I concur. Took a handful of birds to get it down well.
Which hand grinders do you guys use for coffee? I picked up this Cozyna grinder for work, and realized itās not going to cut it for me because itās incredibly slow. That would be fine if I were camping or traveling or something, but I need something much faster and more efficient and still within my cheap budget.
Should I just get a cheap, portable electric burr grinder? Any recommendations? Sometimes Iāll grind course, sometimes fine.
I use this Kyocera burr grinder for my pour-over coffee. It takes me maybe 30 seconds to do a medium grind for a 16 oz mug. Grinding speed is a function of coarseness, though, and a finer grind would take longer. Adjusting it is pretty easy, but it involves a couple of steps and I donāt know that Iād want to do it regularly.
My only real complaint is the open-top hopper. One or two bits of coffee bean invariably jump out while Iām pulverizing their less fortunate cousins.
Iāve just become aware of the existence of the Thermomix, a $2000 German blender/mixer/food processor/hair dryerā¦ thing.
Information on this thing on this side of the pond is scarce, so I watched this video on it.
I still donāt know what it does.
It looks like it could have a larger burr grinder and so might be a little faster, but probably not by much. Iām starting to get used to the Cozyna, and it might actually suffice.
Itās āa gang-bang of kitchen appliances thatās created a futuristic robot saucepan,ā so Iām guessing it does whatever it wants.
They have reinvented simplicity. Again! What could be simpler?
McLennan and McCartney. Heh. I like them. Will watch more.
Hot wet riceā¦
Oh wow, I should have clicked on Zylonās link earlier, that was brilliant and adorable. (Note: the video makes zero effort to explain what the Thermomix is or what it does.)
My sister in law has one. I still donāt know what the point is. She does do some quite nice bread in it, though.
The fact it could make hot wet rice in 16 minutes just by dumping stuff in is pretty cool though.
Not $2000 cool, but still.
Iād like to reaffirm this. Best part is that itās a series!
We had a whole post about the Katering Show sometime in the past here at QT3. Itās awesome.
I canāt see any reference to mandolin/vegetable slicers in this thread. Even though I have blenders and whiskers and all sorts of things, the mandolin is my favourite kitchen thing, other than a normal knife + good chopping boards. So hereās a start:
I originally had one of these. It was pretty bulky, but it worked OK for straight slicers. However doing julienne or coarse/fine chop on it was an absolute pain. I think you needed to be the HULK to actually use that properly, especially with something like a potato. I could even get the damn blades half way through and was in extreme risk of slicing off my fingers when trying to do so. I think the flat shape of the blades offers too much friction? But it has a continous variable height which I like.
I then saw a borner slicer being demonstrated at The Gadget Show Live trade show in the UK and bought it straight away for like Ā£25. I can do a carrot/potato with thick julienne on it no problem. It only has 2 variable heights, but Iāve rarely wanted in-between so maybe simple is better? :)
So I definitely recommend the āVā slicer, and I suspect the āā slicers will work. Avoid the straight ā|ā slicers.
Protip: If you take an onion, put it in the mandolinās holder, l make some cuts across the top that run perpendicular to the way the mandolinās blade will act, and then run it through the fine julienne blades then youāll have an absolutely perfect and completely finely-diced onion in about 3 seconds. It used to take me ages to do that with a knife and I never got it that small.
edit: Video explanation.
Regarding that slicer thing, how much stuff gets wasted in the hand-guard? Itās got some metal spikes in there, and seems like youād always be left with a chunk of stuff that doesnāt slice.
Generally, I donāt think the waste is going to be signficant, but you can buy a metal mesh glove and use that instead of the hand guard if it bothers you.
I had one of the borner-style slicers (mine was labeled as a mandolin, different brand) until I moved house and lost it somewhere in packing. Itās a really great device for when I need to cut a lot of things quickly and evenly, like gratin potatoes. In my current reduced kitchen space it doesnāt merit a place since you can do the same work with a knife, but it was a nice labor saving device.
I was more wondering whether there was a little plunger thing in the guard that pushed the food forward out of the guard when you used it or something.
Yes there is.
Ok, thatās cool then. I kind of figured there was, but didnāt see it, and the guy in the demo video kind of goes out of his way to hide that aspect (like moving his hand off screen to dislodge what seems to be food left in the guard.
Regardless, Iāve considered getting a V blade mandolin for a while. I have an old straight one, a pretty hard-core old-school one, and I think the V blade seems superior.
Hereās a picture that shows the plunger mechanism a bit more clearly:
