Pickled Ginger

Pickled Ginger (Gari or Shoga)

In a sushi bar, you will be given a small heap of pickled ginger as well as a small glob of wasabi. The purpose of the wasabi is to mix with soy sauce in the small dish that included with your place setting. (Start with small amounts of the wasabi, mix it with the soy sauce, and sample. Repeat until it tastes more like the wasabi than the soy sauce, or until it tastes "right" to you.) The ginger is used to cleanse the palate between bites of sushi. It does not take a lot of the ginger to cleanse the palate, so the small pile should be enough for several rolls. If you consume all of either, by all means ask the sushi chef for more.

People have asked if the ginger root in grocery stores is the same ginger that is pickled for sushi. It is, and up until now I have recommended that you buy it in jars at Asian markets. I recently found a recipe for making your own pickled ginger, and will share that with you.

8 oz. (250 g) ginger root
3 fl oz (90 ml) rice vinegar
2 Tablespoons mirin *
2 Tablespoons sake **
5 teaspoons sugar
 mirin is a very sweet rice wine used only for cooking. You
can substitute a teaspoon of sugar for a Tablespoon of mirin, or
an equal amount of sake.
 sake is a rice wine that often accompanies sushi. Dry sherry
is a potential but inferior substitute.

Scrub the ginger under running water as you would a potato for baking. Blanch in boiling water for one minute and drain.

Combine mirin, sake, and sugar in a small pan. Bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Cool.

Place the ginger into a sterilized jar and pour the cooled vinegar over the ginger. Cover and keep 3-4 days before using. Will keep refrigerated for up to one month.

The pale pink color develops as it ages, however, you might want to add a small amount of red food coloring.

Return to Contents on main page.

Back to previous topic (Omelet).

Jump to next topic (Mayonnaise).