What Is Southeast Asian Sugar? And Easy methods to Use It in Cooking

Right here’s a dialog starter in your subsequent ceremonial dinner: Ask your company what number of varieties of sugar they’ll identify. If folks faucet out at white sugar, brown sugar, castor sugar, and perhaps jaggery, it’s comprehensible. The primary three varieties dominate grocery retailer cabinets and eclipse other forms, notably these from Southeast Asia, specifically rock sugar and palm sugar. However sugars from that area give desserts, dipping sauces, and even curries their signature taste, and utilizing simply sufficient of them in savory dishes to realize a steadiness of candy, salty, tangy, and spicy is an artwork. For sure, there’s so much to find out about them, so let’s get began.

What sorts of sugar are mostly utilized in Southeast Asia?

Within the Philippines and components of China, sugar cane is the prevailing supply of sugar and is available in numerous varieties. The most well-liked is muscovado (granulated sugar, usually used as an alternative to brown sugar), however there’s additionally rock sugar (giant crystallized chunks), balicucha (hardened sugar cane syrup), panutsa de bao (a sugar cane chunk that has been poured right into a coconut mildew to harden), and sugar-adjacent merchandise like pulot (a sticky liquid made by cooking muscovado with coconut milk).

In Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Cambodia, palm sugar is usually used as a sweetener. This features a complete number of palm sugars which might be often recognized domestically by the particular timber their sap originates from, like gula melaka, gula jawa, gula apong, and gula aren (“gula” is the phrase for sugar in Malay and Indonesian). In Cambodia, palm sugar from Kampong Speu is licensed with geographical indication (GI) standing, which restricts its manufacturing to solely three of Cambodia’s 176 districts.

How is sugar made?

A species of perennial grass, sugar cane accounts for many of the sugar manufacturing on the earth. The sugar comes from the plant’s sap, which is collected when the stalks are fed via rollers and crushed. As a normal rule, making refined sugar is a multistep course of that begins with straining and boiling the sap, evaporating the water to encourage crystallization of the sugars, after which separating the sugar crystals with a centrifuge.

Some variations of muscovado and balicucha are thought of unrefined sugar, as they don’t undergo the centrifuge course of, which permits them to retain their molasses content material.

Compared, palm sugars are made by gathering sap from numerous components of the palm tree (there are completely different sorts of palm timber, which all belong to the Arecaceae household). The sap is then boiled to take away any moisture, leaving the thick syrup to chill and harden into chunks. It’s a time-sensitive course of, because the collected sap will start to ferment until it’s processed instantly.

Palm sugar can be thought of unrefined sugar; it is available in completely different colours (from mahogany to toffee), textures (powder to syrup), and consistencies. Crucial differentiating issue is that completely different palm sugars come from completely different genera of palm timber. The well-known gula melaka of Malaysia, often known as gula jawa in Indonesia, comes from coconut timber of the genus Cocos. Gula aren comes from the sugar palm tree of the genus Arenga and is thought in Indonesia as pohon enau or pohon aren. Gula apong comes from nipa palm timber or mangrove palms of the genus Nypa. The sugars are processed in another way in response to the traditions of the place, caramelized to succeed in their desired colours, and poured right into a container to harden and take form. Through the years, these containers have been every thing from bamboo stalks to coconut husks.

Do all of those sugars simply style… candy?

Sure and no. Whereas all of them are inherently candy, they’ll have completely different flavors relying on how they’re made and saved. For instance, panutsa de bao has a touch of coconut taste as a result of it’s made utilizing a coconut mildew. There’s additionally a sweetness scale. “On one finish of the size is granulated white sugar, which may be very candy, and the opposite finish is rock sugar, which takes longer to dilute and is greatest used for drinks like chrysanthemums tea,” says Helen Goh, a recipe developer and the co-author of Candy. Someplace within the center are muscovado sugar and the varied palm sugars.

However even this scale is just not terribly correct as a result of Southeast Asian sugars, notably the palm sugars, have depth and complexity. Goh describes the style of palm sugar as “a deep molasses taste,” whereas Pailin Chongchitnant, the Thai Canadian chef behind the web site Scorching Thai Kitchen and the YouTube channel Pailin’s Kitchen, describes the style of pure palm sugar as a barely floral butterscotch sweet.

“It’s completely scrumptious and melts in your mouth right into a creamy texture. I can eat it straight up like sweet,” Chongchitnant says through electronic mail. “The stuff available on the market isn’t pure, nonetheless. All of them have numerous levels of white sugar combined in, in order that butterscotch taste isn’t as pronounced and the feel is a little more granulated, however it’s nonetheless tasty.”

Relying on the kind of tree the sugar sap got here from and the way it’s processed, palm sugars in Malaysia and Indonesia can have an entire vary of flavors, which interprets to desserts with numerous nuance. “For a lot of Asians, notably the Malaysian Chinese language group, saying {that a} dessert is just not too candy is a praise!” Goh says with amusing.

