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Adapting your own Recipes

 

I want your Thermomix to make cooking better not to replace it. So for those of you with shelves of cookery books and a kitchen full of favourite pans, please don't imagine that you are suddenly going to stop using them. I cook just like I always did but with a very efficient machine to do the chores. 

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The Thermomix is made for helping you in your kitchen, it is your own personal sous chef. Like I have said before it is the Ferrari of food processors. 

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When I realise that my recipe calls for ground almonds, or to peel 40 cloves of garlic, or to grate 200g parmesan (which would take simply ages even with a lovely microplane), to chop chillies, ginger and herbs, or melted chocolate my heart lifts because I can throw them into my Thermomix and the job will be done in a matter of seconds.

If I realise I have run out of mayonnaise, I can whip it up in 3 minutes, I watched a chef make 1.5 litres in about 40 seconds, but he was a braver man than me.

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Initially the Thermomix may seem daunting,  perhaps you have never thought about what temperature chocolate melts at, or whether custard cooks at 70° or 90° (no wonder so often the custard curdles and we are left googling "how to rescue curdled custard").

But once you know precisely what speed or temperature you need,  cooking goes from fingers crossed,  to precision and perfect results over and over again. This is why chefs use Thermomixes. 

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When you are really not sure of how to translate a recipe of your own simply find a similar recipe on Cookidoo and see what the method suggests.

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So here is what you need to know to get started

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  • Prepare all ingredients into roughly 3-4 cm pieces , onions in 1/4's

  • Chopping  (e.g onions, celery & carrots) soffrito, mirepoix, whatever you like to call it....3 seconds speed 5 

  • to sweat the onions, celery & carrots....6 minutes 100° speed 1

  • chopping chillies, ginger, garlic. Place them in the bowl and turn to speed 10. Check, scrape down and repeat if necessary, ginger should be peeled and roughly sliced in discs to cut through the 'hairs'.

  • grating parmesan....speed 10 & listen, you can hear when it is done, maximum 250g at a time for best results .

  • melting 100g chocolate....chop on speed 8, then 3 minutes 50° speed 1. But before you begin be absolutely certain that the bowl and blade don't have so much a one drop of water on them. The chocolate will seize, that is not a Thermomix thing, it is a thing, chocolate hates water.

  • Mincing meat, chopping/mincing meat is great in the Thermomix, just cut your meat into 3 cm cubes and spread out on a tray. Place in the freezer for 30 minutes so that the meat is stiff, not frozen solid. Now chop on speed 6 for between 4 and 10 seconds, you decide how well minced ...for chilli con carne leave it fairly rough so you get texture but for pasta stuffing you would want it fairly fine for example.

  • check through your recipe and do any dry ingredients first, such as grating cheese or grinding nuts, then set aside.

  • making chick pea flour (2 full minutes at speed 10, they are hard little beasties) or red lentil flour (20 - 40 seconds) - and quick tip, place a piece of kitchen paper under your measuring cup to keep the flour from escaping under the rim.

  • In my top 5 reasons for owning a Thermomix would be any custard based recipe. Because making custards e.g for ice cream base is a terrible chore. But in the Thermo we are talking 8 minutes and you don't need to lift a finger.

  • quick wash....1 litre of water, tiny drop of washing up liquid, 30 seconds speed 10, or use the new quick wash feature in the functions

  • You will find further timings on pages 224-230  in the Simple Ideas book that came with your Thermomix
  • **There is a new chop feature in Functions (swipe left) **

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Looking After your Thermomix

You need to know 2 things

  • Don't drag the Thermomix - always lift it, (the scales are in the feet and you need to look after them)-(and for the same reason don't bang any implements on the bowl)  Maybe buy yourself a Slider board from the Vorwerk website. I find it really useful as it protects the scales and makes the Thermomix easy to move.

  • The Butterfly whisk - when using it don't go over speed 4.

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SPEEDS

  • Speeds up to 3 are stirring, by touching the little blade logo on the speed icon you can reverse the blades so the blunt side goes first thereby very very gently stirring your ingredients. The only reason to stir faster is if you have quite a lot ingredients in the bowl, generally speed 1 does the job.

  • Speeds 4-6 are the equivalent of your old food processor but much faster because the blades are a more efficient design. See above for 3 seconds speed 5 being a sort of 'magic formula for chopping'.

  • Speeds 7-10 are blending. The top speed is 10,700rpm, like a Vitamix. I use speed 10 for very liquid ingredients but perhaps only speed 6 or 7 for thick things like hummus, as then it is less likely to be flung to the lid and stick there.

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