Coconut milk jam/kaya is one of the famous South East Asia household favourite for morning breakfast. It is best to go with toast bread or serve together with Nyonya kuih Pulut Tai Tai.
Yet it is a very technical dish that require patience and well control of heat in order to produce smooth Coconut milk jam without forming any curdle.
This is another recipes from my mum who experiemented several (a lot) times in order to achieve this consistency. During mid 80s where there are no recipes available online or in book yet, and the only way to develop a recipe was to repeatedly trying with different version. I still remembered she will have several batches of failed version in the fridge, and we have to help her to finish up before she can try again...and again...till one day when I come 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 need to be consistent at the same speed to distribute accumulate heat from the water bath. Forming curdle is because the eggs in the mixture get cook too fast and the protein in the egg get degenerated (change of structure). Therefore control of temperature is crucial (follow the highlight notes below)
If you need to walk away from your pot, removes them from the water bath and stir for another 15 seconds before you stop. Do not leave it on the water bath or left it there immediately removes 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 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. In order to achieve a smooth consistency, avoid adding in too much water in 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 darker kaya, prepared darker and more caramel (use more sugar) to get the glossy dark colour kaya. You may add lesser sugar into the eggs or just use more sugar to make caramel.
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 egg-santan-sugar mixture with heat. The bottom surface of the bowl that contain the mixture should NOT touching the water surface.
5. The water bath temperature should be around 70 - 80 degree Celsius...Or when the water begin to form small bubble around the water bath with steam coming out from the surface of the water. Switch in between lowest heat and medium low heat to control the temperature during stirring.
6. Your egg-santan-sugar mixture should have little bit of steam coming out from the surface while you stirring continously. You may increase to medium low heat if the mixture is still cold without steam or low it if too much.
7. CONTINUE STIRRING for period of 15 - 20 mons depend on the quantity. Patience is a virtue here. No Shortcut!
8. Once the mixture reach a thicker consistency, put in the pandan leaves to extract the pandan flavour. DO NOT LET THE PANDAN LEAVES SIT IN THERE MORE THAN 2 MIN. If the pandan leaves left in the mixture for too long, your kaya will not fully have a caramel brown colour. It will turn into mixture.of green and brown due to the chlorophyll colour from the pandan leaves.
9. Removes the pandan leaves and swip faster to achieve thicker, glossy and creamy kaya before it is ready. The residue heat from the mixture will be sufficient for the last step. IF THE MIXTURE STILL LIQUIDY, put the bowl of mixture back to water bath and continue stirring it.