one galangal rhizome

[OliverB]

I hope I'm putting this in the correct category, if not the mods are of course welcome to move or delete.

I just got me a copy of Peterson's Sauce book (what a great book!) and want to make a sauce for my whole fish I got from the Asian supermarket (my new love!).

It asks for one galangal rhizome to be added. Now, the pieces they had there were as varied in size as ginger and I'm a bit at a loss what he might mean here. An inch? A pound? A cup?

I've only used galangal once before. The other ingrediences are one small white onion, cauliflower and coconut milk.

What would you do?

I don't want to overpower the fish (a gorgeous red whole Ocean Perch). If it were Ginger I'd probably use about an inch or so.

Thanks for any pointers!

Oliver

[nickrey]

Galangal is very similar to ginger in the way it behaves albeit slightly more pine/floral note on the palate.

For one fish were it me, I'd do the same as you and use around an inch (around 2.5 cm).

Because of the toughness of the root, take care when slicing and make sure you slice it very thinly.

[OliverB]

thanks! I'll use about an inch, if it does not have enough galangal taste I'll add a bit more to the experiment. I was a bit surprised by the "one galangal rhizome" instruction in the book, as it's usually very detail oriented. With my fish, it's probably better to err on the low side than overpower it and make it taste like "poached in pine needles"

[OliverB]

just a quick update, I used what might amount to a 1x2 inch piece, sliced thinly into rings. And I could have used a lot more, either galangal is relatively weak in taste or just the piece I have is not that strong, but it sure pales compared to ginger. The sauce was very good but you had to concentrate to find the galangal in there. Next time I'll add a lot more.

The fish was super yummy too!

[nickrey]

just a quick update, I used what might amount to a 1x2 inch piece, sliced thinly into rings. And I could have used a lot more, either galangal is relatively weak in taste or just the piece I have is not that strong, but it sure pales compared to ginger. The sauce was very good but you had to concentrate to find the galangal in there. Next time I'll add a lot more.

The fish was super yummy too!

←

It sounds delicious.

Keep us in the loop regarding your experiments.

[OliverB]

was quite good

there are always experiments going on, just started curing my first ever bacon :-)

Sausage making and smoking meats and fish (not in a pipe, hard to keep lit) is next.