A scientist in the kitchen

Each cook has a favorite herb for cooking. For me, it would have to be the lemon grass - a signature herb in Southeast Asian cooking. Well, almost! I first learned to appreciate it when my family and I used to live in Mindanao where lemon grass or tanglad is a staple in cooking soups and vegetables. A basic vegetable dish called “law-uy” (or “bas-uy“, in other areas of Mindanao and Visayas) consists of boiling a stalk of lemon grass (tied in a knot) in water then adding vegetables such as squash, eggplant, patola, malunggay, etc… then seasoned with salt or bagoong or fish paste which we call “ginamos” or fish sauce. Of course, you may add tomatoes and onions to the soup as well. If you live near the sea, it is usually common to add clams (burnay in Cebuano) to the soup. Some variation involves adding fish, either fried or grilled first Or fresh fish to the boiling lemongrass soup before adding the rest of the vegetables, each choice giving different flavors to the soup. You may omit the vegetables and just boil lemon grass and tomatoes together, add the clams till they open, season with salt and pepper and you’ll have a light clam soup. Or instead of clams, add fresh fish (typically big fish heads). I usually boil together lemon grass, onions, and bell pepper first before adding the fish. Season with salt or fish sauce. Once the fish has cooked, I squeeze calamansi (Philippine lemon) over it and remove from fire.

When we transferred to Laguna, I found out that lemon grass is not used in Tagalog cooking nor do people know about it. So it was difficult to buy lemon grass in the market here. A solution was to buy stalks in Quiapo and plant it at home. Later, I found that it is called “salay” here and that it used more as a medicinal herb and insect repellant than for cooking.

Lemon grass is also great for grilling. This is the herb that makes lechon made in the South tastier than the ones we can get here in Luzon. For roasted chicken, I usually chop the stems, and pound it with salt and pepper then rub onto chicken - inside the cavity and underneath the skin. Roasted chicken never tastes so heavenly.

To make a simple vegetable soup dish with with lemongrass, here’s what you will need:

a stalk of lemon grass tied in a knot
1 tomato
1 onion
1 cup squash
2 pcs eggplant
3 pcs okra or lady fingers
1 cup of malunggay leaves (Moringa) or any leafy vegetable

Other vegetables to add: sweet potato shoots, alugbati leaves (this is another story), mushrooms, spinach, chili leaves

Just boil together lemon grass, tomato and onion in two cups of water. Add squash, boil till almost soft, add the eggplant and okra then cover pot till vegetables are cooked. Add malunggay leaves, turn once to mix the soup, then season with salt or fish sauce. This is best served when hot.

Variations: Add fried fish/fresh shrimps before adding squash.

I am new to food blogging and just learned that there are lots of food blogging events such as the Weekend Herb Blogging. So I am heading over to Kalyn’s Kitchen who is this week’s host to submit this post as my first entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging which is now in its 2nd year.

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