Eryngium foetidum
culantro • eryngo • sawtooth coriander
Back to “Culinary herbs: culantro, long coriander, eryngo (Eryngium foetidum); eryngo, culantro, long coriander (Eryngium foetidum)”
Eryngium foetidum L. (Apiaceae); Meksikaanse koljander (Afrikaans); ci yán sui, yang yuan sui (Chinese); chardon étoile fétide, panicaut fétide, herbe puante, coriandre mexicain (French); Langer Koriander, Mexikanischer Koriander (German); pereniaru korianda (Japanese); ketumbar java (Malay); cilantro extranjero (Mexican Spanish); culantro, racao, recao (Spanish); phak chee farang (Thai); uzun kişniş (Turkish); ngò gai (Vietnamese)
DESCRIPTION The stiff and leathery leaves are markedly toothed along their margins and have a strong, pungent smell. The herb is usually referred to as culantro in English-speaking Caribbean countries but has many English names, including long coriander, wild or Mexican coriander, fitweed, stinkweed, saw-leaf herb or sawtooth coriander.1 Other regional names include chadron benee (Dominica), coulante (Haiti), recao (Puerto Rico) or shado beni and bhandhania (Trinidad and Tobago).1 It should not be confused with cilantro (Coriandrum sativum).
THE PLANT A biennial herb with oblong leaves borne in basal rosettes. The small white flowers are arranged in dense oblong heads, surrounded by whorls of leaf-like bracts.1,2
ORIGIN Tropical America (especially the Caribbean Islands) but widely cultivated and naturalized in parts of Africa and the United States.1 It spread from China to all parts of Asia.3
CULTIVATION Culantro is easily propagated by sowing the small, dry, two-seeded fruits. The plants grow in partial shade and require rich soil and regular watering.1
HARVESTING Young shoots are harvested for use as a fresh herb (but it retains the distinctive flavour when dried). Culantro is well known throughout Latin America and the Far East but is rather poorly known in the United States, Canada and Europe despite large volumes imported (mainly from Puerto Rico and Trinidad) to meet the demand from ethnic populations.1 In China, the herb is grown and harvested in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan Island and Yunnan.2
CULINARY USES Culantro is used as a spice and seasoning in a wide range of vegetable and meat dishes, chutneys, preserves, sauces and snack foods.1 In Asian cuisine (especially in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore) it is commonly used with cilantro (or replaces cilantro) in curries, noodle dishes and soups.1 It is often used to mask the smell of beef and other strong-smelling food items. For this reason it is added to Thai raw beef salad (larp), offal soup, and tom yam soup made with beef rather than seafood.4 Culantro is popular in Latin America and especially in Puerto Rico, where it is an essential ingredient of the local version of salsa, a spicy sauce made from chillies, garlic, onion, tomatoes and lemon juice and usually eaten with tortilla chips. It is also an ingredient of sofrito or recaito, a Puerto Rican spice mixture used in a wide range of food items and sauces, including soups, stews and rice dishes.1
FLAVOUR COMPOUNDS The leaves contain an essential oil rich in aliphatic aldehydes, of which (E)-2-dodecenal is the main compound (nearly 60%), accompanied by small amounts of 2,3,6-trimethylbenzaldehyde, dodecanal and (E)-2-tridecenal.5
NOTES The similarity with cilantro (and stink bugs) is due to 2-dodecenal (see Coriandrum sativum).
1. Ramcharan, C. 1999. Culantro: A much utilized, little understood herb. In: Janick, J. (Ed.), Perspectives on new crops and new uses, pp. 506–509. ASHS Press, Alexandria, VA.
2. Hu, S.-Y. 2005. Food plants of China. The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong.
3. Burkill, I.H. 1966. A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsula, Vol. 1, p. 944. Crown Agents for the Colonies, London.
4. Hutton, W. 1997. Tropical herbs and spices. Periplus Editions, Singapore.
5. Thakuri, B.C., Chanotiva, C.S., Padalia, R.C., Mathela, C.S., 2006. Leaf essential oil of Eryngium foetidum L. from far western Nepal. Journal of Essential Oil Bearing Plants 9: 251–256.