Foody DIY- Homemade Sushi Ginger

At the moment we’re on a bit of a Japanese food kick. Think lots of stir fries, sushi and ramen and you get the picture.

One thing that I love to have with Japanese food, sushi or not, is pickled ginger or gari as it is often called.

I get through so much of the stuff that when a rather bemused boyfriend suggested making my own I thought it might be a good idea.

The recipe is really simple and makes a jar more than twice the size of the ones you buy in the supermarket, for less money. I worked out that it cost me around £1.60 to make my big jar of ginger so whilst it takes a little while and smells a little, it’s more than worth it.

What you will need:

250g ginger, peeled

2 teaspoons salt

120ml rice vinegar

120ml water

110g sugar

Method:

1.       Use a vegetable peeler or sharp knife to thinly slice the ginger

2.       Place the ginger in a bowl and sprinkle with the salt and mix thoroughly, making sure that all of the ginger is coated. Leave for 30 minutes for the salt to draw out the excess liquid.

3.       Transfer the ginger into a sterilised jar, squeezing out any last liquid with your hands as you do so.

4.       Heat the water, sugar and vinegar on medium until the sugar is fully dissolved before turning to high and bringing to the boil (this is the smelly part!)

5.       Once boiled, tip the vinegar mixture into the jar of ginger so that the jar is full and the ginger fully covered.

6.       Allow to cool for 30 minutes before sealing and placing in the fridge for a week to pickle.

Once the ginger has pickled, it can be kept for a month in the fridge. Over the week where it I pickling, the ginger will slowly turn a light pink which it perfectly normal, it is a reaction between the ginger and the vinegar. 

And boom, there you have it, the recipe for your own homemade gari. If you make some of your own let me know, I’d love to know what you think of it.

Annie xx

Guest Post from Catherine

Today I have a guest post from Catherine about the right of passage for many people that is leaving home and going to university... only to realise that cooking and clearing up after yourself isn't as easy as "proper adults" make it look.
The article is a little different to what is usually written on Three Little Buhos so let me know whether its something you'd like to read more :) Anyway, over to Catherine.
Annie x

Eat To Live Or Live To Eat?

According to some recent research, nearly 60% of 18–25-year-olds leave home without being able to cook five simple dishes: a statistic that realistically isn’t all that surprising.

Much is made these days of the inability of our youth to demonstrate many fundamental home-style skills. It’s almost as though we expect them to be fully accomplished keepers of house and home in the manner of adults with much tried and tested experience. It’s not the lack of skills behind the outcry that is objectionable, but rather the sentiment.

However, proficiency in this skill-set is important and it is desirable for both parents and schools to help instil it. Whether cookery classes should constitute part of the school curriculum is, after all, a much-debated point. This cause is championed in some political fields as being a solution to obesity in adulthood – a theory that has had many a celebrity chef clogging up the airwaves as they proclaim that we’re all condemned to a life of convenience food and cholesterol.

Whether the problem is that our children don’t know the difference between a crisp and a carrot is debateable. Perhaps they just prefer the taste of one to the other.

While being a little bit useless on the home economics front isn’t something to be applauded particularly, let’s face it – the ability to accomplish a repertoire of five dishes is not the be-all and end-all. It certainly isn’t the end of the world if that particular box isn’t ticked by the age of 25.

There’s every chance that these accomplishments will come easily at a later date. A burgeoning desire to cook is almost a rite of passage for the 30-something after all. While your late teens and early 20s are all about working hard and playing hard, your 30s seem to be the time to embrace homemaking. After all, priorities change as we get older and, however unwisely, chances are that when we’re in our 20s our priorities do not include sourcing and producing healthy, balanced meals.

Most teenagers are bundled off to university, disdainfully agreeing to take the ubiquitous box of mother’s cast-off Tefal cookware, while doubting that they’ll actually use it much.

For many this is the ‘sink or swim’ moment and not all youngsters finish their education with fewer home skills than they started with. In fact, those desperate to shake off the reputation that young people don’t cook could even surprise you by returning with more cooking ideas under their belts than you have – just don’t be surprised if some of them involve pot noodles!