Group Assignment- Recipe Blog

Curry Chicken 

This curry chicken is a traditional style of dishes which is commonly cooked by Malaysian housewives.

Chef Information

        Gan Seong Lan

        Cooking Experience : 28 years

        Gains her cooking skills from others, especially siblings.

        Interested in food TV shows, cookbooks and food magazines.

        Usually sharing dishes as well as sharing her cooking skills and the recipes with the communities. 

Ingredients

Packaging Curry Sauce- 1 pack

Coconut milk- 400ml

Curry Leaf- 5 sprigs
Lemon Grass- stalks

Potatoes- 6

Chicken Tight - 1.5 kg

Step-by-step procedure

The potatoes after frying

The Curry Chicken

1)     Clear and wash the curry leaves and lemongrass.

2)     Slice the chicken and potatoes into small pieces and wash it.

3)     Fry potatoes first in order softer to be served.

4)     After frying curry leaves and lemon grass, add packaging curry sauce.

5)     Fry until fragrant, add chicken and 2 teaspoons of salt. Cook them for about 5-7 minutes, so that the    chicken is cooked thoroughly.

6)     Add potato and some water, turn the heat down to medium until they are soft, which should take about 8-10 minutes.

7)     Add coconut milk and stir.

8)     After 10 minutes of stir, ready to be served.

Reminder/ techniques

• May able to add more dried chillies to be more spicy (depends on different person, different spicy  level acceptance)
•  The thickness of the curry is decided by the volume of water.
•  If chicken feet are included in the ingredients, must fried first because its need longer time to cook.
•  If lack of coconut milk, it can be substituted with evaporated milk.

Nyonya Chicken Curry

Website: http://www.taste.com.au/kitchen/recipes/nyonya+chicken+curry+by+poh+ling+yeow,24499

Differences in Ingredients:

1 star anise

2 whole cloves

1 cinnamon stick

2 bird’s eye chillies (deseeded)

1tsp sugar

3 tbs ground coriander

1 tbs ground cumin

1 tbs ground fennel

20 grams belacan

Differences of two style Chicken Curry:

	Nyonya style Chicken Curry	Traditional style Chicken Curry
Cooking methods:	i)Blend and mix all spice well	i)Fry all spices until fragrant
	ii)Didn’t fry potatoes	ii)Fry potatoes
Level of difficulty :	Easier	More difficult
Facility of Ingeredients:	Inconvenient	More convenient
Money Spending:	Approximately RM24	Approximately RM20
Time	30-45 minutes	30-45 minutes

         

Nyonya Chicken Curry

          The taste of Nyonya style chicken curry is more strong while the traditional style of chicken curry is more acceptable by most of the people. The reason why the taste of Nyonya style curry chicken is stronger due to the using of varied spices and belacan. However, the taste of traditional style chicken curry is more creamy as the using of coconut milk which is popularly used by the Malaysian people. By blending all spices, the taste of Nyonya style chicken curry will be mixed well and non-residue in it. In other hand, frying all the spices will make the taste of traditional style chicken curry is more fragrant. At the same time, frying potatoes before adding it into the curry chicken will lead the potatoes more softer. Conversely, the cooking methods of potatoes in Nyonya style curry chicken will cause the potatoes have a harder mouth-feel.

           

The requirement cooking skill of Nyonya style chicken curry is lower as it blended all the spices into a paste. However, traditional style chicken curry is required a higher level of cooking skill as has to control the heat and the timing of putting those ingredients properly. The preparation of Nyonya style chicken curry is complex as it is needed to buy a lot of spices. Relatively, traditional style chicken curry is more simple to be prepared because the convenience of packaging curry sauce that can be found in every market. There is not much difference in the spending and cooking time between these two styles of chicken curry. Normally,  people can buy all the ingredients in RM25 and using about 45 minutes for the dishes to be served.

            Obviously, there are a variety of spices or curry sauces are used in chicken curry due to the differences of culture and heritage. There is no a best recipe of chicken curry, it depends on the preferences of the people. In the next, we will introduce more details about the history and food heritage of the curry in Malaysia and other countries.

            

Spicy Andhra Chicken Curry

            Curry is widely eaten throughout southeast Asia. Curry actually is originated from Indian cuisine. The word “curry” probably originates from the Tamil word “kari,” which was used to refer to a sauce for rice (Wise Geek, 2014). Turmeric, coriander, cumin, ginger, garlic and chillies usually can find  in curry sauces. In the past, spices would have been very expensive due to the limitation of sources. But nowadays, we can easily get a spice mixed sauce in everywhere. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, curry grew increasingly popular in the world. Following World War II, curry became even more popular throughout  the world owing to the large number of immigrants from India to South Asia. Hence, this has made a significant contribution of spreading the curry throughout the world. Undoubtedly, curry has also been spreading to Malaysia during the time.

          Malaysia has a multi-ethnic, multicultural, and multilingual society. There are many races in this country such as Malay, Chinese and Indian. Thus, variety of curry styles of chicken curry can be found in Malaysia. The unique features of Malaysian curry typically rich in turmeric, coconut milk, shallots, ginger, belacan (shrimp paste), chillies, and garlic. Rendang is also popular in this country which is another form of curry that is drier and contains more coconut milk than traditional Malaysian curry. In the past, Portuguese and British have conquered this country, so that the food heritage of these two Colonial countries has influenced Malaysian food heritage as well.

          The uniqueness of Indian chicken curry is they will prepare a part of ingredients for marinade and mix with the chicken. Furthermore, it will also add tomato paste and lemon juice that will drive the taste of chicken curry be more differences with others recipes and standing out from the taste of spices. This taste of Indian chicken curry will be more yummy and awesome due to cooking methods. In contrast, the uniqueness of Thai green curry is the using of Thai green chillies, galangal, kaffir lime green, kaffir lime leaves and Thai basil leaves. Thai green curry has a lighter and fresher taste, combining sweet,spicy and sour flavour. Therefore, this curry is popularly using to cook lamb, beef and seafood in order to get rid and wipe off the smell of the meats.

Thai Green Curry

         Curry has widely been used in Malaysia even we can find it in another kind of food such as laksa, curry puff, satay and curry noodles. Malaysian usually will introduce the food in Mamak stall to foreign visitors because the Mamak stall is representing a restaurant of Malaysia traditional cuisine. Variety of curry such as curry ikan, curry dal, curry ayam and curry daging are always ready to be served and easily to be found in anywhere. In a nutshell, due to the taste preferences of Malay and Indian in Malaysia, hence curry plays an important role in Malaysian food heritage.

References:

All Recipes (2014) Thai Green Curry with Chicken & Brinjal. Available from:

http://allrecipes.asia/recipe/1641/thai-green-curry-with-chicken---brinjal.aspx?o_is=Hub_TopRecipe_1 [Accessed 20 May 2014].

Poh, LY.  (2014) Nyonya Chicken Curry by Poh Ling Yeow. Available from: http://www.taste.com.au/kitchen/recipes/nyonya+chicken+curry+by+poh+ling+yeow,24499 [Accessed 20 May 2014].

Wise Geek (2014) Where Does Curry Come From?  Available from: http://www.wisegeek.com/where-does-curry-come-from.htm [Accessed 20 May 2014].

Uma Ramanujam (2014) Spicy Andhra Chicken Curry. Available from: http://umaskitchenexperiments.blogspot.com/2012/03/spicy-andhra-chicken-curry.html [Accessed 20 May 2014].