Karipap (bastardized from the english version of curry puff) is one of my favourite afternoon tea snack / morning tea break snack /eat at all times snack. It is fattening deep-fried pastry stuffed with potato curry with bits of chicken if you are lucky.Everywhere in Malaysia this snack is enjoyed all day long – from the streets of the suburbs to the tiny village hamlets to the noisy shopping centres and canteens of schools everywhere.It is handy and cheap bite-sized food.There are other selections of bite-sized foods in the wide variety of kuihs ( traditional bite sized cakes savoury & sweet)

The closest cousin of the curry puff available in hicksville is the indian samosa which is found in every single supermarket. But it is the wrong shape! And the fact that it does not go puff and usually have bits of carrots and peas in it just makes it too different. The only currypuff that I can find in hicksville is from the strange colonial-esque fine dining restaurant named after the town of my birth – The Georgetown Restaurant. It is pseudo-Malaysian food heavily influenced by gwai los – curry puffs served as starter at the cost of £3.50 per puff. £3.50!?I can buy the whole damn karipap stall! Better I make myself…

At £3.50 per puff, it remained as my budget for Project Karipap

Ingreddients:

250g minced turkey – yes, its supposed to be chicken but I am on a budget (£1.17)
1 readymade puff pastry (£0.75)
1 readymade shortcrust pastry (£0.75)
2 big potatos (£0.40?)

total damage : £3.04

spices ( not in budget because I have all of it in-stock, heehee)

2 star anise
curry leaves
5 tsp meat curry paste (mine is A1 imported from KL but madras paste works fine)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground tumeric for color
1 cinnamon stick (circa 3cm)

To make the filling:

1) Cut the potatoes into small cubes
2) Stirfry the spice paste until fragrant
3) Add turkey and mix well.Cook until turkey is no longer pink
4) Add potatos and mix well.
5) Leave to simmer until potatos are tender. This might take some time as it is a dry curry.

I know pictures are blurred – its the smoke of hot cooking food

To make pastry

I had obviously cheated using ready-made pastries,but hell, I am not an acclaimed cook ok!
1) FOLLOW instructions on the wrapper. Roll it out thinly.Rub rolling pin with flour to ensure non-stickiness
2) Cut out pastry into rounds – the bigger the better since it is to be folded into half.
3) Put stuffing in a long-ish manner across the round of pastry
4) Fold up and crimp at ends using a fork, ensuring that the pastry is closed up to prevent exploding filling.
5) Brush with eggwash, and bake in a preheated oven at 200deg for 10 mins or until brown

Sounds easy enough eh? I had a hell of a time crimping it to resemble the plaited look of the original karipap – mine resemble a cornish pasty instead, looking creepily english until you bite into the fiery hot filling.Bacon came up with the clever idea of crimping it with a fork, thus the end of the exploding pastry.Most curry puffs in Malaysia is achieved by a special pastry cutter which you can fold it into half to achieve the ‘braided’ crimp look.

The above recipie makes more than 30 -40 curry puffs (bite me georgetown!Hah!) of normal hand-held size of half your palm(not those humongous triangles). At the end of it, we froze some of it as I cannot possibly eat them all! The puff pastry was nicer than the shortcrust pastry for the obvious reason of extra butter, but next time I shall try to make my own curry-puff pastry and possibly fry it rather than bake. More than enough to satisfy my craving, I just had curry puff for dinner and nothing else.Mmm..piping hot puffs from the oven, who could ask for a more sinful but oh-so-freaking-beautiful meal?

Selamat makan.

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