Blender - what am I doing wrong?

[Anna N]

I have been trying a few recipes lately that call for ingredients to be put into a blender and turned into a smooth paste. At first I thought I had a defective blender but I borrowed another blender with equally useless results. To give you an example, Madhur Jaffrey's recipe for "Fish in a Packet" from A Taste of India calls for a coconut chutney made by blending together: grated coconut, garlic, corriander (cilantro) cumin seeds, fresh green chilies, sugar, salt, lemon juice and mint. Apart from the 3T of lemon juice, there is no other liquid called for.

Both blenders take this mixture and sit there! They make much noise and no paste! Garlic cloves rattle about but that's about it. What am I doing wrong?

And this is only one example - I have had no luck using a blender to make a paste where solid ingredients are called for. I have even tried pre-crushing anything solid but it doesn't seem to make a bit of difference. The only time I can get anywhere is to add at least 3 times more liquid than the recipe calls for.

Help!!!

Thanks,

Anna N

[Jon Tseng]

For drier mixes you might want to try a mortar and pestle - easier and less cleaning up too!

J

[Anna N]

For drier mixes you might want to try a mortar and pestle - easier and less cleaning up too!

J

I have considered that but my mortar and pestle will handle at most a couple of tablespoons! Maybe it's time to look for something more useful!

Anna N

[newguy]

Occasionally, recipes don't actually work from cookbooks. Could be any number of factors. Could be the ingredients, or it just wasn't tested properly. Maybe you should try adding drops of water at a time. It will move eventually and hopefully help with the paste.

[Bux]

There are some mini food processors that might work, but I've never been able to make a paste of dry ingredients in a blender. Come to think of it, the mini food processor will probably just give you a finer, more even grind of the dry stuff. Blenders need enough liquid so the result will flow, if only under pressure.

[Marlene]

What about using a hand mixer instead? I find that works better with drier ingredients than the blender

[sandra]

Sometimes a food processor is better for making these pastes than a blender - if not adding liquid is the best idea, if you think water will dilute it too much, try fish stock for fish dish, chicken stock, etc....

[davidscooking]

If the blender isn't "blending", stop the motor, open the top, and stir the ingredients by hand with a long spoon, being sure to stir down around the blades. Sometime it takes several iterations, but this generally works for me. What usually happens is that one or two ingredients (usually the softest/moistest ones) sink to the bottom of the blender jar and completely surround the blades. The other stuff "floats" (for lack of a better word). The blender churns but nothing much happens until you stop and stir.

[bushey]

LOL! I thought I was the only one who opened the blender every few seconds to stir the contents with a chopstick!

I find that layering the ingredients with the ones that contain the most moisture, e.g. onions and peppers, helps out somewhat. I also finagle the controls on the blender from grind or chop at the start of the process to blend or puree at the end. Pulsing also helps break down the resistant stuff at the beginning. The single most ornery blender recipe I use is also a Madhur Jaffrey one: chicken in sweet red pepper sauce. It's also one of the most delicious at-home Indian recipes I've found.

[torakris]

LOL! I thought I was the only one who opened the blender every few seconds to stir the contents with a chopstick!

I find that layering the ingredients with the ones that contain the most moisture, e.g. onions and peppers, helps out somewhat. I also finagle the controls on the blender from grind or chop at the start of the process to blend or puree at the end. Pulsing also helps break down the resistant stuff at the beginning.  The single most ornery blender recipe I use is also a Madhur Jaffrey one: chicken in sweet red pepper sauce.  It's also one of the most delicious at-home Indian recipes I've found.

I do the same thing! I find it sometimes takes quite a few mixings but then it eventually works.

Can you tell me what book the chicken with red pepper sauce is from? I have most her books and it sounds great!

[guajolote]

Anna,

What kind of blender are you using and what kind have you borrowed. A couple of months ago we had a thread about how much the KithchenAid blender sucked.

[Anna N]

Anna,

What kind of blender are you using and what kind have you borrowed. A couple of months ago we had a thread about how much the KithchenAid blender sucked.

My own blender is a relatively new Sunbeam and the one I borrowed was an Osterizer - older model with glass container and multiple push buttons.

Anna N