I don’t eat pasta for dinner often, but my cupboard has become increasingly bare and I haven’t shopped in a while (I’m about 12 miles from the nearest grocery so don’t generally run to the store on a whim), so I made a rather delicious tomato sauce of sweated veggies (onion, garlic, tomato, carrots) pureed with cream to go with the fettuccine I wisely keep on hand.
Then, parmesan. I have a hunk in the house but didn’t feel like grating it as that makes too many dishes to wash - I use a food processor for grating, and don’t have a dishwasher.
I hit on the brilliant but obvious solution: don’t grate, shave! So now I am enjoying my dinner with parmesan shavings and not too much work or dishes to deal with.
What do fellow Doper food-lovers think? Good solution, or should I have done something else? Buying pre-grated parm is out of the question, but I could buy my own chunks, grate, and freeze - though I suspect that’s only marginally better than buying pre-grated Kraft nastiness.
Also, the cheeses we get on Hawaii are rather limited. If anyone wants to recommend a widely available but pretty good parmesan I am likely to find here (or that is available by mail-order somehow), I’m listening.
Shaving parmesan cheese is a perfectly good way to apply it. It doesn’t get spread as evenly across the pasta that way, but it works. A vegetable peeler works pretty well for getting nice, thin bits of parm. (Mind you, I would probably just grate it by hand, anyway, rather than use a food processor.)
I can’t speak to what you can get in Hawaii, but here in CA Trader Joe’s has pre-grated parmesan that is actually good quality. It’s definitely not Kraft.
Wow, being too lazy to grate parmesan takes cooking idleness to new levels! Wouldn’t occur to me to do it with some electric contraption, I use a hand grater - easier than shaving, and better results.
I use Pecorino-Romano, but same idea applies. I’ll do any of the following:
[ul]
[li]Use the little hand grater if I’m just adding a touch for a bit of saltiness or appearance.[/li][li]Use the box grater if I want larger quantities, and larger pieces than the hand grater produces.[/li][li]Use the monster blender if I’m preparing for a crowd, or otherwise need a lot. This produces powder similar to the mass-market stuff in the plastic green bottles.[/li][li]Use a vegetable peeler to get really awesome, thin slices. Great for presentation, broiling for garlic bread, or simply eating with a nice slice of jamon iberica (yeah, yeah, I know).[/li][/ul]
I get whatever Costco happens to stock when I need some.
[list]
[li]Use the little hand grater if I’m just adding a touch for a bit of saltiness or appearance.[/li][li]Use the box grater if I want larger quantities, and larger pieces than the hand grater produces.[/li][/QUOTE]
These are the two I use for parm (and similar hard cheeses) and I go through quite a bit of it here at my household. It’s never even occurred to me that you could do it in a blender or food processor, but I like the little “hairs” and “shavings” a small hand grater like this and box grater produce.
Since I’ll never get the chance again to say this, I was in Parma two weeks ago after I flew down to Venice to see my sister who was in Italy for a week (it was the first time I had seen her since I moved to Krakow in 2015, and I wanted to introduce her to my amazing fiancee) and as I had heard horror stories about how outrageously, obscenely expensive Venice was, I thought it would be nice to see some other cities and hopefully save a little money at the same time, but Parma itself was frankly a letdown, as it was not particularly notable or scenic, and in general, for everything except hotels, it was basically twice as expensive as Venice was. Meals, drinks, coffeeshops were all extremely high, (to be fair the food was excellent, but not really any better than in Venice and much more pricey) on average even more expensive than major European tourist-mecca cities like Vienna, Berlin, Brussels, Barcelona, etc., which I couldn’t figure out, because Parma is apparently NOT much of a tourist magnet, at least compared to Rome, Venice or Florence.
Thankfully our last couple of days were spent in beautiful Bologna, which was just about perfect in every possible way, not too big, not too touristy, architecturally stunning, with friendly locals and even more budget-friendly prices, overall just a lovely place to spend a few days wandering, eating & drinking and watching the world go by.
(of course we naturally bought a wedge of Parmesan cheese to bring back home to Krakow, where I simply grate it by hand like God intended)
I use the pre-shredded stuff my in-store deli sells in little tubs. We eat pasta enough that despite my being the only user – DR prefers “sawdust” – it doesn’t get moldy before it’s gone. That might be because of my “one pinch on the spag, one pinch in the mouth, one pinch on the spag, one pinch in the mouth” habit, doubling the rate of use.
I use an older version of the Zyliss
for small amounts of grated cheese. Some of the restaurants in the Italian section of St. Louis use the same thing at the table when they serve pasta.
For greater amounts I use a box grater or Microplane.
Depending on the amount I use a microplane or box grater.
I suspect grating your own and freezing would get all gummed up. The pre-grated grocery store stuff has added cellulose powder (sawdust) to prevent caking.
If the stuff you buy is just called Parmesan it is not the real thing. Parmigiano Reggiano is something different altogether and, IMHO, is worth seeking out. It will always have Parmigiano Reggiano stamped all over the outside of the rind. Expect to pay $20 or more per pound.
To me, it’s not even a question. I’ve tried a few of the domestic parms, and I haven’t found a good one at least among the common brands. It’s not even close. Even my picky 5- and 3-year old who eat about a dozen food items combined are set on parmigianno-reggiano, which they call “the salty cheese.” They could eat it by the bowlful, I swear. And even among the imported types, there is variation, with some being more umami-rich with those beautiful crystals and others milder and less crystal-rich (presumably related to age, but it doesn’t seem to be that consistent to me. I have to look at the cheese itself to see which look best in that regard. I’m not well-versed enough to seek out a particular dairy, though, nor do I have much of a choice at the stores I shop at.)
I just bought one of those hand crank graters they have at Olive Garden. I haven’t tried it yet. I imagine it’s great for smaller servings, and more annoying if you need larger quantities, like a couple cups for an Alfredo sauce. I hadn’t thought of using a food processor for that, but now that you mention it, duh. Of course that’s one of the best uses for a food processor.
I just just the small gauge end of a box grater. Perfect size for distributing and melting, and a quick sponge off and dry of the grater.
Although lately I’ve been much more into Manchego than Italian cheeses, Love that Sheep’s milk tang while still having some dairy creamyness, and aged complexity all at one in a 9-12 month hunk.
So it is a bit softer, but I used the box for Parm as well.
We use one of those at the table, but a couple of them have broken over the years. If I shave Parmesan or pecorino romano (which I prefer) I then pass the plate under the broiler for a few seconds.