Malaysian Curry Puff (Karipap)

There will be some pro and contra of me cooking. But yea, let me tell you folks, I actually can cook. For the first post of my cooking time, I am presenting Malaysian Spiral Curry Puff (Karipap Pusing). This dish is meant something special for me, as I have ever stayed in Singapore for 2 years to pursue an undergraduate degree. Okay, when I decided to try to make curry puff from scratch, I admit I was so missing the place that so-called my second home. 

I started google-ing the recipe and I found one in an Australia-based blog, msihua.com which I am following in my instagram. I can say this is the best recipe I could find after long searching and I would love to make other batches again and again in the future.

My dough is resting

Basically, I should make 2 kind of dough to make it "pusing" and flaky. Like all the pastry dough would be made of, it should contain lots of butter and need some resting. However, for this recipe, it only needs a once-and-thirty-minute rest while most of pastry dough require more rest and fridge store.

This is why it's called "pusing"

After resting, it's time to roll the dough couple times, as for this recipe, 4 times will do. It indeed really needs extra strength to flatten the dough and I was really tired and my dough not as thin as it's supposed to be. I might want to roll it in a noodle maker machine to produce thinner and nicer dough next time.

My owned creative filling

As for the filling, it's your creativity talks. My version, I added carrots for the veggies and ground beef for the protein. Hence, a complete macro-nutrient inside a curry puff. What a healthy snacks!

Sorry, I am a messy cook

Malaysian curry puff is supposed to be deep fried, but I was trying to bake it with egg wash for a healthier version. The result? I like this version, still crispy and nice. What I didn't satisafy was the shape, it didn't look nice, I couldn't make the seal like the curry puff expert, but practice makes perfect, right? 

Deep fried vs baked

Ah, please don't judge my karipaps by their look. I know it's ugly, but I can assure you that it had a nice flavour. The filling was nicely seasoned and not overwhelmed. The pastry was crispy but I admit it's not thin enough. Me and my family agree, the deep fried version was nicer. Deep frying somehow had thinner texture and of course it's more crispy. Yum!

Closer look of the filling

You can be as creative as possible for the filling. It's your freedom! But here's the original recipe.

Ingredients :

Water Dough
300g Plain Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
125ml (or 1/2 cup) Lukewarm Water
1 small beaten egg
1 tsbp of oil (I used rice bran oil, but any oil will do)

Grease dough
150g plain flour
75g cold butter

Filling
1 large onion (finely chopped)
2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
2 tbsp of good curry powder
3 large potatoes (cut into small cubes)
100g of chicken breast (diced)
250ml (or 1 cup) water

As I mention before the filling is about creativity, I substituted and added some ingredients.

How it works :

When the original recipe starts with cooking the curry puff filling, I started with making the dough first. While the dough was resting, I starts making the filling. But either way should work I guess.

Water dough

Combine the ingredients and knead with your fingers until the dough becomes soft, pliable and non-sticky.

Divide and roll the dough into two equal balls. Cover and set aside to rest for at least 30 minutes.

Grease Dough

Cube the butter and cut into the flour with two knives and a fork until it resembles crumbly coarse sand. Knead by hand until it turns shiny and smooth (dough-like consistency). As the butter is cold, it takes a while to combine with the flour and I was sweating, so it's good for working out substitute. At the end, divide and roll into two equal balls.

While the dough is resting, I started making the filling.

Saute the onion and garlic in a wok (or a pan) over medium heat. Add the potatoes and stir fry until it softens. Add in chicken and curry powder.

Ensure that everything is coated in the curry powder before adding the water. Add the water slowly (little by little) and allow the curry to simmer (as for my version, I added ground beef and carrots,  I used less potatoes). If you like intense flavour as me, you could add more curry powder until reach your liking. Once the potatoes have soften and the curry forms a dry curry mixture, set aside and let cool.

Forming the curry puffs

Enclose one ball of greased dough into the water dough. The water dough is very pliable so this will be easy to do.

On a lightly floured surface roll the combine dough into a thin oval shape with a rolling pin (which I kind of failed to do T.T). Roll it up and with one end facing you, roll the dough out again into a thin layer.

Roll the dough up again before slicing into 1 cm disc. Depending on the width of each slice, the number of curry puffs made will differ (larger width, bigger curry puff).

Flatten each disc (spirals will be visible at this stage) with care as the dough can easily split into layers.

Place a tablespoon (or two) of the curry puff filling into the center of the flatten disc and fold over. Seal the edges of the dough together by pinching and folding the flour to form a rope (I only managed to form one perfect rope shape). You could use a curry puff mould to make it easier.

To cook, simply deep-fry in hot oil until golden brown. As my baked version, heat oven to around 170 C and egg washed the puff then bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Adapted from Msihua

She also adapted the recipe from Samantha Tan

It turned out nice and flaky, will do better next time with a perfect shaping and layers consistency.

Ps. My little sister loved it so much! She ate all the leftover filling. I shared some with my friend and her family, they also liked it! I was a happy happy cook.

Keep in mind there will be other parts of cooking time to post. Please wait for it! 

You can follow Msihua and Samantha Tan blogs as they share many delicious recipes, food reviews and traveling experience.