Kaya

When we went to Singapore, in 2005, one of the things the travel book advised was to try the kaya toast. Kaya, it went on to say, is an egg-coconut custard, spread on toast. The difficulty arose in trying to find a place that served it, and we finally hunted down a place about a mile away from our hotel after asking the concierge and a few people on the street. It was worth it! One of my fondest memories of the trip is that of our then 4 year old testing out the kaya and deciding it was edible.

A week or so ago I was trying to find something to do with a few limes, and started googling for "lime," "coconut," "jam," and "preserves." I came across a few recipes for kaya. They were all basically the same: 10 eggs, 1 cup of sugar, and a can of coconut milk. However, none of the recipes are all that explicit as to what happens after you put it in the jars. Do you refrigerate it? Store it at room temperature? How long does it last? No clue. So for this one I'm winging it a little. Tonight I made the custard, put it in the jars (it made 3 half-pints and a little extra) and decided that I should process it at least a little. I put the jars in the hot water and brought it to a boil and processed for about 3 minutes. The jars have popped and hopefully it will have a decent shelf life.

Thing to remember: the coconut milk has little bits of coconut in it which should be filtered out.

The kids won't touch it but the grown-ups love it!