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Nyonya loves their chicken curry, or kari ayam in Malay.
When it comes to making chicken curry, I always choose the easy way out—I buy instant chicken curry paste, which is both convenient and quite tasty. However, back home in Penang, my family would always make chicken curry from scratch. Well, first of all, you just can’t beat the authentic great taste of a red-hot chicken curry (click the picture above to check out the chicken curry gallery); secondly, no instant curry mix would rival the fresh and exotic aroma of homemade spice paste of turmeric, fennel, cumin, coriander seeds, and other aromatics. So, the answer is pretty clear. If you want the best chicken curry, be prepared to spend some time in your kitchen…
Chicken curry is made with bone-in chicken traditionally, and curry leaves are used to infuse the chicken curry with the intense fragrance of the curry leaves. My family love eating chicken curry with nasi kunyit (turmeric sticky rice) but I will have to share that recipe in the future. For now, do check out this mouthwatering chicken curry recipe prepared by my sister-in-law in Penang.
(Click on Page 2 for easy Chicken Curry Recipe)
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I could devour your Chicken Curry NOW!
Did your mother make you chicken curry when you visited???
Could you please tell me how I can replace fresh turmeric with dried ground turmeric? Because it is quite bitter, I’m guessing I would use much less but just wondering exactly how much I should use? Thank you.
Cooked it today … delicious!
Oh goodness,this looks absolutely delicious to the bone. I will bookmark this dish and add it to our Thanksgiving table.We don’t do turkey rather a wide array of different Asian dishes. Thanks for sharing
David! What a great idea. Yes, Asian dishes are a lot more interesting than turkey and stuffing in my honest opinion! How about curry turkey????
quite honestly I dislike turkey unless it’s sliced paper thin for a sandwich, and even then I don’t like it much. But curry chicken and this one in particular is going to be awesome. We will still have a few traditional American dishes like pineapple honey glazed ham, but thats about it. Thanks for sharing as always.
Agree with you 150% that Asian dishes are definitely much more interesting than turkey and stuffing. Sorry lah, Martha Stewart and her roast turkey couldn’t hold a candle to Nyonya food. Give me some good old Penang nyonya food anytime! Should I ever host Thanksgiving for the American side of my family, it will definitely be Thanksgiving with a Penang twist. :-]
BTW, how much thick coconut milk should I use? It’s missing from the list of ingredients. Thanks in advance!
Joanie – it’s 200ml Thick coconut milk or to taste (use more if you like it “lemak”)
Here, here, on the array of Asian dishes, we do that for x-mas dinner. Lots of sambals, Indian and Malaysian curries, Nonya dishes like bua keluak(smuggled) chicken or char bee hoon, babi Ketjap, rojak, on and on…it all makes for a wonderFULL night.
Yes, you are absolutely right. WonderFULL. Hehe.
Hmmm…Yummy!!! I miss my curries!!!
Yes, have some curry chicken this weekend. :)
Thanks for the recipe, the curry looks fantastic. I usually take the easy way out and use A1 or Brahms paste, but have been trying to learn how to cook curries from scratch recently.
For some reason the white bread in the background reminds me very much of Gardenia! :P
Su-yin – yes, I get tired of instant curry paste now. You are right, Gardenia. I almost forgot about it. I bet it is Gardenia. LOL.
Erm…..dang.
The curry looks VERy good, just like home..cannot wait until February to go bak and makan lah…hey, why wait, heading to kitchen to cook soon.. Maybe curry turkey for Thanksgiving?
Right on, yes, poor turkey needs some exotic spices and curry love. Rub your turkey with some curry spice paste this year. Aiyah!
Drool, drooool, drooooooool…………
What a gorgeous looking curry! Your sis-in-law is as talented as you are, Bee. Did ur mom organise a test session before accepting her into your family? Hehehe.
Do you simmer until the meat comes off the bones?
Whahahah, you are so funny, I forgot about that age-old ritual about interviewing the daughter-in-law. Nope, it didn’t happen in my family. ;)
I love this Kari Ayam recipe! will make it soon. One thing I need to ask you. isn’t that lemon grass on picture along with the chicken & potatoes? I think adding lemon grass, will give it nice aroma. right?
Yes, it’s lemongrass, you can add them into the curry. :)
Mmmmmm, it’s been a while since I’ve had chicken curry. Think I’ll make some this week. That sauce looks perfect to be sopped up with a new flat bread recipe I am planning to try soon.
Yes, Cynthia. Bread is great and easy to sop up the curry. Yum.
Wow, the curry certainly looks very delicious! I feel hungry by just looking at the pictures :-)
By the way, how do you call the curry leaf in Malay?
