Ginger for sushi recipe at home. How to pickle ginger. Traditional marinade recipe

Eastern cuisine has firmly entered our lives. A huge credit for this goes to such a dish as sushi, which has enjoyed unprecedented popularity all over the world since ancient times. But if previously only wealthy people could afford sushi in our country, today everyone can treat themselves to purchased sushi or prepare this wonderful dish on their own. Traditionally, sushi is consumed with various hot sauces, however, true gourmets prefer to enjoy sushi with pickled ginger. Below we will tell you the benefits of this spice and how to prepare ginger for sushi.

Useful properties of ginger

In the East, ginger is the most revered spice. And the point here is not only the specific taste of the plant. Thanks to its valuable composition of vitamins and minerals, amino acids and tannins, ginger is nicknamed “The Cure for a Hundred Diseases.” This spice improves appetite, perfectly refreshes and disinfects the oral cavity, fights fatigue and apathy, relieves pain in muscles and joints, prevents respiratory diseases and quickly eliminates toothache.

How to pickle ginger at home

True fans of sushi and rolls will be interested in learning how to prepare pickled ginger yourself. Of course, you can already buy it in the supermarket. finished product, however, at home you can make the dish even tastier, and not doubt the quality of the ingredients used.

First of all, you need to buy ginger root. It must be remembered that the fresh product has a thin light brown skin; it should not be spoiled or limp. At home, ginger root should be washed and peeled. To get rid of the peel, it is better to use a vegetable peeler, as ginger has a pungent and strong odor. Let's look at two recipes for preparing this wonderful dish.

Recipe for pickled ginger for rolls and sushi No. 1

After peeling 150 g of ginger root, it should be cut into thin slices and placed in an enamel or glass container. After this, you can start preparing the marinade. To do this, take ¼ cup of rice vinegar and place it in a saucepan. You also need to add 2 tsp there. salt, as well as 3 tbsp. Sahara. All ingredients must be brought to a boil. As soon as the marinade boils, you need to remove it from the heat and pour in the chopped ginger. This mixture should be left to saturate and cool. After about 5 hours, the pickled ginger will be ready to serve and eat.

Recipe for pickled ginger for rolls and sushi No. 2

You can go the other way by cooking ginger in the classic way which will take several days. But the result is worth it. By the way, this recipe is used to make pickled ginger in Japan. To prepare such a dish, you need to stock up on sweet rice wine mirin, as well as rice vodka - sake. In this case, there is no need to cut the ginger, since it is pickled whole.

So, 250 g of peeled ginger must be immersed in boiling water for a minute, then drain the boiling water and dry the root itself with a towel. After this, the marinade is prepared, for which 2 tbsp. mirin are placed in a saucepan, where 2 tbsp are also added. sake and 5 tbsp. Sahara. After mixing the ingredients, the pan is placed on the fire. As soon as the mixture boils, it should be removed from the stove and allowed to cool slightly. After 10 minutes, immerse the ginger root in the vessel with the marinade and cover it with a lid. After placing the container with ginger in the refrigerator, you should wait 5 days until it is completely cooked. The dish is ready!

As you can see, preparing ginger for sushi is not at all difficult, and you will get enormous pleasure from such a dish! Bon appetit!

Updated: 03/12/2018

The name of the plant of an unusual species is translated from Sanskrit as “ horned root" Residents of China have been using it in cooking and medicine for the second millennium. In the 9th century, residents of Western Europe became familiar with its unusual properties, and since then, the taste of ginger and its tart aroma have become the main symbol of Christmas. In addition, the tradition of using ginger for preparing hot drinks has firmly taken root in Europe, because it is known that the root contains substances that accelerate metabolic processes in the body, improve blood circulation, which allows you to quickly warm up in any frost.

But today we will talk about Japanese cuisine and find out why ginger is added to sushi and what its main purpose is in this cuisine, unusual for a Russian person.

Let's start with the fact that ginger for sushi is necessary in order, firstly, to enrich the taste of sushi, each individual roll, and also to kill microbes in the oral cavity, which can come into our body after consumption raw fish. Also, before you start preparing ginger for sushi, you need to remember that today ginger for sushi, depending on the marinade and cooking method, will be intended for different dishes Japanese cuisine.

