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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Just Applelicious

Serving 2 applelicious treats in this post.  As they say an apple a day, keeps the doctor away, so 2 apples a day, keeps the doctor far far away?  Pretty sure most of us won't miss the doctor :)

I love the smell of freshly baked apple treats as almost always they come coupled with sweet smelling cinnamon and that by itself is good enough to perk me up.  I am already on cloud nine when my kitchen is filled with its aroma :)

These muffins were really good.  Super soft and moist, definitely above my expectations for muffins and on top of that it was wholewheat!  Smitten Kitchen (where the recipe was spotted) described it as crazy moist, so go figure!  They are easy to whip up and stores quite well too. A little reheating  is all it needs if you have extras to freeze that is.

Note : The recipe below is for half the recipe and it gave me 7 muffins. I have also reduced the sugar and omitted granulated sugar.   Hit the source for the original recipe.

Recipe
Wholewheat Apple Muffins
Source : Smitten Kitchen who adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
• 55g unsalted butter, at room temperature 
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed, divided 
• 1/2 a large egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup buttermilk or yogurt (1tbsp lemon juice with fresh milk to make 1/2 cup and put aside for 5 minutes)
• 1 large apple, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Grease and flour 18 muffin cups and set aside. (I used 210C and paper liners.   Although 450 converts to 232, i find it rather high and was worried it will make the muffins dry)
2. Mix together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon, and set aside. 
3. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and add half the amount of brown sugar. Beat until fluffy. Add the egg and mix well; stop once to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.Mix in the buttermilk gently. (If you over-mix, the buttermilk will cause the mixture to curdle.) Stir in the dry ingredients and fold in the apple chunks.
4. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, sprinkling the remaining cup brown sugar on top. Bake for 10 minutes, turn the heat down to 400°F (I turned down to 190C), and bake for an additional 5 to 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. 
5. Cool the muffins for 5 minutes in the tin, then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Don't like muffins? Or have room for more? How about this one?  This is another wonderful applecious treat.  Can't be more appley than apple looking buns with apple chunks and jam for fillings :)) These look cute don't they? I love the idea of using cinnamon stick as the stems, besides looking cute, it gave the buns an added cinnamony fragrance.    It was their cute appearance here that caught my interest.  I think they look more like apples from the top than the front.  From the front, they can pass off as mushrooms instead!  I should have used lesser dough to get a better apple shape, this one is a little heavy at the top.  I will also do away with the 'stem' and the 'leave' and put in a mushroom filling to make them mushroom buns, the next time :)

I used a simple straight method bread dough but this recipe is a keeper.  The buns are soft (not as soft as the more sophisticated methods like tang zhong or those with starter doughs) but they are good enough (especially if you are feeling lazy or short of time).    I will let the photo below speak for itself... 

As for the fillings, i spooned in a big heaped tablespoon of my apple jam and added some apple chunks and a small piece of cheddar cheese. 

Recipe
Apple Buns
Source : Bread Magic by Alan Ooi for bread dough

Ingredients

Bread Dough

Part A

• 300g high protein flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tbsp milk powder
• 50g sugar

Part B

• 125ml water
• 1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
• 1 medium size egg (1 used 2/3 of a large egg and left 1/3 for glazing)

Part C

• 40g butter

Part D (for glazing)

• Mix 2 tablespoon fresh milk with 1/3 egg from Part B (I like using this as the glaze, it's not too glossy when egg is used solely or too matte and browns easily when only milk is used) 

Filling

• Apple Jam (recipe here)
• 1 medium size apple, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped
• 1 slice of cheddar cheese, cut into small rectangular pieces

Method

1. Combine ingredient A in a mixer and mix well.  Add in ingredient B and beat till a dough is formed.  Add in ingredient C and beat till dough is smooth and elastic to touch.
2. Leave dough in a big bowl, covered with a damp cloth.
3. Let it rise in a warm place until double the size.
4. Divide dough into 50g portions. (Will reduce to 40g the next time around)
5. Flatten dough then wrap with some filling starting with 1 piece of cheese followed with 1 heaped tablespoon of jam and lastly some apple chunks. It's easier to wrap if it's not too full. 
6. Arrange on greased tray if not using paper liners.
7. Cover and rest buns until double the size again.
8. Glaze with Part D, decorate with cinnamon stick and almond flake.
9. Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 15-17 minutes until golden brown.

Note: I combine all the ingredients and let my breadmaker handle steps 1-3.

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G Is For Ginger

It's gingery all the way in this post.   A compilation of dishes from a starter to dessert spiced up with ginger for the fun of joining Little Thumbs Up Event of which ginger is the featured ingredient for this month.  I didn't served them all in one meal though, it would have been ginger overload otherwise!

