My kitchen manager never fails to give me random items. He sometimes is cleaning the restaurant storage, gives things to me that he doesn't want, and he sometimes sees things in the Chinese grocer and picks it up for himself, then he realizes he will never use it so he gives it to me.
Recently he gave me a can of pandan juice. Last year in Bangkok I got a whiff of something with pandan and realized that I had eaten it before. It had to be when I was four or younger before we left Thailand. It has such an intriguing aroma.
I didn't know what to do with it so I did some research and seemed to find quite a few cakes. I can't bake right now since my oven is broken. The other things I found were jellies which often use agar agar. This is a plantbased gelatin so I was leaning toward this. Besides it was probably what I got a whiff of in Bangkok.
The smell of pandan takes me back to memory lane, when I walked the hot streets of Bangkok with my mother. When we went to markets that sold food and treats. When she took me to get something sweet at an outdoor eatery.
My manager also randomly got me a package of frozen young coconut. I had told him I wished I could find it. He appeared at work one day, with it, and gave it to me. At this point I started wondering what the heck I am going to do with it. I have seen delicious recipes with young coconut but would this be the same?
Since it had sugar in it I decided to make it into a jelly desert. It turned out that it wasn't all that sweet.
For the desert I added the coconut meat, a can of pandan juice and a can of coconut milk. The can of pandan said extract, but it wasn't super green. I was hoping I could find a concentrated extract with even more pandan flavor and color. I asked at the Chinese grocer and he didn't have any.
It's probably unusual to add lime juice to pandan. I don't know if anyone would do that but I did. I don't like anything too sweet usually. Don't get me wrong I added a cup of raw cane sugar.
Pandan coconut jelly
2 cups coconut meat
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup sugar
2 cups pandan juice/extract
2 teaspoons agar agar
I added everything together and mixed before putting it in the pot. I brought the mix to a medium high boil than simmered stirring until the agar was well dissolved. Pour into molds or cups and cool. This didn't take too long to set.
I didn't have any nice molds so I used dessert glasses which was nice as well and we could eat it right out of there.
I put mango on it and black and white sesame seeds, which ended up tasting similar to one of my favorite desserts which is mango sticky rice. I have only had it once as an adult or that I remember. That was last winter at Bangkok's Bayoke tower 2. There was a fruit buffet at the top which was truly an amazing experience and a new one for me. There was mango sticky rice there and it was so good.
It was really light and we could have it as an afternoon treat with a cup of tea, which is something we never usually do.
Marc is not really familiar which pandan so when he tasted it I was happy to get two thumbs up. He grew up on German pastries.
I have more frozen coconut meat in the freezer and would like to venture into something savory. I feel like a mad scientist.
Thank you for stopping by folks!
