Daun Pandan

Pandanus odorus. The Pandanus, or screw-pine, family is a tough-looking collection of plants, with long, broad, fibrous leaves armed with spines, prickles, hooks and other weapons. Their principal use is in making mats, brushes, ropes and so forth. It may seem surprising that such plants should be allowed anywhere near a kitchen, but some species have edible fruits, and Australian aborigines are said to extract and roast the seeds, ‘rather laboriously’, as Burkill says. In Indonesia, however, it is the young leaves of P. odorus which are used by cooks to add a distinctive aromatic flavouring and in some cases a delicate green colour. You buy daun pandan in the market in small square packets, the leaf having been chopped into lengths of about 5 cm; you may get 20 or more pieces in a packet. If you cut a fresh leaf from the garden it should give you at least 10 of these little oblongs. There is no need to trim off the leaf-edges, which are smooth and unarmoured.