For starters, here's a Pickled Ginger Salad.  I first learned of this popular Burmese salad from the 06/13 issue of the Flavours magazine.  Unfortunately, i am having trouble accessing older issues of the magazine from my online subscription, so this is not exactly the featured recipe.  I surfed around and found another one for guidance and played by whatever i recalled reading in the magazine.  

As in the name, the main ingredient for this salad is pickled young ginger.  It also has an interesting addition of fried lentils to it.  I simply bought them from our regular Kacang Putih seller (i.e. Indian nuts seller). Overall it is a good appetizer, with a sweet, tangy type of dressing plus some heat from the ginger.  It reminded me of the Yee Sang minus the raw fish served during Chinese New Year.

And here's the meal that went with the Ginger Salad.   I made Szechuan Pepper Roast Chicken and Angel Hair Aglio Olio to go with it.   A little bit of Chinese, Italian and Burmese in one meal! Fusion at its best or weirdest, you decide!   It was quite complimentary though and one thing for sure, everything tasted good on its own :))

Next up is this simple and homey Ginger Fried Rice, this is quite a staple for Chinese mothers in confinement.  However, it's simply ginger, egg and rice when it's served to the new mothers.  To make it a balance meal, i added some greens and shrimps.   Don't the shrimps look lovely dovey like the 囍(shuāngxǐ) character on the bowl?   The word means means double happiness, an ornamental motif widely used during Chinese weddings, incidentally that bowl was my MIL's gift during our wedding, 16 years back :)

, 

Thirsty by now? Here's a gingery drink, which is a popular herbal remedy.  From personal experience, it works well for coughs and indigestion.  I had lots of this as an alternative remedy when i was down with a bad cough during my pregnancy instead of downing cough syrups.   It helped soothe my throat and reduce the coughing which would otherwise kept me awake during the nights.    There are some variations out there which does it with pandan leaves and lemon but personally i prefer the version with just lemongrass, ginger, honeycomb/brown sugar plus a little honey stirred into it before drinking.   Drink it warm if taken as a remedy or chill it as a refresher.

How about a little sweetness to end it all?  I love chiffons for its lightness, it gives me less calorific worries :)   I thought i will give a shot at a ginger flavored one for the purpose of ending this gingery post on a sweet note.  Was keeping my fingers crossed as i have never tried a gingery one before this.

What i did was to add some grated ginger to my favorite orange chiffon recipe.   There's actually a combination of citruses in this cake.  Firstly, i used the juice (and zest)  of what the fruit seller told me was a cross between a grapefruit and navel orange, then i added 1 teaspoon of lemon zest too.  I am quite happy with the results.  It remain citrusy but with a obvious but not overwhelming hint of gingery fragrance.  

I love this recipe, which was the one i used when i first started learning how to bake a chiffon cake. This recipe never fails to give me a tall cake, baked in a 20cm diameter pan with only 5 eggs.   It was really soft to the fact that it was difficult getting it to stand :)   One can just omit the ginger for a orange flavor cake instead.

I hope you have enjoyed browsing through this compilation!

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Doreen of My Little Favourite DIY and hosted by Alvin of Chef and Sommelier

Pickled Ginger Salad

Ingredients
Reference : Culinary Musing of a Silicon Valley Mum & 06/13 Flavours Magazine

• 1 small jar pickled ginger, julienned 
• 2 cloves of garlic, sliced and fried
• 3 tbsp roasted sesame seeds
• 5 tbsp mixture of fried chickpeas and lentils  (I bought them from Kacang Putih man)
• 3 tbsp lightly toasted shredded coconut (optional and personally i will leave this out the next time)
• 1 tbsp of toasted sesame seeds 
• 1 cup of julienned green cabbage
• 5 cherry tomatoes, halved 
• Half a carrot shredded

Dressing

• 2 to 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp salt or to taste
• 2 tbsp or to taste lemon juice (used kaffir lime)
• 2 tbsp or to taste fish sauce 

Step
1. Mix the salad ingredients with the dressing right before serving.

Note :

1. It is not necessary to follow the exact measurements, play around with the combination according to preference.  
2. Go easy with the lime juice and add on if necessary.

Ginger Fried Rice

Ingredients

• 1 bowl of cooked rice
• 1 medium size egg, lightly beaten
• 4 medium size shrimps, shelled (leave tail intact) and deveined
• 1 inch ginger knob, julienned
• 3 french beans, diced
• 1/2 of medium size carrot, diced
• 2 tbsp sesame oil 
• 1 teaspoon Shaoxing cooking wine

Method

1. Marinade shrimps with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and a dash of pepper.  Leave aside for 15 minutes.
2. Heat up wok and pan fry shrimps without oil.  Set aside.
3. Using the same wok, fry ginger until slightly dry.
4. Add in sesame oil and fry until ginger is fragrant.
5. Add in french beans and carrot. 
6. When vegetables are half cooked, add in rice.  Mix well.
7. When rice is hot, push aside rice and pour in egg.  When egg is slightly cooked, push rice back onto egg and scrambled together with the rice.
8. Season with some salt and cooking wine.
9. Add in shrimps and mix well.

