In the 70s, everyone was rushing out to buy a food processor, but the invention was so great that it has stood the test of time. Food processors can ramp up your food preparation prowess to new levels. Most food processors come complete with recipes and various attachments. Just pair your imagination with the instruction manual and you’ll get an excellent idea of how to use a food processor to save time and make delicious food.
What to Think About When Buying a Food Processor?
Whether you’re shopping online or in a store, you need to think about the amounts and types of food that you need to process. You’ll need a heavy-duty motor if you wish to crush ice or knead bread doughs quite often. If you are only looking to make pesto, hummus and soups, you can consider a lighter-weight machine.
What’s The Difference Between A Food Processor And A Blender?
Both a food processor and a blender feature sharp blades that spin at high speeds. These two appliances share many similarities, but they serve different purposes. A blender is better for liquids and can make things like smoothies. A food processor is better for more labor-intensive tasks, such as kneading dough or cutting vegetables. Of course, food processors and blenders often cross paths and are powerful enough to handle all the tasks that you might throw at it. An important difference between the two is that the processor bowl features a hole in the middle of it where the blade attaches to the blade shaft. Therefore, don’t overfill the bowl if you want to avoid spillage.
How to Assemble a Food Processor
Every food processor brand is different, but you can assemble many models in a similar way. The most important thing to remember at this stage is that the processor should be unplugged while you’re assembling it or changing the blades. First, you will secure the bowl to the electric base. The next step is to slide the base in place. You might have to jiggle the bowl around to ensure that everything is tight and in place.
Is It Difficult To Operate A Food Processor?
The beauty of food processors is that they are designed with ease of use in mind. Depending on the brand, there’s a button to switch it on and a setting called “pulse”. When you turn it on, the processor will typically run until you switch it off. On the other hand, when you use the “pulse” setting, the processor will only run for as long as you hold the switch in position. If you turn this setting on and off, you will achieve evenly chopped lightweight foods, for example garlic or fresh herbs. This function is helps when processing foods that liquefy if processed for too long such as onions or celery.
Ways to Clean a Food Processor
Food processors get a reputation for being a pain to clean, but that’s not the case. Regarding the metal disks or metal blade, hand washing is best because too many cycles through a dishwasher dulls the sharp cutting blades. To make cleaning up after processing sticky or oily foods like cheese or nuts, spray cooking spray on the shredding disk or blade before you begin using the equipment. Regarding the processor’s plastic parts, you can also wash this in the sink using warm water and soap, or if you prefer and if it’s dishwasher safe, you can rinse and place it in the dishwasher. The part that’s electric can be wiped with a damp cloth to remove food or liquid smears. Once all the parts are dry, you can reassemble the processor. Remember that you should not submerge the electric part in water. If it’s plugged in, you get an electric shock, or the processor will be ruined.
How to Make Meals Using a Food Processor
This really depends on the recipe you’re following and what you’re making. Some recipes such as soup require everything to be blended all together and others ask for things to be added one at a time. Sometimes you can only use the processor for one part of the recipe such as mixing the crust for a pie. The more you practice, the sooner you’ll master how to use a food processor!
How to Use a Food Processor to Chop Vegetables
You can save a lot of time by quickly chopping, slicing, or shredding a variety of vegetables using your processor. Food processors almost always come with an S-shaped. Amongst other functions, this blade is used to chop vegetables. The slicing disc is another common attachment and it’s used to slice vegetables into thin, circular pieces, for example potatoes, zucchini, and carrots.
How to Use a Food Processor for Baking
Food processors can blend cake batters following the “all in one” method. Put all the ingredients into the bowl at the same time and whizz until it’s evenly mixed into a cake batter. When it comes to baking, of course you can also knead dough with the dough blade or dough hook. Sometimes the dough blade comes with the processor and sometimes, you have to buy it separately. The dough hook can knead pizza dough, pasta dough, pie dough, and bread dough.
How to Make Your Own Sauces and Dips Using a Food Processor
When you run your processor continuously, you can blend ingredients to make mayonnaise and chunk-free sauces. You could also save time chopping vegetables when you make your favorite salsa recipe just as chunky or smooth as you like it. Make dips such as hummus even better than store-bought when you blend chickpeas and tahini, lemon juice, garlic and spices.
How to Make Healthy Treats Using a Food Processor
For starters, you can feel really proud of yourself when you DIY smooth nut butters using peanuts, almonds or cashews. And with only a handful of ingredients such as walnuts, shredded coconut, and dates, you can make healthy date balls that taste like cookie dough.
