Queen of the Chennaults

I love Chinese layered pastries, but I hardly make them anymore because it involves water dough and oil dough and it’s time consuming to just prepare the dough, not to mention the work on the fillings! Thanks to COVID lockdown, I “sort of” have some free time to deal with water dough and oil dough project. I was craving for Malaysian curry puffs so why not make the spiral curry puffs. In Malaysia, the traditional curry puffs that selling at roadside stalls are smaller, with only potato fillings, and cost only around US 5 cents each. Spiral curry puffs, however, are much fancier– fancy look (spiral pattern and much larger size than traditional ones), fancy fillings (with egg and sometimes chicken), of course the price is on the fancy side too. I personally don’t care about the chicken and the egg in the fillings, but I just love the beautiful spiral look! Aren’t they beautiful?

Spiral Curry Puffs 螺旋咖喱角 (adapted from Katherine Kwa— Spiral Curry Puffs, makes 30 pieces)

Ingredients:

Fillings:
2 cloves garlic– minced
1/2 onion– finely diced
2 boneless chicken thighs– finely diced
6 cups finely diced steamed potatoes– steam for 10 minutes
8 hard boiled eggs– shell off and cut each egg into 4 wedges
8 curry leaves– minced
A little of water

Seasoning:
6 tbsps curry powder
2 tbsps chili powder
1 tsp chicken powder
1 tbsp sugar
Salt to taste

Water Dough:
2 3/4 cups flour
5 tbsps unsalted butter
2 tbsps sugar
1/2 tsp salt
210 ml water

Oil Dough:
2 cups flour
3 tbsps unsalted butter
9 tbsps shortening

Method:

1. Prepare the fillings: sauté garlic, onion and curry leaves until aromatic then add in chicken. Stir around until chicken is just cooked. Add in all seasoning and cooked potatoes then stir to combine. Add in a little water if needed to slightly bind chicken and potatoes together. Set aside to cool.
2. Prepare water dough: combine all ingredients in a bowl then rub butter into four mixture. Knead to form a smooth dough. The dough should be very soft. Cover and rest for 30 minutes.
3. Prepare oil dough: rub butter and shortening into flour then form ball (DO NOT knead). Cover and rest for 30 minutes.
4. Wrap oil dough into water dough, make sure there isn’t any air pocket trapped in the dough, sealed tightly. Roll the dough out to a rectangle, then roll it up (like a cake roll) from the short side.
5. Roll the dough out to rectangle again. Visually divide the dough into 1/3’s form the long side. Fold 1/3 from right side over and onto the center 1/3, then fold over 1/3 from left side, to form a small rectangle of three layer dough.
6. Roll it out to rectangle, then roll it up like a cake roll. Cover to rest for 30 minutes.
7. Use a knife in a chainsaw motion, slice dough into 30 portions (like slicing cake roll). Roll out each portion (from cut side) to form a 4 inch disc.
8. Place dough disc in your hand, put 1 egg wedge and 1 heaped tbsp of chicken potato filling in the center. Fold over to form a half circle, pinch the edge to seal tightly. To pleat the edge, use the corner of your thumb to fold and press the edge. Repeat with remaining dough discs.
9. Heat up a frying pan or pot with enough oil for deep frying. Fry curry puffs at medium heat until golden brown. As they fry, the spiral pattern will show up. Drain on paper towel. Serve immediately.

Regina’s Note:

• Fillings can be prepared in advanced and keep in the fridge. Bring to room temperature before using so the fillings won’t be cold after frying.
• For pleating the edge, please watch any curry puff tutorials on YouTube if needed.

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