Lucknow Spiced Roast Lamb

Another excellent recipe from Rick Stein's India. There's a fair amount of prep work in making and applying the spice paste, but once it's done and the lamb is in the oven, that's it. You can serve with quite plain accompaniments (roast potatoes or boiled rice, and some simple vegetables or salad) because the lamb is so rich and the spice paste so delicious. It's tempting to skip steps like frying the onions but I urge you not to; much of the paste should end up inside the roast, and you want it to percolate into the meat, so it needs to be tasty straight from the blender. With this mix of ingredients, that's easy.

Ingredients

• 2kg easy-carve (boned) leg of lamb
• 2 brown onions, thinly sliced
• 6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 6cm ginger, roughly chopped
• 55g cashew nuts
• 75g desiccated coconut
• 300g thick Greek yoghurt
• 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp garam masala
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp Kashmiri (mild, bright red) chilli powder

Fry the onions in oil for 10 minutes until deep golden brown; add the garlic and ginger and fry for a further 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a food blender and blend to a paste with all of the other ingredients.

Sit the leg of lamb in a roasting tray and make 1.5cm deep and wide incisions all over, so you can push the spice paste in. If you like, you can take off the thickest part of the fat as well, but leave some on so the roast stays moist. Push the spice paste into the middle where the bone was removed, and into the incisions, and finally coat the surface of the lamb thickly. If you have any left over, plop it underneath the lamb. Add about 200ml of water to the bottom of the tray and cover the whole leg loosely with foil. Roast at 150C for 1.5 hours, then remove the foil and roast for a further 30 minutes uncovered. Allow to rest for 15 minutes before carving thickly.

Moroccan Braised Chicken

Back in Cambridge, we bought a second-hand copy of a One-Pot Cookbook which was really useful in the series of tiny kitchens where we prepared our meals. One of the standout recipes, which I always go back to, is probably incredibly inauthentic and doesn't even rate a photo in the cookbook (and you can probably see why, from mine). But it perfectly embodies the spirit of one-pot cooking. You literally only need a knife, a board, and a single large casserole dish to make this, and it will serve four or more (depending on the size of your chicken). Easy, no-fuss, and totally tasty.

Ingredients

• a ~1.6kg chicken (giblets removed, etc)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 large onion
• a thumb of root ginger
• 2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground paprika
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 725ml of chicken or vegetable stock (from powder is fine)
• 3 medium courgettes
• 1 medium red pepper
• 4 medium carrots
• a 340g tin of chickpeas
• 225g cous-cous
• 50g seedless raisins
• 30g pine nuts

Peel and finely chop the onion and ginger, then add to the large casserole and fry with the spices for a couple of minutes. Add the chicken and turn so it gets covered with the spices. Pour in the stock, salt, and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes. Dice all of the vegetables, then stir them in and simmer for a further 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked. Mix in the chick peas and then pour in the cous-cous and raisins. (You can remove the chicken first, if you prefer -- it certainly makes serving easier.)  While the cous-cous absorbs the liquid, toast the pine nuts gently either in the hot oven or on a small frying pan. Serve the chicken and vegetables topped with the toasted pine nuts.

Yasai Itameru (Stir-fried tofu in coconut noodles)

I went back to the Wagamama cookbook for this one, and it wasn't half bad. I think the recipes still lack focus, having too many different kinds of vegetables, and the quantities are all over the place. However the sauce was very tasty, if a little rich. I also think it's silly to try to stir fry tofu at the same time as your vegetables: you can get a nice crispy skin if you do them separately, as shown in the photo. I'm posting my amended recipe rather than their original.

Ingredients
For the sauce

• 1 garlic clove
• a thumb of ginger
• two lemongrass sticks
• 100ml hot water
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tsp sugar
• 100g in of coconut milk or cream (depending on how fat you feel)

For the stir-fry

• 75g rice noodles
• 1 red chilli
• 1 red onion
• a bunch of Chinese vegetables, like pak choi
• 50g sweet potato (about an inch from the middle)
• 200g firm tofu, cut into cubes
• a bunch of fresh coriander
• juice of half a lime (or lemon)
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce

Crush the garlic, peel and grate the ginger, and finely shred the lemongrass. Cook in a small saucepan in the hot water until the garlic has softened. Stir in the remaining ingredients and cook gently for a few minutes, but don't let it boil or the coconut milk can separate.

