I don’t know where I’d be without my mortar and pestle. This is one item in my kitchen that gets used at almost every meal and makes so many difficult things so easy!
The mortar is usually a deep bowl shape, so that the things you are crushing don’t jump out. The pestle is a blunt ended stick that is used to bash and crush things in the mortar. As with many other kitchen gadgets, the mortar and pestle come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes. Mine is a very heavy – at least a few kilos – lump of black stone. I would recommend a heavy one for most uses as you can get quite vigorous and the weight stops the mortar from sliding all over the place. However a trip to an asian supermarket will reveal a whole range of delicate little ones too. These are used for grinding spices among other things.
Cleaning your mortar and pestle
I have seen others recommending that if you have only used dry ingredients in your mortar, you can remove tastes and odors by filling the mortar with salt when not in use. Personally, I prefer to give it a quick scrub with detergent and hot water.
Uses
The most common use for my mortar and pestle is for grinding spices. Particularly for curries, which require a range of spices to be dry fried and ground together. Anyone who has ground up toasted cumin seeds will agree that the fumes released can be pretty potent!
I also use it for mashing up cloves of garlic as an alternative to cutting them. I find that if I am doing this, adding a good pinch of salt makes it much easier to grind – the same can be said of any wet item that you are grinding.
I often make a quick marinade for steak or vegetables to be roasted by mashing together a few cloves of garlic, salt, peppercorns, a small sprig of fresh rosemary, and sometimes a little paprika. Once this is a fine pulp I pour in a good glug of olive oil, stir together, and coat my ingredients with the mixture. This is just sensational on a good T-bone that is headed for the char griller!