About this ingredient
Draft reference. This study is part of the cookbook’s foundations and is still being checked. Local names and cultural notes in particular are the author’s working text, pending verification, rather than settled fact.
- Where it is used
- Maritime and mainland; sweets, rice and drinks region-wide
- Flavour and aroma
- Grassy-vanilla, nutty, faintly floral — 'the vanilla of Southeast Asia'.
- How it is used
- Knotted into steaming rice and coconut sweets; blended for green color and aroma; steeped in drinks.
- How to select
- Long, firm, deep-green blades with a fresh cut end; more aroma when bruised.
- Storage
- Refrigerate wrapped up to a week; freezes well.
- Substitutions
- Pandan extract/paste (use sparingly; often artificially colored); no true fresh match.
- Allergens
- None common.
Names and contextPending verification
The two fields below are drafted and not yet confirmed. They are shown because they are useful, and labelled because they are not final.
- Local names
- Malay/Indo: daun pandan; Thai: bai toey; Viet: lá dứa; Filipino: dahon ng pandan
- Cultural notes
- Pandan aroma signals many desserts and festive rices; pair notes with the specific sweet, not generically.
The Complete Edition
Pandan in the book
This study is one of twenty-seven that open The Southeast Asian Table, before the eleven country chapters and the hundred recipes they carry.
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