Tropical Ingredients

Fingerroot

Boesenbergia rotunda

A little goes a long way in pastes, soups and pickles.

5 min read·Updated September 23, 2026
Growing regions: South and Southeast Asia
Other names: Chinese keys (English); Krachai (Thai: กระชาย); Temu kunci (Malay/Indonesian).
Family Zingiberaceae Best for Curries, soups, broths, stir-fries, salads, pickles

Description

Fingerroot is a small member of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae), grown for the fragrant rhizome and roots that give it its name. It is sometimes called "Chinese keys" because the underground parts fan out like a bunch of old-fashioned keys.

The plant is a low perennial, usually around 15–40 cm tall, with broad, light-green leaves carried on reddish leaf sheaths. Under the ground sits a small, rounded central rhizome — roughly the size of a large coin, yellow-brown outside and bright yellow within — and from it sprout several slender, fleshy roots that grow out in one direction "like the fingers of a hand." These finger-like roots are typically about 5–10 cm long and a centimetre or so thick. Their tissue is looser, softer and more watery than the central rhizome, and both are strongly fragrant when cut or bruised.

Flavour-wise, fingerroot is pungent and earthy with a camphor-like, slightly medicinal lift — closer to galangal or turmeric than to the bright heat of ordinary ginger. It is a supporting aromatic rather than a vegetable: a little goes a long way in pastes, soups and pickles.

Origin & History

Fingerroot is native to Southeast Asia and is cultivated across Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Indo-China, India and Sri Lanka. It is a long-standing flavour and food plant whose rhizomes and roots are used as "an aromatic spicy flavouring for food and pickles," and young shoots and roots are eaten raw with rice in parts of Malaysia and Java. In the Mekong Delta the tubers and rhizome are used to colour and flavour rice noodles as a stand-in for turmeric.

Fingerroot remains a largely regional ingredient, most prominent in Thai, Indonesian and Cambodian kitchens. In Thai cuisine it defines herb-heavy, water-based jungle curries, its camphor notes cutting through chilli and fresh greens.

Uses

Culinary

  • Thai curry pastes: Pounded or blended into jungle-curry (kaeng pa) and other herb-forward pastes
  • Cambodian kroeung: A regular element of the lemongrass-ginger-galangal paste that underpins Cambodian cooking
  • Soups and broths: Thin slices or lightly bruised pieces are simmered to infuse fragrance
  • Stir-fries and salads: Julienned young roots add a crisp, aromatic bite
  • Pickles: The rhizome and roots season spicy pickles and relishes
  • Eaten raw: In parts of Malaysia young roots and shoots are eaten raw with rice

Traditional Medicinal Uses

Fingerroot has a place in regional herbal traditions, but culinary fingerroot should not be presented as a treatment for any condition. Studies of concentrated extracts or isolated compounds do not establish that the small amounts used in cooking produce the same effects.

Nutritional Benefits

Fingerroot is used in such small quantities as a flavouring that it contributes little in the way of measurable nutrients. Its value lies in aroma and taste: it makes vegetable curries, soups and rice dishes more appealing without added salt or fat. The rhizome and root contain a fragrant volatile oil dominated by camphor, 1,8-cineole and geraniol — part of its scent chemistry, not a guaranteed health benefit. Enjoy it as a flavouring within a varied diet rather than relying on it as a supplement.

How to Prepare

  1. Choose: Look for firm, plump roots with unbroken, pale brown skin and no soft or shrivelled patches. A fresh cut should be yellow and strongly fragrant.
  2. Wash: Scrub lightly under running water; the skin is thin and does not usually need peeling.
  3. Trim: Cut away any tough or woody ends.
  4. Cut for the dish:
    • For pastes, chop roughly and pound or blend with the other aromatics
    • For soups, slice into thin coins or lightly bruise a whole finger and fish it out before serving
    • For stir-fries and salads, slice into fine matchsticks
  5. Add in stages: Fingerroot releases its aroma with heat; add it early in a curry but briefly in a stir-fry so it keeps its freshness.

Storage

Wrap unwashed fingerroot loosely and refrigerate, or freeze whole; grate or slice from frozen as needed. Dried and powdered forms exist but taste different from fresh, so treat them as a separate ingredient.

Recipes

As Jungle Kitchen develops recipes featuring fingerroot, those will be linked here.

Suggested applications: a jungle-curry-style leafy vegetable curry, fingerroot-and-lemongrass broth, fingerroot pickle, and a Cambodian-style kroeung paste.

Varieties

  • Culinary fingerroot: Usually sold without a cultivar name; root size and colour vary.
  • Black ginger (Kaempferia parviflora), sometimes marketed as krachai dam, is a different species, not a darker version of culinary fingerroot.
  • The taxonomically separate Kaempferia galanga is sometimes sold near fingerroot; it is sand ginger (kencur), not fingerroot.

Fun Facts

  • The name "fingerroot" and "Chinese keys" come from the same feature: slender roots clustered "like the fingers of a hand."
  • Fingerroot has both a rhizome and tuberous roots — the small central rhizome differs from the finger-like roots sprouting off it.
  • It is a relative, not a type, of ginger and galangal, each being a different species with its own character.
  • It was once classified under Kaempferia and Curcuma before landing in Boesenbergia.