Curry puffs in butter puff pastry
Same pastry as the pie, folded into half-moons around curried potato and chicken. The potatoes are boiled whole first, as reviewers described, so they stay in neat cubes.
Quick answer
To make an Oven Marvel-style curry puff, boil waxy potatoes whole in their skins, peel and dice them, then fry them with onion, garlic, diced chicken thigh and a home-ground curry powder until the chicken reaches 75 C. Chill the filling, wrap 35 g portions in 10 cm rounds of all-butter rough puff, crimp, chill, glaze and bake at 200 C.
Home recreation This is my own attempt, guided by published descriptions of the shop's pies. Oven Marvel never published its recipe. It is one of my Oven Marvel recipe recreations, and the recreation log shows how each one got here.
Ingredients
Pastry
Home-ground curry powder
Filling
Method
Put the whole, unpeeled potatoes in salted water, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 to 18 minutes, until a skewer goes in with slight resistance. Drain and leave to cool until you can handle them.
Toast the coriander, cumin, fennel, chillies, peppercorns and cinnamon in a dry pan over a medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes, shaking, until fragrant. Cool, then grind finely and stir in the turmeric. Or use 15 g of a good meat curry powder.
Peel the cooled potatoes with a small knife; the skins slip off easily. Cut into 1 cm cubes.
Mix the curry powder with 30 g of the water to a paste. Heat the oil and fry the onion for 5 minutes until soft, add the garlic for 1 minute, then the curry paste. Fry, stirring, for 3 to 4 minutes until it darkens and the oil starts to separate.
Add the chicken and cook for 5 to 6 minutes until it reaches at least 75 C. Add the potato, sugar, salt and the remaining water and stir gently until the potato is coated and the mixture is fairly dry. Mash a few cubes against the pan to bind it.
Spread on a tray, cool briefly, then refrigerate until completely cold, at least 1 hour.
Roll the pastry to 3 mm and cut twelve 10 cm rounds, re-rolling scraps once after a chill. Put about 35 g of filling on one half of each round, wet the edge, fold over into a half-moon, press out the air and crimp or fork the edge firmly.
Chill the shaped puffs for 30 minutes in the fridge while the oven heats to 200 C (fan 180 C) with a tray inside. Glaze the tops thinly, avoiding the cut edges, and bake on the hot tray for 22 to 25 minutes until deep golden. Cool for 10 minutes before eating.
What was the shop’s curry puff like?
Oven Marvel’s curry puff used the same house-made butter puff pastry as its chicken pie, wrapped around curried potato with small pieces of chicken (ieatishootipost, 2013). Leslie Tay recorded the potato method in some detail: the waxy local kind, boiled first in their skins, then peeled, diced and fried in a curry powder the chef ground himself (ieatishootipost, 2013). There was no egg. Reviewers recorded the price at about S$2 around 2009 (ieatishootipost, 2009), rising to S$2.80. The rest of this page is my recreation, because the shop never published a recipe. The spice blend in particular is my own.
Why grind your own curry powder?
Because the chef did, and because it makes an obvious difference. Freshly toasted and ground spices are louder and brighter than a jar that has been open for months. My blend is a straightforward meat curry powder, coriander-heavy, with cumin, fennel, a little chilli, black pepper, cinnamon and turmeric. It is mild enough to let the butter pastry speak. If you have a favourite Singapore curry powder, 15 g of it works fine.
Why are the potatoes so important?
In a curry puff, the potato is most of the filling. Waxy potatoes, boiled whole in their skins, hold their shape when diced and fried. Floury potatoes, or potatoes boiled after dicing, absorb water and turn to mash, and mash makes the pastry soggy. Leslie Tay’s description of the shop’s method (ieatishootipost, 2013) is exactly what a careful pastry cook would do for that reason. A few cubes mashed against the pan at the end bind the filling without making it pasty.
How do I stop the puffs leaking?
- Use cold, fairly dry filling. If it is wet when you fold it, it will steam the seam open.
- Leave a clean edge. A 1 cm border with no filling, brushed with water, then pressed hard.
- Chill the shaped puffs for 30 minutes so the butter is firm when the oven heat hits it.
- Glaze the tops only. Egg on the cut edges glues the layers shut so they cannot rise, and the puff splits somewhere else instead.
Can I make them ahead?
Yes, and they freeze better than almost anything else on this site. Freeze the shaped, unglazed puffs on a tray, then bag them. Bake from frozen at 200 C for 28 to 32 minutes, glazing after the first 10 minutes. Baked puffs keep in the fridge for up to three days (USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service); reheat at 180 C for 10 to 12 minutes, until piping hot in the centre. More detail in reheating puff pastry pies.
How does this compare with the pie?
The pastry is identical. The filling is drier and spicier, there is no white sauce, and the half-moon shape means more crimped edge, which is the crunchiest part. If you are making a batch of rough puff anyway, a common plan is six chicken pies from one batch and a dozen curry puffs from a second. For a side-by-side of the shop’s two pastries, see the curry puff and the muffins.
Questions people ask
Should I add egg to the curry puff?
Not for an Oven Marvel style puff. Leslie Tay wrote that a quarter of a hard-boiled egg would have made the shop's curry puff perfect, which tells us it did not have one. Add a wedge of egg if you prefer that style; it is a common Singapore choice.
Why boil the potatoes whole?
Boiling in the skin keeps the potato firm and stops it absorbing water, so it holds a neat cube when fried. Leslie Tay recorded this method for the Oven Marvel curry puff.
Can I deep-fry these instead?
Not with puff pastry. Butter puff is designed for the oven; deep-frying makes it greasy and the layers collapse. Fried curry puffs use a different, sturdier dough.
Sources for this page
- Oven Marvel: super duper addictive chicken pies
- Oven Marvel (formerly Delicious Muffins): hotel quality homemade puff pastry
- Leftovers and food safety
Every source we used, with notes on what each one says: sources and further reading.
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