The Pampered Chef Garlic Press 2575 Is A Press That Very Effectively...Presses!
Written: Sep 05 '08 (Updated Sep 05 '08)
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Pros: Comfortabke curved handles, swiveling crusher, easy to clean
Cons: Metal easily scratches and changes exposing darker metal underneath, can only purchase through a dealer
The Bottom Line: Not many garlic presses work. However, this kitchen tool effecively minces lots of garlic in a little time.
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| bntowen's Full Review: Pampered Chef Garlic Press 2575 |
Allium Sativa or garlic has origins in several European cultures mostly referring to “Gar” in German meaning spear referring to the spear-shaped “green onionish” shoots that come out of the ground, and “lic” possibly connecting it to the “leek” or onion family. The bulb of garlic is made up of cloves that are really the plant’s leaves. The distinctive aroma and flavor comes from sulfur and when exposed to air, knives, olive oil, and heat, the sulfur-laden chemicals in the garlic’s oil permeate food. The aforementioned knife to chop garlic frustrated me as the amateur chef that I am. Chopping those cloves into small enough pieces for the tons of recipes calling for garlic shaved the tips off my fingers. But growing up on a Middle Eastern family who also enjoyed Italian meals, garlic became part of my DNA I now pass to my family. But what about the chopping and chopping and chopping?
Enter the mallet. Smashing the cloves with a meat tenderizer cuts the chopping time, but left my walls with texture. What about using a cheese grater? It works if you don’t mind taking the skin off the tips of my fingers when I got to the end of the clove. My children heard my cries, and surprised me with an off-the-shelf garlic press. The problems multiplied. The press bulb basket was too small causing the arms of the press to be so wide it took two hands to try and accordion-press that thing shut. The bigger hindrance to garlic crushing was the stationary pressing mallet or the “sticky-out-thick-metal-plug-that presses-against-the-garlic-to-smash it.” I cast it into the kitchen gadget abyss.
While helping my wife’s friend Angie cook in her kitchen, I was to mince some garlic. I asked for a cheese grater, and she handed me the Pampered Chef Garlic Press 2575. I heard Pampered Chef products were expensive and more show than go. But, I loaded in three cloves and squeezed with one hand. Holy-leverage Batman! The press pressed so well I shed my Pampered Preconceptions.
The key to the leverage is the curve handle design and “Swiveling-Anvil-Crusher” (SAC). Recessing the metal so that the two handles when squeezed together at maximum crush “spoon” into each other, maximizing the crushing power while minimizing the handle opening distance so I can crush with one hand even with a garlic basket full of cloves. The SAC also allows for movement on and off odd shaped cloves so as to push the crushed pieces out and not shoot them around the SAC back onto your hand. In the industry, this is called garlic blowback, and can leave you garlic scrubbing anywhere form your arms to your eyebrows.
The brushed frame appears to be made of cast aluminum. This affords ridged weight without being bulky like the retail nothing of a garlic press garlic press I earlier reported to being relegated to the frightening corners of the gadget drawer next to the condensed milk punch top and corn holders. It’s also a curved piece of metal that transfers the weight along an arced place instead of a flat plane. This allows the crushing force traveling in a hinged arc to maintain equal force throughout the squeeze. Whoa!
Cleaning the Pampered Chef Garlic Press 2575 should be a snap with the Front-Clipping Garlic-Piece-Multiple-Nibbed-Press-Hole-Poker (FCGPMNPHP). Here’s the problem. When garlic is forced through holes with that much force without much of the aforementioned treacherous garlic blowback, it leaves a compressed garlic mass similar to the sedimentary rock that makes up much of the Midwest. The FCGPMNPHP pushes the newly formed garlic mat 1/8 of an inch. That’s far short of the garlic mat ejection needed for cleaning. And take it from me; you don’t want give up on cleaning the garlic mat right away. I’ve left the cleaning for later, it dried, and I was in for ten minutes of poke-and-scrape for the clean out. I found a solution. With you fingers on the garlic mat side propping up the pressed garlic ejection side, press your sink sprayer against the exiting-side holes. Turn on the spray, and fish with the fingers in the garlic basket, and the mat should whisk away.
I dragged you through that to perhaps bring up a Pampered Chef Garlic Press 2575 shortcoming. The plastic sink sprayer nozzle rubbed up against the cast aluminum. The metal is easier to scratch than I thought possible thereby exposing a darker kind of metal damaging its appearance. Constant heavy dishwashing also ruins the shinier finish leaving behind the darker colored cast metal. If you and I sink sprayer spray immediately after using, the press could be easily wiped off thereby cutting down its trips to the forced super-heated hot water and detergent spray. Also, they're only sold through dealers, but there are some internet options for purchase.
This was a gift from my wife that she paid nearly $25 for the Pampered Chef Garlic Press 2575; however, that came with an immensely useful small rectangular serving spatula. Like some of you, we can’t fill our kitchens with “Dinner For The Rich” gadgets. However, if you spend you heartbeats in a kitchen, you and I should fill our kitchen with tool that work instead of wasting our time with dollar store gadgets. It’s the only Pampered Chef thing I own so do not fear that I’m a Pampered-hack. I’m a real person who was real frustrated trying to really mince garlic with really bad kitchen utensils. The Pampered Chef Garlic Press 2575 is the best garlic pressing I could ask for, and with a 2 year warranty, I say press on finding a Pampered Chef hoster or hostess in your area googleable on the web.
Thanks for the read.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 25.00
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Epinions.com ID:
bntowen
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Member: Bradford Owen
Location: North Carolina Mountains, USA
Reviews written: 44
Trusted by: 14 members
About Me:
Father of five, full-time shrink, part-time writer, actor, referee, living on a massive 3/4acre estate.
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