Kencur

Kencur (Kaempferia galanga), known in English as sand ginger, aromatic ginger or resurrection lily, is the small, knobbly rhizome of a stemless tropical herb in the ginger family — quite distinct from true ginger and from galangal in both look and smell. It is sharply aromatic and almost medicinal, with a cool, camphor-and-pine character lifted by warm, faintly floral and peppery notes, and it is a defining flavour of Indonesian cooking and of jamu, the country's traditional herbal-tonic tradition. It appears in dishes from urap and pecel to the rice-and-kencur drink beras kencur, and across Southeast Asia, southern China and India as both a kitchen spice and a folk medicine.