Since most of you are avid followers of slovakcooking.com, my guess is that you are preparing to celebrate zabíjačka. Since most of you will also use a meat grinder to prepare homemade sausages at this age old tradition, I thought it would be fitting to remind you of a few tips necessary to not only ensure that you get a good grind, but also stay safe and keep it sanitary.

The popular #10 meat grinder and a meat grinder cleaning kit. Images courtesy of Matt.

1. Grinder tips – There are many options out there for which meat grinder you should use. Most decisions are based on cost, time, amount of grinding, and type of meat. The most standard sizing for a grinder is based on the size of the “head”, or “throat” of the grinder. Grinders are labeled by this particular specification (i.e. #5, #8, #10, #12, #22, #32). The larger the number, the larger the head of the grinder. This means that you can send more meat through at one time, increasing your Lbs. per hour. A #10 grinder is the most popular, since this is a middle of the road option. When it comes to what type of grinder will work for certain types of meat, the reality is that the actual grinder won’t influence this, the size of the cutting plate will. Use this quick chart as a reference for which cutting plate you should use…
   Fine: used for breakfast sausages, spreads, pâtés, baby food, and hamburgers.
   Medium: used for Polish and Italian style sausages, ground meat in soups or relishes.
   Coarse: used for salami and larger style sausages, ground meat for chili or with vegetables.
2. Preparing the meat – One area people typically neglect is preparing their meat to be run through a grinder. There are a couple of important things to remember here. First, you need to make sure that the meat is chilled throughout the process. This will not only allow the meat to run through the grinder much easier (without mashing), but will also ensure that the meat is sanitary. Second, you need to trim away as much of the excess fat, cartilage, and tendons as possible so your machine doesn’t clog up. Though you will need to stop a couple of times and clean your machine while you grind, this will be much easier if you prepare in advance.
3. Set up the grinder You always want to be sure that your grinder is mounted to a stable surface. Once you have mounted the grinder, be sure to rock it back and forth to ensure that your grinder will stay in place.
4. Grind only the meat Try not to grind items that aren’t recommended for the grinder. I know this seems like an obvious point, but you have no idea how often this issue comes up. Grinding bones, dry food, etc. will dull your blades and could possibly ruin the unit.
5. Stopping to clean the grinder – when you stop to open up the grinder and clean it, make sure you remove any tendons, bones, and gristle so your unit will continue to run smoothly. Once again, neglecting to do this will severely decrease the lifespan of your grinder. A nice trick is to run a few slices of bread through your grinder to clean it. This will pull out all the excess junk that is hard to reach.
6. Cleaning Once you are finished with your grinding (and stuffing), be sure to disassemble the unit and clean the grinder with antibacterial soap and water. You’re asking for trouble down the road if you don’t clean your grinder thoroughly. Also, remember to completely dry your grinder once you are done cleaning it. If you don’t, your grinder will rust. Another nice trick is to store the grinder in a bag with rice. The rice will absorb the excess water, keeping the unit dry.

The most important factor in extending the life of a meat grinder is cleanliness and maintenance. Follow these steps, and your grinder will last you for years! Happy zabíjačka everyone!

Bio: Matt Millensifer is an outdoor enthusiast who lives in the Idaho and loves golf, hunting, college football, and spending time with his family. Growing up around hunting and game processing, grindrxl.com became a dream realized in 2011. His website specializes in meat grinders and meat grinder accessories. For more information on meat grinders or general questions please email him at msiferllc@gmail.com.

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It’s not easy match/translation as American cuts are a bit different and more detailed than Slovak cuts. There are groups of meats/cuts and they include more detailed cuts.

Beef

You can see this meet chart for detailed American beef cut (select for instance Angus Beef Chart 2007).

Predné a zadné mäso (front and back part of cow)
Predné mäso includes:
Krk = neck
vysoká rošteňka:
= chuck (including blade roast, chuck pot roast, chuck eye roast, short ribs, shoulder top blade steak, etc.)
= rib (including rib roast, ribeye steak, back ribs, etc.)
predná hruď a plece = brisket and fore shank
hruď s rebrom = short plate (including skirt steak and flank steak)
predná glejovka = shank cross cut, usualy used for a ground meat and stew meat.

