This weekend is Easter Friday and Easter Sunday holidays. Finally a long-awaited break from work so that we can wind down a bit from work. It’s been very sunny and hot with flashes of sudden and heavy showers in the afternoon. After having spent just a week in China which saw very cool and nice but sunny weathers (except on Friday) I had to take some time to get used to being back in humid hot Singapore.
There were quite a few memorable dishes that I ate in China, including ‘lion’s head’ (or 狮子头), the melt-in-your-mouth braised pork belly, very soft and slurpy noodles, noodles with fried shallots (油葱面条) which was a simple bowl of noodles made really delicious by the pile of fragrantly deep-fried shallots it was served with, chewy and juicy pork dumplings etc. The folks there loved their lamb and beef especially in Dunhuang, and I must agree that they tasted much better there than in Singapore too because they knew much better how to get rid of the unnecessarily strong taste and I could try a bit of it without gagging. I missed out eating the famous roast duck dish in Beijing (北京烤鸭), but I heard that their version is a lot fattier and crispier and thicker than ours, and as such a lot greasier than ours too. Well then, maybe next time.
This recipe is a simple one taken from a very old log book of mine. It uses a very simple flour mix to make the outer layer crispy and buttery; the filling was simple to make too. Makes for a nice snack to have in the afternoon or for picnics.
Ingredients:
- Minced chicken:225g
- Sesame oil: 1 tbsp
- Cornstarch: 1 tbsp
- Fish sauce: 1 tbsp
- Rice wine: 1 tbsp + 1 tbsp
- Sugar: 1 tsp + 1/2 tsp + 1 tbsp
- Garlic: 1 clove, finely minced
- Ginger: 1 tsp, finely minced
- Oil: 1 tbsp
- White onion: 1/2, finely chopped
- Curry powder: 2 tsp
- Oyster sauce: 2 tbsp
- Cornstarch mixture: 1 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 1/3 cup chicken stock
- Plain flour: 1.5 cups
- Salt: 1/8 tsp
- Unsalted butter: 1/2 cup, cold
- Egg yolk: 1
- Cold water: 2 tbsp
- Egg glaze: 1 egg yolk lightly beaten with 1 tsp fish sauce
Method:
- Combine minced chicken with sesame oil, cornstarch, fish sauce, 1 tbsp rice wine, 1 tsp sugar, garlic & ginger. Leave to marinate in fridge for 2hrs.
- Heat oil in wok. Stir in onions and fry till softened.
- Stir in chicken. Fry till opaque.
- Stir in curry powder, oyster sauce, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1 tbsp rice wine and cornstarch mixture. Stir till thickened. Remove from heat and leave to cool.
- Sift plain flour, 1 tbsp sugar & salt into a mixing bowl.
- Cut butter into flour mixture. Knead to form into texture resembling coarse oatmeal.
- Combine egg yolk and cold water by beating both together lightly.
- Add egg mixture into flour mixture and knead to let dough come together. Cling wrap and chill in fridge for 30min.
- Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Gently knead to smooth out.
- Roll out into 1/2cm thick sheet, cutting out 10cm rounds (about 10 pieces).
- Place 2 tbsp chicken filling onto center of dough circle. Bring up edges to form a triangle, pinching one side vertically first, and pushing the remaining edge horizontally down to meet at the center. Press edges to seal tightly and shape into a triangle.
- Place triangles onto greased baking sheet. Brush with egg glaze.
- Bake at 190 degrees Celsius for 30min till golden brown.
Tricks:
- After rolling out the crust into its desired thickness, use a scrapper to slice through between the bottom of the crust and the work surface so that the dough does not stick to it or break up during the rolling process.
- This dough recipe is exactly the same as the recipe for the chicken and pork rolls that I did in 2020. It’s really easy to make and extremely delicious!
- The chicken filling tasted great as they are after step 4 above. The boy kept coming back into the kitchen to steal spoonfuls of it while I was trying to wrap up the triangles, so I had to wrap them up very quickly!
Serving:
About 10 medium-sized curry triangles
