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From HOTPLATE SG60

Singapore chicken curry without curry powder

Watch for the red oil. Chris Choo fries a fresh rempah before adding chicken, potatoes and coconut milk. The aroma takes Hossan Leong back to Queenstown.

Plated Singapore chicken curry with chicken and potatoes in a red coconut gravy.
Chris’s finished curry · Original HOTPLATE footage

Chris Choo with Hossan Leong

The smell took him back.

As Chris stirred the rempah, Hossan remembered his mother’s small kitchen in Queenstown, where she had him pound chillies, garlic and belacan. This curry starts the same way, with a fresh spice paste pounded or blended fine.

Ingredients

The starting amounts below come from the film’s recipe cards at 3:02. Adjust the water, sugar and salt by feel.

For the rempah

  • About 10 red chillies
  • 4–5 garlic cloves
  • About 10 small shallots or small red onions
  • 1 candlenut (buah keras)
  • 3 stalks lemongrass (serai)
  • 1 thumb-sized piece of galangal
  • About 1 tbsp toasted belacan (fermented shrimp paste)
Red chillies, lemongrass, garlic, galangal and small onions laid out on a platter.
Aromatics for the rempah · Original HOTPLATE footage

For the curry

  • About 5 tbsp sunflower oil
  • 1 whole chicken, cut up
  • About 5 medium potatoes, quartered
  • About 300 mL coconut milk (santan)
  • Water, added a little at a time
  • Sugar and salt, to taste
  • Rice and salad, to serve
Bowls of cut chicken, quartered potatoes, coconut milk, oil and spice paste arranged before cooking.
Chicken, potatoes and curry ingredients ready to cook · Original HOTPLATE footage

Method

  1. Make the rempah.

    Pound or blend the chillies, garlic, shallots or small red onions, candlenut, lemongrass, galangal and toasted belacan into a fine paste.

    A blue bowl of finely ground red rempah prepared before frying.
    Chris’s pre-ground rempah, before frying · Original HOTPLATE footage

  2. Fry until the red oil separates.

    Heat the sunflower oil in a wok and fry the paste. Chris calls this step tumis. Watch for red oil to separate from the paste and rise to the surface before adding the chicken.

    Spice paste frying in a wok, with oil separating around the edges.
    Frying the rempah · Original HOTPLATE footage

  3. Stir in the chicken, then the potatoes.

    Add the cut-up chicken and stir it through the rempah. Stir in the quartered potatoes.

    Quartered potatoes drop into a wok of chicken and rempah.
    The potatoes go in after the chicken · Original HOTPLATE footage

  4. Make the gravy.

    Add a little water at a time to loosen the paste, then stir in the coconut milk. Chris used water from the potatoes in the film and says plain water works. Add a little sugar by feel and stir.

    Coconut milk is stirred through the chicken curry in the wok.
    Santan goes into the wok to make the gravy · Original HOTPLATE footage

  5. Simmer, taste and serve.

    Chris calls for about 20 minutes of simmering in the filmed cook. Check that the chicken is fully cooked and the potatoes are tender. Taste the cooked gravy, adjust the sugar and salt, and serve with rice and salad.

    Chris and Hossan eat the curry together at the table.
    Chris and Hossan taste the curry at the table · Original HOTPLATE footage

Agak-agak: Judge it by feel. Use enough water for the gravy consistency you want and season to taste. The film gives no fixed water amount, prep time or serving yield.

From the episode

Watch the film.

See this lesson in the collection Watch on YouTube

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