UKH

On a damp May Bank Holiday Monday, it has come to this. I am researching kitchenware via UKC. 

 

OK, I have finally hit the limits of my little Russell Hobbs jug-style blender and need to get a "proper" food processor.

4 times now, trying to follow a recipe that involves making "patties" and then just frying them (sweet potato and chickpea "burgers" twice, beetroot and chickpea rosti, and a butternut squash skewer thing, it's been at best a salvaged disaster and at worst just a disaster, as I have to keep adding water so the blender doesn't jam.

Blender still has its place (smoothies, houmous, carrot puree for a soup base, making breadcrumbs etc) but clearly I need something with a bit more horsepower.

Hit me with your recommendations please.

I'd rather be in the £150 range than the £750 range

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I picked up (whined until I got give one for my birthday) a Kenwood MultiPro Classic (note - not compact!) last autumn. It’s been great for everything I’ve thrown at it - soup, pesto, grating, chopping and pastry making. Deals with the burger making you describe perfectly. Different model numbers come with different accessories (I’d recommend the glass blender) but are all the same base unit. 3L bowl by default so plenty big enough. It’s £150 on AO at the moment.

Only criticism is that the numerical scale only goes up to 9. Either make it 1-10 or 1-11 for comedy value/‘more power’.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Cuisinart. American brand not so well known over here so you're not paying the Kitchen Aid or Sage premium. Used them for fifteen years or more and never once had one break, only upgraded. Easy Prep Pro is the one I have which is very simple but great for the tasks it does - blending, slicing, grating. A bit more money (£225 at Hart's of Stur) is the Expert Prep Pro which is what I would have got if we didn't already have a stand mixer.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Magimix surely? Built like a tank, powerful induction motor, will obliterate anything and last for years (mine is 8 years and counting)

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Thanks so far! Three sensible and reasonable suggestions already. All three brands are the ones that have been leaping out at me already. I see there are plenty of Magimixes on eBay, used or refurbed, sub £100!

I'll see what other recommendations come out. I keep reading (in Good Housekeeping reviews) about how great they are chopping cucumbers. Isn't that really easy to do by hand, with a knife? I am more interested in "can it do the heavy duty stuff that makes my blender stick" . I know you addressed this Ian Just surprised that it isn't mentioned more elsewhere...

In reply to Blue Straggler:

But once you own a machine to do it with little effort you will never chop by hand again! The second bonus of this (in my experience) is that my partner also gets annoyed at me for not doing it by hand. Double value!

In reply to ianstevens:

Oh I know that phenomenon well. Put it to good effect on Saturday in a totally different context with the first use of my extravagant "Metolius Personal Anchor System" after years of "just tie off a sling to the right length". No more stuck knots for this Straggler  

In reply to Blue Straggler:

If by heavy duty you mean blending smooth then get a good and powerful stick blender. If you want it to do slicey dicey stuff as well then you'll compromise on power at your price point.

In reply to ianstevens:

Chopping by hand is one of my vicarious pleasures - we have a posh blender (which no doubt will play a musical accompaniment to suit any combination of veg, fruit or other foodstuff...) but I never use it. Use blender - give up on life...

PS. Being indoors on a BH might be resulting in my take on this.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

One of those hand held things? I am talking about blending about 1kg of butternut squash, sweet potato and/or chick peas into a "thick paste"

Aren't those hand held stick blenders just for smaller jobs like a quick smoothie or crushing ice? 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Yep. Pro kitchens use bigger versions for pureeing/blending gigantic stockpots full of stuff and you can get really powerful home versions that'll do that job well. Problem with thick purees is that they cake onto the sides on wider food processors and leave the blades blending thin air. Stick blenders you can point at whatever you want blending and it gets blended.

KitchenAid do a cordless one I'm eyeing up when my old Braun one kicks the bucket.

Edit, you make a smooth paste for veggie patties? What recipe is that? My partner's veggie so I'm always on the lookout.

In reply to Removed User:

Ours is of the order of 25 years old.  The worst I can say about it is that you spend some of the time you save in preparation on washing up afterwards.  Otherwise it hasn't missed a beat.

T.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Thanks! Hope it didn't look like I was being argumentative - I wasn't  

From a book by the "BOSH" chaps. Sweet potato and chickpea burger. I'll take a quick pic and upload it (sorry, BOSH guys). I think I tried a similar online one. Both of them relied on a nice blended paste you could shape into patties and just lightly fry (or in one case, bake slightly and then fry). My unsuitable "jug" blender (£30 Russell Hobbs thing from Lidl - great for what it is supposed to do, I was just pushing it too far) just jams with the thick paste and I had to keep adding water to get it to keep going, and then my paste was too sloppy and I had to bake these really sloppy wet patties to get rid of water. And THEN fry them! Gaaah

In reply to Blue Straggler:

correction, the Bosh one is black beans, must have been the online one that was chickpeas. Same issue each time, I need to be able to make a thicker paste 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

This one? https://www.bosh.tv/recipes/healthy-vegan-burger 

Their method makes it sound easy but yeah a normal processor would need loads of water adding to get it to blend smoothly

Stick blender, potato ricer or old school potato mill would do it.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

A stick blender is an essential but different tool. Saves on washing up if your pureeing in the pot, blending soups etc. You can get a good one for 25 quid, some come with a mini chopper which is ace for small amounts of stuff that don't warrant a Magimix e.g. ginger garlic paste for curries. Check for high wattage motor.

A stick blender ain't gonna wash for the big gun jobs like chopping mince up or making pastry though.

