Susan Jung’s recipe for Chinese braised chicken with pickled young ginger

It’s around this time of year that you start to see young ginger in the market. With its pink or green tips, thin, pale skin and moist, mild flesh, this ginger – also called spring ginger – is very different in looks and flavour from the hard, tan rhizomes with a fiery taste that you can buy year-round.

Most people are familiar with young ginger in pickled form, which is served with sushi because it helps to clear the palate between bites of some of the fattier, more strongly flavoured types of fish.

Pickled ginger is easy to make, and while a good accompaniment for fish, it’s delicious too when cooked with chicken in a Chinese clay pot.

Pickled young ginger

A Chinese chef once told me that the best young ginger is available in June, and that’s when he makes a year’s supply of pickled ginger for his restaurant.

Unless you plan to give it away (and it does make a nice gift), you’ll want to make it in smaller batches. Look for small, firm hands of young ginger.