Be Excellent To Each Other

KitchenAids are bloody good, and the pros use them. Get a kitchenaid

We love our KitchenAid. Danielle had one in America, and brought it, but it was almost cheaper to replace with a new UK one [1] than it was to buy an enormous 300 W step-down transformer. So now we have two. It gets a lot of use.

I don't have the mincer, grater, or pasta attachments, however. I might get the mincer at some point. And possibly the ice cream maker. For all my grating needs, I am now officially in love with Microplane graters. They are the bee's grazed knees.

[1] £150 in Amazon's lightning deals in 2010. Boo-yah.

The motor in that is 6.25 times more powerful than the one in my KitchenAid. Golly.

There's significant anecdotal evidence than you pay a big premium for the KitchenAid name. Then again, Danielle knows people who inherited the one their parents received as a wedding present, so they do (or at least were, I guess) extremely robust. They are certainly solidly made.

It needs to be, as it has to push around up to 4-ish kilos of bread dough On top of the unit it has a couple of connectors for all the processor business, but we haven't really used much of that as yet, it has mainly been on cake and bread duty. When I did give the chopping and slicing bits a go I had no complaints.

It is bulky though, so if you aren't interested in mixing it is a bit of an overkill!

I've never made that much dough in my Kitchen Aid. I've gone as far as a kilo or so, I guess, and it copes with that much just fine.

A kilo would be plenty enough.

I'm struggling to think of other significant mixing we do though. Pudd'n' batter for toad in't 'ole, mostly. Mostly the things I said before.

Oh, and custard, but I don't think they have an adaptor for that. Also other "boiling liquid" things, like the two large pans of hot and sour pickle the other day, or pulled pork reduction.

They should totes do an adaptor for those.

But hmm, I think a processor is probably more suitable. Dammit.

Edit: Magimix 5200XL Premium Limited Edition probably, since it includes everything we "need" plus smoothie, mash and puree bits. Though we'd have to keep the pasta maker and regardless the reputation and reivews I'm not sure I'd trust making dough in it...

Edit: Oh, and no mincer. Dammit. Maybe we need both.

I have a food processor as well as the KitchenAid. Actually, the midrange Philips food processor that Danielle bought me for Christmas a couple of years ago is on offer for £50 in Sainsbury's. I've been very happy with it.

We have a kitchenaid type thing (Kenwood, I think) that has a smallish food processor that fits on top. It's a pretty good compromise.

The Internet (including Magimix) alleges that "mincing" beef is possible using the normal cutting blade and pulsing. I'm not sure that counts?

Craster: This 'Mini Chopper/Mill Attachment' thing? Or this?Also mincer. Hmm.

Obviously biggest is best. 6.7l WHOAR! Wait newer.

I can't believe I've just spent a notional £630 on a fucking kitchen appliance.

Behold the £16,400 and up fridge.

The mincer looks about right, but the food processor is pretty much a full-sized one, with all the food processor attachments you'd expect.

I don't think this is the exact model, but I think this is pretty close:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kenwood-Prosper ... 10&sr=8-12

I forgot to include the mincer, chopping and slicing attachments in that price. Added another £100 then backed away before it all landed on my desk.

That thing you linked seems to be standalone, Cras. Hang on, it includes "1 x New improved food processor" as well as blender. Hm.

Pasta roller! Pasta extruder! Fuck!

I currently want to spend £350 on a coffee grinder...

... sadly I realise this would cause death by wife.

In one of the odder moves in UK food, In-n-Out opened a UK pop-up restaurant... For four hours... In Hendon.

http://www.burgeraddict.org/2012/10/in- ... ondon.html

Lewiep went, according to his twitter he posted a burger pic and everything!

did the green chilli pickle tonight, that I posted the recipe for ages ago. Important notes:

Use less sugar.
Use much less oil.
Use MUCH less salt.

apparently I intuited these things last year because it was lovely and this batch is foul, particularly in the salt department.

Luckily, I have way too many chillis to do in one batch so can balance it out.

Are they gonna open an In-N-Out proper, then? And more importantly, one north of fucking London if they do?

No

I don't count fridge-freezers; we paid £1700 for ours, remember.

Also, it turns out the KMM020, despite costing £100 more than the KM020, comes without the food processor or liquidiser attachments. How does that work?

Spaff! £30 of Amazon vouchers encheapened it, plus Kenwood are offering a free attachment this quarter. Barg!

Turns out the more expensive new model is the same except it doesn't have the liquidiser or processor attachments. So, er, no thanks. The KM010 is only available for same-or-more, and the KMC010 is missing bits like the KM020 (though it does have the decency to be marginally cheaper).

Giganto-mixer it is then, and most of the attachments (meat grinder, pasta roller, pasta extruder, mini chopper) by the new year.

