Zester like a pro

I'm not telling you anything new, but a lot of recipes use the zest of a fruit, citrus fruits in particular, and removing it is not as easy as you might think.
In fact, you may have already seen this tool here:

It's a zester or a zester knife, which has the advantage of making nice long zests, but which are almost totally exuded, i.e. a little crushed, squeezed, and so the essence of the fruit you're trying to get is more on your fingers or the zester than in the recipe, too bad.

It's more a tool of the past, now there's something much better, and that's the zester grater, it looks like a big file, and as the main brand, the one that launched the tool is Microplane, all the professionals now say one or the microplane.

It doesn't sound like a revolutionary tool, and yet it is. It looks like a large file, as I said, and it's more or less the same principle: tiny teeth in highly resistant stainless steel, and it allows you to zest any fruit you want with extreme finesse, producing a kind of fine powder that blends easily into any recipe, and contains all the essences and flavors of the fruit worked on.

How do you use it? Well, that's the trick: intuitively, you'd use it just like a file: you hold the fruit in one hand, the microplane in the other, and grate the surface, passing it all around the fruit.

Not a good idea, though, as you're going to get zest everywhere but where it needs to be - I'm exaggerating.

No, in fact it's the other way round: your hand holding the microplane doesn't move, it's the one holding the fruit that moves, from the handle to the tip.

And you do this without going back and forth, just one way and then you rotate the fruit a little on itself to zest a new part, and so on.

Well, when you put it like that, it sounds very complicated, and at first it's a bit confusing, this tool that doesn't move while the fruit does, but once you get the hang of it, you'll see. What's more, the amazing quality of the zest harvested is well worth this little change of habit.

The microplane can also be used to grate a whole host of other things, including Parmesan cheese.

Pastry chefs also use it, like a file for that matter, to smooth out their tart, tartelette or cookie bases after baking, for a near-perfect final appearance.


To sum up: to zest a fruit, nothing beats a grater (microplane or other), in which case the tool remains fixed, it's the fruit that moves.