Root for galangal

Galangal is widely used in Southeast Asian cuisine — it’s an unmissable element in Thai recipes as well. It is a rhizome, and because it looks a lot like ginger, it is easy to confuse one for the other. In fact, galangal goes by the name Thai ginger. However, ginger is juicy and soft while galangal is hard and comes with a sharper and more intense flavour, and brings a citrusy note to dishes. 

If you have tasted Thai — tom yum soup, which is a hot and sour soup, green curry or red curry, khao soi gai, which is a northern Thai noodle soup, or a range of stir fries, the aroma of galangal is hard to miss. Galangal is also used to make sauce for fish-based dishes. 

Apart from its uses in Thai cooking, the rhizome is also used to make an aromatic tea, with a dash of lemon and honey. 

You can buy galangal as a fresh root or in its powdered form (after being dried and ground).  

Galangal is known to have a range of health benefits — it’s known to aid digestion and offer relief from pain, nausea and respiratory problems.

Curated by Savitha Karthik

(What’s Cooking shines the spotlight on a single ingredient, its nutritional qualities and the ways in which you can use it.)