|
| Coriander (flowering plant) |
Coriander is an essential part of curry powder (see curry leaves) and Indian masalas as well in Northern India (garam masala, see cumin) as in the South (sambaar podi, see cumin); furthermore, Ethiopian berbere, which much resembles Indian spice mixtures, contains coriander fruits (see long pepper). Lastly, it should be noted that also Latin American cuisine makes much use of them. Roasting or frying, much practiced in India and Sri Lanka, enhances the flavour.
Coriander leaves (also called coriander green) are popular over the most part
of Asia. Used in China and India regionally (e.g., in Maharashtra), they are
indispensable in Thailand. In Thai cooking, coriander leaves are often used to
add additional flavour to soups (see kaffir lime),
salads (see peppermint) and curries; for
green curry paste, both root and leaves are needed (see
coconut). The heartland of coriander leaf usage in
South East Asia, however, is Vietnam. Particularly in South Vietnam, chopped
coriander leaves appear as decorations on nearly every dish (sometimes combined
with or substituted by peppermint or
Vietnamese coriander). They are less enjoyed in
Malaysia and Indonesia.
| ||
|
Coriander leaves resemble European parsley leaves in a number of ways: They have similar shape and are both best used raw, as the flavour vanishes after prolonged cooking. In both plants, the root has a similar flavour than the leaves, and its flavour turns out to tolerate boiling or simmering much better.
Arabic cooking makes use of both coriander leaves and fruits. Zhoug (or zhug [زوق]), a spicy paste typical for Yemeni cookery, is a recipe that contains coriander leaves (sometimes also coriander fruits) besides green chiles, garlic, cardamom and black pepper. Further, optional ingredients are cumin, lemon juice and olive oil. Several recipes name caraway as an ingredient, but I am not sure that this is not a translation error. All components are processed to a thick paste. Zhoug may be used as a relish, bread dip or condiment. A version of zhoug prepared with red chiles is known as shatta [شطة], which is also an Arabic name of red chiles.
Arabic spice mixtures containing coriander fruits alone are berbere from Ethiopia (see long pepper) and baharat from the Gulf states (see paprika).
Use of coriander leaves is also frequent in Latin America, especially México (e.g., in salsa, see long coriander, or ceviche, see lime). Another famous Mexican food relying on coriander leaves is guacamole, a spicy coarse mash from avocados, chopped tomatoes, lime juice, onions, garlic, chiles and coriander leaves. For the heat, Mexicans most often use the green jalapeño or the slightly hotter serrano (see also paprika), but actually I prefer the flavourful habanero or related chiles for that food.
The Mexican herb epazote is sometimes substituted by cilantro leaves, especially outside México; but the two plants have little in common, and I think that savory or thyme might be better suited.
Coriander leaves are most often used raw; cooking or even short frying tends
to diminish their fragrance. As always, there are exceptions to that rule:
In some Indian and Central Asian recipes, coriander leaves are used in huge
amounts and long-cooked till they dissolve and their flavour mellows.
An example is the Iranian herb sauce ghorme, see
fenugreek.
|
| Coriander umbel |
Being confronted with coriander leaves for the first time, many people from Europe or Northern America find their taste repulsive. This may change after some time of forced exposure to this herb; after two months in Vietnam, I found myself unable to enjoy noodle soups (pho [phở], see Vietnamese cinnamon on Northern Vietnamese and Vietnamese coriander on Southern Vietnamese noodle soups, respectively) without coriander leaves, although I pretty much had disliked the taste when I had entered the country. Today, I shouldn't even dream of preparing Vietnamese soups without first finding a supply of coriander green; I have, however, noticed that my guest usually have not yet reached the necessary degree of mastership over their own taste buds and, thus, prefer their soup bowls without coriander leaves.
Yet, even in Europe, the popularity of coriander leaves has increased steeply
in the last years of the late millennium (in the USA, a similar development
had taken place a decade earlier). Due to the increasing interest in ethnic
cookery, and the success of Mexican and Thai restaurants, coriander leaves are
now more appreciated in Europe than ever before. In conjunction with the changing eating
habits, new recipes are published that make heavy use of formerly hardly-known
herbs, coriander being one of them. See also rocket
about “zeitgeist cooking”.
