A fresh rhizome of turmeric is used extensively in southern Thai cuisine as a colouring and flavouring agent. It makes dishes looks wonderfully yellowish.
The South of Thailand, a peninsula flanked with long coastlines with many beautiful beaches, is rich with fresh supplies of fish, crabs, prawns, lobsters and shellfish. Since seafood often has a fishy smell in itself, people here are likely to add herbs and spices into their dishes to cover that, especially turmeric that also makes many southern Thai dishes look wonderfully yellowish.
Turmeric or khamin in Thai, Curcuma longa, is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial plant of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. It is native to Southeast Asia. Its rhizome that has deep-yellow-orange flesh, imparting earthy and mustard-like aroma and warm, slightly bitter and pepper-like flavour to dishes, is a key ingredient in southern Thai cuisine, especially in making most southern Thai curries. It is often used in fresh form like ginger.
