How to Cook Penang Kapitan Chicken Curry

Print PDF

Array of ingredients for the Kapitan Chicken Curry.

Kapitan Chicken Curry is one of the more popular dishes in my range of frozen Prepared Meals, but as anyone who’s watched any of the cooking videos on my YouTube Channel would know, I’m a big believer in shortcuts; I’m the first to admit a lot of liberties are taken with my recipes.

When I was in Penang, I had the opportunity to learn how this signature Penang dish is made, from scratch, from Chef Chai at Shangri-La Rasa Sayang Resort. Naturally, due to my own background, I have an affinity with Malaysians, Hakkas and cooks; when I found out Chef Chai was a fellow Hakka-Malaysian-cook it felt like I’d hit the trifecta. Granted, his Hakka dialect is so different from mine he might as well have been speaking Penang Hokkien of which I know about 2 words, but I’ll let that slide 🙂

Here’s the recipe as supplied by Rasa Sayang Resort –

Kapitan Chicken Curry

4 Servings

Ingredients –

• 50 ml cooking oil
• 60 gm lemongrass
• 60 gm turmeric (fresh)
• 200 gm shallots
• 60 gm garlic
• 250 gm red chilli
• 60 gm galangal
• 35 gm candle nuts
• 25 gm belacan (shrimp paste)
• 1 kg chicken
• 2 pcs kaffir lime leaves
• 150 ml coconut milk
• Salt, pepper, chicken seasoning powder & sugar to taste

For Garnishing –

• Kaffir lime leaves

Method –

1. Saute ground spices in oil.
2. Bring to boil and add chicken. When chicken is half cooked, add in coconut milk.
3. Add lime leaves, salt, pepper and sugar, and bring back to boil.
4. Garnish with julienned lime leaves.

Chef Chai’s version of Penang Nyonya Kapitan Chicken Curry, with all the fresh ingredients that go into the dish, is simply sensational. We featured it in one of our segments in our Asia:Food.Travel.Mystery show –

Eating the Kapitan Chicken Curry in one of the scenes for Asia:Food.Travel.Mystery.

Good to see the Executive Producer Zafran Aziz has a good sense of humour as one of my co-stars presumably mess up their lines YET AGAIN 😛

In between all the filming, my PA and Baby Noah’s nanny Chrys managed to take a snap of him in the resort grounds, reminding me what day it was 🙂

He may not understand what it means, but we can all pretend 🙂