Lemongrass-Sitronnel

Lemongrass, grown in abundance all over the Seychelles Islands, is a perennial plant with thin, long leaves. It has a citrus like (lemon) smell and has long being used as a flavouring in Asian style cooking. When added to recipes, the citrus-like flavour of the lemongrass adds a unique element to the meal.
The stalk is the part of the plant that is usually used in cookery. To prepare lemongrass, remove the tough outer leaves from the stalk until you reach the pale interior and then trim the very top and bottom. From there one can smash, finely chop, grate or pulverise the stalk into a paste.

Until recently, lemongrass was not a very popular ingredient in the Creole cuisine. The leaves were mainly used for herbal teas to assist in the reduction of high fevers or as one of the ingredients, together with cinnamon leaves, lemon leaves, for a ‘bain de pied’ or bendpye in creole’ , a traditional steam bath whereby one sits on a bench close to a boiling hot water in which the leaves mentioned above have been infused and is covered with a blanket. This leads to increased perspiration and eventually the removal of the fever.