Made famous in sushi bars “gari” with its sweet heat acts as a palate cleanser. Go outside the sushi box and serve it between bites of steamed rice or noodle dishes.

Bonus! The brine is a divine spicy sauce to add sparkle to crisp-steamed veggies and myriad other dishes.

Most commercial brands of gari are made of inferior ingredients and lack live culture. This recipe is uncooked, alive and remains long-term in the fridge.

Sushi Ginger (Gari)

Makes 1 Pint

INGREDIENTS: Mirin, found in Asian markets is a sweet white wine
Look for ginger that is plump, smooth-skinned, and shiny. Dry and withered pieces won’t work. 

• ginger – (7 oz, 1-1/2 cups), peeled, thinly sliced*
• mirin – 1/4 cup, [or dry white wine + 2 tsp sugar]
• water –   1/4 cup
• maple syrup – 1-1/2 TBS
• rice vinegar – 2 TBS
•  soy sauce – 1 TBS

To elevate this recipe, source live cultured soy sauce, mirin (sweet rice wine), and brown rice vinegar along with organic ginger. It truly can become a daily superfood supplement.

DIRECTIONS: This is a secondary fermentation method where the liquid ingredients are already fermented and they slowly preserve the ginger indirectly. But you can also ferment the sliced ginger directly using a traditional lacto-fermentation with a fermentation kit of choice.

1. Peel the ginger and slice very thinly across the ginger fingers. Note: the success of gari is in the wafer thinness of each slice. See tool resource at bottom for a tool that really works!
2. A little sliver of raw, red beet will color your ginger a little pink; the traditional color of gari
   Add a beet slice to bottom of a one pint, wide-mouth canning jar. Add sliced ginger, tamping lightly as you go all the way to the top.
3. Add the brine to cover the ginger and right up to the lip of the jar. Seal and leave at room temperature for 4 days. Then refrigerate.

ALTERNATE LACTO-FERMENTATION: Lacto-ferment the ginger using a standard brine and a fermentation kit of choice. Directions for standard fermentation are in the Ferment section of this site

BONUS: Recently I tried this recipe on fresh turmeric, the powerful superfood cousin of ginger. It works beautifully!

Just like gari, turmeric will ferment—the taste is milder and more earthy than ginger. I grow my own ginger and turmeric, so it’s become a tradition to harvest and preserve them annually.

Now it’s easy to grab a few slices of cultured turmeric or ginger and chew my “medicine.” Science is finding lacto-fermentation powers up the nutrients found in the ginger family.

I use a mandoline slicer to ensure razor thin slices.
I like the “Kyocera Double Edged Mandolin Slicer,” and retails for about $20. Easy to locate using a web search. It is not a one-trick pony, this mandoline creates wafer thin veggies for many raw recipes.

Recipe adapted, original by Karen Bard

I facto-fermented the ginger for 4 days; then drained off the brine and added the sushi marinade. It’s ready to enjoy at this point, but will increase in flavor while refrigerated.

©2018 Bill Hettig, billhettig@mac.com