Home pickled ginger and ginger sip
This is my recipe for making home pickled ginger for the table and cooking. A byproduct is a delightful strong ginger sip. The recipe was stolen from Mama San’s Ryokan, Tazawako.
Introduction
This recipe is inspired by Japanese Ryokan (traditional inn) dining where delightful homemade delicacies invariably adorn the family dinner table in many little ceramic bowls.
Home pickled ginger was invariably on the table and inspired me to make my own home pickled ginger when I got home. It is also a tribute to our kind and helpful hosts at a Ryokan at Tazawako. We affectionately call them ‘Ken San’ and ‘Mama San’. Subsequently, I have learned that these names are a bit inconsistent as the San ending to a name is a mark of deference and is not normally used with family names. Anyway, thanks ‘Ken and Mama San’, you are treasures.
Home pickled ginger
This pickled ginger is nice in stir-fry vegetables and good for making tasty pickles, relishes and fig and ginger jam with seasonal fruits. It is also a good way of preserving bulk quantities of ginger for cooking. “It avoids the normal spoilage of that neglected knob of desiccated ginger that can be found in most refrigerators. If done strategically, in bulk, cheap ginger can be available when the price rises to $50+/kg!”
Lastly, the pickling process makes a nice byproduct of syrup that can be used in stir-fry sauce, ginger and honey carrots and as a refreshing sipping drink or tonic.
Recipe for home pickled ginger
- Use fresh plump ginger roots (It will taste a lot better if it is purchased ‘on special’),
- Wash and peel off any scabby skin and any dry junction areas to expose healthy tissue,
- Scrape all deep grooves between the root bulges to ensure that they are free of soil particles,
- All the skin can be peeled off, but I prefer to leave most of the healthy fresh skin on,
- Slice the ginger thinly across the fibrous grain that runs down the length of the root,
- I use my favourite saw knife is very effective (Eversharpknives),
- Pack the ginger slices in sealable glass jars with plastic or glass lids. (Those big coffee jars with a plastic/glass lid are excellent and abound in opportunity shops.)
Note: Jars with glass or plastic lids are prefered as the acetic acid in the vinegar will rust steel lids. A square of a plastic sheet from a thick food bag can be used as a protector for the metal lid if they must be used.
Make a syrup of white vinegar and sugar, 30g of sugar/100ml of vinegar. Bring the syrup to the boil to dissolve the sugar and flood the ginger slices with the hot syrup and seal the jars.
Allow at least two weeks for the pickling to take effect. It keeps for ages.
Ginger sip
This delightful drink or sip is the pickling liquid that forms, with time, around the ginger slices. It is a good additive for vegetable cooking.
For example, ginger and honey carrots, here is my secret recipe:
- 1 tablespoon of ginger syrup
- 1 tablespoon of butter,
- 2 teaspoons of honey or brown sugar,
- 1 teaspoon of soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon of plain flour to make the sauce stick (or maize flour for gluten-free),
- Mix well and then stir into hot cooked carrots,
- Include 2 tablespoons of chopped pickled ginger if using with mixed stir-fry or vegetables.
Caution: This ginger sip is a serious strong little drink and should be drunken carefully, in silence, without inhaling the vinegar fumes that will result in instant coughing. “Now, this is starting to sound a little bit ‘Zen’ and probably justly so, because of its Japanese inspiration. Maybe we will find ginger syrup on Mama San’s dinner table next visit. Or maybe it is just too good to serve to us ‘big-noses’.”
Other food ideas inspired by Japan
If you have got this far without nodding-off, you may be interested in my other post about food inspired by Japan or some that were just seen as rather odd to me until I visited Japan They still may be odd to everyone else, but the Japanese are food masters in my opinion. Those wacky ideas are hidden in the following posts:
Tim
