The market · Herbs and aromatics · Southeast Asia, South Asia
Pandan leaves
Long, glossy blades from a screwpine, used for scent rather than flavour — the vanilla of Southeast Asian sweets, and the green of kaya and nasi lemak rice.
grassy · vanilla-like · nutty
What to do with it
MinahasanIkan wokuFish cooked in a yellow paste of turmeric, chilli and candlenut with a great handful of fresh leaves — lemon basil, lemongrass, pandan, lime leaf.No one here has made it yetMalaysianNasi lemakRice cooked in coconut milk and pandan, with sambal, crisp anchovies, peanuts, cucumber and egg.No one here has made it yetMalaysianKaya toastToast spread with kaya — a jam of coconut milk, eggs, sugar and pandan — and slabs of cold butter, with soft-boiled eggs and coffee.No one here has made it yetMalaysianCendolGreen strands of pandan rice-flour jelly in coconut milk and gula melaka syrup, over shaved ice, often with red beans.No one here has made it yetSri LankanParippuRed lentils cooked soft in coconut milk with turmeric and green chilli, then tempered with onion, mustard seed, curry leaves and rampe.No one here has made it yetSri LankanFish ambul thiyalCubes of tuna cooked almost dry in a dark paste of goraka and black pepper, until each piece is coated.No one here has made it yet
If you can't find it
Asian grocers' freezers, bundled and knotted; also as pandan extract.
- 1Frozen pandan leafThe sameYou lose very little.
- 2Pandan extractA few drops per leaf — it's strongYou lose subtlety; many are dyed bright green.
- 3VanillaA little, for the sweetness onlyYou lose the grassy, rice-like heart of it. It's a different dessert.
Goes with
Knowing it
- Where to buy
- Fresh or frozen at Southeast Asian grocers; frozen keeps its scent well. Bottled essence is a poor second.
- Worth knowing
- Tie a leaf in a knot before it goes in the pot, so it releases its scent and comes out in one piece. For colour and stronger flavour, blend with a little water and squeeze out the juice.
Kitchens that keep it in
Minahasa, North Sulawesi, IndonesiaMinahasanThe cooking of Sulawesi's northern tip: fierce with fresh chilli, green with herbs, full of skipjack tuna from the Celebes Sea, and with a few Dutch cakes kept from long ago.9 classicsMalaysia — the Malay Peninsula and northern Borneo, between the Strait of Malacca and the South China SeaMalaysianMalay, Chinese, Indian and Peranakan cooking side by side: sambal, coconut and rice, wok-fried noodles and flaky roti, eaten at hawker stalls and mamak shops at all hours.10 classicsSri Lanka — an island in the Indian Ocean, off the southern tip of IndiaSri LankanRice and curry, coconut and heat: an island's cooking of dark-roasted spice, sour goraka and fierce sambols, shaped by Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Malay and Burgher kitchens.10 classics
