18 Oct 2006 ST, Mind Your Body
By Sylvia Tan
I am back to eating butter and eggs ever since I found out that substitutes, such as margarine, have bad effects that are far worse, but coconut milk remains resolutely off my list.
While coconut milk does not contain any cholesterol as so many people mistakenly think, it is high in saturated fat which raises cholesterol levels in the body. (Cholesterol is found only in animal foods and not in plant foods.)
And so otak-otak, essentially a spicy fish custard, was an occasional dish in my household because of the coconut milk it contains.
But no longer. I have found a way to substitute the coconut milk in the recipe with soya milk and found that it makes no substantial difference to the taste but a world of difference to the fat intake. There is less than a gram of saturated fat in one cup of soya milk compared with 50g of fat found in a cup of coconut milk!
This is good news, if like me, you are constantly searching for new healthful ways to cook old favourites.
I made several ramekins of the baked custard using soya milk recently and handed them out to various friends on different occasions and they did not detect the difference.
The secret lies in the herbs used. As in regular otak, a scattering of shredded kaffir lime leaves at the end makes all the difference. Also a generous addition of spices, which in this case, comes from a bottle.
I now make otak-otak in five minutes flat ever since I discovered that bottled nonya sambal chilli delivers the right flavours to the quiche, which traditionally demands quite a few painstaking steps.
My grandmother used to scrape the meat from a fish, then pound the spices - shrimp paste, chilli, onions, coriander seeds and turmeric - in a mortar to mix with the fishmeat. She then added coconut milk, squeezed by hand from the grated nut, added beaten egg and then placed a mound of this mixture in a banana leaf, before wrapping it and grilling it over coals.
Now I buy fish fillets, rely on a bottled spice paste and whiz the lot in a blender to produce that smooth paste which is the basis for this aromatic custard. Neither do I bother with a banana leaf wrap as I find it is easier and as convenient to bake the lot in individual ramekins, taking just 10 minutes in the oven.
The result? A truly healthful otak that takes just 15 minutes to turn out.
The proportion of liquid (soya milk) to solid (fish meat and spices) is important if you want a soft yielding custard. You will find that I have upped the soya milk content to 300ml and kept the fish meat at just two cups or 250g unless you want to end up with a solid cake.
While this is already quite healthy, it is also possible to make a vegetarian version, using vegetables such as asparagus, beans and carrots, instead of fish, making a healthy otak no longer a contradiction in terms.
Sylvia Tan is a freelance writer.
By Sylvia Tan
I am back to eating butter and eggs ever since I found out that substitutes, such as margarine, have bad effects that are far worse, but coconut milk remains resolutely off my list.
While coconut milk does not contain any cholesterol as so many people mistakenly think, it is high in saturated fat which raises cholesterol levels in the body. (Cholesterol is found only in animal foods and not in plant foods.)
And so otak-otak, essentially a spicy fish custard, was an occasional dish in my household because of the coconut milk it contains.
But no longer. I have found a way to substitute the coconut milk in the recipe with soya milk and found that it makes no substantial difference to the taste but a world of difference to the fat intake. There is less than a gram of saturated fat in one cup of soya milk compared with 50g of fat found in a cup of coconut milk!
This is good news, if like me, you are constantly searching for new healthful ways to cook old favourites.
I made several ramekins of the baked custard using soya milk recently and handed them out to various friends on different occasions and they did not detect the difference.
The secret lies in the herbs used. As in regular otak, a scattering of shredded kaffir lime leaves at the end makes all the difference. Also a generous addition of spices, which in this case, comes from a bottle.
I now make otak-otak in five minutes flat ever since I discovered that bottled nonya sambal chilli delivers the right flavours to the quiche, which traditionally demands quite a few painstaking steps.
My grandmother used to scrape the meat from a fish, then pound the spices - shrimp paste, chilli, onions, coriander seeds and turmeric - in a mortar to mix with the fishmeat. She then added coconut milk, squeezed by hand from the grated nut, added beaten egg and then placed a mound of this mixture in a banana leaf, before wrapping it and grilling it over coals.
Now I buy fish fillets, rely on a bottled spice paste and whiz the lot in a blender to produce that smooth paste which is the basis for this aromatic custard. Neither do I bother with a banana leaf wrap as I find it is easier and as convenient to bake the lot in individual ramekins, taking just 10 minutes in the oven.
The result? A truly healthful otak that takes just 15 minutes to turn out.
The proportion of liquid (soya milk) to solid (fish meat and spices) is important if you want a soft yielding custard. You will find that I have upped the soya milk content to 300ml and kept the fish meat at just two cups or 250g unless you want to end up with a solid cake.
While this is already quite healthy, it is also possible to make a vegetarian version, using vegetables such as asparagus, beans and carrots, instead of fish, making a healthy otak no longer a contradiction in terms.
Sylvia Tan is a freelance writer.
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