Meaning & use
galangal chinese
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Meanings
noununcountable
A plant of the ginger family from Southeast Asia with thick, pale orange roots used as a spice in cooking.
Grammar: Used as a mass noun for the root or the spice; the growing plant is countable: a galangal chinese grows well in damp soil.
Patterns
- a piece of galangal chinese
- add galangal chinese to something
- fresh galangal chinese
The soup gets its warm, pine-like flavor from a few slices of galangal chinese.
She bruised a thumb-sized piece of galangal chinese and dropped it into the curry paste.
You can buy galangal chinese frozen in most Asian grocery stores.
noununcountable
The dried or fresh root of this plant, sold as a cooking ingredient.
Grammar: No plural when it means the ingredient; say "some galangal chinese", not "a galangal chinese".
Patterns
- grated galangal chinese
- a slice of galangal chinese
- substitute something for galangal chinese
If you cannot find it, use the same amount of ordinary ginger in place of the galangal chinese.
The recipe calls for two teaspoons of grated galangal chinese.
Common combinations
- fresh galangal chinese
- Fresh galangal chinese has a sharper smell than the dried kind.
- a slice of galangal chinese
- Drop a slice of galangal chinese into the broth and take it out before serving.
- grated galangal chinese
- Stir the grated galangal chinese into the paste until it is smooth.
- substitute ginger for galangal chinese
- Many cooks substitute ginger for galangal chinese when they run out.
Synonyms and how they differ
- greater galangal
- The more common English name for the same root; use it if you want to be understood in a spice shop.
- Thai ginger
- A friendly everyday name for this root, though it is not actually ginger.
- blue ginger
- A decorative name sometimes used for the same plant, especially the flowering kind.
Word family
- galangal noun
- The general name for the whole group of these roots, including the smaller, sharper kind.
Commonly confused: galangal chinese or ginger? galangal chinese or galangal?
galangal chinese vs ginger
Ginger is the familiar hot, sweet root sold in every supermarket; galangal chinese is bigger, harder and tastes more like pine and citrus.
galangal chinese vs galangal
On its own, "galangal" often means the small, peppery kind used in Thai cooking, so be clear which one you want.
Practice
Which sentence uses the word correctly?
Choose one answer.
As a cooking ingredient the word is uncountable, so "a slice of galangal chinese" is right. Option A wrongly adds a plural ending, C treats it as a countable subject, and D invents a verb.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “galangal chinese”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.