Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Are you zesty?

So for the pumpkin butter recipe I made on Sunday, I had to zest and juice four lemons. Well, I was excited to do this, because I just bought a citrus zester at IKEA on Friday, like the one on the left. I was looking forward to trying it out, hoping it would make the job of zesting easier. Well, my review in four words: are you kidding me?!

Besides the fact that the zesting end of it is very small, so it's that much harder to scrape off the zest in any kind of speedy manner, it just didn't zest very well. I scraped for a couple minutes and had barely cracked the white layer of the lemon. Um, no, I don't think so.

So I went back to the ginger grater that I usually use (like the one on the right, only rounder). It's awesome because you can just set the grater down on your lap or a table (it has a non-slip bottom) and grate the lemon back and forth. The lemon rind (or if you're grating ginger, the ginger pieces and juice) get trapped in the moat circle around the grater, so you don't lose any (or get it all over yourself). Downside? Sore shoulder.

So this is an example of the grass is always greener. I was looking for a citrus zester because it seemed like it would be so much better than the one I already used. But once I tried it, I realized that I really did already have it good (oooh, now that was good grammar, wasn't it?).

5 comments:

Leah J. Utas said...

I find it way too fussy to zest. I use an ordinary peeler or a grater.
My husband puts the whole rind in a blender. We're not big on subtlety here.

The Lethological Gourmet said...

Oooh, putting the whole rind in a blender (or food processor)? That's an awesome idea! I don't like how fussy zesting is either...but I like the strong flavor it gives.

JavaChick said...

Interesting. I have a zester, similar to the Ikea one in your photo and it works just fine. Though, the zest comes off in long strips, so if I want it finer I have to run a knife through it.

Anonymous said...

Have you ever tried a microplane? They're supposed to be the bee's knees but I keep not getting one.

The Lethological Gourmet said...

Ooh, those microplane graters look excellent! Thanks for the tip!

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