Curry Feng Recipe
Curry Feng is a festive Kristang recipe, or Eurasian recipe that traces its roots to the Portuguese occupation of Malacca in the 16th century.
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 (1.1lb) pre peeled weight
- 10 garlic cloves about 100g (3.5oz) pre peeled weight
- 15 cm ginger in total length, about 2.5cm (1 in) thick
- 5 sprigs fresh coriander leaves
Everything Else
- 1 L water
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 Tbsp vegetable oil or other flavourless oil
- 2 Tbsp Feng curry powder homemade recipe above
- 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.5 Tbsp coriander seeds, 2 Tbsp cumin seeds, 3 cloves, 1 large star anise, ½ Tbsp black peppercorns, 3 long strips cinnamon bark, 1 tsp allspice berries, 1 dried bay leaf, 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 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.1 L water, 1 tsp salt
- 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.300 g shoulder or leg of lamb, 200 g liver, 2 kidneys, 1 heart, 2 lamb chops
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.2 large onions
- Peel the garlic and drop into the blender.10 garlic cloves
- Peel the ginger and reserve 2.5cm (1in) 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.15 cm ginger in total length, about 2.5cm (1 in) thick
- 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.5 sprigs fresh coriander leaves
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 (½ in). 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.300 g lamb bacon (or duck meat)
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.2 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 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.2 Tbsp Feng curry powder
- 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.2 Tbsp light soy sauce, 1 Tbsp dark soy sauce, 2½ Tbsp white wine vinegar
- 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!
Notes
Cooking time includes blanching and making of the spice, and has been rounded up generously.
Once we start frying the onions, then making the curry, we'll need about 40 minutes in all.
Nutrition
Calories: 423kcalCarbohydrates: 12gProtein: 70gFat: 22gSaturated Fat: 9gPolyunsaturated Fat: 5gMonounsaturated Fat: 8gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 557mgSodium: 2297mgPotassium: 1450mgFiber: 4gSugar: 2gVitamin A: 8372IUVitamin C: 14mgCalcium: 128mgIron: 20mg
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