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I've had a wedge of Pecorino Romano wrapped in plastic wrap in the fridge for a while. There are many of you out there that probably have had the same problem. :)

I actually cut a small piece and it was quite crunchy! I tried to grate it and it's no longer crumbly. So it's quite hard to grate. The cheese still tastes good, though.

Is there a way to get it back to its slightly softer and crumbly consistency?

4 Answers 4

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You could try lightly steaming it, but in all likelihood there's no rescuing. Your best bet is to chop it and throw it in a blender to 'grate' it. Alternatively, blend it with maltodextrin/dextrose to (re)obtain the powdery quality.

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I don't think you can rescue it, but you can use it. Try putting it into a vegetable soup; you'll find that it adds a bit of body as well as flavour. You can also do this with the left-over rinds of any hard cheese.

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We use a microplane grater for cheese. It works great for hard Parmesean or Pecarino. The volume increase is quite high, so it can take a while to grate the right amount. But it makes fast work of hard cheeses. It also melts very easily because the pieces are so small.

Obviously, this doesn't get you back to your consistency, which I think is unlikely. But the cheese is still very usable.

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  • A word of advice from experience -- the original brand, narrow ones (where the metal is folded over the edge to stiffen it) are the ones that you want here. There are a number of different brands that now make similar products, and most have a really wide, curved surface -- for some the metal is so thin that they've added plastic at the top and bottom to stiffen it (I think it was Cuisinart; the xyliss ones look similar, but have a more rigid metal) -- plastic stiffening doesn't work, as I managed to crack it the first use (grating a hard cheese that had started to dry out).
    – Joe
    Commented Jun 13, 2017 at 14:07
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You can wet a paper towel, squeeze it out, wrap the cheese in it, then wrap it in Saran Wrap. Put in refrig. By the next day the outside edges will be grateable. Keep it this way in the refrig. It will continue to solften. I do it all the time. 👍

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