Pureed Ginger

Please see also Pureed Ginger – 2 .

I just don’t understand why people don’t use (preserve and use) pureed ginger. It’s good in oatmeal raisin cookies, soups, jams, salads, stews; In just about anything.

I generally start with a bag full of Ginger Root from Grant’s Chinese Supermarket at Bloor Street & Dixie Road. Their root is clean and firm.

I use my heaviest knife to slice the root into chunks about ½ cm thick. I’m going to pop the slices in the blender. My blender can cope with one root at a time.

I add one or two coffee mugs of water to the blender. The blender needs a vehicle of fluid to perform well.

If the blender seems to be straining, I’ll chop the slices a second time, cross-wise as shown here. The trick is not to get partway through and have to down tools and buy another blender to replace the burnt-out one!

After a few seconds on “pulp” or similar, I strain the results preserving the liquor in a glass bowl.

The strained pulp goes into my jam dixie.

The liquor will be used again and again as a vehicle for the chopped root, in the blender.

From time to time I’ll add another mug of water, to maintain a decent volume of liquid in the blender.

When I’m done, I have a jam dixie of strained pulp.

And a bowl with ginger liquor. I used to bottle the liquor and preserve the pulp as is.

Today I’ll add a soupcon (soup spoon) of liquor to the basmati rice I’m preparing for my lunch salad.

The liquor goes into the jam dixie and is left at simmer for an hour.

Or two. Not too long though; we don’t want it to dry out. We want it to cook, mildly, to soften and sterilize.

We take it off the heat and let it cool down, in the lidded dixie, so that it is not scalding hot.

We repeat the process of strain and blend, using the liquor as a vehicle.

I carefully (wooden) spoon the hot pureed paste into small jars.

I used to use quart jars, but felt that it must be going stale in the fridge over a period of three months. Smaller jars mean faster turnover.

As well, they make unusual gifts at Christmas time. Or any other time.

I gently tamp down the paste to remove any large air bubbles.

I leave a centimeter of space at the top.

Yes, I have some STRONG liquor left over, and no, that’s not an orphaned html tag. I mean STRONG!

Into an apple-juice bottle, into the fridge. That will serve me in place of paste for a week or two. But beware, it is STRONG

Yes, I double-deck my jars when I’m steam-sterilizing pureed ginger.

On with the lid, and bring to the boil slowly.

Unlike most other preserves, this is not a liquid. Too strong or too long a heat will cause the puree to dry out and fluff out. We want a wet-to-moist paste in our jars.

I have already sterilized the puree; now I’m just bringing it briefly back to boiling point to complete the sterilization process and to produce a good vacuum seal.

And here we are, two hours later, cooling and sealing outside.Fifteen jars of pureed ginger.

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