Parsley

Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) is a bright green, biennial herb, also used as spice. Having originated in Iran ("Pars"), it thus acquired its European name. It is very common in Middle Eastern, European, and American cooking. Parsley is used for its leaf in much the same way as coriander (which is also known as Chinese parsley or cilantro), although it has a milder flavor.

Varieties
Two forms of parsley are used as herbs: curly leaf and Italian, or flat leaf (P. neapolitanum). Curly leaf parsley is often used as a garnish. Many people think flat leaf parsley has a stronger flavor, and this opinion is backed by chemical analysis which finds much higher levels of essential oil in the flat-leaved cultivars[citation needed]. One of the compounds of the essential oil is apiol. The use of curly leaf parsley may be favored by some because it cannot be confused with poison hemlock, like flat leaf parsley or chervil.

Root parsley
Another type of parsley is grown as a root vegetable, as with hamburg root parsley. This type of parsley produces much thicker roots than types cultivated for their leaves. Although little known in Britain and the United States, root parsley is very common in Central and Eastern European cuisine, where it is used in most soups or stews.
Though it looks similar to parsnip it tastes quite different. Parsnips are among the closest relatives of parsley in the umbellifer family of herbs, although the similarity of the names is a coincidence, parsnip meaning "forked turnip". It is not related to real turnips.

Culinary uses
In parts of Europe, and particularly in West Asia, many foods are served with chopped parsley sprinkled on top. The fresh flavor of parsley goes extremely well with fish. Parsley is a key ingredient in several West Asian salads, e.g., tabbouleh which is the national dish of Lebanon. In Southern and Central Europe, parsley is part of bouquet garni, a bundle of fresh herbs used to flavor stocks, soups, and sauces. Additionally, parsley is often used as a garnish. Persillade is mixture of chopped garlic and chopped parsley. Gremolata is a mixture of parsley, garlic, and lemon zest.

Spring Onion

A spring onion, also commonly known as scallion, green onion or salad onion, is associated with various members of the genus Allium that lack a fully-developed bulb. They tend to be milder tasting than other onions and are typically steamed and set in salads in western cookery and cooked in many Asian recipes. Diced scallions are often used in soup, noodle and seafood dishes, and in sauces in eastern dishes, after removing the bottom quarter-inch or so of the root end.

The species most commonly associated with the name is the Welsh onion, Allium fistulosum. "Scallion" is sometimes used for Allium ascalonicum, better known as the shallot. The words scallion and shallot are related and can be traced back to the Greek askolonion as described by the Greek writer Theophrastus; this name, in turn, seems to originate from the Philistine town of Ascalon (modern-day Ashkelon in Israel). The shallots themselves apparently came from farther east.

Mint Leaf

Mentha (mint) is a genus of about 25 species (and many hundreds of varieties[1]) of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae (Mint Family). Species within Mentha have a subcosmopolitan distribution across Europe, Africa, Asia,[2] Australia, and North America. Several mint hybrids commonly occur.

Mints are aromatic, almost exclusively perennial, rarely annual, herbs. They have wide-spreading underground rhizomes and erect, branched stems. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs, from simple oblong to lanceolate, often downy, and with a serrated margin. Leaf colors range from dark green and gray-green to purple, blue and sometimes pale yellow.[2] The flowers are produced in clusters ('verticils') on an erect spike, white to purple, the corolla two-lipped with four subequal lobes, the upper lobe usually the largest. The fruit is a small dry capsule containing one to four seeds.
While the species that make up the Mentha genus are widely distributed and can be found in many environments, many grow best in wet environments and moist soils. Mints will grow 10–120 cm tall and can spread over an indeterminate sized area. Due to the tendency to spread unchecked, mints are considered invasive.

Culinary
A jar of mint jelly. Mint jelly is a traditional condiment served with lamb dishes.
The leaf, fresh or dried, is the culinary source of mint. Fresh mint is usually preferred over dried mint when storage of the mint is not a problem. The leaves have a pleasant warm, fresh, aromatic, sweet flavor with a cool aftertaste. Mint leaves are used in teas, beverages, jellies, syrups, candies, and ice creams. In Middle Eastern cuisine mint is used on lamb dishes. In British cuisine, mint sauce is popular with lamb. Mint is a necessary ingredient in Touareg tea, a popular tea in northern African and Arab countries.
Alcoholic drinks sometimes feature flavor of mint, namely the Mint Julep and the Mojito. Crème de menthe is a mint-flavored liqueur used in drinks such as the grasshopper.
Mint essential oil and menthol are extensively used as flavorings in breath fresheners, drinks, antiseptic mouth rinses, toothpaste, chewing gum, desserts, and candies; see mint (candy) and mint chocolate. The substances that give the mints their characteristic aromas and flavors are menthol (the main aroma of Peppermint, and Japanese Peppermint) and pulegone (in Pennyroyal and Corsican Mint). The compound primarily responsible for the aroma and flavor of spearmint is R-carvone.
Methyl salicylate, commonly called "oil of wintergreen", is often used as a mint flavoring for foods and candies due to its mint-like flavor.
Mints are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Buff Ermine.

