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THE SECRET WEAPON IN THE KITCHEN: THE BLENDER

The Blender is a set of whirling knives in a heat-proof glass goblet. It will not: beat egg white, whip cream, crush ice, grind raw meat or extract juice, and is not used for cake—or sponge-making. It will, however, grind dry ingredients to dust (if left long enough), or it will grind even more efficiently food particles that are in liquid. If this doesn’t sound very useful, let me elaborate.

This wonderful machine will

1 Grind dry rice into rice flour.

2 Make sugar into powdered sugar for dusting over fruit pie.

3 Chop nuts, etc. (make your own ground almonds).

4 Grind coffee.

5 Grind cornflakes or cracker-style biscuits for base or tops for cheesecake, pies, cakes, etc.

6 Make fresh, soft breadpieces into wonderful absorbent breadcrumbs for dressings and stuffings (I know no other way to do this).

7 Mix hot drinks (sprinkle Horlicks, cocoa on to boiling milk to which sugar has been added).

8 Whisk the skin on boiled milk back into the milk.

9 Froth milk for coffee (for people who like it like that).

10 Make mayonnaise (put all ingredients except oil into goblet, switch on. Pour oil in gently, add capers etc. if you wish).

11 Make vinaigrette dressing (beware: it will emulsify if you aren’t quick).

12 Make bindings for terrines, pâtés, hamburgers, meat loaf, etc. (put egg + piece of raw onion + garlic + salt + pepper + herbs, etc., into blender. Mix. Add to meat mixture).

13 Rescue lumpy sauces (pour hot lumpy sauce into goblet, flick switch to remove lumps. N.B. Too long will make sauce go thin. It seems to reduce thickening power of the flour).

14 Make any kind of milk shake or malted milk (fruit + ice cream + milk).

15 Make potato pancakes (pieces of raw potato + egg + seasoning + flour + enough milk to moisten. Flatten into thin pancakes. Fry golden).

16 Grate chunks of lemon or orange rind (no pith now).

17 Make fruit or vegetable purées for infants (save a lot of money here) or for vegetable soups.

18 Chop parsley (remove stalks first; don’t overfill goblet).

19 Make sandwich spreads (use sardines + lemon juice + butter + raw onion + parsley. Blend and spread direct on to bread. Use cream cheese + butter + mustard + onion in the same way. You’ll think of hundreds more).

20 Make sauces for ice cream. Try plenty of almonds + brown sugar + apricot brandy + a little cream.

21 Make anchovy sauce (for fish or pasta). Blend lots of olive oil + garlic + tin of anchovy fillets + parsley + stoned olives.

22 Make orange sauce for basting a duck. Blend a whole orange, skin, pips and all; but chop it before you put it in. Don’t serve this, just use it in the cooking.

23 Make Pots de Crème. Really sensational as a short cut. You must try this. Put a bar of plain chocolate + 2 tablespoons sugar + a splash of vanilla + an egg + pinch of salt, into blender; when it’s blended pour in 6 oz. of almost boiling milk. When it’s mixed, pour into tiny pots (demi-tasse cups) and chill for at least three hours.

24 Cream spinach with egg and cream—reheat gently.

25 Sieve flour. Did you ever wonder why recipe books tell you to sieve flour? When was the last time you found any solid particles in it? You never did. The object of sieving flour is to aerate it. A blender does this in three seconds; you need never sieve flour again.

Are you convinced that this is the most useful tool in the kitchen? If not, let me tell you one last thing. After you use it, pour water in, flick the switch and the blender will clean itself.

BLENDER SOUPS

Vichyssoise: Fry the white parts of 3 leeks and a medium-size onion very gently in butter—they must not brown. (Pressure) cook after adding two chopped potatoes and a pint of some sort of white stock. Blend; chill; add cream just before serving.

Potato Soup: As Vichyssoise, but no leek; lots of potato. Use this Vichyssoise recipe to make similar soups from: skinned tomato (or sieve after), celery, asparagus, spinach, peas, carrots or mushrooms. Or indeed from combinations of them. Potato can be used to make any of them thick (as it did the Vichyssoise) and a few larger pieces can be added as a garnish after blending. These can all be served chilled, but in this case, go easy on the butter. Yoghourt can be substituted for the cream, so can sour cream.

Borscht: To one good-sized cooked beetroot, put ³/₄ pint any stock (a tin of bouillon is O.K.), also 2 tablespoons sour cream, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, generous salt, a piece of lemon peel and a sprinkle of pepper (paprika is good). Blend this; you will probably have to do it in two batches. Serve it hot or iced, but either way, lash the top with sour cream.

Cucumber Soup is just cucumber (cooked soft) blended with white stock (you can use clear chicken soup), sour cream and seasoning.

Watercress Soup: Cook flour and butter in equal quantities for three minutes; add bouillon + watercress; blend; serve.