So, for example, if you cut pickled ginger into thin slices (“ burning"), then it should be served with sushi along with soy sauce and wasabi. You will only need to chew one piece to remove the aftertaste of some sushi and move on to others. Typically, this ginger is either pink or light golden - the color depends on the freshness of the ginger root.

If you cut ginger into shavings rather than slices, it will already have a different name " Benisega» – pickled red ginger, which is intended for use in meat and noodles.

After we have become acquainted with what ginger for sushi can be, we can move on to solving the question of how to prepare ginger for sushi at home.

Of course buy pickled ginger at your nearest supermarket, however, at the same time, it is unknown what quality it will be and whether it will be properly pickled by the manufacturer, and ginger prepared at home will, of course, be much tastier, because you will be making it for yourself.

Now I would like to tell you about how to pickle ginger for sushi at home. In fact, there is nothing difficult about this. Tasty and even healthy pickled ginger for sushi, the recipe for which is simple, can be made at home in just a couple of hours, which will be an excellent gift for your guests who are passionate about Japanese dishes.

Video - how to pickle ginger for sushi at home:

Ginger Sushi Recipes

Recipe No. 1

Peel 150 gr. ginger root, cut into thin slices and place the cooked ginger in a glass or ceramic bowl. Before you pickle ginger for sushi, you need to prepare a special marinade. Take some rice vinegar (1/4 cup), salt (2 teaspoons), sugar (3 tablespoons) and bring it all to a boil. Pour the resulting brine into a container with ginger and leave to cool. Here. In just five hours it can be served!

I would like to point out some recommendations regarding how to pickle ginger for sushi and store it correctly so that it does not spoil or lose its taste. So, for storage you should use only ceramics or glass; metal utensils will not work. Pickled ginger can be stored in the refrigerator for about three months, however, the very beauty of pickled ginger at home is its freshness.

Recipe No. 2

Pickled ginger for sushi, the recipe is more complicated - in this case, the “gari” will be ready only after a few days. But it can be noted that ginger prepared in this particular way is especially popular in Eastern countries.

In order to prepare the right pickled ginger, we will need mirim - sweet rice wine, as well as sake rice vodka. In this case, we don’t have to chop the ginger root to prepare it; we pickle it whole.

Take peeled ginger root (250 g) and lower it into boiling water for one minute, then drain it and dry the ginger root with a towel. Next, take 2 tablespoons of mirin, the same amount of sake, and 5 teaspoons of sugar, combine them in a small saucepan and put on the fire, bringing to a boil. Don't forget to stir our mixture. Then we should wait a bit until the prepared solution cools down.

We also put the ginger root in a glass bowl. Pour in the resulting marinade, cover with a lid and place in the refrigerator. After the pickled sushi ginger has been placed in the refrigerator, you need to wait 3-4 days and it is ready to eat.

As we said above, ginger can also be used as a seasoning for absolutely various dishes– soups, salads, poultry, fish. But fresh ginger is not as suitable in this matter as dried ginger - it does not have such a rich aroma and taste.

Although Japanese cuisine is popular in Europe, its entire philosophy is difficult to understand. Many people love traditional rolls and sushi, even preparing them with their own hands at home, but they do not always use traditional companion dishes. Why do you need wasabi sauce and ambiguous ginger?

What is ginger for?

There are a great variety of types of sushi and rolls. These are not even dozens of recipes, but hundreds, and the most professional chef does not know all the nuances of their preparation. But the traditional companions of each of them are wasabi sauce, soy sauce and pickled ginger in the form of flakes or petals. Why is ginger used for rolls?

This tradition developed hundreds of years ago. The Japanese have a philosophical attitude towards the most everyday matters, including food consumption. They love to take pleasure in simple things, stretching it out and wrapping it in a special meaning. On the dinner table of the simplest Japanese there are always many dishes in tiny bowls, saucers, and bowls, and they all need to be tried. In order to correctly move from one dish to another and fully enjoy their flavors, there is a rule of freeing the taste buds from the taste of the previous dish. This is exactly what pickled ginger is used for.

