My pesto came out okay, but it wasn't as emulsified and creamy as it should have been, and it was more than a small chore to make it. I'd tap relentlessly while making very little progress, and the high-pitched clanging of the pestle against the mortar would quickly drive me crazy. Only later, when I invested in other mortars and pestles, did the shortcomings of that ceramic one become fully clear.
First, the pestle on my particular ceramic set was narrow relative to the size of the mortar's bowl. This made it much less effective, requiring more strikes and movements to crush the food properly, and leaving way too much space for all of that food to escape to. Its narrow shape also made it act more like a pool cue than an implement for crushing things: With each strike, the food would shoot out to the sides, often still whole.
Ceramic is also a challenging material for many mortar and pestle tasks in the kitchen. It's very hard, like stone, but also more brittle. Where it should excel at crushing tough ingredients, it doesn't, because the force required could crack the ceramic.
For this article, I compared three large mortars and pestles: the ceramic one that has failed me for so long, a Thai granite mortar and pestle, and a Mediterranean marble mortar with an olivewood pestle.
Here are my favorites of the three. With both parts made of rock-solid granite, the Thai mortar and pestle is literally a heavy hitter, and arguably the most versatile type of large mortar and pestle you can own.
Its heft and weight, especially when combined with the stone-on-stone action that the all-granite build provides, make it ideal for one of its intended uses: making a Thai curry paste.
The large stone pestle can break down leathery dried-chili skin and tough seeds, and bust apart the fibers in some of the tougher aromatic vegetables, like galangal and makrut lime leaves. Because the inside of the mortar bowl and the pestle head aren't polished, they have slightly abrasive surfaces that also make them good for grinding. This advantage is particularly apparent when you're grinding dry spices, which the Thai mortar and pestle did better than the other varieties that I tested.
In a pinch, you can also use this type of mortar and pestle for pesto and related sauces, though it doesn't do quite as good a job as the Mediterranean mortar and pestle recommended below. The granite pestle head is fairly large, but not quite large enough to break down tender basil's more delicate fibers as quickly and effectively as the Mediterranean wooden pestle. In my tests, the Thai mortar and pestle yielded a slightly stringier pesto than its Mediterranean counterpart, though the results were still good, and much better than what emerges from most food processors.
It's also worth noting that the Thai granite mortar and pestle doesn't generate the shearing forces necessary for forming a really good emulsion; this, again, is related to the pestle's slightly smaller size. This means your pesto may not come out quite as creamy or you'll work harder and longer to get it there , and you'll have a much harder time forming a mayonnaise or aioli in it.
One more downside: The Thai granite pestle is heavy, which means your arm will feel more fatigued more quickly. Maybe that's a good thing if you're looking for creative ways to sneak some extra exercise into your life, but it's a challenge you should know about before committing to this design.
In the south of France, Italy, and other Mediterranean regions, marble mortars with wooden pestles often made of olivewood are quite common. It's next to impossible to find this variety in US stores, unless you get lucky and find one at an antiques shop or estate sale. They can, however, be ordered online. I bought mine through an Italian vendor on Etsy , and it's an object of pure beauty. More importantly, it excels at making pesto and similar sauces, as well as emulsified sauces like mayonnaise and aioli.
Before electric mixers and blenders, a mortar and pestle was often used to make these sauces. It may be surprising to learn that you can make an emulsified sauce in a mortar just by pounding it with the blunt head of the pestle, but indeed it is possible: Where a whisk's head of wires breaks up oil into tiny droplets, dispersing it in the water medium for a proper emulsion, a mortar and pestle utilizes shearing forces to achieve similar results. Even pesto sauce, when made well, is emulsified, for a creamy, not oily, texture.
What makes this particular mortar and pestle well suited to that job is largely the pestle design itself—the wooden pestle here is big and round, offering lots of surface area under which to shear the oil. That large pestle size is also what makes this tool so good at smashing more tender ingredients, like garlic, pine nuts, and basil leaves. With just a few quick strikes, the garlic is smashed to bits, the pine nuts are crumbled, and the basil leaves are bruised and shredded.
