Crystalized Ginger

I thought I would bring in the new year with a week surrounded by one of my favorite flavors, warm and spicy ginger. I think ginger is sort of odd looking, it's always reminded me of coral from the ocean. It has great health benefits including cold remedy, digestive health, anti inflammatory properties, glucose regulation and the list goes on.

I'm starting the week by showing how we made crystallized ginger, which may not be the most healthy way to enjoy this interesting root, saturating it with sugar, but it was this process that served as inspiration for the rest of ginger week, and all the things we did with this versatile rhizome. 
We adapted a recipe from About.com 

What you need:

• a fair amount of ginger (we ended up with 3.5 oz)
• sugar
• 5 cups water

Yup, that's it! I didn't give a sugar amount because it will vary depending on how much ginger you have.

We peeled the ginger

sliced it very thin

and boiled it in the 5 cups of water until it was tender, about 20 minutes.

Strain out the ginger and reserve the liquid. You can make a spicy Ginger Ale with this liquid! Read my post at Grit for the recipe!

Weigh the ginger at this point and return it to the pot. We ended up with 2 3/4 oz boiled, peeled ginger, so we added 2 3/4 oz sugar to the pot as well and a tablespoon or two of water just to make the sugar dissolve.

Bring the sugar mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low, and continue to boil until the moisture is almost gone. Take out a test piece, if it immediately crystallizes as it cools, your good. Turn off the heat and the ginger slices will crystallize as they cool.