Box and Other Hand-held Graters

[Toliver]

On 1/23/2021 at 12:47 PM, weinoo said:

I've been using my large box grater for parmesan and pecorino lately. I've used a small microplane, the French moulinex grater disc, etc. etc. The box grater (a good, sharp one) works better and is basically faster than any of the others. Certainly it's not like I'm grating pounds of this stuff at a time.

I found the same thing when grating ("zesting") the rind of an orange. The box grater outperformed the microplane by far.

[weinoo]

20 minutes ago, Toliver said:

The box grater outperformed the microplane by far.

Exactly - especially a nice, sharp one.  And I've even figured out how to hold things so my fingers are not at risk!

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

2 hours ago, weinoo said:

I think that Zyliss style was originally made by the same company that makes the classic Mouli Julienne I own. I have one that barely works any more...

 

 

I had one like yours.  I got it in grad school or maybe even before.  It was corroded, rusted, and not sharp.  I threw it out just a couple years ago.

 

Meanwhile, my Ankarsrum slicer/shredder came today.  This attachment has six drums.  In addition to slicing and shredding, there is a fine grating drum, a medium coarse grating drum, a coarse grating drum, and a potato grating drum.  The medium coarse and coarse drums are suggested for cheese, and the fine grating drum for parmesan.

 

This is not to be confused with the Ankarsrum grating attachment, which I hope will arrive this week.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, Toliver said:

I found the same thing when grating ("zesting") the rind of an orange. The box grater outperformed the microplane by far.

 

My box grater is great for zesting oranges.  Less so for zesting cheese.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Tonight I used the Ankarsrum medium coarse grating drum on a chunk of Jarlsberg.  Very pleased.  No muss, no mess, almost no work.  (Best not to ask about the celery.)

 

[Dave the Cook]

We broke one of our graters the other night, right where the handle meets the grating surface:

 

 

 

It was probably about a year old, or, to put it another way, acquired about the same time as the last post in this topic.

 

Anything new since then? 

[lindag]

Don't know that this one is new but the same thing happened to me a couple weeks ago and I had to replace my old microplane.

I do not like box graters.

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by lindag (log)

[blue_dolphin]

Not at all new, but I just grated up a block of gruyère and some Parm with the Mouli Julienne that was one of my first kitchen purchases 40 years ago. 
 

Like this
 

[lindag]

I usually just grate it in my FP....fast and easy.

[Kim Shook]

I can't find a picture of it anywhere and I've lost track of mine somewhere, but I used to have a little grater that was perfect for putting on the dinner table so that people could add their preferred amount of Parm.  It was about the size of a large coffee mug and about the same shape (without a handle).  You put a chunk of cheese into the lid, which slotted into the bottom cylinder.  The lid had little metal points which held the cheese from the top and the bottom had little metal "shaver" slots which the cheese shredded and dropped through.  I would love to find another one of these.

 

You can grate Parm in the Vitamix, but for how long would it be tasty?  And wouldn't you have to be careful not to melt it?

[Dave the Cook]

35 minutes ago, lindag said:

Don't know that this one is new but the same thing happened to me a couple weeks ago and I had to replace my old microplane.

I do not like box graters.

 

 

That looks like Oxo's replacement for the one we just broke. It's cheap enough, but I'm just wondering if there's anything newer or better. We have a box grater, and it gets a lot of use. For some reason, so does the one that just broke.

 

12 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Not at all new, but I just grated up a block of gruyère and some Parm with the Mouli Julienne that was one of my first kitchen purchases 40 years ago. 
 

Like this
 

 

Sure, but Mouli doesn't make them any more, does it? Has anyone tried the similar version made by Westmark (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)?

[Dave the Cook]

15 minutes ago, lindag said:

I usually just grate it in my FP....fast and easy.

 

10 minutes ago, Kim Shook said:

. . . You can grate Parm in the Vitamix, but for how long would it be tasty?  And wouldn't you have to be careful not to melt it?

 

Also, neither our FP nor our Blendtec live on the counter; they both live in lower cabinets. A hand-held grater can live in an easily accessed drawer, can be deployed without an electrical outlet, and ALL of it can go in the dishwasher, and believe me, if you can't go in the dishwasher, you'll need an exceptional résumé to get a spot in our kitchen.

[lindag]

 

that Westmark looks very much like the Mouli I used to own.

Have you looked at the Zyliss rotary grater?

[heidih]

Just tell me it was a lighting issue and that is not blood along the edge. 

[weinoo]

33 minutes ago, Dave the Cook said:

Has anyone tried the similar version made by Westmark (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)?

 

The thing about that Westmark is that it doesn't look as if it has the perfect disc for using on parmesan.

 

I got my (used) Mouli on eBay (or similar) with 5 discs. It's grate great...

 

 

Note the bottom disc in the picture above. It's the one to use when grating parmesan...

