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Galanga

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Galanga (kah)

by Kasma Loha-unchit
Text Copyright © 1995 & 2000 Kasma Loha-unchit.

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Galanga or galangal (kah): This robustly pungent member of the ginger family is the primary ginger used in Thai cooking and is, therefore, sometimes referred to as "Siamese ginger." It is also called "greater galanga" (there is a very different relative called "lesser galanga") and "laos root." Fresh galanga has an ivory or very pale yellow color and its growing tips are tinged pink, much like young ginger. Denser, firmer and even more knobby than common ginger, the rhizome is also rounder, marked with concentric rings every half inch apart and has no skin to be peeled. Tasting nothing like ginger, its hotter and sharper bite combines with a tangy spicy flavor which, to some people, is reminiscent of hot mustard. To others, it tastes medicinal and indeed it is.

Like other members of the ginger family used in Thai cooking, galanga's pungent spiciness freshens the taste of seafood, making it a valued herb in seafood salads and soups. For salads, slice the root as thinly as possible, then stack several slices at a time and cut into very fine slivers; for soups, thin slices are simmered to flavor the broth. Galanga is also an essential ingredient in most Thai curries and is chopped and pounded to a paste with other paste ingredients. When buying galanga, select a young rhizome that is as light in color as possible with pinkish shoots and few or no brown spots. Avoid large, fat roots, as these can be very hard and woody, making it almost impossible to cut. Sometimes a piece you get will be tender at the tips and woody further down; save the tender end for salads and use the more fibrous section for seafood soups. Store fresh galanga wrapped with a paper towel inside a plastic bag in the refrigerator; it will keep for two to three weeks.

If you are not able to find fresh galanga, frozen roots imported from Thailand are available in most Southeast Asian markets. These roots may have an orangish brown color, because they are a slightly different variety, but they are the next best thing to fresh. For pounded chilli and curry pastes, the frozen roots grown in the tropics give a fuller range of flavors than the fresh ones grown in temperate zones.

Galanga is also sold in slices packed in brine in glass jars; rinse first before use. (Beware of jars confusingly labeled as "galanga" or "galingale," which actually contain the slender, finger-shaped "lesser galanga") It is most commonly available in dried woody pieces in plastic bags. The dried form is acceptable for soups, but lacks the fresh flavor required for seafood salads, in which case, it can be substituted with fresh ginger. The dried pieces come in handy for recipes that require ground, roasted galanga. Avoid the powdered kind unless you are not able to find fresh, frozen, bottled or dried pieces.

If you live in a frost-free area, try growing galanga to assure yourself a continual supply of fresh rhizomes. Buy a very fresh rhizome with unbruised pinkish shoots and plant shallowly in moist, well-drained soil. Like ginger, it grows into a lovely tropical plant for the garden, producing sweetly fragrant, white orchid-like flowers atop lush four-foot stems over many weeks in late summer and autumn. It grows very vigorously once established.

Text Copyright © 2000 Kasma Loha-unchit in Dancing Shrimp: Favorite Thai Recipes for Seafood. See pages 58 & 59.

This is just one of many listings in the "Alphabetical List of Ingredients" in chapter four (pages 49 to 73) of Dancing Shrimp: Favorite Thai Recipes for Seafood.

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There are two different varieties, one known as "greater galanga" and the other, "lesser galanga." The first, which is larger in size, lighter in color and subtler in aroma, is the kind most used in Thai cooking. The fresh root is fleshy, knobby and very firm, to the point of being woody when it fully matures. When very fresh, its ivory color, with hardly any separation between skin and flesh, and its young pink shoots are reminiscent of the appearance of young ginger. But unlike its better-known cousin, it is much denser and harder with ringlike markings spaced almost evenly apart, a glossy outer sheen, a unique mustard-like flavor and a much sharper bite. Galanga is a heavy root and carries a hefty price tag, anywhere from four dollars to eight dollars per pound, depending on the season and the market. But you won't need much of it to flavor a dish, and some Southeast Asian markets will cut a small piece for you to suit your needs.

Fresh kah is a magical ingredient when it is finely slivered up for hot-and-sour seafood salads and sliced in thin rounds to flavor soups. It helps mask the fishiness of seafoods and the heaviness of red meats, thereby making them taste cleaner, more delicate and more succulent. When you purchase a fresh root, select a smaller and more tender one; the larger roots can be very hard, making slicing and slivering a tedious chore. You will want to sliver the root very finely for salads as it is intensely pungent; in small doses, it adds a hearty spiciness to each bite.

