i watched a video a few weeks ago and a woman made a vegetable curry and used some heem, i have never come across this spice before.

It may have been heeng which is known as asaofetida.

It's a pungent flavouring made from a tree resin, it is commonly used to reduce flatulence and it also gives a punch of flavour, particularly useful to those who do not eat onions or garlic.

You can miss it out if you don't have it, but it does add a little something.

BTW it smells disgusting (hence the reference in it's name to fetid) but that mutes greatly on cooking!

Heem is also urban slang for Hennessy Cognac! Although I'm sure Kavey has cracked it with the heeng/hing link to Asafoetida. It's widely available even in the major supermarkets in the UK.

Are you sure it was Heem and not Neem? Were they leaves or was it a powder?

Curry leavs are often referred to as Meetha (sweet) Neem in India. Meetha Neem tree, which means Sweet Neem, is what curry leaves come from.

It is different from the common Neem tree, which is a huge tropical tree, very bitter, used extensively in Ayurvedic medicine.

Mamta

it was a green powder in a box and she used quite a bit of it to make some type of vegetable dish. i know of hing and it was not that. If i could find the video i would add the link.

I've got a jar of the green powdery stuff and it's dried neem patta (crushed dried leaves from the neem tree. You generally use a pinch or two (extracting its flavour into hot oil) in West Bengali vegetarian dishes; especially good when paired with the smokiness of aubergine. It is fairly bitter and probably an acquired taste, but beloved in many a Bengali home.

It must be dried curry leaves, powdered. Remember, curry leaves tree is known as Meetha (sweet) Neem in Hindi. Actual medicinal Neem is too bitter to use in cooking and I doubt anyone will use it for food.

I bounced around google for a short while and everything to do with "neem" was coming back as soap products, shampoo's, skin treatments (particularly good for psoriasis neemgenie.co.uk/psoriasis ) etc.. !

Steve

Hello steve

Neem, the bitter one, is very extensively used in medicines in India, as you saw. W have all used Neem soaps, shampoos etc. at some time or the other. Neem leaves are burnt in villages to ward off mosquitoes. I remember drinking ground neem leaves drink (ver bitter) as a young girl, to cure zits LOL!!

Mamta

You are all correct regarding the numerous medicinal qualities of the bitter neem leaves from the margosa tree. However these are the ones used in a few Bengali dishes such as Neem Begun, often as starter courses where the bitteness is supposed to prepare and cleanse the palate. I'm not totally sure if the course powder is produced from the dried leaves or flower petals and note that just a pinch is used. Meetha neem, though, are curry leaves which Bengalis call kadi patta. However as margosa leaf is used in such a marginal way in perhaps only one of India's cuisine, I'm inclined to think that bb's 'heem' are probably ground, dried curry leaves.

I would like to know is it possible to grow a Meetha neem tree in the english climate, as you can bay tree?

I am not sure about outside, but mine is growing well inside in a pot; http://www.flickr.com/photos/mamta1/3563164810/

It is now double the size of this picture and it is in a larger pot. I am planning to put it outside this summer. I might leave it outside one winter, under a fleece, when it is a bit larger. I have 3-4 small ones, so can afford to loose one!

Mamta

is there anywhere in the UK that I could buy one of these? I have a huge bay tree growing in the garden so I am never short of fresh bay leaves.