Spicy Sunday Dinner Ideas if Sunday Night is Curry Night

Here are my spicy Sunday dinner ideas if Sunday night is curry night in your household.

Cambodian Coconut Pineapple Fish Curry Recipe

This Cambodian coconut pineapple fish curry recipe tops the list of my spicy Sunday dinner ideas if Sunday night is curry night in your home. The recipe makes samlor ktis Koh Kong, a sweet gently spiced curry made with coconut cream, pineapple and baby eggplants from Koh Kong, an island and coastal province in Cambodia’s southwest.

A samlor is technically a stew or soup, but the spices make this a rich aromatic curry that tastes of a tropical island. It’s the kind of curry that you imagine tucking into on a beach holiday, sitting within splashing distance of the sea – with a bowl of fragrant jasmine rice, an icy cold beer to wash it down with, and your toes in squeaky white sand.

Samlor ktis Koh Kong is sweet from the coconut cream, fresh ripe pineapple and creamy palm sugar, and gently-spiced and fragrant from the herbaceous red kroeung – a Cambodian herb and spice paste pounded from fresh lemongrass stalks, galangal, kaffir lime zest, turmeric, garlic, shallots, and red chillies.

Creamy Cambodian Coconut Pineapple Fish Curry Recipe for Samlor Ktis Koh Kong

Cape Malay Chicken Curry Recipe from Cape Town, South Africa

This Cape Malay chicken curry recipe makes a richly spiced curry from Cape Town, South Africa and it’s another of my best spicy Sunday dinner ideas if Sunday night is curry night for you. Eaten with aromatic Cape Malay yellow rice, buttery roti, and simple tomato, onion and cucumber sambals, it’s an incredibly delicious curry you’ll be sorry to finish.

Our advice: make double the amount, as it tastes even better as leftovers the next day. Our Cape Malay chicken curry recipe is inspired by the aromatic chicken curry we learnt to make many years ago in a Cape Malay cooking class in colourful Bo-Kaap, the heart of Cape Malay culture in Cape Town.

Gently spiced, the Cape Malay chicken curry is a cousin of the classic Cape Town lamb stew called tomato bredie. They’re dishes that locals here in Southeast Asia would describe as ‘same same but different’, sharing a lot of similar spices.

Cape Malay Chicken Curry Recipe for a Richly Spiced Curry from Cape Town, South Africa

Burmese Indian Style Chicken Curry Recipe

This Burmese Indian style chicken curry recipe makes a rich curry fragrant with ginger, turmeric, garlic and chilli that has a homemade Burmese curry powder on its concise list of ingredients. It’s the perfect accompaniment to Burmese coconut rice and the refreshing salads of Myanmar that provide contrasting textures and flavours.

I adapted this recipe from my favourite Burmese cookbook, Mi Mi Khaing’s Cook and Entertain the Burmese Way, dating to 1978. Mi Mi Khaing, uses a homemade curry powder blend, as most Burmese women do, which includes cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, coriander, peppercorns, bay leaf, and poppy seeds, but you could certainly use a store-bought curry powder.

Cooking the chicken pieces with the spices covered is crucial to keep the chicken moist and tender, but for the final stage you need to remove the lid so that the sauce can really reduce. Keep an eye on it.

Burmese Indian Style Chicken Curry Recipe for a Rich Curry Fragrant with Ginger, Turmeric and Garlic

Classic Burmese Chicken Curry Recipe

This classic Burmese chicken curry recipe makes a fragrant gently-spiced curry that is perfumed with turmeric, ginger, garlic, chilli, and lemongrass, and it’s another of my top spicy Sunday dinner ideas if Sunday night means curry night at your house.

A rich curry with a moreish tomato-based gravy and a layer of aromatic oil that’s quickly soaked up by coconut rice, it should be served with salads such as this Burmese potato salad, raw cabbage salad, and Shan tomato salad. This is another recipe I’ve adapted from Mi Mi Khaing’s delightful little cookbook dating to 1978.

