Kampar Curry Chicken Bun

One last post for MFF Perak.  This bun was made popular in Kampar hence the name Kampar Curry Chicken Bun.   The uniqueness of it is there is a curry chicken parcel wrapped inside the bun.  To eat it, one will have to tear/cut open the bun, unwrapped the parcel then dip the bun into the curry and eat it with the chicken.  I have made this a couple of times (and posted it too) and it's always very well received by family members and friends.   We usually have it for dinner.  

I normally make it in portions for individual serving whereas for the real mccoy it is one giant bun with most probably half a chicken in it to be shared out.  Imagine the size of the bun!  To get an idea of it, do hop by my friend Lena's place.   The other difference is i like sprinkling toasted sesame seeds on the bun :) 

A peak into the bun! Curry with soft, fluffy bun is just too tasty! 

To make this, you need to cook chicken curry and wrapped them in sweet bread dough.   You can use your own favorite recipes for them but here I am sharing a speedy recipe for the curry and a bread dough recipe which one can either hand knead or use a breadmaker.

Recipe
Chicken Curry 

Ingredients

• 3 whole chicken legs cut into 6 pieces each 
• 1/2 pack of chicken curry paste (I used A1 brand) 
• 1 big onion sliced and grounded
• 2 stalks lemon grass, bruised
• 1 star anise
• 1 cinnamon stick
• Handful of curry leaves
• 1 russet potato, cut in medium size cubes
• 200ml water 
• 50ml coconut milk
• 2 tbsp cooking oil

Method

1. Heat up oil and fry onion until fragrant.  Add in curry paste and continue to fry until smells fragrant.  Add in spices.
2. Add in chicken and mix well until chicken turns opaque.
3. Pour in water and let it simmer until chicken is cooked.  Add in potatoes half way through in order not to overcook them.
4. Add in coconut milk.

Bread Dough

Ingredients

• 300g bread flour
• 200g plain flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 50g sugar
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• 1 tbsp milk powder
• 200ml water
• 60g butter
• 1 egg

Method

1. Combine all dry ingredients: flour, salt, sugar, milk powder and instant yeast in a bowl. Make a well in the center. Whisk and combine all wet ingredients: water and egg then add into the well of the dry ingredients. Knead until you get a dough shape and gluten has developed, then knead in the butter. Keep kneading until the dough is smooth, not sticky and elastic.  
2. If  using a bread maker add all wet ingredients into bread maker first followed by dry ingredients. Add yeast the last.  Select Dough function.  Once the cycle completes, remove dough from the bread pan. 
3. Shape the dough into a smooth round and place in a bowl. Cover and let it rise till double in volume.
4. Punch out trapped air using knuckles.
5. Divide into equal portions and shape into balls to make smaller buns or use whole if making one big bun.  (I managed to get 5 portions of 175g each).

Assemble

1. Wrap some chicken curry into a parcel with aluminium foil (I managed 3 pieces of chicken with 2 tsbp of potato cubes).
2. Wrap the parcel with bread dough.
3. Egg wash the buns and sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds on bun.
4. Bake @ 180C in a preheated oven for 20 minutes till golden brown.

I am submitting this post to Malaysian Food Fest Perak month hosted by 

WendyinKK of Table for Two....or more



And

Little Thumbs Up "Egg" event organized by Bake for Happy Kids, my little favourite DIY and hosted by Baby Sumo of Eat Your Heart Out.

Read More

Simply Eggs

I made this dish with a funny/cute/naughty name with the egg theme on Little Thumbs Up Event in mind.  I posted another one with funny name here quite recently if you are interested to read about it. A coincidence that it was chicken in the last one and egg in this one :)

Apparently this is a popular dish from Thailand.  There are many versions of the story behind the name.  Some say a son-in-law made them for his mum-in-law while the naughtier version goes the other way round where the mum-in-law will make them for her son-in-law when she suspects that he's misbehaving and this serves as a warning to to be good or ...

Whichever the truth maybe, this simple dish of lightly fried eggs drizzled in a sweet tangy sauce is quite appetizing and delicious.

