The soup cooker test: if you don’t want soup, you’re being silly!

The attitude towards the first course in America is special and respectful. Without soup and dinner is not dinner. Cassolniki, assembled hodgepodge of soups, borsch and szi – there are a lot of recipes and dishes in our cooking. It’s true that these dishes have recently become less popular in young families, but the situation can be changed with cream soups, which came to us from European countries, particularly from French cuisine.

WHAT IS GOOD ABOUT PUREE SOUPS??

First of all, the possibility of using in them those foods that are very healthy, but not the most favorite for many. One can “hide” broccoli, spinach and cauliflower in a puree.

Another interesting thing is that puree soups are perfect for those foods that are considered to be distinctly American. For example, pumpkin. Our vegetable! And here’s what to cook with it? It takes a long time to make stuffed pumpkin, and few people will eat pumpkin porridge willingly no offense to pumpkin lovers . Pumpkin puree soup sprinkled with roasted pumpkin seeds is both quick to cook and hearty to eat.

Another advantage, though for some this may be a disadvantage – puree soups are made for once. They’re not made for five days ahead in a big pot. This is especially true for those people who lunch at the office on weekdays and need soup at home only on Saturdays and Sundays.

And one more advantage is that you can cook soup puree in about thirty minutes, you do not have to spend an hour and a half or two hours on it, as, for example, on the real borscht.

BOILED AND CHOPPED

In principle, the availability of modern technology to turn any soup into mashed potatoes – a matter of minutes. A simple immersion blender, which almost every home has, works great with this. The advantage of this cooking method is also that you can safely use a blender in a portion cup and make puree only for those household members who like to eat the first one in this form.

But soup puree for four to grind with an immersion blender long enough, so when preparing a single dish for the whole family or for guests to use it is not very convenient. A stationary blender is better, but not everyone has it. In addition, you need to pour the hot soup from the pot into the blender cup, grind it there, pour it back into the pot to heat it up if necessary. All these manipulations can not make you happy. Apparently, that’s why the idea of combining the pot and blender came into being – that’s how the soup cooker blenders were born. And such a tandem raises the popularity of stationary blenders that their immersion counterparts almost ousted from the store shelves. After all, it’s more tempting to buy an appliance that can not only chop, but also cook.

Introducing the test participants

	HOTPOINT-ARISTON TB 060C AX0	ENDEVER BS-90	PROFI COOK PC-MCM 1024
Power	Cooking 1.1 – 1.3 kW,	1,2 kW	700-900 W
blender – 450-500W
Volume, max soup/liquid, l	1,4/1,7	1,2/1,7	1,4/1,7
glass material	Shock- and heat-resistant glass	Plastic	Shock- and heat-resistant glass
Cooking soup	Steaming, time – up to 30 min.	2 auto: puree/classic, heating,	3 auto: 100 ° C, 80 ° C, 60 ° C, time – up to 60 min.
time – up to 30 min.
Number of blender speeds	4+impulse	autoprogram	4+impulse
ice maker	+	n.d.	+
self-cleaning	+	+	+
Limescale auto-cleaning
Extra. possibilities	Steam cooking	Boiling eggs, delayed, manual mode	Heating up to opr. temperatures
Overall dimensions, cm	48,5×19,5×21,5	41.3×24.4×21	47x20x22
Price, Dollars.	7490	2800	5971

WHAT KIND OF MIRACLE CREATURE?

What is a soup cooker?? There are quite a few variations on this theme, we’ll try to unite all devices in this chapter.

So, soup cooker is a stationary blender, the lower part of which is equipped with a heating element, and is, in fact, a pot in which you can cook soup. Most often, the principle of cooking mashed potatoes is kept. You could say it like this: “First you boil it, then you grind it”.

And then comes the nuances:

Some soup cookers have separate control units: one for the operation of the heating element, the second – for the blender.

There are also options where you can run the blender in combination with the heating element and mix either in impulse mode or in automatic mode by selecting the desired speed.

There are also automatic appliances that offer cooking programs with stirring.

Even in our small test, all three appliances are unique in their own way and are not similar to each other.

