Once you’ve gone to all the trouble of identifying a recipe you actually want to try, gathered each of its ingredients, and implemented an old school test taking tip to ensure home cooking success, a few flicks of a knife can still send the whole thing off the rails. Some botanicals (garlic most prominent among them) turn out more or less potent depending simply on how you chop, slice, or otherwise pulverize them. This is also true for wonderfully fragrant fresh ginger. So Chowhound tapped Tara Bench, cookbook author and founder of Tara Teaspoon, to determine when to mince or grate ginger for the finest flavor.
“I think about the role I want ginger to play in a dish before deciding on a grated preparation or minced,” Bench explained. The path ultimately depends on the desired intensity. “Grated ginger will add loads of juice and essential oils so I love it in sauces, vinaigrettes, marinades, and batters with a smooth texture,” she shared with Chowhound exclusively. “I use minced ginger when I want little bursts of flavor and a milder bite. It’s great in dishes like stir fry, and soups or curries.”
Read more: How To Sharpen A Serrated Knife Without Ruining The Blade
Grating And Slicing Ginger, Not Your Fingers
A person’s hands are seen cutting ginger with a knife. – Ana Rocio Garcia Franco/Getty Images
Grating can be the trickiest way to prep ginger, as its stem has a small surface area to grasp and not a lot of leverage against your microplane or other metal-fanged tool. Tara Bench’s guard against potential nicks is pretty comprehensive. “My go-to is a safety glove, like the soft, cut-resistant kind to keep my fingers super safe,” she says. “With a glove I can slice or grate almost every bit of the food. If you don’t have a glove make sure you use a firm grip on the ingredient and a stable base for the grater or mandolin. Stop well before the end of the food to prevent any slips!”
When recipes call for slicing and dicing instead of grating, you’ll want to use a sharp knife, which is safer than a dull metal knife that can slip and slide around. Home kitchen knives should typically be sharpened a few times a year, depending on use. You can even keep the gloves on, if you’ll remain nimble enough. And ground ginger will typically be more potent than fresh regardless of knifework, though its overall flavor profile is also somewhat different. Check out our complete guide to cooking with ginger for further details and optimal use cases.
Read the original article on Chowhound.
