What Is Galangal?
Galangal is the rhizome of Alpinia officinarum (and some relatives), a plant in the ginger family. It’s a rhizome, an underground plant stem that expels roots and shoots from the plant’s nodes.
It has a hot spicy taste and used as a spice in Vietnamese cuisine. Galangal is known as a spice that enhances the flavor of dishes and is also a valuable medicine, but few people know that galangal leaves, flowers, and fruits can all be used in cuisine.
Galangal holds a special place in Vietnam and many Asian cuisines, including Cambodian, Indian, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian foods. Popular applications of the ingredient include tom yum and tom kha gai, soups consumed in Thailand and Laos, and Soto ayam, a traditional Indonesian chicken soup. Another common way to cook with the ingredient is to steep galangal in water for tea.
Varieties of Galangal?
There are two main varieties of galangal: greater and lesser galangal, each with slightly different flavors and uses.
Greater galangal, native to Indonesia, is more commonly added to Thai soups and curries, with a peppery, pine flavor.
Lesser galangal, native to Southern China, is used in herbal medicines in China and India and arguably stronger (and more medicinal) than the greater variety.
Greater galangal, when young, has a pale appearance with pink nubs. Lesser galangal is darker in color with orange undertones.
How to use Galangal?
This peppery spice is one of the most important ingredients in Vietnam, Thai cuisine and is often used in many Malaysian and Indonesian dishes and curries. It’s a popular addition to stir-fries, noodle dishes, soups and sauces for a boost of authentic southeast Asian flavour.
Diced or sliced, galangal is a wonderful addition to stir-fries, stew, soups and pasta sauces. It’s great in seafood too, making it taste more fresh, and in soups thin slices are simmered to flavour the broth.
Because galangal is quite tough, treat it like a cinnamon stick. Let it infuse in your broth for a few minutes and then discard it. You can eat galangal, but you have to chop it really finely or mince it. It can then be used in salads, salad dressings and dips. In Thai cuisine, galangal is quite often pounded or ground into a paste for curries, stir-fries and soups using a mortar and pestle. And it’s also used in cocktails, such as a Thai Gin Sour, Tom Yum Cocktail and Pattaya Margarita.
