Me & My ULTIMATE Gadget – The Thermomix

This is it!  The post you have ALL (yes, all three of you) been waiting for!  My rave review about the Thermomix.

What is the THERMOMIX

It is advertised to be the world’s most advanced kitchen appliance and I couldn’t agree more.  It chops, beats, mixes, whips, grinds, kneads, minces, grates, juices, blends, heats, stirs, steams and weighs food.  Apart from deep-frying and baking, there is little else that the machine can’t do.  Since we bought the Thermomix, I have given away our super Kenwood mixer, rice cooker and ice cream maker, and I no longer use my kitchen scale.  I no longer have to chop garlic (though I still do it sometimes because I find it very therapeutic.  :)), and I hardly use pots on the stove to steam our food.

How I Came To Own It

Back in February, a friend forwarded me an email she read on a forum from a full-time working mom with 5 children who lives in a 3-storey house and manages sans maid.  Here in Singapore!  In the email she shares how she manages various household tasks, but the one thing that intrigued me was her mention of a gadget called the Thermomix.  I started looking it up online, watched a bunch of videos on youtube and other websites, read reviews then after consulting with (read: begging) TC, we decided to go for it!  There was a bit of urgency also, since Thermomix’s closest distributor is in Malaysia and TC was going to KL the next week and we decided it would be easiest and cheapest if he carried it back instead of having them send it here.

About a month ago, I became a Thermomix representative with the Malaysian distributor.  I’m almost embarrassed to say it.  😛  But I did it so that I could help some fellow homeschool moms buy it.  In the last two weeks, I have sold 4 machines without even trying, because the Thermomix really sells itself.  But er … that’s not why I’m blogging about it.  🙂

The Price

The one thing I took a while to find out while I was surfing the web, was the price.  And since it is the first thing people tend to ask, I thought I should tell you right off the bat.  🙂  The Thermomix costs RM 4898.  That’s Malaysian Ringgit.  If you pick it up practically anywhere in Malaysia (we had ours sent to the hotel TC was staying in), that’s what it will cost you.  If you have it sent to your home in Singapore, it will cost RM 5465.  The additional costs are to pay for courier charges and GST.  In Singapore Dollars at current money-changer exchange rates, that would be S$2130 if collected in Malaysia and S$2376 if sent to your home in Singapore. 

If you have gotten over the shocker of a price tag, read on for the five reasons why I think it’s worth every dollar, and then some.  😀

5 Reasons We Love the Thermomix

(I started out wanting to go to 10 reasons, but it was looking like I would never get this post published!  So 5 now, and maybe more later.  :))

1. ANYONE can cook! 

Cooking is literally child’s play with the Thermomix.  This must be the best part of owning a Thermomix.  My kids can cook!  My HUSBAND can cook!  TC cooked his first meal EVER in the Thermomix right after we brought it home – rice, stir-fried vegetables and stir-fried ginger chicken!  YUM!  And he went on to make man tou (steamed bread), kaya, and the biggest Thermomix project ever … REMPAH!  (Chilli paste.)

Even little Nathalie makes fabulous mashed potatoes, (I peeled and cut the potatoes for her but she did the rest) and potato and leek soup. 

Alethea has cooked tuna pasta, pei dan chok (century egg porridge), made banana, pecan and date bread (you make the dough in the Thermomix, then pour it out into a loaf pan to bake in the oven), a variety of soups, lemonade, ice cream and many other dishes.  Last night, she made cauliflower soup for dinner without any assistance!

It’s child’s play because the recipes are so easy to follow, everything is weighed directly into the machine (there is a built-in scale), the ingredients are very simple to prepare because the machine does most of the processing.  For example, you don’t have to pre chop garlic and onions because the machine does it for you. There are three essential parts to each step – temperature, time and speed.  And the cookbook tells you exactly what to choose.  When the machine beeps to signal the end of the time, you simply move on to the next step.  So all you’re really doing is pressing buttons!

