Ingredient

Ginger

Fresh ginger is hot, juicy and citrusy. Dried ground ginger is warm, sweet and woody. They come from the same root and they are not substitutes for one another — drying changes the chemistry, not just the water content.

Fresh and dried are different ingredients

The pungency of fresh ginger comes from one family of compounds; drying converts a good deal of it into a related family that is warmer and less sharp. That is why gingerbread made with fresh ginger tastes thin and odd, and why a stir-fry made with ground ginger tastes dusty.

As a rough rule, a tablespoon of grated fresh ginger and a scant teaspoon of ground are in the same territory of intensity — but they are not the same flavour and swapping them changes the dish rather than weakening it.

The forms, and what each is for

Fresh root

Hot, bright, lemony. Stir-fries, curries, dressings, tea, marinades. Grated it disappears; sliced or julienned it stays present.

Ground dried

Warm and sweet. Baking, spice blends, slow braises. Bloom it in fat rather than stirring it into liquid.

Stem ginger in syrup

Cooked and sweetened. A confection as much as a spice — good in cakes, puddings and with dark chocolate.

Crystallised

Chewy, sugary, still hot. Chopped into biscuits and cakes.

Pickled

Thin, sharp, cleansing. A palate reset rather than a cooking ingredient.

Preparing fresh ginger

1. Peel only what you need, and only if the skin is tough. Young ginger has thin skin that needs nothing; older, drier root does.
2. The edge of a teaspoon peels ginger better than a peeler or a knife, because it follows the knobbly shape and wastes almost nothing.
3. Grate on a fine grater or a microplane for maximum flavour with no texture — this ruptures the most cells and gives you the juice.
4. Cut into fine matchsticks when you want to notice it in the finished dish; slice into coins when you want to infuse and remove.
5. Ginger is very fibrous along one axis. Grate or cut across the fibres, not along them, or you get strings.

Storing it

• Whole, unpeeled, in the fridge in a paper bag or loosely wrapped, it keeps for weeks. Sealed in plastic it sweats and moulds.
• It freezes extremely well and can be grated straight from frozen — arguably better than fresh for grating, because frozen ginger shreds without stringing.
• A cut face dries out and hardens. Slice from the end you have already opened rather than starting a new one.
• Ground ginger loses its aroma within months of opening. If it smells of nothing much, it will taste of nothing much.

The jelly problem

Fresh ginger contains an enzyme that breaks down protein, which is why it is used as a meat tenderiser in some cuisines and why it will stop a gelatine jelly setting. Gelatine is protein; the enzyme cuts it up; nothing sets.

Cooking the ginger first destroys the enzyme and solves it completely. So a ginger panna cotta or jelly needs the ginger simmered in the liquid before the gelatine goes in, not stirred in raw at the end. The same applies to fresh pineapple, papaya, kiwi and fig, for the same reason. Setting agents that are not protein — agar, pectin — are unaffected.

Getting the most from it

• Peel it with a teaspoon, not a peeler. The edge follows the knobbles and wastes a fraction as much.
• Grate it on a fine grater for a paste that disappears into a sauce, or slice it into coins to perfume oil and be removed.
• Grate it frozen. Ginger freezes well and grates more finely and cleanly from frozen, with no peeling needed.
• Fresh, ground and stem ginger are three ingredients. Fresh is hot and citrusy; ground is warm and earthy and belongs in baking; stem ginger is sweet and syrupy. They do not substitute for one another.
• Its heat fades with cooking, unlike chilli. Add some at the start for depth and some at the end for pungency.
• It contains an enzyme that breaks down protein, which is why fresh ginger prevents gelatine and dairy setting. Cook it first if that matters.

Common questions