In keeping with Debbie Teoh, a Nyonya chef and cookbook creator from Malaysia, the style of gula melaka is good at first however has a “sourish high quality” towards the tip that probably factors to its origins as coconut sap, as people who commonly drink unprocessed coconut water can attest to its slight tanginess. “Pure gula melaka truly melts at room temperature if left exterior,” says Teoh. Leaving gula melaka out for too lengthy can even lead to mildew, so preserving it within the fridge or freezer is important for long-term storage.

How do I do know which sugar to make use of?

It is very important level out that many of those sugars are produced by cottage industries, so there could be notable variations between batches, relying on the manufacturing strategies and out there pure sources to retailer the sap, like coconut husks. Nonetheless, the very first thing to contemplate is texture, since sugars are available in discs, blocks, tablets, and even liquids. Balicucha, for instance, is a useful aerated sugar capsule that dissolves simply in sizzling drinks, so it’s good in order for you a caramel-flavored espresso.

Then again, panutsa de bao, which is bought in a semicircle bao form befitting its identify, requires a bit extra work. Sonny Mariano, a pastry chef from the Philippines, is a fan of panutsa however acknowledges that there are a couple of further steps earlier than he can use it. “Because it is available in huge chunks, now we have to cut it into smaller items first,” he says through electronic mail. “I largely use it as a sauce, boil it with coconut milk till it’s diminished to caramel consistency, after which use it as a topping for rice truffles.”

Goh does the identical with numerous varieties of nongranulated sugar. “If it is available in blocks or chunks, I grate it and use the shavings,” she says. “This fashion it would dissolve constantly in desserts or drinks.” Goh can be a fan of palm sugar in pill varieties, which is a reasonably latest innovation. “It’s actually useful as a result of it’s the equal of 1 tablespoon, and it’s simple to make use of in syrup or drinks,” she says.

One other factor to contemplate is the prominence of the sugar within the dish you’re making and its potential for substitution. Mariano’s recommendation for dwelling cooks is to “style after which visualize if it would work within the recipe you might be cooking.” Muscovado is without doubt one of the best sugars to make use of as a substitution for others. “I often substitute muscovado when the recipe requires brown sugar, as with its molasses content material it acts extra like a brown sugar in baked recipes,” Mariano says. “Other than the flavour be aware, the sweetness degree varies as properly.”

As for palm sugar, Chongchitnant makes use of it as an alternative to most varieties of sugar and vice versa. “Historically, palm sugar was our solely supply of sweetness in candy and savory dishes, however with the introduction of granulated sugar, which is extra handy and less expensive, folks switched to granulated sugar in savory dishes as a substitute,” she says. “In small quantities, it simply doesn’t actually make a distinction. And in savory dishes, “sweetness is commonly added simply to steadiness the salt and/or acid, to not present a candy taste to the dish,” Chongchitnant continues. “And with many flavors of herbs, spices, and seasonings, the little little bit of palm sugar simply doesn’t actually come via. There are some dishes the place it does make a distinction, equivalent to pad thai, tamarind shrimp, or some other dish the place the sweetness is outstanding.”

When you’ve got restricted entry to palm sugar and are slowly rationing it, Chongchitnant recommends utilizing it solely in candy dishes. “If you wish to actually style the palm sugar, it’s best used the place there aren’t many competing flavors and the place the sweetness is the principle style, equivalent to desserts,” she says.

This explains why gula melaka is the star of many well-known Nyonya desserts in Malaysia. Sago gula melaka is probably the only dessert that options gula melaka: It’s simply cooked sago pearls served with recent coconut milk and melted gula melaka. Gula melaka can be the filling for onde-onde, the fun-to-make glutinous rice balls which might be rolled in grated recent coconut. Should you’d like one thing more difficult, attempt glutinous rice desserts with gula melaka, equivalent to pulut inti or kuih koci.

Should you’re excited about studying to cook dinner with the sugars usually present in Southeast Asian cooking, listed below are a couple of recipes that will help you get began.

Recipes the place sugar is outstanding:

Helen Goh’s black rice pudding (pulut hitam)

Scorching Thai Kitchen’s fried ice cream with pineapple caramel sauce

Rasa Malaysia’s stuffed glutinous rice balls (onde-onde)

Recipes the place sugar is just not the important thing focus:

Muscovado flatbreads

Pickled Plum’s Vietnamese dipping sauce

Scorching Thai Kitchen’s Thai inexperienced curry

Annie Hariharan is a Malaysian Australian characteristic author who focuses on meals, meals historical past, and popular culture. She relies in Melbourne, Australia.
Alia Ali is a translator, cook dinner, and co-founder of the Malaysian meals web site Periuk. She relies in Langkawi, Malaysia.
Sophia Marie Pappas is a Pittsburgh-based illustrator.