Timorese coconut curry — chicken (or goat) simmered in a coconut-milk curry with turmeric, lemongrass, garlic, and ginger, a dish the Portuguese spice trade carried to the island from its Goan and Indian colonies.
Caril (the Portuguese word for curry) is a Timorese coconut curry, reflecting the Portuguese trade route through Goa and India that brought curry spicing to Timor.
Spoon up caril and the chicken is tender in a golden, aromatic coconut curry sauce. Bite: the coconut milk is rich and mellow, the turmeric earthy, the lemongrass and ginger bright and warming, the spices gentle (milder than an Indian curry). A clear Portuguese-spice-route legacy, softened by the island's coconut, eaten over rice.
Frying the aromatic paste and turmeric in oil blooms their flavor; coconut milk both carries the spice and tempers it into a mellow, mild curry. Slow simmering tenderizes the chicken and reduces the sauce — a colonial curry adapted to local coconut.
Variations
With goat or beef. Spicier. With potatoes. With more lemongrass. Drier. With a richer coconut-cream finish.
On the Palate
Where Caril sits in the Timorese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
8 steps · 30 min active + 45 min waiting
- 18 min
Pound shallots, garlic, ginger, and lemongrass into a paste.
- 24 min
Fry the paste in oil with 1 tbsp turmeric and curry spices until fragrant.
Watch outFry the paste until it smells deeply fragrant and the turmeric darkens slightly — that raw-spice edge should be gone before the chicken goes in.
- 38 min
Add 800 g chicken pieces and brown in the paste.
- 43 min
Pour in 400 ml coconut milk and a little water.
- 52 min
Add a cinnamon stick and season with salt.
- 641 min
Cover and simmer 40 min until the chicken is tender and the sauce is thick.
Watch outIt's done when the chicken pulls tender and the sauce has reduced to a thick, clinging coat — a lazy bubble the whole time.
- 710 min
Add chopped tomato in the last 10 min.
- 82 min
Serve with rice or batar daan.