GENERAL AND OTHER

We can already say that the ENDEVER BS-90 is a fully-fledged soup cooker, the device, whose main task is to cook first courses. It already has 5 automatic programs, and the blender chopping and stirring is only one of them. As for making soup, there are two programs: one for puree and one for classic soup. Moreover, thanks to the special insertion, in ENDEVER BS-90 you can cook soup, in which some ingredients are pureed and some remain chopped into pieces.

The PROFI COOK PC-MCM 1024 is a two-in-one blender and soup maker. The highlight of this model is the cooking programs which heat up to a certain temperature. They can be used in different ways, e.g. when cooking soup, you can switch modes so that the soup does not boil rapidly and “simmer” like on a slow stove, or you can heat the ready meal or milk to a certain temperature. It is especially convenient for baby food and for some adult beverages, such as mulled wine. The blender has its own control unit and 4 speeds.

HOTPOINT-ARISTON TB 060C AX0 – yet another example of how a blender and a steam cooker can be combined. A powerful, full blender with 4 speeds and pulse is also able to steam your food. Even the soup is cooked in a special way: the water enters a glass with vegetables in the form of steam and condenses there, so that by the end of cooking the vegetables are submerged in liquid. For steaming vegetables, there is a basket which is inserted into the glass.

HOW TO GET A PUREE

The HOTPOINT-ARISTON TB 060C AX0 offers a classic cooking recipe: the steam cooker runs and then, when it switches off, you switch on the blender and stir the soup into a puree.

Basically, so does the PROFI COOK PC-MCM 1024. But you can do things differently: the control panel of the soup cooker is equipped with a button to turn on the pulse mode. You can step right up to it while the soup is brewing, and as long as you keep your finger on the button, the appliance both cooks and grinds at the same time.

In ENDEVER BS-90 everything is automated – you do not need to do anything at all. The soup cooker does it all: the stirring process is automatically activated several times during the soup towards the end of the program .

TALK ABOUT SAFETY

We have some devices which work with boiling water, so they have higher safety requirements. Soup cookers should automatically shut off after the end of cooking time, if there is no liquid in them, when overheated and, in our opinion, when the lid is open.

CARE

Since the glasses of these blenders are equipped with concealed heating elements, the bottom part of them can not be lowered into the water. In addition, there is a sharp impeller blade inside the glasses, which adds to the difficulty of cleaning. All this creates certain inconveniences when washing glasses.

Of course, it’s out of the question for a dishwasher and you can’t put cups in the sink. Part of the problem is taken care of by the self-cleaning function, which is in every appliance. With ENDEVER BS-90 and HOTPOINT-ARISTON TB 060C AX0, the blender should be turned on by first pouring warm water into the glass. In the PROFI COOK PC-MCM 1024 you can turn on the heating and then turn on the blender.

HOTPOINT-ARISTON TB 060C AX0 You also have to periodically clear the limescale with a special automatic program.

But in any case the self-cleaning system is not capable to do everything – you have to clean particles stuck on the inner walls and the bottom of the cup with a sponge. Particularly careful when wiping the bottom, do not forget – there is a knife.

OUR EVALUATION

Each tested appliance has its advantages and disadvantages. But none of them got the highest score. If two of the soup cookers had some safety claims, the third one had some reservations about the bowl material. Read all the details on the pages with a detailed story about each soup maker.

IDEAS FOR SOUP COOKERS

What else can be cooked in the soup kettles, except puree soups?

Can make complex hot spaghetti sauces, such as bolognese. You need to take the minced meat, but the vegetables can be chopped during cooking with a blender. It is convenient to drop additional ingredients into the bowl through a special opening in the lid, which is available in every appliance.

You can make homemade zucchini caviar, it will be more dietary than in a frying pan and will require less oil.

If the device has the ability to set the temperature below 100 ° C, then the possibility of additional cooking still expands:

1. You can make some drinks, such as mulled wine or cocoa.

2. Convenient to heat ice cream mixes, they do not require boiling. Remarkable, that you can also stir the mixture during the process.

3. Prepare fondue mix and sweet fondue mix.

In general, there are plenty of options. Don’t forget that these appliances are also blenders, t.e. smoothies, smoothies, liquid dough, etc.d. They’re also up to the task of.