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How to Preserve Ginger
Wash and thoroughly scrape the rhizomes (or root stock); throw quickly into cold water to prevent discoloration. Cover with fresh cold water; bring to boiling point and drain. Cover again with boiling water and cook slowly until the ginger is tender; drain, this time saving the water to use for the flavouring of other preserves, or it may be put aside for a ginger extract. Weigh the ginger, and to each pound allow a pound of sugar and half a pint of boiling water. Put the sugar and water in a preserving-kettle; bring to boiling point and skim. Put in the ginger and cook slowly until each piece is perfectly transparent. The ginger may now be put away the same as other preserves, or drained free from the syrup, cut into thin slices and rolled in granulated sugar. The syrup may be used for flavouring preserves. -The New Home.
A candied-ginger method that assumes fresh young rhizomes and an unhurried afternoon. The recipe is sound; most of what a modern cook needs is unit conversion and a note on which ginger to buy.
- Choose young gingerLook for pale, thin-skinned rhizomes with pink tips, sold in spring and summer at Asian groceries. Mature supermarket ginger, with tougher fibres and papery skin, can still be candied but needs longer cooking and gives a coarser, more fibrous result.
- Half a pint means one cupHalf a pint -- In US measure that is 8 fl oz / about 240 ml; in the Imperial measure current in Canada at the time it is 10 fl oz / about 284 ml. Either way the syrup runs 1 lb sugar to roughly a cup of water per pound of cooked ginger, a heavy syrup by design.
- The first boil is not optionalBringing the ginger to a boil in fresh cold water and discarding that water pulls out raw heat. If your ginger is sharp, repeat this step twice more before the long simmer.
- How long "until tender"Young ginger takes 30-45 minutes at a bare simmer; mature ginger can take well over an hour and may never soften properly. Test with a skewer, which should pass through with almost no resistance.
- Cooking in syrupExpect 45 minutes to an hour of slow cooking until the pieces turn translucent and the syrup thickens. If the syrup reduces too far before the ginger clears, add a splash of the reserved cooking water.
- Slice before, not after, if you want candySlice before, or after, for candy -- The recipe cuts the pieces after candying, which works because the candied ginger firms up. If you prefer, cut the peeled rhizomes into 1/8-inch coins before the first boil instead.
- Drying the sugared slicesAfter rolling in granulated sugar, spread the pieces on a rack for several hours until tacky rather than wet, then store airtight. Damp pieces clump into a single mass and can mould.
- Keeping the preserveGinger in this heavy syrup keeps for months refrigerated in clean jars. 'Put away the same as other preserves' meant whatever sealing the household used for its jams — often paper or wax covers rather than a heat process; follow current canning directions if you intend to store it on a shelf.
Preserved ginger reached North American kitchens mostly as an import: stoneware and later glass jars of Cantonese ginger in syrup were a standard grocery and confectioner's line through the nineteenth century, and Chinese-made preserved ginger was familiar enough that a home version needed no explanation of what it was for. The same sugar-and-water syrup that set fruit preserves could be turned on a root, and the recipe wastes nothing: the blanching water becomes an extract and the leftover syrup goes into the next batch of fruit. The Five Roses book, issued by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to sell flour to Canadian households, gathered contributions and clippings from many sources, and the credit line "The New Home" marks this as one of those borrowings rather than a company original.