Curry Feng is a full bodied, dry-ish curry made with offal and is ever present in many Eurasian festivities in Singapore and Malaysia, just like its more well known cousin, Curry Devil.
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
Curry Feng Origin
I did an article on Malacca many, many years ago over on LinsFood, talking about the various influences that have shaped Malacca. First came the Portuguese in 1511. They were overthrown by the Dutch in 1641. And finally the Brits colonised Malacca after exchanging it with Bencoolen in Sumatra, with the Anglo-Dutch treaty.
Despite these various influences, the most lasting impression on the local culture and food comes from the Portuguese, with its own local patois called Kristao (pronounced Kristang).
Read more about our local population mix on this page.
So the story goes like this. Portuguese ships en route to their various destinations would carry livestock onboard to feed the crew. There would be chickens, pigs, and even cattle and sheep. The best cuts of meat were reserved for the officers. And since nothing was wasted given the restricted amount of food onboard, all the leftovers, including the offal was cooked up into gruel or stew to feed everyone else.
This offal and meat stew was naturally introduced to the locals during the occupation. Over the years, spices and flavourings were added to the mix and it eventually got transformed into the Curry Feng that we know today.
Portuguese Feng
Curry feng’s predecessor onboard Portuguese ships was cooked up as a way of using up meat trimmings and offal. So everything went in it, from chicken to pork to lamb offal.
However, as the years went by, this hodge podge stew became streamlined in what meat was used, more for convenience than anything else. And it has long been identified as a pork curry, with pork meat, pork belly nd pork offal.
But that was never going to stop me from enjoying this incredible dish. Especially since it didn’t start out as such!
Halal Curry Feng?
You may know that I don’t eat pork, never have. Growing up in Singapore, I just refrained from eating Feng at Christmas, Easter and birthdays. But once I started my culinary education, converting pork recipes into pork free recipes was a foregone conclusion.
I’ve had so many requests over the years for halal Eurasian recipes and halal Chinese recipes that if I had a penny for each request… you know how that goes.
When you have a multi ethnic community, there are bound to be intermarriages. And since Muslims and Jews don’t eat pork, needs must. So, Nicola, Olivia, Jude, Terence and Sally, this is for you guys! I apologise for everyone else whose names I’ve forgotten.
Some years ago, I came up with Halal Bak Chor Mee. Then there was the Halal XO Sauce, look out for it in 2023. And most recently, Christmas last year, Seybak with Duck (instead of pork belly).
This pork free curry feng (or halal curry feng) is something I first made just over 10 years ago. All our Christmas open days used to be themed, as far as the food was concerned. Since everyone would’ve had their fill of roasts and traditional British food by Boxing Day, my Christmas parties always offered something different. We’ve had Italian, French, Eastern European, Middle Eastern, Japanese and everything in between!
One year, I decided to go fully Eurasian. And that’s how today’s pork free curry feng came about. Let’s take a look at the recipe.
Curry Feng Recipe
The recipe itself is very doable and because it improves when kept overnight, curry feng is perfect as a make ahead dish! There are 3 distinct parts to it:
- The homemade curry feng spice mix (you can cheat here and use a shop bought curry powder)
- the blanching and chopping of the meat
- the cooking up of the curry
I have a process when making feng, allowing me to seamlessly move from 1 step to the other. As you become familiar with the recipe, you’ll be able to do this too.
- Start with the saucepan of water on the stove.
- Toast the spices while waiting.
- When the water is boiling, start the blanching.
- When all the meat is blanched, we get back to the prep work while waiting for it to cool down. This will include grinding the spices and blending the aromatics (onion, garlic, ginger).
- Then we chop up the meat.
- Get cooking.
In the recipe card below and on the video, I start with making the feng spice mix, as I think it’ll be easier to focus on one thing at a time if it’s your first time making curry feng. We handle the raw meat right at the end. This is how I run the Curry Feng classes.
Ingredients
Let’s take a look at the main ingredients we’ll need in cooking this Kristang recipe from Malacca.
The Meat
Traditionally, this would be pork meat and offal.
I’m using lamb, but feel free to have a mixture of various offal, it’ll make for a delicious curry. And in keeping with what the Portuguese did on their journey.
If you consume pork, go ahead and use that in your recipe, with the exact same portions.
- liver
- kidneys
- heart
- lamb bacon (traditionally pork belly), duck meat makes a good substitute here too
- shoulder or leg of lamb, or any cut good for stews/braising (traditionally, this would be pork shoulder, good for stews and curries)
- a couple of lamb chops for the stock (optional)
Feng Stock
So the liquid we add to our curry feng is the water that we use to blanch our meat and offal. I’m starting off with 1 litre of water in the recipe below.
