SpiceLines

But for those who appreciate the pleasures of grinding spices and flavoring pastes by hand, there are some awfully tempting tools out there. A few weeks ago B yielded to my obsession with an olive wood mortar and pestle I’d seen in London and gave me an even more sensuous one made in the south of France. Just days before I’d also succumbed to the lure of a massive Thai granite mortar and pestle, rated “Best All-Around” by The Wall Street Journal. And then, wandering around Williams Sonoma, I just had to buy a gorgeous Italian marble mortar with a bulbous wooden pestle that fit perfectly into the palm of my hand.

So now I have a complete wardrobe of mortars and pestles, each a different size and shape, each made of a different material. A couple of days ago I decided to put them to the test. Was there one that could be used every day for every task? Or would each shine in a different arena? Speed and capacity were important—my triceps may be getting stronger but they’re not indefatigable—but I also cared about the quality of the ground spices and flavoring pastes that I was making.

I picked three tests:

First, I wanted to see how they ground hard single spices. I began by coarsely crushing large Tellicherry peppercorns (tricky because they tend to jump out of the mortar); then I tried to pulverize cumin seed to a fine powder (a tough task because of all the fibrous bits).

Next, I made a classic pesto with garlic and salt, torn basil leaves, pine nuts, parmesan and a dribble of olive oil.

And last, I tackled a challenging spice paste for Bebek Betutu, traditional slow-cooked duck, from Sri Owen’s Regional Indonesian Cooking. The paste is made of ingredients with textures that vary from soft to hard, from chopped onion and red chilies to lemon grass, coriander seed and cinnamon bark. Even Owen, a stickler for authenticity, uses a blender to churn these disparate ingredients into a smooth paste.

The more I pounded and ground the spices, the more fragrant the kitchen became—first with the heady, sinus-clearing scent of crushed peppercorns, then the Provencal perfume of garlic and basil, and finally the pungent smell of onions, shrimp paste and lemon grass. By the end of the afternoon I was practically floating on a cloud of alluring aromas—and was hungry besides!

So how did they stack up? Read on to see how the olive wood, marble and granite tools fared against each other—and against my favorite Singaporean mortar and pestle.

Olive wood mortar and pestle: $104.50 at www.frenchgardening.com

How it looks: With its swirling wood grain, honeyed hue and satiny finish, this one is beautiful enough to go straight from the kitchen to the table—and in fact, on Christmas Day, I served a "smashed" sun dried tomato and toasted pine nut “pesto” for the beef tenderloin right from this very mortar. Handmade by an artisan from a single block of wood in the south of France, it has a chisel-marked rim and an appealing, irregular shape. The more polished pestle is long and narrow. (The website warns against mortars and pestles from Tunisia made of olive wood “that has not been as carefully dried and risks splitting with time.”)

How heavy is it? The bantam of the four, the olive wood mortar weighs in at one pound 6 ounces, the pestle at a mere 3 ounces. Such lightness of being suggests that I won’t be pulverizing tough spices and other tenacious ingredients in this one.

How much does it hold? Although the mortar easily holds a cup or more of ingredients, you can comfortably grind 1/4 to 1/2 cup. This was true of all the mortars I tested—you cannot effectively grind when they are filled to capacity. You must leave room to pound the ingredients without pushing them over the edge.

Inside bowl diameter: 3-7/8 inches. Inside bowl depth: 2-3/4 to 3-1/8 inches. (Variations are due to the unevenness of the rim.) The pestle is 7 inches long and one inch wide at the grinding end.

How well does it work? This wooden mortar and pestle made wonderful pesto. It took time to bruise and crush the fresh basil leaves—nearly 2-1/2 minutes for one cup of the herb—but the texture was light and almost fluffy once the pine nuts and parmesan were added. Total time elapsed to make 1/4 cup of pesto: just under 5 minutes.

It was not as successful with single spices, however. The peppercorns kept jumping out of the bowl and rolling around the counter. At 45 seconds, a third of the peppercorns were still whole—no surprise considering the lightness of the pestle and the small diameter of its pounding end. It took three minutes of grinding to reduce a teaspoon of cumin seed to a powder, but too many fibrous bits remained.

After one frustrating minute, I gave up trying to make the Balinese spice paste. It was clear that with the small capacity of the bowl and the feather weight pestle, I wouldn’t make any headway against the onions, chilies or the lemongrass.

Cleaning: The smooth wooden surface is easy to rinse clean with hot water and a sponge. I probably won’t ever use soap on it—and it wouldn’t hurt to rub a few drops of olive oil into the surface after it’s dry.

Bottom Line: Great for making small quantities of pesto or tapenade. But I wouldn’t use it for grinding hard spices or for making complex spice pastes with tough, fibrous ingredients. The wood absorbs the odor of whatever you’re making—two days later, it is still deeply redolent of garlic.

Carrera Marble Mortar and Pestle: $80.00 at www.williamssonoma.com

How it looks and feels: This gorgeous mortar and pestle is carved of a single piece of Italian Carrera marble. Its smooth white surface, subtly mottled with pale gray veins, is polished around the rim but left unpolished inside the bowl for easier grinding; four rounded “ears” protruding from the top edge make it easy to lift. The curvaceous beech wood pestle fits into my hand as if it were custom made. Overall this is a sleek modern interpretation of a traditional design.

How heavy is it? At 6 pounds, 7 ounces, the mortar is both heavy and well-balanced; you might want to cushion your kitchen counter with a dish towel before using it. The wooden pestle weighs a hefty 7 ounces.

