In my enthusiasm for gari—the
pickled ginger served alongside sushi—I discovered
that not only is the ginger delicious, the vinegar in
which the ginger is pickled is, too, It takes on a spectacular
ginger-infused flavor, which I like to use in salad dressing,
sauces, on fish . . . anyplace you’d use ordinary
vinegar. Before I started experimenting with it, I’d
never seen gari made with any vinegar other than rice
vinegar, but it became clear that you can make balsamic
gari, raspberry gari, tarragon white wine gari, ad infinitum.
They’re all good, and all very different. The formula
is the same for all: one part vinegar added to one part
shaved fresh ginger, plus a little sweetener. Try this
one:
1 cup very thinly sliced (shaved) fresh ginger
½ cup black raspberry vinegar ½ cup rice vinegar
3 tablespoons maple syrup
Set a small saucepan of water to boil. Peel
the ginger and, with a mandoline, slice it very thinly until
you have one cup of it (one large root will accomplish this).
Blanch in the boiling water for about 2 minutes. Drain and
transfer to a jar big enough to comfortably hold it. Pour
the vinegars and maple syrup into the saucepan, stir, bring
to a simmer, and pour into the jar. Let cool, and place in
the refrigerator. Keeps forever (well, at least a month).
—Caveat: The high sugar content of balsamic make it
slightly different than other vinegars; you may want to use
less sweetener when using it.
