pandan

A few months ago, I was at my favourite Thai grocery store picking up some kaffir lime leaves when I noticed they had frozen packages of pandan leaves. I’ve had pandan flavoured dishes before, but I’d never actually seen the leaves. Curiosity perked, I threw the package into the basket. Upon getting home, my newly discovered pandan leaves found themselves in the freezer where over time, they were covered over in layers of other shiny new ingredients, until they were all but forgotten.

During a recent expedition into the frozen depths of the my freezer, I decided to do something with the 4lbs of rib tips I’d picked up for $1.29/lb at Fresh Direct. Digging a little further I uncovered a corner of something curiously green. Tossing aside some chicken thighs, a puck of pie dough, and some frozen strawberries, I uncovered a slightly frosty bag of bright green pandan leaves. “Perfect!” I thought.

In case you’re not familiar with pandan, they’re the leaves of the pandanus plant, which grows all over Asia, going by names such as screw pine (English), cây cơm nếp (Vietnamese), and Nioi-takonoki (Japanese). It’s commonly used in both desserts and savoury dishes in Thai, Filipino, Indonesian, and other Southeast Asian cuisines, adding an earthy green flavour to everything it touches. The flowers and fruit are also used and the leaves are even woven into bags and mats.

Since I’ve never cooked with pandan before, I knew this experiment could go horribly wrong, but my fears were quickly allayed as the earthy tea-like smell of the roasting pandan wafted through my apartment. This was soon joined by the smell of smoky savoury pork and as the day passed, the aroma grew sweeter and more intense, sending me into a dizzying spell of hunger pangs. continue →

{ 28 comments }