Cook the noodles according to their packet instructions. Peel and (if you like) deseed the chilli, then finely chop. Finely slice the red onion. Julienne the sweet potato. Clean and separate the pak choi. Stir fry the sweet potato and red onion until becoming tender, then add the rest of the vegetables and stir fry until just barely cooked, then remove from the pan to free it up for the tofu. Stir fry the tofu until golden and crispy, then return the vegetables to the pan and squeeze over the lime juice and soy sauce. Combine the noodles with the coconut sauce, and serve the vegetables over the top of them, topped with the coriander and a lemon or lime segment.

Peanut and Ginger Stir Fry

We had a lovely weekend, cycling to the beach with some friends of ours and chilling out in the shade after a gorgeous swim in the ocean. When we got back we hung out some more for a nice lunch and a little 6 Nimmt. Our friends served us a really nice warm salad which inspired me to try a different take on my usual stir fry. Served over plain white rice, this gorgeous combination of peanuts and ginger really warms the tastebuds and sets off the fresh greens.

Ingredients:

• a ladle of plain white short-grain rice
• two spring onions
• a large thumb of ginger
• a few handfuls of mange-tout or sugar snap peas
• a generous handful of  roasted salted peanuts
• a big handful of sprouting seeds or alfalfa sprouts
• soy sauce

Cover the rice with two ladlefuls of boiling water, and simmer for ~10 minutes, or until cooked. Finely chop the spring onions and peel and finely grate the ginger.Slice the mange touts or peas in half lengthwise. Roughly chop the peanuts. In a large wok, get a little vegetable oil nice and hot, then fry the spring onion and ginger for a minute, turning constantly. Throw in the mange tout or peas and stir fry until the peas are cooked and bright green, but before they wilt. Stir in the alfalfa sprouts and peanuts, then turn off the heat. Serve the stir fry over the rice, with soy sauce on hand to add if you need it.

Silken Tofu with Ginger and Spring Onions

For years I have struggled to use silken tofu correctly. I've made some good brownies, and some utterly terrible ones. I've lost the stuff in a stir fry more times than I can count. I bought a packet the other day and vowed to find a way to use it. I remembered a few months ago reading that you can tell a Japanese restaurant by their agedashi tofu, in the same way you can tell an Indian restaurant from its butter chicken. And I thought -- hmm, that's served cold, right? Maybe I can use the silken tofu. Turns out, you can, and it's fantastic. Very different from crispy fried firm tofu, but delicious in its own right. Probably not for you if you don't like jelly-like textures; it was like a thick set custard but with a grassy, light flavour. Worked really well with some tempura'd veggies and simple cucumber sushi.

Ingredients

• 3-4 spring onions
• half a thumb of fresh ginger
• light soy sauce
• one packet of silken tofu, drained

Trim, tail and finely slice the spring onions cross ways. Peel, then grate or finely chop the ginger. Fry gently with the spring onions for 3-4 minutes, until softened and golden. Slice the tofu lengthways into two large rectangular pieces. Top with the fried ginger and spring onion and drizzle with soy sauce. Serve!

Wagamama Week: Ginger Chilli Mushrooms

Years ago, I bought my friend a copy of The Wagamama Cookbook and posted it to him for his birthday. Unbeknownst to me, he had also posted me a copy, so they arrived at almost the same time :) I've occasionally used recipes from it, but early in my cooking career, I didn't have many of the exotic-seeming Japanese ingredients, so stuck to the simplest recipes. Opening my closet now, I find I have almost everything I need, so thought I'd get stuck in by trying the first seven vegetarian recipes in the book, one by one. Otherwise, I'd never have been able to pick - they all look so yummy!

I went through each one and wrote down what I needed - the only new storecupboard ingredient was konbu for making dashi, as the store I go to doesn't have dashi no moto, even though that's what Wagamama use ;) Writing down exactly what I needed made shopping strange - I don't think I've ever gone to the store looking to buy '4 carrots' instead of just 'carrots'. And it had the unfortunate side-effect of making me completely forget about lunch ingredients. On the plus side, I know I spent almost exactly $100, and in theory I will be out of food in exactly one week's time.

