I was trying to get a jar of chopped ginger, just like the ubiquitous chopped garlic. Asian grocery stores in New York are only selling jars of pickled ginger. Is there a reason for this? Is there a secret to home-made chopped ginger?
(I remember reading that ginger should not be used in marinades. Is there a connection here?)
If there a reason why you can’t effectively store chopped or minced ginger, it’s due to the chemical composition of the stuff.
When the rhizome is chopped it releases its flavour fairly quickly. According to Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages, “food that needs a long simmering time [when boiled] is often flavoured with slices of ginger, because the slices release their flavour quite slowly”. Possibly chopped ginger is not suitable for longer-term storage because the flavour acids/fats break down too fast.
Whole ginger can be stored for up to two months at temperatures around 12°C at 65-75% relative humidity. When frozen it can be stored up to three months. You can also pickle peeled ginger (common pickling fluids include sherry, sugar and salt, and sweet vinegar) for up to two months. In the refrigerator it will last up to three weeks if wrapped with paper towels, but only about ten days if uncovered.
And ginger is certainly used in marinades.
I read that you can chop it at home and store it in a jar with vodka.
For what it’s worth, ginger is extremely easy to chop. Peeling it is the hard part. Once it’s skinned, just whack it with a mallet and you can mince it up in no time.
I disagree.
I find it fairly easy to peel with a very blunt knive. (I usually use the back of a knife.) On the other hand, if you just whack at it with a mallet, don’t you end up with a rather stringy mess? The problem with grating ginger is that it’s very fibrous, so what I do is to slice it thinly acoss the fibres, and then chop up in smaller pieces. For the latter part I can imagine that a mallet would be more efficient, but I can’t see how it would break up the fibres. (And personally I also like the small lumps of ginger - there’s no accounting for taste…)
Ginger in a jar? Well, you better let her out! 
Dudes, you don’t even NEED to peel it* if you use a PROPER GINGER GRATER.
Easiest thing in the world. You rub the ginger along the specially designed grater, and it breaks down the juice and pulp, leaving the woody fibers behind.
I used to struggle and peel and grunt and dice and whine and squeeze and scream. Now I sometimes pull out some ginger to grate when I don’t even need to because my $3 ginger grater makes me giddily joyful every time I use it.
*(Though I sometimes do, quickly and easily, with a carrot peeler; grating with the peel on gives a rustically brownspeckled product, like wholewheat flour; but it doesn’t affect the flavor.)
Well, depending on what you want to use it for, there’s also candied ginger and preserved ginger. They are great for baked goods, or even eaten straight out of the jar.
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Personally… I would rather be pickled than chopped any day of the week.
hehe I had to say it…
I think a lot of people on this board would prefer Mary Ann in a jar.
Bailey, too.
Wouldn’t pickled ginger be primarily for Sushi consuption?
If you really want to peel ginger, it’s easiest to cut your slices first and then trim around the edges of the stack.
Another nice way to get a ginger fix is a candy, kind of a gummy thing, that I find in some Asian markets. It comes in a smallish white package with a picture of the plant, and is called ‘Ingwer Bonbon’ (or something like that) on one side, ‘Ginger Candy’ on the other. It’s very strong, sweet, and sticky.