Culantro

• recao

  Spanish — Puerto Rico

• culantro

  Spanish

  Culantro and cilantro are different plants and the two words are separated by one letter. Latin American recipes distinguish them absolutely; English-language translations frequently do not.

• ngò gai

  Vietnamese

• chadon beni

  Trinidadian English

• phak chi farang

  Thai

Intensely green and citric with a resinous depth, and considerably more persistent than coriander leaf. It also survives heat, which changes what it can be used for: culantro goes into the pot at the start of a sofrito or a soup, and coriander leaf could not.

Recognisably coriander and several times stronger, with a heavier, more resinous quality underneath and none of coriander’s lightness. The species name foetidum is a botanist’s judgement rather than a cook’s.

A deep glossy green, darker than coriander leaf, with visibly serrated edges.

Firm and slightly fibrous with a tough central rib and serrated edges. It is chopped fine or blended rather than torn, and the very largest leaves are trimmed.

• (E)-2-Decenal and (E)-2-dodecenal — The dominant volatiles, and the same compound family that defines coriander leaf — which is why the two smell like versions of one thing. Culantro carries them at much higher concentration.(what (e)-2-decenal is)
• Eryngial — A characteristic aldehyde of this species, contributing the heavier resinous quality that distinguishes it from coriander.

Chop it fine or blend it, and treat it as a base rather than a garnish. The tough central rib and the serrated edges make torn culantro unpleasant to eat, and the heat tolerance means the interesting place for it is the beginning of the dish rather than the end — which is the opposite of everything true about coriander leaf. Use about a third of the quantity you would use of coriander, and if you find a bunch, blend the surplus into a sofrito and freeze it.

The base of Caribbean sofrito and Trinidadian green seasoning, and through them the starting point of a very large proportion of Caribbean cooking. In Vietnam and Thailand it goes into and onto noodle soups, salads and larb. It is used where coriander leaf would be, in greater strength and in places coriander leaf could not go, which is any dish that simmers.

• grinding — Blended into a sofrito or a green seasoning base with garlic, onion, peppers and coriander, which is the dominant Caribbean use and produces a paste kept frozen and used by the spoonful.
• boiling — Survives it, unlike coriander leaf. Culantro goes into a soup or a stew and is still present after half an hour, which is the single most useful thing about it.
• frying — The sofrito base goes into hot oil at the start of a dish, which is where the aroma is released and distributed.
• infusing — Whole leaves added to a Vietnamese pho or a Thai soup near the end, where they perfume the broth and are eaten with it.

Smell it. Culantro is unmistakable at arm’s length when fresh, and a bunch that needs to be held to the nose has already lost most of what it had.

• Yellowing
• Limpness in a normally firm leaf
• Sliminess at the base of the rosette

• Volatilisation of the aldehyde fraction
• Yellowing and wilting
• Rot where moisture sits

Fresh, and if you find it, buy more than you need and blend the rest into a sofrito base to freeze. That is what the households that cook with it every day do, and it solves the availability problem that otherwise makes this herb impossible outside a few cities. Coriander leaf at two or three times the volume is a workable substitute in a raw dish and a poor one in anything simmered, because culantro’s heat tolerance is the property that has no substitute.

• Firm dark green leaves with no yellowing at the base.
• A powerful smell from the bunch — culantro should be obvious from a distance.
• Bought from a Caribbean, Latin American or Southeast Asian grocer, where it is ordinary.
• A whole rosette with roots where you can find one, which keeps far longer and can be planted.

Apiaceae

A low biennial forming a flat rosette of long, narrow, saw-edged leaves close to the ground, with a spiny flowering stem that rises later. The leaf edges are genuinely serrated, which is where sawtooth coriander comes from.

Tropical America, from Mexico and the Caribbean south through northern South America, with the plant naturalised across tropical Asia after its introduction.

• Puerto Rico — notable producer. Where recao is a household staple and the base of sofrito.
• Trinidad and Tobago — notable producer
• Vietnam — notable producer
• Thailand — notable producer
• Mexico — origin

Outer leaves cut from the rosette, leaving the plant to continue. Leaves picked before the flowering stem rises are milder and less fibrous.

1. Cutting — The whole rosette is cut at the base rather than picked leaf by leaf, and the plant regrows from the crown for several further cuts.Why: A cut-and-come-again crop rather than a once-harvested one, which is part of why it is a dooryard plant across the Caribbean rather than a market commodity.
2. Cutting before flowering — Timing is the one demanding part: the plant bolts readily in heat and long days, and once it flowers the leaf turns tough and much less aromatic.Why: Growers shade the plants and cut the flower stalks to delay bolting, which is a labour cost rather than a processing one and is why culantro is expensive outside the tropics.
3. Blending into green seasoning — The commonest form of preservation in the Caribbean is not drying but blending: culantro goes into a wet base with garlic, onion, thyme and pepper, and the base is refrigerated or frozen.Why: The aroma compounds are held in oil and water rather than driven off by heat, so a frozen green seasoning keeps far more of the herb than any dried product does.
4. Freezing whole — Leaves are also frozen flat in bags and broken off as needed, which works because the leaf is destined for a cooked dish and its texture after thawing does not matter.

A biennial grown as an annual, cut leaf by leaf from the rosette. Much of what is used is grown domestically rather than commercially.

Humid tropical, and tolerant of shade — culantro grows in conditions that would bolt coriander within days, which is part of why it took hold so thoroughly in Southeast Asia.

Culantro is a tropical American plant that made an unusually successful second journey. It was carried east across the Pacific and the Indian Ocean during the colonial period, naturalised across tropical Asia, and became a standard herb in Vietnamese and Thai cooking — so thoroughly that its Thai name, phak chi farang, describes it as the foreign coriander rather than as an import. Few American herbs travelled that well.

Barely traded internationally as a dried product and grown close to its markets as a fresh one. It reaches temperate countries through diaspora supply chains.

A medicinal record across the Caribbean, Latin America and Southeast Asia, chiefly for digestive and febrile complaints. Recorded as tradition; SpiceHQ makes no health claim.