So to kick off the week, the brave SO started with one of the simpler recipes while I went to Zumba. It's nice when someone else suffers for your art ;)

Ingredients (Quantities in brackets are my revised suggestions):

• 250g soba noodles (150g)
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 red chilli, trimmed, deseeded and finely sliced
• 2 tbsp peeled and grated fresh ginger root
• 4 (king) oyster mushrooms, cut into 1cm slices
• 4 shiitake mushrooms, cut into 1cm slices
• clump of enoki mushrooms, about the size of your first, broken up
• handful of roughly chopped choi sum
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• generous handful of beansprouts
• 600ml miso soup (500ml)
• 4 spring onions, trimmed and sliced
• 2 sprigs coriander

Cook the noodles in a large pan of boiling water for 2-3 minutes, then drain and divide between two bowls, dropping the beansprouts on top. In a large hot wok, fry the chilli and ginger in the vegetable oil for 15-20 seconds, then add the mushrooms, choi sum and spring onions. Season with salt and sugar, and stir fry for 2-3 minutes.

Spoon the stir fry over the beansprouts and noodles, and ladle over the hot miso soup. Scatter with coriander and serve.

Verdict:

This was a pretty nice combination. The mushrooms lent a sort-of earthiness which was balanced well by the warming ginger and chilli, and the umame miso soup. We did feel like there were too many noodles; we ended up saving about 1/3 of the whole meal for one person's lunch the next day. I think 150g would be a more sensible amount. The mushroom pack we bought had a king oyster mushroom in it, and that stood up to the stir frying considerably better than the oysters and enokis, which basically vanished. I would switch to just using king oyster and shiitake, or even chestnut mushrooms, or add the enokis and oysters only 1 minute before serving. Lastly, the flavours were balanced, but a bit samey. I'd serve this with a hot lemon tea, or a lemonade, to try to bring in some contrasting sourness, as it's missing that note entirely.

Sticky BBQ Chicken Wings

Another one from Nigel; I popped the jointed chicken wings and legs into a bowl and immediately covered with the marinade. Refrigerated, they were happy for four days, after which the marinade had completely permeated the chicken.

Ingredients:

• two chicken wings and two chicken legs, or roughly the same quantity of whatever chicken pieces you have to hand

For the marinade:

• 1 tsbp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 clove of garlic
• half a stalk of lemongrass
• 1 tsp sugar

For the dipping sauce:

• 1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 1/2 tbsp rice vinegar
• 3 tbsp white sugar
• half a thumb of ginger
• 1 chilli (optional)
• juice of a lime

Crush the garlic and finely slice the lemongrass, then mix together with the other marinade ingredients; cover the chicken pieces and refrigerate for 1-100 hours. For the dipping sauce, finely dice the chilli and grate the ginger into a very small saucepan, and add the other ingredients. Heat gently to dissolve the sugar, then take off the heat.

BBQ the chicken pieces for 15-20 minutes, until cooked through and crispy at the edges. Serve with the dipping sauce, over plain steamed rice with some stir-fried vegetables.

Hot and Sour Chicken Broth

We spent most of the day playing board games with the Western Australian Boardgames Association, who have an ENORMOUS collection of games and loads of friendly people to play with. Learned three new games: a sailing/trading/collecting game a bit like Bohnanza, a game about trading and selling tea (my favourite! But maybe because I won :) and a game about defeating Cthulu using schoolgirl powers, like a British Buffy.

The upshot for dinner was that we didn't go shopping, and I had to use all my powers of improvisation on the remaining sad vegetables in the fridge to create a decent meal. Fortunately I had also used my power of foresight and left a chicken breast defrosting in the fridge, knowing I'd need some protein after morning Zumba.

Overall this worked pretty well, even the courgette (carefully not overcooked). Not a patch on fresh Chinese greens of course. The heart of cauliflower just needed using up; you could easily sub this for something more tasty, like some broccoli or sugar-snap peas.

