power puffs

All my friends know curry puff is my all-time favourite snack. Whenever I passed by a stall that sells curry puffs, I never resisted. Personally, I find Old Chang Kee, too "chanky", Tanglin Curry Puffs too bland and Tip Top Curry Puffs too sweet. Polar Puffs is spicy but a tad too sweet for my taste buds and the skin is puff pastry. I do like puff pastry but I prefer it when I'm eating chicken pie. And the filling is all mashed up such that you don't really taste the potatoes but minced meat. The Malay Curry Puffs 93 didn't impress me. 1A Curry Puffs which is available at quite a few places kind of satisfies my crave every now and then. I like the feeling when the piping hot moist filling oozes out as I sink my teeth into the melt-in-your-mouth buttery crispy skin. Heaven...

The one I can't take my mind off is from a stall at East Coast Lagoon Food Village. I've only tasted them once or rather twice when I was staying at the chalet. They were so good that I had to revisit to buy more on the second day of my stay. It is the traditional kind filled with chunks of chicken and potatoes. Rich yet not "gelak". But East Coast Park is so inconvenient and I'm too lazy to make a trip down specially for that. I wonder if the stall is still there. Maybe I should check it out soon. Of course there are more less popular ones which I've tried but the taste failed to linger in my mouth or my memory.

Just a few nights ago, my good friend who is never absent when there's good food, sent me a link to a Hokkien Prawn Mee recipe. He was trying to coax me into cooking that for him. Instead, this curry puff recipe caught my eyes and I was very inspired to give it a shot. So, I roped him in to try it out the very next day.

I did not follow the steps exactly. For instance, I omitted the sugar and added an extra teaspoon of chilli powder and salt to suit my taste. I used chicken fillet instead of breast meat as they are more tender according to mum. I diced the potatoes and steamed them for 15 minutes as it sped up the process. You may want to add water when the ingredient becomes dry when frying, which I did.


It turned out that the fillings wasn't spicy enough despite the extra chilli powder I added.


I did not go with the easy way out by using frozen puff pastry as I prefer the traditional skin. Wrapping wasn't as easy as I thought. My friend's curry puffs turned out looking like huge dumplings.


They didn't look too bad considering it was my first attempt.


The filling wasn't moist enough after they were deep-fried and the skin was a bit too thick.


Yes! I added a wedge of egg if you can spot that!

I rationalised that it's really not easy to make good curry puffs. The filling is as difficult compared to making the skin from scratch. So if you know anywhere else that sells tasty curry puffs, I'll appreciate if you leave me a comment. :)

(I promised to cook him the hokkien prawn mee soon.)