I saw your piece on the Krups dry grinder for spices and coffee and was wondering if you have come across a good heavy duty wet grinder for small quantities (like chutneys or coconut paste for curries, etc.).
I have tried using my Hamilton Beach but it doesn't do a good job when I try to grind less than 2 cups or when I try to combine wet and dry ingredients like coriander seeds and grated coconut, for example.
Thanks! Nisha
Great question! Curry pastes and chutneys are difficult to create with most tools available in America; the spice grinder is too small and hard to clean, and even the smaller food processors can't grind the spices finely enough. I usually end up with shards of lemongrass or half-ground coriander in my curries too.
Here's a few suggestions. Comment away if you have used one of these products, or if you have other ideas for Nisha.
• Try the old blender and jar trick. Most blenders, especially older models, are designed to allow you to screw a standard glass Mason jar upside down onto the base. This smaller capacity jar effectively turns your blender into a mini food processor. You can see a picture of the setup at Simply Recipes.
• The Cuisinart Mini Prep Plus has a 3-cup bowl and while this may still be too big for some spice pastes, it seems to do better than comparable models in blending wet and dry ingredients.
• The Moulin Wet and Dry Grinder is like a mini blender designed for both wet and dry grinding.
• This Revel Wet and Dry Grinder with a removable, washable bowl also looks promising.
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that mason jar/blender trick is seriously going to revolutionize my life. Thank you for pointing it out.
Nisha,
After years of making do with a Hamilton Beach-like blender I finally brought back a "mixie" from India suitably wired. It came with 3 stainless steel jars of different sizes and packed easily in a suitcase (with room to spare). It was around Rs.3000 (or $65). My impression is you can get the same or similar in stores in Edison, NJ. I have also heard good things about this company (they sell the popular Sumeet brand as well):
http://www.innoconcepts.com/aboutus.htm
Hope this helps.
I have two suggestions. The first is along Deepa's lines to buy a mixie. I'm this close to getting one myself (especially last night when I was grinding away trying to get the urad dal into a suitable paste for idlis). Sumeet is the oldest brand and it's the one I'm most tempted by. Here's another url for another supplier.
http://www.chennaiimports.com/sum_mixies.htm
The second suggestion is to get a good granite mortar and pestle. I would suggest getting one anyway if you do a lot of SE or S Asian cooking. Even if you want to use the blender to make your pastes, grinding the spices in the mortar first and then adding them to the blender is a good idea. So is giving the tougher things like galangal or lemongrass a bruising. When we have the luxury of time, we do all of the paste making in the mortar, which gives you a silky, more flavorful paste, but we don't have the time most nights.
The last thing (ok, this is more then two suggestions) is to upgrade your blender to an Osterizer, which will serve you much better then the Hamilton Beach but isn't that much more expensive.
regards,
trillium
Thank you everyone!
I’m off to Jackson Hights to find me a Sumeet Mixie – just as soon as this rain lets up.
Love the mason jar-blender idea and canÂ’t wait to try it too.
Mortar and pestle?
The recipes on the Sumeet page look delicious!