Matcha Toast with Soft Boiled Eggs is a Singapore-Inspired Sweet and Savory Breakfast 

This recipe is a riff on Singaporean kaya toast with soft eggs using store-bought matcha jam in place of the traditional coconut jam (along with a dab of chili crisp).

The other day, while in the bread and toppings section of Uwajimaya picking up a loaf of shokupan (Japanese milk bread), I spotted a jar of Matcha Milk Jam, a product I’d never seen before. The stuff has as creamy texture similar to Nutella, with a balanced sweetness and hint of bitterness from the Matcha. The texture and sweetness immediately made me think of kaya jam.

The idea of dipping toast slathered with butter and a sweet, custardy filling into savory soft-boiled eggs seasoned with soy sauce and white pepper wasn’t something I imagined would become one of my favorite flavors until I had it for the first time at a kopitiam  (coffee shop) while visitng friends in Singapore. These unassuming coffee shops have been serving this dish on their hybrid Western and Chinese menus since the early 20th century. (You can read more about the history of kaya toast here, and get my recipe for it here.)

Kaya jam is not really jam in the sense we think of it. It’s more of a thick coconut custard made buy cooking coconut milk, sugar, and eggs in a double boiler until thick and jammy. It’s sweet, rich, and creamy, and makes an excellent spread for good quality toast. At the coffee shops in Singapore, you can order the toast and soft boiled eggs separately (the eggs come in a bowl you can season yourself with soy sauce and white pepper at the table), but I prefer ordering them together so that the toast can be dipped in the eggs before you finish by slurping down whatever is remaining (and washing it all down with iced coffee sweetened with condensed milk).

Cooking Soft Boiled Eggs

On their own, soft boiled eggs with soy sauce are one of my favorite foods, especially when the eggs are cooked extremely soft, like the onsen tamago (hot spring eggs) you get on top of Japanese ramen, or the sous-vide eggs you’d get at fancy restaurants in the 2000s. In fact, it was at one of these restaurants that I developed my taste for them. We'd cook a few dozen eggs in a sous vide bath at 140°F (60°C) for 45 minutes, then hold them at 135°F (57°C) until an order was placed. At the end of the night, we'd always have a few eggs left over. I'd crack one open, season it with a dash of soy sauce and a sprinkle of chives, then slurp it down. (You can read my complete guide to sous vide eggs here).

Eggs cooked like this are quiveringly tender and easily blend into a rich sauce for dipping toast, without any of the firm egg white that you get from traditionally soft boiled eggs.

What if you don’t have a sous vide device? Because heat travels from the outside in, the higher the temperature of the water, the bigger the textural difference between the parts of the egg in contact with the shell and the interior of the egg. So simply boiling or steaming the eggs results in eggs that become completely firm on the outside by the time all the liquid white has turned opaque. This is not bad, but not ideal for this dish.

In the past, I’ve suggested heating 2 1/2 quarts of water to a boil, then pouring that water over 8 eggs straight from the fridge, letting them sit for exactly 5 minutes before removing them as a viable alternative. The idea is that by adding a fixed volume of water to a fixed number of eggs, the water will cool down sufficiently that the exteriors of the eggs don’t overcook, but stay hot enough that you can cook the whites all the way through until they’re opaque but still soft.

This time around I was curious whether I’d be able to use a similar technique to cook a single egg at a time. I placed an egg in a mug, covered it with boiling water pulled out of the hot water dispenser in my espresso machine, and let it sit on the counter while I made my toast. A few minutes later, I had a single, perfectly-cooked onsen tamago, perfect for seasoning with soy sauce and slurping up or dipping into. This is a technique I’ll turn to again any time I want one or a few soft eggs.

(Bonus: it preheats a mug for the coffee, tea, or in my case the London Fog you’re about to pour into it)

For the Toast

For the toast itself, traditionally the bread would be cooked over coal fires until lightly browned and crisp. At home, I’ve been testing out a steam-injected toaster oven from the Japanese company Balmuda. It produces easily the best toast I've ever made. By injecting the oven with steam at the start of the toasting process, then using intense radiant elements to brown the bread at the end, you end up with toast that is exceptionally moist on the inside and crisp on the outside. (You can get this toaster for 15% from now until the end of March from us.BALMUDA.com if you use the checkout code Kenji_15).

I spread the toast with matcha jam on one side and softened salted butter on the other, closed the sandwich, cut off the crusts (as is tradition for this dish), then cut the toast into “soldiers” for dipping. I then carefully cracked the top of the cooked egg and poured it into a bowl, seasoned it with a dash of soy sauce, a sprinkle of ground white pepper, and a spoonful of chili crisp (I’m partial to local Seattle brand Kari Kari) before swirling it all together with a piece of toast and digging in.

It was excellent, and now has me convinced that any custardy or milky sweet toast spread will work in this dish. I’m eager to try it out with chestnut jam, lemon curd, and Nutella next. If you’ve got other idea or have tried this yourself with other sweet creamy jams, let me know.

I’m not sure what I’m most excited about—discovering this new matcha jam, achieving shokupan toast nirvana at home, or figuring out a new, simple method for soft-boiled eggs. I suppose it can be all three.

RECIPE: Matcha Toast with Soft Eggs for Dipping

This recipe was sponsored by Balmuda, who make the steam-injected toaster I use in the video. I was introduced to it by my friend Taichi Kitamura, the chef at Sushi Kappo Tamura a few months ago and have since started testing it out at home. He swore up and down it makes the best toast, and he was right. Even my kids comment on it. You can get the toaster (and their other products) for 15% off until the end of March by ordering from us.BALMUDA.com and using the checkout code Kenji_15. 

What I like about this recipe:

- Store-bought matcha jam or another creamy, sweet toast topping makes this dish fast and simple

- Cooking an egg by pouring boiling water over it in a mug is fast, easy, and produces an egg with an opaque white that is extremely soft for dipping

- The flavor combination between sweet toast and savory, umami eggs with a hint of heat hits every part of your mouth at once.

Yield:

Serves 1

ACTIVE TIME:

5 minutes

TOTAL TIME:

10 minutes

Notes: You can use an egg cooked sous vide at 140°F (60°C) in place of the soft boiling process in step 1 if you have a sous vide device. I use store-bought matcha jam for this. You a try it with any custard, curd, or milk-based bread topping.

Ingredients:

1 egg (see note)

2 slices of shokupan or other high-quality white bread

Matcha Milk Jam (see note above)

Salted butter (at room temperature)

Soy sauce

Ground white pepper

Chili crisp, such as Kari Kari

1. Bring two cups of water to a boil. Place the egg in a mug or a two-cup liquid measure and pour the boiling water over it to the brim of the container. Set aside for 5 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, toast the bread until golden brown. Spread one piece with matcha jam and the other with butter. Close the sandwich with the fillings inside.

3. Using a sharp knife, cut off the crusts and discard. Cut the bread into four fingers or “soldiers”.

4. When the egg is cooked, carefully crack the top and pick off the peel to expose a hole about 1 inch wide at the top of the egg. Shake the egg over a small bowl to get the yolk and white out. Season with a dash of soy sauce, a sprinkle of white pepper, and a drizzle of chili crisp. Eat immediately, swirling the egg mixture with the toast and dipping as you go.