Slicing and grating on the red button

When it comes to handling some of the trickier aspects of food preparation, Ian Macrae finds a product that fills the gap in the market between large, more expensive food processors and simple, cheap graters

In reviewing kitchen products for this page, particularly those that come from the main­stream market, I generally start with three questions.  First, what is the appliance like as a product? Second, does it have particular usefulness for disabled people? And third, how does it fill the gap left by alternatives that are difficult or dangerous to use?  

Many disabled people face particular challenges – and in this case, that is an appropriate use of the word – with tasks like slicing and grating. Many prefer to steer clear of Mandolin slicers, and, after several spectacularly bloody hand and finger injuries, I for one don’t blame them. Some tradi­tional graters are tricky to handle or hard to anchor firmly on a surface.

True, you can resort to your large multi-tasking food processor if you have one, but is it really worth getting it down, making it dirty and washing it up, just to grate a bit of cheese or slice some carrots?

For these reasons I was attracted to the idea of the Tefal Fresh Express even before I saw it. It’s a compact electric slicer and grater with attachments for fine and coarse shredding, thick and thin slicing, and a fine grater for things like parmesan and chocolate.

It’s certainly compact: all the five attachments fit into a plastic housing which can be clipped to the main unit which itself is quite small;  the cable stows away in the back, meaning it doesn’t trail or get tangled with other cables.

In fact, since it arrived, the Fresh Express has lived at the back of a work surface without, it seems, infuriating my nearest and dearest.

When it comes to what it brings to the disabled cook’s party, however, it turns out to be a bit of a curate’s egg. There’s no doubt that it slices shreds and grates nicely, and above all safely. It also has an easy-to-find-and-identify big red button to start and stop it. The food – I’ve done carrots and cucumber slices, and grated cheese and chocolate – slides down a chute and into the path of the protected blades by pushing a plunger.  

But attaching the various cones can be a bit of a faff, involving a certain amount of jiggling to locate them and the thing that holds them.

As for what it produces, you get nice thin and even slices of cucumber – handy for the sandwiches if you find yourself entertaining the vicar. The thicker blade was good for courgette and also did carrots rather well, but if you like your stew ingredients or side veges nice and chunky, you might find these a little delicate. Also, the grating process does have a tendency to spray bits of food all over the counter.

The small grater was very good for parmesan.  It also did a good job on chocolate, though you have to make sure the chocolate is really cold, as with any other grater, or it will melt.

INFORMATION

Tefal Fresh Express

Lakeland.co.uk

£49.99