Ginger is widely known for its health benefits, and most people would be familiar with using it to add flavour and aroma to their dishes. If you’re Malaysian like me, you probably use it regularly in curries, stews and in “tong sui” (sweet soup).
I’d never tried consuming ginger as a crisp, however, until My Blue Tea sent me a jar of Borneo Dayak Ginger Crisps recently, with a challenge to see how many ways I can use it in my food.
Unfortunately for them, it was so addictive that I finished the entire jar before I had a chance to test it in recipes, so they had to send me some more.
So here are some suggestions I’ve come up with, on different ways to use Dayak Ginger Crisps:
- As a topping on soups – Malaysians love a good bowl of ABC Soup (so-named, I’m told, because making it is as simple as ABC). I made a beef version of it (beef bones, meat, onion, tomato, pepper, seasoning) and served it up sprinkled with some ginger crisps, to give it that extra flavour boost.
2. With Hakka Confinement Chicken – I have to specify “Hakka” because our version is sweeter than normal (I thought that’s how they came until I ate a non-Hakka version as an adult). Hakka confinement chicken – so-named because it’s usually cooked for new mothers – is made with lots of fresh ginger, Chinese wine, sugar and salt (or chicken powder). Try serving it with an extra dose of crispy ginger.
3. On Congee – ginger and congee (aka savoury rice porridge) is a match made in heaven; add it as a garnish on your next bowl of congee.
4. On Chinese Greens – another no-brainer; poach some green leafy vegetables, toss with some oyster-soy-based sauce, add a dash of sesame oil, and top with some ginger crisps.
5. On Poached Asian Dumplings aka Sui Gow – wonton wrappers filled with minced chicken (I don’t eat pork), prawns, water chestnuts, spring onion and seasoning. I’d usually use fried crispy onions but these Dayak Ginger Crisps really helped bring out the flavour of these otherwise pretty subtle morsels.
6. Sprinked on Salads – in this case, my salad with home-cured salmon which I had for lunch today.
Other ways I’ve yet to try the ginger crisps with, but which I think would work really well, would be –
7. As a garnish on Stir-fried Cantonese Beef Noodles w/Ginger (Kon Chau Ngau Hor)
And if you have a sweet tooth –
8. As a topping on Apple Crumble
9. With Vanilla Ice Cream (why not)
So there you have it, my 9 suggestions on how to use Borneo Dayak Ginger Crisps, to get you inspired. If you’re anything like me though, you’ll be snacking on them straight out of the tub – but hey, at least they’re healthy.
(ps. if you want to get your hands on these ginger crisps, visit MyBlueTea.com.au)
(With thanks to Lenovo for the tech I use in my content creation; in this case, a Lenovo Legion 7 w/16GB RAM #LenovoIN)