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Ingredients A Rare, Fragrant Food and Drink Ingredient Tagged as the Vanilla of Asia by Rico R. Magda Owing to its unique and aromatic green leaf extract, pandan has become a soughtafter ingredient as food and drink color and flavoring. With any or some food combined, pandan flavor and color unmistakably make the appearance of a particular dish for the asking. Aside from its intrinsic value as culinary ingredient, pandan has also some valuable medicinal uses especially for sedentary urban residents. With its wholesome flavor and strong aroma, pandan enhances most foods and drinks, particularly desserts and savory dishes. Pandan extract is now widely used as flavoring complement for ice creams and chocolates. Meanwhile, on the contrary, the same appetizing and fragrant pandan leaves contain substances that repel cockroaches. These substances or essential oils according to test studies discourage and repel both American and German cockroaches. Sweet-Smelling Pandan Fragrant pandan (Pandanus amaryllifolius) thrives in the tropic especially in Southeast Asia, though it can be fetched fresh even in California or Florida, USA. Pandan leaves physically resemble gladiolus leaf, which tapers narrowly to the pointed tip. These leaves impart grassy fragrant flavor and sometimes tied in knots and are mixed in ordinary or sticky rice grains during cooking preparation. For various dessert preparations, chef extracts pandan leaves with little amount of water by pounding in mortar or with the use of blender or mini-chopper. The resulting aromatic extract has a striking green color resembling that of wheat grass. Pandan leaves can be woven into small food containers or used a food wrappers for grilling. In Malaysia and in the Philippines, certain varieties of pandan are dried, dyed, and woven into products like mats, bags, fans, boxes, and slippers. These products are popular and saleable to tourists. Before moving on to various culinary, medicinal, and other uses of pandan, here are some botanical descriptions of the stuff. Pandanus belongs to the plant kingdom, order pandanales and family pandanaceae. Pandanus is included in the screwpine genus, which is tagged as pandan leaf used popularly as flavoring spice in Asian cooking. The plant is sterile and has a very rare flower. It multiplies asexually through planting the offshoots or pups attached to the mother plant. Photos: Magda 12 Genus Pandanus is a monocot having about 600 classified species that vary in sizes ranging from small shrub to a medium-sized tree reaching 20 meters. In the Philippines alone, 48 species of Pandanus have been recorded thriving in varying habitats from sandy beaches to mangrove forests. Some species bear edible fruits, which serve as food for rats, bats, crabs, elephants, lizards among others. P. amaryllifolius is also called dwarf or fragrant screwpine. This perennial shrub is a native to Southeast Asia and acclimatized to new tropical environments. The leaves have very strong aromatic fragrance used as perfume or for flavoring food and drinks. On the reverse, the same flavorful strong scent works in shooing away some insect pests like cockroaches. A certain species of pandan, the fragrant screwpine (Pandanus tectorius) is worth mentioning here, which thrives in the Indo-Malayan Polynesian regions even reaching China and tropical Australia. This species has the same qualities with that of the fragrant P. amoryllifolius though tectorius grows up to 5 meters high and branching like a small tree. Tectorius has many prop roots. Fragrant dwarf pandan is sterile while tectorius bears some yellow-red bright fruits rich in provitamin A carotenoids and vitamin C. Many names, same stuff In various places where P. amaryllifolius grows, the same stuff has also varying names. In Bangladesh for instance, the same aromatic plant is widely known as ketaki. Another species also growing in Bangladesh, the P. facicularis is similarly used to enhance native dishes like pulao, biryani, and payesh or sweet coconut rice pudding. In Indonesia, it is known as pandan wangi, soon-mhway in Burma, Bai tooey in Thai cuisine, rampe in Singhalese (Ceylon), schraubenpalme in German, pandano in Italy, tokonoki in food Marketing & Technology • August 2013 Ingredients Japan, skrupalme in Danish, pandanuz in Hungary, and la dua in Vietnam. Pandan is available in either fresh or dried form, in pasty extract, frozen leaves, and frozen paste extract. They could be fetched in Asian grocery stores or in some ethnic outlets in places where the stuff does not thrive. For Filipinos, Chinese, Sri Lankan, Burmese, Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese, Singaporean, Indonesian, there seems to be no substitute for pandan as flavor enhancer especially for rice dishes, cakes, and sweetened drinks. To impart flavor to food, cooks have practical way of using the plant. To get the herby grassy flavor, they tie pandan leaves into knots, smash them a little to ensure that the essential oil is released and then added these to long-grained and sticky aromatic rice. For desserts like custards, puddings, and gelatin, cooks extract the juice manually or mechanically. For steam cooking, lining the steamer trays with several fresh pandan leaves can give much flavor to foods. In India, a certain pandan extract from flowers is distilled from other species of pandanus. This extract is used to flavor drinks and desserts. Other pandanus species provide some materials for making textiles, clothing, carrying bags, fine mats, slippers, baskets, etc. egg whites and icing sugar until soft. From the bowl, add the content to the first bowl and mix well. Then pour the batter in the chiffon pan and bake at 170˚C