Hi folks!

I was trawling through the shelves of my favourite Chinese grocery story
when I came upon bottles of Lye Water. Now, I know that lye is potassium
carbonate. What I'd like to know is what is it used for? I found a recipe
for a Filipino brown rice cake called "Kusinta" on www.asiarecipe.com that
used a teaspoon of lye water. Is it something like the use of bicarbonate
soda or "baking powder" in western cooking?

Also, I came across a whole bin of dried pandanus (pandan) leaves, as well
as a whole crew of pandan essences (some with bright green food colouring)
and others that were clear. I know it's an ingredient of a lot of Asian
sweets (thinking some of the Thai glutinous rice & coconut milk desserts
here), but is it used in savoury foods a lot? I've been trying to find
recipes via google, but I'm coming up with mostly sweet things.

Does anyone have any recipes they'd care to post?

Cheers,

Kali