Ginger and garlic

Two useful techniques I had the opportunity to use while cooking tonight's dinner:

(1) Judith reminded me the other day how nice it is to make your garlic into a puree, instead of mincing it. Just sprinkle the minced stuff with coarse salt and by alternating chopping and pressing with the flat of your knife blade, you can make a nice smooth paste. The process does something nice to the taste (unlike a garlic press, which does something nasty) and the garlic will be distributed evenly through your dinner.

(2) Ginger loves to mold and dry up and otherwise interact unpleasantly with the climate. And if you want grated ginger and don't have one of those special ginger graters, you might find the stringy fibers of any but the youngest, tenderest garlic can get pretty cranky about the process. But if you keep your ginger in the freezer, you can easily grate it (on the large holes of your pyramid grater, unless you really love to scrape around in the little ones) in its frozen state and pop it back in. The fibers are far less recalcitrant that way, as well.

The dinner was potato and broccoli rabe curry, with saffron rice. Starch with your starch?

Posted by redfox at August 28, 2002 08:41 PM (tips)

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