Skeletons in My Bread Cupboard

Since my recently renewed infatuation with kaya started, I have been imbibing large quantities of bread. Not bread bread, as in crusty loaves and aromatic rolls, but regular sliced bread with various spreads and toppings. Initially I was just looking for an excuse to eat my kaya, but it then evolved into wanting to re-live childhood memories of the different ways I used to eat my bread.

Bread and the eating of bread are such emotional things. Both are so often tied in to memories of the tastes and smells of childhood. During my current bread-consuming spree, I have been re-visiting many of the old, sometimes long forgotten, flavor combinations that were once so loved. A number of these have now re-joined those all-time favorites that never left my life. Some of these bread-eating habits are quirky, others may sound icky and yet others still probably seem downright weird. And yet, each one is tasty, and most bring back a flood of pleasant memories and emotions.

Care for a little tour of my bread “closet” to see what flavorful “skeletons” we can unearth?

Let’s start with my current spread-of-the-month, kaya.

One cannot talk about kaya without talking about the fabled South East Asian (Singaporean and Malaysian, to be exact) institution of kaya toast. We are passionate about kaya toast. Many would pay modern-day exorbitant (some would say extortionate) prices for what amounts to merely two pieces of light fluffy nothingness of bread, sandwiching a slab of butter and a dollop of kaya. It is almost like a collective consciousness. It is not written or set down in any cookbook or culinary rule book, and yet just about everyone knows the exacting criteria that must be fulfilled for a toast to qualify as “good” kaya toast.

Long before McD’s Big Breakfast hit our shores, there was the Oriental fast-food kaya-toast-and-runny-eggs breakfast. In the old days, for just a few cents, one would get a cup of thick, piquant local coffee, a piece of kaya toast and two half-boiled eggs. The coffee was served in a rustic heavy-set porcelain cup which sat atop a porcelain saucer with edges that curved up slightly. This was important. The saucer was key to eating the eggs.

Many of the kopitiams (traditional Chinese coffee shops) had a highly “automated” and synchronized system of cooking these eggs. Timing was of the essence. The eggs could not be overcooked or undercooked. Both whites and yolk should be runny, but the whites should not have transparent bits. It required the cook to find that very fine split-second border-line between transparent and opaque whites.

How was this done? Some kopitiams came up with an ingenious “machine” which pretty much automated the cooking process. This "machine" was simple, easy to operate, and hardly ever broke down. It was simply rows and rows of “hanging tins”. Tin cans which once contained canned food were recycled and given a second life. Small holes were punched in the bottom of the can, and the cans were strung with string and hung along wooden poles. Each morning, during the peak breakfast rush, raw fresh eggs were systematically placed in each can, which was then filled with boiling hot water. As the eggs cooked, the water dripped out of the holes in the bottom of the can. Once the water had run dry (within mere minutes), the eggs were done to perfection – runny yolk and whites, with no transparent bits. The key was in getting the number and size of the holes in the bottom of the cans right. Thereafter, it was on auto-pilot. Ingenious. Efficient. Successful. Fast-food kopitiam style.

As each egg was cooked, removed from the can and served, another egg would be put into the can, and so the process continued. The cook would simply work systematically up and down the row of cans, putting in raw eggs, topping up the boiling water, and removing the cooked eggs. It was akin to a rhythmic culinary dance.

To eat the eggs… first, the cup containing the coffee was removed from its saucer. The half-boiled eggs were cracked and their still very runny insides poured into the now-empty saucer. A dash of light (or dark) soy sauce was added and the eggs stirred with the teaspoon, to create a not-very-visually-appealing brown liquid. The saucer containing the liquid eggs was then carefully brought to the lips and the eggs were “drunk”. That was the way – the only way – that these traditional half-boiled eggs should be eaten! With eggs consumed, it was time to enjoy the kaya toast.

The kaya toast is actually more of a sandwich than a toast – a kaya and butter toasted sandwich. For an authentic, original version of kaya toast, the traditional kopitiam bread has to be used (see top photo). This traditional bread has its roots in the Hainanese kopitiams of old. Tall, slim loaves with a characteristic rounded top, they are cut into ½ inch thick slices. All the crust – top, bottom and sides – are always removed to give narrow, elongated 7” by 3” slices. These are pieces of cloud-like fluffiness and softness, which almost dissolves with each bite.

Two slices of the bread are grilled over smoldering charcoal until nicely golden brown and crispy on the outside, but still cottony soft and fluffy on the inside. Some kopitiams make the kaya sandwich using two full thick slices of toasted bread, others split one piece of toasted bread in half along the cross-section to give two super-thin, very crispy slices of toast. A slab – and I mean a slab, none of that dainty cholesterol-phobic nonsense, but a thick macho slab – of cold butter is sliced and placed on one piece of toast. The other piece of toast is liberally slathered with kaya. The two pieces of bread are then slapped together to form the sandwich.

