Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Kaffir Lime Leaf

Whenever I visit the vegetables section at the supermarket, I could always smell a refreshing citrus fragrance that was most appetising. The fragrance reminded me of some Thai dishes that I've eaten before. I found out that the fragrance came from a bunch of leaves that looked pretty unique with the double leaves. They're labelled as 'pomelo leaves'. I decided to look for recipes that require the use of the leaves.



Looking through the recipes I have, none required pomelo leaves. When I did a search on the net for the use of pomelo leaves, I found something that said that water mixed with pomelo leaves is used for driving evil spirits... Hmm... I was actually looking for a recipe!

Eventually, from the pictures I found online, I found out that these leaves are actually Kaffir Lime Leaves that are commonly used in Thai cooking. I found out the following about the kaffir lime leaves:
- they are used for their flavour
- they need to be finely chopped if they are to be eaten
- they can be kept frozen in the fridge
- if unavailable, they can be replaced with leaves from young orange, lemon or usual lime plants

I've tried adding Kaffir Lime leaves to my cooking thrice so far, once for a stir-fry chicken & twice for a Thai Style Fried fish. I love the flavour that it adds to the dish. Think I'm going to try making some Thai fishcakes soon :)

1 comment:

  1. Kaffir Lime Leaf & pamelo leaf are different kind of leaf. The diff between these two are Kaffir Lime Leaf with equal size of double leaf and pamelo leaf with one small and one xtra large size of double leaf

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