The mortar is one of the oldest tools in a kitchen and it has kept its place, because an electric grinder does not do the same job. A blade cuts the spice and throws it around; a mortar crushes it, the husk opens and the oil inside the seed comes out. You taste the difference in the pot.
A mortar is not a dibek
A mortar fits in your palm, usually 9 to 16 cm across, and it handles spices and garlic. The dibek is deeper, narrower at the mouth, thick walled and much heavier; it was built for pounding coffee beans, walnuts and wheat over long stretches. In a dibek the pestle drops straight down. In a mortar you mostly crush with a circular motion. If one vessel has to do both jobs, do not go below 16 cm.
Why the weight helps
A copper mortar is heavy, and that is the point. An 18 cm body with its pestle goes over 2 kg. That weight does two things: the bowl does not slide on the worktop, so your second hand stays free, and the body absorbs the blow, so neither the noise nor the shock reaches your wrist. Anyone who has tried to crack peppercorns in a thin steel or light aluminium bowl knows the rest. The bowl wanders and half the seeds jump out.
What size to buy
- 9 to 12 cm: pepper, cumin, coriander, cardamom. Everyday spice work ends here, and one pot's worth of mix turns comfortably.
- 14 to 16 cm: garlic, salt, fresh ginger, walnuts, pesto. Coffee beans work at this size too.
- 18 to 20 cm and above: nuts, hand pounded coffee, wheat and dried soup bases. From this size on, the mortar lives on the counter rather than in a cupboard.
Check the depth as well as the diameter. In a wide but shallow bowl the seeds fly out as you strike; the inner height should be at least half the diameter.
Half the work is in the pestle
With a 300 g pestle you crack pepper by arm strength. A 600 g pestle falls under its own weight and you only steer it, which turns ten minutes of work into three. The head must be rounded and must sit flush against the bottom of the bowl. Leave a gap there and the seeds slip into it, and no amount of pounding will reach them.
The inside must be tinned
Most of what goes into a mortar is either acidic or oily: garlic, lemon peel, sumac, pomegranate molasses. The essential oils of the spices themselves pick up a metallic note after long contact with bare copper. The food facing surface should be tinned, and it is worth asking outright, because plenty of mortars sold as decorative pieces end up in kitchens unlined.
First use and smell
Wash a new mortar in warm soapy water and dry it. Then pound a handful of rice to flour and throw it away; the rice picks up the fine dust and oil left by polishing. If the flour comes out white, the bowl is clean.
Smell is the real issue. Detergent will not lift garlic, because the smell sits in the oil left behind, not in the metal. Put a teaspoon of rock salt in the bowl, work it around with the pestle for two minutes, tip it out and wipe with a damp cloth. After a particularly strong job, repeat the same trick with rice. Keep the mortar out of the dishwasher and do not leave it soaking.
Pounding against grinding
A grinder blade spins thousands of times a minute and friction makes heat. Cumin reaches 60 degrees in thirty seconds, and the volatile oil that carries the aroma evaporates at that temperature; by the time it reaches the jar half the scent is gone. In a mortar the blow is momentary, no heat builds, and the oil leaves the seed and stays in the mix.
Split them on that basis. Cardamom, pepper, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, garlic, fresh ginger and saffron belong in the mortar. Cinnamon bark, nutmeg, dried chillies and dried turmeric are hard and fibrous, and a grinder handles them better. Pound what goes in during the last five minutes of cooking; leave a jar's worth to the machine.
