I have a rotary cheese grater almost exactly like this one. 1) Mine only came with one drum. 2) Change ‘have’ to ‘had’.
This had been a pretty good little grater for a couple of years, but last night it met its match. I only used it for parmesan cheese. Once upon a time I’d cut off and discard the parts of the cheese that had gone hard. But then I discovered that the hard bits are just as delicious is the softer middle. I started selecting the darker parmesan cheeses, and they ‘aged’ even more as chunks wound up in baggies in the fridge. The chunk I was using last night was too hard for it. The handle snapped off.
My box grater doesn’t make the very fine strings of parmesan that the rotary grader did (when using the ‘non-aged’ part of the cheese). Fortunately I have a microplane grater that I bought and have used solely for nutmeg. Turns out it works a treat on hard parm! The dark bit of hard cheese was turned into perfect-sized little strings of white, and it was much faster than the rotary grater. The only thing is that you have to know where your fingers are. (I do, so there’s no need to say ‘Ask me how I know.’)
The rasp is easier to clean and easier to store. It will now be my parmesan grater as well as my nutmeg grater. (And zester, should I need citrus zest.)
I have that same grater, and I hate it. I ended up buying one of these that I use for Parmesan. Any other cheese I grate with an old-fashioned box grater.
That said, yeah, the Microplane does a great job with Parmesan. I use it whenever I want just a sprinkling of Parmesan (like, over eggs). Sometimes, though, I need a cup or two for a recipe, and for that, I use the rotary grater I linked above.
Another thing that the Microplane works great with is ginger. It’s the best tool I’ve ever found for grating ginger, in fact. Highly recommended.
We have two microplanes in the kitchen. The smaller one is used for nutmeg - the larger one for everything else. Wonderful multitasker. Alton would be proud.
Microplanes work great for ginger, but I recommend washing them by hand immediately after use. The strings left from the ginger will get stuck on if you let them dry while sitting in the dishwasher.
I use my microplaner for parmesan, nutmeg and ginger too. And yes, rinse it off immediately after the ginger or the little fibers are hard to get out.
It’s also terrific for grating garlic into a nice fine mush. I use it when I make dressings or garlicky butter or anything in which I don’t want little bits and chunks of garlic.
When I use the microplane for ginger, I take a toothpick and run it between the holes, in straight lines. I realize that sounds perfectly whack, but if you look at the grater, you’ll see what I mean. I get a LOT of ginger bits that I can just tap into the mix. Then I bang the grater on the side of the bowl a couple of times. I want every little gingery morsel.
A good rinse under the faucet, and the grater can now go into the dishwasher.
~VOW
Why would I want a unitasker* like a garlic press when I have a vastly superior microplane?! You lose approximately 87% more garlic to the press, whereas a simple tap and finger swipe on both sides (mind the direction on the front!) clears off nearly 99% of the garlic goo from the microplace.
Oh, and even cooler…the microplane does a great job with *frozen *ginger. Which means I’m not throwing out rotted/wrinkly ginger anymore!
This is my Microplane. I’ve got two, one fine, one coarse - they’re identical. I didn’t get the long skinny one because it seemed like it’d be a) too easy to grate my knuckles, with that added length and b) harder to clean. Awesome little tool.
WhyNot, I agree with you. I don’t care for garlic presses - I can never get it to press all of the garlic, and invariably throw away some of the garlic goodness. This cannot be allowed.
A while ago a friend and I went to my late mother’s house to get some of my things from there and we decided to cook some pasta carbonara. The problem was that someone, probably nephew #2, had ran away with the grater. However, we found her old almond grater and it was perfect for parmesan. My friend liked it so much that I gave it to him. Much better than throwing it away.
