A mixer grinder is a quintessential appliance in a functional Indian kitchen. From grinding idli batter to powdering spices, it helps take care of various chores in a little time. But often, they are underutilized and not explored to their full potential.
Let us look at some of the common delicacies you most probably never knew you could make in a mixer grinder.
Mayonnaise
From making sandwiches to dips, mayonnaise is a well-loved food among Indians. But as it uses raw eggs, the chances of food poisoning are high when consuming mayonnaise from outside.
With a mixer grinder, you can easily make mayonnaise in the comfort of your home, without worrying about food poisoning. To prepare mayonnaise, simply add an egg, lime juice, garlic, salt and drip oil little by little while blending it so that it becomes emulsified properly. In less than 2 minutes, you will have thick, creamy mayonnaise ready to relish!
Nut Butter
Have you ever taken a look at the ingredients in store-bought almond and peanut butter? It contains almost 50% sugar and palm oil, making it one of the worst junk foods.
Peanut and almond butter can be easily made at home, provided you have a robust mixer grinder. First, toast the nuts till it starts giving off that nutty aroma. Then, pulse it in a mixer grinder jar till it is crushed uniformly. Keep pulsing it and scrape down the nuts from the edges of the jar towards the blade. The oil in the nuts gets released in the process and as a result, you get creamy peanut or almond butter. For kids, melt a block of chocolate using the double boiler method and add the nut butter to it. Healthy and delicious peanut butter is ready!
Whipping Cream & Eggs
Most people use a hand blender for whipping cream and eggs. But, this can be easily achieved using a mixer grinder. For whipping egg whites to a stiff peak, you need a mixer grinder that has a whisking blade. But for whipping cream, you can use practically any mixer grinder. First, keep the cream and the mixer grinder jar in the freezer so that the jars don’t get heated up while whipping. Then, add frozen cream to less than half of the jar’s capacity and run it for a minute or two. You will notice a difference in the noise of the mixer grinder when the cream gets whipped to a stiff peak. This is in fact much easier than whipping cream using a hand blender.
Grating Vegetables
Using a manual grater isn’t something anyone looks forward to. But with a mixer grinder, you can chop vegetables like carrot and beetroot into 1 inch sized chunks and pulse them to grate them into a coarse texture, which is good enough for making vegetable side dishes.
Baby Food
Many newbie parents invest in a baby food processor, which is an expensive investment that will be futile after a year. Instead, buy an additional chutney jar and keep it separately so that you do not use it for regular kitchen chores. Using the jar you can blend ragi, wheat, rice and other grains for making porridge, mashing vegetables, and fruits and making other baby food.
