Pandan leaves are used widely in Southeast Asian cooking. They have a nutty, botanical fragrance which enhances the flavor of foods. Pandan leaves are from the Pandanus amaryllifolius of the screwpine family. The aromatic scent is of 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which also give jasmine rice and bread flower ( Vallaris glabra ) their smell.Pandan is so important in SE Asian cuisine, that it can be found in every village and sub-urban. Propagation is very easy, a cutting properly watered and fertilized will grow into a huge bush.
However, pandan leaves are sometime not as easily available as it should be. And sometime even though I put a generous bunch of pandan leaves into my tong sui 糖水, there are hardly any fragrant out of it ! Lagipun, getting fresh pandan leaves is especially difficult when work long hours and hardly finds time to go to market.
This is when I find a little bottle of pandan extract is most useful and convenience. It comes in small bottle e.g. 25ml, in various brands. A little drop of it is suffice to flavor a big pot of tong sui. Magic potion it is !
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3 comments:
interesting topic...but,put pandan flavor extract ll destroy the original taste of the food,more to express its smell strongly in food.Besides, it numbs ones' tongue if u ever feel weird after intake.
dear eMoTion-er
the pandan extract is an alternative to fresh pandan leaves which are sometimes not easily available.
most malay, nyonya cuisine and even chinese tongsui use pandan to enhance the flavour, eg. nasi lemak, nasi ayam, nasi pulut, sweet-potato tongsui, bubur-cacar, be-ko-moi, green-bean-paste, pandan-flavoured cake, etc
oohh.....like tat???but what i mean is using pandan leaves are stil better than the extract.
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