Curry puff
Encyclopedia
Cuisine of Malaysia
Malaysian cuisine reflects the multicultural aspects of Malaysia. Various ethnic groups in Malaysia have their own dishes, but many dishes in Malaysia are derived from multiple ethnic influences. Food preparation differs from place to place, although many of the foods used are alike...
, Singaporean
Cuisine of Singapore
Singaporean cuisine is indicative of the ethnic diversity of the culture of Singapore, as a product of centuries of cultural interaction owing to Singapore's strategic location...
, and Thai
Cuisine of Thailand
Thai cuisine is the national cuisine of Thailand. Blending elements of several Southeast Asian traditions, Thai cooking places emphasis on lightly prepared dishes with strong aromatic components. The spiciness of Thai cuisine is well known. As with other Asian cuisines, balance, detail and variety...
snack
Snack
A snack is a small portion of food eaten between meals. The food might be snack food—items like potato chips or baby carrots—but could also simply be a smaller amount of any food item.-Snacks and health:...
. It is a small pie
Pie
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....
consisting of specialised curry
Curry
Curry is a generic description used throughout Western culture to describe a variety of dishes from Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Thai or other Southeast Asian cuisines...
with chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
and potato
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
es in a deep-fried or baked pastry
Pastry
Pastry is the name given to various kinds of baked products made from ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk, butter, shortening, baking powder and/or eggs. Small cakes, tarts and other sweet baked products are called "pastries."...
shell. The curry is quite thick to prevent it from oozing out of the snack.
A common snack in the region, the curry puff is one of several "puff" type pastries with different fillings, though now it is by far the most common. Other common varieties include sardines and onions or sweet fillings such as yam.
Some varieties of the South Asian samosa
Samosa
A samosa is a stuffed, deep fried,snack that is very popular in the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Southwest Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa, North Africa and South Africa...
are very similar to curry puffs.
Origins
Curry puffs were introduced from 1511 by the Portuguese who called it EmpanadaEmpanada
An empanada is a stuffed bread or pastry baked or fried in many countries in Latin America, Southern Europe and parts of Southeast Asia. The name comes from the verb empanar, meaning to wrap or coat in bread. Empanada is made by folding a dough or bread patty around the stuffing...
. The original Malay word Epok-Epok is a corruption of Empanada.
Malaysia
In Malaysia, this snack is considered a Malaysian version of empanadas. Found in many stores, especially at Indian and Malay foodMalay cuisine
Malay cusine is the cuisine of Malay people of Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and Southern Thailand. Different Malay regions are all known for their unique or signature dishes - Terengganu and Kelantan for their Nasi dagang, Nasi kerabu and Keropok lekor, Negeri Sembilan for its...
stalls. Another Malay version of this snack is known as epok-epok and teh-teh which is smaller than the curry puff. Other varieties of the epok epok are filled with a half boiled egg instead of chicken. Another alternative is tinned sardine
Sardine
Sardines, or pilchards, are several types of small, oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae. Sardines are named after the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, around which they were once abundant....
s.
Manufacturers have developed a version of the curry puff that can be frozen and later reheated by the consumer. These are suitable for the export market and can be produced in volume for shipment to various regions, such as the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, where there is demand. In addition, new fillings have been experimented with, including tuna
Tuna
Tuna is a salt water fish from the family Scombridae, mostly in the genus Thunnus. Tuna are fast swimmers, and some species are capable of speeds of . Unlike most fish, which have white flesh, the muscle tissue of tuna ranges from pink to dark red. The red coloration derives from myoglobin, an...
and black pepper
Black pepper
Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...
.
In Indian food stalls in Malaysia, it is quite common to find vegetarian curry puffs with potatoes, carrots and onions as fillings. The Malay curry puffs tend to be sweet-savoury while the Indian curry puffs are usually spicy.
Singapore
Curry puffs are commonly seen in SingaporeSingapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
's Pasar Malam
Pasar malam
Pasar malam is a Malay and Indonesian word that literally means "night market", "pasar" being related to "bazaar" in Persian. A pasar malam is a street market in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore that opens in the evening, usually in residential neighbourhoods.It brings together a collection of...
s and other stalls in shopping centres. Additionally, the aforementioned epok-epok is a popular variation in some of Singapore's hawker centres, usually amongst Malay stalls. Alternatively, the more common type of curry puff has a thick or flaky English-style crust, with a mixture of Chinese and Indian styles in the filling.
