I've been thinking about buying a meat press. Do you have one, and what do you make with it?
(Note that there are two types of meat presses, one for making pressed-meat products, while the other is a late 19th-century device for extracting meat juice, which was used as a remedy before the development of modern nutritional science. I'm talking about the former, not the latter.)
I first started thinking about it when I read that pancetta was made this way. I'd like to try that some time.
I've noticed that some meat presses are round, while others are loaf-shaped. Pancetta would be made in loaf-shapped type. I don't know what the round type is used for. I suppose it would make more efficient use of the volume in a pot, if the recipe required cooking the meat while it was clamped in the press. I think I would want the loaf type, but could the round type actually be better?
What besides pancetta (and head cheese) would make use of a meat press? In what ways does it improve the meat, as compared to doing the same thing without a press?
