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
Peel the ginger roots using a sharp knife.
Place each peeled piece in cold water.
Drain the ginger from the water and weigh it.
Place the ginger in a preserving kettle.
Cover the ginger with cold water.
Bring the water to a boil.
Skim out the ginger.
Place the ginger back in cold water.
Repeat the boiling and cooling process three times until the ginger is tender.
Leave the ginger in cold water after the last boiling.
Make the syrup
In a separate kettle, combine the sugar and ½ pint of water.
Heat the mixture slowly until the sugar dissolves.
Beat the egg white until frothy, then stir it into the syrup.
Bring the syrup to a boil.
Skim the syrup until clear.
Let the syrup cool.
Soak and preserve
Drain the ginger and wipe it dry.
Place the ginger in the cooled syrup.
Let the ginger soak in the syrup for 36 hours.
Drain the syrup, bring it to a boil, and cool it again.
Add the ginger to the cooled syrup for 24 hours.
Drain the syrup again, heat it to boiling, and pour the hot syrup over the ginger.
Drain the syrup again, boil the syrup again, and cover the ginger closely.
Let the ginger rest for two weeks.
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).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Ginger + eggtop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Fresh green ginger
- Provides the main flavour and, after repeated boiling, becomes tender enough to absorb the syrup.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and preserves the ginger by replacing its moisture with sugar.
- Egg white
- Clarifies the syrup: it coagulates when heated and traps impurities that are skimmed off.
The step that matters
Boiling and cooling the ginger until tender. Raw ginger is fibrous and hard. Repeated boiling in fresh cold water softens the fibres and draws out some of its sharpness. Stopping early leaves the ginger tough and less able to take up the syrup later.
Swap the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Gingerthe original
- 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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