Gari — pickled ginger
Pickled ginger served with sushi to cleanse the palate between pieces of fish. It is made from young ginger — thin skin tinged pink at the tips and tender, non-fibrous flesh. It is this ginger that turns pink by itself in vinegar, thanks to anthocyanins; the bright pink ginger in shops is usually dyed. The key is slices as thin as paper — thick ones stay tough and fiery even after a week in the pickle.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Slicing 15 min
- Salting 20 min
- Blanching 5 min
- Brine 5 min
- Pickling 1440 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneChoose young ginger
Look for ginger with thin, glossy skin and pink tips, sold in summer. Old ginger with thick, matt skin is fibrous and very hot — usable, but it will not turn pink and stays stringy.
Ingredients: 250 g young ginger · 1 tsp salt · 1000 ml water
Peel with a teaspoon
Peel the ginger with the edge of a teaspoon, scraping off the skin. Young ginger has skin so thin that a spoon is enough, and none of the flesh is lost as with a knife.
Ingredients: 250 g young ginger · 1 tsp salt · 1000 ml water
Shave paper-thin slices
Slice the ginger along the grain on a mandoline, 1 mm thick — translucent. The most important step. Thicker slices stay hot and tough, while thin ones turn delicate and clear in the vinegar.
Ingredients: 250 g young ginger · 1 tsp salt · 1000 ml water
A millimetre, translucent — thicker ones stay fiery.Salt and rest 20 minutes
Sprinkle the slices with salt, toss and leave 20 minutes. Salt draws some of the water out of the ginger, so the slices take up the pickle better afterwards.
Ingredients: 250 g young ginger · 1 tsp salt · 1000 ml water
Blanch briefly
Drop the slices into boiling water for 1 minute, drain and spread in a sieve. Blanching tames the heat and softens the fibres. No longer — the ginger cooks and loses its crunch.
Ingredients: 250 g young ginger · 1 tsp salt · 1000 ml water
A minute in boiling water — tamer, still crisp.Dissolve the sugar in rice vinegar
Warm the rice vinegar with the sugar and salt just until the sugar dissolves; do not boil. Boiled rice vinegar loses its mild, sweetish aroma and turns harsh.
Ingredients: 200 ml rice vinegar · 70 g sugar · ½ tsp salt
Pour warm pickle over the ginger
Put the still-warm ginger in a jar and pour over the warm pickle. The acid reacts with the anthocyanins in young ginger and within minutes the slices begin to blush — the natural colour of gari.
Ingredients: 200 ml rice vinegar · 70 g sugar · ½ tsp salt
Warm pickle — young ginger turns pink on its own.Pickle a day in the fridge
Cool, seal and pickle in the fridge at least 24 hours. After a day the ginger is ready — sweet-sour, gently hot and crisp. Serve with sushi, sashimi or grilled fish.
Ingredients: 250 g young ginger · 1 tsp salt · 1000 ml water
Before you start
The colour depends on the ginger
Only young ginger with pink tips blushes in vinegar. Old ginger stays pale yellow — which is still proper gari, just less striking. For colour, add a slice of raw beetroot to the jar.
Gari is eaten between bites
Gari is eaten between pieces of sushi, not with them — it refreshes the palate before the next bite. In Japan it is not laid on top of nigiri.
Three months in the fridge
Kept in its pickle in the fridge, gari lasts up to three months and mellows with time. Use the leftover pickle in a dressing or to season sushi rice — it already carries the ginger aroma.