Review of the Polaris PKM 1206 kitchen machine: planetary mixer, stationary blender, meat grinder and vegetable cutter in one device

The Polaris PKM 1206 kitchen machine is a multifunctional device that combines a planetary mixer, a stationary blender, a meat grinder and a vegetable cutter. This allows you to reduce the number of appliances in the kitchen to a minimum, providing all the necessary functions in one device.

Before making a purchasing decision, it is important to make sure that the multifunction device can effectively perform its functions on a par with specialized devices. Here are the results of our hands-on testing.

^* Contrary to popular belief, this is not the time limit after which the device will necessarily break down. However, after this period, the manufacturer ceases to bear any responsibility for its performance and has the right to refuse to repair it, even for a fee.

The Polaris PKM 1206 kitchen machine comes in a durable cardboard package with a bright design. The box contains images of the device in various configurations, as well as photographs of all included accessories. The packaging also indicates all the functions of the device and its technical characteristics, and it is especially noted that the device combines the functionality of several kitchen appliances: a planetary mixer, a blender, a meat grinder and a vegetable cutter.

The kitchen machine and all its accessories are placed in separate plastic bags and secured in the box with foam inserts.

Opening the box we found:

• the actual body of the kitchen machine
• whisk
• dough hook
• mixing attachment
• cup
• bowl lid
• pusher
• removable meat tray
• removable housing of the working unit
• screw
• knife
• 3 grids: 3 mm, 5 mm, 7 mm
• ring nut
• blender jar lid
• blender jar
• removable blender blade assembly (installed in the bottom of the jug)
• stopper measuring cup
• vegetable cutter body
• vegetable cutter drive coupling (installed in the vegetable cutter body)
• grater for potato pancakes
• grater for shredding
• coarse grater and fine grater
• float ring retainer
• vegetable cutter pusher
• kebbe attachment adapter
• kebbe attachment
• sausage attachment
• sausage attachment separator
• instruction manual and warranty card

The kitchen machine has impressive dimensions and weight, despite its rounded shape. Its design is a classic design: a base with a place to attach a bowl, a tilting head with a shaft for attachments, a rotary mechanical speed controller and a tilting head lock button on the right side of the base. The surface of the case has a matte finish, which is pleasant to the touch. The speed control knob is made of metal.

The device is equipped with four suction cups on the bottom, ensuring its secure fixation on the surface and preventing accidental displacement. On the bottom of the case there is also a nameplate with technical information and the model name.

The 5 liter bowl is made of stainless steel and has a small conical protrusion at the bottom. There are convenient handles on both sides of the bowl for easy movement. However, there is no measuring scale on the bowl. The bowl comes with a clear plastic lid with a hole for adding ingredients. The cover is securely attached to the drive shaft boss using a rotating mechanism.

To secure or remove the cover and attachments, you must lift the motor unit. To do this, just press a special button on the leg, and the block will rise up without effort. To return the block to its original position, you simply need to press it with your hand.

The set of attachments for a planetary mixer consists of a whisk, a mixing attachment and a dough hook.

The hook and mixing attachment are all steel, the whisk has a black plastic base. All attachments are easy to put on and remove from the shaft.

At the end of the working head, under a plastic plug, there is a nest for a blender jug. The recess for installing the jug is made of plastic, and the removable gear is made of plastic.

The container is fixed on the drive shaft by turning it counterclockwise at a large angle until it stops.

The blender jug is made of durable thick-walled glass. Its volume is 1.5 liters. However, the instructions recommend not to fill the jug completely when whipping, leaving space up to 750 ml (¾ of the volume), since the volume of products may increase during mixing. The sides of the jug have measuring scales that include milliliters and liters on one side, and ounces and cups on the other.

At the bottom of the jug there is a removable four-bladed knife.

The jug is equipped with a lid with a silicone seal that ensures tight closure. In the center of the lid there is a hole for adding products, which can be closed with a transparent cap. The cap can also be used as a measuring cup for products up to 50 ml or 2 oz.

Above the bowl, on the side of the body, there is a slot for a meat grinder, covered with a plastic lid.

Unlike a blender, a meat grinder is connected to the motor unit by metal elements. To fix, the block is inserted into the socket at an angle of 45° and turned counterclockwise until it clicks, locks and the socket is vertical.

The body of the meat grinder looks classic: the neck, ring nut and auger are made of aluminum alloy, the knife and grids are made of stainless steel.

The meat grinder comes with three metal grates, with a diameter of 3, 5 and 7 mm.

The meat grinder is also equipped with plastic attachments for making sausages and kebbe and a pusher.

The plastic block of the vegetable cutter is attached to the body in the same place and in exactly the same way as the meat grinder.

The vegetable cutter consists of a plastic block and four metal cone-shaped graters. Includes: potato pancake grater, fine grater, coarse grater and shredder (pictured from left to right).

