Food Mills

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I have a new beechwood pestle for use with my chinois.  I am unsure whether to oil the pestle or not.  Suggestions?

 

[Smithy]

18 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I have a new beechwood pestle for use with my chinois.  I am unsure whether to oil the pestle or not.  Suggestions?

 

I  don't think I've ever oiled my pestles, but they have dried out over time and use. Just as with cutting boards, it might preserve the integrity of the wood to oil the pestle. 

[gfweb]

I had a ton of tomatoes that I was going to make sauce out of and grabbed the food mill (which I had never used).

 

The product was a homogenized sauce, which I guess is the point, but what a lot of work and a bit of wastage too.  It did filter out the seeds.

 

Any tips from food mill pros?  Other than the seed extraction I'd rather use a stick blender.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

I love my food mill.   Case in point: I make "whole fruit applesauce, simply quartering apples and cooking them down, skin, cores and all.  Then I put the resulting sludge through a food mill, resulting in velvety sauce.    It is amazing how little compostable residue there is.    All the goodness is in the sauce. 

 

Regarding tomatoes, it depends on one's tolerance for micro bits of skin.    No skin with a food mill.

[YvetteMT]

I have a Foley food mill for canning and have used the same for eons (helping my gran can tomatoes as a kid). Only waste seems to be the skins and seeds, are you losing more than that? Ive done tomatoes and grapes and never been unhappy with results.  Are you doing in small batches? Reversing the direction to move the skins/seeds off the plate and going forward again?

 

If you aren't put off by seeds in your finished dish, perhaps blanch and remove skin and then squeeze by hand to knock out some of the seeds? Stuff a thumb in and scoop out as much seed goo as possible?  (thats how I can whole romas. My final with them is always some sort of soup or chili so a stray seed isn't the end of the world)

[AAQuesada]

1 hour ago, YvetteMT said:

Only waste seems to be the skins and seeds, are you losing more than that?

For those that don't regularly use a food mill I think there is always a surprise at how much skin and seeds there are to be removed!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

On 8/5/2024 at 5:06 PM, gfweb said:

I had a ton of tomatoes that I was going to make sauce out of and grabbed the food mill (which I had never used).

 

The product was a homogenized sauce, which I guess is the point, but what a lot of work and a bit of wastage too.  It did filter out the seeds.

 

Any tips from food mill pros?  Other than the seed extraction I'd rather use a stick blender.

 

A stick blender seems to oxidize the sauce.  The color turns from red to more orange (assuming you have red tomatoes).  And a stick blender won't help with the bits of skin or seeds.

 

If I wanted a thin sauce I'd run the tomatoes through my Kuvings and reduce the juice.  If I wanted a pulpier sauce I'd use one of the food mill attachments for my Ankarsrum or KitchenAids.  And somewhere I have a stand alone electric food mill.  But since I am one person I would almost always grab one of my hand cranked food mills for a few tomatoes.

 

For a lot of tomatoes I think the best solution would be the food mill attachment for whatever brand of stand mixer you have.

 

[rotuts]

Ive found when tomatoes are ( over ) blended 

 

and airated , they turn pink.

 

@JoNorvelleWalker  has the right idea

 

Edited August 10 by rotuts (log)