Zadné mäso includes:
Nízka roštenka a sviečková:
= short loin (including top loin steak, T-bone and porthouse steak, tenderloin roast and steak or filet Mignon)
= sirloin (including sirloin and top sirloin steak, tri tip roast and steak)
stehno = round (including round roast and steak, bottom round steak, Eye round roast and steak, top round steak)
zadná glejovka = not used much except for a ground meat
bok bez kostí a bok s kosťou = flank and skirt

Pork

You will find a pork meet chart on the same site, after your scroll down to Pork Charts.

hlava – head, not used in a typical american cooking
krkovička = neck and shoulder butt
kare = loin (including chpos ribs, and roasts)
bôčik = side (including spareribs, slab and sliced bacon)
pliecko = picnic shoulder
panenská sviečkovica = tenderloin
lalok or podbradavička = not used in US cuts
predné kolienko = used mostly for smoked meat, aka smoked hocks
predná nožička = not used in the US except for smoked hocks
stehno = leg (including fresh and smoked ham, leg cutlets, and boneless ham roast)
chvôstik = tail not used much in American cooking
zadné kolienko a nozička = same as predné kolienko a nozička not used much in American cooking
šumkový výrez = part of leg especially boneless fresh ham

there are many details in pork meat that are usually not used in the US cooking. Aka, “vnútornosti” including heart, liver, kidney, brain, toque, stomach, etc. They are used in “zabíjačka food” not so known in the US. Some processed parts you can find in a specialty stores. Aka tlacenka known as head cheese in the US.

Veal

veal meat in the US is using just some premium cuts (chops, tenderloin, shoulder cuts and blade steaks, etc) and this is what you usually see:
krk = neck
kare s obličkou = veal chops and tenderloin
stehno = shoulder cuts
hruď = spare ribs
don’t forget some offal (vnútornosti) e.g., veal livers – telacia pecen is superior to beef liver, etc.

Lamb Meat

Here is jahnacie mäso (lamb), one of my favorite. Baranina (mutton) has the same cuts, the difference is that lamb is usually a few months old sheep. Mutton is 1 -2 years old sheep. In Slovak cooking lamb cuts are the same as veal cuts.

The chart for Lamb cuts is also on virtualweberbullet.com, below Pork Charts.

krk = neck and shoulder (including neck meat, shoulder whole, boneless shoulder, Saratoga roast, blade and arm chop)
kare s obličkou:
= rack – the front part (including crown roast, rib roast, rib chop and French rib chop)
= loin – rear part (including lion roast and strip, lion chops, double lion chops and tenderloin)
pliecko – predna noha = foreshank
hruď (stred a bok) = breast (including spareribs and riblets)
stehno – zadná noha = leg (including whole leg, short cut leg, center slice, american style roast, center leg roast, french style leg cuts (bone sticking out and cleaned of low grade meat), sirloin chop, top round)

Bio: Miro was born in December 1944 in Prague, though lived most of his live in central Slovakia while growing up. After finishing his master degree and postgraduate studies in systems engineering he worked in Systems Engineering Institute in Bratislava, doing work in software aspects of IT systems. He left Slovakia in 1978 and came to Washington DC area where he worked mostly for companies supporting the US government in IT areas. He retired in 2006 and lives in Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. Miro likes to cook and to follow many traditional recipes from Slovak cuisine.

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Flour is a truly amazing substance. It starts off as a simple powder. But as soon as you add water, it turns into an interconnected web of sticky fingers. As you keep mixing it, it becomes less sticky and stiffer to move. Eventually, this gooey mass takes upon shape, is formed into a loaf, and baked in the oven. And out comes out a delicacy full of so many complimenting flavors and delicate texture that is somehow unimaginable to have originated in nothing more basic than this fine dust and water.

History of baking bread

People have been baking breads for thousands of years. First breads were unleavened – flat breads that were produced by mixing flour with water, flattening the resulting paste down to a disc, and placing it on a flat plate preheated in a fire pit. Only with time did people discover the delicacy of leavened (fermented) breads. The first leavened breads were probably accidents: leavening is produced by yeast, small fungal microorganisms that are present in the environment all around us. Leave some flour out uncovered for few days and it starts fermenting. The same is true with brewing beer. These wild yeasts come from different subspecies and every type produces different flavor chemicals. Some are tastier than others, and only through selective process of reusing old bread and saved dough pieces as starters, have people been able to cultivate the delicious bakers and brewers yeast strains now available commercially.

