Back To Basics: The Micro-plane

Sometimes when I blog, write a recipe, or even talk about food, it doesn’t occur to me that someone may not know what I am talking about.  When I did a cooking demonstration at the beginning of the month, it never occurred to me that the group of women there had never seen, eaten, or handled an avocado.  And a few weeks ago, I talked about using citrus zest, not thinking that there are people reading my blog who really are trying to learn all they can about cooking, and just don’t know a lot of the terminology, or are familiar with some of the ingredients.  So today I am adding a new category to my blog, and I will try and post something regularly to it, called Back To Basics.  In this category, I’ll talk about something that maybe I do everyday, but to someone else, it might be unfamiliar.  I’m also going to try to go more in-depth when I do Back To Basics.  I may feature a kitchen gadget, a cooking process, or an ingredient or vegetable.  I also want to know what you want to know about.  At anytime, feel free to leave in the comments a question about something cooking related, and then look for it to be answered at some point.

So today, I thought I’d start off with something I use more often than I ever thought I would. And that is my microplane.  In fact, last year around this same time, I talked about the very same gizmo for a blogging event.  But just what is this tool and how does one use it?  Here is a picture of my micro-plane and an orange.

If you are at all familiar with woodworking, it looks very similar to a rasp.  Scary similar, and I have no doubt that some enterprising person accidentally used that tool  in their kitchen in a moment of desperation to grate some cheese or chocolate and realized just what they had on their hands.  Micro-planes come in various shapes and sizes, and usually come in a fine grate or a coarse grate.  Mine is a fine grate, and can be used to grate hard cheeses like Parmesan, chocolate, coconut, ginger, or citrus zest.  It’s the citrus zest that I use it most often for.  Look again at my photo above.  Notice how the orange looks a little funny?  That’s because I’ve already zested it.  I’ve very gently rubbed my orange on my rasp and taken off the very outer layer of peel- that is the zest.  That peel is so full of flavor, but the pith directly underneath it is full of bitterness and an undesirable flavor.  Using a vegetable peeler or a box grater just takes too much of the peel off, so the micro-plane is the perfect tool for the job.

The results of using a micro-plane on the peel is perfect for absolutely anything.  Here you can see the tiny shreds of peel here on my cutting board, just waiting to be tossed in a quick bread, or muffins, or in this case, into a coating for fish.  Notice how the orange is still orange- you don’t want enough peel so that you actually see the white pith.  The same holds for lemons and limes, you just want the very outside layer of peel.  With a micro-plane, this comes off literally effortlessly.

The shreds come out so fine and minuscule that they disperse beautifully into whatever you are making and you end up with even, light citrus flavor all throughout.  Sometimes, when you use your micro-plane, the ingredient you are shredding gets caught on the underside of the micro-plane itself.  I find that most often happens when I grate some ginger or something really wet, like fresh coconut.  When that happens, I either use a small rubber scraper to scrape the shreds off, or I give the micro-plane a sharp tap on a mixing bowl or counter-top, and most often, they fall right off into whatever I need it.

The micro-plane is a fantastic tool that I use far more than I would have ever thought possible.  Citrus desserts come out so much better now that I’m leaving that bitter white pith behind.  Cranberry-orange bread tastes so much better with the tiniest sprinkling of orange zest, and let’s not forget my citrus yogurt cakes.  I love those, and they wouldn’t be very possible without the perfect zest.  Last night, I used the micro-plane to grate some orange peel for my fish.  It was a new recipe to me, and turned out very nice- the orange flavor was a nice change for fish, and we’ll definitely be making it again.  With just a few ingredients and little work required, it makes a great weeknight dinner.

Easy Baked Orange Fish

2 slices of bread

1 clove of garlic

zest and juice of one orange

3 tablespoons of butter

4 servings of white fish, such as haddock, tilapia, etc.

salt and pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Tear the slices of bread into pieces and place in a food processor.  Pulse until they are nicely crumbled.  Mince the one clove of garlic and combine the garlic, bread crumbs, and orange zest.

In a saute pan over medium heat, melt the butter.  When the butter is completely melted, add the breadcrumb mixture.  Cook and stir until all the butter is absorbed and the crumbs have just started to brown up a little bit. Pull off the heat.

Spray a baking sheet or pan with cooking spray and lay the fish fillets on the pan.  Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper to taste.  Top each piece of fish with the crumb mixture, use all the crumbs.

Slowly drizzle the reserved orange juice over the top of all the fish.

Bake in a 350ºF oven for about 20 minutes, or until the fish flakes easily with a fork. Serve immediately.