How hipsters eat their greens
Nigella’s beloved pandan will be the next cult food craze, says Eleanor Steafel
She can transform the sales of an ingredient with a single affirmation, and now the queen of cookery has hailed pandan, an Asian green, as the one to watch.
“It’s going to be the new matcha,” Nigella Lawson said at the Cheltenham Literary Festival on Sunday. Sales of avocado rose by 30 per cent after Lawson spread some over a piece of toast in her last TV series, so presumably by Friday night half the country will be serving up lurid green pandan crème brûlée to unsuspecting dinner party guests. “I don’t know where it is [available] in this country yet,” she added. “But I notice more and more people in America baking with pandan essence, which comes from that leaf.”
It isn’t yet available in Waitrose, begging the question: does a trend truly exist until it appears in everyone’s favourite middle-class supermarket? But the leaf can be found at any good oriental food store.
Also known as screw pine, pandan is a herbaceous tropical plant that grows in south-east Asia, where it is used like vanilla to flavour desserts and drinks, and has already made itself known in foodies’ arsenals across the United States. As Lawson suggests, many chefs use it like matcha (the finely ground powder made from specially grown and processed green tea leaves) in desserts. Pandan is more botanical than its earthier counterpart: food writer Felicity Cloake says the flavour is “like sweet perfumy Badedas. It pairs particularly well with south-east Asian flavours like coconut and lemongrass, but I love adding it to everything from a classic creme brûlée to rice.”
The plant looks as if it has real staying power. Michelin-starred restaurant Ox Club in Leeds already features a pandan ice cream on its menu; the Hairy Bikers used it in a recent book in a savoury chicken recipe. Meanwhile, Yotam Ottolenghi, the chef, uses it to delicately infuse a rice pudding.
Here are the other ingredients set to become part of our dinner party repertoires this winter.
Purple ube (the new mash)
We have Instagram to thank for a growing obsession with ingredients that create brightly coloured treats. Purple ube, essentially a purple sweet potato, is becoming the exotic vegetable of choice among social media snappers. Popular in the Philippines, it is used mainly in desserts, but mashing them with a liberal helping of butter offers a more vibrant take on mashed potatoes.
Kelp and kombu (the new kale)
Once the preserve of Gwynnie devotees, kelp is now popping up on menus, too. Along with fellow sea vegetable kombu, the iron-rich pair are a more fashionable substitute for leafy greens like kale and spinach.
Jun (the new champagne)
Run the gamut on variations of gin and tonics? Try Jun, a kind of kombucha (lightly effervescent fermented sweetened tea) made from green tea and honey, which is being hailed as a probiotic champagne alternative.