Crystallised Ginger

Intro: Crystallised Ginger

I like crystallised ginger, and today I saw some good-looking root-ginger on sale @ 40p per pound. I figured all I really needed was some sugar, and I could turn a big root into tasty-sweet & spicy-lumps. This turned out to be correct.

Some claim that ginger is a remedy for nausea, motion sickness, morning sickness and general stomach upset. I don't, but I like the taste.

STEP 1: Ingredients & Tools

Fresh root ginger ~1.5 LB (61p)
White refined cane sugar - ~3 LB (most can be recovered)

A knife
A saucepan
A sieve

STEP 2: Preparation

Choose the freshest, firmest and cleanest ginger that you can find. If it looks old or wrinkly it's not going to be good.
Peel the golden skin from the ginger-root, also cut off any "woody" bits, green, black or otherwise not-nice-looking parts.
Cut into fairly large-chunks slicing across the "grain" where possible.
If you think it necessary rinse the chunks under a tap to remove loose flakes of skin & peelings.
Put the chunks into a clean saucepan.

STEP 3: Cooking

I added ~ 1 LB of sugar and enough water to "cover" the ginger (it has a tendency to float).

The sugar & ginger were brought to the boil and simmered gently until the lumps looked translucent, i.e. no longer white-ish and opaque. This took ~ 3 hours, during which time the chunks shrank and the sugar syrup reduced to ~ half the volume. The sugar syrup was not cooked to the point of caramellisation.

The syrup was separated with a sieve and kept for future use (home-brew)

STEP 4: Finishing

The drained pieces were tipped into fresh sugar while still hot.
More sugar was added and the pieces stirred, then some more sugar sprinkled on top and the whole batch left to cool.
After ~ 30 min the pieces were picked-out and the excess sugar returned to the bag for future use (home-brew)

Tastes like it should, but somewhat fresher and more potent.

I'm not sure about the cost of this, but I reckon 99p per LB? (energy & labour excepted), as compared to retail ~4 pounds stlg (?)

!Bonus - I got ~500ml of ginger-syrup out of this

Comments

[MichaelQ28]

Yum!

[cooked1]

DON'T peel ginger with a knife. Use a strong teaspoon, much less waste and definitely easier to do. Thumb on the back of the spoon as you go.

[gregoryiain]

Great recipe, may I also suggest two energy and money-saving ideas to a pretty un-improvable recipe. After peeling and before chopping the ginger put it in the freezer overnight. This breaks down the cell-structure and strands wonderfully. After freezing chop in a tray as lots of water from the ginger will ooze as you chop, add this to the pot. Cook the ginger and sugar water in a pressure-cooker on the first boil for 20 minutes only and allow it to fully cool overnight. A hay-box or a box with old sleeping-bags stuffed around the pot to allow contents to 'steep' as long as possible with the residual heat. Subsequent short boils will evaporate water. Date-syrup, black-treacle or muscovado-sugar will also add full flavours and colours according to preference.

[cant_decide]

Just tried this, and even with it still cooling, it tastes great! Now I've got to figure out what to do with the syrup and the excess sugar. Probably going to try one of the ginger ale recipes on here.

[asymptotic]

Pro tip: peel your ginger with a spoon. It's easier to follow the bumps and crevices, and you won't lose as much of the good stuff.

[Phiske]

i may be a little late in commenting, but the spoon peeler idea is awesome. i'm making some now and it totally beats a knife. i live in ecuador and few people have ever seen ginger outside of the chinese communities. so i'll see what my friends here think if it's not to "spicy" for them.

[lemonie]

Interesting, but it'd have to be a sharp spoon? L

[hlfwy.thr]

nope. I saw this trick on the food network, and it works pretty well : )

[damienstafford]

This is awesome! Thank you so much for sharing this. I will be using this for sure!

[Jayefuu]

I need to make some more of this. I just ran out.

[Jayefuu]

Done! Yummy :D

[{tauney}]

mmmm...beer and ginger? delicious!

[lemonie]

It'll be in the next brew... L

[ausphoenixrising]

it's been an age - how did the brew turn out, i find that whole concept rather exciting :)

[lemonie]

It had a touch of ginger, but I was just using the sugar - I can't touch the stuff unless it's been fermented...

L

[nickodemus]

This stuff works wonders for my heartburn, thanks for the recipe!

[lemonie]

Oh good. For myself, I thought "That fresh ginger is cheap, crystallised ginger is expensive." and it went from there.

L

[millersmith]

Being pregnant and often nauseated (ginger really does help for me!) I will cherish this recipe, thanks so much Lemonie!
Cheers!

[The Ideanator]

Last batch of it I made I added a bit too much lemon juice concentrate, the ginger tastes very non-gingery, however the juice from it makes great lemon-ginger tea. Ive got another batch going right now with half of yesterdays syrup.

I routinely have an issue with the coating though, my ginger likes to hold onto some syrup and let it out when coating and stays a bit soggy.

[lemonie]

It needs a good long while in the sugar to dry out. Still this seems to be a great way to make syrup?

L