How much does it hold? You can comfortably grind one half to one full cup, depending upon the type of ingredients. Inside bowl diameter: 5 inches. Inside depth: 3 inches. The pestle is 8 inches long and the bottom end is over 2 inches in diameter, providing a broad grinding surface.

How well does it work? I wanted to love this classic mortar and pestle, but truthfully, it wasn’t a superstar. It was best at grinding the Tellicherry peppercorns: 20 seconds of short, fast pounding with the broad-bottomed pestle reduced the peppercorns to a coarse grind. Only two flew out of the bowl.

It was also reasonably good with the cumin seeds. A combination of pounding and grinding in circular motions produced an acceptably fine powder, although a few stray bits of fiber remained. At the end there was a tiny oil slick inside the bowl—all that pounding released the cumin’s essential oil.

Surprisingly, I didn’t like the texture of the pesto I made with this mortar and pestle. Although it took just 20 seconds to smash the garlic and salt to a paste, it took another 2-1/2 minutes to crush a cup of torn basil leaves adequately. Then, while grinding the pine nuts, the leaves suddenly dissolved into a green smear. To make a decent pesto, I’d have to lighten up with the pestle, which seems counter intuitive.

And it wasn’t the right tool for the Balinese spice paste. Even working with just a quarter of the ingredients—a little less than a cupful—the bowl wasn’t big enough for me to get real traction with the pestle. Chopped onions are surprisingly hard to grind to a smooth paste and I walked away after a couple of minutes.

Cleaning: The marble cleans quickly with soap, hot water and a sponge, although the unfinished wooden pestle was stained by the green basil.

Bottom Line: This seemingly well-designed kitchen tool was disappointing to use. Still, it’s so beautiful that I’ll probably use mine as an serving dish for salsa or other condiments.

Thai Granite Mortar and Pestle: $37.95 at www.importfood.com

How it looks and feels: This speckled grey mortar and pestle is carved from a solid piece of granite. It looks and feels as heavy as…a rock. “You know when you pick it up that it will last a lifetime…” says the website. Yup. No obsolescence—planned or otherwise—here. What I like about this kitchen tool is its total authenticity—it’s a workhorse and doesn’t pretend otherwise. I’d have no problem bringing it to the table, though—if only I could carry it.

How heavy is it? I bought the 8 inch mortar and pestle. According to the website, this is the most popular size--used, apparently, by Jamie Oliver and a host of other telegenic chefs. The mortar weighs over 14 pounds, so you’ll definitely want to protect your kitchen counter with a thick towel. (The next size up, a 9-inch mortar, weighs a crushing 24 pounds.) At one pound 12 ounces, the granite pestle will give your arm a workout.

How much will it hold? The website says the 8 inch mortar has a 3 cup capacity, though I ground smaller quantities in order to leave enough surface for traction. Still at 5-5/8 inches in diameter and 3-1/4 inches deep, this mortar has the biggest bowl of the four I tested. The pestle is 7 inches long and widens to around 1-1/2 inches at the business end.

How Well Does It Work? In “Crushing the Competition” (February 16, 2007, page W8), The Wall Street Journal ‘s Shivani Vora praised this granite mortar and pestle as “the fastest of all.” It certainly made short work of the Balinese spice paste—indeed with its heavyweight pestle, it seems to have been designed to pulverize everything from onions and fresh chilies to tough whole spices. It took just 3 minutes to reduce all the ingredients, including fibrous lemon grass and hard cinnamon bark, to a fairly smooth paste. Some of the liquid splashed into my eye—next time I’ll add the lime juice and water after making the paste.

As for the whole spices, I coarsely crushed the peppercorns in a mere 15 seconds. It took less than a minute to grind the pesky cumin seeds to a powder, although the heavy pestle extracted some of the essential oil as well. Unfortunately, the pestle smashed the basil leaves to green slime, so I wouldn’t recommend it for making pesto.

Cleaning: Once you wrestle it into the sink, it is easy to clean with soap, hot water and a sponge.

The bottom line: This is a terrific workhorse, a must-have for making complex Asian flavoring pastes with many different types of ingredients. I’d also use it to pulverize a mixture of whole spices if I were making say, a ras el hanout and didn’t want to use my Krups grinder. But I wouldn’t use it for delicate pestos because the pestle is simply too heavy. Unless you can leave it out on a kitchen counter, this is probably not going to be your everyday mortar and pestle—it’s just too weighty to haul in and out of your kitchen cabinet or pantry every day.

Volcanic stone mortar and pestle from Singapore: Not available.

Still, after all that testing, I love my volcanic stone mortar and pestle best of all.

At 7 pounds, it is weighty enough to sit firmly on the kitchen counter and the one pound 6 ounce pestle can beat most ingredients into submission. The rough texture of the stone makes it easy to pulverize peppercorns, cumin seeds and other whole spices, though it was a little tough on the basil leaves in the pesto. (In the future I’ll probably switch to the French olive wood mortar and pestle.) With a diameter of 4-7/8 inches and a depth of just 2-1/8 inches, it’s too shallow to make a lot of flavoring paste—that’s when I’ll haul out the Thai granite behemoth-- but it’s great for making a quarter to half-cup of salsa, tapenade and sambal belacan.

In sum, like a pair of well-worn jeans, it’s the one I’ll reach for every day. But like the Armani suit and cashmere sweaters I’ve stashed in the back of the closet, I’m glad to have other options in the cupboard.