Grating is one of the more annoying preparation tasks: the food escapes across the board, the grater is difficult to clean, and cheese ends up everywhere except where it was meant to go.
The Types and What They Suit
Box graters give several surfaces on one tool and are stable enough to press against. Flat and rasp graters suit hard cheeses, citrus zest and garlic. Rotary graters handle hard cheese neatly and safely.
Attachments that sit over a bowl combine grating and containment, which addresses the main practical complaint: food going everywhere.
Grating Straight Into the Bowl
The clearest efficiency gain. A grater that clips over a mixing bowl means the food lands where it is going, nothing scatters across a board, and there is no board to wash.
Sets combining bowls with grater attachments, of the kind at umitechef.net, are aimed at exactly this: one vessel, one tool, one thing to wash rather than three.
Technique
- Chill soft cheese for twenty minutes, which stops it clogging the blades
- Use long strokes with light pressure rather than short forceful ones
- Stop before the piece becomes too small to hold safely
- Grate hard cheese on the fine side and softer cheese on the coarse
- Rinse immediately, before anything dries onto the blades
The Safety Point
Graters cause a large number of minor kitchen injuries, and nearly all of them happen at the end of a piece.
The last inch is not worth it. Stop while there is enough to hold, and keep the offcut for melting or for stock. A guard, where one is supplied, is worth using rather than leaving in a drawer.
The blades stay sharp for years and are just as capable of cutting a finger during washing as during use. Wash with a brush rather than a cloth wrapped around a hand, and never reach into a sink of cloudy water where a grater is submerged.
Cleaning
Rinse immediately. Dried cheese and vegetable residue set hard in the perforations and become genuinely difficult to remove.
A stiff brush works better than a sponge, which snags and tears. Brushing from the smooth side outward pushes residue out rather than driving it further in.
Pre-Grated Versus Grating Your Own
Bagged grated cheese is coated with an anti-caking agent, usually starch or cellulose, which stops it clumping and also stops it melting smoothly.
Anyone who has wondered why a homemade sauce turns grainy has usually met this. Grating your own is the fix, and it takes a minute.
Zest
A fine rasp grater is the tool, and the technique is to take only the coloured layer. The white pith beneath is bitter and ruins whatever it goes into.
Zest before juicing, since zesting a squeezed lemon is considerably harder.
