Thai Curry Puffs

Curry Puff is a popular snack in Singapore, Malaysia and also in Indonesia where it is more commonly referred to as pastel or Kue Ayam (Chicken Snack). Some of the nicest curry puffs I ever had were from Tambuah Mas, an Indonesian restaurant at Tanglin Shopping Centre, Singapore. They were spicy! Old Chang Kee is another establishment selling good curry puffs in Singapore. It's stalls can be found in many places around Singapore, one of them being outside Far East Plaza at Scott Road.

The easiest way to make curry puffs is of course using store-bought puff pastry. However, this time I tried making the layered pastry type. The recipe below is adapted from a Thai cookbook. The filling cooked following this recipe is more like mashed potato. I have hard boiled egg to give it some texture, add more curry powder, chilli powder and also cardamom for extra flavour. I might add some glass noodle in the future and probably won't cook the potato for the full 15 minutes as specified. Note also that I have reduced the quantity for the pastry. The original recipe yields 20 pieces for the pastry, but I found the filling was not enough to make 20 pieces.



Filling
Ingredients:
200g chicken mince
400g potatoes, diced
100g onion, diced
4 tbsp cooking oil
3 pcs cardomom, crushed
3 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 1/2 tbsp curry powder
3 tbsp sugar
2 cup water
2 hard boiled eggs, cut into 10 pcs.

Method:
1. Heat oil and fry potatoes with onions and cardamom. Add water a little at a time and cook for 15 minutes.
2. Add chicken and stir well till cooked. Add fish sauce, salt, pepper, curry powder and sugar. Cook till the mixture is quite dry. Remove and leave aside to cool.

Pastry
(A) Water-based dough
Ingredients:
300g plain flour
1/2 cup cooking oil
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup water

Method:
Mix ingredients and knead to form dough. Divide dough into 5 equal portions.

(B) Oil-based dough
Ingredients:
100g plain flour
1/4 cup cooking oil

Method:
Mix well and divide into 5 equal portions.

Making the curry puff
1. Take a portion of water-based dough, shape into a round. Flatten it with the palm of your hand or with a rolling pin. Take a portion of the oil-based dough, wrap it inside the water-based dough.
2. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a flat square. Turn it over, lift one end up and roll ala swiss roll into a log. Give the long a 90 degree turn. Roll it flat with the rolling pin. Lift up one end and roll into a swill roll one more time. Cut the log into two equal pieces. With the cut face down and spiral showing, flatten the dough with a rolling pin into a round piece of pastry.
3. Placing the pastry on the palm of your hard, cut face down. Place filling in the centre of the pastry, fold and seal edges.
4. Flute the edge with finger tips. Deep fry till golden brown.