I also add a couple of lamb chops to the water that are left in there once the offal and meat have been taken out. We then leave the feng blanching water simmering away on the lowest heat to deepen its flavour.
By the time we need it, there’ll probably be about 750ml (3 cups) left in the saucepan. This is perfect for our recipe here. Sometimes, I start off with 2 litres of water, as in the video. This leaves me with extra stock for other stuff over the coming days. Like soups and even adding to stir-fries.
Feng Curry Spice Mix
This is just a ground up mix of local spices. Feng spice mix is an aromatic spice blend that can also be used for so many other recipes. While the bulk of it is made with coriander and cumin, you won’t miss the inimitable aroma of the cloves and star anise that we add to it. I also add some allspice berries and a bay leaf to the mix to bring it all together.
Click here to read more about allspice on LinsFood.
This is what makes up our Feng powder mix:
- coriander
- cumin
- cloves
- star anise
- black peppercorns
- cinnamon
- turmeric
- allspice – optional, but takes it to another level
- dried bay leaf
We start with whole spices to make our Feng curry powder from scratch, with the exception of the ground turmeric (powder). This is what we’ll be doing:
- toast the spices (fry in a dry frying pan)
- leave to cool for just a few minutes, then grind up to a powder in a coffee or spice mill
Always toast whole spices before grinding for maximum flavour and aroma. The heat wakes your spices up.
Want to cheat? Use the same proportions of ground up spices. Or just a regular, mild – medium curry powder.
Aromatics
We have a substantial amount of onion, garlic and ginger which lends further depth and aroma to our curry. We blend most of the onion, garlic and ginger. I like to have a little onion chopped up fine to start off our recipe first.
I also like to finish it off with a small scattering of finely chopped ginger. This adds a beautiful, zingy contrast to the curry.
Then we also have a small amount of fresh coriander leaves to finish off.
Everything Else
Let’s just take a look at the main 3 players that are responsible for more flavour in this Eurasian recipe.
- Light soy sauce – adds saltiness, along with the little bit of salt in the blanching liquid.
- Dark soy sauce- adds depth and colour.
- Vinegar – adds a tanginess to our curry, which is one of the identifying characteristics of Kristao Eurasian curries, a very obvious Portuguese heritage. I’m using white wine vinegar because I love it. Use clear vinegar if you like.
Leftover Feng Curry Powder
Any leftover Feng spice mix can be kept in an airtight jar with the rest of your spices. It will last for months, but like all spice mixes, its aroma and flavour will dim over time.
Leftover feng curry powder can be used to make any easy curries and in place of other generic curry powders. You can use it in this popular takeout recipe, Singapore Noodles on LinsFood (not here, because it’s not Singaporean!) or in this stunning recipe, Kam Heong Chicken.
How to Serve Curry Feng
Growing up in Singapore, amongst my circle of family and friends, this Eurasian recipe was an absolute must on Christmas Day, alongside Curry Devil. Feng is always enjoyed with baguette slices and for many, rice is a must too.
For some, it also makes an appearance at birthdays and Easter.
Do you know what else feng is good with? Mashed potatoes! And parata, chapati or roti canai (white parata)!
Make Ahead
Curry feng tastes so much better the next day. So when I’m making this for a crowd when I have so many other things to cook, I always make it a day early.
All you do is cook it, cool to room temperature, cover, then store in the fridge. The next day, reheat gently on the stove.
How long will it keep in the fridge? I don’t advise keeping it for more than 3 days.
Can you freeze curry feng? In theory yes, for up to 1 month. However, the texture won’t quite be the same, much of the offal will break down and get mushy.
And there you have it folks, another Kristang Christmas recipe, as promised to many of you. One more this year, sugee cake, ought to hit the stands in a week!
If you enjoy the recipe, drop me a comment and let me know. And if you are feeling like a star, don’t forget that 5-star rating! 😉Thank you!
If you make this recipe, post it on Instagram and tag me @azlinbloor and hashtag it #linsfood.
