FoundationsPantry study 11 of 27
Galangal
Mainland and maritime; especially Thai, Lao, Malay, Indonesian cooking
About this ingredient
Draft reference. This study is part of the cookbook’s foundations and is still being checked. Local names and cultural notes in particular are the author’s working text, pending verification, rather than settled fact.
- Where it is used
- Mainland and maritime; especially Thai, Lao, Malay, Indonesian cooking
- Flavour and aroma
- Sharp, piney, medicinal-citrus; hotter and woodier than ginger, not interchangeable.
- How it is used
- Pounded into curry pastes; sliced into tom kha and soups; a rempah and kroeung staple.
- How to select
- Firm, glossy rhizomes with pinkish shoots; older galangal is paler and very woody.
- Storage
- Refrigerate wrapped 1–2 weeks; freezes well (slice first — it's hard to cut frozen).
- Substitutions
- No true substitute; ginger changes the dish's character. Use dried galangal only as a last resort.
- Allergens
- None common.
Names and contextPending verification
The two fields below are drafted and not yet confirmed. They are shown because they are useful, and labelled because they are not final.
- Local names
- Thai: kha; Malay/Indo: lengkuas / laos; Viet: riềng; Khmer: romdeng
- Cultural notes
- Galangal — not ginger — is the correct aromatic for tom kha and many pastes; conflating the two is a common error.
The Complete Edition
Galangal in the book
This study is one of twenty-seven that open The Southeast Asian Table, before the eleven country chapters and the hundred recipes they carry.
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