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Every now and again, I will have a massive homesickness attack which renders me hungry. Yes, my friends. Unfortunately, homesickness for me always equates to missing food from my home land.

Luckily for me, these days, whenever I have the urge for Malaysian food, all I have to do is either visit one of the many Malaysian restaurants here in Melbourne or google a recipe online. Technology rocks.

On one particular weekend, I decided I must have curry puffs. Knowing that it required a bit of work (but not how much), I put aside a few hours to get it started.

Let’s just say, I’m never going to complain about the prices of curry puffs when I visit Malaysia ever again! For RM0.50-RM 1.00 per curry puff at markets (depending on where and ingredients used) or shops RM 3.50-RM5.00, I’m never going to complain again.

Why was this so hard? Well, I could have gone the cheap and easy route and used pre-made puff pastry. But I wanted to be authentic and needed the more traditional curry puff to satiate my cravings.

curryPuffs_front

After scouring the internet and coming close to giving up, I came across Samantha Tan’s blog with this recipe. It’s really easy to follow, as she’s given a step by step guide. I thought I’d do the same (just in case you decided you needed Malaysian Curry Puffs in your lives).

This recipe makes about 30 small curry puffs or 20 mid-giant sized ones (which I made as I got tired 😛 ). For this super flaky treat, this recipe incorporates two types of dough (a grease dough and a water dough). The harder of the two is definitely the grease dough, and because I have no stand mixer, my trusty arm muscles were put to good use!

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5 from 1 vote

Spiral Curry Puffs (Karipap Pusing) Recipe

Ingredients

For the Water dough:

  • 300 g Plain Flour
  • ½ tsp Salt
  • 125 ml or 1/2 cup lukewarm Water
  • 1 small beaten Egg
  • 1 Tbsp of Oil

For the Grease dough:

  • 150 g Plain Flour
  • 75 g cold Butter

For the Curry Puff filling:

  • 1 large Onion (finely chopped)
  • 2 cloves of Garlic (finely chopped)
  • 2 Tbsp of good Curry Powder (I used a standard meat curry powder)
  • 3 large Potatoes (cut into small cubes)
  • 100 g of Chicken Breast (diced)
  • 250 ml or 1 cup Water

Instructions

  • Start by cooking the curry puff filling, whilst the filling cools, you can get started on the dough.
  • 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 the chicken and curry powder.
  • Ensure that everything is coated in the curry powder before adding in the water. Add the water slowly (little by little) and allow the curry to simmer.
  • Once the potatoes have soften and the curry forms a dry curry mixture, set aside and let cool.

Water Dough:

  • Combine ingredients and knead with your fingers until the dough becomes soft, pliable and non-sticky. Divide and roll the water 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). This process takes a while so get ready for a work-out! Divide and roll into two equal balls.

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. Roll it up and with one end facing you, roll the dough out again into a thin layer.
  • Roll the dough up again (see pictorial) before slicing into 1cm disc. Depending on the width of each slice, the number of curry puffs made will differ (larger width, bigger curry puffs).
  • 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 centre of the flatten disc and fold over. Seal the edges of the dough together by pinching and folding the flour to form a rope. (If you have a curry puff mould, use it!)
  • To cook, simply deep-fry in hot oil until golden brown. Serve warm!

Notes

Adapted from Samantha Tan

curryPuffs_montage

To help you in making these luscious curry puffs, we’ve put together a montage to show you how it’s done!

For a clearer step-by-step guide, I’d suggest visiting Samantha’s blog post!

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I found the rolled out discs to be very pretty. I was quite happy with the overall end result.

If I was to be mad enough to attempt this again, I’d probably roll them up to be smaller so as to not have too much excess dough. And I would probably improve on my crimping skills the next time.

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All the curry puffs crimped and waiting to be deep fried!

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The Boy and I happily ate these as snacks and pre-dinner treats for a couple of days. It definitely was delicious and worth the time and effort which I put into making them.

Would I be jumping back to quickly make these again? Probably not until the craving hits me badly enough. I’ll just wait for the next visit home to Malaysia 🙂

A little historical note on curry puffs in Malaysia. 

If you think that these look a tad familiar and may have seen them in other cultures, though a little differently, you’re not far behind on that logic.

Curry puffs are a hybrid of Samosas and Empanadas which were introduced to Malaya during the spice trading days. Absorbed by the locals, the fillings of curry puffs have changed to suit the local tastes and transformed into the curry puffs you can find today in Malaysia.

Interesting curry puff fillings I have come across over the years includes one that is completely filled with fresh Durian paste! Most traditional curry puffs will only have potatoes in the curry.

The recipe above is a modification of this with the addition of chicken pieces.

Enjoy!