2. Saves money

We use to buy grated Parmesean cheese (which is more expensive and doesn’t taste as nice), but now with the Thermomix, we buying the cheese in wedges, because all you need to do is break it into pieces, throw it in, pulverise it for 3 or 4 seconds and you’ll have perfectly grated cheese!  Also I used to buy icing sugar for the occasional recipe which calls for it.  Now I put in castor sugar, pulverise and out comes icing sugar.  No waste.  I have also started making our own mayonnaise and it is amazingly cheap to do.  The main ingredients are sunflower oil, an egg, vinegar and mustard.  I used to buy chicken stock in cubes and in liquid form but I have recently made my own vegetable and meat stock concentrates and no longer need those.  Best of all, I know exactly what went into the stock concentrates I made so I know what’s seasoning my food!

We make lemonade, smoothies from frozen bananas we couldn’t finish, pancake mix, pizza dough, ice cream … the list goes on!  And because it is so very easy, I now make my own bread once a week. 

That said, I have had many a skeptic tell me that 2000 dollars can buy a lot of lemonade.  🙂  I have no convincing response to that.

3. Turns you into a professional cook, thanks to idiot-proof recipes!

The method for cooking stir-fried chicken with ginger reads like this …

• Marinate chicken with seasoning, set aside. 
• Place garlic and ginger into TM bowl to chop.  6 seconds, speed 6
• Add oil to saute until fragrant.  3 mins, 100˚C, speed 1
• Add the seasoned drumsticks to cook.  Add Chinese wine and thicken with corn flour and water in the last 30 seconds.  17 mins, 100˚C, speed reverse soft

Easy peasy!  And you get perfect results each time, no matter who’s cooking.

4. No mess cooking, and cleaning

With the Thermomix, everything is contained within the pot.  You even measure ingredients right into the pot with the help of the built-in scale.  So there is very little mess (unless of course you tend to spill while pouring, in which case I really can’t help you.  :D).  You don’t have to use a variety of bowls or plates or measuring cups and spoons to measure or hold pre-weighed ingredients, so there’s less to wash.  Whether you’re frying, or boiling or steaming, everything stays within the pot and it never boils over because of precise temperature control.  Your countertop stays clean!  No oil splatters!

Even better, the pot practically cleans itself!  After cooking, just put half a litre of water in, together with some detergent if it’s oily, turn on the machine to speed 6 for 30 seconds, empty it, and all that’s required is a quick rinse.  If you have to take the machine apart to wash, there are very few parts involved.  Cover, pot, blade and base.  And everything is dishwasher friendly, so if I have space in the dishwasher at the end of the day, I simply throw it in.  The only times I have to take it apart are after I cook porridge and make bread dough, because some of it invariably gets stuck under the blade.  But otherwise, the quick rinse is all that’s needed.

5. Expand your repertoire with just one machine!

Because the recipes are just too easy to follow, I find myself making loads of things I wouldn’t otherwise have tried.  Sorbet, mayonnaise, vegetable stock concentrate, kaya, rempah (chilli paste), sambal belachan (more chilli), pizza dough (used to buy ready-made bases but not anymore), cream of mushroom soup, bread, etc.  The Thermomix has a huge following, so there are many recipe sites online, like www.forumthermomix.com, so you’ll never run out of things to try.

The Thermomix is a multi-functional machine, so you don’t have to take out a lot of different gadgets to cook.  For example when Alethea made cauliflower soup last night, she weighed in the cauliflower florets, poured 300 grams of water in without needing to use a measuring cup, measured oil and butter in using the scale, then when it was cooked, she simply turned up the speed to blend it into right consistency.  When we used to make it previously, we would cook it on the stove-top, stirring occasionally to prevent it from sticking to the bottom and burning, ladle it carefully into the blender (which we had to take off the storeroom shelf and out of the box), blend it (with care because you have to hold the top of the blender down to avoid splatters), pour it back into the pot before re-heating and adding cream.  Now cauliflower soup takes us 20 mins to make and almost all that time it is unattended!

So there you have it.  My RAVE review of the Thermomix.  🙂  Happy Cooking!