Here in California, Fall is on the cusp of arriving. Temperatures are still staying strong in the mid 80s low 90s, but I am waiting and dreaming for the glorious day that it starts cold and stays cold throughout the day. To usher in this chilly fall weather, I am making the ultimate fall food: Curry!
There are so many things to say about curry! Where to begin?
Curry has been the central theme of one of my favorite anime for awhile now, Shokugeki no Soma, otherwise known as Food Wars, so it’s possibly you may see another curry dish in the near future. I love curry so much, and I’m really interesting in dabbling with my own curry recipe.
It’s so delicious, and such a heart-warming meal! Who can think of a better thing to make for your sweetheart? Well, Nozaki-kun has really taken the cake with this one. What better thing to give your bae than a nice bento box full of…rice?!!? Jokes, it’s surprise curry!!
There are many different ways to go about making curry, and in the show, Nozaki-kun is shown to be a very competent cook. For our purposes here, I am going to demonstrate how to make a very simple Japanese curry, using curry roux (blocks of curry), which is a very popular method of making curry in Japan. In later blog posts, I may post other versions of curry, but I will probably attempt to make my own from scratch. 🙂 (Leave a comment or like this post if that is something you would be interested in seeing! I’ll probably do it anyway, but it’s more motivational if I know people actually want to see it :))
The Ingredients*
2 3.5 oz Packages of Golden Curry (you can use whatever brand you like, and whatever spiciness level. I have a medium spice level, and I don’t like spicy things. It’s a well known fact that many Japanese people seriously hate spicy foods, so their ‘spicy’ tends to be more like American mild or American medium.)
2 yellow onions
3 yellow potatoes
3 carrots
2 pounds meat (your choice, although I used beef)
5 cups water
Enough rice for each person (about 1/2 cup dry rice per person, depending on hunger level)
Optional Equipment: To recreate the look, you’re gonna need a bento box and some chopsticks! Fun fact: I won tenth place in a bento box making competition earlier this year, and they sent me 14 bento boxes, among other things, as part of my prize package. I live in bento box city.
*This recipe makes enough for like 8-10 servings. I did this so I could have leftovers. Halve it for a more normal amount of curry!*
Make da Curry!
Step one is to wash, peel and cut your veggies. I peeled the carrots, but was lazy and just gave the potatoes a good scrub. If you bought pre-cubed meat, such as stew meat, (what I bought) great. If you didn’t, now is also a good time to cut it into bite sized pieces.
Next, get a nice big pot, swirl a little cooking oil around the bottom of the pan, and let heat over medium-high heat. When the oil is heated through, toss in your onions and let soften, about 2-3 minutes.
Don’t worry about being perfect, at this stage things don’t need to completely cook through. Throw the meat on top of the onions, and stir through. Let the meat cook for about 3 minutes, just to get brown.
Then, toss in your carrots, potatoes, and pour in the water, and stir throughout the pot.
Raise the temperature to high, and bring to a boil. Cover the pot, lower the heat to medium, and let simmer for about 10 minutes, or until you can easily pierce carrots and potato with a fork. If you get any weird foamy bits on top, skim them off with a spoon and discard, as best you can. The foam is just denatured proteins from the meat, and won’t hurt you, it’s just a bit unpleasant to look at and can make your curry go a funny color.
Then, break up the curry roux cubes and add to the pot.
Stir through, and let thicken over medium-high heat, about 5 minutes.
To Serve
Pull out your bento box, and spoon in some of the curry, making sure to get a good selection of potato, carrot, meat, and onion.
Gently lay down a bed of rice over the curry.
And, last but not least, force your roommate to dress up as Chiyo-chan to do a photoshoot with your finished surprise curry bento!
And now it’s done! Special thanks to Wendi, my most wondrous room mate 🙂 Hope you guys can all try it out, and I hope you like it! Curry is one of my favorite dishes, so I hope you love it too. 🙂 Have a great day!
