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
Pare the ginger with a sharp knife and place it in cold water to keep it white.
Boil the ginger until tender, changing the water three times.
Place the boiled ginger in cold water.
Candy the ginger
Clarify the sugar.
Drain the ginger when cold.
Cover the ginger with cold sugar and let it stand for two days.
Pour the syrup from the ginger into the remaining sugar, boil it.
When the syrup is cold, pour it back over the ginger.
Repeat this process until the sugar is absorbed by the ginger, skimming off any scum that rises.
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.
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Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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
- Its fibres soften when boiled, then absorb the sugar syrup and become candied.
- Refined sugar
- Draws water out of the ginger and, in high concentration, preserves it while adding sweetness.
- Alum
- Firms the ginger's tissue so it holds its shape during long boiling.
The step that matters
Repeat the syrup cycles until the sugar is absorbed. Each cycle draws water out of the ginger and replaces it with sugar. Skimming removes scum that would spoil the syrup. Rushing the process can leave the ginger shrivelled and unable to take up enough sugar to preserve it.
“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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