So, early on I made some criticisms of TV chefs touting the spoon as the ultimate ginger peeling tool.  But I neglected to go all the way down the line and trash Ming Tsai’s lesson in mincing the root (See How to Peel Ginger for Ming’s video).

In that clip Ming takes his awkwardly skinned root and slices it lengthwise into very thin pieces. Then he cuts those slices into extra skinny matchsticks (“fine julienne” for those helplessly addicted to French freakin’ culinary terms) and finishes by chopping those sticks into tiny little nubs.  All this to avoid the stringy mess one might get from running ginger through a food processor.  Which, as ginger is a fibrous rhizome, is a risk which might make your otherwise pretty sauces cystic and ugly.

But there are easier – and convenient – methods to get ginger pieces into your food and keep it free of shameful, unwanted stringy textures. In ascending order of easiness:

1 – Buy “young” or “new” ginger. The skin is so thin and flavorless that you don’t even need to peel it.  It’s also very juicy with tender fibers – you could almost eat it like an apple. It goes through a food processor efficiently. Except that normal recipe amounts of ginger are usually too small for a food processor anyway.  But it chops/mices easily w/o any fancy geometric preparation to the root itself.

 - Downside: Unless you have eay access to a Caribbean or Asian market young ginger is hard to find and even then it’s not stocked year-round

2 – Take your peeled, regular old ginger and slice 1/4″ circles off the root. Lay them flat, put your knife flat side on top of them and bang your open palm down on the side of the knife. Instant mince! I was taught this ages ago by a Peruvian prep cook at Rebecca’s on Charles Street.

3 – Grate the peeled root along the fine side of a grater.  When you’re done you’ll have a pile of smooth ginger pulp and a fingerful of stringy shit.  Toss the fibers out and use the grated root. Do this on a plastic/silicone cutting board to avoid the ginger-juice sucking properties of wood.

And there you have it – ginger options. Food preparation, in general, will always have a measure of time consumption. But i’s a crying shame that the legions of little screen and cookbook kitchen wizards will convince you that it takes far more time than necessary.