What Is Sawtooth Coriander? 🪚 & Other Answers To Questions You Didn't Know You Had 🙋
We recently scored a haul of plants, fruits, veggies, and herbs when my Cambodian in-laws returned to finish renovating the cabin.
Morning Glory Picker 🌿
My Cambodian brother-in-law and uncle-in-law have returned from rice re-planting in the Pursat countryside, and with them they brought a bunch of goodies. Srey-Yuu picked the yellow leaves from the morning glory to prepare it for tomorrow's meal.
While she was picking leaves, I told her to look at the camera and pause, but she refused. I then made a stupid joke of some kind, I honestly can't remember what I said, but it invoked laughter, giving me the opportunity to shoot a natural in-the-moment pic. In the background is our new family friend, conveniently aged in between our daughters, and therefore a good playmate for both.
Enough Noni For Fermenting 🏺
The guys also brought some noni fruit, valuable to us, but worthless to most Cambodians who only use the leaves in a few traditional curries and soups. We ferment the fruit in jars and strain away the fruit after a few weeks. Noni is magical, you only need to wash them and throw them in jar, nature will do the rest.
Garden Prepping 👩🌾
We've got one area of our property convenient for gardening. It has good enough soil, but it's also been used as a dump and trash burning site, no work gets done without picking out copious amounts of trash in the process. There was already some sweet potatoes, sugarcane, and pea eggplants growing here, but we still need to get some other things going.
There are some other areas of our property where sawtooth coriander grows, aka culantro. While working on this little patch, my wife noticed this lone plant growing. It's basically a weed and needs little love, but I find its taste superior to regular coriander. I'm not sure if the plants are scientifically related, but the taste is quite similar, except that sawtooth coriander's flavor doesn't get weaker the longer it gets cooked.
I believe this to be our only sugarcane bunch on the property. It's not a healthy plant, but we're content to leave it be and see if it will grow a bit more before it gets chopped into cubes and turned into snacks.
The Struggle Is Real 🍍
Monkey-B always struggles to open the tin of pineapple biscuits. There is no tool perfect for the job, and it either takes a lot of patience or Hulk-like strength to crack this snack safe.
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Poor Monkey B ...I know the difficultu when I was a kid her age....the first thing I did was to loosen the lid cover with a knife used for eating, it worked tho.... But I still have problems even these days to open lids of paint....hahaha
Haha, in a way I like the difficulty, seems to prevent the kids from eating too many too quickly. Monkey-B has destroyed a few pairs of fingernail clippers when we weren't around once. I guess she really wanted in that biscuit tin.
I don't know what sawtooth coriander is, what I do know is regular coriander which is often used by mothers and my wife as a spice for cooking.
That's right, and there's no mistaking it, after I zoomed in on the photo of the yellow leaf you mentioned that was picked by Srey-Yuu, it's a type of vegetable called kale. We in Indonesia call it kangkung and it is very delicious if we cook it by sautéing with shrimp paste. hmmm.. yummy taste 🤤
Hahaha.. it's very funny to see Monkey-B's face when he is about to open the biscuit tin. Really your family is a happy family my friend 😁
Regular coriander is very regional here, but not common in the area we live. Through the years I've gotten used to sawtooth coriander as a replacement, and I honestly like it better. Back in the USA it's sometimes called Mexican coriander because it's very common in Mexican cuisine.
Yep, kangkung, I know that name, but here it's called "trakuen," still a similar sounding name. In Cambodia shrimp paste is common, but prahok, a fermented fish paste, is the more common ingredient for stink and saltiness.
Breaking into the biscuit tin is like a pirate feeling for Monkey-B.
The 6th photo at the background, the clouds and fog behind the house is marvelously cool. Suddenly reminds me of the Avatar show.
Sugar cane is my stuff. My grandma used to chopped one node for each of us, sliced off the skin and we start biting and chewing it the whole day whilst watching cartoon. Until, my little cousin brother start growing up. The sugarcane no longer pure sweet, and had a taste of saltiness to it. Just to found out my youngest cousin nurture the bunch of sugarcane plant with his pee several times a day.
The trick of easy open and close biscuit tin can, is to lay a piece of newspaper on top before sealing back with the cover. Next time, just pull the newspaper and the cover will pop open. I believe any paper can do the trick, but we prefer newspaper.
Sugarcane juice is more common here, but some people still like to chew the cubes. In the bigger cities there are still vendors that push carts around selling chopped sugarcane bits chilled on ice. Oh no, I hope Monkey-B doesn't learn the newspaper trick, easy access to the pineapple biscuit tin could result in overeating and extended sugar-induced naps.
Every year a lot of sugarcane is cultivated in the land next to our house, just as it is good to eat. And coriander leaves are very familiar to me, moreover, they are produced in large quantities in our backyard, we use them regularly in cooking.
I miss real coriander, wish we had it here, but the sawtooth coriander is a suitable replacement. I get coriander seeds from an Indian spice shop, and sometimes I get lucky when they are very fresh because I can sprout and grow them.
Hi hi Justin wow.. what a wonderful post.. alot of the crops are found here in Malaysia too.. the pineapple biscuits are definitely one of my favourite.. hahaha.. At least it's a view of SreyYuu laughing from the side.. 😀😀😀
Do you have have the green plant that tastes like coriander in Malaysia? Not sure what you'd call it there, but I've heard it called culantro, Mexican coriander, sawtooth coriander, and the Cambodian translation is "thorn herb." The name is for good reason, when the lower leaves get old, the spines can actually draw blood if you squeeze too tightly.
Hi hi.. Justin.. I think there is coriander here.. it has that slight bitter taste right? haha.. usually placed into soups .. or as garnish for some dishes... It's great to see what Cambodian herbs look like. Many are similar. I guess, equatorial herbs.. =) hahah.. =)
Coriander can be bitter to some, often confused with parsley, which is a more common garnish. Parsley is more common in Cambodia, and many herb sellers mistakenly sell parsley as coriander, so I prefer to use sawtooth coriander because it's more common here and the flavor is almost identical.
Ooo okie... Yea.. I did not know that they are different .. hahaha.. learnt something new from you today.. 👍😀
We have morning glory here as well. Good to see your family consuming a lot of vegetables and local products, all these are very healthy.
I love this leafy green, so many ways to prepare it, but in Cambodia it's always with oyster sauce and garlic, super simple but very popular. I prefer stir-frying it with mustards seeds and coconut meat, but I'm partial to Indian flavors.