The idea behind this paste was to have ginger and garlic for asian recipes at hand at all time without having the hassle of peeling and cutting them. However, the paste was not durable enough. Maybe fermentation would help, though at this point I have given up on trying.

While cooking asian food there is one step in pretty much all my recipes that annoys me each and every time. Cutting or grating ginger and garlic. To avoid this step a garlic ginger paste would come in handy. Though it also has to be durable so I’m testing different recipes and check how long one could keep them in the fridge.

Update: three weeks in storage and there is no mold or anything like that in sight on any of the three versions. However, the taste did suffer quite a bit after two weeks. Especially the garlic took a big hit. I loved to cook with it during the first two weeks, though afterward the side taste was noticeable and I stopped using it. If there is a way to ferment this paste to make it more durable then this could make sense.

As right now its not really worth the effort.

Ingredients

V1

I’m starting with a simple oil, ginger and garlic ratio:

• 40g ginger
• 40g garlic
• 40g oil

To preserve I’m adding salt and a salt sugar mix:

v1.0

• 20g base mix

v1.1

• 20g base mix
• 5g salt

v1.2

• 80g base mix
• 5g salt
• 5g sugar

I would expect that v1.0 and v1.2 are easier to cook with as the salt and sugar parts might be negligible in recipes. Though v1.1 will be the most durable in the fridge.

Note that removing air bubbles from within the paste and topping it of with oil would make it more durable for sure. Though after a few usages I generally end up with stuff sticking to the top of the jar and being too lazy to properly clean it off. So I’m trying to figure out a recipe that is durable without those steps.

Instructions

Peel ginger and garlic and blend everything together.

Next Time

• increase the base volume as the blender struggled with the little amount of ingredients
• use bigger jars so you can use a spoon to get stuff in and out
• fermentation might be an amazing addition to this recipe. Blending garlic, ginger and salt (without oil) and letting it sit for two days at room temperature before adding oil should be enough.