A rhizome with a hot peppery flavor, galangal is used primarily as a seasoning. Greater galangal is also called Laos ginger, Siamese ginger and Thai ginger. It grows throughout Southeast Asia and is particularly popular in Thai cooking. This creamy white-fleshed rhizome is often used as a substitute for ginger. Chinese five spice powder is sometimes enhanced with galangal.

Thai Lemon Grass, Galangal & Shrimp Soup:

From: 'Simply Thai Cooking'
Wandee Young and Byron Ayanoglu

4 cups water
1 stick lemon grass
4 lime leaves (or 2 tablespoons lime juice)
1 inch galangal root (or ginger root)
2 fresh hot chilies
3 tablespoons fish sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 ½ teaspoons chili paste
2 ounces button mushrooms, quartered
16 large shrimps, shelled and deveined (10 oz)
3 tablespoons lime juice
Fresh coriander leaves

1. Heat 4 cups water in a soup pot to boiling.

2. Smash lemon grass with the flat of a chef's knife once, and then cut into 1-inch pieces; tear lime leaves into thirds; and slice galangal into thin rounds. Reserve these ingredients together.

3. Crush the fresh chilies and cut in half. Reserve separately.

4. When water has boiled, add the reserved lemon grass/galangal/lime leaves. Boil for 1 minute. Add fish sauce, sugar and chili paste. Boil for another 2 minutes. Add mushrooms and boil for 2 minutes. Add shrimps and lime juice (3 tablespoons plus the other 2 tablespoons if you haven't used the lime leaves) and lower heat to medium-high. Cook for 2 minutes, just until the shrimps have turned white and springy. Transfer to a soup tureen, decorate with fresh coriander leaves and serve immediately.

Quick and easy, this soup depends on its aromatics for its ethereal allure. The barely poached (definitely undercooked) shrimps, however are what make it a treat.

A note about this and other soups: lemon grass, galangal root and lime leaves, the trio of flavors that give many Thai soups their distinctive taste are unchewable, but form dictates that they be left in the soup. It is then up to the soup slurpers to avoid eating them.

Medicinally Galangal is often served as a tea or decoction.

The 1997 Commission E on Phytotherapy and Herbal Substances of the German Federal Institute for Drugs recommends Galangal rhizome for 'Dyspepsia, loss of appetite.'

'Daily dosage: Tincture (according to Erg. B. 6): 2 - 4 g; Rhizome: 2 - 4 g. Mode of Administration: Comminuted drug, powder, as well as other galenical preparations for oral application.'

'Actions: Antispasmodic; Antiphlogistic (inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis); Antibacterial.'

Modern research confirms Grieve's classic 'A Modern Herbal': 'Stimulant and carminative. It is especially useful in flatulence, dyspepsia, vomiting and sickness at stomach, being recommended as a remedy for sea-sickness. It tones up the tissues and is sometimes prescribed in fever. Homoeopaths use it as a stimulant. The powder is used as a snuff for catarrh.'

'Dosage: From 15 to 30 grains in substance, and double in infusion. Fluid extract, 30 to 60 minims.'

King's 1898 Dispensatory: 'Galangal is a stimulating aromatic, and has been successfully employed to aid the digestive process, preventing fermentation and removing flatus. It will be found especially useful in some forms of dyspepsia, preventing vomiting or sickness of the stomach, and facilitating digestion. It may be used in all cases in which a stimulating aromatic is indicated. It has some reputation as a remedy for perineal relaxation with hemorrhoids, and for a lax and pendulous abdomen.'

'Its best form of administration is in tincture, the dose of which is from ½ to 1 fluid drachm. The powder may be given in doses of 15 to 20 grains; from 30 to 60 grains may be given in infusion.'

British Pharmaceutical Codex, 1911: 'Galangal is aromatic and carminative. It is used in the form of infusion or decoction (1 in 20) for flatulence and dyspepsia.'

Of the closely related Lesser Galangal, (Kaempferia galanga), Schultes & Hofmann, in 'Plants of the Gods,' point out that 'Kaempferia galanga is used as an hallucinogen in New Guinea. Throughout the range of this species, the highly aromatic rhizome is valued as a spice to flavor rice, and also in folk medicine as an expectorant and carminative.... Hallucinogenic activity might possibly be due to constituents of the essential oils.'

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