Food Processor for Indian (Asian) Cooking

If you’ve read my ‘About‘ page, you must know that I am a lazy person by nature. I absolutely hate chopping veggies…esp onions and I think most of us do…and I also don’t like cooking for hours and hours together. Some people have all the patience in the world but I don’t 😀 I like it quick. So, I recently bought a Kenwood FP730 Food Processor.

My friend bought one (Kenwood FP530) some time ago and she strongly recommended that I get one too. I was doing some research on the internet to choose the best one but also one which was economical. I read a lot of reviews but not one on how food processors could help with desi cooking so I decided to write one! 🙂

I will write this in an orderly manner…starting with the attachment I use the most and so on.

• The most important attachment of all is the knife blade (5). I use this attachment for chopping onions, tomatoes, herbs and other vegetables. It is most useful when making Non-Vegetarian dishes which need large quantities of finely chopped onions. I also use this attachment for chopping cabbage, potatoes  and variety of other vegetables for a nice veggie dish. You can also use this attachment to finely mince boneless meat for burgers etc.  There’s also a smaller jar (1) with a knife blade (6) attachment for chopping smaller quantities of onions, tomatoes, herbs and veggies.
• The next attachment I use quite often is the dough tool (7) for chapathis. It takes only a few minutes for the processor to knead the dough and you can re-knead it in a bowl. Try adding as little water as possible.  Here is a very helpful video.

You can also use the dough tool for mixing ingredients for baking.

• When making Pilaus, Biriyanis, and any vegetable curries, I prefer long, thin slices of onions. For this, I use the slicing side of discs 3 (you can use disc 2 to get very fine slices). Just chop the onions into a size that fits through the opening. You can also use this if you want long thin slices of carrots, cucumbers for salads. Also use this attachment to chop Beans, Tindora (Dondakaya/Ivy Gourd), Carrots…literally any veggie you prefer in a thin, round shape (I haven’t tried Ladies Fingers yet…will let you know how it goes when I do try them). Make sure that you push in the vegetables holding them vertically with the help of the pushers for a nice round shape.
• There are some attachments which I don’t use that often but are equally useful…like the julienne style chipper (4), the whiskers, juicers and the shredding sides of discs 2 and 3 for shredding cheese and veggies.

What used to take me at least half hour now takes me just a couple of minutes. It saves time and energy. The hubby made Mutton Pulao today in literally under an hour when it used to take atleast 2 hrs.  All the chopping, the tears are gone!

The FP730 has a 1000 watts motor which is quite powerful and takes only a couple of minutes to chop. It is very quick and efficient piece of machinery. I will suggest everyone to buy one 🙂