Going Coco-nuts over Healthy Food
Recently, I’ve been considering making a conscious switch to healthier food. Little things like switching to whole grain bread, whole wheat pasta, low-fat, lite—small substitutions that don’t give the feeling of deprivation but could still contribute to overall well-being. So, upon learning of a Healthy Cooking seminar that involved saturated fat-laden coconut milk, I was intrigued.
Encountering Singaporean Chef and “Gourmetician” Lisa Leong was interesting. She espouses healthy cooking and efficiency in the kitchen through maximizing your body’s movements and smart use of kitchen equipment. She’s such a firm believer in the products she’s pushing—in this case a healthier alternative coconut milk, that she had me convinced as well.
A lot of Southeast Asian cooking, from Filipino, Thai to Singaporean, use a lot of coconut milk. But because of the high fat content, Chef Leong advocates the use of Super Coco Virgin Coconut Oil and COCOS MCT Powder (medium-chain triglycerides), which when reconstituted with water can be used as a substitute for coconut milk. She then demonstrated a couple of recipes using the said products, which we were able to try.
Over the course of the evening, she cooked a fiery laksa, coconut rice, pandan cake (Cooked in a rice cooker! It’s so Yakitate! Japan, right?), jelly, and even kaya toast. Sure enough, the distinct coconut flavor was always there, only with a pleasantly lighter taste.
More than the coconut oil, it was the MCT Powder that really intrigued me. Aside from the health benefits you get from cooking with it, I loved how it was in powder form. I mean, you can easily stick it in your pantry so you can cook with coconut milk anytime you need it. It reconstitutes into half cups, so I find it more economical than opening a can of coconut milk and more accessible than dashing to the market to buy fresh coconuts for making into milk.
As the evening came to a close, the health benefits were repeatedly highlighted, but you know what? For me, the real winner was the fact that the products can help create delicious food, which just happen to be healthy. So yeah, you can expect some kitchen experiments from me, of the coconutty kind.
Super Coco VCO and COCOS MCT Powder are distributed by Team Asia Corporation. For inquiries, call them at 723-4461 or email sales@teamasiacorporation.com
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Oooh everything looks so good! I’m intrigued by the rice cooker pandan cake. And wow kaya toast! Awesome.
I find the powder thing interesting, too… and you know me, I’m not exactly the paragon of healthy eating. XP
Hmm…i love coconut milk and pandan…yum yum…
Pandan cake!!! Although I find it amusing, mum keeps calling it sponge cake :D; Have you eaten the “light coloured one?” It tastes like orange :3 but rice cooker! that would have been interesting…
That brings back a lot of memories ;_; and the jelly mmmm
I grew up being told not to use coconut anything…
Though it’s tasty….mmmmmm
ANYTHING coconut is okay by me… mmm, coconut!
@aoitenshi
It was surprisingly light and moist. I want to try making the kaya toast too, but maybe after I’ve tried the real kaya toast so I can judge better how the pandan kind I tried is as good as the one from Singapore talaga.
@dementedchris
Interesting no? I’ll need to try cooking with it soon.
@Leki
Coconut milk! I never knew how fun it was to cook with it until I tried making this curried tuna rice. Matutuwa ka dun feeling ko cause it’s rice based and it’s spicy. Siguro this week, I’ll be posting it.
@surrealistic
Mind boggling with the rice cooker, no?
@Ms.____2 Be!
Really? Why not?
@Mimi
I wasn’t a big coconut fan before but I think I’m learning to really like it.
You can try the kaya toast at Kopi Roti in Columns or Mall of Asia.
But Julls, I’m going to Singapore next month
Won’t that be a better idea? (Yes, I’m so excited, hahaha!)
Oh yeah I forgot about that haha.
S’all right. I’m just a little weirdo, practically counting the days with excitement, hahaha!
I like coconut, but I didn’t grow up eating that kind of food and even now I still don’t have much idea what to use it in. I like the idea of healthier coconut milk tho, esp. in powdered easily storable form. If you come up with any good experiments, be sure to share the recipes! ~.^ (tho I don’t know if I could find that here, who knows, I find all kinds of crazy things!)
I guess the use of coconut milk is more prevalent in Southeast Asia? Probably because coconuts are more ubiquitous here so people make all sorts of recipes with it