90-Second Ginger Juice Butter Sauce for Grilled or Broiled Fish
- Cuisine: American
- Course: Condiment
- Features: Fast
Summary:
Ginger juice is hot, so it needs to be balanced in recipes with other ingredients. In this quick sauce, the butter softens the flavor of the ginger juice without fundamentally changing it.
Look for plump, smooth, glossy pieces of ginger, which would yield the most juice. The blunt edge of a spoon is your best bet for peeling it.
If you opt to make the ginger juice in a vegetable juicer, be sure to cut the peeled ginger pieces across the grain into half-inch slices; lengthwise slices will wind themselves around the juicer's works and can clog the mechanism.
(And if you'd rather not make your own, bottled gingerjuice is available at Magruder's, Wegmans, Takoma Park Silver Spring Co-op and My Organic Market in Alexandria and online.
Makes about 2/3 cup juice
Ingredients:
For the ginger juice- 1 pound ginger, peeled
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter, broken into several pieces
- Salt
- Lemon or lime juice
Directions:
For the ginger juice: Chop ginger roughly into 1/2-inch chunks. Place in a food processor and add the lemon juice. Process until reduced to a pulp, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as necessary. Transfer to a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl and press with the spatula or a spoon, then squeeze the pulp in your hand to release the juice. You should have about 2/3 cup of juice. (Transfer leftover ginger juice to a sealable container and store it in the freezer.)
For the sauce: In a small pan over medium-high heat, bring 1/3 cup ginger juice to a boil and reduce for barely 30 seconds. Add the butter and swirl or whisk to incorporate, until slightly thickened. Add salt to taste and finish with a squeeze or two of lemon or lime juice. Spoon over the fish.
(If you're pan-cooking some swordfish steaks or other meaty fish, you can make this sauce in the same pan. Remove the fish and let it rest on a plate. Discard any excess oil from the pan and deglaze the pan by adding 2 tablespoons of water and gently scraping and stirring any brown bits stuck to the pan. When the liquid is nearly evaporated, add the ginger juice and proceed with the rest of the recipe.)
Recipe Source:
Adapted from Edward Schneider, an editor and translator in New York.
E-mail the Food Section with recipe questions.
