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This week has been hand held Blender Week at Kamikaze Cookery Towers, so I thought I’d share a couple of tips that didn’t make it into the episode.

The two blenders we tested at first were horrendous, but that doesn’t mean that all cheap blenders are crap. I use a £15 one from the godlike Grays of George Street, which has never caused me any problems. So if you don’t want to drop ninety quid on an all-performing ultrablender, or a hundred quid on one with Gordon Ramsay grinning at you from the box, you’ve still got options.

We discussed in the episode that more power is not necessarily better. Blending was traditionally done by hand. You want something that will automate that process and save your carpal tunnels, not something that can reduce everysing in zer vorld to pulp. It’s not a contest. Be gentle.

Next, the beaker. Most blenders come with a dinky wee plastic container that you can blend things in, or so they claim. In my opinion these are best shunned, ignored, spurned, and thrown away. The whole point of having a stick blender is that you can stick it into things and blend them (which is another reason why they’re called “stick blenders”). Use the biggest pot you have available, which will help reduce spatter, or whichever pot your ingredients are already in, which will help to reduce washing-up. Use the provided beaker only if you’re having a party and you’ve run out of proper glasses.

Then there’s technique. Things are going to splash if you work at the top of the liquid, so don’t do that unless you have to. If you’re making a soup out of large chunks of vegetables, you might have to come down from the top a few times at first to break them up. After that, leave the business end of the blender on the base of the pot.

If you’re making a foam or a froth, you’re trying to get air into the mixture, and for that you need to be near the surface of the liquid, near where the air is. The proper name for the technique used to do this is “drawing up”, or, as it’s described at Kamikaze Cookery Towers, “you’ve gotta wank it”⁰. Hold the blender upright at the bottom of the container, start it blending, then gently pull it upwards towards the top of the liquid. Stop when it’s getting too close to the rim of the container. Repeat.

Make judicious use of the pulse button.

Finally, don’t over-blend. Once you’ve reached the consistency you’re looking for, stop blending. It’s a simple suggestion, but it’s an easy one to overlook. Over-blending things is the best way to turn food into glue.

Also finally, do not use the blender as a massage device. Although there’s probably an appropriate attachment you can buy for the Bamix uberblender. That damn thing does everything.

⁰ An allusion to the Wankel Rotary Engine, which is reminiscent of the rotary action of the blender blade, and also to the piston-like action used in the drawing up technique. Why? What did you think we meant?