Manda's Munchies: A Recipe Blog
- Amanda Siow
- May 1, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: May 1, 2022
S I N G A P O R E ' S B R E A D A N D K A Y A I S S U E :
How the Local Hainanese Breakfast Helped to Build a Nation
Amanda Siow May 1, 2022
Conversational tones of a groggy morning crowd hum in the coffee shop, or kopitiam, punctuated by the biting interjections of Singlish slang. But one distinct sound rises above all: the crunch of golden-brown, crustless toast, slathered with luscious, gooey kaya (coconut jam) in between.
Such is the soundscape replaying in my dreams, living as a student in Boston. To many Singaporeans, food is home, so whenever we leave our tiny island, it is our local cuisine we yearn for. It’s not an exaggeration to say I’ve cradled to bed a jar of kaya, a rare find at the Asian supermarket—and yet when I taste a spoonful, it’s just not the same. I begin to think about the days when my parents would take me to the kopitiam after my weekly tuition classes for a midday snack. And as I shovel more mediocre kaya into my mouth, more memories come flooding back.
When you ask any Singaporean anywhere in the world what they miss the most, it's usually food first and family second. If they say otherwise, they're lying.
"
- Cheryl Tan Lu-Lien in her cooking memoir, Tiger in the Kitchen
Kaya toast, it turns out, is a literal slice of history charting the development of Singapore’s unique local cuisine from colonial and ethnic influences. It carries the memories of home-building passed down through generations; today’s Singaporean youth grew up eating at kopitiams, a tradition passed down by parents who similarly grew up eating in early-version kopitiams, while their parents worked to make a living and assert their own cultural identity in the first streetside food stalls. Today, eating is Singapore’s national pastime—we eat out more than we cook, a phenomenon passed down from parents who were driven into the labor force and spent little time in the kitchen. But not so long ago, cooking was our main hobby.
The story of kaya starts with Hainanese immigrants seeking a better life in Singapore. As they arrived later than other ethnic immigrants, they often had to settle for service work as cooks in wealthier colonial households. Having to cook for a British palate, Hainanese cooks likely modified their own cuisine for Western tastes; the berry jam served with toast was made with coconuts instead, soft-boiled eggs became runnier half-boiled eggs with soy sauce, and coffee beans took on a Hainanese flavor from
different roasting and brewing methods.
When subsequent economic conditions allowed the Hainanese to run food stalls of their own, they chose to sell this fusion Hainanese-British breakfast as their own creation. Kaya toast’s multi-ethnic layers are artifacts of the Hainanese effort to create something of their own in a foreign land through cooking. As immigrants created unique fusion dishes, they built the kitchen into a home they owned. And as Singaporeans gathered around these dining spaces, these fusion dishes solidified as the representation of home for an entire nation.
Clinging onto my unsatisfying jar of store-bought kaya, I resolve to try making my own for once; by cooking the Hainanese breakfast that signaled the transformation of an immigrant country into an independent nation, perhaps I could transform my kitchen into something that felt more like home. Cheryl Tan, author of Tiger in the Kitchen, had the same idea; a Singaporean journalist who moved to New York, she sought to learn her family’s Singaporean recipes to reconnect with her homeland. She provides an authentic kaya recipe from her grandmother in her memoir, which I have expanded upon to include the full breakfast set.
T H E R E C I P E
Local Hainanese Breakfast Set
For Ah-Ma's Kaya:
Adapted from Cheryl Tan's Tiger in the Kitchen
Yields about 4 cups
I N G R E D I E N T S
10 eggs
½ to 1 cup sugar, depending on how sweet you like it
Milk from shredded pulp of 1 coconut (squeeze milk out in 2 batches); can substitute with 2-3 tablespoons of coconut cream diluted with half a tablespoon of water
3 pandan leaves, tied in knots; may substitute with 1 tablespoon of pandan essence or 3 tablespoons of pandan juice
M E T H O D
Crack the eggs; whisk them together. Add ½ to 1 cup of sugar and coconut milk and mix it up well.
Transfer mixture to a glass bowl, add knotted pandan leaves, then perch that bowl atop a steaming rack in a wok.
Steam the mixture for 45 to 60 minutes, untouched, until the desired consistency is reached.
When you remove the kaya from the steamer, stir it, let it cool, and spread it over toasted bread. The consistency should be smooth and creamy.
For the half-boiled eggs:
Serves 2 eggs per pax
I N G R E D I E N T S
2 eggs
Light soy sauce
Ground white pepper; may substitute with ground black pepper
M E T H O D
Set aside two room-temperature eggs in a bowl.
In a separate pot or kettle, boil some water.
Once the water reaches a vigorous boil, pour the water directly over the eggs into a bowl, then cover with a lid immediately.
Leave the bowl for 6 minutes 45 seconds. Experiment with 6 and a half to 7 minutes depending on preferred consistency.
After the time is up, remove the eggs from the water and crack into a serving bowl.
Serve with a dash of soya sauce and white pepper. Mix slightly with a spoon.
Some eat the half-boiled eggs with a spoon, some dip bread into the mixture, and many slurp the eggs straight from the bowl like soup. Eat with your preferred method.
For the Hainanese coffee:
Hainanese coffee, or kopi, is easiest to recreate with dark-roasted, freshly ground coffee beans. Local or Asian supermarkets often sell Hainan-style coffee powder; buy your preferred brand.
M E T H O D
Bring the appropriate amount of water (according to packet specifications) to a simmer in a small pot, then add the coffee and stir for half a minute before taking it off the heat.
Pour the mixture through a coffee filter.
When serving the coffee, start pouring the coffee at a short distance from the mug, then gradually “pull” the coffee jug up to increase the height of the coffee from the mug. This pulling technique is common in Singapore kopitiams and is said to enhance the flavor of the coffee.
Serve with your desired amount of sugar and milk.
Reflection:
Practical limitations came to define my remediation; due to the scarcity of a crucial ingredient in Boston, I was unable to procure it in time to cook the recipe. Originally, I intended to focus much more heavily on the process of cooking, as I aimed to encourage audiences to personally experience the process of home-building through cooking. Being a recipe blog, this goal seemed particularly apt. However, as this plan fell through, I decided to hone in on the story of home-building that kaya unlocks, and how store-bought kaya would fail to faithfully recreate it. Interestingly, I was able to buy a jar of ready-made kaya, which I then used as a pivotal anecdote to explain, firstly, how food allows us to access core memories of home, but more importantly, how it cannot compare to actually cooking. As such, I remediated my essay into an educational narrative which culminates in a call-to-action to cook kaya with me, justifying leaving the recipe to the very end. For the multimodal aspect, I repurposed elements of my paper: pictures of the dish and old street-side food stalls, and a quote from my key recipe source by placing them adjacent to relevant paragraphs. While these elements were originally included for local context, I used them in the remediation for visual interest instead.
My main contribution was expanding upon the adapted recipe. Instead of focusing on kaya toast, I felt that covering the entire breakfast set would emphasize more strongly the process of home-building through fusing different ethnic cuisines, as every element of the set is clearly adapted from both colonial and Hainanese influences. Furthermore, I have a recipe for half-boiled eggs; as my father once endeavored to cook them at home, he asked for a rough method from one of the workers at Ya-Kun Kaya Toast, a popular Hainanese breakfast chain store in Singapore. Though I did not include this anecdote in my blog, feeling that there was no appropriate place for it, it added an element of personal connection and interest for me that a recipe blog typically has and aims to inspire.
コメント