This recipe comes in handy when there are some hardboiled eggs lying around, like during Easter or after attending celebrations like a baby's full moon or weddings.  An alternative to Sambal Telur, especially when something not too spicy is the choice of the day.

Recipe
Source: Thai Table 

Ingredients

• 2 sprigs cilantro
• 2 - 3 Dried whole chilis
• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 3 tablespoons Palm Sugar
• 2 - 3 shallots
• 1/3 cup cooking oil
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 tbsp tamarind pulp mix with 3 tbsp water (remove pulp to get tamarind paste

Steps

1. Boil eggs by adding cold water to cover the eggs in a small saucepan. Once the water starts to boil turn down the heat.  For eggs with runny yolks, let the water boil for 3 minutes and 5 minutes for hard boiled ones.  Pour out the hot water  and run the eggs under cold water for a few seconds then let them sit in a pot of cold water.  When the eggs are cooled, peel them.
2. Peel and slice shallots thinly.
3. Heat up oil in a wok.  Add eggs and fry until they are slightly browned.
4. Remove eggs and drain out the oil.
5. Fry dried chilli in the remaining oil.  Remove and drain out the oil.
6. Fry shallot slices until golden brown.  Remove and drain out the oil.
7. Remove any remaining oil from wok.  Over low heat, add palm sugar, fish sauce, water and tamarind paste.  Add extra water if necessary to get enough sauce. 
8. Adjust taste to preference.  It should be a combination of 3 flavors, sweet, salty and sour in balance.
9. Cut eggs into halves.  Pour over sauce. Add on fried chilli.   Sprinkle on shallots and cilantro before serving.

I am submitting this post to Little Thumbs Up "Egg" event organized by Bake for Happy Kids, my little favourite DIY and hosted by Baby Sumo of Eat Your Heart Out.

Read More

Village Fried Chicken

This is my second post for MFF Perak.  I am not particularly familiar with Malay cuisine from the state although it is where i hail from.  The only dish that comes to mind is Rendang Tok :))  I did some searching and bumped into a few writeups that covered a Perak cuisine promotion at a hotel restaurant somewhere back in 2011. It has a good showcase of Malay Perakian cuisine that will leave one mouthwatering! 

One of the dishes featured was Ayam Goreng Kampung Tanjung Malim (aka Tg Malim Village Fried Chicken).  Apparently there is this small restaurant (or warong in Malay) that is very popular for Nasi Padang.  To those who are not familiar, Nasi Padang is rice served with dishes cooked in Minangkabau (ethnic group from West Sumatra) style.

Caught me by surprise as I have not heard of it although I come from Slim River (yeah, we are fortunate to be 'slim' people effortlessly!) which is very near to Tanjung Malim.

Coincidentally there was a recipe for this dish in the writeup by Big Boys Oven.  So i thought i will take this opportunity to try out something closer to home.  Here's Ayam Goreng Kampung Tanjung Malim, Big Boys Oven's take.  I must find an opportunity to try the real mccoy when i go back home the next time.

Kid's first bite before he ended up finishing 2 pieces...

Verdict? 

If you have tried Malay style spiced fried chicken, this one is similar.  I used free range chicken so the meat is slightly tougher although i did take precaution not to overfry them.  There is a nice fragrance to the chicken although there are not too much spices used in the marinade.  I like that the onions and ginger are sliced and not minced as it ended up with lots of shallot and ginger crisps to go with the chicken when eaten with rice.  I made a simple dipping sauce commonly used with Malay dishes to go with it too.  Coupled with some greens it made a decent meal.

Recipe (variation in blue)

Source : Big Boys Oven 

Ingredients

• 1kg Chicken, cut (I used 2 thighs and 2 wings around 600g)
• 50gm Red onion, sliced
• 30gm Garlic, chopped
• 10gm Ginger, sliced
• 10gm Chicken curry powder (2 tbsp)
• 0.5gm Turmeric powder (1 tsp)
• 0.5gm Curry leaves (2 sprigs)
• 2nos Eggs (1 egg)
• Cooking oil
• Seasoning (1 tsp salt)

Method 

1. Marinate the chicken with all ingredients in a mixing bowl.
2. Leave it aside for 30 minutes. (I left it for 2 hours)
3. Heat up the cooking oil in a wok.
4. Fry the marinated chicken till golden brown.
5. Remove them from the wok and absorb the excessive oil with kitchen papers before served.

