If you’ve always fancied cooking up a storm at home but don’t have the experience or the time to get everything in place quickly, then you’d be happy to hear that the new Vorwerk Thermomix TM7 do-it-all kitchen appliance is here in Singapore.
Shaped like a large pot perched atop a small stove, it weighs ingredients, chops and blends spices (and ice and other foodstuff), then steams, fries and boils everything up with the precision that is expected of an experienced chef.
More importantly, it also comes with a large 10-inch screen that guides you through recipes each step of the way, from placing the ingredients at the right time to cooking things to timing. The machine is connected to an online database of more than 100,000 recipes.
And they include Singapore’s famous chilli crab, which the Vorwerk staff cooked during a launch of the Thermomix TM7 and the opening of a new 5,000-sq-ft showroom in Singapore on July 9. Laksa, I’m told, is also on the menu.
The media event also featured foods from around the world. Fancy a baguette? The Thermomix TM7 makes the dough for you to place in your oven. Want a miso soup? It makes a dashi from mushrooms and kombu for you to mix in with miso.
Note that the online recipes that you can get right on the machine requires a US$65 yearly subscription to its Cookidoo service. However, there are many enthusiasts sharing their own Thermomix recipes on Facebook or YouTube, which you can follow as well.
As a user of the earlier Thermomix TM6, I’m impressed at the new Thermomix TM7’s improvements. For one, the machine is a lot better looking – the main cooking pot is no longer “stuck” in a sort of enclosure and it comes in black now. An insulated outer layer also means it’s safer to have kids around it.
Plus, the new machine supports open cooking. In other words, you can leave the top cover open and let it cook miso soup slowly. The spinning blades at the bottom stop moving as well. Unlike before, they can be removed to be cleaned more safely.
Is the newfangled gizmo worth S$2,980? For sure, the fancy made-in-Germany gadget will impress folks who really like to cook, as well as those who are too busy working and yet want to get a quick home-cooked dinner on weekdays.
To be honest, when my wife bought the Thermomix TM6 during the Covid years, I was skeptical. How could a fancy pot replace all the wok skill and experience at the stove? Sure enough, it doesn’t do as well with many pan-fry dishes that need the wok hei, but it does many other things surprisingly well.
Stuck at home during Covid, my wife made so much bread – with the dough kneading that the Thermomix did effortlessly – that we didn’t need to buy any for days. Even a noob to bread making like I could make a passable focaccia.
Not just that, we made ice cream (okay, Haagen Dazs is still better), burnt cheescake (it’s good!), fresh pasta (no need to knead dough), Cantonese porridge (it’s very meen, or finely and softly cooked), and onsen eggs.
Today, we use the Thermie less so I’m not sure we’d fork out another S$3,000 for a new Thermomix TM7, especially when the previous version is already pretty good. Today, our machine is often a useful kitchen helper that helps me make pasta dough or perfect half-boiled eggs on weekends.
If you’re a novice cook, the Thermomix helps get you cooking stuff you’d never think of cooking (I’d never baked a cake or a piece of bread previously). For more expert users, it gets the hard work out of the way, say, in blending and cooking the ingredients for a daishi stock or making sauces for your dishes.
During the chilli crab demo a couple of days ago, the Vorwerk staff attached a steamer on top of the Thermomix TM7 pot to steam the meat crabs and have the juices dribble down into the chilli sauce they’d made.
If you’re an expert, you could simply use the Thermomix to make the sauce with various chilis, belachan and other ingredients to save time and still fry the crab in a wok yourself for full control.
Either way, the all-in-one appliance is just a great kitchen helper all round. Curious with its capabilities? You can head down to The Cathay to check it out at the showroom.
