Fresh Asian herbs

[Dejah]

Hit the jackpot today when my sister arrived from Burnaby, B.C. I got packages of fresh pandan leaves, curry leaves, lime leaves, shiso, galangal, and one I didn't know - - kinh goi.

I won't be able to use all of this up in the next while. Can I freeze pandan and curry leaves. I know I can freeze lime leaves.

What is the kinh goi? How should I use it? It almost smells a bit like mint.

I am so excited!

Other goodies include a block of balacan, 2 palm sugar, Nonya Kaya coconut jam, packages of bar kut teh, Assam laksa, 6 lbs dried oysters, dried sea snail meat, 6 packages of Chinese sausages fresh from the factory in B.C.!

Then there's wife cakes, nam yue peanuts, fresh figs...

Tell me what I should do! What should I cook? Tepee! I am dizzy!

[sanrensho]

got packages of fresh pandan leaves, curry leaves, lime leaves, shiso, galangal, and one I didn't know - - kinh goi.

I would say the galangal is OK, shiso no (think of basil). My guess is that the curry leaves would be fine.

[anzu]

You can freeze both pandan and curry leaves.

The curry leaves, in particular, tend to lose some fragrance if you do this, but better than them going rotten in the fridge if that's the alternative. (Pandan tends to go moldy quite fast if only refrigerated, and curry leaves slowly turn black and tasteless).

[Tepee]

Oooh, dai gah jeh, I'm so happy for you! However, I'm the wrong person to ask. I've never had the need to freeze/fridge any of those leaves as I've fresh supplies from my garden.

Kaya? Make kaya baos. And, don't throw away the bak kut teh soup like our dear brother Ah Leung.

[SuzySushi]

Lucky you!!!

Freeze the pandan, curry leaves, lime leaves, and galangal (the latter, think of ginger).

No to the shiso leaves. Enjoy them now! (Some uses include serving with sashimi, wrapping cubes of meat or chicken and grilling on skewers and -- so I'm told by a Japanese acquaintance -- making into tea.) You *might* be able to make excess shiso leaves into a paste and freeze that, but it'll lose a lot of fragrance. Kin gioi is Vietnamese mint; I don't think it would freeze well, either.

[sanrensho]

(Some uses include serving with sashimi, wrapping cubes of meat or chicken and grilling on skewers and -- so I'm told by a Japanese acquaintance -- making into tea.)

Or just chiffonade and use them in a salad or as a finishing herb, just as you would basil. You could also tempura the shiso.

[SuzySushi]

(Some uses include serving with sashimi, wrapping cubes of meat or chicken and grilling on skewers and -- so I'm told by a Japanese acquaintance -- making into tea.)

Or just chiffonade and use them in a salad or as a finishing herb, just as you would basil. You could also tempura the shiso.

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Good ideas! Or sliver and stir into hot rice.

[Dejah]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I have ziplock bagged some of the pandan. curry, and lime leaves for the freezer.

The shiso, I am planning blackbean garlic chili clams for supper tonight, and maybe take Suzy's idea of wrapping meat on skewers for the grill. I stripped several stalks and hope to root them for a house plant. Chiffonade shiso in a salad sounds like a great idea. Probably would work in place of mint or basil for my summer rolls too.

But then...I also have the basil and mint!

Found a recipe for steamed pandan wrapped chicken. The marinade for the meat sounds delicious. We were all around the table last night trying to figure out what the pandan fragrance reminded us of: corn chips! This was the first time for we prairie folks to see this leave.

Tepee: Can I have a basic cake recipe with pandan? It's my mom's 98th next week and she wants me to bake the cake as usual. I would love to make something"unusual". Just a simple one please.

The lime leaves: Last weekend, I was on a garden tour and a friend gave me several Thai lime leaves from his tree. I was thrilled, and so very carefully froze them until I can get to making Tepee's beef randang joong. Then bingo! I got 2 big bagfuls! My s-i-l is quite anticipating my culinary experiments.

With the basil and mint, I think I might have to try my hand on pho.

I am SO glad I start my 6 weeks vacation tomorrow! The bathroom scale will suffer, but all for a good cause.

[Tepee]

Goong Hei popo on her 98th! When we talk about pandan cake, Msians mean pandan chiffon cake. Here's a T & T recipe. If you can't find the hoen kwe (green bean) flour, you can make a filling of vanilla-flavoured whipped cream stiffened with some confectionery sugar or even some gelatine.

Isn't it just excellent timing for all these ingredients to drop on your lap just when your hols is beginning? Good for you!

