The Mini-Mate Works Great - For a Few Specific Tasks

I don't even remember how the Cuisinart Mini-Mate Plus Food Processor ended up in my kitchen. I don't know if it was a gift, an impulse buy, or something inherited from a previous roommate. But I'm glad it's here. I've owned it for at least 15 years. It's no substitute for a regular food processor, but it performs a few tasks that no other tool in my kitchen can replicate.

I use the Mini-Mate most often as a spice grinder. A lot of Indian dishes are prepared with a masala a custom blend ground up from whole spices (sometimes toasted before hand). The Mini-Mate is ideal for this purpose, because it packs a lot of spinning, grinding, chopping power into a very small amount of space. The whole spices are transformed into a uniform powder in less than a minute. Trying to grind spices in the bowl of a food processor would be frustrating. There's just too much room for the spices to avoid the blades. If it could be done at all, it would be time consuming. Some cooks use coffee grinders as spice grinders, and I suppose this is fine if you have a spare grinder just for spices, or if you don't mind all your spice mixtures tasting like coffee, and your coffee tasting like spices. We're not coffee drinkers in my household, so there's no coffee grinder to rely on.

Indian recipes also often call for garlic and/or ginger pastes. Again, this is an ideal use of the Mini-Mate. I get a smooth paste in seconds when blending garlic, ginger, or shallots with or without other seasonings. The same goes for pureeing sun-dried tomatoes, or making pesto. When I want to make a smooth or nearly smooth paste of any kind from a small quantity of ingredients, this is the tool for the job.

The Mini-Mate is not well suited for too many other kitchen tasks. I think someone who had both familiarity with the tool and a deft hand could manage to finely chop peanuts or other nuts, but this gadget really wants to turn peanuts into peanut butter. It's not designed to do many of the tasks of a regular size food processor.

There's a reason this machine is called the Mini-Mate. It's quite small. The bowl of the processor won't hold more than about 1 1/4 cups of ingredients. On the other hand, that means you don't have to find too much storage for it either. Mine lives in a kitchen cabinet, tucked neatly in back until I want it.

The blade of the Mini-Mate is really three separate parts: the central column, a reversible blade that fits over and around it, and the column cap which is fitted to receive the spinning part of the motor. This a slightly fussy design, but it works pretty well. The blade is reversible so that either the sharp or the blunt edge can be the forward turning edge. That allows a moderate degree of control over the final texture of whatever is put in the Mini-Mate bowl for processing. But even with the blunt edge in use, the Mini-Mate has a tendency to pulverize whatever you put in it. All three of the parts of the blade column are small, and I've always worried that one of these loose parts would get lost. So far though, my luck has held with these parts. What has gone missing though is the little rigid plastic spatula that came with the Mini-Mate. It was well designed to fit the bowl neatly and scrape out every last bit of ingredients. I chalk it up to too many house moves.

The capping part of the blade column is concave to receive the turning motor shaft. This is a little inconvenient, because when I'm adding spices or other ingredients, they have a tendency to fall in there. If there are enough of them, it can make it impossible to seat the motor into the blade assembly. I've learned to compensate by blocking the receptacle with a thumb while I add ingredients.

The Mini-Mate operates at either high or low speed, controlled by which direction you turn the motorized "head." The processor can be held firmly against a countertop, or held firmly in two hands to operate. I like to hold it when I use it, shaking it a little like a cocktail shaker to help all the ingredients mix up quickly.

Over time, the bowl of my Mini-Mate has gotten a little cloudy as hard seeds and spices make tiny scratches on the interior surface while being ground. This doesn't really affect the machine's performance. I can still see through the sides of the bowl as well as I need to.

The motorized portion of the Mini-Mate must be washed by hand and cannot be submerged in water. The motorized part has built up a patina of turmeric stains and scratches, but it still works beautifully.

I think the Cuisinart Mini-Mate is a fairly specialized kitchen tool. If I absolutely needed to, I could get by without it. But I'm glad I don't have to. I'm generally not a gadget person, and I go into get-rid-of-stuff mode with every move, so the fact that I've held on to so specialized a tool might tell you how highly I regard it. I would recommend this appliance only for home cooks who tackle dishes complex enough to need custom spice blends or pastes. The Mini-Mate is far from being something that every kitchen should have. But if you need this sort of tool, the Mini-Mate should perform reliably for you for many years. With these caveats, I recommend it highly.


Some of my other favorite kitchen tools:

• Oxo Good Grips Kitchen Tongs - sturdy and safe to use with non-stick pans
• Oxo Good Grips Offset Bread Knife - does its job well and safely
• Swing Away Can Opener - the one I kept after trying all the others
• Taylor Instant Read Pocket Thermometer - the most necessary tool for cooking roasts of any kind
• KitchenAid Standing Mixer - indispensable for certain kitchen tasks, and incredibly strong
• KitchenAid Santoku knife - a nice intersection of a chef's knife and a utility knife
• Cuisinart Mini-Mate Food Processor - grind those spices or make pesto in a trice
• Endurance Precision Pierced Colander - drains like a dream, and made of stainless steel
• Black & Decker Rice & Vegetable Steamer - takes a licking, keeps on ticking
• Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven - ideal for stews and no knead bread
• Bron Mandoline Slicer - the Cadillac of the Kitchen
• Magnabar Knife Holder - extra storage space for my best kitchen tools