G Is For Ginger

It's gingery all the way in this post.   A compilation of dishes from a starter to dessert spiced up with ginger for the fun of joining Little Thumbs Up Event of which ginger is the featured ingredient for this month.  I didn't served them all in one meal though, it would have been ginger overload otherwise!

For starters, here's a Pickled Ginger Salad.  I first learned of this popular Burmese salad from the 06/13 issue of the Flavours magazine.  Unfortunately, i am having trouble accessing older issues of the magazine from my online subscription, so this is not exactly the featured recipe.  I surfed around and found another one for guidance and played by whatever i recalled reading in the magazine.  

As in the name, the main ingredient for this salad is pickled young ginger.  It also has an interesting addition of fried lentils to it.  I simply bought them from our regular Kacang Putih seller (i.e. Indian nuts seller). Overall it is a good appetizer, with a sweet, tangy type of dressing plus some heat from the ginger.  It reminded me of the Yee Sang minus the raw fish served during Chinese New Year.

And here's the meal that went with the Ginger Salad.   I made Szechuan Pepper Roast Chicken and Angel Hair Aglio Olio to go with it.   A little bit of Chinese, Italian and Burmese in one meal! Fusion at its best or weirdest, you decide!   It was quite complimentary though and one thing for sure, everything tasted good on its own :))

Next up is this simple and homey Ginger Fried Rice, this is quite a staple for Chinese mothers in confinement.  However, it's simply ginger, egg and rice when it's served to the new mothers.  To make it a balance meal, i added some greens and shrimps.   Don't the shrimps look lovely dovey like the 囍(shuāngxǐ) character on the bowl?   The word means means double happiness, an ornamental motif widely used during Chinese weddings, incidentally that bowl was my MIL's gift during our wedding, 16 years back :)

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Thirsty by now? Here's a gingery drink, which is a popular herbal remedy.  From personal experience, it works well for coughs and indigestion.  I had lots of this as an alternative remedy when i was down with a bad cough during my pregnancy instead of downing cough syrups.   It helped soothe my throat and reduce the coughing which would otherwise kept me awake during the nights.    There are some variations out there which does it with pandan leaves and lemon but personally i prefer the version with just lemongrass, ginger, honeycomb/brown sugar plus a little honey stirred into it before drinking.   Drink it warm if taken as a remedy or chill it as a refresher.

How about a little sweetness to end it all?  I love chiffons for its lightness, it gives me less calorific worries :)   I thought i will give a shot at a ginger flavored one for the purpose of ending this gingery post on a sweet note.  Was keeping my fingers crossed as i have never tried a gingery one before this.

What i did was to add some grated ginger to my favorite orange chiffon recipe.   There's actually a combination of citruses in this cake.  Firstly, i used the juice (and zest)  of what the fruit seller told me was a cross between a grapefruit and navel orange, then i added 1 teaspoon of lemon zest too.  I am quite happy with the results.  It remain citrusy but with a obvious but not overwhelming hint of gingery fragrance.  

I love this recipe, which was the one i used when i first started learning how to bake a chiffon cake. This recipe never fails to give me a tall cake, baked in a 20cm diameter pan with only 5 eggs.   It was really soft to the fact that it was difficult getting it to stand :)   One can just omit the ginger for a orange flavor cake instead.

I hope you have enjoyed browsing through this compilation!

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Doreen of My Little Favourite DIY and hosted by Alvin of Chef and Sommelier

Pickled Ginger Salad

Ingredients
Reference : Culinary Musing of a Silicon Valley Mum & 06/13 Flavours Magazine

• 1 small jar pickled ginger, julienned 
• 2 cloves of garlic, sliced and fried
• 3 tbsp roasted sesame seeds
• 5 tbsp mixture of fried chickpeas and lentils  (I bought them from Kacang Putih man)
• 3 tbsp lightly toasted shredded coconut (optional and personally i will leave this out the next time)
• 1 tbsp of toasted sesame seeds 
• 1 cup of julienned green cabbage
• 5 cherry tomatoes, halved 
• Half a carrot shredded

Dressing

• 2 to 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp salt or to taste
• 2 tbsp or to taste lemon juice (used kaffir lime)
• 2 tbsp or to taste fish sauce 

Step
1. Mix the salad ingredients with the dressing right before serving.

Note :

1. It is not necessary to follow the exact measurements, play around with the combination according to preference.  
2. Go easy with the lime juice and add on if necessary.

Ginger Fried Rice

Ingredients

• 1 bowl of cooked rice
• 1 medium size egg, lightly beaten
• 4 medium size shrimps, shelled (leave tail intact) and deveined
• 1 inch ginger knob, julienned
• 3 french beans, diced
• 1/2 of medium size carrot, diced
• 2 tbsp sesame oil 
• 1 teaspoon Shaoxing cooking wine

Method

1. Marinade shrimps with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and a dash of pepper.  Leave aside for 15 minutes.
2. Heat up wok and pan fry shrimps without oil.  Set aside.
3. Using the same wok, fry ginger until slightly dry.
4. Add in sesame oil and fry until ginger is fragrant.
5. Add in french beans and carrot. 
6. When vegetables are half cooked, add in rice.  Mix well.
7. When rice is hot, push aside rice and pour in egg.  When egg is slightly cooked, push rice back onto egg and scrambled together with the rice.
8. Season with some salt and cooking wine.
9. Add in shrimps and mix well.

Lemongrass Ginger Drink

Ingredients

• 5 stalks of lemongrass (use white part only), trimmed and bruised with back of cleaver
• 2 inch ginger knob, sliced and bruised with back of cleaver
• 1 liter water
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• Honey

Method

1. Combine lemongrass and ginger with water in a medium size pot.
2. Bring to a boil then simmer with lid on for 30 minutes.
3. Add in sugar and continue to simmer for another 5-10 minutes.
4. Sweeten with  some honey prior serving.

Orange Ginger Chiffon Cake
Adapted from Orange Chiffon Cake by All That Matters

Ingredients

(A)

• 4 egg yolks
• 30g castor sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 40g corn oil
• 140g orange juice
• 2 tbsp grated ginger
• Zest  from 3/4 orange and 1/2 lemon

(B)

• 120g Cake flour
• 1/2 tbsp baking powder

*Sift 2x

(C)

• 5 egg whites
• 40g castor sugar
• 1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar (1 tsp lemon juice)

Method

1. In a bowl, using hand whisk, whisk yolks and sugar till sugar dissolves.
2. Add oil and salt, whisk and add orange juice, zest and grated ginger. Stir well.
3. Fold in sifted flour and mix well.
4. In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat till the whites are frothy. Add in Cream of Tartar and beat till soft peaks.
5. Add in sugar gradually and beat till stiff peaks.
6. Fold in 1/3 of the whites into the yolk mixture using a spatula till incorporated.
7. Pour the mixture to the remaining egg whites and fold in gently till incorporated.
8. Pour the batter into a 20cm chiffon tube pan. Bang the pan on the table to get rid of bubbles.
9. Oil a piece of aluminium foil and cover the pan loosely. Bake at 170C for 10mins.
10. Turn down the temperature to 160C and bake for 10mins. Lift up the foil to check the surface of cake, bake for another 10mins.
11. Insert a skewer to check if cake is done. Remove the foil and reduce the temperature to 150 deg.C and bake for a further 5 to 10mins to brown the surface.
12. Remove from the oven and invert the pan. Remove the cake from pan when it's completely cooled.

Note : I baked mine at 180C for 40 minutes, then removed foil and continue to bake at 170 for another 10 minutes.