Why People Don’t Use Their Food Strainer Sauce Maker

I have two theories of why people don’t use their food strainers.  Either they don’t know how, or they hate cleaning it up afterwords.  Both excuses are legit, but easy to overcome!

Using a food strainer is relatively simple.  Food goes in the top, gets smushed, and comes out the bottom.  The problem is that many people don’t cook things that take advantage of this tool.  The most common uses for a food mill are tomato sauce, apple sauce, jams, jellies, and pie fillings.  If you’ve ever tried to make raspberry jam without a food strainer, you know how much of a pain in the ass it is!  Instead, put the berries in the top of your food strainer sauce maker and let it do the work for you!

There really isn’t a trick to making cleanup of your food strainer easier.  Instead, it’s a matter of cleaning as you go.  Once the you’re finished with the strainer part, bang it against a trash can on both sides to knock out as much of the pulp as you can.  Cleaning the grinder will take a brush, or a lot of water pressure, to get all of the junk out of it.

Or better yet, get the kids to do it!

A common problem that people run into is that when they make things like tomato sauce from scratch, they begin to hate the taste of canned sauce.  This is only natural, and should be embraced!  Your pallet is becoming refined!  This leads to one of two outcomes; either you never make pasta or pizza, or you use your food strainer each time.  You now have an excellent excuse to break out this awesome kitchen gadget!

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How Does A Food Mill Strainer Work?

A food mill strainer works by grinding and smashing food that goes into the top, and separating the liquid that comes out from the pulp that’s left behind.  The small teeth inside of the mill section work to process just about any type of food that you can throw at it.  Beneath the grinder section is a finely perforated metal cone that works to catch all of the pulp that is leftover from the liquid.

These aren’t the easiest kitchen gadgets to use.  The knob that you have to turn to process the food can be tough to work with.  Most of the time, you are working to keep the entire food mill stable with one hand, while you turn the knob with the other.  While it is a lot of work, there are aren’t other tools that can do the same job, so it’s a necessary evil!

What Are Food Mill Strainers Used For?

The most common use for a food mill is for making tomato sauce from scratch.  After the tomatoes have been blanched, they go right into the top of the mill.  Run them through and you have sauce that comes through and crushed tomatoes in the strainer.

They also make apple sauce, separate the seeds and skin of berries, and grind up other veggies to get their juice.

Who Are Food Mill Strainers Designed For?

I would venture a guess to say that 80% of all food mills are used in restaurants.  Most people don’t make their own tomato sauce!  The other 20% that live in people’s homes are for those that are avid cooks.  Average cooks won’t get a lot of use out of a food mill because it is so much easier to buy everything in cans than it is to make it.

Although, they do make much more sense than an electric food strainer!

A food mill strainer is a very cool kitchen gadget, but many people just don’t have a need for it.  If you are looking to make your food from scratch, and have the time to accompany that, these are designed for you.  If so, invite me over for dinner!

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An electric food strainer works like a food mill.  It grinds up whatever you put into it and it separates the liquid from the pulp, similar to a kitchen stainless steel juicer.  When you put food into it, it sucks everything down and sends what you want one way, and catches the stuff that you don’t.  Most strainers have a plunger that you push into the mill to help everything get down in there.  This seems like a fantastic invention, but most people will never use them because they are a pain in the butt to clean!

Also, unlike a food mill, these things are dangerous!  If a finger, neck tie, or anything else falls into the mill while it’s operating, you aren’t going to get it back!  Treat this tool like you would a paper shredder, it’s not really that dangerous on the surface, but a small mistake can lead to huge problems.

What Are Electric Food Strainers For?

The most common use for an electric food strainer is for making a lot of tomato sauce at once.  After the tomatoes have been blanched, they can be tossed right into the strainer and it will turn out tomato sauce.

There are other uses, but you probably won’t have many of them!  If you’re making blackberry and raspberry jam and need to separate the skins and seed from the juice, you can toss all of them into the strainer.  They also make great apple sauce.