Ingredients:

• a thumb of ginger
• a stick of lemongrass
• a handful of coriander stalks
• a couple of bay leaves
• 1 tsp vegetable stock powder
• a chilli (optional)
• juice of half a lemon
• a large carrot
• a heart of cauliflower
• a large courgette
• a chicken breast
• 2 x 75g bundles of dried egg noodles

Cut the ginger in half and slice perpendicular grooves into the flesh, to increase the surface area without breaking the ginger up into small pieces. Simmer with the lemongrass, coriander stalks, bay leaves, stock powder and chilli if using, in around 300ml water, for 20 minutes or until the stock is fragrant.

Meanwhile, peel and dice the carrot and cauliflower. Halve the courgette lengthwise and scoop out the soft seedy interior. Chuck, eat, or feed to the worms. Dice the remaining firm shell of courgette into the same size cubes.

Drain and reserve the stock, discarding the ginger etc. Squeeze in the lemon juice. Fry the carrot in a little vegetable oil, leaving it to sear just a tad. Add the stock and simmer for a couple of minutes. Finely shred or slice the chicken and add with the courgette, cauliflower and noodles. Bring back up to the boil and simmer for a minute or so, until the noodles are soft, the chicken is cooked through and the courgette is barely done. Top up with hot water if  the noodles have absorbed too much. Serve and drizzle over with very dark soy sauce.

Stir-fried Snapper with Sesame and Ginger

The other half is away orienteering (or 'rogaining' as they call it here) this weekend. For me a supper for one is a chance to experiment and buy an expensive ingredient :) I pick up a gorgeous snapper fillet from the fishmonget, bouncy to the touch with just the tiniest scent of the ocean. As this is a stir-fry it's important to prepare everything before you start, even if it feels slow. Everything happens at once at the end! For once, quantities are for one.

Ingredients:

• four tbsp sesame seeds
• a stalk and leaves of a large broccoli, or the florets if you prefer
• a good-sized snapper fillet
• a 75g bundle of udon
• an inch-long piece of ginger
• 2 tbsp mirin
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• juice of half a lemon
• 2-3 tbsp light soy sauce

Start by dry-frying the sesame seeds over a moderate heat, turning occasionally until they are golden brown and smelling gorgeous. Remove from the heat. Wash the broccoli, remove and reserve the leaves, and peel the hard skin from the stalk. Julienne the soft inside into strips. Peel and grate or finely dice the ginger. Rest the udon in some hot water to separate the noodles, or if dried, cook according to the packet instructions.

Cut the snapper fillet into bite-size pieces, and dredge in flour, shaking off the excess. Heat some vegetable oil in a shallow pan and fry the pieces of snapper for a minute or two each side, until golden brown. Meanwhile, stir-fry the broccoli with the ginger for a minute or so, until the leaves are beginning to wilt. Add the udon and the rest of the ingredients and bubble for a further minute. Stir through half of the sesame seeds, then serve, topped with the snapper and the remaining seeds, with more soy sauce to drizzle and the other half lemon to squeeze over.

Raisin Spice Bread

We spent a lovely afternoon playing games at a friend's house the other weekend, and they gave us generous wedges of this bread spread with cream cheese to snack on. They have the same breadmaker as us and the recipe was straight from the book, so I decided to make it too - amazingly I've never made a sweet bread in the machine! After this I'd love to try a brioche. And that doesn't have any fruit in it, so no chance of me messing up the dispenser setting, as I did for the first time making this :)

Ingredients:

• 130ml water
• 130ml milk
• 2 1/2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 575g white bread flour
• 100g malted dark bread flour (optional, replace with white or wholemeal if you prefer)
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2 1/2 tsp dried yeast
• 1 cup raisins

Put everything except the raisins into the breadmaker; put the raisins in the dispenser, or add at the second knead. Pop the breadmaker on 'sweet' and brush with a little sugar glaze at the end if you like.

Or, if you have no breadmaker, knead for 15 minutes, rise for 40, punch down, rise again for 30, shape however you like, rise again for 50 minutes, and then bake for 70 minutes at 115C.

They taste just like hot cross buns so you could also put the dough on, then take out, shape into small buns, rise again and bake for maybe 20 minutes to produce hot cross buns. Then the glaze is mandatory!

