Dried Ginger

Also known as Snooth, Sunth or Sukku in India, dried ginger is, as the name suggest, nothing but fresh ginger which has undergone a drying process by first washing and soaking overnight and then drying it out in the sun. Sometimes calcium carbonate is added to bleach the dried ginger, which gives it a whitish covering. Dried ginger is mostly used in its powdered form which is easy to store having a long shelf life of more than six months.

The pungency or spiciness in ginger is derived from three main compounds – Gingerol, Shogaol and Zigerone. Fresh ginger contains Gingerol as its active component, which, when cooked, loses its pungency and gets transformed to Zingerone. The most pungent form, however, is dried ginger whose active component is Shogaol.