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Gari

(Pickled Ginger)

The Best Accompanist of Sushi

Gari is always served with sushi,
lying down right alongside, and
never be parted each other.

Preparation and recipe:

		Fresh and new gingers harvested in April have colored tips of pink. Cut them into some blocks and peal/scrape the skin. Soak them in water soon for several ten minutes.
Fresh	Old

Take them out and drain off the water. Sprinkle pinches of salt on them. After a while, rinse out the salt and boil from cold water. Soon take them out after frothing and bubbling upped, if they are fresh and newly harvested ones to preserve and enjoy their freshness and flavour.

Drain the water off, and add warmed rice vinegar (and sugar mixture, if preferable) to make it easy to penetrate into inside deeper and sooner. Ginger will be becoming colored in weak pink quickly. (An old one never changes its color so soon.) Keep all with the liquor tight in a container and stock in fridge for several days.

For fresh ginger, it is best in 2-3 days later, others are in a week or so.
Slice it and serve.

Sliced gari

The purpose:

To refreshen your mouth palate any or each time after tasting many kinds and variety tastes of sushi, such as from oily 'toro' or sweaty 'anago' (conger eel) to rich 'uni' (sea urchin) to delicate and good textured 'awabi' (abalone,) as well as ingenuous 'tai' or 'hirame' (plaice,) and much more. So that every time, you can taste as many kinds of sushi as much as possible.
A good sushi restaurant also carefully prepares own 'gari' with own recipe. Good tasty gari service is one of the key points to judge how they are sincerely dedicating themselves to sushi serving.
In fact, if the taste of gari is superb, the restaurant is undoubtedly good one, and vice versa.

Why is it called 'Gari':

When you eat it, you can hear the sound like 'gari-gari'. This naming originally came from a jargon among sushi chefs and its industry, and now it is almost completely popularlized and got the position of common daily word, especially when it is served with sushi. Even a cheaper packed sushi set sold at any stores, gari is found there without exception, like McDonald's humbergers and French fries .

Calories & Nutrition Facts:

Gari (sweet pickled ginger) (without liquid part, edible part: 100 g)

Characteristics:
High in dietary fiber
High in potassium, magnesium
Low in saturated fat
No cholesterol

Calorie 51 kcal

Water 83.9 g

Protein 0.2 g

Total lipid (fat) 0.3 g

Carbohydrate 12.5 g

Ash 3.1 g

Dietary fiber 2.0 g

(soluble) (0.2 g)

(insoluble) (1.8 g)

Cholesterol 0 mg

Sodium (Na) 1200 mg

Potassium (K) 27 mg

Calcium (Ca) 36 mg

Magnesium (Mg) 7 mg

Phosphorus (P) 4 mg

Iron (Fe) 0.5 mg

Zinc (Zn) (trace)

Copper (Cu) 0.03 mg

Manganese (Mn) 0.56 mg

Salt equiv. 3.0 g

Vitamin A (β-carotene) 4 µg

Vitamin E (α-tocopherol) 0.1 mg

Vitamin K 0 µg

Vitamin B1 (thiamin) 0 mg

Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) 0 mg

Niacin (nicotinic acid) 0 mg

Vitamin B6 0 mg

Folic acid 1 µg

Pantothenic acid 0 mg

Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) 0 mg

Based on: Standard tables of food composition in Japan (Fifth revised and enlarged edition, 2005) [Link: Food Composition Database]
Other source: calorie-count.com


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Updated on: 2007.04.20
Created on: 2003.04.02