Keto -ish Malaysian Curry Puffs

I love experimenting with new recipes and was craving for a good curry puff. A good, Malaysian version of the Curry Puff. But, I wanted it to be healthier too…I know, so many wants!

Alas! I stumbled upon a recipe on “Makan With Cherry” and decided to use it as a starting point to create my own rendition of this local delight. I love my curry puffs to be well spiced, a tad sweet, balanced and enhanced with a nice sliver of egg!

Mind you, I said keto-ish because I am not on a keto diet but I just wanted to experiment with a no flour, no sugar kinda baking so I used whole and natural foods to re-create the nostalgic taste (my parents will call it ku-cha-be or ‘old taste’) Secret ingredient? Sweet potatoes!

So if you are on a keto diet, feel free to omit the ingredients in the recipe list below and just follow Cherry’s recipe to the tee and that should get you to it. Otherwise, walk in my shoes (or feet in this case!) and try this rendition. I can’t guarantee it to be truly Malaysian; but for me, it sure is. 🙂

And now that I’ve told you my prerequisite life story, here’s the actual recipe you probably already scrolled down to:

Stephanie's Keto-ish Malaysian Curry Puffs

Ingredients

A. Filling
1. One medium yellow onion, chopped finely
2. 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
3. A thumb of ginger, sliced
4. 2-3 sprigs of curry leaves
5. 3 tablespoons coconut oil
6. 1 medium yellow/orange sweet potato, chopped finely
7. 1 medium carrot, chopped finely
8. 350g minced beef / chicken
9. 7 tablespoons of Baba's Meat Curry Powder (refer to image below)
10. 3 tablespoons of Full Fat Coconut Milk
11. 3 tablespoons of room temperature water

B. Hard Boiled Eggs x2 (large)

c. Fathead Dough
540g of Mozzarella cheese (shredded, not the fresh ones)
3 medium eggs
150g of finely ground blanched almond flour
Black pepper to taste

D. One egg yolk to glaze

Baking Time: 15-20 mins
Oven Temperature: 200C (400F)
Preparation Time: ~1 hour? (I took awhile as I was thoroughly enjoying the process!)

Now, let’s get into baking! Honestly, this is my very first attempt at fathead dough and luckily for reddit and forums, I did not throw out my batch thinking I had ruined it! Will share some tips down below so (hopefully) you will not face the same fix as I did!

To make the yummy filling for your curry puffs, sauté ingredients 1 – 4 with your coconut oil until soft and fragrant in a wok. Add in ingredients 6 – 7 and continue to cook until your sweet potatoes are fairly soft. Then, make a well in the middle of your wok and add in your minced meat of choice. Mix it all together and let it cook for awhile.

Now sprinkle in your curry powder, I used Baba’s – but, you can use any curry powder that you like. Mix ingredients 10 & 11 together and pour the mixture into your wok. Mix them all up and let it simmer until your filling looks moist. It should not be too wet or too dry. Add a little water if your filling seemed a tad dry or continue to simmer if otherwise! Do remove the sliced ginger once your filling is done cooking – you do not want to bite into a ginger bomb if one happened to make its way into your curry puffs, now would you?

Now leave your happy filling aside while you prepare your dough 🙂

Oh! I almost forgot – just boil two eggs on the side until they are hard boiled and remove the shells once they have cooled down. Then, cut them into little slivers or quarters. This is optional of course!

Now – for the dough! Yes, it is a 3-ish ingredient dough but I’m telling you, it’s quite tricky to make! Maybe because it was my first ever attempt but here goes…

Melt your shredded mozzarella cheese in a non-stick frying pan. Please, do not add any oil or butter to the pan. The cheese is fat enough! Use a pair of wooden chopsticks or a spatula and keep mixing it so it does not burn. Once its ooey and gooey like in the video below, leave it aside to rest for about 2-3 mins.

In another bowl, mix 3 eggs and your fine almond flour and season with black pepper.

Now, pour in your melted cheese and knead it until you form a dough. The dough should pull away from the sides of your bowl. If it is too sticky, you can add a little more almond flour. The tricky part is, if your dough becomes cool to touch, it will not be ‘rollable’.

To fix that, just boil some water in a pot and put your bowl of mixture over it like a Bain-Marie. This will help to warm up your fathead dough so the cheese melts up again to hold all the ingredients together. Yes, tricky, I know.

Once you have had the dough of your dreams, portion them out. I managed to get about 18 curry puffs from this mix. Mind you – mine was crudely made and they were definitely odd-sized! So yea, roll them out into an oval, not too thin or too thick, and spoon in your filling and add a sliver of egg. Then, fold it up, or do your best to seal it and place it on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.

Brush egg yolk wash over each of your little (or giant) gems, and place them in a preheated oven at 200C or 400F for 15 – 20mins. Mine cooked at the 17mins-ish mark.

Leave them to cool, or eat them as soon as they are out like me (and risk getting your tongue burnt! – no, please, don’t do that!)

Enjoy, happy experimenting and happy baking! 🙂