Baked Curry Puffs

When I was young, I never appreciated Curry Puffs. I guess I'm a late bloomer. I only learnt to like it better in the past year. Is that what they meant when they say Life Starts At Forty? LOL..

Anyway, Old Chang Kee was instrumental to making me appreciate curry puffs. Then it was A1 Curry Puffs that I tried in a kiosk in Ang Mo Kio. I love them both. Since then, there is no stopping me. I go Ga-Ga over curry puffs.

I had a bag a potatoes I bought the other day. And some chicken thighs in the freezer. I thought, since I have the ingredients, why not make curry puffs instead. The only thing that will be different is that I shan't be deep-frying my curry puffs. I always have problems with leftover oil from deep frying. I like fresh new pot of oil so I'd be wasting quite a lot of it if I fry them. I decided to use the Chicken Pie Pastry for my Curry Puffs.

Some curry puffs uses flaky pastry. But I am short of pastry margarine. I only have butter in the fridge and I had not gotten any of my baking supplies in the past two weeks. So no flaky pastry. A short dough pastry is probably the alternative since I am baking my curry puffs. The filling is very important.

Baked Curry Puffs

One for you, One for me...

A. Pastry
Start with making your pastry in advance, then put it in the fridge to chill. Ingredient of the pastry is from the Chicken Pie that I did the other day.


B. Fillings:
2 Med Chicken Thigh (bone in)
400g Potatoes (cubed)
100g Sweet Potatoes (cubed)
2 tsp Soya Sauce

Mix into Paste
2-3 tbsp Curry Powder
1 tbsp Chilly Powder
3 tbsp Water

To Taste
2 tbsp Sugar
Salt and Pepper
2 tsp Knorr Chicken Powder

Saute
3 tbsp of shallots (chopped)
half yellow onion (chopped)
half tsp garlic (minced)
cooking oil (for frying)
200ml - 500ml water

Dry Ingredients
4-5 leaves Curry Leaves
2 sticks Cinnamon Stick
1 Star Anise
15cm length Lemongrass (bruised)

2-3 hard boiled Egg
1 egg, lightly beaten + 2 tsp water



1. Marinate the chicken thighs with soya sauce, salt and pepper and a tsp of curry powder. Leave it aside for a few hours.

2. In a wok, heat a few tablespoons of oil. Saute the shallot, ginger, yellow onions till fragrant. Add the cinnamon, anise, lemongrass and curry leaves and fry it briefly.

3. Add the marinated chicken till they are sealed and browned lightly. Add the cubed potatoes, sweet potatoes onto the wok, followed by the paste of curry powder and chilly paste. Add 200mls of water and continue to cook in slow fire till the potatoes and chicken is tender and soft.

4. Add chicken powder, sugar, salt and pepper to adjust seasoning according to your taste. If the wok is too dry, you can add more water about 150ml and continue to braise them till it looks like a dry gravy. Depending on the type of potatoes you use, sometimes the potatoes may start to become mish-mashed into the gravy and chicken but to me that is fine since curry puffs are all about soft mushy potatoes and tender chicken pieces.

5. When you are satisfied with the final seasoning, turn off the stove and let the cooked chicken and potatoes cool down. You may want to debone the thighs and set it in a bowl. Some prefers to use boneless chicken when cooking but I like to use chicken with bones as cooking them gives extra stock and flavour. And the meat is also juicier, tender and easy to tear off from the bones.

In the meantime, you should have your pie pastry cooling in the fridge.

6. Take out the pastry, and roll them into about 30gm size ball. On a marble table, roll out the pastry into a flat round sheet, taking care that it is not too thin. My curry puff cutter is about the diameter of 10.5 cm. I roll out a piece bigger than 10.5 cm diameter. Place the rolled pastry over the cutter.

7. Fill half of it with some chicken, potatoes and cut out eggs. Fold the cutter close and crimp it but not totally cut off. The reason I do it this way is because my cutter does not do a nice neat cut out edge. So what I do is to get the pattern of the crimp, take out the puff and use a pizza cutter to cut out the crimp. If you are not using a curry puff cutter, you can fill it with the fillings and crimp with a fork. I use the cutter so I can have a more consistent size for each curry puff.

8. Before baking in the oven, brush with egg wash (lightly beaten egg plus 2 tsp water). Place them on a baking tray sprinkled lightly with flour. Bake in 170 deg C (preheat oven), rotate the tray if you have hot spots. Halfway through, take them out and brush a second or third coat of egg wash. Bake till the puffs are golden brown in colour about 40 minutes or more.

Below: Crimping the puff





Crimp gently enough to seal but not totally cut off

Brush with egg wash before baking and halfway through baking, for a second or third coat to get a nice golden brown.

Cooling them on a rack