- Fresh ginger root
- An equivalent amount of caster sugar
- Sterilised glass jars and lids
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Peel your ginger and weigh it – I used a piece which weighed 175g. Measure out the equivalent weight in caster sugar and put to one side.
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Slice your ginger into evenly sliced coins – not quite a centimetre thick is about right.
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Put your ginger in a pan only just large enough to accommodate it and cover by half an inch with cold water. Bring to the boil then simmer, partially covered for an hour until tender – depending on how supple your ginger was to begin with, this may take longer. Just test it with the point of a knife as you would for potatoes. Top up with water if it bubbles away before the ginger is cooked.
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Once cooked and tender, and the water has reduced down to barely cover the ginger add in your sugar and return to the heat, stirring to help dissolve.
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Bring to the boil then reduce the heat so it is gently bubbling until the water and sugar forms a syrup similar in texture to runny honey.
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Spoon into a sterilised* jar and seal immediately. If not using immediately it should keep in a cool dark cupboard for a very long time. Once open, store in the fridge and try to keep the ginger chunks covered in syrup.
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For Instant Pot users, proceed as per the recipe but cook the peeled and sliced coins of ginger in the IP, with just enough cold water to cover the pieces. Set the IP to Manual High for 40 minutes and then give a QPR or NPR as preferred.
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Now, pour off about a third of the water that the ginger has cooked in and return the Inner Pot to the base and add the sugar (remembering you need an equal weight of sugar to ginger).
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Cook on Sauté (adjusted to High) for approximately 10 minutes until the syrup has reduced and thickened - it will become almost jammy and you do need to stir frequently so that it does not catch. Seal in sterilised jars as per above.
*= To “sterilise” your jars you can either put them through the hot wash in your dishwasher or you can wash in hot soapy water and rinse throughly before putting in a low oven until dry. Use the jars whilst the preserves and the jars are still hot and seal immediately. I reuse store bought jar jams or buy ones for the purpose of home-preserving which will withstand the temperatures required to sterilise them.
Regarding the Instant Pot method: Yes it still takes a long time but it's hands free, you don't need to baby sit the pot on the stove and actually, I have used ginger with thicker skin that is obviously not that fresh from the supermarket (which was Aldi for this test) and the IP cooks it beautifully. So if you have been struggling with getting the ginger soft enough as you can't find it particularly young and thin-skinned, then know that the pressure cooker method really does work wonders.