Yohan – it’s called daun kari, I think. :)
Gorgeous! The recipe says to add coconut milk, but I don’t see it in the list of ingredients. How much of it should be added?
it says on the ingredients list. =D
200ml Thick coconut milk or to taste (use more if you like it “lemak”)
The curry chicken looks awesome – but how much of the thick coconut milk should I be adding?
It’s in the ingredients list. ;)
200 ml.
The curry chicken looks tantalizing! I think I’ll make that for dinner this evening. By the way, would you recommend boiling the potatoes separately then adding it to the curry once it’s cooked? Trying to avoid overly starchy and mushy potatoes in the curry, which seems to be my problem in the past. Appreciate your input!
Love your blog! You do us Penangites proud!!
Yes, boiling the potatoes first will be great.
Jencrafted,
Cooking the potatoes WITH the SIMMERING gravy does amazing things for each other.If you care for unpeeled potatoes, the skin adds extra flavor & helps preserve the integrity of the potato. Also, how big you cut them & type of potatoes affect the problem you are experiencing.
Idaho Russets break down easiest in curries, so they should be cut in huge halves or quarters. Their advantage is their earthy aroma [skin on], ability to soak up gravy, and to disintegrate slightly around the edges when carefully cooked, adding delightful body to the gravy.
Other Russets are lesser incarnations of the Idaho terroir.
Yukon Gold, halved if large, whole otherwise, also unpeeled, is an excellent potato for curry.
Red potatoes, skin on, come third.
Finally, sauteeing peeled potato halves before adding them to the simmering gravy is another method employed when people don’t want skins. This method is especially useful when acids are present in the base,e.g. tomato.These tend to turn the texture of raw potato gummy.
You may find CORNISH HENS, skinless, reduce cooking times and give a lighter and more pleasant tasting curry.
To BEE:
Why remove necks,head & feet if present, unless in deference to the American phobia of the unfamiliar? These are particularly valuable contributors to richness & mouth-feel and can be removed after cooking! Necks are delicious, with their skin removed,and so are heads. The best soup stocks, BTW, are those where head & feet contribute their respective virtues. So that is what they would be doing in a curry as well!
I like to deep fried my potatoes first to lightly brown, no more mushy potatoes.
i give it a twist – instead of coconut milk, i substitute with fresh milk and also add in ripe tomates to give it color. The potatoes would thicken the gravy, try it.
Yes, I have made curry chicken with milk, it tastes fine. Yes, tomatoes are great for curry chicken too.
Just so I understand (living in UK):
When you write 15 grams of tumeric, is that fresh root or dried powder?
Also, how big are shallots in Malaysia? – 18 shallots bought in the UK weigh 500 grams, which seems a lot for a rempah.
Shallots in Malaysia are small, so please use half. Turmeric = fresh.
I learnt from my thai sis in law..to add 1 Tbsp crushed peanuts or cruncy peanuts spread :)
That’s a very interesting addition!
I have been cooking curry chicken using the spice paste I buy from a market in Penang. So, when the uncle retires, I’ll not be able to cook curry chicken like that again…maybe it’s time to learn to make the paste from scratch
Yeah, or tell the uncle to tell you the recipe. Someone has to learn. I hope he teaches his family!
Hi there. I notice the ingredient “shrimp paste” says toasted. How do you toast that or do you buy it already toasted? Thanks. Also what is the conversion for the ingredients in grams? Thanks!
Heater – you basically add the belacan in a hot wok, keep stirring and breaking it so it’s toasted. By the time it’s done, it’s become dry and very aromatic, and almost powdery.
Can I cook the chicken with the skin removed?and can we add big onion also like in some curry?
Yes and yes. :)
I have tried this recipe and it is the real deal. However, I think lemongrass is a crucial ingredient in the nyonya chicken curry that should not be left out.
Thank you, we did use lemongrass in the curry recipe but forgot it in the recipe. ;)
The picture was so great it started to make me hungry. So I had to try this recipe. It is bit different from the one i grew up with but loved it. Love the idead of getting the ingredients ready from scratch.
There are so many different versions of chicken curry. Every family has their own recipe. ;)
There are a few ingredients that I don’t understand. For example, star anise and cloves. I bought them in packets. Are they of the same size everywhere? The cloves I had seemed too small for the amount of chicken.
Next are the shallots. In the markets they label those long sharp leafy vegetable as shallot (looks like spring onion) but when I googled, they tell me that shallots are small onions. So which one should i be using?
Thank You
Sorry for the late response, but cloves are small but they are very aromatic so you only need a small quantity to impart the fragrance. Shallots are small onions.
