83 of 87 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This tool will not grate on your nerves, October 8, 2003
By A Customer
This is probably the only tool in my kitchen that I've also found in my dad's workshop. I use it for a variety of grating tasks including hard cheeses, chocolate, nutmeg, cinnamon, and citrus zests.For hard cheeses such as parmesan, you'll get a nice, light fluffy pile of cheese as opposed to the grittier result from a traditional box grater. This is because the Microplane actually produces tiny, thin strips as opposed to hard little granules. Your cheese will melt faster and will actually look somewhat elegant perched in a snowy mound atop a bowl of pasta. Hard spices such as nutmeg grate quickly and easily, and it's a snap to run the Microplane over an orange or lemon for just the right amount of zest and no pith (unless you press to hard or work the same spot too long). With wetter foods like zest, you will have to slide the resulting product from the backside of the plane as it does tend to stick, but this only takes a quick flick of your finger. Chocolate will need to be quite cold so that it's hard enough to grate without melting or slipping. Finally, the Microplane is extremely easy to use because you can grate right into the pot or onto a plate. It's long enough to rest on the lip of most bowls, and it's elegant enough to bring to the table. In fact, we recently had a dinner party and we passed around this tool so that our guests could grate just the right amount of bittersweet chocolate into their black-bean chili. Cleaning can be a bit tricky with this tool, since its sharp holes will catch on a towel when you try to dry it. Personally, I find that a few hard taps dislodge any gunk and I seldom need to actually wash it. But if you do get it wet, be sure to dry it thoroughly as you would with any fine kitchen knife. If you wipe toward the handle, it shouldn't be a problem.
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