why HERBS

A(n) herb (pronounced /ˈhɝb/ or /ˈɝb/; see pronunciation differences) is a plant that is valued for qualities such as medicinal properties, flavor, scent, or the like.[1]

Use
Herbs have a variety of uses including culinary, medicinal, or in some cases even spiritual entheogen usage. General usage differs between culinary herbs and medicinal herbs. In medicinal or spiritual use any of the parts of the plant might be considered "herbs", including leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, resin, root bark, inner bark (cambium), berries and sometimes the pericarp or other portions.

Culinary
Culinary use of the term "herb" is more restricted. Culinary use typically distinguishes between herbs, from the leafy green parts of a plant, and spices, from other parts of the plant (including seeds, berries, bark, root, fruit, and even occasionally dried leaves). Culinary herbs are distinguished from vegetables in that like spices they are used in small amounts and provide flavor rather than substance to food.
Some herbs are shrubs (such as rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis), or trees (such as bay laurel, Laurus nobilis) – this contrasts with botanical herbs, which by definition cannot be woody plants.
Many plants contain phytochemicals that have effects on the body. There may be some effects even when consumed in the small levels that typify culinary "spicing", and some herbs are toxic in larger quantities. For instance, some types of herbal extract, such as the extract of St. John's-wort (Hypericum perforatum) or of kava (Piper methysticum) can be used for medical purposes to relieve depression and stress. However, large amounts of these herbs may lead to poisoning, and should be used with caution.

BAY LEAF / DAUN SALAM

Bay leaf (plural bay leaves), Greek Daphni, Romanian Foi de Dafin; is the aromatic leaf of several species of the Laurel family (Lauraceae). Fresh or dried bay leaves are used in cooking for their distinctive flavor and fragrance.
Laurus nobilis, is a culinary herb often used to flavor soups, stews, and braises and pâtés in Mediterranean Cuisine. The fresh leaves are very mild and do not develop their full flavor until several weeks after picking and drying.

California bay leaf
The leaf of the California bay tree (Umbellularia californica), also known as 'California laurel', 'Oregon myrtle', and 'pepperwood', is similar to the Mediterranean bay but has a stronger flavor.
"Indian bay leaf" (also tej pat, tejpat, tejpata तेजपत्ता or Tamalpatra तमालपत्र)
The leaf of the Cinnamomum tejpata (malabathrum) tree is similar in fragrance and taste to cinnamon bark, but milder. In appearance, it is similar to the other bay leaves but is culinarily quite different, having an aroma and flavor more similar to that of Cassia. It is inaccurately called a bay leaf as it is of a different genus (though the same family) as the bay laurel.
"Indonesian bay leaf" or "Indonesian laurel" (salam leaf)
The leaf of Syzygium polyanthum. Used mostly in dry form although the fresh one gives the "right" flavor. The leaf used in certain soups or steamed preparations. Like Indian bay leaf, it is also an inaccurate name because, unlike bay leaf, the plant belongs to Myrtaceae.

Taste and aroma
If eaten whole, bay leaves are pungent and have a sharp, bitter taste. The flavor of the California bay leaf is a bit more intense and bitter than the Turkish variety. As with many spices and flavorings, the fragrance of the bay leaf is more noticeable in cooked foods than the taste. When dried, the fragrance is herbal, slightly floral, and somewhat similar to oregano and thyme. Myrcene, an essential oil used in perfumery can be extracted from the bay leaf. The flavor and aroma of bay leaves owes in large part to the essential oil eugenol.

Culinary use

Bay leaves are a fixture in the cooking of many European cuisines (particularly those of the Mediterranean), as well as in North America. They are used in soups, stews, meat, seafood, and vegetable dishes. The leaves also flavor classic French dishes such as bouillabaise and bouillon. The leaves are most often used whole (sometimes in a bouquet garni), and removed before serving. In Indian cuisine, bay leaves are often used in biryani and many salads.
Bay leaves can also be crushed (or ground) before cooking. Crushed bay leaves impart more of their desired fragrance than whole leaves, and there is less chance of biting into a leaf directly.