BLENDER SAVOURIES

Savoury Mousse, otherwise a marathon, is simple with a blender. The basis can be cooked ham, crab, lobster, poultry or fish (tinned if necessary). It is blended with a third of its volume of a good white sauce (made by cooking equal quantities of butter and flour together over a low flame—it must not brown—and adding stock or milk or cream). The mixture is then put into a mould and chilled. Experts argue about adding some gelatine. If you do so, dissolve it according to directions on packet, making it a little weaker than instructed, and blend into mousse mixture before chilling.

Quenelles: There is one recipe where the blender really takes the stage, that is in making quenelles, which are something between a soufflé and a dumpling. Without a blender this recipe requires hours of pounding in a mortar. With a blender, merely select the flavour you want: veal, fish, chicken, game, etc., and proceed: Measure 15 oz. (by bulk, see Measuring section, page 30) of soft breadcrumbs (easy to make in a dry blender). Now put 5 oz. milk in with the breadcrumbs, let it whizz a moment, then tip it out; put it to one side. Don’t bother to clean the blender; put into it half a pound of the raw ingredients you have chosen (if it’s to be fish, use salmon, whiting, sole, pike, trout or brill—remove skin and bone, of course). Add two teaspoons of salt and a dash of pepper and nutmeg. Whizz the blender until it is all a smooth paste, then add 3 oz. of soft (not melted) butter, one whole egg and two extra yolks, and the milk-and-breadcrumb mixture. When it is all quite smooth, the quenelle mixture is made. Drop spoonfuls of it into just simmering water for ten minutes. Lift out gently. Taste the first one and adjust seasoning.

Here is a simpler (and a little less authentic)

Quenelles de Poisson. Use one pound of white fish fillets (that saves the boning and skinning), cut them into small pieces and put them into the blender along with a chunk of onion, a teaspoon of salt, a pinch of pepper and four eggs. Whizz the blender until all this is quite smooth, then add 4 oz. of double cream. If your blender is small, you may have to do it in two stages.

Have a tin of fancy cream soup on the simmer (lobster bisque or cream of mushroom), having diluted it with milk. Drop the quenelles gently into the simmering soup. This mixture is a little sloppier than the previous one, but the quenelles get firmer as they cook. Don’t boil the soup; just keep it very hot.

Sauce Normande: For a sauce to go with the quenelles, try this: it is not quite the Sauce Normande it pretends to be, but it will pass in a crowd. Make a strong white stock of a suitable kind (i.e. for fish quenelles use plenty of white fish, include the heads—see Rich Stock grid). Reduce it to ³/₄ pint to make it strong. When it is ready, add this to a roux (which is equal amounts—say 1 oz.—of butter and flour cooked over a low flame without going brown for three or four minutes). When you add the fish stock a little at a time to the roux, it will thicken. Stir it and watch that it doesn’t go lumpy (if it does go lumpy you can give it a second or so in the blender, but it is much better not to have to). Let it have a quarter of an hour over a low flame; you must not go away and leave it, but you can be mixing an egg yolk into 3 oz. of cream. Add this to the sauce, stirring it well in. If it boils, it will curdle and nothing can save you. If it doesn’t curdle pour it over the quenelles and serve. If it does curdle, pour it over the quenelles and serve them by candlelight.

Croquettes are distant relations of quenelles, but croquettes are made from cooked meat or fish. I will give a general style of recipe, but there are a great many variations. For the best croquettes do not use leftover fish—cook it specially in a good fish stock (just a little lemon juice, salt and pepper, and a bay leaf is better than plain water). Remove the flesh, mash carefully (avoid the bones). Blend it. Add to this a Béchamel sauce (which is a roux into which boiling milk has been poured a little at a time while it thickens to a good creamy white sauce). Make some Duchesse potato (see page 249). Mix the fish, the Béchamel and the potato together—the fish should predominate. Dip in egg (and breadcrumbs if you like). Shallow-fry. Variations on croquettes are at your discretion. Anchovy and chopped onion are good additions.

Remember that white fish needs a colourful vegetable or garnish.

Real Horseradish Sauce. Horseradish pieces (2 oz.) + 1 teaspoon sugar + ¹/₂ teaspoon salt + ¹/₂ teaspoon mustard + tablespoon vinegar + 3 tablespoons milk. Blend. Mix generous cream into it. Serve.

To prepare Steak au Poivre for 6-8 people, blend briefly about 5 dessertspoons whole peppercorns. Press on to steaks. Fry them to your taste. Remove steaks, déglacer pan.

BLENDER SWEETS

Egg Custard is especially simple with a blender. Blend sugar, hot milk, cream and eggs (at least 3 eggs per pint of milk). Bake 45 mins. in a water-jacket at Regulo 2 (325° F.). Egg custard as a sauce has the same ingredients, but is made over a low flame, stirring all the time. For further instructions, see the Crème Caramel pages 276-7.

Various Desserts. Fruit Fool is made by putting almost any soft fruit with sugar and thick cream in the blender; chill; serve. The Fruit Fool recipe will give you ice cream if you put it in the freezing compartment. Instead of soft fruit, use chocolate or very strong coffee to make coffee or chocolate ice cream.