They may also be categorized into hand-made or mass produced machine-made puffs. Both variations are popular in Singapore, although some might argue that the former is typically more delicious.
Other puff snacks modelled on the curry puff concept have also been introduced. For example, A1 Curry Puff also sells puffs with yam
Yam (vegetable)
Yam is the common name for some species in the genus Dioscorea . These are perennial herbaceous vines cultivated for the consumption of their starchy tubers in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania...
, durian
Durian
The durian is the fruit of several tree species belonging to the genus Durio and the Malvaceae family . Widely known and revered in southeast Asia as the "king of fruits", the durian is distinctive for its large size, unique odour, and formidable thorn-covered husk...
, corn
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
, red bean
Red bean
Red bean may refer to:* Azuki bean, commonly used in Japanese and Chinese cuisine, particularly as red bean paste* Kidney bean, commonly used in Indian and North American cuisine, such as chili con carne and red beans and rice...
, nata de coco
Nata de coco
Nata de coco is a chewy, translucent, jelly-like food product produced by the fermentation of coconut water, which gels through the production of microbial cellulose by Acetobacter xylinus. Nata de coco is most commonly sweetened as a candy or dessert, and can accompany many things including...
, grass jelly
Grass jelly
Grass jelly, or Leaf jelly, is a jelly-like dessert found in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. It is sold in cans or packets in Asian supermarkets.-Preparation:...
, bird's nest
Bird's nest
Bird's nest may refer to:*Bird nest*Bird's nest soup, delicacy made from the salivary excretions of the swiftlet*Seafood birdsnest, southern Chinese dish made of taroPlants and fungi*Bird's nest plant, carrot...
and even custard
Custard
Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on a cooked mixture of milk or cream and egg yolk. Depending on how much egg or thickener is used, custard may vary in consistency from a thin pouring sauce , to a thick pastry cream used to fill éclairs. The most common custards are used as...
fillings.
Besides the more "exotic" fillings mentioned, there are also more conventional flavours which are quite popular with the locals. These puffs are readily available in Singapore, which include sardine, black-pepper chicken and tuna fillings. For example, Pie Connection sells these hand-made puffs.
In Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, Old Chang Kee
Old Chang Kee
Old Chang Kee is an established snack chain in Singapore specialising in curry puffs and other local snacks. Established in 1956, Old Chang Kee started off as a small stall outside Rex Cinema at McKenzie Road which still exists. Its current chairman, Han Keen Juan bought over the establishment...
has been selling curry puffs for over 70 years and now has outlets all over Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Other well-known brands include A1 Curry Puff and Sim Sun Pastries. Polar Puffs and Cakes introduced a version of the curry puff that uses Western puff pastry
Puff pastry
In baking, a puff pastry is a light, flaky, leavened pastry containing several layers of fat which is in solid state at 20 °C . In raw form, puff pastry is a dough which is spread with solid fat and repeatedly folded and rolled out and used to produce the aforementioned pastries...
, which has a different taste and shape. This version of the curry puff can be found also at Delifrance
Délifrance
Délifrance is a bakery company that serves "French style" bakery products in over 50 countries on five continents. It has been in operation for more than 25 years....
in Singapore as Curry Chicken Feuillette.
Ingredients
- Curry powderCurry powderCurry powder is a mixture of spices of widely varying composition based on South Asian cuisine. Curry powder, and the contemporary English use of the word curry are Western inventions and do not reflect any specific Indian food, though a similar mixture of spices used in north India is called...
- PotatoPotatoThe potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
es - A small piece of hard boiled eggEgg (food)Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...
- Meat, usually beef or chicken.
- OnionOnionThe onion , also known as the bulb onion, common onion and garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion The onion...
s - Cream CheeseCream cheeseCream cheese is a soft, mild-tasting, white cheese with a high fat content. Traditionally, it is made from unskimmed milk enriched with additional cream....
, used mainly in Americanized variations of the food.