Tuesday’s Tip with the Kitchen Whisperer – Mincing the easy way!

So let’s dish, most recipes call for mincing garlic or mincing this or that.  And until you have super sharp knifes and and don’t have a fear of having that blade centimeters from your finger tips I bet a fair bit of you don’t really mince the way something should be minced.  Hey no worries, even I don’t always have time for that. Plus for as much as I’m in the kitchen even I need a short cut here or there.  And that’s where my handy dandy friend the microplane comes into play. So on this week’s edition of Tuesday’s Tip with the Kitchen Whisperer I’m sharing with my kitchen trick of mincing the easy way!

Now microplanes are not new at all as they’ve been around for eons.  They actually originated in woodworking as wood workers would use them to help smooth out wood. Eventually they became more known as wood planers.  And somehow that microplane made its way out of the woodshed and into the kitchen. Microplanes are awesome for zesting citrus for baked goods or cheese for soups and topping pasta.  It’s the only thing I use when my recipe calls for fresh nutmeg or cinnamon.  I just grab my nutmeg nut and rub it back and forth on my microplane right above my bowl.

Fresh ginger is a breeze on the microplaner.  Once you peel some of your fresh ginger, just grate it back and forth on the microplane.

And garlic… grating garlic on the microplane is the best ever!  You get almost a paste-like substance which means you can actually use less and if you have that fussy kid that hates “chunks of stuff” the garlic paste ‘melts’ into the dish.

Now the only thing you have to remember when it comes to using microplanes is that you need to flip them over and make sure to get the collected stuff on the underside of it.  Don’t let that go to waste!

Microplanes that I highly recommend:

Microplane 40020 Classic Zester/Grater – Great for zesting citrus, grating hard cheese, and ginger

 

Microplane 38000 Professional Coarse Grater – Coarsely grates hard cheese, chocolate, garlic, carrots, or coconut