Unlike a lot of old cookbooks, all of the recipes make dishes that taste absolutely delicious. I’ve only tweaked recipes when I’ve not been able to source ingredients and if I can’t find them here in Southeast Asia, I’m guessing our readers in Australasia, the Americas and Europe might also face challenges.

Classic Burmese Chicken Curry Recipe for an Aromatic Tomato Based Curry

Indonesian Egg Curry Recipe for Telur Petis from Java

This Indonesian egg curry recipe with fragrant lemongrass and funky shrimp paste for telur petis comes from the Indonesian island of Java although variations can be found right across the Indonesia’s archipelago.

We published this recipe in Weekend Eggs, our series on egg dishes from around the world, as it makes a gently-spiced egg curry that’s mainly eaten for breakfast and as a snack. But you can really eat it at any time of day, including dinner, which is why it’s another of my top spicy Sunday dinner ideas if Sunday night means curry night for you.

It’s a very moreish dish of boiled eggs in a creamy coconut milk-based curry made from a freshly pounded spice paste with lemongrass grass stalks adding fragrance and flavour to the spicy gravy. ‘Telur’ means ‘egg’ and ‘petis’ is the shrimp paste that adds a subtle funkiness to this spicy egg curry. Terence has excellent egg tips in this guide to cooking boiled eggs perfectly.

Indonesian Egg Curry Recipe with Fragrant Lemongrass and Funky Shrimp Paste for Telur Petis from Java

Chiang Mai Curry Noodle Chicken Soup Recipe

This khao soi gai recipe makes the delicious Chiang Mai curry noodle chicken soup that is as beloved by foreign visitors as much as locals in the Northern Thailand city and is another of our best curry recipes from the archive. Slurped at countless market stalls, simple eateries and fancy restaurants, khao soi gai quickly becomes addictive.

Khao soi gai is the most popular noodle soup in the old capital of the Lanna kingdom in Northern Thailand that’s as famous for its fantastic Northern Thai-style Lanna food as much as its gilded pagodas, gorgeous handicrafts and glorious mountains nearby.

Khao soi gai is a one-bowl meal of egg noodles, a rich, oily coconut cream-infused stock, and a leg or thigh of bone-in chicken (‘gai’ is Thai for chicken) topped with more crunchy noodles. Kao soi gai shares some DNA with Myanmar’s ohn no khao swe, an equally delicious Burmese chicken coconut noodle soup.

Khao Soi Gai Recipe – How to Make Chiang Mai Curry Noodle Chicken Soup

Chickpea Curry Recipe for Punjabi Chole by Christine Manfield

This chickpea curry recipe makes a comforting Punjabi chole from the new cookbook Indian Cooking Class. by Australian chef Christine Manfield, whose love of spice, Indian food and India began soon after she started cooking. Chole is ‘chickpeas’ and this richly spiced chickpea stew is a beloved dish of Punjabi cuisine of Punjab, a region straddling Northern India and Pakistan.

“Chole bhatura is a Punjabi staple that makes use of humble pantry ingredients. Chole is a chickpea curry served with puffed bhatura bread, a dish that has been widely embraced in other regions of India,” Christine Manfield says in the introduction to her chole recipe. “The dal preparation can vary across districts, depending on its blend of spices. And this version was my favourite breakfast during my travels through Sikkim, staying in village houses.”

‘Bhatura’ is a puffy deep-fried bread typically served with the spicy chickpea stew or chickpea curry but t’s perfectly acceptable to eat chole with papadams and long grain basmati rice. While the origin of this chickpea curry lies in the cuisine of Northern India, this hearty dish is much-loved all over India.

Chickpea Curry Recipe for Punjabi Chole from Indian Cooking Class by Christine Manfield

Please do let us know if you make any of our spicy Sunday dinner ideas if Sunday night is curry night in the comments below as we love to hear how our recipes turned out for you.

Spicy Sunday Dinner Ideas if Sunday Night is Curry Night – Spicy Curries to Cook Tonight