This is for an acquaintance of mine. She had planned a curry weekend. Fish curry for Saturday and chicken on Sunday. The fish curry she prepared yesterday using a ready made paste was salty even though she added lots more water than the instruction on the packaging suggested. Coincidentally, i had borrowed a recipe book from library (Cita Rasa Malaysia – Melaka ISBN 9786675564758). So i suggested why not try cooking curry chicken using your own grinded paste.
The book is in malay. I translate it here.
Melaka Curry Chicken
Ingredient A
- 6 pieces of chicken
- 4 Tea spoon curry powder
- 2 Tea spoon blended dried chilli
- 1 piece of tamarind peel
- 1 big potato(chopped into 4)
- 1 1/2 cups coconut milk
- Sugar and salt to taste
- Cooking oil
Ingredient B (grinded)
- 1 big onion
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 3 pieces of candlenuts
- 1 stick lemongrass
- 1 inch ginger
- 1 inch belacan
Instruction
- Heat oil. Fry Ingredient A, dried chilli and the curry powder until crisp
- Add the potato and coconut oil. Stir the mixture continuously. Cook until the potato is soft.
- Add in the chicken and the tamarind peel. Cook until it boils.
- Add in sugar and salt to taste. Stir for a while.
- Shut the heat.
This is the outcome:
The recipe didn’t specify adding water. So the gravy will be thick. This is Melaka style chicken curry. So i think that’s why there’s belacan. Can leave it out this think. One thing i notice my mom do when she prepare chicken curry is she pan-fry the chicken first. It won’t take long for the chicken to cook then.
