Steamed pudding with candied ginger and syrup on top.

I do a lot of Asian recipes with ginger in the mix and often add candied ginger to cake recipes.

I like candied ginger! And ginger tea.

Otherwise, I almost never use ginger, even in Chinese cooking when it is called for. Maybe I’ll include a little bit in dumpling filling, but that’s about it.

I know this is wrong but when I was little, my family used So. Much. Ginger. Like great big slices of boiled ginger, which at least I could pick out, and handfuls of chopped and grated ginger, which I could not avoid, in every bite of everything. I learned to hate the taste, sight, existence of the stuff.

(They also seldom used garlic, and onions were always scallions rather than round onions. I don’t know if that is characteristic of any sub-cuisine in China, or just some family weirdness.)

However, if we have some fun ginger recipes here - that aren’t baking or sweets, as I don’t do either really - then I would like to try making them. I need to get over this childhood trauma.

I’m not the huge ginger fan my mom was. I remember her making gingerbread often when I was a kid served with whipped cream on top. I also remember my jokester dad somehow replacing her whipped cream with shaving cream one night.😵‍💫 I do like ginger in certain things and use ground ginger most often. I make molasses cookies with ginger every Christmas, and add it to some pumpkin desserts. I also use it for this sauce for slow cooking country style ribs. Simple and tasty.

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 cup ketchup

seagrass_GW Cape Cod

I love ginger, fresh ginger root, candied ginger and powdered ginger spice. I put slices of ginger in chicken broth to sip, and chew candied ginger, both when my stomach is upset. Those helped me get through chemo. I'm sharing a recipe that uses ground ginger to season the crumbs topping a gratin of cauliflower - it's from an old cookbook called Greene on Greens, by Burt Greene. We're having this on Christmas Day with glazed pork tenderloin and a sauté of spinach, apples, raisins and pinenuts.

GRATIN OF CAULIFLOWER WITH GINGERED CRUMBS

(4 servings)

1 1/2 lbs of cauliflower, leaves trimmed, core removed

3 Tbsps. unsalted butter

2 Tbsps. all purpose flour

1 cup light cream or half and half

1 tsp. lemon juice

1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

dash of hot pepper sauce

1/4 cup grated swiss cheese

1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs

1/8 tsp. ground ginger

2 Tbsps. freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Cook the cauliflower in at least 3 quarts of boiling water until just tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Rinse under cold running water. Drain. Cut or break the cauliflower into flowerets. Set aside.

2. Melt 2 Tbsps. of the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in the flour. Cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Whisk in the cream. Raise the heat slightly; cook until thick. Add the lemon juice, nutmeg, hot pepper sauce and Swiss cheese. Remove from heat and set aside.

3. Place the cauliflower in a well-buttered 1 1/2 to 2 quart soufflé dish or casserole. Spoon the cheese sauce over the top.

4. Melt the remaining 1 Tbsp. butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Stir in the bread crumbs and ginger. Cook, stirring constantly, until golden. Spoon the crumbs over the cauliflower and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese. Bake in the oven until bubbly, 15 to 20 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Ginger should go with apples, right?

I sometimes make phyllo apples, which is peeled and cored apples, the cores filled with sugar, wrapped with layers of buttered phyllo, baked. Sometimes I adulterate the sugar with cinnamon; I could try ginger instead.

15 year old ginger cookalong

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/2486963/cookalong-1-ginger

agmss, those might freak out my grandkids but they’re great!👍🏻

Ahh, pilllog!

We always have fresh ginger root on hand, bu I can’t say that I cook for ginger— we frequently cook with it.

Really good gingerbread: Years ago when I was living in a huge houseful of people, someone made the best gingerbread. I will try to locate the recipe, butI think it might have been from the Tassajara Cookbook.

I make a delicious curried chicken salad recipe (created after I was inspired by a deli-like sandwich I had) and posted the recipe here. I used soft candied ginger, softenened further with white wine or orange juice, hammered thin, then diced into iny squares.

I believe it was floral-uk who suggested it was much like or a derivative of ”Coronation Chicken.”

We cook quite a bit of Chinese and southeast Asian food, so we often used fresh ginger root.

We usully peel it with a spoon, slice, then mince it. For grating, one of those fine metal (forgot what they are called — a micro blade rasp/ cutter).

I was at a holiday party tonight and had some tasty caramel-type popcorn - think “Cracker Jack” - but instead of caramel it was ginger-forward. It was good!

Am I the only one who gets a chemical taste in fresh ginger? like ’hint of terpentine’. Therefore I prefer to use powdered and that would be primarily used in pumpkin bread and desserts, sauces/marinades, and my pork fried dumplings. :) and, duh, things like gingerbread cake, etc

I do not get a chemical taste from fresh ginger (which I store in the freezer), but I do get a slight chemical taste from the puréed ginger in a jar, which I keep on hand anyway and use when I make Japanese soups. The soy sauce in the soups cancels the chemical taste from the jarred ginger

When making anything with pumpkin, I always use fresh ginger instead of dried, as it has a more complex and pleasing flavor for me. I pretty much never use dried ginger, except in a spice rub mix. I use jarred ginger when I make a marinade that has soy sauce in it.

