[net.cooks] Care and feeding of ginger root

smb (09/08/82)

A cookbook I've seen suggests that one way to store ginger root is to
bury it in moist, sandy soil.  Not only should it stay fresh, but it
will allegedly grow more knobs.  Has anyone tried this?  Does it work?
Failing that, what is the best way to store it?  Two books I have suggest
wrapping it and putting it in the refrigerator -- but one says to use plastic
wrap, and the other says to use almost anything but plastic, preferably
paper.  Several books suggest peeling it, chopping it up, and storing it
in a jar, covered with sherry.


		--Steve

berry@sri-unix (09/09/82)

What my wife and I do with our ginger root is merely stick it on a shelf in the
spice cabinet.  We don't wrap it or anything.  But we do tend to use it fairly
quickly, so there is little noticable degradation of quality before it's gone.

  --Berry Kercheval

bsg (09/09/82)

I learned in a Chinese cooking class that I took that one should
cut up the (peeled) root and store it in the fridge covered with
rice wine.  I know this works, as I have kept ginger this way for months
with no problem.  I would guess that sherry would work equally well,
although I imagine that it imparts a slightly different flavor to
the ginger.  Rice wine for cooking is available in any Chinese
grocery.

By the way, after all the ginger is used up, the ginger-flavored
rice wine is great for flavoring an appropriate dish.

					Billie Goldstein
					...!npois!bsg
					Bell Labs
					Neptune
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