Nigella's half moon is fab! (Nigella Lawson Meza Luna Herb Chopping Tool)

Member Name: Tracy_1127

Product:	Nigella Lawson Meza Luna Herb Chopping Tool
Date:	14/07/09 (75 review reads)
Rating:

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A couple of years ago when my herb garden finally became mature enough to pick herbs and use them I realised I needed something to chop them with. Not really needed I suppose but wanted! A knife was taking too long and I didn't fancy using the cleaver so I got looking online for something to chop herbs with.

A mezzaluna is one or two curved blades with a handle at either end. The word mezzaluna means "half moon" in Italian which of course is like the shape of the blade. I have no idea why Amazon have spelt this meza luna and not mezzaluna but there we go, it's the same thing.

Once I'd established what I was searching for was called a mezzaluna I found Amazon was the best place to purchase one from. I debated on a double bladed one but dismissed it as over the top, I also wondered about one long enough to chop up pizza but realised we didn't really have anywhere to store one of that length so finally I settled on this Nigella Lawson mezzaluna.

This particular one costs £11.50 from Amazon and comes with a plastic case for the blade that has a press stud to keep the blade away from fingers rummaging in the drawer and dampness etc off the blade.

The blade itself is about 10 inches long and the handles at each end are sturdy solid stainless steel with a kind of satin finish so they look good too. On one side of the blade is Nigella's logo which is an N with some leaves around it and a cake which amused me! The blade is pretty sharp, you could cut yourself on it if you ran your fingers along it. All in all a solid and sturdy piece of equipment, there's no way you could break anything on it as it's a solid piece of stainless steel and it's quite heavy in your hands which makes it feel substantial and man enough for the job. So far so good.

I use herbs alot in the kitchen and you can't beat fresh herbs in preference to dried ones so the first time I used this I had a big bunch of herbs from the garden on my chopping board. To use this you position it over the herbs and roll it from side to side over them using the handles on each side until you've chopped all the herbs directly under the blade then you use the blade to gather the herbs up into a tidy bunch again and repeat this procedure until they are chopped as finely as you need them.

The blade went through the herbs with no trouble at all and any that got caught on the sides of the blade were easy to remove using a finger to wipe them off and I had the whole bunch done in a couple of minutes which is much, much quicker than using a knife.

I've used it on various chopping boards, we have a plastic one which it does mark but then so do knives and a marble one which it doesn't mark. I've used it on all sorts of herbs including bay leaves which are tougher than most others and it cuts through them with no problems. The blade is still sharp after lots of use but I think you could sharpen it using a Steel which is a knife sharpener.

To wash this you just drop it in the sink with everything else and then dry it thoroughly afterwards. I always store ours in the plastic case which keeps it safely away from my fingers if I'm rifling through the drawer and keeps the blade protected from anything else like, as I said earlier, dampness.

This mezzaluna looks as though I've never used it and in the summer I use it loads. At the end of the summer I pick the herbs in the garden and chop and dry them for winter use which used to take me ages but with this I can do the whole herb garden in half an hour and that's alot of herbs!

I'm very pleased with this and recommend it to anyone who regularly chops up herbs. I'm glad I picked this particular one too as there's nothing breakable on it and it looks and feels good while being very effective. Extremely pleased with the product and the price and highly recommend it.

Summary: Highly recommended.