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To Preserve Ginger

A method for preserving ginger by boiling, soaking, and repeatedly coating it in sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

To Preserve Ginger

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ginger

  1. Pare the ginger root neatly.

  2. Place the ginger in a pan of cold water.

  3. Boil the ginger until tender.

  4. Change the water three times.

  5. Soak the ginger in cold water for at least an hour to make it crisp.

Make the syrup

  1. Break up the sugar.

  2. Melt the sugar in water.

  3. Add beaten egg whites to the mixture.

  4. Use 1 pint of water for each pound of sugar.

  5. Boil and skim the syrup well.

  6. Let the syrup cool.

Steep and pack

  1. Drain the ginger.

  2. Pour the syrup over the ginger.

  3. Cover the ginger for two days without disturbance.

  4. Drain the syrup.

  5. Boil the syrup again.

  6. Pour the syrup over the ginger once more.

  7. Repeat the process until the syrup penetrates the ginger and becomes thick and rich.

  8. Transfer the ginger and syrup into jars.

  9. Cover the jars tightly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Ginger + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,337 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green ginger root
Is the main ingredient that is candied, becoming tender and then saturated with syrup.
Double-refined loaf sugar
Forms the syrup that preserves the ginger and gives it sweetness and a thick, rich body.
Egg whites
Are beaten into the syrup so that they can collect impurities as it boils, clarifying it.

The step that matters

Repeating the syrup pour until it penetrates. The ginger must be repeatedly drained, reboiled and re-soaked until the syrup has fully penetrated it and thickened; stopping early leaves the ginger thin in syrup and less preserved.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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