I loved your receipes! I lived in NY for almost 40 years and I loved cooking malaysian food for my family. For Thanksgiving Day I made Popiah, Mango Lobsters Salad, and Chow Kueh Teow from your receipes. My family and friends enjoyed them. For Christmas, I will try to make Buttered Prawns,LaLa clams,Otak otak and Lobsters Yee Mein. Wish me luck!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Dorothy
That’s so great. Sounds very yummy! Let me know how it goes.
Hi, I tried this recipe yesterday…for six year old son who loves chicken curry. So I sauteed the spices and scooped out most of it and stored for later use and added the chicken pieces (just two for him), potato, water and coconut milk. This recipe is rightly described as droolsome. My son finished two big plates and from now on, I am not going to bother with the instant paste anymore. I intend to always make big batches and keep them for future use. Thanks for sharing this.
That’s so great that you love the curry chicken recipe. :)
I will start making curry chicken for my lunch today. I live in England.
Great, let me know how your curry chicken turned out. :)
Hi, is this Nyonya curry or is this the ‘regular’ kari ayam like on your other blog? What’s the difference between Nyonya curry and the other curry? Thanks.
Nyonya curry is basically the same thing, unless, it’s curry kapitan.
The shrimp paste I use in my cooking is the dried block, brown in colour (belachan). I am wondering if your sister-in-law got that delicious looking red oil in the photo, from using the wet red shrimp paste? It certainly adds a whole other dimension to this dish that I really wish I had, as mine turned out more yellow, like a Gulai Ayam!
Hi Avsky, I think the red color is from the dried chilies in the recipe. If you saute the spice paste long enough, it will turn red. :)
Ah great, thanks! I’ll give that a try :) Delicious recipe though, thank you!
i just tried this recipe. For some reasons, the curry does not look as “red” as your picture. I suspect is the dried chili? Would fresh chili work?
Also, I used mortar and pestle to pound the spices. They did not turn out as powdery as i expected so the gravy has bits and pieces of the spices. Is it supposed to be that way?
Hi Michelle – yes, you can use fresh red chilies. If you use dried red chilies, make sure you use those with red color, some dried ones tend to lose the red colors. Also, when you sauteed the spice paste, make sure the color turns red / oil turns red. For mortar and pestle, you have to keep pounding until all the bits and pieces break down.
Your website is awesome.. Just wondering if you used candlenuts in your curry.
I do use candlenuts in some recipes.
Hey there,
I tried your recipe but somehow couldn’t get the color of my curry anywhere close to your pictures. Mine turned out to be bright yellow, am I doing something wrong here?
Thanks,
Ben
It all about the color of the dried chilies used.
I love this recipe! My girlfriend and I can never get sick of it, we just simply love it!
Quick question though, why does my gravy look extremely yellow and not red as in the picture?
Thanks!
You have to saute the spice paste until the oil separates from the paste and it will turn red. Also, make sure that the dried red chilies you use is red.
Hi, the dish makes my mouth water!!
just wonder what kind of shrimp paste you used in this recipe and how you “toasted” the paste? If it’s not too much trouble, would you please search online a pic of the shrimp paste you used for my reference.
Is the paste necessary for this recipe? If I can’t find it in town, is there any good substitute for it?
Thanks much. :)
You can do without it.
Hi! Can I use this way to cook beef? same ingredients,same method.
Yes. But this recipe is best with chicken.
I made this yesterday and it tastes good but was not red. I sauteed the paste for almost 20-30 minutes… and in the end, the dish was kind of yellow-greenish…. I used dried cilis that were nice and red but no effect and I used 200g of shallots (hopefully that equals to about 18). I did not use shrimp paste though. How do I get it red? Maybe I should use cili powder instead of dried cilis?
Well, where you are based at? If your spice paste doesn’t look red before cooking, it will not be red. Probably too much shallots.
I am in california… and that is what I thought as well that I used too many shallots as the paste was not red at all
I have a question if you can help me. I always use skinless bone-in chicken and whenever I cook any curry or anything with chicken in it, it ends up being dry. I cannot get it to be fall off the bone tender. I cook it on very low heat.
Did you cover your curry while you’re cooking on low heat?
yes i always cover and cook it
I like the chicken curry recipe but wondering in what form is the fennel and cumin fresh or dried .are they in seeds or powder form . So anxious for trying out this dish on father’s day . Many thanks!!!!
Dried, and you can have the seeds or powder form. :)
I always love Nyonya food,in singapore and malaya.we are trying to cook something differenc from indian curry will let you know soon..thanks.
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