The Lemon Fool

Used some root ginger in my risotto tonight. Nothing unusual there.

However, I found the root just a couple of hours earlier on the floor by the fridge. Evidently I'd had a minor accident unpacking my shopping! It looked fine, so I used it as I normally would: cut off a healthy chunk and chop it up fine. The remainder is now in the fridge.

The risotto had a ginger flavour that was significantly hotter and more intense than I'd expected from the quantity used. Very nice!

Which leads me to wonder: was it just a particularly good root, or is refrigerating ginger a mistake that loses me today's level of flavour?

I don't know, but these days I store root ginger in chunks in the freezer. When I need it, I can shave bits off with a suitable sharp knife, and it's ready to go.

I store ginger on a shelf in the kitchen. It seems to last several weeks OK like this - I don't know the exact limit as it is always used before going 'off', whatever that might comprise of.

By not refrigerating the ginger root, it may have allowed it to partly dry, concentrating its flavor. In the U.S. occasionally y’all will see a recipe for pumpkin or sweet potato pie that calls for something like 1 teaspoon of ground (dry) ginger or 1 tablespoon (3 teaspoons) of grated fresh ginger.

I grow and occasionally dry various chili peppers for later use. I grow a very mild jalapeno pepper that I’ll allow to get red and slice fresh for nachos. At that stage I can actually taste their sweetness. When I dried them and later reconstituted them I noticed they were much “hotter” and they had lost their sweet taste.

voelkels wrote:By not refrigerating the ginger root, it may have allowed it to partly dry, concentrating its flavor. In the U.S. occasionally y’all will see a recipe for pumpkin or sweet potato pie that calls for something like 1 teaspoon of ground (dry) ginger or 1 tablespoon (3 teaspoons) of grated fresh ginger.

I grow and occasionally dry various chili peppers for later use. I grow a very mild jalapeno pepper that I’ll allow to get red and slice fresh for nachos. At that stage I can actually taste their sweetness. When I dried them and later reconstituted them I noticed they were much “hotter” and they had lost their sweet taste.

It certainly hadn't been out long enough to get dry! Though conversely, if getting ever-so-slightly damp were the issue, prolonged refrigerating might bring it on.

Actually I don't refrigerate ginger for preservation, but rather because the fridge is a convenient and safe place for fresh foods. Everything goes in there unless it takes harm from the cold. In summer, regretfully even things like tomatoes or butter that really belong in a larder.

I don't think it's the same story with chillies either. Whilst there's certainly a difference between fresh and dried - and sometimes huge differences for very non-obvious reasons - theirs is an entirely different heat.

I think the refrigeration is indeed a red herring.

I have some more of that ginger in this evening's stir-fry and it's just as good. Evidently the supply was better than my usual: now I'm annoyed I can't remember where I bought it. I'll have to check my card records for where I shopped the day of my previous post!

UncleEbenezer wrote:I think the refrigeration is indeed a red herring.

I have some more of that ginger in this evening's stir-fry and it's just as good. Evidently the supply was better than my usual: now I'm annoyed I can't remember where I bought it. I'll have to check my card records for where I shopped the day of my previous post!

Your diet sounds good to me. I think that your root ginger depends on its freshness not where or how it is kept.

Dod

I made stewed rhubarb today with grated fresh ginger out of the fridge, I noticed that it was more aromatic than usual. However, I always keep excess ginger plus any cut off knobbly bits in the freezer to grate as needed and to make ginger garlic paste. I bought the ginger in Lidl, so nothing different there except that it was very fresh.

john