The blog of cooking-ez.com
The right way to use a blender
You may well have a blender in your own kitchen. You know, that useful gadget that allows you to liquidize stuff at high speed into a smooth liquid. Of course, the most obvious use that comes to mind is for soups: if you have boiled some vegetables in water, with just a quick blast of the blender, you'll have a smooth, creamy soup.
15K 1 5
Last modified on: May 31th 2017
The right way to use a blender
At this point, we really ought to distinguish between the 2 different types of blender: "stick" and "classic".
Stick blenders (the sort professional cooks sometimes call a "giraffe") are hand-held and are designed to be plunged directly into the bowl or pan when making soup, compotes, etc. They are usually simple machines and relatively cheap. They look like this:
The other type are a little more complicated and designed to stand on a worktop. The main difference is that the food is put into the blender's own bowl or goblet (glass or plastic). Then you need to put the lid on before switching the machine on. They look something like this:
Stick blenders are fairly self-explanatory. For the second type, there's one trick it's important to know.
When blending, there is often a mix of different textures – a liquid ingredient being mixed with a more solid one – even if the end result is more or less a liquid. When making homemade pesto, for example (which, it's worth saying in passing, is far superior to what you find in the shops), you will be blending liquid olive oil and lemon juice with solid pine nuts and basil leaves.
And this is where knowing the trick comes in: you should always put the liquid into the goblet first and only then add the solid ingredients. If you do it the other way round, your ingredients may well not mix together properly, with the liquid staying on top of the blended solids. You will be obliged to stop the blender several times to poke at it and stir with a spoon, or – even worse – you might be tempted to try and intervene with the blender still running, which is highly dangerous.
To see this in practice, here's a photo taken while making a flognarde (a sort of egg custard from France's Limousin region). One stage of the recipe involves blending the eggs with a mixture of flour and sugar:
You can see how the eggs (liquid) go in first, with the flour and sugar added on top. This ensures rapid and even mixing, as you can see here:
This goes for all blenders, even the most sophisticated ones that heat and cook, such as Thermomix.
To sum up: when blending different foods, always put the liquid ingredients into the blender goblet first, before adding the solid ones.
Stick blenders (the sort professional cooks sometimes call a "giraffe") are hand-held and are designed to be plunged directly into the bowl or pan when making soup, compotes, etc. They are usually simple machines and relatively cheap. They look like this:
The other type are a little more complicated and designed to stand on a worktop. The main difference is that the food is put into the blender's own bowl or goblet (glass or plastic). Then you need to put the lid on before switching the machine on. They look something like this:
Stick blenders are fairly self-explanatory. For the second type, there's one trick it's important to know.
When blending, there is often a mix of different textures – a liquid ingredient being mixed with a more solid one – even if the end result is more or less a liquid. When making homemade pesto, for example (which, it's worth saying in passing, is far superior to what you find in the shops), you will be blending liquid olive oil and lemon juice with solid pine nuts and basil leaves.
And this is where knowing the trick comes in: you should always put the liquid into the goblet first and only then add the solid ingredients. If you do it the other way round, your ingredients may well not mix together properly, with the liquid staying on top of the blended solids. You will be obliged to stop the blender several times to poke at it and stir with a spoon, or – even worse – you might be tempted to try and intervene with the blender still running, which is highly dangerous.
To see this in practice, here's a photo taken while making a flognarde (a sort of egg custard from France's Limousin region). One stage of the recipe involves blending the eggs with a mixture of flour and sugar:
You can see how the eggs (liquid) go in first, with the flour and sugar added on top. This ensures rapid and even mixing, as you can see here:
This goes for all blenders, even the most sophisticated ones that heat and cook, such as Thermomix.
To sum up: when blending different foods, always put the liquid ingredients into the blender goblet first, before adding the solid ones.
Lasts posts
Parmesan cheese crusts
If you use Parmesan cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano) in your recipes, you may have already noticed: when you grate it, it becomes (very) difficult near the crust, especially if it is a slightly aged parmesan, as the cheese gets harder and harder. So we stop grating, leaving some crust on top, and a...1,0885 June 23th 2022
The gelling agent in a cream
If you start making a Bavarian cream for example, or any other that contains a gelling agent such as gelatin or agar-agar, you will sooner or later be confronted with the problem: How to properly incorporate this gelling agent into my cream? (and we will focus on gelatin).1,2134.9 June 18th 2022
The preservation of bread
Eating fresh bread is always a delight, the crust crumbles deliciously, you take full advantage of the taste of your bread (80% of this taste is in the crust), it is a fleeting moment to enjoy. Who hasn't already eaten the crouton or croutons of his baguette, on the way back from the bakery? ...1,7173 June 11th 2022
Beans in primeur
As I write this, it is the beginning of the short season for fresh beans. If you've never made them before and you're just starting out (and that's a great idea) you'll find that it's a bit time consuming to prepare, you have to shell them once, remove the beans, scald them to remove the skin (and...1,281 June 4th 2022
Celeriac soups and the 3rd ingredient
Do you like celeriac, a vegetable that is not always a big hit? If your answer is "no" or "not so much", it is perhaps that you have in mind the celery remoulade, the emblematic starter, with the eggs mimosa, of the bistrot kitchen. It's very good, well if you like it of course, but it's a bit...1,7844.6 May 21th 2022
Other pages you may also like
Candied fruits: don't get ripped off
Do you like candied fruit? You might like to nibble a handful or add it to a recipe, like a classic fruit cake or delicious Italian specialities like panettone or sicilian epiphany pie.37K 23 June 21th 2017
The skin of the almonds
If you like almonds, in their dried fruit version, you must use them quite often in cooking or baking, whether powdered or whole. It is not obvious, but in fact there is 2 kinds of almonds in the market, wholesale with or without the skin. .9,6533.7 February 8th 2020
Artichoke stalks
When preparing artichokes for cooking, you may well already know that we often need to remove the first round of leaves, if they are tatty or dirty, as well as the inedible stalk. The operative word here is “remove” , rather than “cut off”.39K3.9 October 25th 2016
The bitterness of endives
As I write these lines, we are entering the endive season, and if you like it, it's time to enjoy it, if possible with your local producers. Endive is good, but the reproach that is often made of it, and children in particular, is: "It's bitter! And it is (somewhat) true of course, endives...5,4974.5 February 9th 2019
The first breads of humanity?
I have already told you in a previous article the beautiful story of the croissants, but do you know what it is about the bread, who "invented" it, where and when? Well, you can imagine that recent discoveries, in 2018, have profoundly changed the history of bread.5,3875 February 16th 2019
Post your comment or question
Follow this page
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.