Lin xx
More Kristao Eurasian Recipes
More Christmas Recipes
Curry Feng Recipe
Ingredients
The Meat
- 300 g shoulder or leg of lamb traditionally pork shoulder
- 300 g lamb bacon (or duck meat) pork belly
- 200 g liver
- 2 kidneys
- 1 heart
- 2 lamb chops optional
Feng Curry Powder
- 5 Tbsp coriander seeds
- 2 Tbsp cumin seeds
- 3 cloves
- 1 large star anise
- ½ Tbsp black peppercorns
- 3 long strips cinnamon bark whatever comes off the whole piece
- 1 tsp allspice berries
- 1 dried bay leaf
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
Aromatics
- 2 large onions about 500g/1.1 lb pre peeled weight
- 10 garlic cloves about 100g/3.5 oz pre peeled weight
- 15 cm ginger in total length, about 2.5cm/1 inch thick
- 5 sprigs fresh coriander leaves
Everything Else
- 1 litre water
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 Tbsp vegetable oil or other flavourless oil
- 2 Tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp dark soy sauce
- 2½ Tbsp white wine vinegar or clear vinegar
Instructions
Feng Curry Powder
- Toast the spices in a dry frying pan on medium-low heat for just 2-3 minutes, ensuring that everything is touching the pan.Do this in batches if your pan is small, like I'm doing on the video.You can do everything together if you like, but I prefer to keep the bigger spices like the star anise and bay leaves separate.When you can smell the aroma, it's done.
- Tip out onto a plate to cool slightly. This only needs about 5 minutes.Don't leave the spices in the hot pan, they'll continue to toast and burn.At this stage, you could put on the water in a large saucepan to blanch our meat, if you like, which is what I do.
- Tip the toasted spices into a spice or coffee mill in batches and grind to a fine powder. Breaking up the bay leaf will make it easier.Set aside until needed.
Blanch the Meat
- We blanch the meat to allow us to chop them up easily. Pour the water into a large saucepan with the salt and bring to a boil.
- We're blanching the offal and the shoulder meat. If you're using duck meat instead of bacon, that too. But not the bacon.Drop the shoulder pieces, the liver, kidneys, heart and lamb chops into the boiling water, wait for it to come back to a simmer, then cook for just 5 minutes.Then get a strainer, and scoop out the shoulder meat, liver, kidneys and heart and tip out onto a plate. But leave the lamb chops in the water, and leave the stock to simmer away on the lowest heat, until needed.Leave the offal to cool down while you get on with the rest of your prep work.
Other Prep Work
- Peel the onions and quarter them.Take 1 large quarter and finely chop it. Set aside.Add the other quarters to your blender or food chopper.
- Peel the garlic and drop into the blender.
- Peel the ginger and reserve 2.5cm/1" of it. Chop the rest up roughly and drop into the blender.Chop up the reserved piece of ginger finely, and set aside. We'll be using this as a garnish.
- Blend the onion, garlic and ginger to get a smooth paste.In the video, you only see me doing the onions, as I had a huge amount of homemade garlic and ginger in the fridge that needed using up. So I just added them to the cooking with the blended onions.
- Finely chop the coriander leaves (cilantro) and set aside. Or do this when the curry is cooked to maintain freshness.
Dice the Meat
- Once the meat and offal is cool to the touch, start dicing them all up into tiny little pieces. I'd say just about 1cm/half an inch. But no need to fret about this. Just cut them up small.
- Do the same with the bacon too, but separate some of the fat out to start cooking our curry feng with. Just a heaped tablespoon will do.
Cooking Curry Feng
- Tip the bacon fat into a wok or large saucepan on low heat and cook for 5 minutes.To properly render bacon fat, you need a good 10-15 minutes, but we'll cut this process short as it's not imperative for the recipe, nor traditional.
- Increase the heat to medium and add the oil. When it's heated up, along with the bacon fat and bits, fry the onions for 1 minute.
- Add the spice mix, stir for 20 seconds then tip in the blended onion, garlic and ginger.In the video, the onions were blended separately as I had blended garlic and ginger from another recipe in the fridge.
- Fry this feng rempah (paste) for 2-3 minutes until you gey a whiff of the spices and aromatics.
- Tip in all the chopped up meat, including the bacon and stir to mix well.
- Add 750ml (3 cups) of the simmering stock, the soy sauces and 2 Tbsp of the vinegar. Stir well and bring it to a simmer.Leave to cook for a good 30 minutes, to allow the curry to dry up and for the meat to cook through.If at the end of the 30 minutes you still have lots of liquid, cook it off a little more, but just bear in mind that it will thicken as it cools down slowly.
- Take it off the heat and stir through the last ½ Tbsp of vinegar and taste your feng. Adjust seasoning accordingly but I don't think you'll need anymore salt.
- Leave it to rest for 5 minutes, then scatter the chopped ginger and coriander leaves all over before serving.Better the next day!
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