Asam Jawa

Asam jawa merupakan buah yang boleh di makan yang dipetik dari pokok Asam Jawa. Nama botaninya Tamarindus indica.
Asam jawa mempunyai kelonsong yang mengandungi beberapa biji asam jawa didalamnya. Kelonsongnya yang keras akan dipecahkan dan isinya akan diasingkan dari biji benih yang terdapat didalamnya.
Asam jawa merupakan sejenis ramuan masakan yang terkenal dikalangan masyarakat Melayu. Biasanya asam jawa akan dilarutkan ke dalam air dan hanya airnya digunakan dalam masakan. Hampasnya pada kebiasaannya dibuang.
Selain digunakan dalam masakan, asam jawa juga boleh dimakan begitu sahaja ataupun dengan ditambah dengan gula. Selain itu asam jawa juga digunakan secara tradisional bagi mengubat batuk dan perit tekak.

Daun Kesum/ Vietnamese Mint

Pokok Kesum merupakan tumbuhan yang banyak terdapat di ASEAN. Nama saintifiknya Polygonum minus
Terdapat bahagian pokok Kesum yang boleh diambil untuk dijadikan makanan. Daun Kesum sering diambil dan dijadikan bahan masakan yang sungguh menyelerakan.

To grow your own daun kesum is a great way to start a herb garden. Daun kesum is an essential ingredient for making laksa. Without daun kesum, there is no way your laksa can be complete. At some places in Malaysia, daun kesum is refered to as "daun laksa" or laksa leaves. The English name for it is most probably Vietnamese mint but I am not really sure because the real Vietnamese mint is maybe slightly different but still belongs to the same family. Daun kesum is a member of the mint family. It is a very easy to grow herb.
The leaves are elongated, with soft stalk, each segment of the stalk has the potential to grow into another bunch of mint leaves because roots sprout from the stalk itself.
You can grow your own daun kesum from any laksa stalks you sometimes get as garnish when you bought laksa from a hakwer's stall.
Living in an apartment on the fourth floor, I do not have enough space for having a garden, but I can grow daun kesum easily from a plastic container (like used ice-cream tub) filled with some damp earth.
The leaves are green and will turn yellow and then brown when they start withering. The stalks will grow and grow if you let them but usually I trim the tips to let them branch out.
Other than laksa, the leaves can be used as an additional herb when you make nasi ulam, nasi kerabu and when you make asam pedas or other fish dishes. It can be sliced thinly as garnishing, eaten raw or added in sour spicy soup like laksa.
The smell of this minty herb is strong and unmistakable. Therefore, it is good to be used in a fish dish with gravy to counterbalance the fishy smell.
To start planting the herb is very simple indeed.
Get a few stalks of fresh daun kesum from the wet market or if your friend has a herb garden, ask for some stalks from her.
Place the stalks in a jam jar or glass filled with 1 cm of water. Let them sit for a few days until a substantial length of roots can be seen growing at the bottom of the jar.
Transfer your stalks into a container filled with damp earth. Cover about 2.5cm of the stalks in the dirt. Make sure the bottom of the container has some small holes to let excess water to flow out. See, it is easy to grow your own daun kesum.
The herb needs very little maintenance except for enough water to ensure the earth it is planted in is always damp. Oh yes, also plenty of sunlight. You can place the herb pot at the window sill or if you have a balcony, place it there. It grows well in your backyard too.
Fertilizer made of compost is good for the leaves. Old wives have this tip to nourish your herbs: use the bloody water that remained after washing and gutting your fish to spray on the leaves and earth, it is supposed to be full of nutrients for plant. Do this treatment every two weeks or so.
Daun kesum grows very fast. Given good care and enough water, within a week you can already have a bunch filling up your ice-cream tub already.

Daun Kari / Curry Leaves

Istilah "curry" dalam bahasa Inggeris mungkin berasal daripada perkataan bahasa Tamil yang merujuk kepada mana-mana satu hidangan sampingan yang dimakan bersama-sama dengan nasi. [1] Selain itu, daun kari yang dikenali dalam bahasa Tamil sebagai 'karuvapillai' (secara harfiahnya bermaksud "daun hitam") digunakan dalam berbagai-bagai hidangan umum di India Selatan yang diperbuat daripada sayur-sayuran atau daging dan biasanya, dimakan dengan nasi.