Upon first inspection, the kitchen machine impressed us with its sleek design and excellent quality of the planetary mixer bowls. Now let's see how it copes with real-life tasks during use.

The operating instructions are presented in the form of a 92-page brochure, printed in Russian, Ukrainian and Kazakh. It contains a detailed description of the device, including the purpose of each of the attachments, as well as recommendations for safe operation, cleaning and maintenance of the device.

Control of the Polaris PKM 1206 kitchen machine is very simple and is carried out using the step speed switch knob, which is located on the front side of the motor unit.

Position 0 on the handle means the device is turned off. Turning the knob to numbers 1 to 6 allows you to select different speeds depending on the product being processed.

The «Pulse» position enables pulse operation. To activate this mode, you need to move the knob to the “Pulse” position and hold it there for 3-5 seconds with breaks of 1-2 seconds. In this mode, the engine runs at maximum speed. The pulse mode can be used for both a blender and a planetary mixer, but it is not recommended to use it for kneading thick dough.

The first difficulty we encountered concerned connecting additional accessories: a meat grinder and a blender. However, not in the process of joining them — everything was fine with that. Problems arose with opening the panels behind which the drives for these additional accessories are hidden. If we dealt with the meat grinder quickly enough and got used to the process, then each time opening the blender drive panel caused difficulties. The instructions say to «remove the blender drive cover by pulling it back slightly and then up slightly.»

Despite all our attempts, we were never able to perform this simple action the first time or even the second time. Eventually we realized that you could hook the lid with your fingernail and then gently pull it back and up — and only then it would work.

In addition, the kitchen machine is equipped with protection against switching on in case of incorrect assembly. If the plug is removed and the jug is not installed or installed incorrectly, the motor will not start. The same thing will happen if the blender compartment lid is not put back in place correctly.

The second feature, more constructive than complicated, is that when using a blender and a meat grinder, the kitchen machine becomes quite tall. With only 45-55 cm between the table top and the wall shelf (we had 56 cm), there is very little space left for additional accessories and placing products in them.

The photo below shows the assembled blender. It is noticeable that the distance to the kitchen cabinet is extremely small, only about 2.5 cm from the top point of the blender lid.

With the assembled meat grinder, the situation is a little better: the distance from the pusher to the kitchen cabinet is about 12 cm. However, it is clear that in order to work, the meat grinder needs to be pulled out into free space. Otherwise, even if you load food inside, you won’t be able to push it through — the pusher simply won’t fit.

The Polaris PKM 1206 kitchen machine demonstrates good performance during operation, but there are some nuances. Assembly of the device takes place without any particular difficulties in all configuration options, with the exception of removing the blender cover, as mentioned earlier. However, we quickly dealt with this nuance. The controls are simple and intuitive. The device is securely fixed to the surface and does not move during operation.

As a planetary mixer, the device is excellent at beating liquid products such as egg whites or dough. However, it does not cope so well with harder foods, such as boiled potatoes.

The blender acts as an additional accessory for a multifunctional device. We didn't expect miracles from it, and it really didn't — the blender can make you a smoothie, but you shouldn't count on it being able to handle more complex tasks, like making hummus.

The work of the meat grinder is somewhat slow, but the result is high-quality minced meat, so in general its work can be assessed positively, as well as the work of the vegetable cutter.

The duration of continuous operation of the device should not exceed 3-10 minutes, according to the instructions. Turning on again is possible only after 10 minutes, and after turning it on three times, you must allow the device to cool down. It's important to note that we repeatedly used the device for more than 5 minutes without causing any problems.

The device is maintained using standard methods: it is recommended to wash the removable parts under running water using a neutral detergent, avoiding abrasive and chemically aggressive substances. The dishwasher should only be used to clean the mixer bowl. The body of the device should be cleaned with a damp cloth and then dried.

The maximum recorded power of the device for the entire period of use was only 209 W.

The noise produced by the device is quite moderate and does not cause discomfort. The expected noise level corresponds to typical operation of a kitchen appliance.

Our first test is preparing chocolate cake batter.

Ingredients:

• Butter – 150 g
  
• Sugar — 150 g
  
• Chicken egg — 4 pcs.
  
• Wheat flour — 110 g
  
• Bitter chocolate – 60 g
  
• Baking powder — 10 g

In a separate container, beat the eggs with sugar until foamy, and grate the chocolate on a fine grater.

Stirring constantly, we added flour, baking powder, grated chocolate and softened butter to the egg mixture… and here we had a little problem with the softened butter. The mixer mixed the flour, chocolate and egg mixture perfectly, but the softened butter remained in pieces. As a result, we added melted butter rather than softened butter to the dough, but the resulting cake did not suffer from this.

We poured the resulting dough into a mold and put it in the oven. An hour later we had a delicious cupcake ready, which we immediately consumed.

