Hand blenders - Useful kitchen tool or total fad?

[Celt]

I have a hankering for a hand blender, with the mini processor attachment type idea. But I have a slight feeling that it would just sit in the cupboard and become a relic quite quickly. I make a lot of pasta and oriental dishes. So think I would use if for pesto and thai curry pastes if I had one. Looking at YouTube videos and there are countless chefs singing the praises of them. Gordon Ramsey in particular with the Bamix, was very obviously advertising the product.

Does anyone here have one and use it regularly?

Looking at;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrew-James-Powerful-Proc...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bosch-MSM6300GB-Hand-Blend...

[marshalla]

Stick blenders ? Great for soups and sauces, never use mine for anything else.

[MrsFallon]

I have a Braun Stick Blender and I personally never find I get the finished soup/sauce to be of a smooth consistency.

What I am currently using and I love it to pieces is this:

http://www.juicemaster.com/shop/blenders-smoothie-...

Breville do what I believe to be an identical one.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/2...

The only comment I would make is that it only does about 500ml at a time, but the finished soup/sauce is very smooth. I must order some of the spare bottles as they will be really very useful.

[caiss4]

Used to have a hand blender but it didn't have the chopper attachments. Every time I used it I recall having to clean down the kitchen as soup etc flew all over the place. Chucked it out. Anything that needs blending now goes in a proper blender.

The chopper attachment is useful though but I'd just go for the mini-chopper by itself and save money http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kenwood-CH180-Mini-Chopper...

This is a really useful kitchen gadget if you're in to making curry paste and other low volume blended mixes.

[Shaw Tarse]

marshalla said:

Stick blenders ? Great for soups and sauces, never use mine for anything else.

I've just got a cheapo version to use for this.

[PositronicRay]

I use one, stick for sauces and soups, attachments for pesto and stuff when I can't be bothered to get the food processor put.

[Hoover.]

I have a Braun Multiquick 3........ which has

a blender - used occasionaly,

a chopping/blending attachment & chamber - used a lot , for making pestos, curry pastes and dressings.....

a whisk attachment - useless, and also the operator makes a mess using it

[sc0tt]

Just used mine for a pizza sauce. Use it once a week.

[HTP99]

I use one once or twice a week for curry sauces, it's a damn site easier to use and clear up after than using a blender.

It's only a basic thing, I've had it for years can't have cost more than £15.

[Piglet]

I've got a basic cheapy stick blender which I use a couple of times a week for soups, blitzing sauces etc. I've also got a (?) Braun posh stick blender with all sorts of chopping attachments which lives in a drawer and never gets used.

I find the attachments too small to be of much use, if I'm only chopping small quantities I use a knife rather than faff around getting the Braun out. If I'm doing larger quantities I use the food processor attachment on the Kenwood Chef.

I'd buy a cheap one to blitz things with and don't worry about attachments.

[mattdaniels]

I have a Breville VHB011. It's useful for whisking sauces and batters, I get less use from the chopper. It only has two speeds, the faster one can make A LOT of mess

One thing I would say its its quite heavy / tiring to use a lot, so whatever model you consider try and go into a shop and get a feel of it if you can.

[Celt]

Excellent thanks. My mum has a food processor and it lies beside the popcorn maker and sandwhch maker in a cupboard and are eternally ignored! I fancied the blender attachment as it is easier to store and can just put it in the dishwasher rather than having to get out a large food processor for making a tiny bit of pesto.

[Mobile Chicane]

A stick blender is extremely useful, imo. Just blend in the pot, and rinse under the tap. No glopping hot liquids into blenders and the like.

However I do also have a full-size blender for crushing ice and making cocktails, plus a small grinder/blender for spices and pastes.

IMO the full size 'food processor' is the least useful kitchen gadget of all. By the time you've got everything out, done what you need to do, and washed it up again, it's far quicker to do it by hand.

[djglover]

Highly useful tool, ours is used for soup, pancake / yorkshire pud batter, smoothies etc so in daily use almost. No way a fad

[rdjohn]

Being rather old in the tooth, our first kitchen tool was a traditional blender, (used mainly for soups) followed by a simple food processor. These have both been replaced over the years with state of the art stuff, but spend most of their time in the cupboard. We are now in the market for our 4th stick blender with attachments and I can confidently say that it is the one we use the most. Probably for 85% of tasks.

The last one we bought was a Bosch and it has hardly been used, it just has never lived up to expectations, the attachment is too small and the stick struggles to blend a pineapple smoothie properly. Our 1st and 2nd were both Braun, the 2nd with a turbo button. This one lives on the kitchen worktop as a stick blender for making smoothies a few times every week, but the attachment is also used regularly for chopping onions, breadcrumbs etc.

Starting-out again, we would definitely buy a stick blender first now, I guess it does simple tasks well and can be cleaned easily, the big blender is very effective but a faff to use; the food processor is just way too complicated and a pain to clean afterwards.

We are normally cooking for two, so I suppose if you were cooking for a big family, then a decent food processor would be more important.

Edited by rdjohn on Sunday 4th January 21:01

[Matt_N]

Ours gets used a couple of times a week, I don't like chuky pasta sauces so I blend them to a smooth sauce, I also make a huge vat of soup every other weekend or so, so it's handy to just stick the blender in the pot and whizz it up.

[manic47]

I've got that Braun and it gets used quite a lot (mainly the chopper attachment) as it's far easier to get out/clean etc. than the food processor.

[dapprman]

I use one occasionally - find it useful for smaller quantities, or blitzing in the pan. Had two mid range ones (a Breville and a Moulinex I think) and neither lasted. Was recomended an el-cheapo from Tesco - went one up and got the one with the small blitzer pot - had it for about 5 years now and works like a charm.

[soad]

Easy to use, easy to clean. The easy answer is YES!

Across the pond, it's called an immersion blender.

[dazwalsh]

i use mine a lot, its a battery powered one, think breville make it, and its brilliant for everything from making breadcrumbs to whizzing up omlette/scrambled egg mixture and pasta sauces.