I'm an awesome lover of Thai-fashion curries like Phat Phrik Khing and Khao Soi, and by the years we have discovered that the very best way to get taste out of your aromatics is by pounding them with a mortar and pestle. This is true whether or not you're making a curry paste, a pesto, and even the flavor base for guacamole or salsas. The mortar and pestle is one of the most-used items of gear in my kitchen. So much of parents ask me if they'll skip the mortar and pestle by using the electrical garden power shears of a food processor. Well, you can, however you lose flavor. Just like a blender, a meals processor cordless pruning shears and shreds the substances, tearing apart and breaking down vegetables, however not necessarily rupturing all of their cells to release aromatic compounds. A mortar and pestle, on the other hand, does an excellent job of really crushing individual cells, producing a curry paste with a lot better taste. Alternatively, it is a lot simpler to get a smooth texture with a food processor.
I questioned if maybe combining the 2 may give me the better of both worlds: good flavor with smooth texture and minimal effort. Using only a food processor. I timed how lengthy each methodology took, then tasted the final outcomes. As far as ease of manufacturing goes, the food processor wins by a long shot. It may well scale back a pile of fresh and dried aromatics to a smooth curry paste in just a few minutes, requiring only some scrapes with a rubber spatula during the method. By distinction, making a curry paste 100% with a mortar and pestle, as I've advised prior cordless pruning shears to now, is a way more laborious course of that sometimes takes at the least 5 to 10 minutes, however can take for much longer with a smaller mortar and pestle or a paste-pounder who is not 100% invested in the method. For the combined methods, I employed a one-minute pounding session together with two minutes contained in the meals processor. Flavorwise, there have been some clear differences. As expected, the paste formed 100% within the food processor had the least developed flavor. Of the 2 combos, the one which I started within the food processor and completed by pounding was nearly indistinguishable from the one which was made 100% within the meals processor. Once these aromatics are damaged down and in a semi-liquid suspension, it's exhausting to get them to crush underneath the pestle. They end up just squishing out to the sides. But the version I started with the mortar and pestle and finished within the meals processor? That was the one! The flavor was nearly-however-not-fairly nearly as good as utilizing a mortar and pestle alone (I got loads of cell breakdown during the pounding part), however the advantage in effort and time was large.
You may think of collage as something you probably did in kindergarten, pasting magazines clippings onto construction paper. But in some circles, collage is a critical art. Today that tradition continues in organizations like the National Collage Society, a trade group that promotes collage