The CookingBites recipe challenge: ginger

I made Rick Stein's "Raj Style Shepherds Pie" for some friends once, they absolutely loved it. The indo-asian brit fusion ticked all their boxes so they really wanted to know what was in it.

I said the changing ingredient in amongst the others was the ginger.

I looked up this recipe, and it looks amazing. But, what it also reminded me of is how imprecise measurements are for ginger. The recipes I checked both had this in the ingredients list:

1 inch piece Ginger, fresh

That does allow a wide range of interpretations. Are they measuring the knobs that protrude, or the main part of the root?

329ef39a5a1f4b9c9bf9a632e68e130a


That said, how did you meaure the ginger you added?
 
I looked up this recipe, and it looks amazing. But, what it also reminded me of is how imprecise measurements are for ginger. The recipes I checked both had this in the ingredients list:

1 inch piece Ginger, fresh

That does allow a wide range of interpretations. Are they measuring the knobs that protrude, or the main part of the root?

329ef39a5a1f4b9c9bf9a632e68e130a


That said, how did you meaure the ginger you added?
I'm afraid I don't have a measurement because I always eyeball herbs and spices.

I look at the volume of food and imagine how much I'll need to flavour that amount. Works for me but I do remember I use a lot more of every spice than's prescribed in the recipe.

Ginger from a supermarket here all tends to look the same so I assume he's talking about one inch of a thickish finger off shoot 🤷‍♀️
 
Here comes the first offering. Very much to my liking!Ginger Garlic Pickle
This is a typical Indian pickle: hot, spicy, salty, complex, to be used a little at a time. This pickle would usually accompany other dishes, but you could also use a little bit as part of a sauce, or even in a sandwich!
PS to the mods: I completely forgot to add the tags to this one.

Ginger garlic pickle 4.jpg
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Here comes the next one :Burmese Tomato Noodles
Burmese cuisine is virtually unknown in the West. Back in 2015, I went to a Burmese restaurant in London, and the food is an eclectic mix of Indian and Chinese. I'd say (from that brief experience) that it uses fewer spices and is not so hot as Indian, but there are the subtleties of Chinese food there somewhere.
The inspiration for this dish comes from a 1976 recipe by Merry White, in her book "Pasta and Noodles". I've changed a few things (like adding chiles and ginger, some coriander leaf and using fewer onions), but this is a winner, and very easy to prepare. come to think of it, a Burmese recipe in 1976 was definitely something out of the ordinary! If you haven't got fish sauce in your kitchen, you could just leave it out, or add an anchovy if you want that "umami"touch.
I just happened to have Chinese egg noodles in the cupboard, but I'm sure this would also work well with Italian pastas such as vermicelli
or fettucine/linguine.
.
Burmese noodles 2.jpg
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Right, I'm rolling them out at a speed of knots because I just love ginger. So versatile and goes with almost everything.
This was last night's dinner: Pan fried Salmon steaks with Ginger sauce
I was going to do rice with it and then thought, nope, I'll do some oven-baked creamy potatoes instead. The tiny garden peas were, of course, individually selected

Ginger glazed salmon.jpg
 
The above post was yesterday's, but I forgot to press "post". I put it down to jet lag!
Here comes another one: Coconut Shrimp with Ginger
Again, this is ridiculously easy to make and utterly delicious.
If and when I make it again, I'm going to use bigger shrimp ( or prawns) and leave the tail on, so it becomes finger food.
It's important to fry the seafood piece by piece, otherwise they'll clump together, as they did in this case.
I served these with a slice of sourdough bread + pumpkin seeds, but you could use rice, chips (fries) or anything that takes your fancy. As for the dipping sauce, I used tamarind chutney, but anything sort of sweet/sour would do the trick.

Coco Ginger shrimp.jpg
 
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