Flour and its constituents

In Slovakia, flour is characterized by the coarseness of the grind. Regular, all-purpose wheat flour comes in three kinds: coarse (hrubá), semi-coarse (polohrubá), and fine (hladká). Here in the US, flour is sold depending on its intended use. There is the all-purpose flour, cake flour and bread flour. These labels indicate the amount of gluten content. Gluten is a protein that makes up only about 30% of flour by weight. However, it is absolutely crucial to baking.

Several different types of flour available in the United States. Clockwise from top left we have rye flour, whole wheat flour, unbleached all-purpose, bleached all-purpose flour, and “instant” Wondra flour.

Gluten are proteins that link together to form long chains. Think of gluten as small jumbled springs. These springs have hooks on both ends, these are amino acids that form sulfur-sulfur bonds with each other. As the flour is wetted, these springs straighten out and start linking together. The more water is added, the easier it is for gluten to form long chains and the more bread-like the finished product will be. With little water you get crumbly cakes. But water is not the only factor controling the gluten strength. Kneading (repeated folding and flattening of dough) helps elongate the gluten chains, as does salt, which helps prevent charged ends of gluten molecules from repelling each other. On the other hand, fats and oils shorten gluten chains by weakening the bonds and so does acidity (as in sour-dough breads), which increases the concentration of positively charged amino acids that repel each other. The amount of gluten in flour is directly affected by the plant from which the flour is made. In the US, most of the wheat crop is so-called hard wheat, which is higher in gluten than soft wheat.

But the main ingredient of flour, by weight, is starch. Starch molecules keep the gluten chains too dispersed to form long chains. This is why cakes, which often contain more sugar than flour, take upon a crumbly appearance. In bread, the starch granules absorb water during baking and form the rigid walls that surround the gas bubbles. Their rigidity helps build up pressure inside the bread, causing the bubbles to pop and find their way out through a maze of interconnected tunnels. In the end, baked bread can be up to 80% empty space by volume. All this empty space is possible thanks to starch providing the structural support. Without the bubbles being able to escape, the bread would collapse after baking finished and the hot steam inside started contracting.

The many kinds of flour

As you may know, I am an engineer. This means I find nerdy stuff like comparing different types of flour very fascinating. So I decided to put all this information to practice and figure out what the difference between different types of flour really is. To study the effect of gluten on the finished product correctly, I should have used high-protein, regular, and low-protein flours, such as bread, all-purpose, and cake, respectively. But not having those in my pantry, I instead used the five different kinds of flour I had laying around: rye, whole-wheat, unbleached all purpose, bleached all purpose, and Wondra®.

Rye and whole wheat flour

Unbleached and bleached all-purpose flour

Wondra® instant flour

I measured out a quarter cup of each. You can see the closeups above. (This experiment was also the first time I got try out my new Nikon D90 DSLR camera). These are sorted by their coarseness and also the amount of refining. Rye flour is not actually made from wheat – it’s made from rye (d’uh!). I don’t know if every type of rye flour is as coarse as this one from Hodgson Mill, but this flour is distinctly different from the wheat flour. If wheat flour is dust, rye flour is sand.

The fines of the grain particles is controlled by the milling process. Milling was such a crucial component of the daily lives of our ancestors, that a mill (mlyn) and the miller (mlynár) appear commonly in traditional Slovak folk tales and traditions. Milling is a process in which the wheat (or rye) kernels are broken up. Flour kernel consists of three components: the outer germ and bran layers surround internal endosperm. It is bran and germ that contain much of the flavor and nutrients, but they also have much shorter shelf life than the gluten-rich endosperm. Hence they are removed from much of the flour sold commercially – this is the all-purpose flour. Germ and endosperm also interfere with formation of strong gluten network. This is why whole-wheat flour, flours in which germ and endosperm are retained, result is somewhat denser, less-fluffy breads than those made from white flour. All-purpose flour is known as biela múka, white flour in Slovak. Whole wheat, on the other hand, is čierna múka, black flour, although whole wheat flour is more yellow than black.