Dark 'n' Stormy Salmon

Feeling considerably better today, and trying to stay with it by DOING ALL THE THINGS. This includes inventing new meals in between walking in the Perth hills and playing board games with new friends. I was going to dress this salmon fillet simply with soy sauce and lime zest when the ginger in the fridge caught my eye. I thought it would go well with the lime zest. Then I remembered we had a bottle of rum somewhere - and that goes well with both lime and ginger. And what tops all of that off is a dash of brown sugar - all the ingredients you need for a dark n stormy cocktail! So I figured out a method and put it all together, and served it with some simply stir-fried pak choi and plain white rice. Lovely.

Everything is under control.

Ingredients:

• a couple of plump salmon fillets
• a generous thumb of ginger
• one fat juicy lime, preferably unwaxed
• 1 heaped dessert spoon of brown sugar
• 50ml rum
• matches

Check over your fillets for any bones. BBQ or pan-fry, skin-side down, until the skin is crispy and golden. Turn and sear the other side until golden. Remove immediately.

I should get massively jet-lagged more often.

Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the ginger. Zest the lime, and finely chop the zest. Put the ginger, lime zest and sugar in a very small heavy reduction pan and cook until the sugar begins to melt. Turn off the heat. Measure out the rum, and light a match. Pour the rum into the hot pan with one hand, then bring in the match with the other. The alcohol vapour should catch and you should end up with a merry little flame in your pan for a minute or so.

When the flame goes out, juice in half of the lime. Pour over the salmon and serve with the remaining lime half cut into wedges.

Red Lentil and Sweet Potato Dhal

I really thought I had recorded this on here before, but I'm amazed to find that I've overlooked it! This is my fast dhal recipe - great as just a lunchtime snack with a bit of rice or bread, or a delicious protein component to any curry-type meal. The fried onion topping can be neglected if you're in a hurry, or replaced with baghar if you're feeling really authentic. I think I came up with this recipe independently, but it closely resembles Nigella Lawson's recipe. Convergent evolution or forgetful emulation? Either way it's delicious :) Like the aubergine curry I served it with, this serves four.

Ingredients:

• one large red sweet potato
• 1 thumb fresh ginger, finely grated
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp ground turmeric
• a pinch of chilli flakes
• 250g red lentils
• 300ml hot water
• a small white onion, or half a large white onion

Peel the sweet potato and cut into 1cm dice. Fry in a little vegetable oil with the ginger for five minutes, stirring occasionally, to get a bit of caramelisation. Add the spices and lentils, and fry for a further minute. Pour in the hot water, cover and simmer for half an hour, until the lentils are cooked and the sweet potato has collapsed. You may need to stir and top up the water every so often; the end result should be deliciously thick and spoonable, rather than runny. Season with salt after the lentils are cooked - about 1tsp will be needed.

Meanwhile, peel the onion and finely slice into half-moons. Fry gently in a little vegetable oil for 10-15 minutes, stirring every few minutes, until completely caramelised and just beginning to blacken.

Stir the dhal briskly with a large wooden spoon, or mash roughly with a potato masher, until soft but not pureed. Serve topped with the fried onions.

Hot and Sour Aubergine Curry

I came home from work with just an hour and a half before my regular telecon with my colleagues in Cambridge. I felt like making the absolute most of my time and really pushing my cooking to the limit. So I cooked rice, two vegan curries, a raita, and some carrot bhajis in just under an hour :) We had a relaxed twenty minutes to eat and enjoyed a lovely glass of the SO's delicious homebrew lager. And the curries were amazing!! This was particularly great, since I usually have trouble making aubergines interesting, but in this they were absolutely exquisite, soft and melting. I adapted the recipe from 2-3 different sources on the internet, melding them together to get the best of both worlds in terms of ease-of-cooking and taste. The heat contrasted the sourness and it was perfect with the plain white rice and sweet red lentils. The quantities here serve four; I made enough for two nights for two people.

