We Tried Singapore’s Most Legendary Curry

[machine whirs]

[food sizzles]

[flames whoosh] [mixture bubbles]

Oh, nice.

[wildlife chirps] Welcome to the jungle.

I'm in Singapore, in Dempsey,

outside of Samy's Curry.

They've been open since 1963

and they specialize in sapadu, these banana leaf meals.

So we should come see them. This way.

[wildlife chirping continues] [patrons chatter]

This is how the restaurant works.

You get your banana leaf, you get your rice, you get your,

all your curries, your dals, all your textures.

All of that opulence is on display here at the buffet line.

This cooking starts very early in the morning,

but there is one thing that they make to order

and that's what we're here to see, the fish head curry.

A unique Singaporean delicacy

that has to be cooked inside of the kitchen.

Come with me. [patron chattering continues]

Welcome to the kitchen.

On the left, [food sizzles]

the biggest pots I've ever seen in my life.

[laughs] Gigantic. Flavor slowly simmering away.

But to start this curry, you have to start with a fish.

The fish head itself is angoli,

which is what's known as white snapper or sea bream.

The shape of the head means

that you can get all these different textures

out of the fish head.

The upper lip, the bottom jaw, the cheek,

even these bottom parts down here

all provide different types of textures

after they're cooked.

Fish head curry is an interesting story,

because it's a delicacy among Chinese people.

In the context of Singapore,

Indian chefs invented this dish in the beginning

for Chinese consumers that then ended up

proliferating all over Singapore.

So chef's preparing a new fish head curry,

the first step is actually to build a delicious base.

That delicious curry base starts with fresh ingredients,

the dried chilies, onions, and tomatoes.

Whoa. This is stone?

Yeah. And this is almost...

[chef speaks faintly] Oh, cool.

Two pieces of stone, one at an angle.

Fresh ingredients go in. A little bit of water goes in.

[machine knocks] Oh, cool.

Oh, I understand.

It's a industrially-sized mortar and pestle.

The slow grinding process,

slow extraction of that water,

means that you can get it as fine as possible.

It's pretty similar to doing it by hand,

but it's gonna get it finer than,

for example, a food processor.

You see that all of those juices being extracted

out of the onions and the tomatoes?

I bet if you got very, very close,

it's actually quite smooth, the two stones,

so the extraction is a little bit gentler.

You're breaking open all those cell walls,

getting everything ready for the cook.

This is the starting point for a lot of the curries,

the starting point for a lot of the cooking.

The aromatic base of every single curry is different,

which means this one is specifically

calibrated for the fish head curry.

This step is the tempering of the spices,

the activation of the aromatics.

First thing that goes in is dried spices, fenugreek.

Without activated it in spices,

it's not gonna have that depth of flavor,

and then fennel seeds and then cumin,

and you're going to start smelling it in the air.

[food sizzles]

Then come the fresh aromatics that are higher in moisture,

which means that everything's gonna slow down in cooking.

Temperature's being brought down just a little bit,

but now you can start to smell the red onions,

the chili peppers, and the garlic happen.

The fresh curry leaves, oftentimes a underrated

and forgotten component

in a lot of more East Asian-style curries, goes in next.

[spatula scrapes] [food sizzling continues]

They're called aromatics because they are aromatic.

You should be able to smell them.

When I say the aromatics are activated,

it means that they are elevated,

they're levitating in the air,

and you'll be able to smell them.

It's a good cue for when the next ingredient needs to go in.

Now the base aromatic paste, he's already,

chef has already developed a deep brown color.

The addition of the water crashing into the oil

means that it's going to start to multiply and bubble away.

[food sizzling continues]

Chili powder for spice, coriander for warmth,

turmeric for color and for earthiness.

That base combination is very classic.

All of this is mind [chuckles] blowingly exciting to me,

because for a lot of Western chefs

and even Chinese cooking,

our first step is something like salt and pepper,

or light soy, dark soy.

Whenever I think about South Asian cooking,

the first step is a hundred different dimensions

and those precise ratios built off of experience

and generations of thought and expertise,

that's good stuff.

[food sizzles] Oh, it's starting to split

a little bit, which is a good indication that

[spatula scrapes]

your paste has achieved sufficient texture.

[kitchen staff chatters] Cool.

You see those oil droplets on the top?

That means that

[spatula scrapes] [food sizzling continues]

the paste is hot enough.

It's pushing the oil out,

and the oil and the water is trying to separate.