for 40 minutes. When finished, remove the cake from the oven and cool the pandan cake in pan placed upside down. Summer refreshment from pandan A simple yet inexpensive but nourishing drink from pandan leaf can be made as refreshment especially during very hot summer time. Here is the iced pandanlemon juice. For this drink we need 1 liter of drinking water, 2 tea bags, 1 cup white or brown sugar, one or two pieces of American lemon fruits or 4 pieces of Philippine lemon (calamansi), and 5 to 10 pieces of pandan leaves. Here’s how to prepare it. In a liter of drinking water, boil pandan leaves for 10 minutes. When boiling point is reached, put the tea bags and let it boil for 3 minutes. Then cool down. Then add the lemon or calamansi juice and mix well. Cool in a refrigerator before serving, or serve with ice cubes. The favorite buko-pandan salad For the finishing touch, here is buko (young coconut)-pandan salad that always hits the center stage spot. For making 6 to 8 servings, we need a two 3-ounce packages of unflavored gelatin or agar, 8 pandan leaves tied in a simple knot To make pandan leaf paste, cut the leaves short about 1-inch pieces. Fill the pot with one cup water and with as many leaf pieces that will fit. Boil until the pieces become soft enough. Then process both water and the pandan pieces in food processor or blender to produce paste. Pandan chiffon cake Many people are chiffon cakes lovers. You can add pandan chiffon cake to your collection of different chiffon cake recipes. For the preparation of pandan chiffon cake, you need a 17-cm chiffon cake mold, 40-ml salad oil (Canola), 80-ml coconut milk, 70 g all-purpose flour, small pinch of salt to taste, 1 tablespoon pandan paste from fresh leaves, 200g egg white, and 70 g sugar powder (icing sugar). Now, you are ready to bake the pandan cake. Start by pre-heating the oven to 170˚C. Then mix the oil, pandan paste, and coconut milk in a mixing bowl. Add flour and salt and mix well with hand whisk until smooth enough. In a separate bowl, mix The ERKA effect. A palette of over 200 colours lets you choose the ideal shade for your product. Ask for our colour guide. Our more than 100 years of experience are your guarantee for outstanding quality as well as equally outstanding support and advice. 13 food Marketing & Technology Key No. 80204 Natürliche und naturidentische Lebensmittelfarben Ingredients (pandanknots), 12 ounces nata de coco (available at Philippine ethnic or Asian stores), 16 ounces of frozen shredded young coconut (buko), thawed and drained, ½ cup creamy (Nestlé cream or other cream brands), and 1/3 cup condensed milk. Here’s how to prepare this favorite salad. Prepare the gelatin (agar) by dissolving in a pot of water with added pandan leaves. Boil, stir constantly. After a while, remove pandan leaves and pour the mixture into two 8 by 8 glass baking pans (other available containers are possible). When the agar sets, cut into ½-inch cubes. Then mix together the agar cubes, nata de coco, young coconut shreds, cream, and condensed milk in a large salad bowl. Mix well. Serve chilled. revealed that they are mainly terpenes, sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (6-42%), and a major aromatic component, the 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (2AP), (Yoshihashi, T., 2002), (McLeod and Pieris, 1982, Phytochemistry, Vol. 21 (7), 1652-1657). Repelling insects with pandan Aside from the culinary uses of pandan, it has some insecticidal properties and practically used to repel some household pests like cockroaches. One user says that he has no idea of how and why pandan works but he has been using the leaf as repellant since he discovered the repelling action of the stuff some 15 years ago while renting a house. He had difficulty breathing whenever he used chemical sprays until he discovered the alternative pandan as cockroach repellant. Reports have it that taxi drivers in Singapore and Malaysia usually hang bunches of pandan leaves in their taxis to freshen air and at the same time to shoo away invading cockroaches. Chemical analysis of the volatiles in pandan leaf has The aromatic components of Pandan Abbreviated as 2AP, 2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline, with the IUPAC name 1-(3,4-dihydro2H-pyrrol-5-yl) ethanone, is an aroma compound and flavor that gives white bread, basmati rice, jasmine rice, and pandan their characteristic smell. 2 AP is formed and released when food is heated like in baking bread. (S. Wongpornchai, et al., J. Agric Food Chem 51 (2) 457-462). 2 AP’s molecular formula is C6H9NO. Another flavor component is the presence of ethyl formiate, which is found in rice and pandan leaves. (Naturwissenschaften, 71, 215, 1984). When distilled, leaves also yield some traces of essential oils, but their roles as to contribution to pandan flavor are still unclear. A study in Sri Researchers have agreed to the preference of having a natural, non-insecticidal ways of eradicating cockroaches since synthetic repellants produce some undesirable effects to people and environment. (Reynolds, 1989, Martindale, the Extra Pharmacopoeia, London). Further investigations on the potential of pandan as source of scented natural cockroach repellant for commercial use could be of great value to users. Lanka has identified the following aromatic components in pandan having concentration of less than 1 microgram per kilogram (ppb): styrene, formylthiphene, linalool, caryophyllene, β−farnesene, dimethoxybenzene, and β−selinene. (Phytochemistry, 21, 1653-1657, 1982). Besides the culinary uses, pandan has also many medicinal benefits. For instance, in Vietnam, pandan is also known as la dua, which is made into tea drink to alleviate the threat of diabetes. There