Kencur

• kencur

  Indonesian — Java and across Indonesia

  The everyday name and the one to use in an Indonesian grocer. It is not lengkuas, which is galangal, and not jahe, which is ginger — three words for three different rhizomes that a single English label often blurs.

• cekur

  Malay — Malaysia

• sha jiang沙薑

  Mandarin

  Literally "sand ginger". Cantonese cooking uses it in its own right, most visibly with salt-baked chicken, and a Chinese grocer selling sha jiang is selling this rhizome rather than ginger.

• kacholam

  Malayalam — Kerala

  Chiefly an Ayurvedic and ritual material in Kerala rather than an everyday culinary one, so a shop may sell a medicinal grade.

• proh homเปราะหอม

  Thai

Camphorous, faintly bitter, and clean rather than warming. It has almost none of ginger’s sweetness and none of galangal’s citrus. Used in quantity it dominates, which is why Javanese cooking pairs it with palm sugar and tamarind, both of which give it something to push against.

Strongly camphorous and medicinal, with a sweet balsamic edge and something of pine — closer to a herbal preparation than to a kitchen aromatic on first encounter. It is markedly more assertive than either ginger or galangal at the same weight.

Pale brown skin over a white to cream interior, without the yellow of ginger or the orange of turmeric.

Firm and dense, less fibrous than ginger and less woody than galangal, so it grates and pounds readily.

• Ethyl p-methoxycinnamate — The dominant constituent of the rhizome and the compound responsible for its distinctive balsamic, camphorous character. Its prominence is what separates kencur analytically as well as sensorially from every other rhizome in this catalogue.
• Borneol — A camphor-family terpenoid contributing the cooling, medicinal edge.

Scrape rather than peel — the aromatic sits just under the skin. For a paste, pound it raw with the shallot, garlic and chilli and fry the paste briefly; prolonged frying takes the balsamic quality and leaves a flat bitterness. For a poaching liquid, add dried slices at the start and leave them in. Use less than instinct suggests if you are coming from ginger or galangal: kencur is the most assertive of the five rhizomes profiled here and a dish that tastes medicinal has had too much rather than the wrong thing.

A paste and infusion aromatic rather than a finishing one. In Java it is pounded into the pastes behind pecel and urap and is the defining flavour of beras kencur, a jamu drink of toasted rice, palm sugar and tamarind. In Cantonese cooking the fresh or dried rhizome flavours salt-baked chicken and poultry poaching liquids. In Malaysia the young leaves are eaten raw in ulam. It is used in small quantity everywhere it is used, because its camphor dominates quickly.

• grinding — Pounded raw into a spice paste with garlic, shallot and chilli, which is the dominant Indonesian use. It breaks down cleanly and leaves no fibre.
• frying — Fried in the paste at the start of a dish. Brief frying rounds the medicinal edge; prolonged frying turns it harsh and bitter.
• infusing — Steeped in the rice-and-palm-sugar drink beras kencur, and simmered in Cantonese poaching liquids. Its principal compound extracts well into both water and fat, which is unusual among the rhizomes here.
• boiling — Holds up through simmering better than fingerroot and about as well as galangal, so it can be added early to a braise.

Snap a piece. Fresh kencur breaks crisply and releases a strong camphorous smell immediately; dried slices should still smell medicinal at a fresh break rather than merely woody.

• Bending rather than snapping
• Soft or darkened cut surfaces on the fresh rhizome
• Dried slices with no smell at a fresh break

• Moisture loss and shrivelling in the fresh rhizome at room temperature
• Mould at cut surfaces in humid or sealed storage
• Slow loss of the balsamic top note from dried slices

Fresh where a paste or a drink is being made, dried where a poaching liquid is. This is one of the few fresh rhizomes in the catalogue where the dried form is not a compromise: the dominant compound survives drying, so dried kencur remains recognisably itself in a way dried fingerroot does not. Ground powder fades faster and is worth buying in small amounts.

• Bought by the name kencur, cekur or sha jiang rather than by an English trade name, which is applied loosely and often to a different rhizome.
• Firm rhizomes with pale unblemished cut surfaces.
• A strong camphorous smell at a fresh break — this is the identification.
• A white rather than yellow or orange interior, which separates it from turmeric at a glance.
• Dried slices are a legitimate purchase here, unlike for most fresh rhizomes.

Zingiberaceae

A low stemless perennial that lies almost flat against the ground, with a pair of broad rounded leaves spreading horizontally and short-lived white flowers marked with purple. The rhizome is small, knobbly and pale brown outside with a white interior, and is noticeably firmer and less fibrous than ginger.

South and Southeast Asia, with cultivation concentrated in Indonesia — Java above all — and extending through Malaysia, southern China, Thailand and southern India.

• ID (Java) — origin. The largest culinary user by a wide margin, and the source of the jamu trade that consumes much of the crop.
• MY — major producer
• CN (Guangdong and Guangxi) — notable producer
• IN (Kerala) — notable producer. Largely for Ayurvedic and ritual use rather than for cooking.

Lifted when the leaves die back, washed and sold fresh, or sliced and sun-dried. Unlike ginger it is commonly used in the dried form, because the camphorous compounds survive drying well.

1. Lifting and washing — Rhizomes dug when the foliage dies back and washed clean.
2. Slicing and drying — Cut into thin rounds and sun-dried until hard, for the dried and powdered trade.Why: The dominant aromatic is relatively heat- and drying-stable, so unlike fingerroot the dried product remains a usable ingredient rather than a poor substitute.

The commercial risk is labelling rather than substance: the English names sand ginger and aromatic ginger are applied loosely, and material sold under them outside Asia is sometimes galangal or ginger. Buying by the Indonesian, Malay or Chinese name is the practical protection.

Grown from rhizome pieces and lifted after a season, as ginger and turmeric are. The plant dies back in the dry season and re-sprouts with the rains, which is the origin of the English name resurrection lily.

Wet tropical lowland with partial shade and free-draining soil. It is a common home-garden plant across its range as well as a field crop.

Kencur has been used across island Southeast Asia in cooking and in jamu, the Indonesian herbal tradition, for a long time, and separately in southern China, where it entered Cantonese cooking as sha jiang. It never became an object of the long-distance spice trade — it is a fresh rhizome with a short life and a divisive flavour — so its distribution today still broadly matches where it grows and where its diaspora went.

A regional trade in fresh, dried and powdered rhizome, with the Indonesian jamu industry a substantial consumer alongside cooking. Volumes are not separately reported in the international statistics.

A major jamu ingredient in Indonesia and a recorded material in Ayurvedic practice in Kerala, where it is used ritually as well as medicinally. Recorded as tradition; SpiceHQ makes no health claim and holds no clinical source assessing it.