Recipe: How to make Japanese curry at home

 

When you ask a Japanese what his/her favorite mom’s dish, a good portion would say curry.

Using curry roux, Japanese curry is a little different from the Indian curries, sweeter in flavor. But we’ve seen from TV shows that there are international fans of our curries, too!

We introduced a recipe on how to cook Japanee curry, and some hints to make your favorite one!

Recipe: How to cook Japanese Curry at home

Ingredients

• Curry roux...1/2 pack
• Pork shoulder or any preferred meat…200g
• Onions…1.5
• Carrot…1
• potatoes…2個
• cooking oil…1 spoon
• water…700ml
• Bay leaf, galam masala (optional)

How to make

1. Minch the onions. Cut the carrot and potatoes to the size you would normally like to put in your soup.

2. Heat oil or butter in a pot and sautee the onions to a brown color. Add carrot and potatoes, and continue to saute.

3. Add the pork and continue to saute.

4. Add water and bay leaf (if you have)and put it to a boil.

5. Take off the foam on the surface, and simmer for 20 minutes in lower heat.

6. Check that the potatoes and carrots cooked about 80-90%, then turn off the heat.

7. Mix in the curry roux. Once it is mixed well, put it in low heat so it becomes more like gravy.(about 15 minutes)

8. Stir the bottom of the pot once in a while so the roux doesn't get burnt.

9. Serve on a plate with rice or bread!

Key Points

• Taking the foam or aku（灰汁） is really important in cooking Japanese soups. It's a concentration of bad taste and smell that are within the ingredients. Removing it will help the soup to have a cleaner taste.
• The foam is the bubbles that come up on the surface of soups when simmering.

• It's very typical for a Japanese to put apples or honey to curries, making it a sweet spicy dish.
• You may add galam masala, curry powder, peppery condiments, coffee, soy sauce, or miso for a punch of taste!
• Curry Roux is an instant curry powder condiment from Japan. Roux is a French word for flour fryed with butter/fat. So Our food companies like S&B or House blended it to a curry roux! The left in the bottom picture is a block type, whereas the right one is a powder type. I personally use the right one a lot, but a lot of households have their favorite curry roux or they blend these for more complex taste!

When you go to supermarkets in Japan, I'm sure you will be amazed how much varieties of curry roux are sold...!!

We even have instant curry where you can microwave or put the package on a boil and it's ready to eat! :)

Related: Other recipe ideas using Japanese curry

Japanese households will let the curry stay overnight, which makes the taste deeper. The heating and cooling process will keep giving richer flavor to the curry and will become more like a paste, so we use this to make other dishes like curry udon or curry bread!

• Recipe: how to make a simple udon (great for vegans!)
• Recipe: How to make curry bread

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In this blog, I post my food trips around the world, as insights into Japanese food in comparison to all the different cuisines I encounter through my trips.

I love food businesses that aren't just into making profits but strive to protect their food culture and are genuinely passionate about what they do. I feel I can share with the world all my food experiences that filled my heart:)

Having a relative at a green tea farm in "one of the biggest green tea plantation cities, Kakegawa," an uncle running an unagi eel restaurant in an "eel town of Japan, Hamamatsu," and a mother who was one of the first people to introduce the izakaya culture in Silicon Valley, my life has a lot to do with Japanese food culture.

I have traveled to many places in Japan, so I hope to share what I know to help you better plan your food trip to my home country!

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“When you eat, it’s supposed to go deep into your heart. 

Whether you are rich or poor, eating isn’t just to fill your stomach, it is also to fill your heart.” 

- Ryu Aomi 青海 龍