Our Annual fresh Ginger and Turmeric Harvest is on now, with Ginger and Turmeric Recipes included

We  have just harvested our tropical and edible crop of aromatic Ginger and Turmeric. It's an annual event, generally occurring between the heat of Summer and the early chill of Winter, when the rhizomes or roots are mature. Ginger and turmeric grow almost like a weed here in Mackay in the tropics. Since then we've been chopping, slicing, cooking, freezing and dehydrating the ginger. Now I have enough dehydrated Spice Ginger and tropical Stem Ginger in Syrup, and frozen ginger and turmeric to last me for the next 12 months.

Stem Ginger and Pear Cake

This stem ginger and pear cake is so easy to make, resulting in a top layer of pear, a very moist cake texture and lots of warm, cosy spice and ginger flavours. We love using stem ginger when baking sweet things, and this cake gives a perfect result. It is now one of my favourites to bake.

Tropical Ginger, Coconut and Lemon Slice

Allow me to present a nostalgic and vintage style slice for you on a Sunday. At this time of year in our Southern Hemisphere Winter, which I am loving, ginger is my favourite spice, and I use it whenever I can in savoury and sweet cooking. Ginger has an irresistable combination  of hot, clean and cool flavours. Although to be honest, Middle Eastern Baharat comes a close second to Ginger for me, and I use it in my iced Ginger Cake or my Ginger Syrup Cake (same recipe). I try to always substitute Baharat for the mixed spice. 

In My Kitchen, June and July, 2023

This is a quick roundup of what has been happening in both my French and Australian kitchens and all things related, since I last posted an In My Kitchen, which is a while. Regular readers of my food blog will know that I travelled over to France for two months so I won't repeat the details of what I have already written here about my trip. Most of the cooking I did in France was to feed my son's beautiful family, including my 7 year old grandson, and 4 year old twins, a boy and a girl. The three children have just had birthdays over the last month. I was so fortunate to be there for the twins 4th birthday. This post is my June submission to the #IMK series hosted by the wonderful Sherry from Sherry's Pickings. Each month food bloggers from around the world gather to share what is new in their kitchen.  

Anybody who cooks for children is no doubt aware of their food preferences, but when this includes one who won't eat eggs, or anything obviously containing eggs, one who doesn't like cheese, yes I know it's France, the cheese haven of the world, although he adores fruit and would live on it if possible. One who hates fresh tomato but is fine with pasta and pasta sauce, and then there are the various vegetables and aversions to a few vegetables. However they love pumpkin. Having said all of that though, in general they love food and are good eaters, in particular Evie who eats really well and puts the boys to shame, most of the time. It was a delight for me to be able to cook for them. My son loves his food, and generally does all the cooking for the meals, so they are in good hands as well. I tried to give him a break from cooking whenever I could whilst I was over there. Does any of this sound familiar to those of you with children, or grandchildren? I actually don't remember our children being fussy eaters, but perhaps I've forgotten. However over time children's preferences will change, and the importance of  healthy home cooked food, and just the occasional take away, shines through eventually.

I made a "French" Bread and Butter pudding for dessert one night, using two day old Brioche, Nutella, and used an online recipe for the custard. I was really pleased with how it tasted, however the children thought I could have added more Nutella. I really thought it was sweet enough. Nutella is still so popular in France. In the supermarkets I saw whole shelving bays devoted to Nutella, in bottles and packaging of various shapes and sizes. 

A few batches of my Aussie Damper Scones were always delicious straight out of the oven, just because the children and my daughter in law loved them. They are easy and quick to make, and the ingredients are always on hand, although at times I used some buckwheat flour if we had run out of plain flour. They were also easy to make with little Evie, who loved cooking with me.

This is still a very edible batch given I had help from a four year old, and used a variety of flours as well.

Another batch performing the disappearing act

Evie and I cooking scones together

Corn Flake biscuits were a winner, and Corn Flakes were on rotation over there as a  breakfast cereal, so were generally available in the pantry. The twins took their job of crushing up the cornflakes very seriously. 

