Incredible Edibles - VANILLA GRASS

Unless you have access to a giant Kew Gardens-style glasshouse, growing real vanilla orchids for their pods is a near impossibility in this country - believe me I have tried. Good news than that the strappy leaves of vanilla grass are a far easier house guest than a dull old spider plant & will provide you with a fresh supply of custardy, biscuity vanilla-scented extract to transform even the most plain spongecake into a cloud of oven-fresh deliciousness.

Although still largely unknown in the UK, in South East Asia vanilla grass (aka. pandan) is a standard dessert flavour, found in everything from ice cream to chiffon cake to coconut rice pudding, being way more popular and delicious than the dried up podded version. And with its ability to dye any food it is stirred into a pale jade green, with a faint fragrance of fresh mown grass, it will leaves your mates totally stumped as to the secret ingredient in your emerald ice cream.

Native to the steamy rainforests of South East Asia, there is only one golden rule when it comes to growing vanilla grass: Keep it indoors. Unlike many houseplants this jungle species needs constant chill-free conditions to be happy, so won't enjoy even a brief holiday on your patio over the summer. Don't let this scare you though, the temperature of your average living room (18-20C) is absolutely perfect.

Give these little guys a bright, warm home on a sunny windowsill. keep them well watered with a dilute liquid fertilser throughout the summer & a roomy pot of rich compost and you are all set. The occasional mist of water from a spray gun a couple of times a week will ensure a healthy rosette of leaves all year round.

Vanilla grass' sweet, creamy flavour is caused by an aroma compound known as 2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline, which despite a rather unfortunate name, is also responsible for the biscuity, almost floral aroma of white bread, jasmine rice and butter cookies. To make a simple food-mile-free vanilla grass extract, roughly chop a dozen foot-long leaves and put them in a food processor with 2 tablespoons of sugar and 4 tablespoons of water and whizz to a fine pulp. For even better results, swap the water for vodka, which is far better at extracting the flavour chemicals. Don't worry, almost all the alcohol will evaporate off during cooking. Pop this pulp into a sieve and press it with the back of a spoon to squeeze out all the fragrant green liquid. This emerald concoction can be used just like vanilla extract, with the one caveat that you need to use roughly three times as much - so if your recipe calls for 1 tsp, add 1 tbsp. Baking aside, I have found -to the detriment of my waistline - that this works especially well in egg custards, white chocolate mousse & creme caramel.

The whole leaves can be added to rice during cooking, just like a bay leaf to give it a refined fragrance. This is a trick often used to make cheap white rice taste more like the fancy aromatic jasmine version in Asia. In Thailand individual leaves are tied knotted around bite-size cubes of marinated chicken thigh to make little origami parcel that are then popped into a deep fryer to create crisp balls of deliciousness. Rip them open, dip the contents in sweet chili sauce and attack with chopsticks.

RECIPE: Vanilla Grass Chiffon cake

Vanilla Grass on Wikipedia