On the Topic of Lemon Grass

Hello everybody who reads this. Since there seems to be a wide array of people on this board, I thought someone might know just how to use fresh Lemon Grass.

I was making a Thai curry the other day, and had run out of my stash of dried Lemon Grass, and since my wife has a huge plant of it in our front garden, I figured that I would just use that. Thing is, I don't know if I should have prepared it in some way before adding the chopped up herb into the curry. So I cut a few blades off the plant and removed the center spine of each blade, 'cause it seemed kind of woody and I figured it wouldn't cook down very well. Then I just chopped up the rest of the blades. I did notice when I was handling the fresh grass that it had a sticky/rough texture under the blade. Should I have scraped that down before adding it into the mix? I know some plants need to be prepared that way before cooking.

I know some one is thinking, "Why not just use curry paste?" Well, I do have some, some red and some green, but the pastes tend to be hot and although I love hot curry, no body else in the family does, so I try to not use too much paste. Instead I sub in herbs and spices. Without the extra Lemon Grass, it didn't taste quite right, but was still pretty good.

So anyone have any experience with this? I would love to know because I intend to harvest a bunch of blades from the plant and dry them in our dehydrator.

Thanks in advance.
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"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science." - Albert Einstein