[trillium]

I'm late to the thread, but curry and lime leaves work better in the freezer if you spread them out on a sheet of aluminium and then roll it up. That way you unroll just the amount you need and the rest are not exposed to air and don't get freezer burn.

For shiso, there have been great threads about doing Korean banchan with them, which works well to preserve the leaves, but it sounds like you have it under control.

regards,

trillium

[Dejah]

I'm late to the thread, but curry and lime leaves work better in the freezer if you spread them out on a sheet of aluminium and then roll it up.  That way you unroll just the amount you need and the rest are not exposed to air and don't get freezer burn.

trillium

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Thanks, Trillium. I did as you suggested for freezing the herbs. Caught your post just as I was ready to head down for the freezer.

I posted pictures of the clams using shiso in the Chinese forum, as well as the Malaysain curry. I'll post the curry one here too. I used lime leaves, etc and I loved it.

Ayam Limau Purut

The spice paste called for chilis, chopped red onions, garlic, galangal, lemongrass and tumeric. This was stir-fried, then chicken pieces were added with some water. The chicken was simmered until half done, then coconut milk and fresh lime leaves and lime juice were added. The whole thing was simmered until the chicken was tender. OMG, I was licking the pot as I was washing up! That stuff was great on rice.

The green mound beside the dish of tumeric is chopped lemongrass.

[SuzySushi]

I'm late to the thread, but curry and lime leaves work better in the freezer if you spread them out on a sheet of aluminium and then roll it up.  That way you unroll just the amount you need and the rest are not exposed to air and don't get freezer burn.

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Great suggestion! I'll have to try that method next time I'm freezing a batch of leaves.

[Dejah]

Suzy,

The Ayam Limau Purut recipe is from a book called The Food of Malaysia published by Periplus Editions. It is a collection of recipes by the cooks of Bon Ton Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, and Jonkers Restaurant in Malacca.

It's called Nonya curry. It called for 1/2 chicken, but I used 5 thighs and a breast.

For 1/2 chicken, you need 1 slice asam gelugur or lime juice to taste

1/2 cup water

1 cup thick coconut milk

4 fragrant lime leaves (The star of the show as far as I am concerned)

salt to taste.

Spice paste: 2 medium red or brown onions

8 red chilis

3 cloves garlic

1 stalk lemongrass

1 1/4 inch piece of galangal

1 tsp tumeric powder

The spice paste was chopped and blended in my mini chopper. Then it was fried in hot oil until fragrant.

The chicken was added, along with chicken stock (which I used in place of the water) and the asam gelugur. Simmer until half cooked, then add the lime leaves and coconut milk. Continue to simmer uncovered so some of the liquid is reduced. Season with salt. I didn't have asam gelugur, so I added lime juice just before severing. I read later that tamarind could be a substitue.

There were still bits of lemongrass, galangal, etc when I served the food. I liked this because there were little bursts of flavour whenever you chewed on a bit of herb. I even licked the sauce off the lime leaves, and wow!

[SuzySushi]

Thanks, Dejah!

I see a trip to the Southeast Asian market is in my near future! (I have the lime leaves in my freezer. Don't currently have any galangal or lemon grass.)

[Dejah]

For supper tonight, another experiment with Asian herbs:

Spicy Prawns in a Sarong

The sarong is a piece of pandan leave wrapped around shrimp that had been marinading overnight.

The marinade consisted of lime juice, coconut milk, palm syrup, with a spice paste of shallots, garlic, galangal, chili peppers, tumeric powder and belacan. It also called for candlenuts, but I didn't have any.

This was the first time I used belacan. My nephew-in-law told me I had to grill it to release the full flavour. YEEEOW! I may find "For Sale" signs on my surrounding neighbors' lawns if I do this very often.

I had a basa fillet along with the shrimp. Most of them, I wrapped with pandan. Acouple, I wrapped with shiso. They were all grilled on the BBQ.

The marinade was so robust, I didn't notice the pandan. I could taste the shiso though.

Along with the shrimp, I stir-fried some Shanghai noodles with sweet chili sauce, a dab of oyster sauce, green onions and few slivers of orange sweet pepper. I threw some Vietnamese mint on top. That was great.

Vegetable side was Chinese green beans stir-fried with oyster mushrooms, orange pepper and garlic.

Apologies for blurry pictures.

[trillium]

I'm glad the freezing tip reached you in time, it's a great way to store those precious things. These days I'm more cavalier because I'm growing kaffir lime trees and have all the fresh leaves I could want (and limes too oh boy, oh boy).

