We started organising our Chinese herbs because we were not familiar with its names. How to differentiate the similar looking American ginseng and dang gwai (Angelica roots)?
The fact that we are unable to read Chinese, in which the names of the herbs are called and printed make its even more difficult.
To make picking Chinese herbs to boil soup an easy task, we started keeping them in takeaway plastic containers and then asked our herbalise to print for us labels. After a while, the habit sticks as we find that storing herbs in container and labelling them has many benefits.
MATERIALS
> Plastic containers
> Duct tape
> Permanent marker pen
> Scissors
TUTORIAL
- Transfer herbs into plastic container.
- Stick duct tape at the side of the plastic container.
- Label the herbs with a marker pen. We like to write both the Chinese and English name of each herb, whenever we can.
- Stack them up in the fridge.
TIPS
- Do ask your herbalist to pack your herbs in plastic containers intead of sealed plastic bags.
- At better herbal shop, some are even willing to print the labels for you.
- The same method can be used to keep dry goods such as ikan bilis and dried shrimps.
- You can use masking tape too but we find colourful duct tape a lot more cuter.
Would you label your Chinese herbs this way?