Yup – it’s Ginger Day!
We’ll be featuring it two ways; smashed into a paste with garlic and stuff, and also juiced – both of which I needed if I was to achieve my goal of home made Baby Corn Manchurian.
Let’s start with the paste – a staple of many Indian kitchens, and, apparently, made in many different ways, no doubt to suit personal and regional preferences and tradition. Here’s the one I chose.
INGREDIENTS
•1/4 cup garlic (1 bulb), sliced
•1/4 cup ginger, peeled and sliced
•Pinch turmeric – about 1/16 tsp
•1/8 tsp salt
•2 tsp water (approximately)
I should note that the original recipe called for using 1 cup each of the garlic and ginger, and so 4 times as much turmeric and salt, but I don’t do THAT much cooking that would call for THAT much of this (very) nice paste, so I cut things way back.
I tumbled the ginger, garlic, turmeric, and salt together in the container of my hand blender and gave it all a good whirl; then transferred it all to my mortar and pestle for a couple of minutes smashing and grinding.
Very nice, but not really what I would call a ‘paste’.
I pulled the whole mixture back into the hand blender container and added some water – 2 teaspoons seemed to work a treat.
One more nice whirl, and then just a bit more light smashing and grinding, and we were good to go.
I ended up with about 1/4 pint, which will be fine in the fridge for a month. I only needed about 1/2 teaspoon for the Baby Corn recipe, so I plan on adding some of the leftover paste to Thai Pork Stew next time I make it, and, hmmm, Rich’s mom is coming to visit, I wonder how she would feel about Red Curry Pumpkin Soup?
Allrighty-then! Ginger Juice.
Easy-peasy to make; simply peel a bit of fresh ginger, then grate it and pop the bits into cheesecloth – I also used a fine-mesh sieve. Gather up the cheesecloth in a bundle and squeeze.
Voila, ginger juice.
If you don’t use it all (I didn’t), you can stash it in the freezer.
SO!
Garlic and ginger well and truly pasted, and a touch more ginger juiced, I can finally set about making my Indo-Chinese corn dish.
How was it? It was good.
Full details, tomorrow.