Traditionally, pickled ginger is eaten between dishes of sushi to help cleanse the palate. Ginger also has antiseptic properties, and was originally intended to be eaten with sushi to counter-act the ill effects of bad fish. I make up a big batch of this pickled ginger, keep it in the fridge and in addition to eating it the traditional way (with sushi), I also like it with cooked fish, or tossed through salads. 

I talked in my last post about the reasons why I love quinoa and how versatile it is to use as a more healthy alternative in place of more traditional foods like rice. Quinoa sushi is an example..

ingredients

Quinoa Sushi

  • cooked quinoa (I cooked mine in stock for a little more flavour)
  • Anything else you’d usually put in sushi (I used radishes, kale, avocado, cucumber, shallots and toasted black sesame seeds)
  • nori papers

Pickled ginger

  • 4 Tbsp coconut vinegar or apple cider vinegar
  • 2 Tbsp water
  • 2 tsp runny organic honey
  • 2 tsp salt
  • Fresh ginger*

method

  1. Make sushi the same as you would with rice, but substitute rice for cooked quinoa (fully cooled)
  2. For the pickled ginger, put the vinegar, water, honey & salt into a jar and shake it up to combine
  3. Peel the ginger and slice it thinly (easiest with a mandolin / grater)
  4. Sprinkle the ginger with salt and leave it for half an hour to draw the moisture out
  5. Squeeze the ginger with your hands to extract as much liquid as possible
  6. Rinse the ginger well under cold water and then squeeze it out again until it is as dry as possible
  7. Pop the ginger into the jar with the pickling liquid (make sure the ginger is fully submerged) and let it marinate for 15 minutes.
  8. This will keep in a tightly-lidded jar in the fridge for weeks.

* If you would like to achieve the ‘pink’ colour which you often see in pickled ginger, add a small cube of raw beetroot to the pickling liquid which will add a pink stain.