curry buns

I have been in a bread making frenzy lately. There's this something about bread making. If you ever take a break from making bread, you wouldn't want to bake any, but once you retrieve a tray of freshly made buns from your oven, you wouldn't want to stop at just one batch. It's so addictive that I keep wanting to make a fresh loaf of bread or a tray of buns everyday!

When I first saw those lovely Chicken and Potatoes Curry Milk Buns made by Sonia of Nasi Lemak Lover, I bookmarked the recipe right away. That was more than two years back and I didn't put any plans into actions (^^!)

It was only after I read Sze Min's delicious Char Siew Buns wrapped with pandan leaves that I recalled I have yet to tackle the curry buns recipe that has been buried somewhere in my ever growing to-do list.

Grace from Kitchen Corner also shaped her mouth-watering Sambal Ikan Bilis Pumpkin Buns in a similar way. So, when I happened to get a bottle of curry powder on my annual trip to Kwong Cheong Thye to get mooncake ingredients, and when I have some leftover pandan leaves from cooking sweet potatoes soup, I went right ahead to make a batch of curry buns. No more procrastination!

I adapted a tangzhong milk bun recipe from 'Carol 自在生活' for the bread dough. I have been experimenting bread machine loaves using her recipes and the results have been very satisfactory. The original recipe calls for making the tangzhong with milk (so interesting), but I replaced with water as I had no confidence that I would get it right the first time. As for the curry chicken potatoes filling, I used a recipe from this book  'I can bake by Agnes Chang' as it is pretty easy and straight forward with a short ingredients list ;)

The pandan leaves gave a very nice fragrant while the buns were baking in the oven. Upon cooling, I could still detect a hint of the pandan fragrance on the buns. The curry buns were very well received since all of us love curry! Just like my usual tangzhong bread, the buns remain soft the next day. Due to the filling, it is better to store them in the fridge if there are any leftovers after the next day, just need to reheat in the oven and they will taste like freshly made ones.




Curry Buns

Ingredients:
(makes 9 buns)

for the buns:
- tang zhong (water-roux):
20g bread flour
100ml water

- bread dough:
250g bread flour
50g cake flour
30g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3g instant yeast (about 1 teaspoon)
1 egg lightly beaten (about 55g without shell)
80ml milk
100g tang zhong (water-roux)
30g unsalted butter (cut into cubes)

for the filling:
1.5 tablespoons curry powder mix with 3 tablespoons water to form a smooth paste
1 medium size yellow onions, chopped
2 sprigs curry leaves
1 tablespoons oil
200g chicken breast, cubed
2 large potatoes
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons water (add more water if necessary)

9 pandan leaves for wrapping


Method:

to make filling:
* Peel and cut potatoes into small cubes. Boil in water for about 10mins. Drain and set aside.
* Heat up oil on medium heat, saute onions, curry leaves till fragrant. Add in chicken and potatoes and stir fry till meat is cooked. Add in curry paste, salt and water (add more water if necessary). Stir fry till the mixture dries up. Dish up and leave to cool.

to make tang zhong:
* Place 20g bread flour in a saucepan. Add 100ml water, mix with a hand whisk till smooth, making sure there are no lumps of flour. Cook over medium to low heat, stirring constantly with the hand whisk to prevent it from burning. Within 1 to 2 mins, the mixture will start to thicken, stop when you see traces in the mixture for every stir you make with the hand whisk. The tang zhong is ready. Immediately transfer the hot tang zhong into a bowl and cover it with a cling wrap, making sure the cling wrap sticks onto the surface of the mixture. This is to prevent a film from forming on the surface. Leave to cool completely before using it.

to make the bread dough:
* Place bread flour, cake flour, sugar, salt, yeast, egg, water and tang zhong (use 100g) in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Let the mixer knead the dough on high speed until the ingredients come together to form a dough, takes about 8 to 10 mins. Add in the butter gradually and continue to knead for another 15~20mins until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. (Upon adding the butter, the dough will become very wet/slack again, add some flour if it remains slack after 10 mins of kneading. Depending on the type of flour used, the dough may still stick to the sides of the mixing bowl after 15-20mins of kneading. If this happens, continue to knead for another 5mins or so, stop the machine, oil or dust hands with flour and proceed to remove the dough from the bowl.

* Place dough in a lightly greased (use vegetable oil or butter) mixing bowl, cover with cling wrap or a damp cloth and let proof in room temperature (around 28 to 30 degC) for about one hour, or until double in bulk.

* Remove the dough from the bowl and give a few light kneading to press out the gas in the dough. Divide the dough into 9 equal portions (about 60g each). Roll each dough into smooth rounds, cover with a damp cloth or cling wrap and let the doughs rest for 10mins.

* On a lightly floured work surface, roll each dough into a round disc. Press out any trapped air as you flatten the dough. Wrap each dough with one heaped tablespoon of the filling. Pinch and seal the seam tightly. Place seam side down on a greased (or lined with parchment paper) baking tray. Space doughs two inches apart to allow them to expand. Cover with damp cloth or cling wrap and leave doughs to proof for the second time for about 40mins, or until double in size.

* After 30 minutes of proofing, preheat the oven and wrap each dough with pandan leaves, tighten with tooth picks. Decorate top of each bun with curry leaf, optional.

* Bake in pre-heated oven at 180 deg C for 15 mins or until golden brown (if necessary, tent the surface with foil if the top browns too quickly closer to the baking time). Remove from oven and transfer to wire track to let cool. Once cool, store immediately in an airtight container. Any leftovers should be kept in airtight container in the fridge, reheat/warm in oven before serving.

Recipe source for bread dough: adapted from 'Carol 自在生活' and 'I can bake by Agnes Chang'.