Gardening – Asian cooking inspiration

I must admit I’m a big fan of Asian style food, particularly South-East Asian. I drool at the thought of a bowl of well-crafted beef massaman and an expertly made tom yung soup is to die for! The main cook in my house is Angela, she makes a great curry, which is amazing as she can’t taste it due to allergies to both curry and chili but, of course, as she can’t eat the results of her cooking and there are only two of us at home now, sadly for me that means less of these dishes to enjoy. Best I put on an apron then I hear you say, but unfortunately my cooking skills are next to zero.

That doesn’t stop me from growing as many ingredients as I can. I’m so grateful that our mild and relatively wet climate suits many of the SE Asian specialties, with a bit of attention to feeding, watering and placement. Some plants are easy to acquire – others take a bit of searching.

Aside from what you are probably already growing such as tomatoes, mint, kumara (leaves and tubers), snow peas, zucchini and capsicums, to grow your own fresh ingredients, here’s a list of those that can be grown outside in this area (the most essential are listed first):

Lemongrass, Vietnamese mint (rau ram), chillies (particularly birds-eye), basil (Thai, sacred and lemon), coriander (cilantro), garlic chives, shiso (perilla), eggplant (particularly the small round Thai or the thin Chinese varieties), bok choy (pak choi), Chinese broccoli (gai lan), mizuna (Japanese mustard greens), yard long beans (snake beans), makrut lime (kaffir lime), yuzu lime, Tahitian lime, banana (leaves & fruit), turmeric (leaves & rhizomes), galangal, ginger, kra chai (finger root), false cardamom (leaves), sichuan pepper, myoga ginger, curry leaf, immortelle (curry bush), bitter gourd, tropical guava and pineapple.

Nearly all the above are already growing in my garden, although some such as pineapple and galangal will do better with a bit of cold protection. The list below is a little more difficult to grow (for example needing a greenhouse or a pond) or harder to acquire:

Pandan (I’m still looking for one of these, the prices have been astronomical!), water spinach (ong choi), cassava (sadly I only have the non-edible variety), lotus (all parts), butterfly pea, papaya, mango, lychee, rambutan, jackfruit and tamarind. From time-to-time, I sell these and other unusual plants on Trademe, along with lots of bromeliads (my seller name is croplink).

Almost impossible to grow here, but I’m having a good go, are coconut, cacao, vanilla (mine are yet to flower and fruit), and torch ginger (I’m just about to try germinating my fourth batch of seed, fingers crossed). Only the completely insane gardeners need bother trying to grow these.

There are many other plants that can be used in SE Asian dishes, but if you can grow even some of these, your cooking will be elevated to a new level. And if you can’t be bothered growing these plants, but you can whip up a mean tom yum goong or pad Thai, I’d seriously consider swapping it for fresh produce from my garden!