Yeah, I have heard of that trick before J.Oliver demonstrated on his programme how to do it. However, my ginger is usually organic and a lot smaller and it’s too fiddly to scrape using a spoon. I scrub all the fruits and vegs with a mesh pad and rather not peel most of them.
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I can’t claim to have done any serious side-by-side testing on my jarred ginger and garlic—basically I’m buying whatever’s on the shelf. At the moment in my fridge I have jars of both from Deep Foods (Indian groceries)…there is a picture of an Aladdin-esque lamp on the lid of the jar. They are just fine. I look for things with no chemicals in them; these have a bit of preservative, but that’s it.
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I had (have) a garlic press I always loved . . . it is large and relatively easy to clean. But I find as I get older, squeezing the press takes a real toll on my hands. Maybe that’s when I discovered the jarred option?
If I were mincing more than a small amount of garlic using a microplane I would want a different solution too! About 10 years ago I invested $50 in a serious garlic press that is ergonomic and easy to clean. I have never regretted it although it is one of my most expensive kitchen tools that doesn’t have a plug. (I have good knives but they were all gifts.)
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I have never bought it, or at least not in 30 years, but DIL bought a huge jar recently, and I find myself using it several times a week. I use a LOT of garlic and I usually grow my own hardneck garlicthen fill in with regular orders of softneck garlic from my CSA. Shrugs.
What are you making? I’m making Ethiopian collards with buttermilk curd and spiced butter. Niter something.
For ginger, which I don’t use as much, I like to keep those little frozen Dorot cubes on hand just in case I want some and don’t have fresh, but lately I’ve been soaking crystallized ginger! I think the frozen is a better plan.
I’m making stewed cabbage, stewed potatoes/carrots, and yellow split peas. Dorot is the only brand that I have experience with any type of prefab ginger, and I’ve never used any kind of garlic besides, well, garlic.
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These make very quick work for ginger and garlic respectively. Microplanes blow through ginger as well but it’s not the tool for me when it comes to garlic.
But if that prep work isn’t good for you I would not hesitate using garlic from a jar. Your time is valuable and the flavor difference would only be detectable if you’ve made it both way…and then likely not worth writing home about.
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Those look like space objects 
Which is for which, and how are they used? I’m guessing the left is for ginger? Bigger holes for the garlic? But honestly I have no idea.
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Lol! You’re right. I have a drawer full of stuff from Area 51. 
The one on the left is for ginger. I peel and grate it rapidly. A micro plane does grate (pun intended) work too…but it looks so menacing.
I just press and madly rock the one on right over peeled garlic cloves. Then if I want it finer I squish it with the side of a cleaver.
But seriously jarred grated ginger is fine, I feel. Ginger is pungent. Jarred garlic might lose some flavor but chopping then squishing garlic with a cleaver is super fast too.
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Thank you for the explanation! I would’ve had to look up the instructions like a dork otherwise. I feel like I’m going to go the pragmatic route with the ginger, which I use less, and which is harder to use, imo. Purity is for people with nothing but time. And between this and another social group, I’ve got a few leads on some mashed ginger products that people have liked. I can still handle the garlic in the old fashioned way.
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I use plenty of both all the time, and to me here’s a significant flavor difference because of the preservatives - whether acid or other. Ginger fares worse than garlic, imo.
Doesn’t take me very long to chop or grate either, or do in larger quantity and keep it in the fridge to use over the week.
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So if you use jarred, you think the garlic is better than the ginger? I’ve heard exactly the opposite from other people. I guess I may just have to give it a try and see what I think about it
I guess I was looking for some affirmation from cooks I respect that these items are ok. Not heavenly. Not ideal. And not to be used in all circumstances. But fine when needed… And mostly people have seemed to agree with that.
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I’m put at the moment, but I frequently keep a jar of combined garlic and ginger paste that I buy at the Indian grocery. It’s made by Lakshmi (which I have found to be great quality for lots of south Asian spices).
I use it for east and south Asian dishes, and find that I tend to throw it in lots of other things simply because its there and convenient.
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Never kept either jarred item in the kitchen. Always use fresh
“Garlic is divine. Few food items can taste so many distinct ways, handled correctly. Misuse of garlic is a crime…Please, treat your garlic with respect…Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don’t deserve to eat garlic.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Bourdain was never subtle. But I suspect he needed the freshest garlic to get over all the taste buds he killed with drinking and smoking.
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Not ready to accept his word as the last. Sorry. Loved him to death before, but still grappling. He represents for me , in just a small way, some deaths I still need to come to grips with.
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I thought I might have bumped into @sasha at the grocery store today - lady was earnestly chatting with a youngish employee in search of already grated ginger.
He kept telling her they don’t carry it - but since I had overheard her, I went over and told them both that it’s in the freezer case by the vegetables.
She came and thanked me later - while I was in line - and then said how it wasn’t ultimately of use to her because she was making Indian dishes and needed much more quantity (maybe my mask-covered face doesn’t look indian in the eye portion? she was earnestly explaining how indian food needs so much more than the tiny freezer cubes 
). So I smiled and pointed towards the fresh.
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“Well then just buy the readily available peeled fresh garlic available at grocery stores and don’t be so darn dramatic.”
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It wasn’t me Neither in NYC nor in SD… And I haven’t been to the grocery today! But isn’t it funny - patterns.
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