I don't make gingersnaps because we buy them at Trader Joe's. When I do make them, I use fresh (not jarred) ginger and no salt. I don't like salt in cookies, and I consider salt to be a chemical taste.

Lars, I also store fresh ginger in the freezer because I live an hour away from where I can buy it.

I remember the classic over-gingered dish of my childhood. It was a whole steamed fish covered with and laying on slices of ginger. Hmm, I'm thinking of making one now. Just to see if it is as eww-inspiring as I remember it. Whole steam fish was a favorite in my familiy. My grandfather had three 10 foot deep, 6 foot diameter cylindrical tanks built into his garden, and planned to raise a never-ending supply of live seabass. Sadly it turns out that each tank produced a single bass, who had eaten all the others. So my grandmother used the tanks as water lily planters. Today we'd think of them as prepper infrastructure, but my grandparents had been through an invasion, a world war, and a civil war, and they had no silly illusions about "prepping".

Agmss, I love the cookies!

Lars, I like Trader Joe's Triple Ginger Gingersnaps, but they are much different than Grandma's Molasses Cookies, which I add powdered ginger to and then add crystallized ginger as well. I like ginger but seem to use it more in baking than in cooking. My favorite Molasses Cookie seems to be out of fashion with the kids liking those frosted bells and stars, but I still like these with lots of molasse and spices. Thanks to Grandma Delphia, for teaching me to make these and then passing the recipe on.

Chewy Molasses Cookies

1 1/2 cups of shortening (I use half and half with butter, but all butter makes them too crispy for my taste)

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup dark brown sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup of dark molasses

4 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons ginger

1 teaspoon ground cloves

Chopped crystalized ginger, optional, to taste. I used about half a cup, finely chopped and wish I'd have used more but I love ginger

Coarse sugar or turbinado sugar for rolling

Ccream the shortening and sugars. Add the molasses and eggs and mix until well blended. Sift the flour (yeah right, I don't, LOL) and measure 4 1/2 cups into a separate bowl. Add the spices, salt, and baking soda and whisk to combine. Turn the mixer to low or stir, and add the flour slowly until well mixed. Stir in the chopped ginger and chill the dough for at least an hour. If it doesn't chill it spreads out a lot and easily over bakes.

After the dough has chilled for an hour, roll tablespoonfuls of the dough into balls and roll the balls in the coarse sugar to completely coat. Place the dough balls about an inch apart on a greased or parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake for 12 to 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven for crunchy cookies, more like 10 or 11 minutes for soft and chewy.

The cookies will puff up and crack. When the cookies are done the cracks should still look a little wet, but the outside should look dry. They'll "fall" a little as they cool, let them sit a couple of minutes on the sheet before you try to move them to cooling racks.

Annie

Those cookies should be in an art gallery,,!

@Islay Corbel the cookies resemble her paintings. She takes color very seriously. Lol. Her jars of pigments are still one of my favorite things. Toxic but lovely.

Agmiss, love the cookie art and your Mom's paintings! Does she still paint?

I'm enjoying hearing how others use ginger and I always enjoy trying new recipes.

I like ginger and most of the ways I use it are in desserts: pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, gingerbread, Annie's cookies and just was given a pumpkin roll from the neighbor-delicious!

I am including a recipe here for a dish an aquaintance of mine (who was a part time caterer) made for a dinner years ago. At my request she shared the recipe, but I have never made it, just eaten and liked it well enough to ask for the recipe. I had to rewrite the recipe as she wrote it in a letter form and I thought it might be difficult to follow.

Sirloin Ginger Beef

2-1/2 # Sirloin

1 Tbls. Cooking Oil

1 medium Onion, thinly sliced

1 tsp. Garlic, minced

1-1/2 Tbls. Cornstarch

1-1/2 tsp. Ginger, minced

1 Tbls. Lemon Juice

1 tsp. Instant Beef Bouillon

1 Tbls. Soy Sauce

1 Tbls. Ginger Wine Vinegar ( can use wine vinegar)

1 Cup Water

1 Cup Radishes, thinly sliced

Salt & Pepper to taste

Cut sirloin in small strips and cook in Tbls. of oil until it loses it's pink color. Add onion and garlic and cook 3-5 minutes. Blend cornstarch, ginger, lemon juice, beef bouillon, soy sauce, ginger wine vinegar, water and salt and pepper. Stir and bring to boil. Add radishes and simmer one hour on very low heat. Can serve over wild rice or long grain rice. Serves eight.

The author says she usually doesn't bother with the radishes, but thinks it would be good with water chestnuts. She also doesn't specify the type of radish.