French Afternoon tea in the summer garden in Lodeve, where Myrtille's mother Catherine lives was a treat.

Catherine's special French Chocolate cake. She also makes this cake for the children's birthdays.

A view over Lodeve from Catherine's kitchen.

Matthew cooked Canard, or braised Duck breast a couple of nights during my stay. The duck can be purchased with instructions on the packet, and this is Duck breast not Duck legs unlike Duck confit. It wasn't very difficult to cook and was absolutely superb to eat. The presentation on this plate isn't great, but when there are 5 hungry mouths to feed, it's just a relief to have it cooked. Honestly, I've never eaten more delicious duck. We went out for dinner on my last evening in Montpellier and I ordered Duck confit, but it wasn't as enjoyable as the duck my son cooked.

Searing the duck breast

Canard, perfectly pink in the middle

Baked vegetables to accompany the duck

I cooked this simple and delicious chicken traybake with corn fed chicken, which has yellow coloured skin because of the corn they were fed on, and local French vegetables including Kale, leeks, carrots and zucchini, which came in the organic Vegetable and Fruit box that they collect each week. Corn fed chicken is more expensive, but much better quality.

Locally grown organic kale

We call them Madeleines, the French called these  Magdalenas. These little cakes could be purchased in large cellophane packets, and individually wrapped. They were  delicious and looked just like Madeleines.

We enjoyed these French hors d'oeuvres when we were invited out to afternoon aperitifs. They were all bought frozen from a supermarket which only sells frozen food and were delicious.

My son took Hugo, our 7 year old grandson to the French Tennis Open at Roland Garros in Paris while I was over there, and brought us back some beautiful merchandise, a lovely handbag and Roland Garros canvas shopping bag pour moi, and a set of Roland Garros espresso coffee mugs for Mr. HRK. They have pride of place in our kitchen, and the handbag and canvas shopping bag were well used while I was in France.

The June Tropical Ginger Harvest

When we arrived home, it was time to harvest our patch of fresh ginger growing in the back garden. We waited a week to take a breath and settle in, and then the second week was officially "ginger week". We dehydrated a bucket of ginger, and I put aside 1200 grams to make Stem Ginger in Syrup, which I love to have on hand, bottled  in the refrigerator for adding to ginger cakes and desserts. If you have fresh ginger growing, you can read how I make my tropical stem ginger at this link. Yours is probably ready to harvest now as well. It's always ready in Winter to be harvested if it was planted early enough in Spring/Summer.

Tropical Stem Ginger in syrup

I also now have enough powdered ginger to last me for another year. 

Washed

Skins removed

Four trays in the dehydrator ready to be dried for powdered ginger.

I made this Golden Pear, Raspberry, Almond and Maple syrup cake for dessert after I returned home, and used fresh raspberries this time. The first one that I made with frozen raspberries looked completely different with the rich redness of the raspberries colouring the cake in layers. Take a peek at the original post I did on this and you will see what I mean. I'll write up the recipe again though as soon as I can. This is a delicious cake.

I cooked Ratatouille, a French vegetable stew,  in Montpellier, and again when I settled in at home as well. The tomatoes and fresh vegetables in Montpellier were just exceptional and made this dish very tasty.

When we arrived home, I was thrilled to notice that our Italian honey bees were feeding on the Blue Butterfly bush in our front garden. It's a beautiful bush and bees love blue and purple flowers. Mr. HRK inspected the beehive, and despite our absence, it seems to be thriving which is a relief. If we can survive the Spring bee swarming season, we should be harvesting honey later in the year. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for dropping by to read my post. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you.

Warm wishes,

Pauline

We Are Harvesting and Preserving our Fresh Ginger, now is the right time to do it

Growing edible root ginger in the Tropics and sub-Tropics in the home garden is very easy, low maintenance and sustainable, the climate and the tropical environment is perfect for this crop. As long as the soil is fairly well drained, the crop thrives on heat and humidity, and tells us it needs to be harvested when it's flowers start to emerge from the ground on stalks and the leaves start to brown off. Sorry no photo of this.  So for us, now is the time to harvest our crop. Fresh ginger is very expensive to buy, and can be used in so many dishes both savoury and sweet, in drinks, in smoothies, teas, really the list is endless. We love the flavour. It is also known for it's anti-inflammatory and anti-antioxidant properties, with gingerol thought to be its main bioactive compound. So lets get hot, spicy and sweet and start using ginger as often as we can.

