Culinary Uses

The use of greater galangal is confined to local Indonesian dishes such as curries. Young rhizome is a spice used to flavor various dishes in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and China. Like ginger, galangal is a ‘de-fisher’ and so appears frequently in fish and shellfish recipes often with garlic, ginger, chili and lemon or tamarind. Laos powder is more important than ken cur and, as well as with fish, is used in a wide variety of dishes such as sauces, soups, stays and sambas, chicken, meat and vegetable curries. Although used in the often sparingly hot Indonesian cookery, Laos’s powder enhances dishes such as chicken delicately spiced with fennel and lemon grass and gently cooked in coconut milk. However, these mild dishes are usually accompanied by vegetable or fish sambas fiery with chili. ‘A Cook they hade with hem for the none’s To boil the chickens with the Mary bones and prouder Merchant tart and galyngale’ (Chaucer, 1386)

Attributed Medicinal Properties

The rhizomes have many applications in traditional medicines such as for skin diseases, indigestion, colic, dysentery, enlarged spleen, respiratory diseases, mouth and stomach cancer. Rhizomes show anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-protozoa, and expectorant activities. Resembling ginger in its effects, galangal is an aromatic stimulant, carminative and stomachic. It is used against nausea, flatulence, dyspepsia, rheumatism, catarrh and enteritis.

It's used as a cure for general pain relief, as a quick remedy after heart attack, it stimulates digestion, even sea-sickness. Galangal boosts the immune system, treats flu, the common cold, and is a breath freshener.

It also possesses tonic and antibacterial qualities and is used for these properties in veterinary and homeopathic medicine. In India it is used as a body deodorizer and halitosis remedy. Both galangals have been used in Europe and Asia as an aphrodisiac for centuries