Lemongrass Ginger Drink

Ingredients

• 5 stalks of lemongrass (use white part only), trimmed and bruised with back of cleaver
• 2 inch ginger knob, sliced and bruised with back of cleaver
• 1 liter water
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• Honey

Method

1. Combine lemongrass and ginger with water in a medium size pot.
2. Bring to a boil then simmer with lid on for 30 minutes.
3. Add in sugar and continue to simmer for another 5-10 minutes.
4. Sweeten with  some honey prior serving.

Orange Ginger Chiffon Cake
Adapted from Orange Chiffon Cake by All That Matters

Ingredients

(A)

• 4 egg yolks
• 30g castor sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 40g corn oil
• 140g orange juice
• 2 tbsp grated ginger
• Zest  from 3/4 orange and 1/2 lemon

(B)

• 120g Cake flour
• 1/2 tbsp baking powder

*Sift 2x

(C)

• 5 egg whites
• 40g castor sugar
• 1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar (1 tsp lemon juice)

Method

1. In a bowl, using hand whisk, whisk yolks and sugar till sugar dissolves.
2. Add oil and salt, whisk and add orange juice, zest and grated ginger. Stir well.
3. Fold in sifted flour and mix well.
4. In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat till the whites are frothy. Add in Cream of Tartar and beat till soft peaks.
5. Add in sugar gradually and beat till stiff peaks.
6. Fold in 1/3 of the whites into the yolk mixture using a spatula till incorporated.
7. Pour the mixture to the remaining egg whites and fold in gently till incorporated.
8. Pour the batter into a 20cm chiffon tube pan. Bang the pan on the table to get rid of bubbles.
9. Oil a piece of aluminium foil and cover the pan loosely. Bake at 170C for 10mins.
10. Turn down the temperature to 160C and bake for 10mins. Lift up the foil to check the surface of cake, bake for another 10mins.
11. Insert a skewer to check if cake is done. Remove the foil and reduce the temperature to 150 deg.C and bake for a further 5 to 10mins to brown the surface.
12. Remove from the oven and invert the pan. Remove the cake from pan when it's completely cooled.

Note : I baked mine at 180C for 40 minutes, then removed foil and continue to bake at 170 for another 10 minutes.

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Not One But Three

Love curries? If you do, there are three to choose from in this post :)  I was looking at my backlog and started scratching my head (while sighing).  So, i decided to clear all three curry dishes in my backlog in this one post.  And having three to pick from is better than one if you are looking for a curry to make, surely.

Curries are popular dishes in the Asian part of the world.  It has become a dish that is very varied with the different cooking styles though underlying it is still meat/vegetables cooked in a rich concoction of spices.  My family love curries, everyone will be eagerly waiting for meal time once they catch a whiff   of it.  

In this post you will see that each of these curries have their own main ingredient lending each variation a distinctive taste of its own.

First up is this Vietnamese style spicy lemongrass chicken.  This was quite popular among bloggers some time back and I have made it a couple of times since then.  As in the name, the key ingredient for this one is the lemongrass which gives it a nice, lemony fragrance.  The use of fish sauce and palm sugar gave the curry a light savory sweet umami flavor.    

I did not follow the original to the T, mainly to make it more convenient for me.

Recipe-Vietnamese Spicy Lemongrass Chicken

Source : First spotted on Nasi Lemak Lover with original recipe from Echo's Kitchen

Ingredients

Spicy lemongrass paste

• 5 Fresh Lemongrass（use only the white part）
• 25 Dried Red Chili（replaced with 5 tbsp grounded chili paste)
• 1 1/2 inch of ginger root 
• 8 Cloves of garlic

Method

1. Slice the lemongrass and ground it together with all other ingredients into a paste.  
2. It is OK if the paste is a little coarse

Spicy Lemongrass chicken

• 1/3 cup cooking oil
• 3 tbsp Spicy Lemongrass Paste
• 500g chicken pieces/chicken breast pieces（marinate with a pinch of black pepper powder and some salt）
• 1 tsp Meat Curry powder (1 tsbp)
• 1/2 onion, chopped ( 1 big onion)
• 1 tbsp Soy sauce/Fish Sauce 
• 1/2 tsp Salt (1 tsp) 
• 1/2 tsp Sugar/Palm Sugar (shaved palm sugar to taste)

Method

1. Heat up oil in pan then fry lemongrass paste until fragant and slightly dry.
2. Remove the additional paste leaving 3 tbsp of paste in the pan.
3. Add in chicken and fry to coat with spices.
4. When grease released from the chicken is visible, stir in the chopped onion, and cook for another minute until onion soften, add in curry powder and stir well until it smells fragrant.
5. Add about 1/2 cup of water, salt, soy sauce/fish sauce and sugar.
6. Bring it to boil then simmer until chicken is cooked and until gravy is reduced to preferred thickness.