Ginger is a root herb, and when it's dug up out of the ground the green foliage needs to be removed and placed in the compost bin, the soil needs to be washed off the roots, and the ginger cleaned very well ready for preserving how you wish, such as dehydrating, freezing or just cutting up fresh for use. 

Over a cup of coffee one morning, Mr. HRK came up with the innovative idea of using our gurney to wash the ginger. What a great idea I agreed. So he placed our compost sifting rack over the compost heap box, spread the ginger over the rack and began gurneying. Ah, men and their gurneys, and women love them too here in the tropics. They are an essential piece of equipment to keep in the shed for reducing mould on driveways, garages, and all sorts of other essential things. Just can't do without them.

Cleaning the ginger with the gurney

We were unprepared for what a great job the gurney did. Not only did the jet spray of water remove all the dirt, but also removed the outer shell leaving the fresh ginger ready for use. When we broke up some of the larger ginger clumps later, there was still a little dirt left in the crevices, but that was easily washed out in the laundry sink. I think we're onto something here he said. Yes, our annual ginger harvest has just become mechanised.

Mr. HRK sorting the ginger on the frame

We harvested 2.6 kilos of ginger this time, which is a good amount for us to handle. We froze 500g in vacuum sealed pouches, and dehydrated the rest. 2.1 kilos of ginger dehydrated and ground to a powder, transformed into 319 g of dried ginger. Now, with supermarkets here selling ginger at $50.00 a kilo, no-one is going to buy ginger from the supermarket to make their own dried ginger spice. However, fresh ginger is selling at our local markets for $20.00 a kilo which sounds much more realistic. Given that the ginger we are seeing but not buying in our supermarkets is probably grown around Brisbane, being a Queensland crop, I wonder how the markup in price can be justified, when it can be sold locally for $15-$20.00 a kilo.The reality is though that a very small quantity is generally needed for cooking, so  customers will buy a small knob of ginger and pay the price. I always leave a small amount of fresh ginger in the garden for our use, but the frozen ginger works in a lot of dishes.

After washing and cleaning the ginger, it needs to be sliced finely for the dehydrator.

Ready for slicing and dicing

Mr. HRK sliced the large knobs very carefully using the mandolin, better him than me for that job, and I sliced up the small bits with a knife.

I washed some of the slices a little more in the colander to remove the last specks of dirt, dried them off with a clean tea towel, and then they were ready for the dehydrator.

Two large bowls of sliced ginger ready to be dehydrated

Washing off the last specks of dirt

We arranged thin layers of sliced ginger on each tray of the dehydrator.

Dehydrated ginger

The spice grinder is perfect for finely grinding the ginger into a powder

Oh my, the heady aroma coming from the ginger being ground up is quite intoxicating. I feel healthier by the minute.

Some of the ginger was vacuum sealed and frozen.

And now we have our annual supply of dried and frozen ginger. The dried ginger we have  made ourselves is so much more potent, aromatic and full of flavour than the ginger spice produced commercially.

 

It's quite traditional to now place a few pieces of ginger on a sunny windowsill until it starts to sprout some green shoots, which generally starts around spring time or even Summer and those pieces are then planted in the ginger garden, and become the new ginger crop for next year. However around that time, I find that even sticking a few pieces of ginger in the ground in early Summer will shoot and become healthy plants, without needing to have them shooting first.

Now for some cooking and baking, Ginger nuts, Ginger cake, Stem Ginger in Syrup, Ginger Pork, what else? I'd love to hear what your favourite recipe using ginger is.

Turmeric is also growing in tropical gardens,  and  right now is also the time to harvest and dehydrate or preserve your turmeric. Here is the link to a previous post I wrote about harvesting your turmeric.

Warm wishes

Pauline