The point about washing up made above is a good one. I find the Magimix gets much more use since I moved to a house with a dishwasher, but then I'm quick with a knife.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I've been pondering the same thing myself - currently back-and-forthing between a Magimix and a Sage, on the basis that it will hopefully last a good amount of time and so paying a wee bit more might be better in the long run.
There's a nice review of a few here:

https://www.seriouseats.com/2017/10/best-food-processor-equipment-review.ht...

(Breville sells as Sage in the UK, I believe. I think Cuisinart aren't available in Europe in the suggested model, officially at least)

In reply to Greenbanks:

Haha could well be a contributing factor! In contrast I am lazy and own a 3 pack of IKEA knives which were around £10... so aren’t the best.

In reply to Removed User:

I found ours was good for sloppy things like hummus and guacamole, but too big for jobs like ginger garlic paste. As others have said about other bits of kit, the blades just ended up  spinning in air while the paste was splatted all over the sides. Same with our smaller but otherwise excellent and 10+ years old Cuisinart.

I'd love a Magimix.

For pastes I go back to my really heavy pestle and mortar. After 20ish years I still can't recall which is the pestle and which is the mortar, but it is just great to have a thing of beauty that just works.

In reply to mbh:

Like the pre-Roman histories of the Celtic, Brythonic and Germanic tribes, it's been lost forever which is the pestle and which is the mortar. You just need to know you have both together before you can accurately refer to it.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Washing up isn’t an issue. I weirdly like it. I have put a “reward:effort ratio” spin on it 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

In which case never buy a garlic press.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle: I learned the garlic press trick on these forums a few months ago and brought mine out of its premature long retirement. Frozen garlic is the trick 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Chop your garlic, add a pinch of salt, then scrape it across the board with the flat of your knife pressed down hard. Pureed garlic in 30 seconds.

In reply to Removed User:

If I didn't already own a garlic press, I would do this  

In reply to nufkin:

Go big or go home! £200

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/product-reviews/electricals/a685805/ken...

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Ask JCT formerly (?) of this parish. She bought a posh one with her winnings on TV’s Come Dine With Me

In reply to kevin stephens:

Ha! Sadly I don't have time to listen to yet another regurgitation of her entire biography leading up to the selection of a food processor. 

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

We’ve got the KitchenAid cordless blender which has an attachment which looks big enough to mix plaster. Big thumbs up for their food processor too

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I reckon it's three separate devices.  A decent stick blender does one thing; the hefty machine another.  But the Kenwood mini chopper kind of sits between the two, and of the three it's the one that gets the lion's share of the work!  I could conceive of not having the stick blender or the big food processor, but you will pry my mini chopper from my cold dead fingers.  Yes, I get that the smutty will read that sentence differently.

Our big processor is a Kenwood Multipro, and I think I'll need to decide which niece or nephew will inherit it.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

You're probably going to hate me for this, but consider a Thermomix. If you like eating the sort of stuff it makes then it could be the thing for you. We've had one for 8 years and it gets used every other day.

https://www.vorwerk.co.uk/thermomix/home/

In reply to Toerag:

That looks pretty awesome, if a bit "all your eggs in one basket"

I knew about InstaPot and their ilk but not this. 

If I'd seen this maybe a year ago then it might have been investigated further, but I just got a new "smart" combi (convection and microwave) oven and single zone plug-and-play induction hob both of which are excellent. 

I think I am going for a second hand Magimix 3200XL (barely used, advertised locally on Gumtree)

In reply to Removed User:

What, like Steven Seagal?

In reply to nikoid:

Like Michael Gove...

In reply to nufkin:

Oh, I bought my Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor not so long ago from Amazon. It was important for me that there was an opportunity to cut into small particles. I have had success chopping less than a clove of garlic. I do this often and sometimes i add a bit of coarse salt to help.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FNJKCM7?th=1&ascsubtag=5121915%7Cn0b7828...

In reply to Blue Straggler:

May I jump in with a related question please, seeing as we're having this discussion.

Ive finally decided that its time to buy a magimix, which I hope will last as long as I do. I gave away a inherited 20 year old one when I immigrated, and I've regretted it ever since!

For a small household, are there any drawbacks to buying a smaller model over the standard version, or vice versa? I'm tempted just to get the standard, but don't want to be forever scraping down the sides. But if I buy the smaller one, will I be able to fit everything in? It's quite an investment,  so I'd appreciate advice from those with experience. 

In reply to Helen R:

Hi Helen. 

I came back to the thread to report that I did buy a second hand Magimix 3200XL on Saturday and it instantly passed my first two "tests" (two of the recipes described in the OP, requiring a thick paste or blend of sweet potato and chickpea, and a butternut squash thing) so I am already happy with it. 

Regarding size, not sure what you mean by "forever scraping down the sides". I used the largest bowl on the 3200XL for both my recipes and the blade reaches all the way to the edge, I didn't need to scrape down the sides. And for smaller amounts you just put a smaller bowl inside the larger one, and fit a smaller blade. 

The buying guide at the bottom of this shows the suggested models per number of people. So technically I should have got the "compact" but I didn't see any benefit really. I have space for storing all the bits etc, and the larger one lets me do big batch preparation and freeze stuff, meaning less time overall actually food processing (and washing up!)

https://www.magimix.co.uk/30-food-processor

 

In reply to Helen R:

3200 is optional for the average household I would say. It also comes with smaller bowls/blades that insert for smaller amounts (I never use these as I have a mini chopper). The XL is the best choice as you can get things like potatoes down it for grating (e.g. hash browns) or for slicing large amounts of onions. A kid 'could' get a hand down the XL mind!

In reply to Removed User:

Optional? Do you mean optimal? 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Yes!

In reply to Blue Straggler and Hardonicus:

Thanks! Sounds like stretching to the XL would manage everything.. I'd missed the fact they came with smaller bowls as well. Great to hear your happy with what you bought Blue, enjoy your processing!