We boiled the potatoes and placed them in a mixer bowl (see photo 1). We installed the mixing attachment and turned on the mixer (see photo 2). Then we added the milk and butter and turned the mixer back on, which mostly mixed the potatoes, but left some unprocessed parts on the sides of the bowl (see photo 3). We stopped the mixer several times and scraped the potatoes off the sides to get a smooth consistency.

In our opinion, the puree seemed quite homogeneous, but when we tried it, spooning it onto a plate, we noticed that there were small pieces of potato left in the center.

Nevertheless, we ate mashed potatoes with cutlets:

It was possible to cope much better with softer and liquid products. The mixer mixed our cake batter perfectly, and we decided to try making meringue.

According to the recipes, we started whipping the whites at low speed, but the result remained almost unnoticeable. We then increased the speed and after 6 and a half minutes the whipped whites were no longer falling out of the upside down bowl as expected.

Next, we added the powdered sugar and continued beating “until stiff peaks form.”

Next, we added the powdered sugar and continued beating “until stiff peaks form.”

The meringue turned out exactly as needed.

We took one rather large tomato, cut it also quite large and put it in a blender jug. In the photo on the right we see the result obtained after 1 minute at speed 1:

Changing the speed didn't make much of a difference, perhaps because the blender blades weren't as sharp as usual. Usually when washing a blender jar there is a risk of cutting your fingers, but this never happened here.

To chop one tomato, I had to stop the blender several times, stir the contents with a spoon, and turn on the blender again. In the end, the tomato was still chopped...

But the result can hardly even be called good: large pieces of tomato and skin are visible in the photo. There might have been a chance to achieve a better result with another half hour of effort — but, frankly, we were tired.

After the failure with the tomato, we decided to make a smoothie. We mixed two products: a soft banana and hard but small currants. After a minute of running the blender at first speed, we got the result shown in the photo below. Some of the berries were crushed or gave up juice, but the banana remained intact.

Then we increased the speed and after about a couple of minutes we got a more or less homogeneous smoothie.

In principle, for a blender that is part of a multifunctional device, the result is not so bad. But we still found pieces of banana in the drink — perhaps we should have cut it smaller before testing.

Result: good

To carry out the standard test, we took a kilogram of pork, cut it into small pieces and placed it in a meat grinder, installing a grid with holes with a diameter of 7 mm. After a minute and thirty seconds of operation at the manufacturer’s recommended third speed, the meat grinder successfully ground the entire kilogram of meat.

The minced meat turned out to be homogeneous and quite crumbly. It should be noted that we had to use the pusher quite vigorously to guide the pieces of pork into the neck of the grinder.

Then we took half a kilo of beef and also put it into the meat grinder. The device handled 550 g of this meat in exactly 1 minute, which, from our point of view, is also a very good result.

Behind the knife there are 9 grams of unprocessed meat left. There were no unground pieces found in the minced meat itself.

Result: excellent

We started by using a vegetable shredder. The result can be seen in the photo below. It is important to consider that due to the structure of the cabbage leaf, small pieces still remain, which, if necessary, can be additionally cut with a knife.

The only drawback to the shredding process was that we had to force the cabbage into the neck of the vegetable slicer with some force, which caused the speed of cooking the shredded cabbage to drop.

Result: good

A similar story happened with potato pancakes. We cut the potatoes into small pieces so that they could fit through the bell of the vegetable cutter. Then we installed a vegetable cutter with a rather fine grater for potato pancakes.

Again, we ran into the same problem as when shredding cabbage: pieces of potato would get stuck in the spigot and would not pass through the vegetable slicer. I had to stop the process to remove the stuck pieces and start it again. This is not to say that the pieces were large, but it took a lot of effort. If we had used a hand grater for this volume of potatoes, we would have had to spend even more time and effort.

It seems like the problem with blenders and graters is the same: the blades aren't sharp enough, which means you have to spend more time and effort processing the food.

The result, however, was not bad. The potatoes were grated quite finely, no large pieces remained.

Then we chopped the onion using the same grater, but the vegetable slicer did an even worse job with the onions: in the photo below, the onion got stuck at the junction between the neck and the grater.

Despite these difficulties, we were able to prepare excellent and tender potato pancakes, more reminiscent of zucchini pancakes. If you prefer a more traditional version of potato pancakes, we recommend using a coarse grater.

In general, it can be noted that the Polaris PKM 1206 kitchen machine copes with its tasks quite well, although there are several nuances. Assembling the device is almost effortless, and it holds firmly to the work surface.

The stand mixer is excellent at beating liquid ingredients, but is not as effective at beating solid ingredients. As for the blender, we didn't expect miracles from it, but it does a good job of preparing smoothies, especially if the ingredients are first cut into small pieces. The meat grinder and vegetable cutter do not work as quickly, but in general their work can be assessed positively.

Pros:

• beautiful design and non-marking body
• stable grip on the table surface while working
• perfectly whips egg whites for meringues

Minuses:

• The mixer does not cope well with solid products
• food should be cut into small pieces in a blender
• dull knife in blender