Sigh. Well I decided to use what was left of my 'spare' time after the events in the other post from today, (I wanted to do Michelle's Punjabi Chole this weekend. But to do it justice I decided to get the spices and the spice grinder. Now, what is a spice grinder?
I have largely avoided getting one of these, but various blogs - especially Michelle's Food, Football and a Baby, have managed to convince me that I may not use it often, but for a decent result I need to cook off the whole spices and then grind them; I could use a mortar and pestle, but I know from past experience that black peppercorns in particular are an absolute pain to deal with - you may do most of them OK, but there's always one or two which elude you and leave a tooth-breaking bit in there. So an electric spice mill/grinder seems like a good plan; however, everyone says use a coffee grinder. I have one of these and adventurous as I am I like to keep mine for coffee... It cost me £30 and it is brilliant - I only ever wipe it out and never ever put it into water.
So I went looking in Curry's [ouch, just realised the horrible pun] (their response was sorry guv, we only sell these at a megastore - we're only a superstore: presumably when they get an even bigger store than a mega store they might call it a dinostore?), Next (their kitchen section occasionally has some good stuff); Comet, Sainsbury's Homebase, the little hardware place in the centre of Aylesbury (by this time I was prepared to settle for a hand-powered version), and finally Home Store and More. No-one could sell me a spice grinder or warrant the use of their equipment as being strong enough to deal with peppercorns and able to grind/mill the spices to a fine powder, the latter had an assistant who knew what she was talking about and said she used an attachment for her Kenwood food processor, but they didn't really have one which would cope with my spec. You may gather I did not try B&Q. Some tried to sell me herb grinders as being both; on being asked whether they'd take the kit back if the blades broke I was told that they wouldn't or that they couldn't guarantee to do so.
So, I've spent som
e considerable time on the internet as well and after following several specialist Asian shops to find they've sold out of their mills, Amazon came up with the Krups Twin Blade Coffee Mill, which I now have on order. The website has the big advantage in that the reviews actually have people who say they've used it for exactly waht I want to use it - I'll let you know how I get on.The Home Store and More visit wasn't an entire disaster as I bought a pair of curtains (yellow) for the aforementioned purple room, retiring the purple and green flecked monsters that were there and very greatly increasing the amount of borrowed light on the landing (which has a terracotta accent wall and magnolia in general, as has the lounge and the stairwell). To give you an idea of the sort of colour scheme:
Good luck with the grinder Chumbles. I have been lucky enough to get my powerful mixer grinder from India, which has meant I can whip up masalas for curries and spice mixes quickly. But of course, a grinder means I have to make a fairly largish batch of spice, so in that sense a smaller grinder will make life easier.
ReplyDeleteAnd you're right, fresh ground spices make a world of difference to the dish.
Let me know how those chole go, ours were delicious, and they are really easy to whip up once you have the spice mix ready.
PS - Love the room decor here, you sure you're not a woman? Talking about accent walls and the like :-))
ReplyDeleteI will let you know. I shall probably do a reasonable quantity myself, if the machine will take it, as it will reduce the faff quotient when it comes to repeating the recipe.
ReplyDeleteAs for being a woman, hah! I'm a bear with taste, thank you very much!
Actually, truthfully speaking, if any blokes are reading this you need to realise that your environment shapes the way you think as as much as you shape it, so it's really important to take an interest.
Well, did the grinder arrive? How is it doing?
ReplyDeleteIt arrived today! I'm too mean to get it using anything other than supersaver deliver, hence the long time. It'll be a while before I try the recipe (otherwise engaged the coming two weekends). Meanwhile, the spud I'd bought had started to grow eyes, so I turned into mash before it grew legs as well. Actually, it was an experiment making olive oil mash - not entirely objectionable, but certainly a little weird!
ReplyDeleteExcellent grinder; amazingly powerful and turned the ingredients to the requisite dust in approximately 6 seconds! It's my birthday today so spent yesterday afternoon cooking (so I could increase lazing time today) in preparation; cooked the recipe in double quantities and split it into 3, freezing two of the batches. With the third batch I brought this to room temp using a microwave whilst frying some mushrooms and fish until the latter had flaked; I also 'steamed' some carrots and asparagus (cutting the woody stalks across the width into 1-2 mmm discs). Added the chole to the fish and mushrooms for approx 1 min, then the carrots and asparagus for a further 1 minute and ate the lot at unseemly speed. Michelle, it's an awesome recipe and sooo tasty! I ate it with a 2007 Pinot Noir from South Island NZ. What a pig, eh!? But what a happy pig!
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