Satisfying my Old Chang Kee cravings.....(An easy/lazy curry puff recipe)

I hate too leychey cooking/baking.....and making curry puffs the traditional way is probably right at the top of my "leychey-to avoid" list.

But lately, owing to some discussions with my fellow overseas SGPoreans, I have been getting strong cravings for curry puffs. Damn!

So being my usual lazy self.....I set out to make curry puffs the easiest way that I can possibly think of.

I boiled, peeled and chopped up one big potato into tiny pieces. For the meat, I used a CAN (ya, can you believe it!) of chicken rib meat which has already been cubed and cooked.

For spices, I used a ready cooking sauce as shown below, some curry powder and salt. And that was it!

For the filling, all I did was to chop 1/2 onion finely and stir fry it in some oil till translucent. Then I added the cooked potatoes and chicken to the wok. Next, I added a few tablespoon full of the cooking sauce, some curry powder and salt. I don't know how much....just taste it as you slowly add the seasoning. You don't have to cook the filling for long since everything is already cooked....the whole idea is to just mix all the ingredients and seasonings together with a little bit of heat. And then you are DONE! Oh ya, you don't want the filling to be too wet....'cos you ain't making a curry cream puff!

I like my puffs with eggs. If you do too....just boil a couple of eggs (depending on how many puffs you are making). I cut each egg into 6 segments. Now the curry puff skin.......you could go through the tedious process of measuring your flour, ghee (yes, i like to use ghee!), water.....mix and knead the dough till your arms ache.....after which you'd sit and wait for hours for the dough to proof before making your curry puffs......or you could.......

......use the ready made frozen pie crusts like I did!! The Pillsbury one is my favorite......you need only to thaw it to room temperature (about 15-20min since mine was not in the freezer) and then you can unroll and use the crusts.

I used my biggest cookie cutter to cut out little round shapes from the pie crusts.

To assemble, just place 1 egg segment and a small spoonful of the filling in the middle of the round pastry and fold it in half. Then pinch the edges and do the "twists" to seal the curry puff. 'Cos my cookie cutter is quite small (~3.5").....my curry puffs are little itsy bitsy-s....good bite size. Sorry, no photos to demonstrate the assembling process 'cos my hands were too busy and oily/sticky.

And finally, you heat up a wok (I used my cast iron dutch oven) and add oil to it (you need to have enough oil for deep-frying). When the oil is sufficiently hot, slowly lower the curry puffs into the oil to cook. Do not overcrowd the wok (I do it 4-5 at a time). Keep turning the curry puffs in the oil to make sure that they are evenly browned. It doesn't take long to cook the puff skin....you need to keep your eyes peeled as you don't want to burn them. When they are nice and brown...just pick them up and place them on a piece of paper towel.

And then.....you eat......nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom........

Ok, not to boast or anything......but the puffs taste SO GOOD (I was totally shocked!). I swear Old Chang Kee probably uses the Pillsbury pie crust too :P