For the "Curry Plant", see Helichrysum italicum. Kadipatta or Sweet Neem leaf

The small flowers are white and fragrant.
The Curry Tree or Kadipatta or Sweet Neem leaf.(Murraya koenigii; syn. Bergera koenigii, Chalcas koenigii) is a tropical to sub-tropical tree in the family Rutaceae, which is native to India. at Jayanti in Buxa Tiger Reserve in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal, India.
It is a small tree, growing 4-6 m tall, with a trunk up to 40 cm diameter. The leaves are pinnate, with 11-21 leaflets, each leaflet 2-4 cm long and 1-2 cm broad. The flowers are small white, and fragrant. The small black, shiny berries are edible, but their seeds are poisonous.
The species name commemorates the botanist Johann Gerhard Koenig.

Its leaves are highly aromatic and are used as a herb. Their form is small and narrow and they somewhat resemble the leaves of the Neem tree; therefore they are also referred to as Kari Baavu (translated to Black Neem) in the Kannada language and Karivepaku in Telugu, again translating to the same meaning. In Tamil and Malayalam it is known as Karuveppilai, ilai meaning leaves and veppilai meaning Neem leaf. Other names include Kari Patta (Hindi), Bhursunga Patra (Oriya), Kadhi Limb (Marathi), Kadhi Limdo (Gujarati) and Karapincha (Sinhalese).
They are commonly used as seasoning in Indian and Sri Lankan cooking, much like bay leaves and especially in curries with fish or coconut milk. In their fresh form, they have a short shelf life though they may be stored in a freezer for quite some time. They are also available dried, though the aroma is inferior.
Various biological activities of Murraya koenigii include antidiabetic , antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, anti-hypercholesterolemic etc.,

Daun Pandan / Pandan Leaves / ScrewPine

Pokok Pandan merupakan sejenis pokok yang banyak kegunaannya bagi orang-orang Melayu. Ia digunakan sebagai pewangi makanan dan dalam upacara tertentu seperti sebagai bunga rampai dalam istiadat perkahwinan Melayu.

Pandanus amaryllifolius is a tropical plant in the screwpine genus which is known commonly as pandan and used widely in Southeast Asian cooking. It is an erect green plant with fan-shaped sprays of long, narrow, bladelike leaves and woody aerial roots. The plant is sterile, flowers only very rarely, and is propagated by cuttings.
The plant is rare in the wild but cultivated widely for use as a flavoring in cooking. The leaves are used fresh or wilted, and are commercially available in frozen form in Asian grocery stores in nations where the plant does not grow. They have a nutty, botanical fragrance which enhances the flavor of Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Indonesian foods, especially rice dishes and cakes. The leaves are sometimes steeped in coconut milk, which is then added to the dish. They may be tied in a bunch and cooked with the food. They also may be woven into a basket which is used as a pot for cooking rice. Pandan chicken, or gai ob bai toey, is a Thai dish with chicken wrapped in pandan leaves and fried. The leaves are also used as a flavoring for desserts such as pandan cake and sweet beverages.
In Indonesian it is called pandan wangi and in Vietnamese it is called lá dứa. The leaves of the plant have a repellent effect on cockroaches.[1]
The characteristic aroma of pandan is caused by the aroma compound 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline which also gives white bread, jasmine rice and basmati rice, and bread flowers (Vallais glabra) their typical smell

Bunga Kantan / Ginger Flower / Torch Ginger

Pokok Bunga Kantan atau juga dikenali sebagai bunga siantan merupakan sejenis pokok saka herba.
Bunga pokok ini yang berwarna merah muda banyak digunakan sebagai gubahan hiasan manakala tunas bunga ini dijadikan bahan memasak dalam masakan Melayu seperti laksa dan nasi kerabu. Dibungkus seperti sayuran dan tak sesuai diletakkan dalam plastik.
Diambil daripada "http://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunga_kantan"

Ginger Flower
Etlingera elatior, syn. Nicolaia elatior, formerly Phaeomeria speciosa
Also known as torch ginger. The showy pink flowers of a tall perennial look almost too pretty to eat but their flavour is an essential ingredient in some dishes. Difficult to procure outside Asia at present, they will probably soon be grown and sold the way other Asian herbs are in large Western cities.
Vietnamese mint has a remarkably similar fragrance and pungency and may be substituted. Some of the popular laksa soups feature a sprinkling of finely shredded ginger bud, while others use laksa leaf. The Malaysian name for ginger flower is bunga kantan or bunga siantan. In Thailand, young shoots and flowers are served raw with nam prik.
Other Languages:Malaysia: bunga kantanThailand: kaalaa