Ways to mash things together

On Sunday I made my first homemade chili sauce. Chili is one of those things where it’s possible to find perfectly lovely versions in jars off the shelf, but sometimes I just want to do it myself. On the written page, it isn’t all that hard. Reconstitute dried chilis with boiling water, sauté onions and garlic, blend with the chilis and water, and reduce. Simple, right?

It turns out that word “blend” can be a little more complicated that first thought and that’s what we’re talking about. To begin with, let’s consider the options. You could mince the reconstituted chilis, onions, and garlic with a knife, our you could use a mini-food processor, a real food processor, a mortar and pestle, or a food mill. Each one of those produces a slightly different result and different amount of effort and this chili (and a charmoula I made the day before) got me thinking about this in a different way.

Let’s think of a mini-food processor first, because that’s where my recipe directed me. I broke up the dried chilis and put them in the mini and covered with boiling water to reconstitute. After a bit I added onions and garlic and then let the mini do its thing. The results looked quite satisfactory and when I got through the rest of the recipe and tasted, it was great.

The problem came when I actually used the chili sauce to braise a piece of fish that night. As effective as the mini was, it did puree 100% of the chilis themselves and I must picked a dozen or so pieces of not-entirely-reconstituted-and-blended pieces of dried ancho chilis.  As efficient as it is, a mini food processor is not a perfect device to puree. Neither is a full scale food processor. They are wonderful devices but if I wanted something really smooth, I probably should have run the results through a sieve, which means involving another step and another piece of equipment.

A blender would work well in this situation – better than a food processor but still not perfect. In my kitchen, though, my blender is full size and stored in an awkward place, so it’s a big deal to haul it out and use it. I think, though, if I’m trying to go for a liquid state, it might be a better option than a food processor. An immersion blender might have been an option, but this was too big a job for my immersion blender.

If results are all that matter, though, going old school might be the best option. I love my food mill and it gives the best purees – from thin to thick depending on the disk used. The principle is that there is a disk that is something like a circular side of a box grater that fits into a base with a plate on top that forces the food across and through the disk. It can take a lot of work to turn that crank over and over and over, the bottom side of the disk needs to be scraped periodically, and the disks can be difficult to clean.

But the finished product may be worth it. For a smooth vegetable soup like a pea or carrot ginger there is nothing better. It’s also very good for thicker consistencies like mashed potatoes or parsnips if you use the disk with larger holes. On the other hand, a food processor is so much faster, so much more convenient, and so much easier to clean that there is always a tradeoff of time and effort against perfect results. Maybe I’ll use the food processor on weeknights and the food mill on weekends.

There is another option for pastes and thick purees and that’s the mortar and pestle. I have two – a small one for spices and a large one for sauces and pastes. Like a food mill, the alternative to a mortar and pestle is the food processor and the same issue of convenience versus perfection is present here as well.

There are spices that are much better toasted and ground than they are either pre-ground or untoasted – think cumin or coriander seeds. After toasting, though, the seeds need to be ground and while an electric spice grinder might be the best tool, I don’t have one and I really don’t need another device in my kitchen. The most convenient option is a mini food processor, which does a pretty good job but never will get all the seeds fully ground. There are always some that escape the blades. My alternative, when I have time, is a small mortar and pestle. That grinding motion really gets the seeds crushed and you have the advantage of being able to see where you need to pay attention. It produces a much better blend than the machine, but it takes longer and it takes more physical effort. By the way, the small mortar and pestle is the best way to puree garlic I’ve ever seen – a few grains of salt, a clove or two of garlic and some effort and you get a perfect paste.

For larger, thicker blends I also will toot the horn for a mortar and pestle but this time I drag out my big one. I love charmoula, a North African condiment/sauce made from parsley, cilantro, garlic, spices, lemon juice and olive oil. De-stemming the parsley and cilantro can be pretty tedious, so there is a temptation to toss the remaining leaves into a food processor and let the machine do the work. That produces a pretty good charmoula, but there are always some leaves that don’t get chopped and some bits of stringy stem that don’t get blended properly.

But when I take the extra effort to drag out the big mortar and pestle, I get a much more flavorful and dynamic result. I have to admit, though, it is a lot more work. First, after de-stemming, I run the leaves briefly through a food processor just to break them down a little and make them more manageable. I could do this with a knife, too. Then puree the garlic in the mortar and pestle, toss in a handful of leaves and get to work. The grinding action of the pestle against the mortar crushes the leaves and breaks down the fibers much more effectively than the chopping action of the food processor. It can’t liquify like a blender or the most expensive and powerful food processors, but if you work long enough at it you can get a very consistent paste-like texture.

When it comes time to add the spices, lemon juice, and oil, the mortar and pestle mashes all those flavors right into the paste more successfully than the spinning blades of the machine. The traditional mortar and pestle is, I think, a much better tool for things like charmoula, salsa verde, baba ganoush, guacamole, or anything where you want a thick, smooth consistency.

On the other hand, like the food mill, it’s a lot of work. It is one more piece of equipment that needs to be stored somewhere in the kitchen that has limited uses and has to be kept clean, and using it takes a lot of effort. Mashing all those spices and herbs together in a mortar and pestle can take several minutes and considerable amount of elbow grease, while the “chop” button on the food processor smiles enticingly across the counter. Maybe the food processor for weeknights and the food mill or the mortar and pestle for weekends?

One more thing. I really enjoy cooking and being in the kitchen. It’s a big part of my weekend to spend time in the kitchen making something more elaborate, and maybe more experimental, than I can afford to do after getting home from work. I find these older tools intensify my focus. It seems to bring me closer to the food, in a way. It’s easier to see what is happening and matching my physical action to what’s happening with the food is very satisfying. Yes, it is a lot of extra work but in a way, it’s also a luxury that is worth it.