[Sca-cooks] Asabi Zainab

[Susan Fox-Davis]

lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:

> 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.

I like this stuff in rice, but gosh!  the bottled extract has a strong 
green color.  It's great in fried rice but I have to warn the family 
that the color is on purpose.  Fortunately, my family is sufficiently 
weird as to not be put off.  I would like to get my hands on some leaves 
to try using them in a more natural state.  Will lurk around at the 
local 99 Ranch Market, land of much pan-Asian goodness.

Selene

>