Ginger.
Ingwer.
Ghimbir.
Gingembre.
However you call it in your neck of the woods, I love the stuff.
From the moment I started on my culinary tour of Asia–in anticipation of a real tour of the continent–ginger was the flavor that most knocked me back on my fanny. It was kind of sweet and tart, with just a hint of spice to appeal to my love of all most things spicy. Whether curry or Thai Curry or just plain ol’ curry, ginger can be the star or just a backup singer.
I put it in cookies, curry, soups, stir-fry and yes, even a few cocktails.
But my new favorite thing is fresh mint & ginger tea. I had it for the first time in Wurzburg, Germany and this vegan restaurant and I drank it like the it wasn’t 27c outside that day!
I don’t have this adorable little plastic tea set, which i am kind of bummed about but I have an old school tea set on loan from my mother in law and it does the job just fine. More than fine. Okay, so maybe I sometimes burn my knuckles when I tilt the tea into my cup but I do like my tea piping hot.
https://giphy.com/embed/tRasj2khAXiuI
Back to ginger. I’d wanted to make this tea from the moment I had it but then we got caught up in the move and getting settled and then…settling in. Then we hit up this super-sized supermarket, Carrefour, and there it was mint, lots of it and at a very good price. A very good price which meant I couldn’t resist grabbing four packages of it to go along with the ginger because I wanted to cook up a stir-fry for my in-laws to blow their tastebuds’ minds!
The mint-ginger tea was very easy to make. I cut about six slices of ginger and about 1.5 cups of mint. Put half the ginger in a pot with water along with one cup of mint. Put the remaining mint and ginger in your tea pot and set aside. Bring the liquid up to a boil and then lower to a simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Then cool enough to put in your teapot, ginger, mint and liquid. Steep and enjoy!
I put sugar in it mostly out of habit but after the first cup, I left it abandoned and just drank and drank until it was ice cold.
I was even able to get my coffee loving in-laws and my husband to drink it and love it.
And now that I have mastered the difficult task of making my own tea just in time for the weather to turn…if it ever does turn to autumn, well other than the beautiful leaves…
Anyway if the weather ever turns to autumn, I’ll be excited to try out some more types of tea.
Like basil…
the-spicy-spatula.com 