“If I ever win the lottery, I’m buying one for each of my siblings.” My friend Hannah is talking to me about a thing called a Thermomix. For more than a year now, she has been evangelising about a kitchen appliance she claims has changed her cooking life.
What exactly does it do? For a start, it is the world’s most powerful blender – at its peak speed of 10,000rpm it goes about as fast as a jet engine’s turbine – but it is “so much more than that”, Hannah explains. The vast array of settings on the Thermomix means it can steam, sauté, chop, mix, mince, grind, knead, weigh, slow cook, emulsify, stir, ferment – yes, it makes yoghurt – whip and even sous vide should you be bothered with that final bit of cheffy carry-on. It does all of this with one blade in one metal jug.
If this is all sounding too good to be true, here comes the rather enormous catch. The yoke costs €1,500. And no, that is not a typo. For that money I’d expect it not just to cook the dinner but lay the table and do the washing up. Still, as the main meal provider in my house, hearing the dreaded words “what’s for dinner?” at least five times a day, my curiosity is well and truly piqued.
I request a trial of the do-it-all appliance for review purposes, and to my surprise and mild terror, the company delivers one in a huge cardboard box. If I was purchasing and not reviewing, at this juncture a Thermomix “adviser”, someone approved by German manufacturer Vorwerk, would be coming to the house to do a demonstration.
One day, at home by myself with no “adviser” present, I open the box. My first impression is that it’s smaller than I imagined, taking up about as much of the kitchen counter as our four-slice toaster. The second thing is how user-friendly and eejit-proof it is. There is an app to download – Cookidoo – containing more than 50,000 Thermomix recipes, including loads of vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free dishes, which have been rated by users. Hannah has warned me only to bother with the five-star recipes of which there are many.
The Cookidoo app is synced up with the Thermomix, so if you create a weekly meal plan, those can be “bookmarked” on the Thermomix’s digital touch screen interface. I decide on beef chilli con carne as my first recipe because I happen to have all of the ingredients. And so it begins.
I push a button and the Thermomix tells me we’re ready to start cooking. It directs me to peel an onion and cut it into quarters. The recipe calls for 150g of onion. The Thermomix has a clever built-in-scales, so when I throw the onion or anything else in, I can see clearly when there’s enough. I quarter red peppers and throw in whole garlic cloves. They all go in the metal jug and then it tells me to turn the dial controlling the internal blade to speed seven.
Immediately, the Thermomix whirrs into life, noisily making short work of the vegetables. When I open the lid, they are well and truly chopped. I press the button that says ‘next’. It tells me to add a tin of tomatoes, chilli flakes, cumin and coriander and set the dial on speed two to sauté for seven minutes. Then it’s whirring, again, more gently, and the kitchen is filled with the smell of onions and peppers gently cooking. I know from the display that this bit will take seven minutes, so I use that time to clear up the chopping board and make a cup of coffee.
Before I know it the Thermomix has made its sonorous bong-bong-bong-bong sound which tells me it has finished that step. I press ‘next’ and I’m told to add beef mince, tomato purée, meat stock paste, sweet chilli sauce and salt, then it cooks and gently stirs for 15 minutes. Next I add the kidney beans, which the machine stirs for a short while and then it’s done. I’ve made chilli, the kitchen is spotless and it didn’t knock a bar out of me. Later, the Thermomix makes perfect steamed rice to go with the chilli.
I am a convert. A Thermominx, if you will. Everything we’re eating is made from scratch, there is less food waste because our shopping is more organised – the app has a shopping list function – while kitchen mess, excess pot washing and drudgery has been more or less eliminated from the dinner routine.
My children say the house is happier “because you are less stressed about cooking”, and they’ve been using it to make cake batters, biscuits and ice cream. My husband makes the porridge in the Thermomix every morning, or scrambled eggs if he fancies a change. We don’t buy peanut butter or mayonnaise anymore, we make our own in the Thermomix.
Not everyone will approve. These are people who won’t be keen to, as the Thermomix motto goes, “take the thinking out of cooking”. For some, finely chopping onions, poking carrots to see if they are done yet and using several pots or pans to make one dinner is a noble, creative pursuit. But for those of us who find cooking a chore, who make silly mistakes while trying to follow recipes or who just want the whole thing to be less of a pain, it’s the perfect kitchen companion.
When my mother comes around for a Thermomix demonstration she is amazed by the mere minutes it takes to whip up a crumble dessert topping and to knead bread dough. As someone who is an excellent home-cook, but was always “terrified” of home-made custard, she is mesmerised by the vanilla-infused, silken, pale yellow creation that emerges from the Thermomix jug after a few minutes.
It may not lay the table for you but it does clean itself, with a ‘pre clean’ function that means you never have to scrub that wonder blade. It can’t do what your air fryer does. It won’t roast your chicken or slow cook a giant leg of lamb. But for practically everything else, Thermomix TM6 – to give the thing its full name – is your woman. (I decided she’s a female appliance, because she takes multitasking to exhilarating new levels.)
I have at least seven storage-hogging appliances including a food mixer, bread maker, electric whisker, juicer and stick blender that are now redundant and will be heading to the charity shop. It has made my cooking life more pleasant not to mention adventurous. And it sparks so much joy.
There is a downside: owners can become like myself and Hannah, no longer able to hold conversations without shoehorning in a Thermomix anecdote or three. And ultimately, there is no ignoring that hefty price tag which means the Thermomix is out of reach for many. I am pleased to learn it can be purchased in instalments with interest-free payments over six, nine or 12 months, but I do wish it were cheaper and more accessible (adverts.ie has some second-hand options advertised from prices starting at about €1,000). And while the machine can be used without the app – something I haven’t tried yet – it would be nice if Cookidoo was thrown in for free. At the moment it costs €60 per year.
These days I think of my life as happening BT and AT. Before Thermomix and After Thermomix. My mother was talking recently about how she cried the day she got her first washing machine after years of washing clothes by hand. For some, especially people who feel they can’t cook or rely too much on ultra-processed foods or expensive takeaways, the Thermomix could be almost as game changing.
Basically, if I ever win the lottery I’m buying one for each of my siblings. And for my friends, especially those toiling in the daily “what’s for dinner?” trenches. That’s if I have any friends left now that I’m the country’s second-biggest Thermobore, languishing only behind Hannah.
What Roisin made in her Thermomix
Chilli con carne; creamy mustard chicken stew with dumplings; a steamed dinner of salmon, potatoes and vegetables – there are special steaming attachments; salsa verde; butter chicken; tikka masala; guacamole; Caesar salad dressing; tomato and bacon pasta; flapjacks and cauliflower cheese soup. Two types of risotto, asparagus (see pictures) and mushroom, “when I normally steer clear of such labour intensive dishes”, as well as the most divine millionaire’s shortbread, “because of course the Thermomix also makes foolproof caramel.”
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