And there you have it – kaya toast. That is why the Malaysian name for this sandwich is “roti kahwin” (kahwin being either “marriage” or “to marry”). Two slices of toast are “married together” with kaya and butter.

As the sandwich is being brought to the waiting customer, the butter has time to start melting in the heat of the toasted bread. So, as one bites into the sandwich one gets a mouthful of half-melted butter as well as still slightly cold, somewhat hard butter, all complemented by oozing kaya. It is actually quite a symphonic display of textures… cold firm butter, warm melted butter, smooth dripping kaya, crispy crunchy toast, soft fluffy melt-in-the-mouth bread. It may sound messy, icky even, but the varied and contrasting textures, flavors and levels of richness of all the different components come together majestically for a thoroughly enjoyable taste sensation.

The sandwich is so simple, but one only has to watch the enjoyment, joy and utter pleasure on the faces of people eating roti kahwin to realize that this is one food that is almost purely about emotions and nostalgia. Singaporeans nowadays are willing to pay rather exorbitant prices to recapture the spirit and experience of the traditional kopitiam half-boiled eggs and kaya toast breakfast.

I like kaya toast. But on my terms. Which means none of that defiant devil-may-care slab of butter stuff for me. Sorry. I prefer the flavors of the kaya to be the dominant notes in the sandwich, rather than be overwhelmed by the intense richness of biting into a chunk of half-melted butter. So, I like my butter spread onto the toast, followed by a generous layer of kaya. In fact, I like mine as an open sandwich, with only one piece of toast. It increases the kaya to bread ratio. Perfect.

During the initial throes of my infatuation with my new-found Hainanese kaya love, I was looking for all sorts of excuses and ways to eat the kaya. One day I decided to top the kaya with pork floss.

That is hardly ground-breaking, frontier-busting stuff, I know. We have been eating pork floss sandwiches for decades – long before floss buns became hip, happenin’ and yuppie-fied. Personally, I’ve always eaten my pork floss sandwich with butter. This was the first time I tried it with kaya. And I much prefer it with kaya – Hainanese kaya that is. (I think the pandan flavor of Nonya kaya may potentially interfere with the overall taste balance). The sweetness of the kaya is a lovely foil for the saltiness of the floss. The coconut aroma adds an interesting complexity to the overall flavor balance that isn’t there with just butter. And it sure beats the oily, greasy mayo-based commercial floss buns anytime, in my humble opinion. Kaya-floss toast has garnered a permanent seat on my “favorite toasts” list.

How else do I like my kaya and toast? Here’s one from my childhood. Kaya and cheese. It sounds gross. But it doesn’t taste anyway near weird. It actually works very well and tastes good. Again it goes back to the contrast and balancing of sweet with savory. It’s the juxtaposition of the creamy richness of the kaya with the soft gooeyness of the cheese. But, for the authentic taste experience though, it has to be a slice of processed cheese – the type that looks plasticky and comes individually wrapped in what else but more plastic. I’m serious. I think it works best with this type of cheese. None of the gourmet or “real” cheeses for this sandwich. Sorry.

Another long-time love… kaya and peanut butter. I guess one could call this the South East Asian version of peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It is still peanut butter with jam – only it is coconut jam and not fruit jam. Now, this one is really good.

Then again, I’m a peanut butter fiend, so anything with peanut butter in it is really good in my books. This is the gal who, as a teenager, would regularly, for tea, eat peanut butter straight out of the jar, by the spoonfuls! I was particular about my peanut butter. It had to be super chunky – not just chunky, but super chunky – when eating it out of the jar. But it had to be creamy when spread on toast or bread. Hey, a teenager is entitled to her idiosyncrasies, surely.

My all-time favorite peanut butter sandwich combination, to this day, is peanut butter with Nutella. Oh! Bliss! Divine gastronomic bliss! Forget champagne. Forget caviar. I love peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches!

Chocolate with nuts, what could be better? This is a handsome trio – chocolate, hazelnuts and peanuts. The sweetness of the Nutella against the saltiness of the peanut butter. The sticky gooeyness of peanut butter balanced out by the smooth creaminess of the chocolate spread. A marriage made in foodie heaven, in my opinion.

Sometimes I like my peanut butter and Nutella on toast, and sometimes on fresh bread, depending on the kind of texture and mouth-feel I want from my peanut butter. On hot toast, the peanut butter softens and lightens, and feels smoother and creamier on the palate. But when I want that unique peanut butter experience of having goopy stuff getting stuck to the roof of my mouth as I munch on my sandwich, fresh untoasted bread is the way to go.

Another peanut butter combo that I like is this…

Peanut butter with sugar sprinkled over. This was actually taught to me by my cousin’s 8 year old. Sure, many people have grown up eating buttered toast sprinkled with or dipped into sugar. But I personally had not heard of peanut butter with sugar, until about 3-4 years back, when the little one came to stay with us for a short spell while her parents were away. Each afternoon, for tea, she wanted only peanut butter and sugar on toast. Tried as we might, she would not be persuaded to eat anything else for tea. “But this is the best” was the refrain. I have to admit, my initial reaction was one of slight skepticism. Peanut butter with sugar? Why I felt that was so strange compared to say butter with sugar I do not know. But I did.