Here are the perilla links I was referring to in case you want to make some banchan/preserved type stuff with them:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...=0entry401052

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...0entry1031884

Belecan takes a little getting used to, the first time the partner broke that out in the kitchen I found it repulsive. Now my stomach growls when I smell it toasting. Just call me Pavlov's spouse. Nonya curry is the curry standard at our house, and we even have a special Nonya blended curry powder stash from Singapore. We also keep the rempah portioned out in the freezer, and ours includes candlenuts and we use fresh tumeric root.

For pandan, the easiest way to enjoy its fragrance might be just the rice portion of Hainanese chicken rice. I found an old meandering post of mine on rec.food.cooking with a recipe buried in there if you're interested.

regards,

trillium

[Dejah]

For pandan, the easiest way to enjoy its fragrance might be just the rice portion of Hainanese chicken rice.  I found an old meandering post of mine on rec.food.cooking with a recipe buried in there if you're interested.

regards,trillium

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Found the recipe from the link and have it printed out! Thanks again.

I love chicken and rice, and happy to see this version. I had a student from Hainan last year. She was a favourite and is in regular university classes now. Maybe I'll have to surprise her!

I'll have to find some candlenut and tumeric root. Are there tumeric leaves also?

FedEx could be bringing in more deliveries if I can't find them in the big city of Winnipeg.

[trillium]

SE Asians have made Hainanese chicken rice their own (I think in Thai it is called chicken-fat rice) and I'd be very curious to see what someone who is actually from Hainan thinks. I have a funny feeling that they don't use pandan, anise and cinnamon, but I could be wrong!

I've never seen turmeric leaves in the US, just SE Asia, so I'd be surprised if you can get them, but who knows? Maybe Canada is different. If you can't find turmeric root fresh, you can buy it frozen from Thailand. A lot of times I like the frozen galangal and turmeric from Thailand better then the fresh stuff grown in Hawaii. Candlenuts look kind of like macadamia nuts (but can never be used raw) and we usually find them in odd places in our grocery stores.

regards,

trillium

[Dejah]

I'll have to track down a SEAsian grocery store next time I'm in the big city and see if I can find frozen tumeric leaves. I've only ever shopped at the mainly Chinese stores.

Made pho bo for the first time today. The stock was made last night, fat congealed and skimmed off this morning. The kitchen smelled great with the star anise, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, etc.

I used shredded Vietnamese mint ?(kinh goi), Thai basil, bean sprouts, the grilled nob of ginger, and chopped chilis as add ons along with sambal ( Indonesian extra hot chili sauce). I loved the basil and mint together.

I thought of using the Lime Yin Yang recommended in Hot Sour Salty Sweet. It may have given the broth a little kick upward.

Last night I tried 2 Thai recipes from Keo Sananikone's Thai Cuisine: Chicken with fresh sweet basil using fresh lime leaves, straw mushrooms, bamboo shoots, garlic, chilis and sweet basil leaves. Oyster sauce provided a nice sauce. It was quick, after prep. about 10 minutes cooking time.

The second dish had an unusal name: Evil Jungle Prince with Chicken - developed by Keo in 1977 for his Mekong restaurant. It had lemongrass, chilis, lime leaves, sweet basil leaves, fish sauce, and coconut milk. I used chicken legs and thighs so took longer to cook then the breasts it called for. This was saucier than the first recipe which was great over rice.

I should have the thread topic changed to Asian herb experiments!

[SuzySushi]

The second dish had an unusal name: Evil Jungle Prince with Chicken - developed by Keo in 1977 for his Mekong restaurant. It had lemongrass, chilis, lime leaves, sweet basil leaves, fish sauce, and coconut milk. I used chicken legs and thighs so took longer to cook then the breasts it called for. This was saucier than the first recipe which was great over rice.

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Keo's Evil Jungle Price has become THE Thai standard in Hawaii.

[Dejah]

The second dish had an unusal name: Evil Jungle Prince with Chicken - developed by Keo in 1977 for his Mekong restaurant. 

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Keo's Evil Jungle Price has become THE Thai standard in Hawaii.

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Have you eaten at Keo's restaurant in Honolulu? Did you try this Evil Jungle Prince with chicken?

[SuzySushi]

The second dish had an unusal name: Evil Jungle Prince with Chicken - developed by Keo in 1977 for his Mekong restaurant. 

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Keo's Evil Jungle Price has become THE Thai standard in Hawaii.

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Have you eaten at Keo's restaurant in Honolulu? Did you try this Evil Jungle Prince with chicken?

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Both yes -- many times. Though my favorite dish at Keo's is his Ong Choi with Yellow Bean Paste.