You can make entire works of art from ginger to decorate your table.

This dish consists of thin slices of root that were marinated for several days, became soft and acquired a refreshing taste with a slightly spicy bitterness.

By consuming such a slice, a person erases the memories of what was eaten earlier from the taste buds and prepares them for the perception of another dish. In addition, ginger gives a feeling of freshness in the mouth and improves the digestion of food entering the stomach, as it stimulates the production of digestive juice. Ginger is especially beneficial when consumed fatty foods.

The situation is similar with rolls. To enjoy the taste of each type of this dish, it is customary to eat 1-2 slices of ginger between them. That's why the pickled root is always served with this beautiful, nutritious and delicious Japanese snack.

How to eat

In Japanese cuisine, it is customary to eat with chopsticks, but rolls can be eaten with your hands. Although this is not entirely beautiful and hygienic. The rolls are first dipped in soy sauce, and this is also done in a special way. If the rolls are turned inside out, that is, the fish or vegetables are on top, and the rice is inside, then the rolls are dipped into the gravy boat with the side on which the fish or other ingredient is located, but not the rice. Wasabi can be added to the gravy boat; this is suitable for those who like a spicy taste.

Ginger is not eaten with rolls. His turn comes during the period of transition from one species to another. It is enough to eat 1-2 petals, pause for a few minutes and continue eating.

Homemade pickled ginger

Pickled ginger root is used very often in Japanese cuisine. The company with rolls is a small part of the popularity that the spice has. It is not so popular in Europe and Russia, although recent studies have shown that ginger is very beneficial for weight loss. It was then that a lot of recipes for making seasoning at home appeared. This allows you to always have a useful item in the refrigerator and be confident in its quality and safety.

Since there are really a lot of marinade recipes and cooking technologies.

You can stop at some general rules, which will allow you to prepare truly high-quality and the right product:

The quality of the root itself plays an important role. If it is old ginger, it will be too tough due to the large number of coarse fibers, and even a strong marinade will not be able to soften them. Therefore, before you start preparing a dish, you must carefully select the product itself. The young root is quite smooth and can be easily pierced when pressing on the skin with a fingernail. Inside it is pale yellow, juicy and aromatic. The old root has a rough skin and yellow flesh with visible fibers. This one is more suitable for drying and chopping than for pickling.
Before pickling, the root is thinly sliced and soaked for several hours. This is done in order to rid it of excess bitterness and spice, because the taste of pickled ginger should be refreshing and almost neutral.
Best used for marinade natural dye, for example, beetroot or lingonberry juice, even food colorings represent chemistry, which is already abundant in modern products.
The main component of the marinade is rice vinegar, but it can be completely replaced with the usual and more affordable apple one.
The longer the root is pickled, the softer and more tender it becomes.
The finished product can be used not only for Japanese dishes. It is added to vegetable salads and main meat dishes. Some people simply eat it to improve the functions of the digestive system before feasts. Ginger can be stored in the refrigerator for several weeks.

The thinner the root is cut, the more tender and pleasant its taste will be.

Classic recipe Preparing pickled ginger:

Peel the root and use a vegetable peeler to cut it into thin, long slices lengthwise.
Place in a glass container, add cold boiled water and let stand for 4-5 hours, or leave overnight.
Prepare the marinade: combine ¼ cup rice vinegar, 2 tsp. salt and 3 tbsp. l. sugar, bring to a boil and dissolve the sugar and salt.
Rinse ginger cold water, post in glass jar and pour hot marinade, add 1-2 tbsp. l. beet juice, cover and cool. After cooling, place in the refrigerator for a day. The ginger is ready.

If the dish needs to be prepared quickly, for example, in the evening when guests arrive, you can use the express marinating method. To do this, chop the ginger as in the previous recipe, place it in a saucepan, add water, bring to a boil and simmer over low heat for 30-60 seconds. This allows you to quickly soften the slices and remove bitterness from them.

When the pan is removed from the heat, the root is thoroughly washed with warm water, placed in a jar, and poured with hot marinade prepared according to the previous recipe. The volume of marinade is calculated for approximately 1 medium root. In weight form it is about 150 grams. Once the marinade has cooled, place the jar in the refrigerator and the ginger can be used.