That oil extracting from the water

means that you can start to extract

different types of compounds,

different types of flavor compounds.

Tamarind paste squeezed into the water.

So tamarind is a fruit.

It's also a source of acidity

and often a marker for the more South Indian-style

fish head curries that are out there.

Tamarind is interesting because it is high in tartaric acid,

which is different from acetic acid and citric acid.

Citric acid from limes, for example,

acetic acid from vinegar.

Tartaric acid is a little bit more aggressive.

It comes at you very, very quickly

and gives you that distinct flavor profile

that people know of fish head curry

from South Indian restaurants.

And the fish is going to go in directly into the curry

and not into the water.

You want it to cook fully concentrated, full of flavor.

[spatula clangs] [food sizzles]

Chef ladles a little bit more of the gravy,

more of the sauce over the fish

to make sure that it cooks evenly.

The time that the fish takes the cook

is based on its size.

About 10 to 15 minutes for this medium-size head.

It's gorgeous.

Chef really wanted to show us

how the curry paste was made from scratch,

but typically in the restaurant,

when an order comes in, this is what happens.

This is the gigantic vat.

The biggest pot I've ever seen in my life is simmering away

and fish head is dropped in to order.

He'll take the fish head out

and put it inside of the clay pot.

These clay pots look like those Chinese clay pots

and they will heat up,

hold onto that heat for the fire.

They go onto a smaller burner,

[lid clangs] ridiculously hot,

and chef scoops in a little bit of that curry,

which has been absorbing all of the flavor from all

of the fish head that's been cooking all day

over the top of the fish head.

That curry is full of fish and seafood flavor

as well as all of those base aromatic

that he's developed over time.

Come over here, look at the flame.

What's awesome about this is,

first, there's a Chinese clay pot.

The fish head is inside of that pot with the curry.

As the flame licks up on the side,

that gravy's going to start to bubble.

The sugars are going to start

to caramelize against the edges.

A little bit of those fat and all those things

are going to hit the side of the flame

and they're going to ignite.

As they ignite, you get another layer of flavor.

You get smokiness, you get a lot of that depth,

and finally, because it's so, so, so hot,

as the gravy begins to reduce,

the flavor starts to concentrate.

[gravy bubbles]

Oh, nice. All right, that's enough cooking.

I'm gonna go find myself a table,

sit down, try this fish head curry.

Samy's, since 1963, has been known for sapadu,

which is the banana leaf meal.

When you order your banana leaf meal,

you are guaranteed rice.

You're also guaranteed an assortment of textures, pickles,

and dal to add to each bite.

What you do get to choose though,

is the proteins that come along with the meal.

For today, I'm going to do

the small fish head curry. Yeah.

I'll do one piece

of masala chicken. Can. Sure.

And then just one piece of the sambal prawn.

Sure. The fish head curry

at Samy's has become a staple

and it's become an iconic dish within Singapore.

They serve average of at least 100 a day

and almost up to 200 on the weekends.

Here it comes. Oh, fish head curry first.

Thank you.

[cymbal clangs] Look at this.

With the classic useless vegetable garnish. Very good.

Fish curry. You can smell it.

You can see the caramelization along the edges.

It's still bubbling, because clay pots

are so good at holding onto that heat.

Oh. Your rice.

Yes. Yes, please.

So what rice is this?

It's a biryani rice. Amazing.

[wildlife chirps]

So nice.

There's this wonderful thing that happens

whenever you're eating warm food on top of banana leaf,

and there's reason for this.

The banana leaf, one side is waxy.

The other side is matte.

The waxy side actually has a wax on it.

When it heats up just a little bit,

it produces a little bit of aroma,

so all over Southeast Asia, Malaysia, for example,

Indonesia, nasi lemak,

you'll see banana leaf being employed

in warm rice contexts

so that the banana leaf ends up perfuming the rice.

[Speaker in Blue] And some vegetable.

Perfect. For the vegetable

is the bottle gourd.

Oh. So like a white pumpkin.

This Indian vegetable.

Water gourd, cooked inside of a dal, lentils,

bright yellow, some mustard seeds, do you see?

A little bit of that cumin.

This is a masala chicken.

Gourd in as well. Oh, gorgeous.

This is a sambal prawn.

Awesome. You want to try

these samples? Yes, sure.

It's a Mysore mutton.

Oh. It's very nice.

Amazing. Yeah.

Great. Thank you. That's good. Yeah.

This is a lot of food for one person, huh?

[speaker in blue chuckles]

Amazing. So cool. But so yummy.

