The Grate Plate product reviews

It's not often that I come across something so unique that I just have to have one... especially when it comes to dinky kitchenware. A recent visit to the Ideal Homeshow in Palmerston North was one such occasion. Having a chat with the chap at the PS Marketing stand and I spotted this little gem on the table. After a quick demonstration, and a hands-on go myself, I simply had to have one!

The simplicity of this plate makes me wonder why nothing like this has been seen on the market before... if it has been out there, why haven't I seen it... and if it hasn't, why not? A ceramic plate with a spiral of notches carved into it in such as manner as to produce a sharp ridge on one side... it's so simple yet amazingly effective.

Once I was home and had given my new baby a good wash, it was time to put it through it's paces... Ginger, chocolate, nutmeg, cinnamon stick, garlic, lemon and orange zest and even a hard chunk of Parmesan cheese... it did a perfect job on them all, especially the chocolate. As per the instructions, the zest needed the use of a clean toothbrush or pastry brush to get it all out, but that is more a factor of the natural oils in the zest, rather than any issue of the grater. It is the same with any such grating device I have come across.

The best bit... I still had all my knuckle skin at the end of 9 gratings... a remarkable, even miraculous feat... as anyone who has lost concentration for even a split-second while using a 'standard' grater can testify. OK, my fingertips got a little 'sanded' at one point near the end of the nutmeg, but it was no more than a scraping feeling, no skin lost... unlike the effects when using an array of metal or plastic slicing blades.

Overall, a brilliant, amazingly simple device that does the job better than anything I have come across yet. A little more expensive than your average grater, but oh so much better on the knuckles! As a quick test, I decided to put this, a metal grater and a plastic one up against each other in time trials. To get the same quantity of grating done took less time, and less effort, with the grater plate than with either 'standard' grater, and there was no lost skin... which can't be said for my time trials with the metal grater in particular.