Lemongrass and traditional Chinese recipes

[hzrt8w]

Lemongrass (香茅), while common in Southeast Asian cookings (e.g. Vietnamese), is not typically used in traditional Chinese recipes.

Yesterday, I saw Dejah's crab dish which used lemongrass:

Cooking crabs using lemon grassy

I have one of my own recipes which uses lemongrass:

Chicken with Lemongrass and Black Bean Sauce (香茅豉汁鸡)

I saw an episode of "Yeung Can Cook" last Saturday. He used lemongrass to make a "Hot and Sour Soup", which is more of a morph between Thai and Chinese.

I am wondering: is lemongrass used more and more in main stream Chinese cooking? Have you ever used lemongrass and blend it in with traditional Chinese recipes? How do you like the result? Do you use lemongrass in whole stalks or chop them up in fine grains? What dishes are good with additions of lemongrass?

Edited November 8, 2005 by hzrt8w (log)

[Dejah]

Any seafood would work well with lemongrass. I have cooked mussels and salmon with lemongrass , and of course, the crab. Not sure if steaming would bring out as much flavour as simmering or BBQ, as I do with salmon fillets.

We went to a gala dinner a couple weeks ago. The soup was Thai lemongrass and rice served in a whole coconut. I think they must have cooked the bulbous parts of the lemongrass for some time as it was very tender, like onion, but it was unmistakeably lemongrass. It was wonderful, and I want to make it at home. Anyone with a tried and true recipe?

The use of this herb is probably a cross-over to Chinese food as people become more adventurous. I was introduced to it by 2 of my cooks who were Chinese from Vietnam. They made clams stir-fried with lemongrass, chili, and fermented black beans.

I usually crush and cut the stalks on a slant into 2 inch pieces. As most of the pieces stay hard, it is easier to remove in larger pieces. The lemongrass was diced in the Thai soup we had.

I see you chopped the bottom part of the stalk for you chicken dish, hrzt. Were the bits of lemongrass tender after cooking?

Chicken is good with lemongrass, but I don't know about the "stronger flavoured" meats like beef, pork, and lamb.

[Kent Wang]

I don't like it. It makes it too Southeast Asian for me. I like my Chinese food Chinese. On occasion I'll make a lemongrass marinade for a pork loin. The result is sort of a bastardized pan-Asian fusion dish, the type that Westerners often dream up. It tastes okay but I always feel a little dirty doing it.

[Dejah]

It tastes okay but I always feel a little dirty doing it.

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That's funny!

Walk on the wild side once in a while. It's good for you!

[BarbaraY]

I saw that TV show, too, and thought that the soup was closer to Thai than Chinese. Pineapple in the soup just didn't appeal to me, either.

I like lemon grass flavor but not with Chinese dishes yet. Maybe someday there will be one that I'd be willing to try.

[Tepee]

Hmm...I haven't cooked any chinese-chinese dishes with lemon-grass before. Am I glad that I'm a Malaysian! I get the best of both worlds. Lemon grass features in a lot of Malaysian dishes.

[JasonTrue]

In Seattle, a local Chinese Buddhist who spent many years in Thailand opened a Chinese vegetarian restaurant and she used lemongrass prolifically. Of course, she said she was influenced by Thai cooking, but the dishes she created were far closer to Chinese styles.

One of her dishes with lemongrass was similar to a Thai-style vegetable curry, but the approach and flavor profile were essentially Chinese.

I believe she also used lemongrass to flavor either wheat gluten or yuba (the soymilk skins I always forget the Chinese name for; 湯葉 is the Japanese rendering).

(added) I think her interpretation of hot and sour soup also incorporated lemongrass.

Edited November 8, 2005 by JasonTrue (log)

[hzrt8w]

I see you chopped the bottom part of the stalk for you chicken dish, hrzt. Were the bits of lemongrass tender after cooking?

...Chicken is good with lemongrass, but I don't know about the "stronger flavoured" meats like beef, pork, and lamb.

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Lemongrass does not soften regardless of how long it's cooked. Chopping it into fine shreds makes it easy to eat without noticing.

In Vietnamese BBQ, lemongrass is used to marinate pork and beef slices, along with garlic and fish sauce. The taste is excellent! Haven't had any lamb in Vietnamese restaurants. Not sure if they cook lamb at all.

[JasonTrue]

I can be equally hostile to pan-Asian fusions created by people who don't understand the fundamentals of a cuisine well... But on the other hand, your statement is kind of funny, because so many Chinese dishes currently beloved in China wouldn't have been possible without foreign influence.

Chinese cuisine has now long incorporated chilies, tomatoes, peanuts, and other ingredients from the West, and some herbs, fruits, and vegetables came from other parts of Asia. Even rice may have moved to China from Southeast Asia, though that's certainly quite a while ago. Pure "Chinese" Chinese food is, to some extent, a matter of interpretation.

