With Love, Curry

A few weekends ago, I went over to TJ's to teach her how to make Tammy's Nonya Ayam Curry.

Good job, TJ!

We had to improvise as we did not have the curry powder I normally use, nor fresh coconut shavings to make coconut milk.  Nor did we have a mortar and pestle for pounding the rempah.

I've brought some left-over curry powder from my fridge in Singapore, and thought I'd whip up my curry today, in preparation for lunch tomorrow.

I'm quite fussy with curry because of the kind of curry Popo used to make.  This is the powder we use. I buy it from Bibik Seet in Katong.

Other ingredients I like to add:

The above to be chopped up as finely as possible...

Hmm.  "as finely as possible"

and then pounded up or blended to make a spice paste (rempah)

"Pounding"!

I also add potatoes, carrots, and an onion.

Oops.  I forgot my tomato.  Moving on!

Prepare the curry paste by adding some water to some curry powder.  Stir it up.  Marinate the chopped chicken bits with this paste.  Add a tad of teriyaki sauce.  Set the chicken aside as you prepare the potatoes, carrots, and onions.  In a large pot/pan (which I don't have, hence am not illustrating), fry the rempah up, add the chicken and keep on frying.  Add the rest of prepared root vegetables, add water, add coconut milk.  Bring everything to boil, gently stirring.  Add salt to taste.

I was most nervous about not having freshly grated coconut for the coconut milk.  I had to improvise with this instead.

Ugh.  Doesn't quite do justice to my curry!

In my original curry, right when everything is about cooked, I then add coconut cream to the pot.  The cream is the undiluted milk you get upon the very first squeeze of the coconut shavings.  Alas, this is not going to be possible in London.  So I improvised (poorly) with a slab of butter instead.

Sayang is a Malay word for love.  It is also used in local Singaporean speech as an action word, "to love", or "with infinite care".

There is no other way to describe how best to cook curry, but with love.  So for the next 20 minutes, I stand over my stove, to sayang curry, sayang curry.

(Footnote:  The curry is always prepared at least a day ahead of actual serving to allow it to rest.)