Brands like The Republic of Tea are leading the way with their SuperHerb line, where you'll
find galangal ginger, milk thistle, sage, fenugreek, nettle and more.
If you can't
find galangal, you could julienne some ginger, but very thin and not too much.
Hi Cynthia, if you read the post I stated that I wasn't able to
find galangal at my local Asian store and especially not the regular grocery store.
If you can't
find galangal (blue ginger) in your area, substitute it with another stalk of lemongrass.
You can
find galangal at Oliver's Market in Santa Rosa and Cotati — we just bought some for this recipe!!
I even had to make a couple substitutions (I couldn't
find galangal or kaffir lime leaves) and it still tasted amazingly good, but next time I'm going to make the effort to track down all of the authentic ingredients so that I can see just how much more amazing it can taste!
Not exact matches
Here is the ingredient list I
found for the brand I recommended: Dried red chilli, Shallot, Garlic, Soybean oil, Sugar, Salt, Fresh turmeric, Lemongrass, Spices (coriander seeds, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves, lesser
galangal, cloves), Galangal, Curry powder (mustard, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, wheat flour, chilli, pepper, fennel, turmeric), Kaff
galangal, cloves),
Galangal, Curry powder (mustard, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, wheat flour, chilli, pepper, fennel, turmeric), Kaff
Galangal, Curry powder (mustard, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, wheat flour, chilli, pepper, fennel, turmeric), Kaffir lime.
The other unique ingredient you'll
find in this soup is
galangal.
Tom Kaa Gai is typically made with
galangal root but I was unable to
find it here in the states so I chose to omit that from the recipe.
This version uses lemongrass (which I
found in the herb section of Whole Foods — and I plan to try planting in my garden soon), and substitutes regular lime zest and juice for the kaffir lime leaves, and ginger root for the
galangal.
I use lemongrass, and generally I
find sliced
galangal works much nicer than using ginger as far as Thai food goes.
Thankfully, frozen food has gotten a lot better than it was when I was in college, and today you can
find everything from prepped and cubed butternut squash to
galangal and fresh turmeric in the freezer aisle.
I decided to adapt the recipes I
found on the web to ingredients are easier to
find — considering my Italian readers — e.g. ginger for
galangal, limes for kaffir lime leaves, cilantro for coriander root.
An easy raw food coconut soup recipe made from a young coconut and plenty of Thai spices, including ginger (or Thai
galangal if you can
find it), lime juice, curry powder, cilantro and chili.
Galangal is one of the more challenging ingredients to
find.
Lesser
Galangal, or Krachai, is harder to
find.