Yet, the moment I tried it, I was hooked. It truly was good. I had to agree with her. It was way better than butter and sugar. The key, she sagely advised me, was to use creamy peanut butter, never crunchy, as the bits of peanuts would interfere with the feel of the crunchy sugar. She was of course right again. And I remembered thinking: I think we have a budding foodie on our hands. She was only around 4 or 5 at the time.

This aspiring food connoisseur also had a preferred way of eating her peanut butter and sugar toast.

She wanted the toast cut into small bite-sized squares – 16 bite-sized pieces to each piece of toast to be exact, to get her ideal-sized chunks – so that she could pop each piece whole into her mouth. This, as she told me, was to prevent the sugar from falling off the toast as it would if she bit into the full piece of toast. However, when in a pinch, and she had been told to cut the toast herself, she would gingerly cut the toast into four long fingers instead of the cubes. She could then still munch with minimal loss of sugar crystals.

This peanut butter and sugar combination works well as the crunch of the sugar is very subtle. Even the sweetness imparted by the sugar is subtle, against the saltiness of the peanut butter. It is actually less sweet than say putting jam or Nutella on the peanut butter.

One peanut butter sandwich that I used to really like, but which I now seem to have less intense feelings about, as I recently found out when I revisited it again, is peanut butter and bananas. I still like it, just not in a heart-melting, swooning sort of way anymore. The combination still works as well as ever though… sweet, soft ripe bananas thinly sliced and neatly arranged over a layer of peanut butter.

This one I have always felt very ambivalent about – butter and peanut butter. I know it is a favorite of many people. But for some reason my palate finds the taste of butter rather shudder-inducing when it is combined with peanut butter. Maybe I am just weird.

Talking about weird. This may sound way off to some people… Milo as a bread or toast topper. But it is seriously good! Really.

I grew up eating this. It was either buttered toast with Milo generously sprinkled over, or even better still, sweet condensed milk poured over the bread and then Milo generously sprinkled over. As a kid, the latter was the firm favorite. The combination was sweet, sweet, sweet. We are talking serious “blood sugar through the roof” sweetness.

I tried it again the other day, after decades of not having eaten it. Aiks! Way too sweet. Goosebumps inducingly sweet. I must be getting old. I now prefer the butter and Milo version.

What I do remember though are the little imagination games I played as a kid whenever I ate my Milo bread. See, I had two ways of adding the Milo to my bread. One way was to compact down the Milo into a semi-firm crust over the bread.

As I bit into the bread, the compacted Milo would give the teeniest crunch, and then dozens of tiny fault lines would appear and spread across the rest of the “crust”. I would watch fascinated. It was like looking at a mini earthquake happening on my bread!

The more fun way however was to sprinkle large amounts of Milo almost haphazardly across the bread.

This created an interesting landscape, and the bread became my “Planet Milo”, with its windswept, dry, dusty brown surface of barren mountains, moors and valleys. Each time I had Milo toast, the landscape would change, depending on how I sprinkled the Milo.

See, this landscape looks different from the previous one. Sometimes I had tall mountain ranges, sometimes it looked more like a craggy shoreline with overhanging cliffs, and yet other times I created flat smooth meadows with low rounded hills. I suspect a large part of my childhood enjoyment in eating Milo bread probably laid more in the opportunities it gave me to play with my food, then in the actual eating! (You can probably also tell how much fun I have been having revisiting these old “habits”. Well, someone has to do the research, right?)

My young mind even imagined and created a little retinue of fairies and elves that lived on my sandy Milo planet. I imagined them scurrying across brown streams and rivers and traversing sandy plains, going about their daily lives.

I also watched, fascinated, as the Milo slowly changed color and texture as the moisture from the underlying sweetened condensed milk (or butter) slowly seeped through, and turned the Milo into a soggy pile of powder.

Boy! Eating Milo bread was always so much fun.

Yes, it is obvious. I had a rather over-active imagination as a kid! Heh. Some would say that has not changed even now!

I think I should stop here before I reveal even more of my weird wacky eating habits, and embarrass myself further.

Oh, one final thing… I have to mention this, because I still enjoy this one to this day. Bread with ice cream. Yes, of course, this is actually the traditional Asian way of eating ice cream. So it’s no big deal. But I like mine with toast, so that the warmth of the toast starts to melt the ice cream as I munch on it. And I think it is even better with chunky ice cream – those with nice chunks of cookie dough, brownie bits or nuts. Yum!

This is the de-stress comfort food for me. If you see me scoffing ice cream toasts, you know I am stressed!

Okay, c’mon. Your turn. What quirky, interesting, wacky, funny or even weird bread/toast-eating habitual “skeletons” do you have hidden in your kitchen cupboard?

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
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