Ginger

Fresh ginger with taut, thin skin and pale flesh. The test is simple: a good piece snaps cleanly when you break off a knob. If it bends, it is old and most of the heat has gone.

Ginger and garlic together are the base of most of the cooking around here, and ginger on its own carries chai, kahwa, a dal tempering, and any fish that needs its edge taken off. Young ginger with thin skin does not need peeling for most uses — a scrub is enough.

Look for plump, unshrivelled knobs. Wrinkled skin and fibrous strings at a cut end both mean it has dried out.

Unwrapped in the fridge is fine for a couple of weeks. For longer, freeze it whole — frozen ginger grates straight from the freezer and does it more easily than fresh, with no loss worth mentioning.

Two to three weeks refrigerated, months frozen.