Another distinguishing mark for the many different types of flour is bleaching. Over the centuries of milling, people realized that bread made from freshly milled flour was not as light and fluffy as one made from flour that had been resting for few weeks. So at the turn of 19th century, flour producers started adding various additives to speed up this natural process chemically. After few chemicals with questionably impact on human health, flour producers settled on ascorbic acid (vitamin C). But these additives took care of only one aspect of natural aging. The other one was that, as flour sits around, it becomes whiter in color. This natural whitening is now replaced using bleaching agents such as peroxide.

In my experiment, I used whole wheat flour from King Arthur, unbleached all-purpose flour also from King Arthur, and bleached all-purpose flour from the Giant store brand.

I also used some Wondra® flour. Wondra is an interesting idea. It’s an instant low-protein flour that is produced by precooking flour starch granules until they start to gelate. The flour is then dried. This precooking makes it easier for water to penetrate the starch granules during cooking. This kind of flour is well suited for tender pastries or for thickening of sauces. Consistency-wise, Wondra is very fine, dust like. It is similar to touch to the Slovak hladká múka.

The dough experiment

For the experiment, I transfered each flour into a different cup, and added two tablespoons worth of dissolved yeast. Next I added two “shakes” of salt, and enough water to obtain similar consistency from each flour. The sturdier flours needed two tablespoons, the finer ones, less. I mixed everything together, slightly kneaded it in the mug, and then let the mugs ferment for about an hour.

Flour before fermenting and after. In both pictures, the ordering is the same as above, clockwise from top: rye, whole wheat, unbleached, bleached, and Wondra®

The difference between the flours was quite apparent. For one, rye flour is nothing like the remaining kinds. When you mix water into rye flour, you end up with a muddy mess that doesn’t strongly adhere to itself the way dough from wheat flour does. What I found surprising was that, despite all this, the rye flour still ended up rising during the fermentation process. There was also quite a big difference between the King Arthur unbleached and the store-brand bleached all-purpose flour. I didn’t sift either, but the King Arthur flour had much fluffier, almost-as-if-sifted, structure to it. It was much easier to work with and the dough was smoother and silkier. The store-brand flour was, on the other hand, quite clumpy.

Here is a “before and after” picture. Before baking and after 20 minutes in the oven.

After the flour has risen, I transferred the content of each cup onto a wooden board dusted with the bleached all-purpose flour, and formed each piece into a small loaf. It wasn’t really possible to form the rye dough, so that one remained in a pancake shape. I baked the pieces together in a 400F oven. Long ago, breads used to baked in ovens made of clay, stone, or bricks. The old ovens were shaped as a beehive, and were preheated by setting a fire in them. The fire was let to burn for hours, after which, the ashes were removed, and bread was placed onto the bottom surface. The thick walls helped retain the heat from the fire – the initial baking temperature was in excess of 700F. The temperature decreased with time as the bread continued to bake. But since the surface also became darker, and hence more absorbing of radiation, the heat transfer to the bread itself did not change that much.

These days, baking is done at much lower temperatures, and in ovens lined with only thin sheets of metal that do not retain heat for long after the heat source is switched off. In addition, gas ovens are vented to prevent build up of poisonous carbon dioxide – along with the steam that releases from the dough. Steam helps to heat the surface of the dough more rapidly – up to four times faster. In addition, steam condensing on the surface of the dough also keeps crust from setting longer, and thus resulting in a larger, fluffier loaf. The dough can expand only until the crust sets. The crust can break if it sets too rapidly before all the gases released during vaporization of alcohols and water in the dough can escape. Water condensing on the surface also gelates starch molecules into a thin film that dries into attractive transparent gloss. This is why home bakers sometimes place ice cubes in the oven with the bread, and why professional bakers have special ovens fitted with steam injectors.

