Coconut milk jam/kaya is one of the famous Southeast Asia household favourites for morning breakfast. It is best to go with toast bread or in Thailand, people est with fried dough.
Yet it is a very technical dish that requires patience and well control of heat to produce smooth Coconut milk jam without forming any curdle.
This is another recipe from my mum who experimented several (a lot) times to achieve this consistency. During the mid 80s where there were no recipes available online or in books yet, and the only way to develop a recipe was to repeatedly try with different versions. I still remember she would have several batches of failed versions in the fridge, and we had to help her to finish up before she could try again...and again...till one day when I came home from school to discover a bowl of smooth Coconut milk jam on the table.
Patience is a virtue here! Do not rush the process. The stirring step needs to be consistent at the same speed to distribute accumulated heat from the water bath. Forming curdle is because the eggs in the mixture get cooked too fast and the protein in the egg gets degenerated (change of structure). Therefore control of temperature is crucial (follow the highlight notes below)
If you need to walk away from your pot, remove it from the water bath and stir for another 15 seconds before you stop. Do not leave it in the water bath or leave it there immediately remove it from the water bath. The uneven heat will cause some of the egg protein to degenerate and form curdle.
Recipes:
1 bowl of eggs (B size egg requires 5 eggs; if use A size egg, you might need only 4)
1 bowl of sugar (for those who do not want it to be too sweet, can use 3/4 or 1/2 bowl)
200 mL of Santan (Coconut Milk); if want to extract Santan yourself, that the first extract will do. We need to minimum input of water.
Highlight Notes:
1. To achieve a smooth consistency, avoid adding too much water to the santan or egg mixture. Adding in water will cause it to boil and trap hot air during mixing, your kaya will not be smooth.
2. For more beautiful Pandan green colour, use more Pandan leaves. Used only the first extract without adding more than 4 tbspn of water. If you pandan juice too diluted, you be adding too much water into the mixture and also hard to obtain vibrant green colour.
3. SIEVED at least several times to make sure the eggs-sugar mixture is smooth and evenly mix; and also to make sure without too much of air bubble in the mixture of egg-santan-sugar. I personally recommended 4 times sieving.
4. Use a bain-marie technique (cooking the kaya over water bath) to avoid direct contact of the egg-santan-sugar mixture with heat. The bottom surface of the bowl that contains the mixture should NOT touch the water surface.
5. The water bath temperature should be around 70 - 85 degrees Celsius...Or when the water begins to form small bubbles around the water bath with steam coming out from the surface of the water. Switch between medium low heat and medium-low heat to control the temperature during stirring.
6. Your egg-santan-sugar mixture should have a little bit of steam coming out from the surface while you stirring continuously. You may increase to medium-low heat if the mixture is still cold without steam or lower it if too much.
7. CONTINUE STIRRING for the period of 15 - 20 mons depending on the quantity. Patience is a virtue here. No Shortcut!
8. The residue heat from the mixture will be sufficient for the last step. IF THE MIXTURE IS STILL LIQUIDY put the bowl of the mixture back into the water bath and continue stirring it.