Pamelia Chia’s Curry Chicken
A recipe for the classic, beloved Singaporean dish, plus a vegetarian version with cabbage and deep-fried tofu. Words and photographs by Pamelia Chia. Additional photos by Georgia Rudd.
Welcome to Vittles Cooking! This week is our first piece in our new iteration, in which we publish recipes, tips, tricks, and culinary stories outside the usual paradigms of recipe-writing. To start off, we have Pamelia Chia with a tested and trusted recipe for Singapore’s beloved curry chicken, and an essay introducing this unassuming, delicious staple from her childhood.
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Pamelia Chia’s Curry Chicken
A recipe for the classic, beloved Singaporean dish, plus a vegetarian version with cabbage and deep-fried tofu.
Curry chicken is a dish that every Singaporean, regardless of race or background, encounters in some way when they’re growing up – as an accompaniment to perfectly crisp rounds of roti prata at a hawker centre, gracing the dining table alongside rice and stir-fried vegetables as part of a home-cooked meal, or served as a main course with dainty fish-net crêpes at a restaurant.
Although many versions of chicken curry exist around the world, ours is immediately distinct. It’s neither chowder-thick nor creamy in the way that so many curries tend to be in the Western imagination (nor do we use ingredients such as tomato purée or yoghurt). Rather, what sets Singaporean curry chicken apart is the turmeric hue of its gravy (sometimes referred to as ‘kuah’ or ‘zhup’) and the droplets of crimson oil that dapple its surface. It’s a gentle curry, in which the brawny intensity of the spice paste is nurtured by patient frying and a liberal pour of coconut milk.
Although curry chicken has been a constant fixture in my life, I didn’t learn how to make it until I was in my mid-twenties, long after I’d learned to cook various European dishes. As a child, I’d occasionally joined my mother and maternal grandmother in the kitchen, eager to learn, but their instructions were vague at best. They didn’t cook with teaspoons or measuring cups; all their knowledge resided in their hands. In contrast, texts on European cuisines were precisely written, replete with helpful tips that anticipated where an amateur cook might go awry – perfect for someone like me, who learns best with structure.
When I was 25, I started to cook professionally at a European restaurant in Singapore. The quality of our ingredients was showcased in elegantly simple dishes like A5 Miyazaki steak cooked in a wood-fire oven, or lemon tartlets served with French alpine strawberries. Although cooking with such luxurious ingredients was initially exhilarating, I began to feel the disconnect between the restaurant’s ethos and my upbringing. In Singapore, after all, many dishes are created out of a lack or scarcity, their flavour coaxed out from scraps, shells, and bones. I longed to get to the heart of the alchemy of cooking – the ability to make soup from a stone.
With this in mind, I applied to work at Candlenut, which now has a Michelin star, but which has long been a quiet celebration of the joys of honest Straits Chinese cooking. Although I’d always loved to eat stir-fries, sambals, and curries, before Candlenut I had no idea how to cook them. Under the guidance of the sous chef, Ah Lai, I learned to assemble an assortment of aromatics – shallots, garlic, galangal, turmeric root, chillies, lemongrass – grind them into a paste known as ‘rempah’, and fry them in oil.
When Ah Lai first told me to add the oil in equal proportions to the spice paste, I was aghast. It seemed excessive – almost obscene. But unlike the sweating of aromatics in European cooking, preparing rempah involves a sustained period of outright frying (known as ‘tumis’) to achieve proper caramelisation. The rempah eventually transforms from a smooth paste to a lumpy one with a moat of red oil, which floats to the top when coconut milk is added. By conventional Western standards, this splitting would imply poor technique, but to Singaporeans, curry dappled with red oil is a thing of seductive beauty.
In the decade since I learned to cook curry from scratch, I have continued to tinker around with the dish in my home kitchen. Unlike Candlenut’s iteration, which is fiery, with prominent white pepper, my curry chicken is more coconut-rich, with accents of curry leaf. My recipe for this unassuming comfort dish is just one of countless iterations, each of which bears the unique thumbprint of its cook.
Singaporean Curry Chicken


Before most people had fridges, it was common for housewives to grind rempah fresh for their daily meals. These days, even with the rise of blenders, making rempah from scratch has become a rarity in many Singaporean households. However, I highly recommend making your own for this recipe – it heavily sculpts the flavour profile of the dish.
Although curry chicken can be enjoyed immediately, leaving it to rest in the fridge overnight will enhance the flavour. The potatoes in particular benefit from this rest: they imbibe the curry and become so flavourful that they almost steal the spotlight from the chicken.
Serves 6
Time 1 hr (including marinating and soaking)