Curry Puffs

It seems that I have touched a nerve with this onions business. By that I mean that at this point I am getting near daily suggestions from different people on their personal techniques that are guaranteed to alleviate my onion chopping problems. Either that, or they are guaranteed to make me look like a jackass, and you are just hoping that I'll take and post a picture of me putting on your special 'onion repellent hat' or whatever other piece of ridiculousness you've conjured.

Last night I made Curry Puffs, which are a pseudo-samosa like recipe from Josh's old college roommate Savitri, who is originally from Singapore. This recipe presupposes several things, including the fact that I know how to cook. These presuppositions are mistakes.

For example, one of the instructions says 'fry.' As Savitri is a baker, the instruction 'fry' must make total sense. I am not a baker.

Here is what I know about frying:
1. It may or may not involve oil.
2. It is bad for you.
3. It tastes good.
4. It gives people, like my father, stomach aches they like to talk about in gory detail.

But, being me, I decided it would be fine and I'd just figure it out. I proceeded with the recipe. By the time Josh got home, the kitchen looked like the dog and cat had gotten into a flour fight, and I was busy pouring out bottles of oil into pots, deciding said pot was too big, and then pouring it into another smaller pot, etc.

Josh quickly ascertained the fact that I was going to try frying. As he is a smart man, let's just say that he ran to the bedroom, changed out of his work clothes, and bolted back into ther kitchen to offer to help. Maybe this is because I told him I thought that in order to fry you had to heat the oil to boiling. Evidently this is extremely far from the case. Evidently, I am told, if you heat oil to boiling you burn your house down. Let's all just say we're really lucky that Josh lives with me.

Do not attempt without a Josh's supervision

As a side note, this would have been the second time I tried to kill myself this week, the first time being when I accidentally vacuumed up a giant hook with a screw-end that shotgunned through the side of the vacuum hose with the express intent of puncturing my spleen like a bullet. I was saved only by the hook end that lodged it in the tube before could send me bleeding in a pile of kitty litter on the floor. It's been a rough week.

But I digress. Anyhow, the point is, Josh danced around the kitchen and gave me a lovely lesson on frying. In fact, it involves heating the oil until it makes the proper noise when you drop a droplet of water into it. It also involves using a skimmer (kitchen gadget!) as a dipper and getting the fire extinguisher at the ready. And keeping Heather far, far away from the stove.

Another fun part of the recipe is that it is given in metric, because Savitri must have intuited my joy at having to do math while baking. I outsmarted her, and just used my goddamn kitchen scale instead of doing any conversions. Oh delightful gadgetry.

With our two-Huntington operation, the Curry Puffs turned out rather quickly, if rather blandly, I must say. The filling-to-dough ratio was crazy off in this recipe, and as a result, I had about twice as much filling as I had dough. Luckily Josh has offered to eat the remainder filling on its own.

This is what I had left over after I'd used all the dough

The main issue is that at an Indian (or I guess, Singaporean) restaurant, something like this would be served with chutneys to partake of it with. And chutney, specifically Tamarind chutney, is a little bowl of red ambrosia. So, let's just say I put most of these little delights into the fridge to wait until I make a pilgrimage to the grocery today in search of chutney. The final verdict on their wonderfulness surely to be tabled for later, post-chutney.

Tamarind? Where are you tamarind?

Curry Puffs

Pastry:
500 g all purpose white flower (oh hilarious metric measure)
1/2 tsp salt
100 g butter, cold (which I can now tell you is ~ 7 tbsps. you are welcome)
100 g Crisco
1 egg yolk
1 cup water

Filling:
1 medium onion, diced finely*
3 baking potatoes, cut into small cubes (HAH! Try 1 potato, more like. If you are going to do 3, they'd better not be giant Idahos, I can tell you that much.)
1-2 TBSP curry powder (I split the diff and went for 1.5. I recommend going for 2).
2 TBSP vegetable oil (Canola oil in my house; Josh accuses me of trying to kill him if I use regular vegatable oil)
water
salt to taste

Pastry:
Use the internet to try to convert 500g of flour to some sort of recognizable measure. Fail. Decide to put mixing bowl on digital kitchen scale, zero it out, and just measure out 500 grams of flour. Be proud of your scale.

Mix flour and salt in said large bowl. Rub in butter and Crisco. Wonder what the hell 'rub in' means. Try to rub the cold butter on the side of the bowl, and realize this only just greases the side of the bowl and little else. Give up and put the butter and Crisco in the mixing bowl like you would normal anything.

Add egg yolk. Be happy that at least you know how to sift the egg or whatever the @#$ it is called to get just the yolk. Add water. Knead into a smooth dough. Or, run the mixing blade a little bit now that all the stuff is in there because you have no idea how to mix the butter in otherwise. Then knead.

Filling:
Fry onions in oil 'til soft. Add the potatoes and curry powder. Fry briefly 'til curry powder is fragrant. Add some water. Think it is hilarious that the instructions say 'some water.' Wonder, 'How much is SOME?' Settle on something like a cup. Have no idea if this is right or not. Cook 'til potatoes are soft.

Puffs:
Roll out dough half at a time to a 1/4" thickness. Cut into circles using Josh's prized Schlitz glass. Nearly knock prized Schlitz glass off counter, causing hysteria on Josh's part.

Place some filling into the circles. Fold circle over. Pinch shut with fingers (NB: Josh wants you to know you must pinch it shut very well because if you do, then the puffs puff marvelously. If you don't, they fry up, but sans the lovely puff). Heat some oil in a small pot. First put oil in giant stock pot. Realize this is wrong. Then put oil in cast iron pot. Realize this is wrong. Have Josh come home and take over. Fry puffs 'til golden brown. Yummy!

*Onion dicing method attempted: Emma's. Emma claims if you put a (silver) spoon in your mouth while you cut onions you do not die in pain. I presume the theory behind this clearly insane wives'-tail-type method might have something to do with forcing you to breathe through your nose and not mouth. Regardless, it does not work. Unless by work, you mean, 'Make me look like an idiot,' in which case it works beautifully.