Curry puffs aka Karipap

Currypuff or Karipap in Malay is an all time favourite tea time snack in my household. My mum makes thousands of these savory snacks fulfilling orders from neighbours, relatives for birthdays, weddings, or any occasions. 

So mum recruited my brother and I to prepare these treats, we were mostly in charge of sealing the dough with a special pinch and twist action so when these are deep fried in hot oil, the filling will not spill out.

I have recorded a short video on how its done, (see below) just to show you the basic principles of the pinch and twist method, with a bit of practice your "braided" edges will look neat and pretty :)

Ingredients:

Pastry

250 gm all purpose flour

40gm butter

2 Tbsp salad/cooking oil

1/2 cup cold water mixed with 1/2 tsp salt

300gm sweet potatoes (Peeled and diced)

1 tsp minced ginger

1 tsp minced garlic

2 tbsp kurma powder

1 large onion minced

coriander leaves (chopped)

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup water

Oil for deep frying

Method:

Pastry :

Heat oil and butter until butter is melted and pour mixture into the flour. Mix well until resembles bread crumbs. Pour in cold water and mix until dough is smooth. Roll into 16 round balls and set aside.

Filling

Heat some 2 tbsp oil and sautee onions, garlic and ginger for 3 minutes. Add the kurma powder and fry until another 2 minutes. Add diced sweet potatoes and stir to mix to coat the potatoes with the spices.

Add water and continue to stir until mixture is dry and the potatoes is cooked well. Add chopped coriander. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Sprinkle some flour to your rolling pin and board. Flatten the individual dough one at a time maintaining a round shape and add 1 tbsp of the cooled filling, Seal the edges. Now this would take some practice so here is the video of how this is done.

Once all the currypuff  is completed, place on a lined tray and bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for 20 minutes. Alternatively, you can deep fry these puffs in a pan of hot oil at 120 C for 3 minutes on each side.

Happy Trying!

Butter Chicken

December is truly a lazy month for me, and the incessant rain does not help. I havent been trying out any new recipes because everyone seems to be in a soupy mood...so I have been making chicken soup, clam chowders, spicy lamb soup etc. 

Today is the first day, the sun came out of its hiding after five days. I thought I must cook something other than soup today!!

I love a good butter chicken and I have tried several recipes from the net. I tried this recipe from allrecipes.com tonite and we were quite pleased with the end result. It's taste is very authentic and its quite simple to prepare. 

So I thought it is worth sharing with butter chicken lovers out there :) So enjoy!

Kuih Seri Muka (Steamed Glutinous Rice topped with Pandan Custard)

This dessert is one of many pandan flavoured treats that mom used to make while we were growing up. It is very popular in Malaysia and you can always find them from roadside stalls to restaurants and hotel buffets.  I made one batch today and gave this plate to the lovely elderly couple who lives across the street, Gary & Grace. Mom always gave our neighbours treats and I am continuing the tradition. Its a good way to foster good neighbourly relations....after all they say "love thy neighbor"! So go ahead, try sharing this with your next door neighbor and build that good relations, you will never know when you may need to borrow a cup of sugar and you would not feel awkward when you do.




Ingredients:


Bottom Layer

300g glutinous rice, washed and soaked for several hours or overnight, then drained well
½ - ¾ tsp salt
200ml thin coconut milk
1 pandan leaf (screwpine leaf), knotted

Top Layer

6-7 pandan leaves, cut into 4-5 cm lengths
100ml water
180ml coconut milk (extracted from 1 grated coconut)
130g castor sugar
1 eggs
3 tbsp cornflour
3 tbsp all purpose flour

Method:

Put well-drained glutinous rice in a 20cm square cake tin. Add salt to coconut milk and mix then pour over the rice. Stir well and place knotted pandan leaf on top.

Steam the rice over rapidly boiling water for 10-20 minutes or until rice grains are completely cooked.

Discard pandan leaf. Fluff up the rice with a wooden fork. Use a piece of banana leave or a piece of foil to lightly press down the rice into the cake tin until it is compact. Steam the rice again for 12-15 minutes.

To prepare the top layer:

Process the pandan leaves in a food processor until u get a fine pulp. Strain the pandan juice through fine muslin. (Use only 100ml strained pandan juice)

Combine eggs, sugar and coconut milk. Stir lightly until sugar dissolves, then add pandan juice and the 2 types of flour to mix.

Pour the mixture over the prepared rice and steam over GENTLE HEAT for 30 minutes or until completely set. (Do not steam over rapidly boiling water otherwise the custard layer will not be smooth) Allow to cool before cutting into diamond shapes.