Sawaddee ka welcome to hot thai kitchen so today I'm gonna talk about galangal which is an herb
that is an absolute staple in any Thai home now I use this quite often but a lot of people seem to
be confused by it they have a lot of questions about it so hopefully today we're gonna tackle
all of that and also I have other videos that discuss other Thai ingredients so if you're
interested in learning more check out the playlist in the description below so let's get started so
these knobbly guys are galangal or what we call in Tai Chi so galangal the part that we use for
cooking anyway is actually just the rhizome of the whole plant and the plant can grow really really
tall we grow tons of it at my home in Thailand a rhizome is actually a type of stem that grows
underground and from the rhizome the roots and the shoots come out and you can actually see
these little dots here are the places where the roots used to be so when they harvest is they cut
off all the roots and in these pink tops the rest of the plant will come out of this top right here
so we used galangal for its aroma it has no taste it's not sweet it's not sour it's not salty but
it has a wonderful cooling aroma that reminds me very much of a pine forest absolutely love
it you can call this slightly medicinal but I mean that in such in like a good way like you
know when you have Vicks on your face and it's refreshing that's kind of what it reminds me huh
so you can use galangal in three major ways and the first way is to slice it up into thin rounds
like this and you see me do that quite often and then you throw these into a soup or a broth and
let it infuse but in this form though as you can see it's very hard you can't eat it so treat it
again like a cinnamon stick let it infuse for a few minutes and then discard it or just not
eat it now if you want to eat it you can but you have to chop it down pretty fine and that way you
can eat it you can mince it if you want to and you can throw it into salads add it into dips
and whatnot now what's very commonly done is to actually pound this into a paste such as a curry
paste or you can just make a general herb paste and put it in sausage mix or you know put it in
a stir-fry or whatever and for that you just used a mortar and pestle which you guys see me do all
the time so it's very versatile and those are the three different ways you can use it so when you
store the lungo you can keep this in the fridge but it doesn't last that long I find it gets moldy
pretty quickly within the week so if I know I'm not gonna use this up within the next few days I
will freeze the rest and it lasts a really long time in the freezer so what I do is I slice it
up first and by the way sometimes it gets really hard especially if you hit the root part and the
older the galangal the harder it is just sort of change your knife position and so you're not
cutting right through the root fit you you manage and when you get to the stem part some people ask
I don't use the stem but you can sort of go around it right because you don't want to waste all that
go around it and you still get slices and then I throw away just this top part so once you have
these slices you do not want to freeze the in a pile like this because they'll stick together
and it'll be so painful to get them out so what you want to do is spread them out onto a plate
so they're in single layer and not touching each other you obviously fill this up I put plastic
wrap underneath because if you don't it'll stick to the plate once it's frozen like these things
stick to everything once the frozen you've got to be mindful of that once these are frozen gather
this and wrap it into a little baggie and then put it in a freezer back not a sandwich back you
want a freezer back that's nice and thick now if you need this to last extra long say you've
got a lot and you think it's gonna last you at least like a couple of months I would wrap this
in foil first before you stick it in the freezer back because foil is impermeable to air and it'll
make them last even longer it prolongs the life before it gets freezer burned galanga is one of
those herbs it's quite hard to find unless you've got a store that stocks a lot of Southeast Asian
ingredients like Vietnamese Thai Cambodian things like that Japanese Chinese grocery stores tend to
not have them some people like to say that oh we just use ginger and I'm telling you people just
because they look kind of the same does not make them immediately substitutable okay I always say
that's sure go ahead and put ginger in it but just be prepared like you're getting a very different
flavor Ginger's hot spice it's a different kind of aroma so I don't consider it a substitute you're
basically just swapping it with a new ingredient right however if you can't find fresh galangal
there are other forms of galangal out there frozen is probably your best bet because I find that
frozen is it really retains a lot of its original characteristic this is the frozen gong call that
I get at my store the only thing I don't like about this is they freezes in big blocks and now
this is hard to work with because it's like rock solid right so if you just need a few slices it's
kind of a pain so what I would do is don't thaw it all the way before you cut it because if you
let it completely thought it'll be kind of mushy okay now I've also found this guy here which I've
actually never used but I found it at a specialty grocery store I thought it was pretty interesting
it's golonka paste which sounds like it would be useful because in this form it just kind of
mixes well into a lot of things and then there's dried which will work well in soups it's gonna be
harder if you need to pound it into a paste cuz dry go and go super hard right and I find that it
does they develop a bit of a different flavor once it's dried but that's okay we need to throw it in
a tom yum soup it'll work powdered I have never personally used so I do question like how much
of the galangal flavor is retained in powdered form if you've used powder before let me know
in the comments and that is it and as always if you have tips and tricks to share with us let
us know in the comments and if you've got more questions reach out to me on Facebook Twitter or
Instagram or on my website Hawkeye kitchen com and if you haven't subscribed to the show definitely
do so you don't miss another episode and I will see you next time for your next delicious tiny