Khi Lek (locally called Siamese cassia) curry is an ancient food throughout Thailand that uses
the tips, young leaves and young flowers of the plant. However, as they have a bitter taste, the Thai
people must boil them in water 2–3 times before use. Boiling may impact on the characteristics of Khi
Lek young leaves (KL). Thus, this project studied the effect of sodium chloride and eggplant, the optimum
time (minutes) and number of times boiled of KL for curry making and its nutrition. The results showed
that the anhydrobarakol content in KL boiled in water alone, in KL boiled in water containing sodium
chloride and in KL boiled in water containing eggplant were not significantly different (P > 0.05). The
anhydrobarakol content in boiled KL decreased with increasing time of boiling and/or the number times
boiled. KL for curry should be boiled twice in a volume of water six times the KL weight, for 3 min/
time. KL curry had a very low anhydrobarakol content (0.17 mg by fresh weight) and a low tendency to
cause liver toxicity