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Preserved Ginger
Pare the roots of fresh green ginger, using a very sharp knife, and place each piece into cold water, as it is peeled. When all is peeled drain it from the water. Weigh the ginger and place it in a preserving-kettle, covering the ginger with cold water. When the water is quite boiling, skim out the ginger and place it again in cold water. When quite cool, again return it to the kettle, add more cold water, and when boiling, skim out and lay in cold water as before. Do this three times, when the ginger will be tender, leaving it at last in the cold water. Allow one pound of ginger; one pint of water; one pound of sugar; one egg (white only).
Place the sugar and the water together in a preserving-kettle, and heat slowly, boiling gently until the sugar is dissolved. Beat the white of the egg until it froths, and stir it into the syrup. When it boils skim until quite clear, then stand aside to cool. This is called clarifying syrup.
Drain the ginger, wipe it dry with a soft cloth, and when the syrup is cold, place the ginger in it and let it stand thirty-six hours. Drain off the syrup, let it come to a boil, take from the fire, and when again cool, place in the ginger, and let it remain twenty-four hours. Drain off the syrup again, heat to boiling, and this time turn it over the ginger while hot. In a week again drain it off, boil it and turn it on hot. Cover closely, and it will be ready to use in two weeks. This ginger is considered a great delicacy.
A slow sugar preserve built on repeated blanching and a syrup strengthened over successive days. Nothing about it is difficult, but it runs across two and a half weeks and the sugar concentration matters more than the schedule.
- What "green ginger" meansIn period usage the phrase generally meant fresh, undried ginger rather than a distinct variety. Thin-skinned young or spring ginger, the sort sold in Asian markets and often with pink shoots, suits this method best; mature supermarket ginger has a tough core and stringy fibre that blanching will not fully soften.
- The three blanches are the pointBoiling and cooling the ginger three times draws off the raw heat and opens the tissue so syrup can penetrate. Skip them and the finished pieces stay fiercely hot and refuse to take up sugar.
- Clarifying with egg whiteThe frothed white coagulates and carries scum to the surface, a routine step in period sugar work though refined sugar was already common by this date. Modern granulated sugar makes a clear syrup on its own; the step can be left out with no loss.
- Preserving-kettleA wide, heavy, non-reactive pan — stainless steel or enamelled cast iron. Untinned copper or bare aluminium will react over the long standing periods.
- The syrup is deliberately weak at firstOne pound of sugar to one pint of water is roughly a 50 percent syrup, thin by preserving standards. Each reboil evaporates water and each soak draws moisture out of the ginger, so the syrup thickens over the fortnight. Do not shortcut by starting with a heavy syrup — the ginger will shrivel.
- The scheduleCold syrup on, 36 hours; drain, boil, cool, return, 24 hours; drain, boil, pour on hot; one week; drain, boil, pour on hot; two weeks to mature. Budget about three and a half weeks from peeling to eating.
- StorageThis is not a processed, sealed conserve, and at this sugar level it is not shelf-stable by current standards. Pack into clean jars, cover the ginger completely with syrup, and keep it refrigerated; discard at any sign of fermentation, cloudiness or lifted lids.
- Yield and useA pound of peeled ginger gives roughly two pints of preserve with its syrup. Serve the pieces with cheese or ice cream, chop them into steamed puddings and cakes, and use the syrup over fruit or in a whisky drink.
Ginger preserved in syrup reached English and American tables largely as an import, packed in the squat glazed brown jars sold as Canton or Chinese preserved ginger, and it kept a reputation as an expensive delicacy well into the twentieth century — which is why the recipe closes the entry by saying so. Candying and syruping ginger is far older than the trade in those jars: sugared ginger appears in European medieval and early modern confectionery, valued as much for its supposed warming and digestive virtues as for sweetness. The household version asks a good deal of an American cook prepared to spend three weeks on a pound of it. The egg-white clarification here is a survival from an era when even good sugar carried enough impurity to cloud a syrup.