Our craft notes are short essays from the DonChef kitchen, co-founded by Chef Don Lim, about what makes an old-school Singapore chicken pie good: a golden, flaky crust, chunky chicken, careful seasoning, the half egg, patient baking and resting, and our zero overnight pies policy. They explain principles, not our private recipe.
What are the craft notes?
The craft notes are where we write about the work behind a chicken pie. Not the recipe itself, which stays in the family, but the principles any careful pie maker would recognise, and the choices our kitchen makes because of them.
We wrote them because people often ask us questions that a menu cannot answer. Why chunks and not mince? Why half an egg? Why will we not sell yesterday’s pies? Each note takes one of those questions and answers it properly. We add a new note every few weeks, and the newest sits at the top of the list below.
How we write them
We write the craft notes in our own voice, as the kitchen at 39 Tyrwhitt Road. Where we describe our own practice, it is what we actually do: pastry dough made in-house and rolled on a dough sheeter, small batches in deck ovens, and a strict zero overnight pies policy. Where we describe general pie-making, it is standard practice that you can test in your own kitchen. We do not publish quantities, temperatures for our own bake or the spice blend, and we do not invent kitchen stories to make a point. If you want a recipe to bake at home, there is a good collection of home recipes, pastry and fillings included elsewhere; these notes are about why, not how much.
If you are new here, start with the golden, flaky crust and zero overnight pies. Together they explain most of what we care about.
Where the craft notes fit
The craft notes sit alongside the anatomy of the original, which walks through the pie part by part, and the pies, which describes each pie on our menu. If you want the history rather than the craft, read The Original Don story.