 

 

The disc in the Westmark pictures they show grating cheese is probably not great for parmesan. (And it's made in China, which means it'll probably break quickly).

[Dave the Cook]

57 minutes ago, lindag said:

 

. . . Have you looked at the Zyliss rotary grater?

 

It looks like there are four or five different ones. Got a preference or recommendation?

 

54 minutes ago, heidih said:

Just tell me it was a lighting issue and that is not blood along the edge. 

 

Oops. Sorry -- it's just a reflection of the red hoodie I had on when I took the picture.

[Dave the Cook]

28 minutes ago, weinoo said:

I got my (used) Mouli on eBay (or similar) with 5 discs.

 

Okay, between you and @blue_dolphin, I'm almost convinced.

[lindag]

1 hour ago, Dave the Cook said:

 

That looks like Oxo's replacement for the one we just broke. 

 

 

MY new Oxo grater has a much sturdier handle than the one that got broken.

[lindag]

@weinooMy Cuisinart FP does a great (!) job grating parm with the medium grating blade...it may be just a little coarser than your picture above.

I considered getting the fine grating disc but thought the results  would be just too fine.

BTW, Ina Garten grinds her parm in her FP using the blade.

Edited March 15, 2022 by lindag (log)

[weinoo]

4 hours ago, lindag said:

@weinooMy Cuisinart FP does a great (!) job grating parm with the medium grating blade...it may be just a little coarser than your picture above.

I considered getting the fine grating disc but thought the results  would be just too fine.

BTW, Ina Garten grinds her parm in her FP using the blade.

Ina is grinding her Parmesan. I prefer mine grated. 

[andiesenji]

I no longer grate large amounts of Parm or other hard cheeses. I can order freshly grated hard cheeses and shredded cheeses also freshly worked, from a local deli, including Kashkaval, a rather strong cheese that is terrific in pasta dishes.

 

I came across this, which I bought in the nineties and never used, stuck it in the back of a cupboard and forgot about it.  I had planned to sell it on ebay but 2020 and Covid happened so I unlisted all my ebay items and closed my account.  I put it in a box with some other stuff and forgot all about it, again!

I found it this morning, while looking for something else.  I may have posted it somewhere on eG a couple of years ago, but not in this thread.  I thought you might like to see what was offered by AMCO in 1992.

 

[weinoo]

9 hours ago, andiesenji said:

I came across this, which I bought in the nineties and never used,

 

I think I had something quite similar; if I recall, it could do a number on the fingers/knuckles as well!

[Dave the Cook]

Wow. Based on its 8-inch diameter and some rough guessing, that thing will hold about 7 cups of grated cheese -- about 1-1/2 pounds. What would you do with all that? 

[andiesenji]

9 hours ago, Dave the Cook said:

Wow. Based on its 8-inch diameter and some rough guessing, that thing will hold about 7 cups of grated cheese -- about 1-1/2 pounds. What would you do with all that? 

It was one of those "spur of the moment" purchases when I was wandering around in The May Co., which had a very large "housewares" department and always had demonstrations of appliances - the reason I bought several that either became favorites, or were used once and never seen again.  And in fact a nice lady was demonstrating this grater and had HALF A WHEEL of the real Parm next to a stack of these graters in their boxes.  She had three open on her table so people could try grating chunks of the cheese, cut into rectangles with one end wrapped so fingers would stay clean.  I tried it, noted it grated very fine - perfect for adding to bread dough, so I bought two, one for my boss who had been complaining about grating his knuckles on a grater that I thought was a danger anyway.  He liked it and used it a lot, while mine was put away because all my grating cheeses were in small chunks and I used a rotary grater.  By the time I bought a big chunk, I had forgotten all about this grater.

Edited March 17, 2022 by andiesenji (log)

[DesertTinker]

19 minutes ago, andiesenji said:

It was one of those "spur of the moment" purchases when I was wandering around in The May Co., which had a very large "housewares" department and always had demonstrations of appliances - the reason I bought several that either became favorites, or were used once and never seen again.  And in fact a nice lady was demonstrating this grater and had HALF A WHEEL of the real Parm next to a stack of these graters in their boxes.  She had three open on her table so people could try grating chunks of the cheese, cut into rectangles with one end wrapped so fingers would stay clean.  I tried it, noted it grated very fine - perfect for adding to bread dough, so I bought two, one for my boss who had been complaining about grating his knuckles on a grater that I thought was a danger anyway.  He liked it and used it a lot, while mine was put away because all my grating cheeses were in small chunks and I used a rotary grater.  By the time I bought a big chunk, I had forgotten all about this grater.

Ah, thanks for the memories of The May Company. It was one of the big department stores in my youth. Higher end stores, May Co., Buffums, Robinsons, Bullocks then next step down Sears, J.C. Penney, Montgomery Ward…