Lemon Grass

Appears in

By Alastair Little and Richard Whittington

Published 1998

About

Lemon grass is a stiff, elongated, bulb-like grass made up of tightly rolled, rather tough leaves of which only the bottom 15–17.5 cm / 6–7 inches are used. It has a sweet, aromatic and powerful lemony verbena flavour that features widely in Southeast Asian cooking. It is, for example, one of the fundamental flavourings of the cooking of Thailand, where it is called ta krai.

Trim off the hard base and the outer leaf, then cut the softer inner stalk across into the thinnest slices you can achieve. Whole lemon grass stalks may be added to dishes and removed at the end of cooking in the same way as bay or lime leaves. Never use dried lemon grass, which tastes like cheap soap.

Part of

Global Kitchen Glossary