Pervaiz Shallwani
For The Associated Press

Even adventurous cooks might be intimidated the first time they discover palm sugar tucked among the Asian ingredients at the grocer. These hard, sometimes oddly large chunks of brownish sugar don’t exactly tempt with obvious uses.

But it’s an ingredient worth getting to know.

Once exclusively the byproduct of the palmyra palm, today palm sugar has become a generic term for the cooked sap of coconut, date and other trees.

Sometimes called jaggery or gur, the sweetener is the byproduct of the sap collected from the stalks and trunks of the palms that spread for miles along the tropical coasts of Asia and Africa.

The thick syrup is cooked until the water evaporates, forming a crystallized sugar mass that turns hard, but still crumbles. It is most commonly used in sweets, the way refined sugar is used in the West.

Mumbai-born chef Floyd Cardoz of Tabla restaurant in New York fondly remembers a childhood treat of crepes stuffed with a sweet filling of jaggery and rice, raisins or nuts.

“We would go into the pantry and steal little pieces when the cook was sleeping,” Cardoz says. “You could pretty much use it like sugar if you wanted to, but it’s a little more complex.

“It has a little bit of acidity,” he says, which is why it isn’t good for coffee.

The acid comes from the cooking process where the sap ferments a bit, giving palm sugar a bit of a winey flavor that makes it an ideal sweetener to balance the acidity and heat common to the cuisines of India, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, East Asia and parts of Africa. For example, it provides the hint of sweetness in traditional pad thai recipes.

Grind or grate palm sugar over ice cream, oatmeal or custard. Use a tablespoon or two to sweeten a vinegary barbecue sauce, or to add a caramel flavor in a shrimp glaze. In this refreshing scallop dish, it adds a sweet complexity to a spicy and acidic glaze.

Seared sea scallops with lime jaggery glaze

Start to finish: 1 hour

Servings: 6

For the glaze:

1⁄4 cup thinly sliced garlic cloves

3⁄4 cup fresh lime juice (about 4 limes)

1⁄3 cup palm sugar

1⁄2 cup water

Zest of 2 limes (about 2 teaspoons)

1 tablespoon peeled and finely chopped ginger

11⁄2 teaspoons coriander seeds

11⁄2 teaspoons black peppercorns

8 Sichuan peppercorns

1⁄4 teaspoon ajwain seeds

For the scallops:

21⁄2 pounds sea scallops (about 30)

Salt and ground black pepper

1⁄2 cup canola oil

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided

Four 3-inch sprigs fresh thyme

Bring a small saucepan of water to a boil. Place the garlic in a mesh strainer and rinse under cold water. Add the garlic to the boiling water and blanch for 30 seconds, then strain and rinse under cool water again. Set aside.

In a 3- to 4-quart saucepan over low, combine the lime juice, palm sugar and water. Heat, breaking up the sugar with a spoon. When the sugar is completely melted, add the lime zest, ginger and garlic. Heat until reduced to a thick, syrupy glaze, about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small dry skillet over low, toast the coriander seeds and black peppercorns for 11⁄2 minutes, shaking the skillet. Add the Sichuan peppercorns and ajwain seeds, then toast for another 11⁄2 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Once the spices have cooled, use a spice grinder or mortar and pestle to finely grind them, then stir them into the reduced glaze. Remove the glaze from the heat.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Season the scallops with salt and pepper, then let sit for 5 minutes.

In a 12-inch skillet over high, heat 1⁄4 cup of the oil until it shimmers. Sear half of the scallops on one side for 2 minutes, then turn the scallops over and add 11⁄2 tablespoons of the butter and two of the thyme sprigs. When the butter melts, tilt the skillet and use a spoon to baste the scallops with the fat in the pan.

Transfer the scallops to a rimmed baking sheet. Sear the remaining scallops in the same way, using the remaining oil, butter and thyme. Transfer the second batch of scallops to the baking sheet, then roast on the oven’s middle rack for 3 minutes.

Serve the scallops topped with the glaze.