A smaller pestle head would require many more strikes to achieve the same result. What's nice, too, is that the wooden pestle is softer than stone though olivewood is still plenty hard , which means you don't have to suffer through a series of loud, high-pitched stone-on-stone cracks when you're smacking at thin basil leaves.
The whole experience is just a lot more pleasant. For these kinds of sauces, this mortar and pestle outclasses the Thai granite one on all fronts. It's quicker, more effective, and less tiring to use. Where this mortar and pestle fails, though, is at breaking down tougher ingredients, such as the ones that go into a Thai curry paste. The large wooden pestle just doesn't have the same intense striking force that the Thai granite one does, which means it struggles to grind dense, hard spices as finely, let alone produce a curry paste that's properly paste-like.
On top of that, the marble is more prone to staining, as you can see in the below photo. The Thai red chilies left their mark though these stains eventually faded with subsequent use. For this reason, the Thai granite mortar and pestle is my overall top pick: It works better as an alternative for making pesto than the Mediterranean one does as an alternative for making curry pastes.
But, and this is a big but , if you know you won't make curry pastes with your mortar and pestle, the Mediterranean one is my top pick for you. You can always use a smaller marble or granite mortar and pestle to grind spices, and this one does the absolute best job with pestos, mayos, and the like. It's by far the most pleasurable to use.
You can buy one from this seller on Etsy. They come in a variety of sizes, though I got t he 24cm model. It's not cheap, and neither is the shipping, but it'll last you a lifetime and make an amazing family heirloom for future generations. Small mortars and pestles, of about one cup in volume, have many fewer uses in the kitchen, but that doesn't mean they're not an essential tool. They're less versatile, but no less important. Above all else, they're good for grinding whole spices into a powder.
This may sound hard to believe, but I often prefer a small mortar and pestle for grinding spices over a dedicated electric spice grinder. In the time it takes to get a spice grinder out of my cabinet, unwind its cord, plug it in, load it up, grind my spices, completely empty it, and then clean it always a drag! I use a spice grinder these days only if I'm making a very large batch of ground spices that would take more time to do by hand.
This review was last updated in September If you have any questions, suggestions for future reviews or spot anything that has changed in price or availability please get in touch at goodfoodwebsite immediate. How do you grind your spices? Subscriber club Reader offers More Good Food. Sign in. Back to Recipes Pumpkin recipes Butternut squash See more.
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How do you avoid purchasing a useless mortar that ends up becoming a decorative flower pot? The first and easiest thing to look for in a mortar and pestle is the size.
With size, you want the mortar to be large enough to handle multiple ingredients. And since you have a large mortar, you will also want a large pestle that is long enough to avoid hitting your hand on the side of the mortar while using and wide enough at the bottom of the pestle to strike the ingredients instead of just pushing them around the bowl. If you plan on using the mortar for single ingredients as a spice grinder, this larger size will be unnecessary.
You might just need a small mortar on hand for quick and easy grinding of single ingredients and a larger one in the cabinet for recipes with multiple ingredients.
The shape of the mortar should be a round bowl shape with no corners at the bottom. Any corner will make it difficult to grind ingredients if they can hide from the pestle. On the outside of the mortar bowl, some mortars will have bumps or other features to help with holding mortar and you pound with the pestle.
What the mortar and pestle is made out of is very important to its usefulness. For general use, the best option would be to get one made from a solid stone material like granite or marble. These stone mortars and pestles will use their heavy weight to break down the ingredients and they will also be able to withstand years of pounding and grinding without needing to ever replace it.
As an additional material, some mortars will have a silicone or rubber bottom. The most versatile mortar and pestle you can buy is the Thai-style granite with both the mortar and pestle being made from solid granite.
If you plan on making any type of paste or curry, this is the tool for you. The heavy weight will break down dried chilis, ginger and galangal roots, and any type of leaf. Because of the unpolished inside of the bowl and end of the pestle, this mortar can also handle simple grinding of any spice.
The 3-cup capacity will be able to handle most recipes you want and the heavy weight can crush any ingredient. The cork base dampens the noise you create while pounding and stops the mortar from slipping and sliding around on your countertop. Also, the pestle is longer than usual to keep your hand away from the edge of the mortar while using it.
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