This is how pickled ginger is made for rolls, sushi, and other fish and meat dishes. But there are other options that allow you to prepare this product with pronounced sourness, spicy notes, sweetness in order to later add it to fruit and vegetable salads and even desserts.

If you use ginger just like that, then you can eat no more than 30-50 grams of this product at one time. Otherwise, you may experience stomach irritation, increased salivation and exacerbation of gastritis. This dish is contraindicated for children.

Often getting to know pickled ginger is the same as with olives: at first it seems that this disgusting thing, covered in cologne, is impossible to eat, then you start to taste the interesting taste, and then you want to eat gari not only with sushi, but also with fried potatoes or even pasta! Of course, the easiest way is to buy gari in a store, because it has long become available to a wide audience, but many people pickle ginger with their own hands, getting a much more useful and natural product. Anyone can pickle ginger: follow our recommendations, and tomorrow you can enjoy the snack homemade.

Difficulties in choosing ingredients for burning

How to pickle ginger at home? To do this, you only need to stock up on the root itself, vinegar and sugar and salt, but in fact, problems may arise already at the stage of choosing the root.

Have you noticed that factory soot is very soft and has virtually no hard fibers? This is because it is made exclusively from young roots, which are almost impossible to find on the Russian market. You have two options left: either come to terms with some rigidity, which cannot be avoided, or try to grow ginger yourself, which, by the way, is not so difficult to do.

This is what young ginger used for burning looks like, but it’s almost impossible to find it in the store

As for vinegar, authentic recipe suggests precisely its rice variation. But due to the fact that rice vinegar is much more expensive than apple or wine vinegar, our compatriots usually use regular vinegar. They say that using it to pickle ginger turns out to be no worse, and the savings are significant.

By the way: The young root contains substances that give the root a pinkish tint when in contact with vinegar, although it is unknown what and how ginger is tinted in factories to achieve such a bright color.

Traditional marinade recipe

To properly pickle ginger, it is necessary to heat treat both the root and the marinade. Yes, it will take some time, but the burn will be the closest to the authentic one.

What do you need?

Ginger 250 g
Sugar 100 g
Salt 1 tbsp. l.
Vinegar 200 ml

What to do?

Peel the root from the skin using a spoon and cut it into thin slices using a sharp knife or vegetable slicer. Cutting fibrous ginger across the grain is not an easy task, so it is better to cut the petals along them.
The root plates are rubbed with salt and left to soak for about 5-8 hours.
After this, they are washed and blanched for about 5 minutes in boiling water to soften.
Now let's start the marinade: mix sugar and vinegar and bring to a boil, after which the mixture must cool completely.
Now pour the marinade over the petals and leave to marinate for a day in the refrigerator. You can eat it after 6-7 hours, but it’s better to wait a little longer.

Sometimes it is recommended to rub uncut ginger rather than pieces with salt, but this rule is more likely to be true for young roots, which are very difficult to find in the store.

By the way: After you pickle ginger, it can be stored in the refrigerator for about three months, so you won’t have to worry about the safety of the product for quite a long time.

A burnt recipe for those who don't like vinegar.

You can prepare pickled ginger with virtually no vinegar: many people simply don’t like its strong taste and aroma.

What do you need?

Ginger 250 g
Water 250 ml
Vinegar 1 tbsp. l.
Sugar 1 tbsp. l.
Salt 1 tsp.

What to do?

The root must be peeled and cut into slices, left to soak in salt, and then washed and blanched, as in the previous recipe.
Now boil the water for the marinade, add sugar to it, stir until completely dissolved.
Pour ginger with this marinade, and when the mixture has cooled, add a little vinegar.
It is advisable to marinate the gari according to this recipe for at least a day, since it will need a little more time to soak.

Cooks often marinate gari with the addition of red wine or a small piece of beetroot to tint the petals of the root and give them that coveted pink color.

Tip: If you can’t cut the root in any way fresh, you can marinate it whole using this recipe and chop the already soft, pliable ginger. Of course, the blanching time will have to be increased, and it will be more like cooking, and the holding time will increase significantly: one or two weeks instead of one or two days.

