Candied Ginger - Sweet and Spicy

 

I discovered candied ginger a few years ago and love to eat it like candy.  It is sweet and spicy.  Some batches are spicier than others and is difficult to determine the spice level of each batch.  I found Alton Brown's recipe the best for candied ginger from The Food Network website but changed it up slightly.  The recipe is simple but it does take some time.  The cool thing is that there are only 3 ingredients.  The recipe is totally flexible because you can make whatever quantity up to one pound of ginger because you weigh the cooked ginger and use the same weight of sugar.

Ingredients

about 1 pound of ginger root

5 cups of water

about 1 pound of granulated sugar

 

Peel the ginger and slice into 1/8-inch thick slices using a mandoline slicer. Place into a 4-quart saucepan and add water and set over medium-high heat. Cover and cook for about 35 minutes or until the ginger is tender.

Place a colander into a bowl and drain the ginger, reserving the cooking liquid. Weigh the ginger and measure out an equal amount of sugar. Return the ginger, sugar and 1/4 cup of the reserved cooking liquid to the pan. The remaining cooking liquid can be discarded at this point.  Cook at medium-high heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring frequently, until the sugar syrup starts to get foamy, approximately 20 minutes.  Prepare a cooling rack by placing  a piece of wax paper underneath. Transfer the ginger immediately to the cooling rack and spread to separate the individual pieces (use forks to separate). Once completely cool, store in an airtight container.

Can be chopped up and used on top of cookies or cupcakes.  Or you can do what I love, eat it like candy. 

 

Peel the ginger root.  It may be necessary to break off pieces to peel.

Set a mandoline slicer at 1/8" and carefully cut into slices.  Any mandoline slicer will work as long as you can set it to the correct setting.

This is all of the peeled ginger sliced and ready for cooking.

Place into saucepan with water and cook at medium high until tender.

Place colander over a large bowl and drain the cooked ginger reserving the cooking liquid.

Weigh the drained cooked ginger.

Measure out equal part of granulated sugar.

Add 1/4 cup of reserved cooking liquid. The rest of the liquid can be discarded.

Place ginger, sugar and reserved liquid back into the saucepan and over medium high heat.



This is the start of the cooking

Remove when sugar mixture starts to look foamy.

Place onto a cooling rack (I wish I had a rack with smaller holes).  Separate with forks because the sugar mixture is extremely hot!