Cooking with Jonny69: H-h-h-hot crystallised ginger

[Jonny69]

I'll usually try anything and at the tonight we're having a go at crystallised ginger. She suffers from nausea, part of an illness, and BBC's grow your own drugs suggested crystallised ginger. I quite like the stuff myself so I thought we'd make some anyway, if it doesn't work we still get some tasty treats in the cupboard

The recipe is buried on the BBC site so I've conveniently provided it here:

Makes about 250 g:
350 g fresh ginger root
Golden caster sugar, to match weight of cooked ginger, plus extra for sprinkling.
1. Peel the fresh ginger root and thinly slice.
2. Put the ginger in a saucepan and cover with boiling water. Bring to the boil and partly cover with a lid. Boil gently for 1 hour.
3. Drain the ginger and weigh it. Put it back in the saucepan with an equal amount of golden caster sugar Edit: though see below. Add 2 tbsp water. Bring to the boil, then simmer over a medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon for 20 minutes, or until it starts to go gloopy and the ginger becomes transparent.
4. Reduce the heat and keep stirring until it starts to crystallize and easily piles up in the middle of the pan.
5. Meanwhile take a large, deep, baking tray and sprinkle caster sugar on it. Tip the ginger into the baking tray and shuffle it round in the caster sugar. Separate any clumps of ginger pieces. Place in a sterilized jar.

STORAGE: Keeps in a cool place for 3-6 months.

One trip to Lewisham market resulted in a shopping bag of monster size bits of root ginger for £1. I almost made it exactly as per the recipe, except I've made sweet things in the past and noticed the amount of sugar was way over what was needed so I reduced it by about 30%. I was right and at the end when it crystallised there was still a hell of a lot left over, so you could take even more out.

So here's what happens. You boil the ginger which par cooks it and produces a lot of very stong ginger water. You can chuck this away or make ginger tea, ginger wine or ginger beer with it. I'm going to make ginger beer personally. The sugar then draws out the liquid from the ginger as you boil it down, it'll go thick and syrupy, then all of a sudden it dries up and crystallises as you stir it. When it does that you turn it out onto a baking tray and seperate the pieces. It definitely didn't need any extra sugar here.



And WOW it's HOT!!!

[AboveTheSalt]

I'll definitely have to give that a go. I love crystallised ginger but by God it's expensive and usually includes far too much sugar.

[Glaucus]

so what's it like? never tried it. Is it something you could decorate something like a ginger cheese cake with?

[Jonny69]

It's got a delicate sweet taste, followed by a deep gingery flavour then *BLAM* it's red hot! I reckon it could go in a ginger cake or carrot cake but in the cake rather than in the topping. It might be a bit much for a cheesecake. Make a small batch and see what you think. Do like 150g or something which will make plenty.

[Glaucus]

Will have to add it to my ever growing list of things to try/make.

[SidewinderINC]

Is this supposed to be crunchy?

I don't think I did it right

[Jonny69]

The outside of mine is crunchy, softer inside, but not like the candied fruit you get in a packet. I don't know how they make the commercial stuff but it's completely different.

[SidewinderINC]

Originally Posted by Jonny69

The outside of mine is crunchy, softer inside, but not like the candied fruit you get in a packet. I don't know how they make the commercial stuff but it's completely different.

phew, mines soft inside too. was giving them out at my house party last night and people seemed to either love them or hate them.