Look at all the different types of textures

with the curry.

First of all, from wet to dry, right?

Sambal prawns. Sambal prawn.

One of the most exciting things you can see

as a chef when it comes to curry

is the splitting of the oil,

which is to say that once it splits,

the oil is going to carry different types

of flavor compounds than the liquid, the water.

And a little bit of mutton from the kitchen.

But the fish head curry is the main thing here.

Chef describes this gravy as relatively thin

compared to a lot of the other Indian gravies.

I mean, this you can almost drink like a soup.

And now that we're coming towards the end of the day,

we know that we have one of the most

delicious versions possible,

that's soaked up all of that fish flavor

from the other fish that's been, have been cooking all day.

We should try to explore the different

aspects of the fish head.

First is a little bit of neck that is attached to it.

That's this part in the end.

So as you can imagine,

this is the part that extends into the filet.

So you'll get a little bit of meatiness at the back.

This is probably the tensest

and flakiest part of that fish.

Maybe a little bit of bones on the side,

but that is the most recognizable every day.

This is, I think, what white fish looks like texture.

Little bit of flakiness.

This type of snapper is flaky, yes,

but it is also a little bit stringy.

And note that because of the curry,

'cause you want that flavor,

it is braised for a longer period of time,

so it might be more cooked than another application.

Should we go for that first?

[patrons chatter]

Yum. Oh, that curry's so [chuckles] good.

The first taste for me is like a pepper, tomato, eggplant

type of situation,

and then it slowly builds in terms of heat,

but also the grounding spices.

Definitely taste coriander powder.

The turmeric is just in the background.

The spice for me, three out of five,

maybe even two out of five.

Not the most aggressive thing in the world.

Most Asian [chuckles] kids know this.

The most prized part of the fish oftentimes is the cheek,

because it's very, very tender,

but on a gigantic head like the snapper, this cheek

[wildlife chirps]

is huge.

You see this triangle? That's all cheek.

This is a piece that you often reserve for grandma,

and yes, it's tender, but it's also cohesive.

It's also one piece that's a little bit

of funny Greek there.

[fork scrapes] [item clangs]

Wa. [wildlife chirps]

Slippery. Yum.

White snapper does a really good job

and it survives the amount of cooking

that happens in the clay pot, the temperature.

But apart from the belly, this jowl area

is going to be the fattiest part of the fish,

so all of this is going to come off in one piece

if I manipulate it correctly, underneath this bone.

This [speaks in foreign language] in Hong Kong.

[patrons chatter]

This is the neck.

I mean, a lot of people who've been

to Japanese izakayas will know this cut,

out of Hamachi, out of salmon.

This is the fattiness.

I mean, you can see the gelatinousness of it.

I'm gonna break off the part

behind the, near the gill here.

This is my dad's favorite cut. You see it?

You can get a sense of the texture here at the end.

Gelatin, collagen, all of that slippery deliciousness stuff.

This is why fish head is a Chinese delicacy,

because from the back all the way to the front,

you get so many different textures of fish.

You would be doing the fish a disservice

if you were to just break all of this up,

put everything in your mouth and just spit out the bones.

I think dissecting it a little bit,

experiencing the different textures is part of the game.

Okay. [patrons chatter]

[fork scrapes]

Best bite so far.

You see when you pull open the bottom,

you see all of that fattiness?

All of that gelatin, all of that collagen?

That's melt-in-your-mouth goodness, right?

Not to use a cliche, but this, it's good for you.

And it's ridiculous that this is part of a fish.

If you were to only eat the filet,

you'd only get the lean parts.

[patron chattering continues] [wildlife chirps]

[fork scrapes] Yum.

I wouldn't say this is for beginners,

but it is for the curious

and it definitely is for the adventurous.

The last but not least, many people, including my sister,

are huge fans of the eye.

I gotta say, I didn't grow up thinking

this was the best thing in the world,

but when in Singapore, fish head curry,

that's a grand prize for a lot of people.

There are some meals that you eat

that you just don't stop thinking about them,

because as full as you are, you just want to continue

to navigate the adventure of deliciousness,

and I cannot think of very many other ways to eat,

other than banana leaf, that would be this opulent,

especially in the middle of the day.

The fact that there are so many things in front of you

that have all been cooked with so much attention to detail

from scratch is ridiculous.

You can't go to Singapore and not eat Indian food.

It's one of the core arteries of the culture

and the cuisine that makes up all the good things

that have come to Singapore.

[wildlife chirps]