I’ve found another use for Pandan. Here’s how to make a delicious sweet topping for shaved ice.
Chop mature pandan leaves into 1-inch lengths. Add a few spoons of water to a blender along with the leaves. Pulse until the leaves are chopped up. Squeeze out the liquid with a sieve or cheesecloth. Add the green liquid to sweetened condensed milk to taste. Use as a syrup for shaved ice, or add the flavored shave ice to halo-halo.
Halo-halo, a perennial favorite Filipino dessert, is literally “mix-mix” in the Tagalog language. You can add jellies, flan, macapuno, palm seeds, sweetened red beans, shaved ice, ube ice cream, fresh fruit, toasted coconut flakes, nata de coco and whatever else your heart desires for this visually beautiful and tasty dessert. Here in Hawaii, most stores like Times, Don Quixote and Foodland carry more specialized halo-halo ingredients in their Asian aisle.