Why all cafes & restaurants need a Thermomix. (Most of them already do have at least 1 Thermomix.)
My friend & award winning chef, Eloise Emmett, who owned the hugely popular Mussel Boys restaurant for over 10 years, said “It’s a no brainer to get a Thermomix. The amount of time that you save is worth the investment over & over. I wish I’d had my Thermomix when I ran my restaurant.” Eloise, the author of the Seafood Everyday Cookbook & The Real Food for Kids Cookbook, said she constantly uses her Thermomix at home & when preparing for her dinners and functions. She is amazed with how easy it is to make quince paste in the Thermomix – no stirring! Some of the other things she makes with her Thermomix are fresh bread dough, curry pastes, coulis & sauces. AND pasta dough, aioli, purees, jams, relishes & chutneys. AND not to mention sorbets, ganache, creme’ anglaise, hollandaise & pate’.
“Here is the prep list from the launch for the Seafood Everyday Cookbook. While they are not Thermomix recipes as such, most of what I cook has some part prepped in the Thermomix.”
Bread
Tart base
Fettuccine
Fish crust
Salad dressings
Hollandaise for scallops
Beetroot chutney
Lasagne sheets
Tomato sauce base for lasagna
Fish stew base
Berry cheesecake
Lemon tart
Coulis
Sorbet
Quince paste
Three Japanese Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream & Sesame Pudding
I certainly agree with Ellie as early in my career, I worked at cafes, bakeries & a catering establishment for a number of years. You will find that using a Thermomix commercially works a little differently than domestically. Most restaurants wouldn’t use their varoma steamer because they utilise big commercial steam ovens.
My friends at Three Japanese used the Varoma to make a steamed savoury custard dish, called chawanmushi, as they aren’t able to have a steam oven at their premises. During a 2016 Cooking Class we used 5 Thermomix to make this popular recipe for the guests. Three Japanese also use a Thermomix to make their delicious Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream and Plum Sake Sorbet.
Any restaurant, cafe or catering firm would certainly use it for silky smooth purées, dips, flavoured mayos or aioli. Chocolate ganache is another popular use along with perfect creme’ anglaise and amazing instant sweet or savoury sorbets. For example Smolt achieves the most amazing lemon curd with their Thermomix. The Thermomix also roasts & mills whole spices to get the best flavours into dishes.
Some elements of this menu were prepared using a Thermomix at the Pidgeon Hole Cafe
Making flavoured salts or sugars was a favourite of Fiona Hoskin. Her Launceston restaurant, Fee & Me, won national awards for an innovative menu. Fiona & her chefs used a number of Thermomix to create maximum flavour, while saving time. You can find Fiona’s recipes from her restaurant in the Devil of a Cookbook which also includes a few recipes from renowned Chef Tetstuya.
Some chefs are concerned that the Thermomix will replace them. Having a Thermomix means they can work smarter, saving time while not compromising on quality. You can decide the level of involvement the Thermomix has in your kitchen. While most commercial kitchens wouldn’t take advantage of the guided cooking function, with a little bit of practice, it is so simple to convert your own recipes to use with the Thermomix. As with any new technology, it just takes a little investment of time to explore the full potential you have right at your fingertips. The Delivery Briefing (provided by your Thermomix Consultant) & subsequent staff training in the correct use of the Thermomix is vital.
The German designed quality of the Thermomix stands up to the rigours of restaurant life. It is recommended to have a 2nd bowl blade & lid set, to speed up kitchen processes even more. All the parts are dishwasher safe (obviously not the base.)
The commercial warranty is 1 year, you have the full back up & support from your Thermomix consultant. Occasionally the blades need replacing costing only $115.
Many well known chefs are Ambassadors for Thermomix in Australia. You may have seen the Thermomix on cooking programs such as MasterChef Australia & Chef’s Table where many of the worlds top restaurants use a Thermomix.
Thermomix in Australia are developing a site called Kitchen Stars to feature restaurants & chefs who use a Thermomix. Renowned Spanish restaurant elBulli had 36 Thermomix to ensure perfect cooking for dishes requiring a constant temperature.
The Dani Valent Cooking video site features many top chefs preparing their favourite Thermomix recipes. Dani’s In the Mix Cookbooks also feature amazing recipes from chef’s around the world.
