Well if that's what you have observed, it must be right.

It's according to your taste buds! Also, if you include the skin, you'll get a stronger, hotter flavour. I love the "bite" from ginger.

I find there is a huge difference between fresh and powdered, as though they are a different spice.

I like to cut the fresh ginger on the diagonal then cut those ovals into matchstick size pieces.

Powdered spice lose flavor over time. If your powdered ginger was oldish, it might be pretty flavorless. I sometimes grate and squeeze fresh ginger, or put it in the garlic press to get the juice. My family hates "ginger bombs" which are the delightful burst of pure ginger flavor you get from biting into a bit of fresh ginger in a dish like curry.

I usually grate it on a microplane. I don't like big pieces of it in anything I cook.

Yes, fresh is very strong so adjust to your personal taste. I find powdered ginger simply awful and does nothing for your recipe

I have one of those nubby ginger graters, which leave the strings behind & I always try to get all the skin off before grating or mincing, since it can be tough & stick in my teeth. I think the equivalent is 1 Tbsp. fresh grated = 1 tsp. dried ground...?

I pretty much only use fresh ginger. Recently needed 1 teaspoon of ground for a gingerbread cake in addition to crystallized ginger. I probably could have increased the crystallized omitting the ground, but chose to follow the recipe. Went to a local spice shop and purchased a single teaspoon. If I had bought a jar of the stuff it would have languished in my spice drawer.

Two kinds of ginger.

Old ginger - sharper, spicier.

Young ginger - more mellow. More expensive.

dcarch

I do the same as rob333. Keep my gingerroot in the freezer, inside a ziplock bag, and grate it w/ a microplane as needed. Love that it's always "fresh". Often found it shrivelled and moldy when just kept in the fridge.

Definitely store in the freezer. Same as galangal.

I love ginger - fresh, dried, frozen, grated, candied, raw or cooked. Bombs and all. I try to minimize bombs when cooking for others though.

Woke up today with a head/stomache ache - made a pot of ginger tea with the dry stuff.

Wow, I've really learned a lot from this thread.

Thanks for all the responses!

For instance, I did not know you could store ginger in the freezer! I love freezer storage. I store all kinds of things. In fact, I should mention that I have even started storing green long peppers in the freezer and this has been very advantageous. I buy all my green long peppers from Super 88 Market, a great Chinese supermarket chain the Greater Boston area. They normally have long green peppers on clearance (or "reduced" price) when they've been in the store for a certain period. I found that if I freeze them in a plastic bag, they last forever. And all I have to do is take one or two out, when cooking a meal, dip them in a cup of room temperature water and they quickly defrost. I love these peppers since they can be used for almost any meal. And they add to the flavor in a very good way.

Second, I'm glad to know that I'm not the only who finds the powdered form of ginger to be very lame.

Third, I do not bother peeling ginger skin. I just make very thin and small slices.

Anyone use that ginger paste in a tube? I never have.

No I haven't either so unfortunately can't comment on it. However, sorry if off topic, I have used the lemongrass in a tube and think it's pretty good.

No to having used ginger or lemon grass in tube. Cooking literature says you can sub lemongrass with a little lemon peel, which is what I do

@cindymac: so ginger doesn't get mushy in freezer as in veg bin? I use a fair amt of ginger but also throw out a fair any. Love juicing with it.

I watched Martha Stewart scrape ginger root with a spoon, instead of using a paring knife/vegetable peeler, and I was sold on the spoon method for peeling the root. I also freeze it.

I don't find powdered ginger "lame", it's just different from fresh ginger root and has different uses. If you don't like commercial brands of powdered ginger, then make your own like I do, and see if you like it better....

HOW TO: Wash a fresh ginger root (I use vegetable wash made with vinegar). Peel. Use a cutting mandoline and slice the root into thin slices. Dehydrate until completely dry (use a dehydrator, not an oven - an oven temperature is too high and it will cook the slices). Store the dry slices in an airtight container (glass jar with a lid). When you need powdered ginger, zap the dry slices in a coffee/spice mill.

If I want to add a little zing to plain muffins or quick bread, finely chopped crystalized ginger does the trick. You can make that yourself, too.

Now about growing your own ginger..... Yes, you can. It makes a lovely houseplant.

