How thick is it? (Cutting Meat)

[Mikawa Ossan]

Hello!

An interesting question has come to my attention. You see, I very recently bought a meat slicer for slicing up the big hunks of meat you find here in the "heartland" of America into the thinly sliced meat you would find in any Japanese grocery store. The problem is, I have never thought until now just how thick things like 窶昶?督静倪?堙ｨﾂ and ﾆ弛ﾆ耽ﾂーﾂ湘??堋ｫ窶廃 are. Does anyone know by any chance? Metric or Imperial is fine, I will most certainly not complain!

 

[Dogen Z]

As you know, meat for nabe dishes are cut paper thin--like bacon strips--maybe 1 or 2 mm. As for butteryaki, I think you could get away with thicker slices--4 or 5 mm. But I think meat are cut thinner in Japan because of all the fat the tastier cuts have; lean meat could be cut thicker, I think.

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

Thanks!

I have been experimenting, and I find that I have to cut really REALLY thin to get the same thickness as in Japan. I think for usugiri it can be no thicker than 1 mm. I'll keep your suggestion in mind for batter-yaki-you meat when I attempt that.

It's funny how you never think of these things when you're surrounded by grocery stores that sell these cuts without question, isn't it?

I should start another thread, but another of my experiments is making abura-age from scratch. Those are also surprisingly hard to find here.