This other curry is the Green Curry which is a popular Thai cuisine.   It obviously got its name from its colour, and its color from green chillies and coriander.  Don't be deceive by the color though, it can be as fiery as its redder cousins. The aroma can be quite strong and may not be well received especially for those who dislike coriander.  If so, the amount of coriander used can be slightly lessen.

This is my first time making green curry, thought I would give it a try after drooling at the one blogger friends,  Kimmy and Phong Hong posted.

Recipe-Thai Green Curry

Source : Kimmy's Cooking Pleasure

Ingredients for Paste 

(A)

• 3 lemon grass (white part only)
• 1 inch piece ginger
• 1 tsp black peppercorns 
• 4 large green chillies
• 10 small Thai green chillies
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 10-12 shallots
• 2 tsp grated kaffir lime zest
• 2-3 stalks fresh coriander with roots

(B) 

• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp tumeric powder
• 2 tsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp oil

(C)

• 800 gm chicken thighs - cut bite size pieces
• 1-2 stalks basil leaves - used the leaves only
• 5-6 kaffir lime leaves - shredded finely
• 150 ml water
• 100 ml coconut milk
• 2 medium size eggplants (cut into half then slice to 3 inch long pieces)
• 3-4 tbsp oil
• 1/2 tbsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar to taste

Method

1. Blend ingredients A in a blender until fine.
2. Mix with rest of ingredients B into a paste.
3. Fry paste with about 100 ml oil until oil separates then remove additional paste to store if amount of meat is lesser than amount noted.
4. Add in chicken pieces and mix well.  Add in water after meat turns opaque.
5. Bring to a boil then add in eggplants.  Simmer until chicken is tender.  Add in coconut milk.  Cook until gravy is slightly thick.  Add seasoning to taste.
6. Stir in the basil leaves and kaffir leaves if serving immediately otherwise add the leaves when reheating the curry before serving.

And the last one here (but not the least definitely) has an Indian origin, specifically a town named Goa in Southern India.   This type of curry is known as the Vindaloo.   And it's also interesting to know that  the Vindaloo originated from a Portuguese dish known as Carne de Vinha d' Alhos,  which is a meat dish (normally pork) cooked with wine vinegar(vinha) and garlic(ahlo).  The Indians then added their signature touch to it with fiery spices after the Portuguese explorers introduced it to them when they arrived  at Indian shores way back in the 15th century.

I am not sure how authentic this recipe is, it was from a recipe booklet that came free with a tub of yogurt.  The original recipe called for chicken but i used pork ribs instead.  As the norm with complimentary recipes, one of the ingredient has to be the one from the sponsor.  Yogurt was used to marinate the meat.   It's quite an easy recipe as it suggested use of instant curry paste.  This was the first time i tried this recipe and we loved it.  The use of yogurt instead of coconut cream made it less guilty but just as flavorful.  The addition of some tomato sauce gave a slight sweetness to it too.

    

Recipe-Pork Vindaloo

Source : Nestle Yogurt Recipes Collection

Ingredients

• 500g pork ribs/chicken pieces

(A)

• 6 tbsp set yogurt
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp pounded garlic
• 1 tbsp pounded ginger
• 1 tsp grounded black pepper

(B)

• 1 sachet curry chicken paste (1/3 packet of Tean's Gourmet Chicken Curry Paste)
• 1 onion diced
• 2 sprig of curry leaves
• 1 tomato diced
• 1 tsbp tomato ketchup
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 stalk coriander leaves

Method

1. Marinade meat with ingredients from Part A for several hours  (I only had time to marinate it for 1 hour).
2. Heat oil and fry onion until soft and fragrant.
3. Add curry leaves, tomato and curry paste.  Fry until aromatic.
4. Add in marinated meat and mix well.  Add tomato ketchup and water after meat turns opaque.
5. Simmer until gravy is slightly thick and meat is cooked and tender.  (I let it simmer for 15 minutes before transferring it to the pressure cooker for 5 minutes to have a nice melt in your mouth ribs)
6. Season with salt and pepper.
7. Garnish with coriander leaves.

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