Cheese Cloth, Strainer or Sieve

[flyinglentris]

The ability to produce a fine liquid spiced oil, sauce or a coulis may require the use of a simple strainer or sieve, or something finer, like cheese cloth.

What would be your preference and when?

 

[GadgetGuy]

I just bought some of this the other day from Whole Foods!!

 

[PabloLerntKochen]

For me it is a question of the money. Personally I don't need a perfect sauce, but for the guests it's important, they want something for their money. In the restaurant we use both a chinois sieve layered out with an etamine. Stay healthy

 

[Morning Glory]

I use a fine conical sieve for sauces - sometimes an ultra fine 'tea strainer' if its a small quantity. I've also got muslin (cloth) bags with a stand for straining whey when making cheese or flavoured oils (such as parsley oil).

 

[flyinglentris]

I use a fine conical sieve for sauces - sometimes an ultra fine 'tea strainer' if its a small quantity. I've also got muslin (cloth) bags with a stand for straining whey when making cheese or flavoured oils (such as parsley oil).

It's true that I've already had it in my head that the material used for straining or filtration would vary depending upon the fineness of the result desired.

I posted to find out examples of materials or kitchen gadgets that might be used and examples of what people are straining or filtering.

 

[TastyReuben]

I just use a fine mesh strainer when I absolutely must strain something, but I rarely do that for cosmetic or textural reason - if my sauce has a bit of carrot floating in it, I'm ok with that.

 

[Morning Glory]

I posted to find out examples of materials or kitchen gadgets that might be used and examples of what people are straining or filtering.

A jelly/jam strainer is useful - sold for straining fruit for jellied preserves but useful for other purposes. They are cheap and can be easily assembled and taken apart for storage. They perch on the edges of a bowl. The one I have looks like this:

 

[LissaC]

I use a piece of muslin. Me and my grandma both had pieces of leftover muslin lying around and I didn't want to spend money buying a proper cheeseclothe so I took them. It's what I use when I made nut milk for yogurt.

 

[rascal]

I have a roll of cheese cloth I use occasionally but mainly use metal sieves, the raspberry coulis I make involves a lot of sieving to get most of the pips out.

Russ

 

[medtran49]

I've been known to use a single layer of paper towel (peeling the 2 plys apart) if I don't feel like digging the cheesecloth out.

Just FYI, if you are straining something really thin and don't want your paper towel, coffee filter, cheesecloth, or muslin soaking up your liquid, you can dampen it with water before lining the colander. Learned that trick when we used to make Limoncello and needed to strain the lemon zest out of the grain alcohol. Dampening also helps your liner conform to your colander better/easier.

 

[vernplum]

I need recommendations as to how to strain asparagus soup please. Right now I have a normal sieve but it takes ages to filter through the liquid and be left with just the fibre and I have to keep squashing it with a spatula and massaging it around. To strain a litre and a half of it takes me about 20 minutes of this messing around...

 

[Morning Glory]

I need recommendations as to how to strain asparagus soup please. Right now I have a normal sieve but it takes ages to filter through the liquid and be left with just the fibre and I have to keep squashing it with a spatula and massaging it around. To strain a litre and a half of it takes me about 20 minutes of this messing around...

For soup like this a mouli food mill is excellent and would do the job in a few minutes. They can bought quite cheaply:

 

[vernplum]

For soup like this a mouli food mill is excellent and would do the job in a few minutes. They can bought quite cheaply:



View attachment 60193

ok thanks - will check that out!

 

[Morning Glory]

ok thanks - will check that out!

Yeah, I have one and always use it for soups where fibre needs to be removed. Maybe there is some kind of attachment for food processors which does the same - but as I've never owned a food processor I've not looked into that.

The other method which might work would be to blend the soup first with a stick blender or similar and then pass through sieve. Well, maybe...

 

[vernplum]

Yeah, I have one and always use it for soups where fibre needs to be removed. Maybe there is some kind of attachment for food processors which does the same - but as I've never owned a food processor I've not looked into that.

The other method which might work would be to blend the soup first with a stick blender or similar and then pass through sieve. Well, maybe...

I did blend it with a stick blender, but [edit] the fibrous pulp still takes a long time to sieve out. Anyway, now Googling food mills and I'll be getting hold of one. Cheers!