But I think there are a few types of "fusion". When a region is exposed to foreign ingredients, they are frequently adapted to local dishes. When people from one region travel to another and settle there, they try to make their cuisine using the available ingedients. When people comfortable with one cuisine travel to another pla for short-term trips, their recollections of that cuisine can subsequently influence their cooking. And then there's sort of willful, fusion-for-the-sake-of-fusion cuisine, often created by chefs who only have a shallow understanding of cuisine that they are borrowing from after dining in other restaurants.

It may take several attempts to incorporate a "non-native" ingredient in a way that seems Chinese, but I think it can be done. It's usually a question of ingredient function. Maybe the "marinade" isn't quite the right approach... In my cookbooks from China, highly aromatic marinades are pretty rare. They are usually just Chinese "wine" and soy sauce. Ginger or garlic may be added, but usually those are added in the cooking stage and not the marinade.

I think lemongrass used to flavor hot oil might come work out as more Chinese in style. Saute some lemongrass in oil, then remove the lemongrass itself; use this oil for sauteeing, or drizzle over a steamed/blanched dish while the oil is still hot.

I don't like it. It makes it too Southeast Asian for me. I like my Chinese food Chinese. On occasion I'll make a lemongrass marinade for a pork loin. The result is sort of a bastardized pan-Asian fusion dish, the type that Westerners often dream up. It tastes okay but I always feel a little dirty doing it.

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[hzrt8w]

I believe she also used lemongrass to flavor either wheat gluten or yuba (the soymilk skins I always forget the Chinese name for; 湯葉 is the Japanese rendering).

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The Chinese soymilk skins can be one of: 鲜竹, 腐竹, 枝竹, or 甜竹 depends on which is used for cooking. Most likely it's 鲜竹.

See my old post for explanations on the differences:

Seen Jook, Foo Jook, soya bean derivatives, Membranes of soya bean congee

[AzianBrewer]

I just brewed a batch of Lemongrass Ale....Nov 12 with be the tasting day!!!

[Pan]

Lemongrass does not soften regardless of how long it's cooked.[...]

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That was never my impression, but then I don't recall ever trying to eat the grass raw. Is your statement true even if the grass is freshly-picked or otherwise really fresh?

[hzrt8w]

Lemongrass does not soften regardless of how long it's cooked.[...]

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That was never my impression, but then I don't recall ever trying to eat the grass raw. Is your statement true even if the grass is freshly-picked or otherwise really fresh?

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Let me restate my sentence: From my experience, lemongrass does not seem to soften at all even after 3 to 4 hours of boiling/simmering. Maybe I didn't do it right. Maybe if it is cooked longer (e.g. 5 to 10 hours?) it will soften? I don't know.

I use the lemongrass sold in large Asian markets. How fresh they are, I am not sure. They are not "right off the field" fresh, but perhaps anywhere between 3 to 10 days old?

It seems to me that lemongrass has a texture similar to that of a sugar cane fiber.

Edited November 8, 2005 by hzrt8w (log)

[Dejah]

Lemongrass does not soften regardless of how long it's cooked.[...]

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That was never my impression, but then I don't recall ever trying to eat the grass raw. Is your statement true even if the grass is freshly-picked or otherwise really fresh?

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Let me restate my sentence: From my experience, lemongrass does not seem to soften at all even after 3 to 4 hours of boiling. Maybe if it is cooked longer (e.g. 5 to 10 hours?) it will soften? I don't know.

It seems to me that lemongrass has a texture similar to that of a sugar cane fiber.

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Hmmm...Since I had a hand in starting this discussion on how edible lemongrass is, I went into my fridge, cut off the bulbous end of the stalk and tried to chew it. It is like sugar cane, fibrous, and may soften with extended cooking time. So, maybe the Thai soup that I ate actually had onion so infused with the flavour of lemongrass that I thought it WAS lemongrass?

[Chris Amirault]

Lemongrass does not soften regardless of how long it's cooked.[...]

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That was never my impression, but then I don't recall ever trying to eat the grass raw. Is your statement true even if the grass is freshly-picked or otherwise really fresh?

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Let me restate my sentence: From my experience, lemongrass does not seem to soften at all even after 3 to 4 hours of boiling/simmering. Maybe I didn't do it right. Maybe if it is cooked longer (e.g. 5 to 10 hours?) it will soften? I don't know.

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I think that if you slice it very, very thin right at the base of the plant (not higher where it's more fibrous) then it can soften up enough. Unfortunately, I have no empirical evidence to support this.

[JasonTrue]

I dated someone from the Caribbean whose mother used to pick lemongrass out of their garden when she was sick, but she said that her mother boiled it and served the liquid a cold remedy. She didn't eat it straight.

