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Immersion blenders and food mills. Anybody used them for sauce?

capsaicin

capsaicin

I read somewhere on the forum about using a food mill and not de-seeding peppers because the mill, well, milled everything. Anyone have experience?

Also curious about immersion blenders in the cook pot instead of transferring sauce to blender and back. It is both a pain and each transfer steals sauce from me and I'm greedy to keep the sauce of my labors. I had heard that even the industrial ones bogged down with thicker sauces.

Any input is appreciated.

Cheers.
 
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Hi Capsaicin,

Hope this isn't too much info- but-

I have and use an immersion/stick blender and also a regular "margharita-style" blender.

There are many different brands and styles of both of the blenders mentioned.


just my person observations here-
Stick blenders don't work so well on raw ingredients. If the sauce has been simmered for a while, hit it with the stick blender, it will blend up the sauce pretty good but the sauce will still have bits of sauce and whole seeds in the sauce.

If you wan to use a food mill, cook the sauce first, blender it somehow, then use the mill to remove all the seeds and pulp.

sorry, I'm still having editing issues, so didn't get other info in there, but the info is out therE~~~~~
 
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I personally blend all to a pureed, liquidfied state before they hit the kettle. I did the cook, blend, cook method a few times and realized by tweaking the recipe the right way it was not needed. I will admit each recipe required different tweaks to maintain the desired flavor. Customers are happy, but more importantly I still love it. WIN!!!!
 
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I covet a food mill, I have used one. It will keep the seeds out, which may be bitter. You can always blend some back in later. But you will have easier work if you split and mostly seed. You have to keep scraping it out if you have too much stuff in in. Since I don't own a food mill, I use a mesh strainer and a spoon.

Can't get a really smooth puree with an immersion blender, but convenient and some are better than others.

I have a 30 year old ostersizer blender, still works a charm. You might want to use dental floss before the next jar of strawberry dacquiris ( or not)
 
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Thank you all for responding. I sort of figured a) I wouldn't be able to keep the old blender out of it and b) I will have to remove seeds on potentially thousands of fresh habs.

After reading your posts, I still like the idea of using a food mill for the last pass through but the immersion blender may have been a pie in the sky for totally eliminating the old school blender from my lab.

Salsa lady, that sounds about right for processing the sauce. I guess I'll just add a mill or straining segment to my current process.

Justaguy, very interesting. You liquefy your sauce raw and cook without re-blending? Any problems with separation? Also I do tend to pack that blender a little too full of hot sauce, so half full is a good idea.

LeJazz Hot- I get most of my seeds out in the beginning, but was looking for a way to oust outliers, so I like the idea of using the mesh strainer in between blender and final heating. I personally don't mind seeds in sauce, but the little suckers can clog the opening of a sauce bottle and can be a touch bitter.

Cheers.
 
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Just adding my 2 cents here but I've gtone through 4 blenders over the past year. Finally realized that the ones you get at Walmart, Target, etc arn't going to be up to handling the thicker sauces and bought a Professional grade one rated at 1100 watts and it'll darn near blend the seeds to nothing. I only have 1 sauce that I really even bother removing seeds from and that one has Rocoto peppers in it which have black seeds. Also I've found that seed removal for me doesn't require a food mill. after teh last blending I pour the sauce through a fine mesh sieve (sp?) and work through the pulp that I want for consistency.

Happy Memorial Day Y'all
RM
 
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