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Blender

incorporating Recipes and Cooking
stewamax
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Blender

#118249

Postby stewamax » February 14th, 2018, 7:45 pm

My old food blender has finally fallen from its perch and needs replacing, bit I have had it so long that I have no idea what I should look for now.
It's an all-purpose workhorse but I use it mainly for soups and occasional smoothies so it needs also to liquidise fairly well.
Any suggestions please as to which makes (Cuisinart? KitchenAid? ...?) and models I should look at?

UncleEbenezer
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Re: Blender

#118393

Postby UncleEbenezer » February 15th, 2018, 2:52 pm

I've actually dispensed with my blender, and it wasn't even dead!

The replacement is a handheld electric blender. I'd never have believed it to look at, but it actually does as good a job as the food processor ever did, and is less work! Do the liquidising in the same pan you brewed the soup in, or do a creamy dessert in the glass bowl it gets served from. Then detach the business end of the blender from the handle/motor and put it in the dishwasher. Miraculously, there isn't a problem with things coming out lumpy just because you "missed a bit": once most of something is liquid, remaining lumps are sucked in to the blades.

Something like http://www.argos.co.uk/product/7981452 . No idea how good that particular model is, but that's the basic idea.

redsturgeon
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Re: Blender

#118399

Postby redsturgeon » February 15th, 2018, 3:20 pm

I would second UncleE. I have a hand blender and it gets used far more than the Kitchen Aid jug blender. In fact i can't think of the last time I used the KitchenAid since we bought a Nutrabullet for making smoothies and that is much easier to use.

John

midnightcatprowl
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Re: Blender

#118484

Postby midnightcatprowl » February 15th, 2018, 11:11 pm

A lot may depend on your degree of hand control! I own a Bamix hand blender thingy and it does a superb job until I misjudge how far to pull it up through the liquid and end up with soup or what have you all over the wall and ceiling or worse all over me. The Bamix still gets used but mainly these days for grinding up egg shells to powder in what I think was a baby food attachment which came with it - there are no infants nor invalids in my home but I do have a couple of compost bins which happily absorb ground up egg shells.

I mainly 'blend' these days in a fairly cheap jug blender purchased maybe in Sainsbury's, maybe in Tesco for less than £15 or so? I like it because it blends thoroughly and quickly without any reliance on my hand and spatial skills. I also like the fact that it comes apart completely to go through the dishwasher, so the blades and their base actually come out completely and with a very little effort and can go in the top of the dishwasher, the jug cleans thoroughly in the base of the dishwasher as the water can go right through and the lid ditto upstairs on the top rack. It would work the same way if you were hand washing. I'm very sceptical about the idea - which has applied in previous blenders I've owned - that putting in some soapy water and running the blender actually cleans it properly. I don't really like the dried remains of last week's soup or dip lightly or what have you lightly laced with detergent being mixed in with my new creation!

I must admit though that smoothies aren't my thing so possibly what works well for me wouldn't work so well for you.

JMN2
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Re: Blender

#118674

Postby JMN2 » February 16th, 2018, 6:22 pm

Yes with these small soups etc stick blender is the way to go. Boil it all in chicken stock, blend it smooth, add a touch of butter or cream or both. Bob's your uncle.

I inherited this monstrosity Kenwood from the 60's, I remember my grandmother using it for dough, sky blue colour (we used to call it russkie blue, all soviet lorries were of that colour). It had been unused for decades and I couldn't make the centrifugal thingy to work, it would just give this oily smell so I ditched it when I got rid of 90% of my stuff.

edit: Kenwood A701A seems to me.

stewamax
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Re: Blender

#119012

Postby stewamax » February 19th, 2018, 10:29 am

Tnx to all replies; I am now going for a handheld blender.
After a hard-fought discussion with my bank balance I have gone for a Kenwood HDP406 800W Hand Blender.
I pray that their term hand blender refers to hand-held and not to a Sweeney Todd ability to truncate my fingers.

