the.com/pandan
Southeast Asia's vanilla, if vanilla were green, grassy, and smelled like buttered popcorn.
means Pandan is the fragrant green leaf of a tropical screwpine plant, used across Southeast Asia to flavor and color rice, desserts, and drinks.
from The word comes from Malay and Indonesian "pandan," the everyday name for the screwpine (genus Pandanus). The botanical name "Pandanus" was itself Latinized from this Malay word, so the scientist's label and the cook's word share the same root — a rare case where the kitchen named the textbook rather than the other way around.
- flavor compound
- Shares its aroma molecule with basmati rice
- cobra repellent
- Leaves reputedly keep snakes and roaches away
- natural dye
- Turns cakes and rice a vivid jade green
- slow bloomer
- The plant almost never flowers
pandan chiffon cake — southeast asian dessert flavored with pandan leaves, especially popular in malaysia, singapore, and the philippines since the 1950s
pandan wangi — fragrant pandan variety native to indonesia, used in traditional cooking and perfumery across java and bali
pandan coconut ice cream — thai street dessert combining pandan extract with coconut milk, sold throughout bangkok and thai night markets