are a growing number of VietnameseAmericans who have become prosperous money-wise and now live in sedentary style. Diabetes has become a growing problem among them, and drinking the stuff has helped them in reducing the threat. As pandan leaf contains essential oil, glycosides, alkaloids, tannins, etc., the plant is considered as diuretic and helps in healing wounds and small pox. It also acts as pain reliever for chest pain, headache, earache, arthritis, etc. Chewing pandan leaves helps in relieving painful gums. Some folkloric uses of pandan include prevention of spontaneous abortion, root decoction in combination with banana sap as urethral injections for various urinary disorders. Mashed pandan leaves, slightly salted with Citrus microcarpa juice (calamansi) serve as hot poultice for boils. In the anti-inflammatory study using P. tectorius, extract from aerial roots has produced about 34.5% inhibition of carrageenin-induced edema. On antibacterial properties, studies have revealed the anti-bacterial action on B. subtilis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv. (Journal of Natural Medicines, April 2008, Vol. 62, Issue 2, pp 232-235). Vanilla of the East Once an Asian chef has written about “pandan leaves are to vanilla what silk is to cotton,” his twitter posting perhaps needs further scrutiny. It is like enjoying pandan in our food but never knowing it. The chef refers to pandan aroma as vanillalike. Other descriptions of pandan flavor include the adjectives roselike, almondy, and milky sweet among others. Some, however, are not in complete accord in comparing pandan to vanilla in some ways. While there are similarities, one would not mistake the two that pandan tastes differently from the other. While pandan tastes grassy and very subtle, 14 food Marketing & Technology • August 2013 vanilla is not. Though similarities exist between the two, no cook dares to substitute vanilla for pandan in cooking. Perhaps, it is not the taste that really matters but the chef refers to the mode of refinement. Just like saying that silk is more refined than cotton, so as to say that pandan has more refined taste than vanilla. As one taster said: “the depth of flavor pandan adds to rice is just delicious, and I can now appreciate comparing it to silk.” Growing pandan The fragrant pandan is a sterile tropical plant and is not propagated by sexual means. So, to establish it, you need to propagate it asexually by gathering the emerging offshoots or pups attached to the base stem near the ground level. Take these pups and soak them in clean water or preferably in diluted agar or seaweed solution to boost roots before planting. Pups are easy to grow since they already have roots. Do not immerse the whole plant body but just leave the leaves above the water level. If you leave the pups for more days, more roots will develop in due time in them. But do not allow them to over stay, or they will completely rot. When roots are fully developed, plant the pups to a welldrained soil. Take care not to harvest leaves until plants become established and mature. It is more portable if you plant pandan in container pots if you stay in a non-tropical area where weather situations become too extreme for the plant. Occasional doses of seaweed solution will give the plant vigor in producing more pups. CREATING TOMORROW’S SOLUTIONS DO YOU WANT A FIBER THAT CAN REDUCE BLOOD-SUGAR RISE? HEALTH CLAIM APPROVED Caring for the plant Since pandan is a tropical plant, cold, frost or much wind will harm or arrest its normal growth. If there is a winter season or cold spell, take the plant indoor to protect it from rain and wind. Many pandan plants die during this season from crown rotting due to excess moisture. Water the plant sparingly in the morning (not in the afternoon) and expose it back to open when winter sun shines. In summer, you can give pandan more water. Increase humidity by misting. Do not expose the plant in direct, full sunlight but rather keep them in filtered shade areas. You may shower the plant with seaweed solution to initiate leaf formation. Apply slow-release fertilizer. Many pandan lovers have been trying to find more uses for this wonderful spice plant. And some who were earlier in their oriental homes and now residing in occidental countries have been missing to savor the flavorful taste of pandan. As one oriental resident in Holland says “It is now the time to re-create the fragrance of the Orient in the Occident.” And one writes these simple lines for his appreciation of the fragrant pandan. “Pandan…how wonderful thy flavor Oh, how wonderful thy fragrance We never cook our sweet soups without it We never boil our sugar syrups without it Life is simply bland without it.” --Anonymous Key No. 81863 food Marketing & Technology • August 2013 Would you like to make your product healthier by using a fiber that lowers blood-sugar rise? Talk to us – we have the solution. WACKER can offer you a soluble dietary fiber that is scientifically proven – confirmed by the EU Commission – to have a significant effect on lowering blood sugar levels after starch-containing meals. This fiber, with the trade name CAVAMAX® W6, is an alphacyclodextrin, a carbohydrate enzymatically derived from starch. Further clinical studies confirm an additional positive effect of CAVAMAX® W6 on blood lipid values. CAVAMAX® W6 is ideally suited for carbohydrate-rich food: • Soluble dietary fiber • Can reduce blood sugar increase • Vegetarian • Non-allergenic • No browning • Non-hygroscopic • Tasteless This offers you new marketing opportunities for your bars, muesli, biscuits, bread and other healthy food products. Wacker Chemie AG, Tel. +49 89 6279-1346 [email protected], www.wacker.com/dietaryfiber Key No. 80851