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Seasoned cooks are often of the opinion that they can get anything, really anything down with their knives - no matter how tiny it is in the end.
Good attitude, after all, cooking is 95 percent manual work.
And this love of blades also saves a lot of detergent for dirty kitchen machines.
And yet there is a limit at which knife fuss finds its lower limit.
From then on it actually only gets smaller with rasping and rubbing.
Ideally with the modern laser-sharpened teeth, originally patented by a US company, but now offered by many manufacturers.
This is the only way to avoid unsightly frictional losses.
Tower grater Microplane
When the family-run company Grace Manufacturing, headquartered in Russellville (Arkansas), applied for a patent for a new, particularly sharp woodworking tool in 1990, nobody there suspected that it would also change the world of cooking. "Microplane" was the name of the new wood rasp, which was the first to use razor teeth ground with laser light to sharpen razor blades. According to legend, it was a Canadian housewife in Ottawa who, four years later, wanted to rub the orange peel thinly for a cake recipe and failed so miserably with her blunt kitchen tool that she quickly borrowed his microplane wood grater from her husband's garage workshop. A world career as a kitchen tool followed.
I am a gifted, poor cake baker, which is why it was a tablespoon of lemon peel for an oxtail recipe that made me join the worldwide community of Microplane disciples. Again and again my old grater smeared with citrus oil, which is why I had to increase the pressure, but this always meant that parts of the terribly bitter white mesocarp layer were also rubbed off. Until a small, file-shaped microplane fell out of the knife pocket of a catering chef friend of mine. On my foot. Part of the outer layer was missing from my leather shoe.
Thrusts of euphoria go hand in hand with excessive exaggeration, which is why I - that must have been about ten years ago - bought the whole set of four Microplane graters and rasps including (unfortunately quite unwieldy) finger protection.
Two of them had a plastic handle that crumbled after a few years and were replaced with graters from the "Professional" series made of stainless steel, which have not lost any of their sharpness to this day.
With such a set you can quickly get over 100 euros poorer, which is why the tower grater with four very different rubbing and rasp areas is a good introduction to giving the kitchen-making area of life a little more sharpness.
What's this?
Razor-sharp grater-rasp combination for most kitchen tasks.
Who needs that
Anyone who doesn't feel like messing around anymore.
What does this cost?
Single grater from Microplane Professional from 25 euros, the 4-way tower grater around 45 euros.
Rommelsbacher MR 6 electric cheese grater
At this point it is essential to think of the person who has done more to spread Mediterranean cooking and joie de vivre than all of Germany's suburban pizzerias put together. When asked which kitchen accessory gift had changed his life most lastingly, the now 85-year-old Alfred Biolek replied without even thinking for a second: "An electric parmesan grater." Biolek worked tirelessly against the Parmesan presentation, which was only known in Germany at the time, in the form of the pre-grated bagged goods that smelled of fresh vomit and tasted like sticky. For years one saw Biolek how he got along with the tiny,struggled with the sharp-edged grip of a mechanical cheese drum grater over the otherwise ready-to-eat plates - once he even had to be treated in front of the camera after a small, bloody slip.
All of this will come to an end with the entry of the electric Parmesan grater into the community of culinary values.
At least on the north side of the Alps - to this day the Italians shake their heads at the technology-loving Germans while they pour a big spoon of the hard cheese freshly grated by Mama in the kitchen (nowadays also in Italy often on a microplane) over the Bucatini all 'amatriciana pour.
I also have to admit that I prefer to grate Parmesan and Pecorino by hand, because they can be crushed even finer, almost like dust.
At Christmas, when the whole family is sitting at the table, I buy the electric drum a new set of batteries.
What's this?
A neat way to rub absolutely fresh parmesan on top of the pasta.
Who needs that
Gallant hosts and other Biolek disciples.
What does this cost?
Electric cheese graters are available from around 20 euros, stable quality costs around 40 euros.
Twinzee cut protection gloves
People who have to cut through masses of soft matter with hard, super-sharp knives for professional reasons all day long - for example butchers, butchers or fish filleters - would never think of doing this with their bare hands. And not just because otherwise the employer's liability insurance association protection against accidents at work will expire. But plain and simple, because even after work you can be happy to still have all ten fingers on your hand. To do this, they wear protective gloves at work - depending on the job description, made of highly developed plastic and carbon fibers or the tried and tested butcher chain glove.
The latter wins the class in the "Puncture Resistance" category with five out of five possible points, but is oversized and extremely uncomfortable for occasional chopping, rasping and planing in the hobby kitchen. So if you don't cut up a few cattle every day and keep slipping off the sternum with the sharp boning knife and ramming the blade into your holding hand with full force, you need something lighter.
For example protective gloves made of modern materials such as polyethylene, glass fibers and spandex threads. Like most of these products, the dealers from Twinzee are also certified according to the DIN standard EN388 - but not broken down according to abrasion resistance, cut resistance, tear resistance and puncture resistance (recognizable by a four-digit number under the EN388 logo). It doesn't matter, because especially bowls like me prevent unnecessary blood loss. I hardly ever injure myself when cutting, but when rubbing rock-hard Parmesan edges on the ultra-sharp microplane teeth, a few fingertip rasps don't necessarily have to fall into the food again. For the sake of the vegetarians among the guests.
What's this?
An inexpensive and smart protection, especially for the fingertips when rubbing and rasping.
Who needs that
Anyone who doesn't want to become a bad finger while rubbing.
What does this cost?
Less than an emergency doctor call: around 10 euros.
