It’s easy to be seduced by shiny Microplanes and whiz-bang food processors. But a bog-standard box grater – yes, the one languishing in the back of your kitchen cupboard – is your secret weapon to getting dinner on the table in record time.
The beauty of a box grater is that each side serves a purpose, but the clean-up’s all-in-one. On the wide sides, the big holes are best to coarsely grate vegetables to sweat down for soups and purees, or fry into fritters; while the finer teeth are good for garlic, ginger and for shaving parmesan into fluffy clouds.
On the narrow sides, use the flat slot to rasp slices of cheddar cheese or to create chocolate curls. The zester is nifty for nutmeg, cinnamon and of course, citrus zest, with a bonus – as you rasp the citrus you apply extra pressure to the fruit, meaning you’ll squeeze more juice when the time comes.
You can also use your box grater as a herb hacker. I usually ask my four-year-old to pick the leaves off herbs but if you don’t have a kitchen apprentice, just thread a herb stem through the coarse teeth and pull from the inside – the leaves will slip right off. This hack works best for coriander and flat-leaf parsley, and can even be used for mint and basil if the stems are long enough. You’ll never have to worry about hum-drum herb chores again.
The key to its success, of course, is ensuring that your box grater is still fighting fit. Is it trusty but rusty? Are the teeth still tip-top, or are they worn down by the daily grind?
Although it may be tempting to keep a blunt box grater for fear of sharp edges, the same rules of engagement apply as to your kitchen knives: the sharper the grater, the more likely it’ll slice through the ingredient and not your fingers. To keep all your digits intact, watch your fingers (not the ingredient) and stop grating if you’re nervous – vegetable knubs and cheese ends make the best chef snacks while you cook.
These days, most graters are made from stainless steel, which last much longer than aluminium or tin ones. If yours is starting to take on a patina or is rusting at the edges, but you’re holding on to it for sentimental reasons, just know that metallic taint will end up in whatever you grate. Mayhaps it’s the kind of tchotchke better kept on the top shelf as an “installation piece”.
If you’re in the market for a new grater, look for a nice wide base (grippy silicone feet are optional but excellent) and a stable handle to hold on to. You’ll find decent quality graters at op-shops, and your mum probably has a spare, but they are also one of the first items to get discounted at homewares shop sales.
Box grater broccoli pasta – recipe
The beauty of this recipe is it takes advantage of every side of the box grater. It breaks down the ingredients to eke out maximum flavour in minimum time, with little fuss and washing up. The grated broccoli becomes jammy, currants coax out its natural sweetness, while salty little capers and umami-rich parmesan cheese make this a midweek mouth party.
In Italian, pangrattato literally translates to “grated bread”, which is much easier to do when the bread is stale. If you don’t have stale bread on hand, you’re welcome to use panko breadcrumbs, or just check your freezer for parcelled breadcrumb trails from past you.
This is an excellent recipe for beginner cooks. As you grow more confident, feel free to multitask and boil the pasta while you prep the rest of the ingredients.
Serves 4
2 French shallots, peeled
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 small heads broccoli
½ bunch parsley
60ml extra virgin olive oil (¼ cup), plus extra to serve
50g lilliput capers (¼ cup), drained and dried on kitchen towel (if using salted capers, rinse first)
75g currants (½ cup)
100g parmesan, finely grated
400g fusilli pasta, or other short dried pasta
For the broccoli pangrattato
100g stale bread, crusts removed
1 lemon, washed to remove the wax from the peel
50g salted butter
Using the large holes on the box grater, coarsely grate the French shallots and set aside. Then using the smaller holes on the wide side of the grater, finely grate the garlic and set aside.
Using the large holes on the box grater, grate the broccoli “fur” (the dark-green fuzzy outer layer of the florets – leave the tight, inner florets intact) and set aside.
Trim and peel the stalks of the broccoli. Using the large holes of the box grater, grate the remaining broccoli, including the florets and stems, and set aside.
Rinse and dry the grater. Grate the bread to make breadcrumbs and set aside with the broccoli fur. On the finest side of the box grater, zest the lemon and set the zest aside. Slice the naked lemon into wedges and set aside.
Thread parsley stalks through the large holes of the box grater with the leaves facing out, then pull through from the inside – the leaves should snip off the stalks. Finely chop the stalks and roughly chop the leaves, reserving some leaves for garnish, and set aside.
Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil.
Meanwhile, to make the pangrattato, heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the butter. When foaming, add the breadcrumbs, broccoli “fur” and half the garlic, and cook and toss for 10 minutes until golden. Remove from the heat, add the lemon zest and chopped parsley leaves, stir to combine, then remove to a bowl and set aside.
Wipe out the pan and place over medium heat. Add the olive oil, shallots, parsley stems and remaining garlic and sauté for five minutes. Toss in the capers, currants and grated broccoli florets and stems, and sauté for another five minutes until jammy. Add a splash of water from the pasta pot and sauté for another minute. Turn off the heat.
Meanwhile, add the pasta to the pot of boiling water. Stir, return the water to a boil and cook for a minute less than the packet directions require. Using a mug, scoop out two mugfuls of pasta water and set aside. Drain the pasta.
Return the broccoli sauce to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Add half the reserved pasta water (the starchy liquid helps emulsify and season the sauce). Gradually add more pasta water if desired and simmer until it has reached your preferred texture. (I like my sauce runnier because the pasta sucks up the juices while it continues cooking in the residual heat of the sauce, which is why we don’t cook the pasta for as long as the packet tells us to.) Stir through the cooked pasta, most of the parmesan and half the pangrattato. Squeeze over the lemon wedges (reserve a few wedges to serve), stir and taste for seasoning.
Place pasta on a serving platter and sprinkle the remaining broccoli pangrattato over the top. Serve with extra parmesan, extra lemon wedges, parsley leaves and a final flourish of olive oil.
