Gari Addiction

Confession time – I’m utterly addicted to gari, that sweet and tangy Japanese pickled ginger you get with sushi. It’s supposed to cleanse the palate between mouthfuls, but frankly, I could hoover up an entire jar without a hint of regret. There’s just one snag: it costs a small fortune in the shops. I mean, you’d think they’d been pickled in liquid gold rather than rice vinegar.

 

So, ever the resourceful chap, I thought to myself, "How hard can it be to make this stuff?" Answer: not very hard at all, especially if you’re prepared to produce it in industrial quantities – which, let’s be honest, suits my consumption levels just fine.

First off, ginger root isn’t extortionate. At around a fiver per kilo, it’s positively economical compared to those minuscule jars from the supermarket. A kilo of ginger makes an impressive amount of gari, so I set to work with great enthusiasm.

Peeling the ginger is easy enough – although your kitchen ends up looking like you’ve been skinning hedgehogs. The tricky bit is slicing it. Now, slicing ginger by hand with a knife sounds romantic and artisanal, but the reality is you’re left with pieces varying in thickness from paper-thin to something resembling a door wedge. So, I upgraded to a mandolin. Mistake. The fibrous ginger clogs it up faster than you can say “bandage your fingers”, and you risk taking a chunk out of your hand for good measure.

Next, I tried a potato peeler. Not a bad shout at first – I managed a few decent slices. But the moment you hit a particularly fibrous bit of ginger, the peeler sulks and refuses to cooperate. 

Finally, in a flash of inspiration, I remembered my Lidl bacon slicer. Yes, that’s right – the gadget I bought on a whim and which usually lives a quiet life gathering dust in a cupboard. Turns out, it’s the perfect tool for slicing ginger. It produced almost translucent slivers, just like the posh stuff you’d find in a Japanese restaurant. Victory!

Next, the ginger needs a quick blanch. None of this boiling it to death business – just a minute in boiling water will do. It softens the ginger and takes the edge off the raw, punchy heat. Not strictly necessary if your slices are thin enough, but if you don't then the heat in the ginger may be a tad overpowering.

Now for the pickling solution. The traditional recipe calls for rice wine vinegar, but if you’re not a connoisseur, cider vinegar will do the job nicely. Let’s face it – most of us don’t have a trained palate capable of distinguishing between the two. The magic ratio is simple: equal parts vinegar and water, and an equal amount of sugar in grams. So, if you’ve got 50ml of vinegar and 50ml of water, you’ll need 50g of sugar. Easy as that. I used about 3 times that amount.

I went all-in and bought a 5-litre container of vinegar for £12 on Amazon. Considering how long it’ll last, it’s a sound investment. Buy it in supermarkets and, again, you're paying the same for a small bottle. Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar-water mix with a bit of heat, but don’t let it boil – we’re making gari, not syrup.

Pour your pickling concoction over the ginger in a sterilised jar, pop it in the fridge, and leave it to do its thing for 24 hours. After that, it’s good to go – and trust me, once you’ve made your own, you’ll never fork out for those overpriced supermarket jars again.

If you want the pink effect that young ginger produces, you can cheat by adding a sliver of beetroot to the pickle solution.  

The result? Delicious, homemade gari that’s as good as anything you’d get at a sushi bar, for a fraction of the price. And if anyone asks why you have industrial quantities of pickled ginger in your fridge, just tell them you’re prepared for the next wasabi shortage. Or, like me, admit that it’s because you simply can’t get enough of the stuff.

Oh, and you can vary the ratio of vinegar to sugar to suit your taste.

Buoyed by my success, I next tried pickled carrot. The problem with carrots is that they're quite tough, which means the initial blanching has to be a tad longer to soften the slices - say 3 or 4 minutes of boiling, depending on thickness. Also, carrots are slightly sweet, so I reduced the volume of sugar slightly.

Retaining the crunch, while not being totally raw, requires a bit of practice. But the result is once more delicious and a great accompaniment to any meat or a salad.

I made a 2nd batch of pickled carrot, using the potato peeler to fashion the slices. This batch, being thinner, required only a few seconds of blanching. I rinsed the slices under cold water to stop the blanching continuing, which retained much of the crunch.

Delicious!