Kip Kerrie (Dutch-Chinese Chicken Curry)
Kip kerrie
Tender chicken and soft onion in the thick, mild yellow curry sauce of the Dutch Chinese takeaway, finished with green peas and served over white rice.
IIIStews & Braises- Prep
- 15 min
- Cook
- 25 min
- Serves
- 4
- Level
- Beginner
The Dutch word kerrie covers a surprising range. At the snack bar it means a sweet curry ketchup squeezed over a frikandel. At the Chinese takeaway it means something else entirely: kip kerrie, strips of chicken and soft onion in a thick, mild yellow sauce with green peas, spooned over white rice. It is the gentlest dish on the menu, the one you order for someone who says they do not like spicy food.
Curry by way of Canton
Curry came into Chinese cooking through the ports of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, and Cantonese and Chinese-Indonesian cooks developed their own mild, thickened curry sauces, closer to a gravy than to anything from India. That style reached the Netherlands with the Chinees-Indisch restaurants from the 1960s onward and was softened again for Dutch tastes, turning sweeter and yellower, and milder still. The result is a Netherlands-Chinese dish through and through. Its roots run back to Cantonese cooking and to the Chinese kitchens of Indonesia, and it is worth naming both.
Cook the powder, then the sauce
The step that matters is frying the curry powder. Stirred into hot fat with the onion for a full minute, it loses the raw, dusty edge that spoils so many homemade curries and turns fragrant. A spoon of flour cooked in at the same time makes a simple roux, which is where the takeaway thickness comes from. Add the stock slowly and whisk as you go, and the sauce comes out smooth. Use a mild yellow curry powder here. A hot Madras blend pulls the dish somewhere else.
Kip kerrie is curry with the heat turned down and the comfort turned up.
The chicken goes back in at the end with the peas, just long enough to cook through, so the breast stays juicy. The finished sauce should be thick enough to coat a spoon, a little sweet and deeply savoury, with the warm yellow colour of the takeaway version. Pile it over rice and put sambal on the table for anyone who wants heat.
“Fry the curry powder in the fat for a full minute before the stock goes in. Raw curry powder is what makes a homemade kerrie taste dusty.”
Ingredients
Serves 4
The chicken
- 600 gchicken breast or thigh fillet, in strips
- 1 tbsplight soy sauce
- 1 tspcornflour
- 2 tbspneutral oil
The curry sauce
- 2onions, in wedges
- 2garlic cloves, grated
- 2 cmfresh ginger, grated
- 2 tbspmild yellow curry powder
- 0.5 tspground turmeric, optional, for colour
- 2 tbspplain flour
- 500 mlchicken stock, hot
- 1 tbspsugar
- 1 tbsplight soy sauce
- 100 mlcoconut milk, optional, for a rounder sauce
- 150 gfrozen peas
To serve
- to servesteamed white rice
- to servesambal oelek, at the table, for heat
Method
- 1
Coat the chicken
Toss the chicken strips with the soy and cornflour and leave for ten minutes. The thin coating keeps breast meat juicy and helps the sauce cling, a light version of the velveting that Chinese cooks use.
- 2
Sear and set aside
Heat the oil in a wok or wide pan and fry the chicken over high heat for three to four minutes, until coloured but not quite cooked through. Lift it out and set it aside. It finishes in the sauce later.
- 3
Cook the curry base
Lower the heat and fry the onion wedges in the same pan for three minutes, until softening but not brown. Add the garlic and ginger, then the curry powder, turmeric and flour, and stir for one to two minutes. Frying the powder in fat takes away its raw, dusty edge, and the flour forms a simple roux.
- 4
Thicken the sauce
Whisk in the hot stock a ladle at a time to avoid lumps, then add the sugar and soy. Simmer for eight to ten minutes, until the sauce coats the back of a spoon and smells rounded. Stir in the coconut milk now if using.
- 5
Finish with chicken and peas
Return the chicken with the peas and simmer for four to five minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the peas are bright green. Taste: it should be mild, a little sweet and savoury. Serve over rice with sambal on the side.
Alongside the braise
Slow pots want something to catch the sauce and something sweet against it.
- Boiled potatoes, or a mound of plain rice for zuurvlees
- Rode kool met appel, red cabbage stewed with apple
- Appelmoes, apple sauce, the eternal Dutch side
- Zoervleisj on fries, Limburg-style, over frites
Questions from the kitchen
Is kip kerrie spicy?+
No. The takeaway version is mild and slightly sweet, closer to a gravy than to a hot curry. Put sambal or a chopped fresh chilli on the table for anyone who wants heat.
Where does Dutch Chinese curry come from?+
Kerrie is simply the Dutch word for curry. The takeaway sauce follows the mild, thickened curry sauces of Cantonese and Chinese-Indonesian cooking rather than any Indian curry, and it was made sweeter and milder again for Dutch tastes.
Can I use chicken thighs?+
Yes, and they stay juicier. Give them two or three minutes longer in the sauce at the end so they cook through.
Paint the rest of the meal
StewsThe Indies at Home
Babi Ketjap (Pork Braised in Sweet Soy)
Babi ketjap
Cubes of pork braised slowly in ketjap manis with shallot, garlic and ginger until dark and tender. An Indo-Dutch home dish with Chinese-Indonesian roots.
StewsThe Indies at Home
Koe Loe Yuk (Sweet-Sour Battered Pork)
Koe loe yuk
Cubes of pork in a crisp batter, fried twice and served with a bright sweet and sour sauce of pineapple and peppers: the Cantonese classic of Dutch takeaway.
StewsThe Indies at Home
Tjap Tjoy (Stir-Fried Vegetables in Glossy Sauce)
Tjap tjoy
Crisp mixed vegetables and thin strips of pork, cooked fast in a hot wok and bound in a light, shining sauce, the way a Dutch Chinese takeaway makes it.