A chef recently mentioned to me they prefer to work in a kitchen that has a Thermomix.
It’s well worth mentioning that Thermomix are very popular in schools both in the cooking classes & canteens.
If you would like to see how the Thermomix can work for you in your commercial setting you can contact a commercially trained Thermomix consultant for an in-house demonstration. (Yes I am a commercially trained consultant ;-))
I have seen Thermomix at many places all over the world -maybe you would like to do some Thermospotting too?
We had a most enjoyable evening at Three Japanese restaurant with our INSPIRE aprons on.
Owners Yasuko & Ken were so generous with their time & knowledge. This is the 3rd class we have run with them, but the first one in their new location in Battery Point. We first met Yasuko when she bought her first Thermomix, she loved it so much that she kept taking it back & forward to the restaurant & then decided they had to buy one another one for the restaurant.
Arwen, Yasuko & Charlie
I just love how passionate Three Japanese are about sourcing quality ingredients – even the crockery is sourced from their hometown Saga in Japan.
The story behind Three Japanese Ken (Norikazu Hirai) and Yasuko (Yasuko Hayashi) first met at high school in Japan in 1997 whilst playing soccer. After graduating from high school, Ken started working in a kitchen in Japan, where he learned a variety of cooking styles, he arrived in Hobart in 2012 on a working (surfing) holiday. Yasuko moved to Osaka to go to university and her first visit to Hobart was through the exchange Uni program. She then took every opportunity to be in Hobart (8 visits!!) until she finally moved here in 2009. Ken and Yasuko remained good friends throughout this time because of their love of great food! In 2014, they realised their dream when they had an opportunity to start a restaurant together with Yasuko’s partner Yuya who had been a baker in Japan & then graduated from Drysdale, he was working as a chef at the Source Restaurant (MONA). This is why they called the restaurant – ‘Three Japanese’. They love fresh, real food, and use only real Japanese ingredients and freshest local veggies, fish and meat to make delicious authentic Japanese food.
We set the tables ready for our class, everyone was provided with a recipe booklet to take home & emailed a copy in an eBook format.
Our Menu for the Evening
Japanese Green Tea on arrival
Chawanmushi – Savoury Custard (including the recipe for dashi stock)
The Three Japanese Tasting Plate: Miso Soup: Karaage Chicken: Rice: Tsukudani (preserved seaweed & bonito fish)
(It was so much fun recipe testing: here are the photos of all the dishes I tested. After I showed Yasuko these pictures she told me I had the Japanese spice containers upside down!! I had studied Japanese in high school & didn’t notice the writing upside down!! I even used one the images in the recipe booklet!! When we told our guests & they thought it was very funny too !!)
Chawanmushi had been specially requested & put onto the menu for the night. It is not currently on the menu because they don’t have a commercial steamer at their new venue so we had to bring as many Thermomix as we could to the restaurant as we could to steam approx 20 savoury custards.
We had 6 Thermomix in the kitchen & one set up in the dinning room to demonstrate through the class. It was well worth it though our guests loved tasting the dish & learning how to cook it. I showed our guests how to make the dashi stock using shaved dried bontio fish flakes & kombu (seaweed). Dashi is the base for a lot of Japanese dishes so it is important as usual to use the best quality ingredients you can get. You can buy powdered dashi but you won’t have that quality & depth of flavour.
We also used the dashi to make the traditional miso soup demonstrated by Yasuko. The kombu & bonito are not thrown out after making the dashi stock you can then use them with mirin to make tsukuduni a delicious preserve served with rice. Ken our chef came out & demonstrated the tsukudani to the class & showed us his awesome knives. We also showed guests how to make the karaage chicken it is one of the most popular dishes on the menu and very easy to prepare at home. The chicken is marinated for approx 1 hr & lightly coated in potato flour & deep fried. We also came up with some other ways of using the same marinade, either steaming, baking or grilling the chicken.
Then Charlie showed guests how to make the sesame pudding & we learned how to make the Japanese brown sugar sauce. The brown sugar is sourced from Okinawa in Japan. Yasuko also showed us how to make matcha green tea – this is the tea that is traditionally used at Japanese ceremonies.
Our guests left full of delicious food & inspiration to cook some of the dishes at home, they could even purchase some ingredients to take home with them. We are so grateful to have the the opportunity to work with Three Japanese again, their passion for their food is infectious.
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