Palm sugar noun

Sugar boiled down from the sap of coconut or palmyra palms, sold in soft discs or jars.

Rounded caramel sweetness with butterscotch and a faint saltiness; less sharp than white sugar.

Shave or dissolve into curries, dressings and dipping sauces to balance salt and sour. Thai cooking balances every dish on the triangle of fish sauce, lime and palm sugar.

Tapped from palm flowers before dawn and reduced over wood fires in the central plains and south of Thailand. It is the sweetener behind pad thai sauce, massaman and green curry.