[Sca-cooks] Asabi Zainab

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Berelinde wrote:
>The musk is a tricky deal breaker. I might want to try a
>little screw-pine essence (Indian stores) for an unusual
>flavor. Pine isn't the same as musk. Nothing else would
>taste like musk but musk. But unless you work for IFF or
>Firmenich, or some other fragrance supplier, you probably
>can't get musk. I would go for something different
>(screw-pine "kew") rather than familiar, but undeniably
>tasty. Or I would just leave it out. Rosewater and almonds
>are a classic, tasty tradition.

Just so folks know, screw-pine is not a pine at all.

There is (ok, i'm not a botanist, so please correct me, someone who 
is) a genus or family of plants called Pandanus, a palm-like tree, of 
which there are many species. They grow in South and Southeast Asia.

There are different pandans used in different parts of Asia for 
flavoring, and different parts of the plants are used.

One species is Pandanus latifolius. It is commonly used in sweets in 
Southeast Asia, where the long flat leaves are used. In Malay and 
Indonesian it is called "daun pandan" (daun means leaf), in Thai "bai 
toey" (bai means leaf), in Vietnamese "la dua", and in Sri Lanka they 
are called "rampe". The dried leaves are often sold in Asian and 
Southeast Asian markets, although i hear that frozen leaves - which 
will be more flavorful - are sometimes available.

Pandan leaves are used in sweets in Southeast Asia as commonly as 
vanilla is used in America (i get the impression vanilla may not be 
used with the same frequency on main-land Europe). Note that pandan 
does NOT taste like vanilla. Sometimes people even weave little 
containers for sweets out of the leaves to enhance the flavor.

I used the dried leaves when cooking Indonesian food in the US. When 
i lived in Indonesia, i didn't make Indonesian sweets, so i never 
looked for pandan leaves when i was there.

In South Asia a different species, pandanus odoratissimus, is used. 
In this case the flavoring is an essence derived from the male 
flowers. It is sold in Indian markets as "kewra". I've got a bottle 
of this in my herb and spice shelf, and the liquid is colored green.

Whoa! Naturally Gernot Katzer has a page about pandanus ordoratissimus!
http://www-ang.kfunigraz.ac.at/~katzer/engl/generic_frame.html?Pand_odo.html
It has clear pictures of the plants.

This page has a bit about pandanus latifolius:
http://www.asiafood.org/glossary_2.cfm?wordid=3294

>The only things I like better than sweets flavored with
>rosewater are sweets flavored with orange flower water.

I often add a spritz of orange flower water to my hot chocolate, 
along with a tiny, teeny weeny, itsy bitsy, little pinch of cinnamon. 
NO vanilla.

Anahita