Bread from different types of flour

Well, I didn’t do any of this, I simply baked my experiment for about 20 minutes. There was quite a difference in both the look and the taste of the resulting loaves! Although the doughs were more-or-less the same color before going into the oven, the difference in the finished loaves was spectacular. The rye loaf was dark in color, hearty, and chewy on the inside. It resembled a big, non-sweet chocolate cookie. The whole-wheat loaf had the beautiful crust of the breads I remember from my childhood in Slovakia. This one was also bit chewy on the inside, and could have used another minute or two of baking. The taste of this loaf was the most what I consider bread-like.

There was surprisingly little difference between the three kinds of white flour. Although the King Arthur flour was easier to work with than the Giant brand, the difference in taste of the baked loaves was not noticeable. The unbleached loaf was darker in color than the bleached loaf, but comparable to Wondra. All tasted much like the typical French bread you find in your local supermarket bakery. Even more surprising was that there wasn’t much difference between Wondra and the standard white flours, despite Wondra being so much finer in texture. Perhaps more differences would have been discovered had I kneaded the doughs more religiously. Perhaps next time…

Here are loaves made from five different kinds of flour, sliced to show the internal structure.

References

Most of the info on this page came from On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee. This is an absolutely amazing book that you should definitely get if you are interested in the why behind cooking.

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Thinking of the game I realized I have no idea what could be considered Slovak “game food”. You know, how here in the USA friends get together before football to grill burgers and hot-dogs and drink few cold ones. Well, beer (pivo) is definitely part of game watching in Slovakia. So are salty peanut flavored snacks called chrumky. But to find out more, I asked the site fans on Facebook. Here is what they had to say so far:

Few popular Slovak game snacks: lupienky, chrumky and fried dough called langoš.

Marcela: Just beer, nothing else is important
Andrea: yeah just beer or slovak chrumky..yummy yummy for my tummy..
Dagmar: beer, but we eat the same things as Americans, there is no difference
Silvia: Ciganska on the grill, it can be chicken or pork and pretty lean or fat (cigánska is meat cooked with paprika and onion and served with bacon)
Zuzana: I’m not Slovak, I’m Czech but I’m guessing same as in Bohemia…Pivo and pivo and pivo….
Silvia: My form of ciganska – put mustard, ketchup, garlic, Worsch. sauce, one egg, seasoning salt together in a bowl and marinate the meat in it for the night or just for an hour or two…
Maria: Pivo (beer), zemiakove lupienky (white potate chips), langose (pan fried dough, formed just by hand no fancy style with garlic and butter), but I think the beer is BIG ONE!
Alexis: PIVO a langose
Jana: plate full of cut klobasa, hard smoked cheese, mustard and rozky (rolls).
Janka: Plates with cut sausage, cheese and peppers, and also open-faced sandwiches. And a lot of beer, perhaps even some slivovitz.
Susan: I’ll be drinking Zlaty Bazant (available in Canada) and Spis Hruska (brought back from a recent visit to Slovakia), maybe with a plate of halusky and some maso na paticky.
Hela: Slovakia Chips + Chrumky but food is not as important its the beer Topvar all day long! Come on Slovensko!
Rebekah: Pivo and chlebicky (open faced sandwiches), klobasa, rozky….

Now it’s your turn. What do you consider Slovak game food? With what snacks will you be watching the games? Please leave a comment and let us know.

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Both of my grandmothers are amazing cooks. However, it is my mom’s mom, Terka, who holds a special place in my heart when it comes to cooking. To me she embodies the true spirit of the traditional Slovak cuisine. She has lived most of her life in small villages, not only taking care of the house, but also growing her own vegetables and raising chickens, geese, pigs, rabbits, you name it. And also a dog and some 10 cats. She has never relied on any modern appliances. The only tools she uses in her cooking are her hands, few pots and the stove, which, currently is not even gas or electricity operated. It is a wood burning stove dating back to the 1800s. Yet, even without any marvels of modern technology, she is the most amazing cook I know.

My grandma Terka and her friend Paľo.

But I would like to hear your stories. Just about every Slovak and Slovak-American I know has some amazing memories of their relatives, those still living and also those who have passed on. Please use the comments below to share your stories. Not only will this help preserve these wonderful memories for future generations, I am also considering putting together a cookbook based on this website. I want the book to be more than just a collection of recipes. I want to use it to give the reader a feel for what Slovak cuisine means to us. I plan to use the excerpts (with your permission, of course) of these stories to do that.

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