JMN2
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Re: Blender

#119939

Postby JMN2 » February 23rd, 2018, 3:55 pm

stewamax wrote:Tnx to all replies; I am now going for a handheld blender.
After a hard-fought discussion with my bank balance I have gone for a Kenwood HDP406 800W Hand Blender.
I pray that their term hand blender refers to hand-held and not to a Sweeney Todd ability to truncate my fingers.


How's the blender working for you? Did you get it yet?

Changeable
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Re: Blender

#120166

Postby Changeable » February 24th, 2018, 6:04 pm

We have 2 Bamix hand blenders and also a Bodum table blender.

We were tempted to buy the Bodum because of a 50% discount during the sales... It was the last year's colour!
This is not a bad machine and nicely constructed, but not easy to clean. I found that I could clean around the cutting blade very well with a Water Pik, but who needs the trouble?

Being fans of humus, it was thought that this dedicated table blender would make a superior, smoother product.
This proved not to be true because the small Bamix is just as good and easier to use and clean.

This short Bamix is now 45 years old and has been repaired occasionally by the local Bamix agent. It had a new power cable and washer just recently. It is Swiss engineered and designed to be repaired.
Friends of my wife who buy cheaper, made in China equivalents, tend to have to change them every two or three years because they are not repairable.

The long necked Bamix is used exclusively for making concentrated soup in a large quantities, because the small one can't get to the bottom of the deep pot.

So as the saying goes, you pays yer money and makes yer choice!

johnstevens77
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Re: Blender

#120283

Postby johnstevens77 » February 25th, 2018, 11:37 am

stewamax wrote:Tnx to all replies; I am now going for a handheld blender.
After a hard-fought discussion with my bank balance I have gone for a Kenwood HDP406 800W Hand Blender.
I pray that their term hand blender refers to hand-held and not to a Sweeney Todd ability to truncate my fingers.


Let us know how you get on, it looks a useful bit of kit.
We are not in the market for a new machine yet as our present ones have many years of use left in them:

11 years old Kitchen Aid Artisan food processor for which we recently replaced the bowl and lid. Powerful machine with an induction motor, used often. Especialy for hommous, onions, soup vegetables and breadcrumbs. Used to use it for pastry too before we got the Artisan mixer.
5 years Kitchen Aid Artisan mixer. Used mainly for pastry, cake mixing, yeast goods and meringues. We make our own ice cream and custard so have lots of egg whites to use up, sometimes too many.
15 years old Braun type 4249 blender. Used for smooth blending of soups and ginger/garlic paste.
8 years old Kenwood HM790 series whisk. Used frequently.
14 years old Waring WS833K commercial stick blender. Gets used the most for soups, dressings and marinades. Makes geat mayonnaise almost instantly using whole eggs.
41 (yes forty one) years old Braun MX 32 blender which is used very rarely with it's mincer attachment, the glass jug being too unwieldy plus it throws out the contents, which is why we replaced it with the Braun 4249. Yes, I could buy a mincer attachement for the kitchen Aid, but why spend the money? We have the cupboard space.
My wife also uses our 15 years old Panny for her superb multi seed whole wheat bread.
The ice cream machine is a Gelato Chef 2200 and gets plenty of use.

john

stewamax
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Re: Blender

#120399

Postby stewamax » February 25th, 2018, 8:07 pm

Re experiences with my new Kenwood HDP406 800W Hand Blender (vide above):
I have so far chopped vegetables, liquidised soup and used the whisk for omelettes.
It seems to be a strongly-made and well thought-out piece of kit* and the motor is at least adequate for veg chopping that often slows a cheapish food mixer.
Cleaning the blades and spindles is a breeze; they mostly just unclick and pop out.

The only problem I initially had was how to unscrew the lid of the chopper bowl! - the meagre booklet that come with the product is unhelpful (you twist slightly anticlockwise and pull at the same time).

So...so far so good.

* it should be: it was Kenneth Wood who produced UK's first mass-market domestic food mixer in 1950


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