Vietnamese Candied Ginger'- “Mut Gung” Recipe

Celebrate Lunar New Year with some Vietnamese Candied Ginger- aka “mut gung”.

During Vietnamese lunar new year, (aka Tet) candied fruit “mut” are offered to house guests who according to tradition enjoyed these with some hot tea.

*My mom said her mother would soak ginger for at least 24 hours in water to help reduce the heat/spice level of ginger

*When picking ginger, smaller and younger ginger is less fibrous and sweeter, older ginger is more fibrous and packs in a lot more heat and spice (I chose the latter because I don’t mind the heat and peeling was much easier 😂🤤)

Other vegetables and fruits that are commonly candied during Tet include carrots, pineapple, lotus root and coconut.

Other uses for these candied ginger slices: chew on these to help with nausea, great throat soothers for sore throats & colds, and my favorite use for them… they make killer garnishes in cocktails especially with a whiskey/ginger!

Ingredients

- Fresh ginger slices (1 lb, peeled sliced, this was about 3 heaping cups of sliced ginger)
-2 tsp salt

-1 lemon (cut in half)

- 1/4 c white sugar

-1/4 tsp vanilla

PREPARATION

1. Peel all ginger, use a spoon and scrape for easier peeling. Then cut ginger into thin 1-2mm slices.

2. Clean ginger slices under running cold water and soak in a large bowl with cold water, and the juice of half a lemon, then let soak for at least 3 hours (preferably over night). Be sure to rinse and drain the water a couple times during this time.

*My grandmother on my mom's side would soak the ginger for at least 24 hours to reduce the heat/spice (changing water every few hours).

4. Pour sliced ginger into a medium pot and cover ginger with water (about 2 cups water + juice of the other half lemon). Cover pot and boil for about 10-12 minutes or until ginger is tender (skim off any scum from surface).

5. Drain, then fill pot with cold water, mix ginger around and rinse under cold water, do this a couple times.

6. Transfer ginger to colander and let ginger drain for 10 min then pat dry with paper towel.

7. In a bowl transfer ginger and sugar, mix with chopsticks and let it marinate in the sugar for at least 1 hour.

8. Then pour the ginger/sugar mixture into a pan over low-med heat so that sugar begins to melt and boil. When about 3/4 of the sugar is evaporated, then add vanilla (tip pot at a slant to get all melted sugar on one side and add vanilla). Lower heat to low, and using chopsticks stir quickly to coat all the ginger evenly in sugar then let alone (no stirring) and let sugar dissolve completely (about 15-30 min).

*Make sure you do this over a low heat, you don’t want the sugar to caramelize or turn brown.

9. Cook and stir until all water in ginger boils off and starts to crystallize (about 1.5-2 hours or so depending on your low heat setting and how thin/thick your ginger slices are, obviously the thicker the slices the longer they will take to finish).