The mortar and pestle is an elusive tool for a lot of people, I think. For a long time, I would see that it was used to complete a part of a recipe, and just...well, improvise, since I didn't have one. That's fine, improvising is a great thing, but I had no idea how much more difficult I was making it until I decided to buy myself one of these mystical kitchen tools.
They come in all shapes and sizes, and some of them are smoother, while others are as rough as sandpaper. I bought a nice, little marble one about a year and a half ago, from
Sur La Table. It's really cute, and it gets the jobs that I need it for done well.
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| Isn't it cute!? :) |
The inner sides of the mortar are ridged for easier grinding with the pestle. Sometimes, the larger version of a spice, when ground together with others, produces more flavor than the ground version easily purchased in stores. Jamie Oliver does this in quite a few of his recipes. For example, he'll add cumin seed, rather than ground cumin, along with some minced garlic, and other spices to a mortar and grind the flavors together into a paste, which is then thrown into the dish. The flavors are melding as you grind, so even before the spices have hit the pan, they are stronger than each spice alone.
If your mortar is big enough, you can also use it to make homemade guacamole. Since all of the ingredients are just mashed up together, this is a perfect vessel for combining the flavors! Mine is not big enough to do that, but there are a few mortars I've seen that would be perfect, and I have my eye on those!
I've loved playing with them since I was a little girl. One of my favorite tools!!!
ReplyDeleteYou are giving me so many ideas for registry items!
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