HOW TO USE GINGER
Change the form of a spice, and you change its impact on the body and on a dish. Ginger is a prime example. While fresh ginger belongs to the sulphuric-astringent category of spice, dried ginger belongs to the warm category of aromatics. In traditional Kashmiri cooking dried ginger is favoured because the nature of the climate made growing fresh ginger too difficult. Most of the time I use both together, but it is worth noting the different contributions they make to a dish.
CULINARY USES AND BENEFITS OF GINGER:
As a wet spice, fresh ginger is sharp, astringent and slicing. Eaten raw it has an impact akin to fresh garlic. In a dish, fresh ginger has an appearance of acidity as much as warmth, and helps to cut through heavy fats and dense flavours.
As a dried spice, ginger powder has a round and penetrative heat that hits the body as a deep and resonant warmth. In a dish, dried ginger roots the palate and the body in comfort without the dragging weight of winter.
Used in combination, dried ginger mellows the sharp and slicing quality of fresh ginger, while fresh ginger lifts just a little the aromatic weight of dried ginger powder.
Use dried ginger when you want a softer and warmer expression of the ginger taste and memory pull.
Ayurveda looks at ginger as a cure-all on level with turmeric. Ginger is suited to all body types and is used as digestive aid, respiratory regulator and circulatory assistant.