Whisk, chop or blend food with a hand blender

A hand blender is an efficient, modern device that helps you in your day-to-day culinary work. Of the two primary blender varieties (freestanding blenders and hand blenders), hand blenders are more suited for whisking ingredients such as cream or eggs, chopping ingredients such as hard chunks of food or fine materials such as herbs, and blending ingredients. However, when compared to freestanding blenders, the blending capacity of hand blenders is less.

You must prefer a blender that has a 'cap'. This will help you grasp the blender firmly and have complete control over the blending process. The cap should merge seamlessly into the 'foot' which is the actual machine and performs the blending work. Most blenders are equipped with this arrangement, and are easier to use as compared to the fancier blenders that change this basic structure.

The two basic functions that any blender should be able to perform are whisking and chopping. In addition to these, you could look out for a blender that comes with a mini-chopper as this allows you to blend the ingredients without creating a mess or spillage.

A hand blender's efficiency depends upon its wattage. The higher the wattage the better and faster is the blender. Ideal blenders are those whose wattage varies between 150 to 300 watts. High wattage blenders are especially useful for chopping heavy ingredients, while slow speeds can be used for chopping soft food material or blending liquids.

Another way to check the efficiency of your blender is to check its rpm or revolutions per minute capacity. The rpm is decided by the blender speed — which can be single, double or variable. Single speeds are for whisk-blend, variable speeds are for chopping and double speeds are most suited for chopping multiple ingredients with different constitutions.