The Kenwoods are great, you won't be disappointed

If it's not, I'm coming round and taking your Evora. Fair's fair after all.

Just made myself cauliflower cheese soup. Nommy!

Kung Pao chicken ordered! Long day, no cooking for me tonight.

I love kung po chicken. But I've been to 3 different places and each place does it differently!

Oh totally. I think that's the norm with pretty much every Chinese takeaway and every single dish they do! We happen to have found a really bloody good one in York and we order from them probably once or twice a month. It's the only takeaway we regularly get.

I've eaten it now, by the way. Top notch!

We unpacked the Kenwood tonight, as Stuff meant no time last night. Loads of bits and everything reassuringly metal with firm actions. Except the speed dial, oddly, which makes a grindy noise.

No adjustment spanner in the box. Oh noes!

naturally, rather than use it, Helen's picking our tea up from the Chinese round the corner.

Never mind all this electrical jiggery pokery. I just bought one of those combined apple peeler/corer thingies.
It. Is. Awesome.

If you pay three times the price for one, it's a scientific instrument called a "Cloning cylinder" used to remove bacterial colonies from agar. We used pippette tips.

As avid readers if this thread may remember, I made a two tier cake for my friend's 30th birthday last month.

Well, it's my dad's 60th birthday this weekend so I decided to go one better and make a 3 tier cake. The theme? Jigsaws. He loves them. His catchphrase is "That'd make a cracking jigsaw" anytime he sees a nice photograph. (This cake would also be suitable for a 6 year old)

Oops. Added the same photo twice and at a funny angle. Erm.

I don't know how recent this is, but Sainsburys now have "Cooking bacon" in the Basics range. It's basically the useless bacon joint end lumps - of whatever kinds are lying around (smoked, unsmoked, cured, whatever), scooped up and shrink-wrapped.

I bought some.

Great work on the cake, Ange! My wife did a two-tier christening cake for someone at the weekend and was a nervous wreck for days, so I have first hand experience of how difficult those kind of cakes can be.

I helpfully ate the offcuts with the leftover chocolate ganache.

looks Awesome Ange!! Good stuff

Cooking bacon is AWESOME.

That looks great ange! Did you fit the pieces together painfully?

They sell bacon here, but only on the meat counter it looks like, it's a normal bit of bacon with the streaky bit attached at the back. Best of both worlds.

Thanks for your kind words folks



Yes I did! I rolled out a piece of plain white fondant icing, cut coloured pieces out using a cookie cutter, stuck them together on top and then put the icing over the cake. Simple! (Haha!)

Christmas duck experiment has commenced. Interesting times!

Christmas duck tastes amazing, and the breast tip we tried wasn't too dry. Its in the fridge until after house viewing tomorrow lunchtime, after which pulling and potting can be done.

American chocolate is so much better than uk chocolate. Why is this?

Wrong.

WTF? American chocolate isn't even classed as chocolate.

Dude, American chocolate is fucking appaling.

What they all said. American chocolate is horrific and an abomination. The only part that is good is Reese's peanut butter cups.

American chocolate tastes like wax.

The closest thing we have in the UK is if you buy the cheapest chocolate advent calendar you can find and then put it in a cupboard in your grandparents house where they store mothballs and WD40.

After about two years you have an American Chocolate substitute.

You're all wrong wrong wrong.

Christmas duck is fucking unbelievably awesome. it's had to be put in the freezer so it stands a chance of surviving til Christmas. Well pleased I threw a 7 quid duck at the idea.

Boil 400ml of gammon cooking liquor* with 100ml red wine, 50ml white wine, 100ml red wine vinegar, 2tbsp mushroom ketchup, 1tbsp salt, 1 packed cup brown sugar, 1tsp smoked paprika, pinch nutmeg, small pinch ground cloves til sugar dissolves.

Transfer to slow cooker on low adding a piece of cinnamon bark, 1/2tsp mustard seeds, small bag mixed raisins, currants, sultanas, 160g dried cranberries, half a lemon, roughly chopped shallots and a couple of mild chillis.

Remove legs and wings of duck. Cut out spine. Split along breastbone. Add all to slow cooker and top up with boiling water. Leave for 4 hours, turn off and leave for 12 hours til cool.

Remove duck. Skin and remove meat from bone. lightly shred meat.

Remove cinnamon and lemon from sauce. Blitz. Boil and reduce to 1/3 volume. Add meat, return to boil, remove from heat, leave to cool. Portion and freeze.

* yeah, had some knocking about. Slow cooked a gammon joint with white wine, pepper, bay, garlic,
Mustard seeds, carrot,onion, celery. Removed gammon and veg, reduced and strained liquor to broth-like level.

It tastes different because they put stuff in to stop it from melting in the higher temperatures.
It tastes worse though, fool.