Never ones to let their blades get dull, Microplane have come up with a new gadget
You might wonder what use a mill to grind dried whole dried chillies could possibly be. Surely if you want your dried chillies a bit finer, you’d buy some chilli powder?
Well no, because a whole dried chilli may appear dry but when you crack into one you can see it still retains some oiliness which is why you can’t easily pulverise one in a pestle and mortar. The oiliness is an essential part of the flavour and why chilli powder is rather nasty, harsh and hot and not much use to anyone.
I usually chop a whole dried chilli with a sharp knife, it’s a bit fiddly and you get a lot of chilli on your fingers which, if you forget to wash your hands, can lead to moments of intense pain on various sensitive points of your body if you’re not careful.
The Microplane Chilli Mill is therefore a good idea. It comes in the trademark silky feel plastic that makes it easy to get a good grip on, even with wet hands, and you can store quite a few whole dried chillis inside it.
There is a spring-loaded plunger in the body which maintains a constant, gentle pressure on the dried chillis so as you twist the barrel the chillis are pushed up against the ultrasharp Microplane blades.
The grind is about right, not too fine and not too coarse. How hot the result is depends on the dried chillies you have and indeed how dry they are; the heat rises the drier the chilli is.
You might also want to slit the dried chilli lengthwise and scoop out the seeds before putting it in the mill, the seeds are the hottest part. It’s a matter of taste.
A nice design touch is a silicone’stopper’ that goes over the blade end when not in use. This stops the mill leaving chilli dust when stored and protects the blades against anything that might otherwise bump into them.
If like me, you grow chillies every summer, you will know how nice it is to have a string of dried ones hanging in the chicken near the cooker. The Microplane Chill Mill makes sure they don’t just end up as ornaments.
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