Kratin Thai

(horse tamarind)

Kratin Thai ( horse tamarind) : Other local names are Sa tor bao, Tor bao, Sa tor tess, Kratin dok kao, Kratin, Kratin ban, Pak kan tin, Pak nong bok, Sa ket, Sa ket kok and Sa ket bok.

Kratin is a kind of vegetable that is most familiar to Thais. Fresh young leaves and flowers are favourite for dipping with chilli paste (Nam Prik). It is also popular as a side dish for fresh oyster and papaya salad. Fried Kratin with pork can also be interesting dish. Its fresh seeds are green which Thai southerners usually use to mix with their traditional dish, Kao Yam (Rice salad) or Kha nom jeen (soft round noodles with curry).

As herbal substance, astringent bark is used as astringency. Roots are made nourishing medicine, also help releasing gas and relief leucorrhea. Young branch and leaves are used to mix nourish food for stocks. Trunks are used to produce good quality cinder.

General Characteristic: Formerly native South American. Fast growing, evergreen leaves, well grown at high ground or hillside flat area. Villagers usually grow as house fences. Tree-type shrubs, about 10 metres high, compound leaves. Petioles are 15-30 centimeters long, split into 3-10 pairs of minor petioles, which are 10 centimeters long. Small leaves, 5-20 pairs, are similar to those of tamarinds'. Outer edges are parallel to apex with 6-21 millimeters long and 1.5-5 millimeters wide.

Flowers are small, round, white and aromatic.

Fruits are flat, 12-18 centimeters long, 2 centimeters wide. Seeds within fruits are oval and flat. A sheath contains 15-30 seeds.

Translator : Aketawan Manowongsa


24 March 2000
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