Recipe: on Preserving Ginger

Hi The following info I found at another location:

It may well be that ginger comes in more forms than any other spice. Dried, powdered, fresh, pickled, preserved, and crystallized, ginger has been used for thousands of years in cuisines the world over, in recipes from soups to entr es to desserts to drinks. Ginger even makes a beautiful houseplant.

Fresh light brown "hands" of ginger with their branched, knobby, fat "fingers" are available year-round in our produce department. Technically, ginger is a rhizome, not a root, so "gingerroot" is a misnomer, although widely accepted. Newly harvested ginger rhizomes are dried slightly in the sun before shipping, but choose fresh ginger that is plump, heavy, and firm. Store fresh ginger as you would potatoes, in a cool, dry place. It's best to buy only the amount you'll need for a recipe. Peel fresh ginger before using. The flesh can be cut into thin slices, diced, minced, or grated. For quick mincing, try using your garlic press.

Ground or powdered ginger comes from dried ground ginger. Experienced cooks buy small amounts at any one time for maximum flavor, knowing that ground ginger has flavorful volatile oils that are lost when exposed to the air. Ground ginger has a lovely color, flavor, and aroma when baked in sweet treats such as cakes, cookies, and ginger's namesake, gingerbread. Never substitute ground ginger for fresh.

Crystallized ginger is cooked in syrup and coated with coarse sugar. Because fresh ginger will turn milk sour, crystallized ginger is perfect for recipes that use milk such as breads, cakes, muffins, ice cream, and custards. Try the crystallized ginger that is imported from Australia, available in our Bulk department. The flavor is very intense, almost hot and peppery.

Stem ginger is small pieces (stems) of ginger peeled, sliced, and cooked in a heavy sugar syrup. This is a very old way of preserving ginger, and old recipes may call for something called "ginger syrup," which is the syrup from stem ginger. Packed in beautifully decorated ginger jars, stem ginger traveled the Mediterranean as part of the spice trade.

Pickled ginger is preserved in vinegar. Sliced as thin as paper, it is most often used in Japanese cooking as a condiment known as gari, a way to refresh the palate between courses. A small, pink mound of pickled ginger often accompanies a beautifully crafted plate of sushi.

You can even plant a piece of fresh ginger at home in a flowerpot. Choose a piece that has a growing node, like the eye of a potato. Fill a pot with potting soil, and plant the ginger about an inch below the surface. You'll be rewarded with a thin, bright green houseplant that resembles bamboo.