5.00" h x 5.00" w x 8.00" l,

Features

  • 3-in-one kitchen tool; minces, grinds, and makes fresh pasta from scratch
  • Durable, hygienic, high-impact plastic body; stainless steel blade and mincing plates
  • Ideal for grinding hamburger, creating sausage or pate, and blending baby food
  • Includes: coarse and fine mincing plates, sausage funnel, 3 pasta attachments
  • Stands 7 inches high; measures 4-1/4 inches in diameter; made in USA

Editorial Reviews


Norpro’s meat grinder/mincer/pasta maker combines the functionality of three kitchen gadgets in one. Crush beans, vegetables and nuts for spreads and pâté; grind beef chuck, round or sirloin for incredible homemade hamburgers; pulverize stale bread for breadcrumbs; or break up veggies for baby food. The possibilities are endless thanks to coarse- and fine-textured steel mincing plates.
Three pasta attachments open up a world of Italian cuisine, enabling cooks to create fresh homemade rigatoni, spaghetti, or linguine. Plus, an enclosed funnel makes grinding sausage a snap. Also included are a suction-locking pestle, plastic tray, detailed instructions, and a recipe booklet. The unit stands 7 inches high with a 4-1/4 inch diameter base. This kitchen tool is FDA-approved and made in the USA. --Mary Park

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews
98 of 99 people found the following review helpful.
5A nice grinder
By JK
I like this grinder.

In the past I've owned the metal grinders that you have to clamp to a table and the electric kind with big motors that take up most of the space on the kitchen counter. They were so clumsy and a pain to clean that I seldom used either one. The electric one failed recently grinding peanuts!! and the old metal manual one got left behind in the last move so I decided to try this Nor-Pro despite it being made partly of plastic.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well it works. You do have to assemble the blades correctly. My first project was meatballs -- it ground the meat(buffalo stew meat in this case), the onions, a little garlic, mint stems and leaves, and the dry bread all very nicely into the square bowl which is included with the grinder. I grind my own meat to avoid the fat and "parts" from supermarket hamburger. The coarse grind is just right for tacos or wonton filling. Cleanup was easy - I put the pieces in the square bowl, added some hot water and a squirt of detergent and it was all clean in a few minutes and ready to use for the next meal. The extra pieces fit into a small plastic ziplock bag along with the basic instructions so they are not likely to get separated or lost. The rectangular bowl is attractive enough and the right size to take to table to serve sushi or gyoza.

The plastic is nice sturdy plastic like that in Lego toys. You do need to have a smooth countertop for the suction to work to stabilize the base(it doesn't work on my butcher-block table). It looks nice sitting on the counter so there it stays and gets used a lot. I only use my blender for smoothies nowadays. Nuts and beans and all sorts of other foods get ground in this little grinder.

One needs to make sure the pasta dough is not too moist... it takes a little practice.

The vegetables and cooked meats typically used for sandwich salads grind very nicely - even celery. So it is great when preparing lunches for brown bag or picnics. It also does a nice job of grinding garlic for garlic bread and/or salad dressing... saves my hands from smelling like garlic forever.

I'm left-handed and it is still easy for me to use.

131 of 146 people found the following review helpful.
This can't even grind pre-ground hamburger!
By International Diva
This product is terrible. It's the only thing that I've ever returned to Amazon because it simply dosen't work.

I bought it because I bought a small pate terrine, and I was looking for something to grind small amounts of chicken livers, pork and so on at home. I was dubious -- it seemed to kind of cheesy. But I thought that as long as it basically worked, it was fine.

I put in some chicken breasts for a pate recipe, and those were fine. But the, I put in some pork. It squished up in the machine and couldn't come out. It got stuck and I had to remove the mincing plate. I tried the larger plate. The same thing happened. Essentially, any meat with even a small amount of fat can't be ground in this machine. It has only a small, not very sharp grinder blade element. Given that the meat you'd tend to grind would be for the likes of sausages, pates and for hamburger, it makes this machine useless. I actually had some hamburger in my fridge. Just for fun, I tried putting that through the machine. It also didn't work on that -- and it was ALREADY ground!!

I thought, OK, I'll see if it can do pasta (which I don't need, since I have a pasta machine). Maybe that will redeem it enough to keep it. No way. The engineering on a playdoh machine is better. The dough comes out and immediately tangles with whatever comes out of it. It also just gets stuck and refuses to move through the machine. There's no way to make any kind of "strands" of pasta. I am a culinary school graduate, and a professional cook -- i know how to make pasta. This machine just doesn't work. Then, I went to clean it up. It took 40 minutes, using a skewer and Q-tips to get the pasta out of the little holes.

The suction cup device that is supposed to hold it onto a counter works only temporarily. It seems sturdy, but then you start to crank and it comes right off. The sausage funnel is way too small to actually use for sausage.

It sort of works for nuts, but then, I can use a coffee grinder for that.

Take my advice -- get the right machine for the job. Get a cast iron or stainless steel meat grinder; they sell them on Amazon. Get a separate pasta machine, the stainless steel kind that breaks the pasta down into sheets of thickness. They cost about $30 and will last you forever. If you want to make baby food, get a good quality food mill.

I think this is the most disappointed I've been in a product in a long time -- and I didn't expect much!
25 of 28 people found the following review helpful.
5Rave Review
By Joyce Nemitz
I have been looking for this item as I bought mine several years ago and could not find it again, until now. I had planned to give it to my kids for Christmas as it is such a great item to have, neat, clean, handy and works great...but you have to do it correctly. If you put the blade in backwards it will NOT work.

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