Kaya on toast! Isn’t that a classic Singaporean brekkie?

Kaya on toast! Isn’t that a classic Singaporean breakfast? My son said to me when he sat down for breakfast this morning. Before, I could answer him, my wife came to table with half a dozen of half boiled eggs and a pot of Kopi-o. Yes indeed, we are having a full Singaporean brekkie. The reasons behind this unusual breakfast at home were our neighbour gave us a tub of homemade kaya (coconut egg jam) yesterday and we haven’t eaten kaya for ages.

In the days of my childhood, kaya on toasts were virtually eaten and only served at breakfast time. Today in Singapore, it is often eaten as a snack and is readily available throughout the day in most franchised kopitiams (cafes) chains. But it is still an integral part of everyday breakfast especially eaten with half boiled egg (3 minutes eggs) and a cuppa of kopi-O (local blended coffee). When I eat kaya on toast, my mouth waters for the kaya my mother used to make in our family kitchen. Although it was easily available, my mother had to laboriously cook the kaya over the charcoal stove for hours herself.
Kaya making remains a laborious task but there is nothing like homemade kaya. Here’s my mother kaya recipe and I can assure you that it worth the time and effort.


Kaya (Coconut egg jam) Recipe.

10 eggs
500g sugar
800ml thick coconut milk (If unavailable, use full cream canned coconut milk)
¼ cup brown sugar
2-3 pandan leaves (optional, if unavailable)

Methods:

Beat eggs with sugar with a whisk for 10 minute. Traditionally, kaya is cooked in a typical enamelled double boiler. (If unavailable, cook the kaya inside a smaller steel mixing bowl over a bigger pot of boiling water). If one is available, fill the base unit of the double boiler with water and bring to boil. Strain egg mixture into the top unit of the double boiler and stirring all the time until sugar has dissolved. Pour in coconut milk into egg mixture and mix well. Stir with a wooden spoon for the next 30 minutes until egg mixture reaches a smooth custard consistency. Heat the brown sugar in another pot until brown sugar caramelised. Add it to egg mixture to get a rich brown colour and stir well. Double boil custard for 4-5 hours over medium heat. Do top up water of the base unit of double boiler to prevent kaya from burning. When kaya is cooked allow to cool before storing in jars. Keep refrigerated.

My Mother-in-Law's Nonya Acar Recipe

I must admit that I still find it difficult to replicate this Nonya Acar (pickle) dish that my late mother in law had perfected together with her other signature pickle dishes such as bokwa sui(papaya pickles) and Acar Hu (fish pickle).

For a start, we are still juggling with the “agak agak” (rough estimate) measurements she used in her cooking. To make matter worse,the weight measurements were given in kati and taels (old Chinese weight measure). Although we have been analytical on how to create the balance of flavours from the combination of the various spices to the drying process of the vegetables, we are still miles away from its original taste.
Nevertheless, we call upon you to try out this Acar dish with our “new” recipe in metric conversion and perhaps, share with us your own result when preparing this dish.

Nonya Acar Recipe.

Ingredients:

1 kg cucumber
500g cabbage, cut into 3cm square
200g carrot cut into 3cm strips
500g snake beans (long beans/ chai tow) If unavailable use French beans
200g cauliflower, cut into small florets
250g pineapple, if unavailable use canned pineapple

Spices paste:

75g dried red chillies / 3 tbsp chilli powder
200g onion
100g garlic
30gm fresh turmeric / 1 tsp turmeric powder
10g galangal / 1 teaspoon galangal powder
40 gm lemon grass if unavailable use 1 tbsp of grated lemon outer skin
30 gm balachan (prawn paste)
50g coriander seeds / 3 tbsp coriander powder
½ cup peanut roasted and coarsely pounded
¼ cup sesame seeds, roasted
¾ cup sugar
4 tbsp salt
¼ cup vinegar

For scaling fruit and vegetables:

1 litre water
1 litre vinegar
¼ cup salt
¼ cup sugar

Directions:

Prepare cucumber by removing core and cut into 3cm strips. Rub 2 tbsp salt into the cucumber strips and leave aside for 1 hour. Place marinated cucumber strips on a piece of muslin cloth and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Spread the cucumber out on a try and sun for 2-3 hours.
Sun other vegetables separately in trays for 1-2 hours.
Bring water, vinegar, salt and sugar to rapid boil. Blanch the sun dried vegetables separately.
2-3 seconds for cucumber and cabbage.
8-10 seconds for the other vegetables
Drain the blanched vegetables dry.
Heat oil in pan to fry spices till fragrant. Add ¾ cup sugar and 4 tbsp and leave to cool before adding ¼ cup vinegar. Combine all vegetables and mix well. Add sesame seeds and peanuts and leaves overnight to allow flavour to develop before serving. Keep refrigerated.

It must be the mung beans that Jack's mother threw out!

