Ginger

Ginger has always been one of my favourite flavours. When I first started cooking, I could only buy sneeze boxes of ground ginger and could afford neither decorative jars of preserved ginger, nor wooden boxes of the crystallized kind. Now fresh ginger is available everywhere for use in sweet and savoury cooking. And I like to buy the thin, pink shavings of Japanese pickled ginger, for its sweet, hot flavour is excellent with fish, poultry and salad, as well as sashimi and sushi, its traditional partners. I have also used it in ginger cake on several occasions, and it is an excellent substitute for preserved ginger.