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Dessert

Preserved Ginger Root

A method of preserving ginger roots in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Preserved Ginger Root

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ginger

  1. Peel the ginger roots and soak them in cold water for 15 minutes.

  2. Boil the ginger, changing the water twice, until very tender.

  3. Drain the ginger and weigh it.

Make the syrup

  1. For each pound of ginger, mix 1¼ pounds of sugar with 1 cup of water in a preserving kettle.

  2. Boil the sugar and water, skimming until no scum rises, then let it cool.

Preserve the ginger

  1. Wipe each piece of ginger and place it in the cold syrup.

  2. Let it stand for 24 hours, then drain the ginger and reheat.

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).

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 roots
Provide the main flavor and the firm, fibrous pieces that become tender and candied.
Sugar
Sweetens the ginger and, as a thick syrup, preserves it by drawing out water.

The step that matters

Boiling the ginger until very tender. Ginger must be fully softened before it goes into the syrup, because the dense, fibrous root will not absorb sugar evenly or become tender once preserved if it is undercooked.

“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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