Cultivated in hotter areas of California and Florida, galanga is also imported fresh from countries south of the border and flown in from South Pacific islands. These foreign-grown rhizomes, however, differ somewhat in flavor from the roots grown in the soil of tropical Thailand, which seem to have a wider range of attributes. Imported frozen Thai galanga is readily available in Southeast Asian markets. Although some of its fresh punch is compromised by freezing, it still carries important gradations of flavors lacking in foreign-grown roots, making it my preferred choice for curry pastes with robust characters. Frozen Thai galanga is usually small and has a light reddish brown skin and usually costs much less than the fresh cream-colored roots. But for salads and refreshing herbal soups like dtom yäm, I prefer to use fresh galanga, which is becoming easier to find year-round in the Bay Area. Look for it in Thai and Southeast Asian markets, as well as specialty produce markets.

Much more widely available are the dried pieces of galanga packaged in small plastic bags; these are an acceptable substitute for soups. Many American Thai restaurants use them more often than not in place of the expensive fresh root in their dtom yäm soup, but for fresh seafood salads, dried pieces are too woody and do not reconstitute with soaking. If you must substitute for fresh galanga in seafood salads, use frozen Thai roots or common ginger, or do without either.

Dried galanga has a pronounced musky and rooty flavor unlike the sharp bite of the fresh root. It makes a fairly good substitute for the fresh and frozen roots in coconut-based soups, such as Dtom Kah, as its strong, earthy flavor blends nicely with the richness of coconut milk. I also like to use the dried pieces in the intensely spicy, northeastern-style minced meat salads called lahb. These salads require roasted kah, and it is much easier to roast the dried pieces than the fresh root. I do not recommend purchasing powdered galanga for any purposes, as most spices lose flavor rapidly after they have been ground. It is better to buy the dried pieces and grind them when needed.

Galanga has many medicinal properties similar to ginger. It is a digestive stimulant and also helps to settle stomach upsets, ease nausea and curb flatulence. Traditional herbal doctors recommend a tonic made of minced and pounded old galanga root, mixed with tamarind water and salt, for women who have just given birth, as a blood purifier and as an aid in the removal of gas build-up in the intestines. At the same time, its mild, natural laxative effect keeps the bowels regular. Galanga's heat makes it a good agent in reducing cramping and numbness, in healing bruises and swelling, in treating respiratory ailments and skin diseases and in removing toxins from the body.

In addition, kah is sometimes classified among the category of herbs we call wahn, which are reputed to have magical powers. This belief coincides with an account I once read about its use in medieval Europe among certain medicine people, who wore the dried root as a protection against evil influences and as an enhancer of virility. Known as "galingale" during that period, it was widely used as an aphrodisiac as well as a spice. Somehow, it disappeared from European culinary and medical scenes, and some historians have surmised that it fell out of vogue, along with other spices, as milder foods became the order of the day in the eighteenth century. Today, as Thai cuisine grows in popularity on that continent, perhaps galingale will regain its favored position.

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Recipes with Galanga : 
    Soups
       Hot and Sour Prawn Soup (Dtom yum Gkoong)
       Coconut Seafood Soup with Galanga (Dtom Kah Talay)
    Salads
       Northeastern-Style Spicy Minced Chicken Salad with Mint and Toasted Rice (Lahb Gkai)
    Curries
       Green Curry with Fish/Shrimp Dumplings (Gkaeng Kiow Wahn Loogchin Bplah/Gkoong)
    Seafood Dishes
       Catfish Rounds Simmered in Turmeric-Flavored Coconut Sauce (Dtom Kem Gkati Bplah Doog)

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About this site
Text Copyright © Kasma Loha-unchit, 1995 in It Rains Fishes, and 2000 in Dancing Shrimp. All rights reserved.
Photograph Copyright © 2002 Michael Babcock. All rights reserved.
Drawing Copyright © 1995 Margaret DeJong. All rights reserved.
All material on this website is Copyright © 1995 to 2008 Kasma Loha-unchit. All rights reserved.
For comments, feedback or questions, contact Kasma.
Page added 15 April 2003. Last updated 15 December 2003.