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How to Avoid Mincing Ginger (A Silver Medal Hack)

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August  9, 2012
7 Comments

We've been hosting our own Summer Food Fights on FOOD52 -- come play along!

Last week, in honor of the Summer Food Fights we asked you to send in Your Best Kitchen Hack -- and we promised you some glorious, drool-worthy prizes.

Yesterday, we presented our bronze medal to hardlikearmour for her photo tutorial on hacking a cold smoker. Today, we bring you the silver medalist: Parties That Cook, who shows us a speedy workaround for mincing ginger in the video above. No need to peel, just grab your box grater and squeeze.

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Congrats to Parties That Cook -- check back tomorrow for the gold!

      silver le creuset

Le Silver Medal: 5 1/2 qt. round French oven from Le Creuset

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  • Christina @ Christina's Cucina
    Christina @ Christina's Cucina
  • Kristen Miglore
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  • maggiesara
    maggiesara
  • drbabs
    drbabs
Brette Warshaw

Written by: Brette Warshaw

I'm a reader, eater, culinary thrill-seeker, and food nerd.

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7 Comments

AntoniaJames
AntoniaJames August 10, 2012
I can see how this hack would be perfect for getting ginger flavor into drinks, without having to spend the time (and sugar) making a syrup. I have to confess that my "hack" for ginger, when garlic is used in stir-fries and curries, etc., is to use the trick recommended by Monica Bhide in her book, Modern Spice. She recommends for weeknight use the crushed garlic/ginger blends in jars from the Indian grocer. I buy "Shan" brand, which works perfectly well (though I usually add a touch of fresh garlic, because the ginger in those blends tends to dominate). I am so glad I looked at the comments here, though, because I do like to use fresh ginger in a variety of ways, and have been underwhelmed by the microplane as a tool for grating it. I like the convenience of maggiesara's method of peeling, freezing and grating the ginger frozen -- and especially, that freezing improves the performance of the microplane. I am definitely trying that "hack", too! ;o)
 
Christina @.
Christina @. August 9, 2012
maggiesara, I LOVE that idea-didn't ever think of freezing ginger. I also end up throwing away too much dried up ginger!
 
Christina @.
Christina @. August 9, 2012
That's like replacing chopped apple with apple juice in a recipe. It's not the same thing. May work in some cases, but not others.
 
Kristen M.
Kristen M. August 9, 2012
Fair point -- but the difference is that ginger is used in much smaller amounts, and you typically want it for its flavor more than its fibrous texture.
 
maggiesara
maggiesara August 9, 2012
I'm not sure I agree. At least for me, most of the time when I'm using ginger, it's in a Chinese or other Asian dish, and usually I'm sitr-frying it with garlic at the beginning. Sure, I could throw in some ginger-juice later, with other liquids (stock, soy sauce, rice wine, etc.) that I might be adding, but I wouldn't have flavored the oil, and I wouldn't have the caramelized/toasted notes.

FWIW, MY ginger-trick came about because I got tired of having to buy a whacking amount of ginger when all I wanted was, like, a tablespoon for a stir-fry. Or rather, I got tired of throwing away the dried-up ginger I found, weeks later, in the vegetable drawer. Now, when I buy ginger, I peel all of it, use what I need, and freeze the rest. When next I need ginger, I use a Microplane to grate it, still frozen. No waste, I always have fresh ginger on hand, and the Microplane (which does not work as well on unfrozen ginger) is heaps faster than mincing and both faster and safer (no more bloody knuckles!) than a box-grater.
 
drbabs
drbabs August 9, 2012
I do what you do, maggiesara.
 
mrslarkin
mrslarkin August 9, 2012
Yep, I'm totally on the frozen ginger team. So much flavor is in that pulp you're just tossing away with the squeezing method. i would never use this hack. But congrats anyway PTC on a great video.