-Grainlady

Bossyvossy, it doesn't get mushy. I let it sit at room temp for a few minutes before grating with a Microplane, then back to the freezer.

Don't forget,, pickled ginger is very nice.

dcarch

Cindy, I will try it. Do u peel b4 storing?

Working on Thai soup for lunch and peeled my ginger using a spoon, wow! So much easier than w/ knife. Also juiced carrots, ginger, oranges for a yummy mid AM snack

I only rarely use spice aisle powdered ginger. I mostly use fresh knobs of ginger and often use a large piece of fresh ginger root every couple of weeks. I slice the dried tough areas off the ends, then peel with a teaspoon.

I occasionally grate or use a microplane, but for many of the Chinese dishes, I chop a bit, then toss it into my mini chopper with the garlic cloves I plan to use. I made "Dry Fried Green Beans" yesterday and chopped (finely minced) it this way.

For pickled ginger (for sushi) I make very thin slices on the diagonal.

A couple of days ago I was at one of those sub-urban indoor farm-stand-grocery-flower-firewood places and went to get a coffee to go. Next to the coffee thermoses were some samples of broken cookie pieces by one of those artisan baking companies. I didn't get the name of the company of cookie, but YUM were those pieces delicious. The cookie was crisp with sugar, butter, flour and pieces of soft candied ginger. Wish I could "have" a whole bag of those things.

Grainlady, I keep intending on planting the sprouted knobs of ginger. Once I put it in water and procrastinated so long, well.... In the future, should I dust the non-sprout end with rooting hormone and stick it in potting mix or seed starter mix?

I had to come back to this thread because I'm so glad to learn that you can freeze ginger. It's been working out really well for me by scrapping off just a small amount with a steak knife then returning the rest of the ginger in the freezer.

Also, I've been experimenting a lot and I'm now learning to throw in just enough ginger that whatever dish I'm cooking gets a sense of it without being overwhelming. Ginger definitely does something special to a recipe. For me, I really like ginger when it's taste is weak, not strong. The amazing thing is that you actually need a very small amount of ginger to accomplish what I'm talking about.

I've read that you can also store it in the fridge in a jar of vodka so I'm trying that.

I use the ginger paste in the tube. I don't use ginger enough to keep some on-hand at all times. I don't know how intense the flavour is compared to fresh, but it keeps for a long time in the fridge (I paid $3.99 for a tube).

Donna, I'm pretty sure fresh ginger is a good bit cheaper than the paste and it keeps well in the freezer.

I'm a bit ginger obsessed. Use it sometimes everyday, especially in a morning juice...ginger, beet, kale/spinach, carrot...

So i don't need storage. But i do keep a bit in the freezer just in case. In the fridge crisper drawer it keeps fine in a baggie for a month. (depending on how fresh it was purchased). Vodka is second best to the freezer. (And makes a darn fine martini).

Dried and powdered spice is for cakes and bakery items like cookies. Not the same at all as fresh. Though from the same root, it is a different animal like many fresh-vs-dried spice items.

Planting it is easy but not so easy in colder climates without a very good green thumb...bringing indoors and giving it a very sunny window and special care to keep it happy, also with lots of air flow. In another home past, i had rosemary tree, a basil tree, a bay tree, lemongrass, etc...but had a very sunny window and needed not much care. I have a sunny window here but nothing does well at all. Even with a green thumb. Seed starting and micro greens are about my limit.

Around the March month we get fresh plump ginger in NY. Not sure if that is common elsewhere. The best for pickling or making candied ginger. It does not have the 'aged' hard skins and fibers so common in the grocery. I prefer just to grate it microplane the rest of the year.

Dcarch and Sleevendog, what do you do with pickled ginger?

I too love the freezer idea. I have some in the fridge I'm going to stick in the freezer today, as I don't use it often enough, and it almost always goes bad.

Sally

Cindy, no doubt it would be cheaper to buy fresh, but in the long run, it's probably cheaper for me in the tube because I have thrown away countless knobs of ginger after it's gone mouldy in the fridge.

Freezing might be an option, but I have an issue with woody pulp when I grate my ginger...maybe it's my grater, but it seems to separate into juice and woody fibre...not pulp like it comes out in the prepared tube.