I Learned Something New: Fresh Ginger

I'm extremely self conscious of my cooking.  I love to do it but I just don't have a lot of confidence.  So I love trying a new recipe that requires me to learn something in the process.

This past weekend I tried this Chicken Curry recipe.  It was not mind blowing for us but everyone ate it. And in a house full of crazies, that's quite an accomplishment.

A few months ago I got some fresh ginger, all excited to use it. I used it once with unmemorable results and never got the motivation to try to navigate the gnarly little sucker again! And then it got all shriveled up.

So, I threw the shriveled up ginger away and bought fresh.

Ginger is a root and very much looks like one.  It is extremely fragrant when you peel it. 

You can typically find it, in a supermarket, near the fresh garlic.

I keep mine in the crisper drawer of my refrigerator either in a paper bag, or in a ziplock baggie...where it stays nice for up to four weeks.Yes, I tested this theory...remember the shriveled up ginger?!

Depending on how you want to use it, it can be prepared differently. It does have skin and a layer of fibrous flesh under that (can you see the darker layer just under the skin?).  If you're planning to peel and chop it (in a recipe like Chicken Curry), it's a good idea to peel this layer off as well...or no matter how fine you chop it, you'll end up with ginger fibers stuck in your teeth.

Or, if you want to avoid all of that, use the microplane side on your cheese grater and the fibrous flesh will sort of come off on it's own...or be grated so finely that you won't know the difference!