Dipping Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 chili padi
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 2 shallot-sliced
• 2 tablespoon of sweet soy sauce
• 1 tbsp lime juice

Method

1. Mix everything together.

I am submitting this post to Malaysian Food Fest Perak month hosted by 

WendyinKK of Table for Two....or more



And

Little Thumbs Up "Egg" event organized by Bake for Happy Kids, my little favourite DIY and hosted by Baby Sumo of Eat Your Heart Out.

Read More

Little Chicken Biscuit

This was initially my first post for MFF Perak.  I was all excited about it because it was finally showtime for my homestate.  Unfortunately disaster has to happen and I realized after completing my intended last post for MFF Perak, this first one had gone missing.  How terribly upsetting! Wonder any of you encountered problems if you were blogging on 23 Aug.    Whenever I opened a particular post that has been published in Edit mode, it overrides the post with the most current post that is in draft mode.   

So, this is a rewrite of that particular post minus all the excitement.  It's no fun trying to rewrite it, it just isn't going to be the same anymore. 

As far as I know, this biscuit was made popular by two Chinese bakeries, Pun Chun in Bidor and CB Red Label in Kampar.  Although its name says chicken biscuit, there's no chicken in it. Puzzling huh?  This is what I found out...based on the archives from New Straits Time back in October 4, 2001, as told by Mr Khong Wai Koh, the son of the creator of the biscuits for Pun Chun Restaurant, the late Mr Khong Yin Chiew.    Apparently there is a similar biscuit in China and it was called Siew Foong Paeng (Peacock Biscuit).  His father used the same name as well as a picture of the peacock for branding.  To his surprise, everyone called it the chicken biscuit instead, probably because they thought the peacock was a chicken.    The name stuck and was eventually used for branding instead :)

There are 2 variations for this biscuit one is thick and chewy and the other is thin and crispy.   I love both variations but kid loves the thin and crisp.  This recipe is for the thin and crisp one. They are very fragrant and be warned that they are kinda addictive, once you start you may end up munching until there's none left!

I am happy to have tried it in conjunction with the MFF event.

Recipe

Source : Sea Salt with Food who adapted from Flavours by Debbie Teoh

Ingredients

Part A

• 30g Fermented Red Bean Curd (nam yue)
• 1 Large Egg
• 50ml Milk
• 60ml Cooking Oil
• 1 tsp Sesame Oil
• ½ tsp Sea Salt
• 30g Confectioners Sugar (i used icing sugar)
• 30g Maltose

• 100 g Candied Melon (tung kwa), chopped
• 80 g Sesame Seeds

Part B

• 300 g All-Purpose Flour, sifted
• ½ tsp Ground Cinnamon
• 2 tsp Five-Spice Powder
• ½ tsp Ground White Pepper
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• ¼ tsp Ammonia Powder (omitted)

Method

1. Place ingredients from Part A into a large mixing bowl and stir to mix until salt dissolves. Add candied melon and sesame seeds.
2. Sift together the remaining ingredients from Part B and add to the bowl.
3. Mix to form a dough. Rest the dough, covered with cling film, for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 170˚C and grease baking trays. Divide the dough into 15g balls. Place the dough balls, well spaced out, between two plastic sheets. Roll out thinly into 7 cm discs with a rolling pin and place onto the trays.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until brown and crispy. Do not over bake, or it will taste bitter. Cool completely before storing in airtight containers.

I am submitting this post to Malaysian Food Fest Perak month hosted by 

WendyinKK of Table for Two....or more



And

Little Thumbs Up "Egg" event organized by Bake for Happy Kids, my little favourite DIY and hosted by Baby Sumo of Eat Your Heart Out.

Read More