Curry Pufffs & Mango Salsa for Lunch

Chicken curry puffs

I made these curry puffs for lunch one day last week and served it with mango salsa on the side. My take on fusion cuisine? Haha. I used more wholemeal flour in the pastry than white; which is my first ever attempt and to my surprise, it turned out wonderfully!

With mango salsa-how I served it to hubs, who exclaimed, "this looks special"-:)

This time around, I opened no cookery books but I'll share the recipe below and you can adapt it to your own tastes if you'd like to try this out.


Pastry :-

1 cup plain flour

3 cups wholemeal flour
1 cup chilled butter, cut into cubes (I used unsalted-you can used salted)
3/4 cup ghee ( butter/shortening can also be used)
1/4 teaspoon salt
iced water, just enough to bind the dough

1. Sift both flours and salt together in a large bowl. Cut in butetr and ghee with a pastry blender or just rub in with your fingers.
2. Sprinkle a little iced water over one section and gently work that in with your fingers. Repeat this over the other parts of the flour mixture until you get a nice soft dough. Gently bring everything together until it forms one large bowl. Cover with cling film and place in the fridge while you make the filling.

Chicken curry filling for puffs

1/2 of chicken breast, boned and minced
4 medium sized potatoes, boiled and cubed
1 large onion, minced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbps curry powder, mixed into a paste with some water
a few sprigs of curry leaves, optional
a bunch of fresh coriander leaves, chopped
salt and a little sugar to taste
lime or lemon juice
some oil for frying

1. Heat up some oil (not too much, you don't want to end up with an oily filling) in a pan and fry the onions and garlic till aromatic and softened.
2. Add in the curry leaves and the curry paste. Fry till the paste exudes a nice oily sheen (meaning all the water has evaporated).
   
3. Add in the minced chicken and fry till cooked through, then add in the cooked potatoes and if you're like me, I'd sort of break up the pieces of potato with the ladle to incorporate it into the chicken mixture.
4. Season to taste with salt, sugar and lime or lemon juice.
5. Throw in the chopped coriander leaves, give a stir and remove from the heat.
6. Let cool before using.

Roll out the chilled pastry on a lightly floured surface and cut out into rounds with cookie cutter, as large as you want the puffs to be. Mine was larger because I served it for lunch. Put a tablespoon or more of the filling on the piece of dough and seal the edges before crimping.

Before baking, brush over the puffs with some egg-wash (beaten egg with a little water) with a pastry brush. Bake at 180 celsius for 15-20 minutes.