Ingredients

• two large aubergines (eggplants)
• one small white onion or half a large white onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 thumb of ginger
• 1 generous tsp fennel seeds
• 1 generous tsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp black mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes (or 1-2 tsp if you like it hot)
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• half a tin of coconut milk
• 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses, or 2tbsp tamarind (1 tbsp tamarind concentrate)
• a generous handful of frozen peas

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Cut the aubergines into large-ish bitesize pieces, about 2cm on each side (they will shrink loads in the oven). Toss in vegetable oil and roast for 40 minutes, until singed at the edges and edibly soft, but not dry or overcooked. Meanwhile, finely chop the onion and gently fry for five minutes, then crush in the garlic and add the finely chopped ginger, and fry for a further three minutes. Pound the fennel and coriander seeds in a mortar and pestle (you can dry toast them first if you have time/pan space), then add them and the rest of the spices to the onions, frying again for a couple of minutes. Add in the cooked aubergine pieces, the coconut milk and pomegranate molasses, stir gently and bring to a simmer (you don't want to curdle the coconut milk). Add the peas and bring up to a simmer again. Cook for just a minute or two, until the peas are hot. Serve immediately, or cover and sit until needed.

Satay Sauce

This is a brilliant sauce for grilled chicken - but it works with any barbecued meat or vegetables. Just marinade them in some citrus juice and soy sauce for up to 24 hours beforehand, skewer and grill, then serve with this great sauce and some rice and salad. This is enough for a barbeque with eight people.

Ingredients

• 1 white onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• half a thumb of ginger
• 1 tin of coconut milk
• 1 red chilli (optional, or deseeded if you like)
• juice of three limes
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp dark brown sugar
• 3 tbsp light soy sauce
• half a jar of crunchy peanut butter

Finely chop the onion and fry in vegetable oil over a very low heat for 10 minutes, then crush in the garlic and finely dice in the ginger, and fry gently for a further five minutes. Blend everything except the peanut butter together in a blender. Remove and smoosh in the peanut butter, in order to retain the crunchiness. Taste and adjust flavours as necessary - you may like it sourer (more lime or lemon juice), sweeter (more sugar), runnier (more water) or more peanut-y (guess!).

Ginger Beer

We're sorting out and backing up all our data before we move to Australia, and here's something I found in the archives! This is a great recipe and I made it several summers in a row. I adapted it from one on h2g2; mostly grammatical and logistical changes if I recall correctly. I don't have time to make more at the moment but I'm looking forward to getting some going for Christmas! From the archive:

Producing your own ginger beer is very easy. It is produced in a biological process in much the same way as yoghurt. Ginger Beer is best enjoyed chilled and despite the cliché is also highly enjoyable on picnics. I am giving you a ginger beer plant which will produce four litres of ginger beer. It's ready to brew!

Brewing

1. Dissolve 18oz (500g) of caster sugar and 1½pt (900ml) of water, bring this mix to the boil and let it cool slightly. Add the strained juice of two lemons to the water.
2. Strain your ginger plant through fine muslin (or a pair of tights or stockings!) and add the strained liquid to the sugar and lemon juice mixture, along with 6pt (3.4l)water.
3. Stir the mixture well and bottle it straight away in strong screw-topped bottles, like those in which you would store cider or beer. Make sure you store the bottles in a cool place for about two weeks before you drink it. This is essential! I use two 2L plastic fizzy drinks bottles, or a selection of smaller ones.

Doubling the Plant

1. Halve the sediment left on the muslin and divide it into two separate jars. Add ½pt (300ml) water, 2tsp (10ml) of ground ginger and 2tsp (10ml) caster sugar to each jar. Stir it well.
2. The next day, and each day thereafter, add 1 level tsp (5ml) of ground ginger or cut root ginger and the same amount of caster sugar to your jar(s) and stir the mixture thoroughly.

Storing and Opening

You may find stress fractures develop in your plastic bottles from the carbonation pressure; you can degass them by opening the cap gently and letting air hiss out until a fine froth forms on the surface. Then re-cap and allow to brew for the full two weeks. It is a good idea to put your bottles of ginger beer in the fridge after two weeks, to halt the yeast and reduce the chance of explosion when opening. Also, unless you halt the yeast, it will continue to digest the sugar and the result will be extremely dry, even a little bitter. And it's very hard to dissolve more sugar into a cold fizzy drink. So make sure you have enough refrigerator space at the end of the two weeks' brewing.

To Make More Ginger Beer

Every two weeks, you can repeat the brewing process, then double your plant!