My Irish grandmother – one of the finest cooks you could wish to meet – only ever owned two whisks. One was an ordinary balloon whisk and the other was a hand operated eggbeater that you worked by cranking a handle.
These were used mainly for eggs and cake mixes. For everything else she used either a wooden spoon or a fork, which probably explains why the muscles in her forearm could lay on a switch with tear-jerking force.
Nothing much has changed in my kitchen. The main difference is that the eggbeater I use is powered by electricity and has three different working speeds. But the principle is exactly the same.
I also own a Braun hand blender that I have come to regard as a magic wand. In fact, if the kitchen caught on fire, that is probably the one thing I would choose to rescue above all others. It comes with a number of attachments that are useful for chopping herbs, grinding spices and even whisking cream and eggs.
If you haven’t already got one I suggest you get down to your local store today, cash in hand.
Using a Whisk
Yes, I know, they make your wrist ache. You can solve that by using the electric ones for just about everything. Problems arise only when whisking small amounts.
I get round that by using a flat whisk. It looks a lot like a spoon, except that the end of it is a wire mesh. They come in different sizes and you probably need two – one medium-sized and one that is not much bigger than a teaspoon.
You will find this type of whisk invaluable when it comes to restoring sauces that have separated or when beating some liquid thickener into your gravy.
In fact, just about any kind of liquid disaster can be restored simply by using the right whisk. Even those lumps of flour which have failed to cook and are floating around messily can be made to behave themselves by using the magic wand.
It’s also great for creating soups on-the-fly. No need to transfer the hot liquid to a liquidiser and thereby redecorate the kitchen as it flies out through holes you never even realized were there.
Simply stick the wand in the liquid, keep its head below the surface, and run at high speed. What could be simpler than that?
Using an Eggbeater
This will mix your batters, beat your eggs for omelets, whisk your egg whites for meringues, and do 1001 other jobs including preparing the perfect soufflé.
I also use mine to whip cream and prepare egg liaison sauces such as mayonnaise and hollandaise. I do that because I can control the final texture by varying the speed at which I use the whisk.
It’s all a question of how much air you introduce into the mixture and the size of the bubbles so introduced. That’s not something you need to even begin to think about at this stage.
However, if you feel like it, you could experiment with a carton of cream. Divided into three separate bowls, each amount can be whipped at a different speed so that you can see the different results you get.
You could also do the same thing with three egg whites.
Incidentally, don’t look for miracles. What this will tell you is at what speed to use the whisk in future to achieve the result you want.
Once again, there is no need to spend huge amounts of money. The whisks I have described will do everything for you that far more expensive items may not even be able to achieve at all.
Finally, I can’t emphasize enough that gadgets, however sophisticated, will not turn anyone into a good cook. As a matter of fact, by the time you have assembled them, disassembled them and washed up all the bits and pieces, they won’t have saved you much time or labor either.
All you really need for cooking excellence is a genuine enthusiasm for what you are trying to achieve. Passion, in other words. The rest will come.
