Homemade Kaya (Coconut Jam) & rant

A special note to my husband.

....it isn't even Mother's Day, our Anniversary or even my birthday, just an ordinary sleepy Sunday. So why, I keep wondering W-H-Y did you have to start the day by burning my expansive ecogreen pot?

Even though I admire your excitement of wanting to taste your favourite childhood food and the pure tenacity at your wanting to cook this by yourself (having declined my earlier offer to just get some from the shops), H-O-W did you ruin my precious pot?

Similar to your cars, tv, stereo and player - my pots and pans are my 'precious kitchen babies'! How could you even injure any of them??

...after one full tray of eggs, 1 kg of sugar, 1 burnt pot, an entire morning of stressful 'oh-shit' scrubbing and cleaning up the messed up kitchen - so I felt a tad bad for you especially since you've been dreaming and planning on tasting your childhood kaya for weeks.

Needless to say, you owe big-time.

Make it up quick by replacing another ecogreen pot!

*** **** ****

Used the 'jam' function of a breadmaker to make this. Have made this a couple of times before and its turned out well, can't compare to charcoal cooked ones, but still pretty decent.

You can cook it over the stove (double boil method) but that means that you will need to stick close the stove and stir until you get a nice thick chunky consistency (probably about 1.5 - 2 hours). Being a 'modern' cook, find it so much more convenient to cook this with a 'jam' function machine (or even a thermomix).

Ingredients (1:1:1 ratio)
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup eggs (about 4-5 small eggs) + 1 yolk
1 cup caster sugar
1/4 tsp scant salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
10-15 pieces of pandan leaves, washed and wiped dry and knoted
1/4 cup pandan juice (made from pounded pandan leaves mix with some water)

Use a cheese cloth to help squeeze out the green pandan juice.

Method:
1. Lightly whisk the eggs and seive.
2. Pour all ingredients into machine.

3. Follow machine instruction and press 'jam' fuction and start cooking. While cooking you might need to scrap down the sides.
4. Cool mixture after cooking, remove pandan leaves and blend mixture until you get the consistency you like - super smooth, moderately lumpy or original ala mode.

Final cooked mixture right out of the machine. If you are cooking this by hand it will not be so lumpy. Not to worry, give it a few blitz in the food processer and it'll be nice and smooth!

The entire house smelled so delicious while it was cooking. Even Master Prince who was suppose to be sleeping came down and asked me what cake was I baking. When I told him it was kaya, he didn't believe me. As for DH, he also came down quietly to check on the kitchen activity and kept hinting that something smelt good and hope it would be ready soon.

Couldn't help but grab myself a cracker and slather on some hot homemade green goodness.

Now excuse me while I reward myself with a lip-smacking snack*ngom, ngom...* Best eaten with toast or original Jacobs biscuits.

Short note

Hi, you may have probably noticed that I've been quietly trying to slip in some back-log posts! Obviously not succeeding too well :)

Hope everyone is well. Do apologize for not blogging more often, been busy and there were a few things going on that kept me at bay.

It has been a good rest albeit long but its been appreciated.

As you may have noticed I've still been taking pictures....just didn't have time to clean up the pictures and upload them.

On a personal level, my latest indulgence is that I am SO HOOKED into this Vietnamese instant coffee. It is so fragrant and delicious especially with a tbsp of condense milk (evil but taste so good! ha). Its even great drinking it cold. Sad to say I've just savoured my last sachet and can't wait for my next supply!

If you can get your hands on this, do give it a try. Its really tasty, trust me.

While waiting for my coffee supply, my curiosity got the better of me I ended up walking out with a packet of Korean 3-in-1 mix. Not bad but can't compare the deep rich and complex flavour of the Vietnamese coffee counterpart.



Been inspired with Korean cooking with Vietnamese food recently jumping into the bandwagon. My latest interest is the cooking show by Chef Luke Nguyen. You can check out more at www.sbs.com.au website or just do a search on youtube. Largely due to the language barrier, I am glad to be able to journey with Luke as he cooks and travel around Vietnam.

Noticed that both cuisine like to grill and then wrap their food in lettuce. So find myself adopting a fusion with both using gochujang (Korean red pepper paste) and fresh herbs like mint, corriander, basil and lemongrass. Needless to say the combination is just fantastic, full of fresh and complex flavours - just the way I like it! :)

In the mean time, will try my best to spend a little more time catching up with my blog so do track back my posts if you want to know what I've been up do in the kitchen, haha! Thanks for faithfully dropping by *muaks*