Distance truly does make the heart grow fonder! Nowadays I’m constantly looking for any glint of home comfort food without having to make them myself. Does that make sense? I mean I am simply craving for anything hot, spicy, sour, and probably more predominantly, fried, fried, FRIED! Do you notice how many foods from our part of the world are fried? Fried fish.. fried chicken.. cucurs (fritters), you name it, we fry it! And although currypuffs can technically be baked, who on earth finds that yummy? ;p The point is, we know it’s unhealthy but we continue to love fried food. And that’s precisely what I’ve been looking for (and I won’t care if you judge me). The closest things to fried currypuff here are the Indian samosa and the Cornish pasty, but they don’t quite cut it for me, at least not when the mood is there to whip up your own food! Sometimes comfort food is just that: it has to be home made.
Snacks like
popia (springrolls) and currypuffs can be found in many parts of Southeast Asia, and I am not sure who ought to claim it as theirs. In Singapore, you can easily find these in those Old Chang Kee carts dotted all over Orchard Road.. and in both Malaysia and Brunei, you only need to drive a little to the nearest
pasar malam (night market) till you stumble upon fried food heaven; and in no way is the
karipap elusive. Apparently Thais have a version of the
karipap too.. called
kalipap (?) and of course, the Philippino version exists, called
panada. I can only imagine that this came from the Spanish version of the empanada/impanada, which makes sense since the Philippines was colonized by the Spanish. I do tend to go off a tangent. Anyway, wherever it originated from is not much of an issue – there’s plenty of variety in terms of what can constitute as the filling for currypuffs and that simply leaves a lot of room for people to claim as their own. Here’s a recipe which I borrowed from this wonderful
Malaysian website which takes you through the step-by-step process of making our much loved
karipap ^_^ It’s for the specific swirly/shell pastry and it is fun to make. There is something about the repetitive work of pastry-making that’s simply intoxicating and this was such a stress-buster for me last weekend!
(Remember, you can click on the link where the original recipe is and pictures of the techniques involved)
Karipap Pusing/Karipap Putar
Source: website Pastry ‘A’
300gm all purpose flour
1/4 Cup vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
Pinch of salt
1/2 Cup water
Add salt to flour, then pour the oil into the flour and combine using the tips of your fingers. Add water a little at a time until all is incorporated and forms a dough.
Pastry ‘B’
150gm all purpose flour
100gm unsalted butter (the original recipe called for margarine)
Combine the butter and flour together to form a dough.
Filling
2 sweet potatoes, diced finely
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
2 (or more) Tbspns of curry
1 Tbspn cinnamon powder
Salt and sugar to taste
Some oil
1 cup water
Fry up the onions in oil until they are translucent. Add the potato and the rest of the ingredients. Let simmer in water and keep on topping up until all the moisture is reduced. Mash the potato to get a smooth filling (optional, of course). You may add chicken or beef to this recipe.
Method
Roll both types of pastries into balls, ensuring that the ones from Pastry ‘A’ are slightly larger than ‘B’. Using a rolling pin, flatten a ball from Pastry ‘A’ and place a dough ball from Pastry ‘B’ in the centre of it, enclosing it to form a larger ball. Repeat with all of the balls. Take one and roll with the pin, to form a pastry sheet. Now roll one edge of the sheet towards the other, just as you would a swiss roll cake. Then roll again with the pin, now forming a sheet with a narrower width. Roll once again from one edge towards the other. Take a knife and cut this roll of pastry into a few slices about 1cm thick each. For each of these slices, roll again with the pin to obtain a circular sheet. You can see from here the beautiful swirly pattern on each sheet. Insert fillings (about one teaspoon is often enough) and enclose into a half-moon shape. Pinch the edges and twist to form the familiar looking currypuff. Fry in hot oil in a deep frier or a wok.
Comfort food currypuffs? Done. If you’re like me, enjoy this with an awesome dipping of chilli sauce (sweet thai chilli is good too). Fantastic.
I must say, kudos to the creator of this recipe! This is such a beautiful, flaky pastry that has a ’short’ texture and simply crumbles and melts in your mouth. The intricate layers and swirling effect are gorgeous, and they may look complicated but they are far from that. Mine here are sooo imperfect but take a gander at the pictures from the website where the recipe came from! Beautiful, no?? The filling is awesome too, I must add! But a wee warning though: this karipap has a high potency… for fat deposits to settle straight to your hips!
And that’s the way the cookie crumbles karipap krumbles ^_^
xoxo
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