Express recipe for pickled ginger

Pickling the root can take even less time if you heat the ginger and marinade not separately, but together. Yes, this recipe is not the most classic, but you can do it in literally 10 minutes!

What do you need?

Ginger 250 g
Water 500 ml
Vinegar 100 ml
Sugar 100 g
Salt 2 tsp.

What to do?

Peel the root and cut into petals as thin as possible.
Mix half the ingredients for the marinade and bring to a boil. Mix the other half and leave without heating.
Cook the pieces in this mixture for 5-10 minutes until desired softness is achieved.
Then remove the plates and transfer them to the cold marinade.
Before consuming such burning, it is enough to stand for 5-6 hours, but it is better to wait a day.

A very sharp knife or vegetable peeler will help to thinly slice the root: the main thing is to choose the direction not across, but along the grain

Important: The container for burning should not be metal in order to avoid unwanted chemical reactions with vinegar, so ideally use glass or at least plastic containers.

Cold marinade for the laziest

Of course, you won’t be able to use such pickled ginger for sushi or rolls, since it will come out hard and won’t resemble classic ginger, but it won’t become less tasty and healthy from such lazy processing.

What do you need?

Ginger 250 g

Water 500ml
Sugar 1 tbsp. l.
Salt 1 tsp.
Vinegar 1 tsp.

What to do?

Peel and chop the root, but do not soak in salt or blanch.
Place the petals in a jar and pour in a cold marinade of water, sugar, salt and vinegar.
Before use, marinate the ginger for at least a day, preferably more.

By the way: Gari for sushi serves the same purpose as coffee in perfume shops: these products cleanse the receptors and allow you to fully experience the taste or aroma of a new dish.

Now you can make your own pickled gari ginger to enjoy yourself or surprise your guests. All that remains is to stock up on roots and decide to experiment!

Along with those who eat sushi in Japanese bars and restaurants, there are also people who love to cook it exotic dish. Traditionally, sushi is served with various seasonings and sauces. An integral part of the sushi eating ritual is pickled ginger. According to the Japanese, ginger helps highlight flavors various types sushi, increases appetite and fights microbes in the mouth that can enter the stomach when raw fish is used in sushi. Due to its short shelf life, it is quite difficult to purchase pickled ginger, but you can prepare it yourself at home.

To give pickled ginger a pleasant, soft pink hue, it must be tinted with beetroot juice or E124 dye.

How to pickle ginger at home
To prepare pickled ginger you will need the following ingredients:

200 g ginger.
100 ml vinegar (rice).
1 tablespoon honey.
1 teaspoon salt.
Small beets.
200 ml mirin or 1 tablespoon vodka.

To pickle ginger, first select young roots that do not have hard threads in the pulp. Young roots are distinguished by light skin and small size. You can also buy old roots, but they will have to be cooked longer. Do not take ginger that has wrinkled skin, dark spots, or soggy pieces.

Divide the ginger root into small pieces and carefully remove the skin with a small sharp knife.

Pour half a liter of water into a saucepan, add salt and boil. Place the ginger roots in there for a couple of minutes. If the roots are old, leave them for about five minutes. Remove the boiled pieces from the water and dry them. As soon as the roots have cooled, chop them in a vegetable slicer across the grain into thin, beautiful slices.

To prepare a quality marinade you will need mirin. This word refers to real Japanese rice wine, low alcohol, with an interesting aroma and sweet taste. Japanese chefs also use sake. If you can't find mirin or sake in supermarkets, substitute Japanese plum wine, a regular grape rosé. Instead of sake, you can take Russian vodka, just make sure that the vodka is of high quality, prepared with artesian water and rectified alcohol. To prepare ginger for sushi at home, use high-quality alcoholic beverages.

Mix mirin, vinegar, honey in a separate saucepan and put on fire. As soon as the white cap appears, remove the pan from the heat. If you want a soft pink color, add some beetroot chips. For a spicy taste, you can add a couple of tablespoons of soy vinegar to the marinade.

Pour the marinade over the chopped ginger and leave for a couple of days. Place the pickled ginger in the refrigerator. You can store pickled ginger in the refrigerator for 4 months.