Buko Pandan

Buko Pandan
Buko refers to young coconut meat. Pandan is a plant that grows in the tropical parts of Asia. Its leaves are used to sweeten many desserts, drinks and savory dishes. Here, we’ll use pandan leaves, green gulaman--a delicious vegetarian gelatin, also known as agar-agar which is Malay for jelly--and flavor with kaong, a super palm fruit. Serves 6 to 8


  • 3/4 cup of sugar
  • 2 bars of green gulaman
  • 1 cup kaong
  • 3 small cans of Nestle Cream
  • 1 medium can of condensed milk
  • 8 leaves of pandan
  • 2 packages of frozen Buko

Cooking Directions

  1. In a large pot, boil buko water with all 8 leaves of pandan. Simmer over low-medium heat to break the pandan’s fibers and heat out their juice. This will take 20 minutes.
  2. Remove pandan leaves from pot and measure buko water, making sure it equals 8 cups. This is very important. If the buko water is does not equal 8 cups, the gulaman will not combine well and you will have wasted all that time. 1 bar of gulaman dissolves in 4 cups of water and is very sensitive. After you’ve measured exactly 8 cups of buko water, dump it back into your pot and add the two bars of gulaman, mixing well making sure it is dissolving. This will take 5 minutes.
  3. Pour through a strainer and into a cooling container, like a pie plate or anything you might bake in, and put into the fridge.
  4. While the gulaman is cooling, mix the grated buko with the 3 cans of cream and 1 can of condensed milk adding the kaong in the end.
  5. Once the gulaman has hardened, cut into 1 cm cubes and mix with the buko.
  6. Serve in individual bowls or a large party bowl.

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