Easy Japanese Curry Recipe

Now that the cold months have arrived, we are always in the search for comforting dishes to warm us up. Hence, there is no better recipe than the one we are sharing with you today, a mesmerising Japanese curry specially for autumn and winter. With sweet and spicy touches, but not very hot (unless you want it to be) and a silky and glossy texture, we recommend to have it with some tonkatsu (panko breaded and deep-fried pork) and rice. Nevertheless, the possibilities don’t end.

What do you think? Shall we prepare it?

Simple Japanese Curry

TasteEvocations

This delicious Japanese curry is the perfect option to warm up during the cold autumn and wintry months. It is characterised by its lightly sweet profile, and it is not as hot as the Indian and Thai variants. With tons of flavour, we are convinced it will become a must at your home.

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Prep Time 15 mins

Cook Time 45 mins

Total Time 1 hr

Course Main Course

Cuisine Japanese

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

  

For the curry base

• 2 onions
• 4 carrots
• 4 garlic cloves
• 5-10 g fresh ginger
• 1 apple (fuji style if possible)
• 1/2 liters of chicken stock (or just water)
• Soy sauce to taste
• Vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp of cornstarch

For the curry roux

• 2 tbsp of butter
• 2 tbsp of flour
• 1 tbsp of yellow curry powder
• 1/2 tsp of 5-spice powder (optional)
• 1 cayenne (optional)

Tonkatsu and rice

• 400 g of rice
• 4 pork cutlets
• Panko (or breadcrumbs)
• Eggs
• Flour
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

 

• Peel the carrots and cut them in medium size chunks (they´ll be blended later).
  
• Slice the onions in a thin julienne and place them in a pot (the bigger the surface, the better) with some vegetable oil at medium heat. Then, add the carrot too.

  Optionally, when the onion starts sizzling, you can lower the heat to low to caramelise them and get a sweeter end result. We did so with this curry, but that means adding around 30 more minutes to the cooking time.

  If you don't want to take this optional step, just let it cook at medium heat until translucent.
  
• Whilst we are cooking the onion and carrots and paying attention from time to time to the pot to avoid any burning, we finely chop the ginger and garlic. Then we incorporate it into the pot. 
  
• When the carrot has acquired a light browning, we remove it from the recipient and set aside.
  
• Then, in a tall blending vase, we incorporate the carrot and some stock (or water) and blend it. We keep adding liquid until the mixture is very homogeneous.

  Once the garlic and ginger have browned a little, we pour the carrot liquid into the pot and bring the mixture to boil. If there's some caramelisation at the bottom of the pan, we use the liquid to deglaze it (scratching carefully with a spoon or spatula).
  
• Peel and grate the apple and add it to the pot. Let it all cook together for at least 10 minutes at medium heat. If at some point we see that the pot is running out of liquid, we incorporate more liquid (stock or water).
  
• In the meantime, we can prepare the tonkatsu. Remove most of the fat and use a hammer or a rolling pin to tenderise the meat and create thinner pieces.

  Season the pork generously with salt and pepper on both sides and it is now time to bread them. Firstly, cover the meat surface with flour, then submerge them in beaten egg and finely coat them very thoroughly with some panko.

  Reserve these.
  
• Whilst all the ingredients are still cooking in the pot, we are going to prepare in a separate pan our roux with the curry spices. At low/medium heat, melt the butter and then add the flour and mix very well. Whilst continuously stirring, let the mixture cook until it acquires a light brown colour.Then, add the curry powder and optionally the 5-spice powder and cayenne. Mix very well, cook for around a minute and pour into the pot. Increase the heat level to high.
  
• When the liquid starts boiling, we mix in a recipient one tablespoon of cornstarch and one tablespoon of water and pour it into the pot. Stir very well and we will see that the liquid starts thickening. Lower the heat to medium-low.

  Now it is time to prepare the rice and fry the pork cutlets.

  Before serving, add some soy sauce to adjust the saltiness level.
  
• And that's it! This is an easy method for preparing this delicious and comforting Japanese curry. We hope you love it! 
  

Notes

• The spice mixture can be prepared from scratch if you have the right ingredients (we used curry powder to simplify the method). The key is to prepare a mixture with at least turmeric, coriander seeds, cumin, dry ginger, cinnamon and some star anise. We really encourage you to try what’s best for your taste.
• For an even more interesting profile, you can add for example a dark chocolate square, some sake wine, a bit of coffee powder… once you are familiarised with the recipe we encourage you to try different additions to adapt it to your palate.
• Instead of chicken stock, you can use vegetable stock.

Keyword curry, Japanese Recipe, Simple Recipe