Can anyone tell me if you can freeze fresh ginger the root ginger not the powder.

I bought too much for a curry and want to keep it.

Hirta,

Absolutely - YES - and as a tip, I find it is much easier to use when frozen as you can grate it easily!!!

James.

That works? I'm surprised. Doesn't it mess with the ginger juice?

I always freeze fresh ginger and turmeric and it keeps well for a long time. Like someone already mentioned, it is much easier to grate while it's frozen.

Is it easier to peel the root before freezing for use later or is the flavour better preserved if it is frozen in its skin?

Never tried freezing whole ginger, but I always grind ginger and garlic (together or seperately)into a paste with little oil (5-10 spoons depending on the quantity of G/G)and freeze it in airtight containers, with oil it doesn't go rock hard even in freezer.

Suppose Rajneesh you are making your own version of the commercial "very lazy" ginger or garlic. (Not that I am suggesting you are lazy as you doing all the hard work!!)

I see that the commercial versions tend to use white wine vinegar and I have seen ginger preserved in dry sherry but never tried it so don't know how it would effect the flavour, for better or worse.

Hi Winton,

Yes, I have seen those lazy ginger/ garlic on the shelves, but never purchased it as I believe vinegar or sherry ( or whatsover is inside it) takes out or dilutes / alters the taste of ginger / garlic. Even bottled garlic / ginger paste tastes nothing near to home made.

Hi Rajneesh,

Never bought the commercial versions either but think your tip of adding oil is great as for most dishes you will need to add oil anyway, so it won't alter the ultimate taster of the dish.

Rajneesh

I bought my first bottle of garlic/ginger puree the other day, can't say I will but another. Doesn't smell the same, and I don't know the ratio of garlic to ginger. The fresh seems so much better. I have tried freezing ginger (and garlic, chillies, limes, tomatoes) and don't do it anymore.

Putting a tongue on a frozen tomato is strange, one gets the umami, but not the tomato flavour, as its too cold to be volatile, and therefore not detected by the nose!

I think I'll stick to making my ginger/garlic paste fresh each time. i don't really believe in 'lazy' things, and am amazed that even the French buy pre-prepared tomato-based sauces. How difficult is it to make a Mediterranean tomato-based sauce? Not very!

I was in America (New Hampshire) in October, and can confirm nearly all their cooking comes out of a tin/packet. While I was there, I was asked to prepare some fried onions and green (bell) peppers for the 'dawgs'. The peppers were huge, but later I found out they were nearly tasteless. I suppose that's what happens when your only benchmarks are fast food and packet stuff! a bit like many Brits and 'Indian restaurant' food!

Thank goodness for Mamta and her recipes. Keep food live! (or is that music?)

Oops!! forgot to include my name in the last post..sorry.

@ Phil .....of course fresh ginger garlic paste is the best. Sometimes frozen ginger garlic comes in handy when you dont have the time.

People have told me nothing but bad things about commercial ginger and garlic pastes. My only experience of using them was in the kitchens when I was a chef and I can say that I wasn't impressed. As for chillies, I grow lots and lots each year and I end up freezing most of them and they do well in the freezer in my opinion, although I intend to dry more of this years crop than last year. I've never tried freezing tomatoes but I froze loads of tomatillos from last year and they did well.

Personally, I prefer fresh to pastes. Frozen is half way between fresh and frozen. Bottled/tubed pastes have a rather unpleasant flavour to them, probably due to additives. Home frozen one will at least not have additives/wierd flavours.

Can Andrew or anyone else please tell me where I can buy whole turmeric. I tried my local Indian grocerwhen i saw thiis thread but they don't stock it. Could you also please tell me how it tastes in comparison to the powdered sort, which is all I have ever used.

Fresh turmeric root looks a bit like fresh ginger, only thinner and yellower, especially when broken.

You are more likely to find it in Indian stores where there is higher Gujrati Indian population.

Sure, some people are just really pushed for time, so freezing your own stuff can come in handy. I freeze stocks, pigeons, partridges and blackberry juice that I collect in the summer.

But I do wonder, when my sister-in-law says that she 'doesn't have the time to make a salad', how much time she spends in front of the tv.

What saddens me here in France is that cookery skills are dying out among younger people (I know this from speaking to my undergraduates). And France is MacDonald's biggest earner outside of the US!

Phil

I hate McDonalds and I never eat from there or any of the fast food chains. People always think I'm anti social because I don't drink and I won't eat fast foods LOL. McDonalds is almost like a religion to some people.

I have a fried who went to Thailand a couple of times. The first time he went he commented on how slim and healthy-looking the people all were. He went back again 10 years later and couldn't believe how the people had all changed since McDonalds had taken hold there. The second time he went he noticed a lot of overweight people.

What I find most odd is the use of the term 'restaurant' to describe these outlets. The people who object to them most here in France are our visiting professors from the US: all the way from the States, only to find MacDo in the centre of most French towns.