Should I Get An Electric Food Strainer?

Unless you run a commercial kitchen, you probably don’t need an electric strainer.  Almost every job that you can do at home can get done with a regular food strainer and a food mill.  They are much cheaper, easier to clean, and lower maintenance than an electric food strainer is.

Obviously, this is a cool gadget, but it’s not very realistic to have for the home cook.  There are a lot of other gadgets that will make a much bigger impact in your kitchen than an electric food strainer will!

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The most common recipes that use food strainers are salad dressings.  How many recipes call for fresh lemon juice?  Most of them!  It’s so often that we squeeze the lemon over the bowl/food processor/blender and one or two seeds will always pop out and land in the dressing.  The absolute easiest way to prevent this is to put your food strainer on top of the bowl and squeeze the lemon into it.  This will catch all of the seeds without you having to worry at all!

Chipotle Red Pepper Mayo

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 tsp. chipotle powder
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp. Kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp. fresh ground pepper

Directions:

1. Put mayo, chipotle, lemon juice, and salt into a medium size mixing bowl.
2. Rough chop bell pepper and run through the food processor until it becomes a fine pulp.
3. With your mesh food strainer on top of the bowl with the other ingredients pour the red pepper pulp into the strainer.  Using the back of a large spoon push out as much juice as possible from the bell pepper, leaving behind the pulp.  Throw out the pulp.
4. Mix everything together, taste, and add more salt and pepper as desired.

You now have the easiest and tastiest mayo that’s perfect for fish and chicken sandwiches!

Easy Blackberry Chocolate Ganache

Use this for decorating cakes, cupcakes, or whip into frosting.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups chopped bittersweet chocolate
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup blackberries

Directions:

1. Put chopped chocolate into a medium size bowl.
2. Put heavy cream in a small sauce pan on the stove on medium-low heat.
3. Carefully watch the cream, at the point when it starts to steam (before boiling) add in the blackberries.
4. As soon as the blackberries/cream mixture begins to boil, pull it from the stove.  Pour the mixture through a mesh food strainer.  Use the back of a large spoon to smash the blackberries into the mesh strainer, releasing all of their juice.  This should be easy since they’re hot.  Throw away the skin and seeds.
5. Mix everything together in the bowl until combined.  Let cool for a few minutes before decorating your cake/cupcakes.

These are just two of the extremely easy and versatile things that you can do with food strainers.  There are thousands more recipes just like this that are waiting for you and your strainer!

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If you’re confused about the difference between a colander and a food strainer, don’t worry many people are.  A colander is what you use to drain pasta in the sink or rinse vegetables.  A food strainer can be used for those things, but will also separate fat from gravy, berry juice from the skin and flesh, strain sauces, and catch lemon juice seeds before they go into your food.  They’re closer related to a cheesecloth than a colander, but does many of the jobs that both do.

The most important element in food strainers are the materials that they’re constructed from.  Having a plastic food strainer might seem like a good idea for saving money, but most people will end up melting it and needing a new one!  Metal is the best choice, and stainless steel is the best of all of the metals.  Painted or ceramic metals are going to rust over time and cause more problems then they’re worth.  Stainless steel might not fit the decor of your kitchen, but it will last as long as your kitchen does so it’s smart to buy it once and never worry about it again.

Most food strainers will have a mesh inside that allows liquid to pass through but catches most of the solids.  Mesh food strainers work great because they’re a bit flexible which allows you to press out liquid more effectively.  Conical food strainers work well for separating veggies scraps from veggie broth and other large applications like that, but are more limited in their uses when compared to the mesh strainers.

When looking for a strainer that will be multifunctional in your kitchen, look for an 8-9 inch stainless strainer with a metal mesh inside.  These will last forever and help you complete your meals in a faster and more elegant fashion!  Each type has its own benefits, but for all around use and quality these are the way to go.

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