Ever since I was little and learnt the story of Jack and the bean stalk, I have always wanted to know the name of the bean that Jack's angry mother threw out the kitchen window.
Your guess is right! It must be the magical mung beans.According to the story, it grew overnight into a bean stalk that reached the sky.My bean sprouts have confirmed that this is a true tale.
I have placed a coffee mug next to the flower pot as a scale to compare the size of the pot. This photo was taken on the fifth day since I first sprout the beans.Look at the volume and the rate it has grown!

Whatever you do with the mung beans, please do not throw them out of the window. Unless you want to climb the bean stalk in the garden to the sky.

See what you get from having worms in your...

Not very often I give myself a pat on the shoulder. Today, I gave myself more than one pat on my shoulder. The first pat is for the successful harvest of these lovely organic grown hot chillies from my backyard and the second one is for disposing my food waste or kitchen scraps in an efficient and convenient way from my verandah. Thanks to my worm farm for making this possible. I only started this composting method last year, by using the worms which are nature’s own recyclers to convert my food waste into nutrient rich 100% organic fertiliser that my potted plants, herb garden and vegetables plots strive. Most important of all, I have contributed to the reduction of garbage at my local municipal land fill, by reducing the amount of waste I throw away.





I bought this worm farm kit form the local hardware store last March. For the uninitiated few, let me briefly describe the worm farm. The worm farm consists of four trays. The bottom tray is a collector tray which has a solid base to collect liquid fertilizer that drains from the upper levels of the system. You can collect the liquid fertilizer by draining it out from the tap and use it as it comes or dilute with water.





The worms are started off in the first tray by using bedding material which can be made from sawdust, coir, newspapers, manure and dry cuttings from the garden. Worm do not like direct light so enhance the “settling in” process by leaving the lid opened for a while till no worms are visible which have been placed there. They then simply eat their way up, wriggling into the tray above where they can detect the food above which have been placed there. By the time the top tray is full; most worms have left the first tray where they began which had the initial bedding material. You can now take out this tray, remove the worm casting (poo) and then return it to the top again.







Thus the cycle is never ending, and you will have a convenient, natural and efficient way to dispose of your food waste, while at the same time ensuring a constant supply of your very own 100% organic fertiliser.

News Update of the Bean Sprouts

This photo was taken at 9am (22/04/09)





This photo was taken at 3pm (23/o4/09)

Collecting Australian Bush Tucker In My Driveway

I collected these beautiful Australian bush tuckers along my driveway while trimming and tidying the hedge,this morning. I have planted these evergreen shrubs from seedlings five years ago and they have grown into a beautiful hedge along the driveway. They were chosen because of their attractive glossy foliage and most important they produce an edible fruit like our jumbu in Singapore

It is commonly known as Lilly Pilly. There are about 60 species in Australia, and a few produce edible fruit that can be eaten fresh or used in jams and jellies. I usually add them to my rojak (Singaporean fruits and vegetable salads with spicy prawn paste (hae koe) dressing.
Ever since working in the forest of Papua New Guinea, I am always interested in bush tuckers and marvelled at the jungle survival skills of the people of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
Botanically, this plant belongs to the syzygium species of the myrtle family. Not only it is related to our jumbu tree in Singapore, it also a close relative to the clove tree of Indonesia.

How to make Indian Rojak Nonya Style.

Since the recent hawker food scare in Singapore, we have been receiving requests for hawkers’ food recipes. The closest recipe we can get to the infamous Indian Rojak is the ngeow chu cheen (mouse fritter) with a thick spicy plum dipping sauce.

This Nonya style Indian Rojak is a common vegetarian dish known as “cheh hu” (vegetarian fish) amongst the babas and nonyas in Penang. The fritters served with this dish are known as “ngeow chu cheen” (mouse fritter) because when the batter are dropped in the hot oil they form mouse-shaped fritters (hence its name in Hokien for mouse).



Ingredients for Gravy:

2 tbsp finely ground dried chilli
1 onion finely blend
1 ½ cup tamarind juice (If unavailable substitute 6 tbsp plum sauce or tomato sauce)
2 cup boiled mashed potato
1 cup water
4 tbsp oil
Sugar to taste

Method:

Heat the oil in a pan until hot. Fry the onion and chilli until fragrant. Add water, peanut butter and mashed potato. Bring to boil and lower heat. Simmer and stirring sauce until thicken to pouring consistency. Strain by pressing through a colander to get a smoother sauce and set aside.

For the Prawn fritters aka Ngeow Chu Cheen (Mouse fritter):
250 g small prawns
1 cup flour
1 tbsp rice flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ cup water
½ tsp salt
Pinch of pepper
2 cucumber
1 yambean (mung kwan)
500g bean sprouts
2 pcs hard bean curd (taukua)
150 jellyfish, soaked

Method:

Mince prawn finely. Add the minced prawn to rest of ingredient to make a thick batter. Drop in hot oil to form cylindrical shape fritter like a mouse (hence, the name in Hokkien dialect for mouse). Deep fry fritters until golden. Serve with dipping sauce.