These delicious pretty little Parmesan baskets are a wonderful addition to your Parmesan cheese recipes.
My Parmesan baskets are the perfect serving dish for a spaghetti carbonara (as I demo’d at the Harpenden Food Festival) and can be made in advance.
See my recipe video on how to make your own Parmesan basket!
I love most Parmesan cheese recipes but using the cheese to make a Parmesan basket is a kinda fun way to serve things (caesar salad would be awesome!) but they taste great aswell!
By heating the Parmesan cheese you change the consistency of it entirely which releases a lot of oils and crisps up the texture.
So much so that you can also make regular Parmesan crisps if you like your bowls flat 🙂
In fact, if you want to make Parmesan crisps you can either just follow my method but instead of moulding the cheese over a bowl as described below, just let them cool and then break them up (or cut into strips while still warm if you want uniformity).
Watch how to make Parmesan baskets in my video recipes below!
Parmesan baskets:
100 gms Parmesan cheese (grated)
Non-stick frying pan
Small Bowl to make the shape
Method:
- Sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese into a cold non-stick frying pan to create a rough circle of cheese about 8 inches diameter. There should be enough cheese that you can’t really see the frying pan beneath it.
- Heat the frying pan on a medium heat until the parmesan has started to melt and has turned to more a golden colour (you’ll be able to smell the cheese cooking).
- Gently, very, very, gently start to lift the edges from the surface of the frying pan with a palate knife. You may find you need to grab an edge with your fingers to help lift it. Imagine you are about to turn a pancake that is slightly sticking.
- If it’s not working let it melt a little longer. Keep pushing away under the Parmesan cheese until it has all come away from the frying pan and you can lift it out.
- Very quickly (like immediately!) put the cheese disc on top of an upside-down bowl and gently push down the edges to form a shape around the bowl.
- In less than a minute the cheese will have hardened into the shape of the bowl – carefully remove and set aside. Now make another one for your dining partner.
Goes well with spaghetti carbonara.