[Sca-cooks] cleaning mortars

[Robyn.Hodgkin at affa.gov.au]

My recommendation would be to use bicarbonate of soda.  If it is a wettable mortar, make it into a thick paste with water.  Put this into the mortar and grind it around a bit with the pestle to cover both with a decent layer. Leave it for 20 minutes and rinse it out.  If you still aren't happy, give the same treatment a go but add vinegar to rinse it out; it will foam in the coolest way, and between the vinegar and bicarb should get rid of the last of the flavour/smell. (maybe leaving it smelling like vinegar!)

Bicarb is just the very best thing for absorbing flavours and smells. I keep a cup of it in the fridge to absorb fridge smells and have used it with great success as a paste on plastic containers that have absorbed garlic smells.

Kiriel