Thai cuisine frequently uses cut pieces of lemongrass sauteed in oil. The lemongrass will often simmer with the liquids, but people don't generally chew on the lemongrass. It might be removed prior to serving in some restaurants to avoid customer complaints. When incorporated into certain pastes or sauces, it will generally be sliced finely and then bashed with a mortar and pestle into a texture only slightly more abrasive than grated ginger.

Hmmm...Since I had a hand in starting this discussion on how edible lemongrass is, I  went into my fridge, cut off the bulbous end of the stalk and tried to chew it. It is like sugar cane, fibrous, and may soften with extended cooking time. So, maybe the Thai soup that I ate actually had onion so infused with the flavour of lemongrass that I thought it WAS lemongrass?

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[wonderbread]

This is less food related but I spent a summer in Hong Kong and had a terrible allergic reaction to some mosquito bites there. We went to a Chinese herbal doctor, and he prescribed boiling a tonic out of lemongrass stalks and dabbing it on the bites.

I experimented with making tea out of dried lemongrass from the spice store and found it was too warming - too much yeet hay, made my tongue dry. Anyone else had a similar reaction?

[Pan]

Hmmm...Since I had a hand in starting this discussion on how edible lemongrass is, I  went into my fridge, cut off the bulbous end of the stalk and tried to chew it. It is like sugar cane, fibrous, and may soften with extended cooking time. So, maybe the Thai soup that I ate actually had onion so infused with the flavour of lemongrass that I thought it WAS lemongrass?

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No, it was lemongrass. As Chris said, you don't use the hard stuff near the bulb; you use the softer grassy part. And yes, fresh lemongrass is very edible after being boiled in soup, and not necessarily for 4 hours. I know, because lemongrass grew as a weed in the side yard of the house I used to live in in Malaysia. To be fair, it was not so tall as to get a fibrous base, but I've also eaten good lemongrass in soup, etc., in American Thai restaurants repeatedly.

[hzrt8w]

I experimented with making tea out of dried lemongrass from the spice store and found it was too warming - too much yeet hay, made my tongue dry. Anyone else had a similar reaction?

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wonderbread: Welcome to the forum!

I have not tried brewing tea with lemongrass. I don't have any reaction from eating dishes made with lemongrass.

I have tried using but do not like the dried lemongrass in jars. I found that they lack the aroma that fresh lemongrass brings.

pan: Maybe the lemongrass I bought from the store was not fresh enough. Maybe I didn't handle it properly. Maybe both. I need to try chewing on them again next time.

[Tepee]

This is less food related but I spent a summer in Hong Kong and had a terrible allergic reaction to some mosquito bites there. We went to a Chinese herbal doctor, and he prescribed boiling a tonic out of lemongrass stalks and dabbing it on the bites.

Lemongrass has citronella in it and is soothing to irritated skin. It's also a very effective mosquito repellant, more so than citronella itself. See here.

I experimented with making tea out of dried lemongrass from the spice store and found it was too warming - too much yeet hay, made my tongue dry. Anyone else had a similar reaction?

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I believe that lemongrass is heaty or yeet hay. During my confinement, I had to bathe in hot water (nope, you can't add tap water which has 'wind' in it) boiled with pounded lemongrass and old ginger. It's supposed to rid you of wind, but it certainly doesn't leave you feeling very clean. Don't remind me about it.

[Raquel]

Growing up in a Filipino/Chinese home, my experience with Lemongrass has always been as an "infuser". We had it growing in the backyard, and my mom would just have me run out and cut off stalks for her while she was cooking.

Most often, she would take the whole stalks and fold them up into a small bundle which would be stuffed into the cavity of a chicken. It was then baked or steamed with other ingredients: soy sauce, wine, garlic, etc.

(She always said that Lemongrass/Tanglad took away that "smell" from raw meats.)

[Tepee]

Slightly OT, but can someone tell me how to cut them from the plant without blade cuts all over your arms?

[hzrt8w]

[...]Most often, she would take the whole stalks and fold them up into a small bundle which would be stuffed into the cavity of a chicken.

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I have seen pictures of lemongrass being bent and folded up into a knot. I always wonder how they do that? With the lemongrasses I get from the grocery markets, they are too dry and hard for me to fold. Perhaps we can only do so with fresh ones?

[Pan]

Slightly OT, but can someone tell me how to cut them from the plant without blade cuts all over your arms?

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We used a pair of scissors. Are your plants too big for that? Then maybe wire cutters?

[Tepee]

I've been using a knife. I normally look for bunches with fat bulbs because most of the dishes which need lemongrass requires the bulb part. While searching, I get scratched and you can feel these nasty scratches for days. I try to cut off as much of the razor-sharp edged leaves before I dig out a bunch.