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Douglas Ford, sous-chef at LA’s Lucques, uses a mortar and pestle a lot for things like grinding spices or garlic. It’s often preferable to a mechanical device like a blender or Cuisinart, because the heat those devices create will cause some ingredients to oxidize more quickly and turn brown.
condiment I totally disagree with your point about more surface, a food processer will keep beating oxygen into the mixture and this causes it to have more surface exposed to oxygen. The food processer will definitely break the cell walls, they also cause a lot of mechanical stress to the cells and even so much that they are heated, which speeds up oxidation and evaporation of fragrances.
maybe he plays too much mortal combat vorpal :)
He's doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. The reason you use a mortar and pestle is because the grinding action bursts the cell walls and releases an almost frightening amount of fragrance, where a blender or food processor just slices the basil or garlic into a million tiny pieces. Oxidation has nothing to do with it - in fact herbs ground in a mortar are likely to oxidize more quickly,...+READ
He's doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. The reason you use a mortar and pestle is because the grinding action bursts the cell walls and releases an almost frightening amount of fragrance, where a blender or food processor just slices the basil or garlic into a million tiny pieces. Oxidation has nothing to do with it - in fact herbs ground in a mortar are likely to oxidize more quickly, because there is more surface area to be exposed to air.-COLLAPSE
you have good ears...it may just be a tongue-twister for him, but funny, none the less.
LOL... someone tell this boy that it's a mortaR and pestle, not a mortaL and pestle :-).