One way to make Curry Rice

Posted by: Redhead on: September 30, 2015

• In: Cooking | food
• 18 Comments

A while back I got talking about my cookbook collection. The husband and I have been on an Asian food kick lately – Pakistani food, Thai Food, Malaysian curries, fancy Ramen, Chinese dumplings.  We’ve been exploring the joys of curries thanks to this cookbook:

and one of our favorites out of here is Japanese Curry Rice. I think I explained it to my parents as “imagine your favorite beef stew kicked up with curry spices and then served over rice. It’s not as spicy as it sounds”.  Well, I lied. it IS as spicy as it sounds. That’s what the rice is for.  Plain full-fat greek yogurt on the side is good for cooling your mouth down.

I called this blog post “One way to make Curry Rice” because I’m sure there are a million ways. This is our way,  slightly adapted from the Curry Cuisine recipe.

NOM NOM NOM

Ready for lots of badly lit photos of delicious food? Are you prepared to dirty every saucepan and measuring spoon in your kitchen? let’s go!

First things first, this curry has three components:  The curry roux, the stew, and the rice. The rice is pretty self explanatory, just make a pot of rice (not minute rice!!).   Also? My kitchen has  awful lighting, so while these photos might not look appetizing, the taste and smell was amazing.

Make the roux first. (yes, i realize i am using a French word for a Japanese dish. I’m over it)

You could take a shortcut and buy a box of Golden Curry Mix, which is brick of  dehydrated curry sauce that you just dissolve into your stew. We used it the first few times we made this dish.

But, that stuff was too salty for me, and honestly the flavor was just ok. We roux’d the day we used this stuff (get it?).  Making your own roux means you can spice it to your own tastes, which in our case means way more ginger and no turmeric. The roux is kinda fun to make, too.

Curry Roux

1 onion
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp Canola or Safflower oil (just don’t use olive oil. it’s too strongly flavored)
1 tbsp minced garlic
a shy tbsp minced ginger
1 tbsp curry powder*
4 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tbsp mango chutney
2 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp soy sauce
black pepper

* Are you one of those people who doesn’t like curry powder? I was too. turns out, I did’t like some of the spices used in standard curry powder (looking at you turmeric!). There are plenty of recipes online to make your own curry powder. Make your own, and leave out what you don’t like. This is what goes into our curry powder:

it’s like a mash-up of pumpkin pie and chili!

First step for the roux is getting your onions cooked down.  heat the oil and butter in a frying pan, and cook the onions over medium heat until they are browned and smell amazing, flipping and stirring them occasionally to prevent burning. Add more oil if the pan looks dry. it takes about a half hour, and when they are done, they’ll look like this:

Actually, these have another 10 minutes or so to go.

While they onions are doing their yummy thing, measure out everything else you’ll need to finish the roux. The onions might take forever, but the last few minutes of making this is a mad dash to mix and stir quick enough.

– if making your own curry powder, do so now.
– combine the liquid ingredients of ketchup, soy sauce, and chutney. If you’ve got some sake in the fridge, go ahead and put a small splash in.
– measure out 4 tbsp of flour, put in some ground black pepper.

liquid sauce and flour, ready to go!

When the onions are done, stir in the minced garlic, ginger and curry powder. Keep stirring, and keep frying for a few more minutes. sprinkle in the flour, and stir all over the place until the flour is mixed in and all the oil is absorbed. Seriously, don’t stop stirring. if your flour burns, um, that’s really bad (not CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN bad, but still, bad). Dump in the ketchup mixture, and you guessed it, keep stirring.

“don’t stop stirring” is the name of my next cover band.

if you’ve done everything right (which you have), you’ll end up with a thick, brownish-reddish paste that rolls itself, Katamari-like up as your roll it around the edge of the pan with a spatula.

this smells better than it looks, i swear.

You’ve just made Curry Roux! Blop it into a heat proof saucepan and set it aside. you can ignore it for a while.

Now, let’s make the stew and the rice.

You’ll need
1 1/2 cups uncooked rice (short grain is traditional)

approx 1 lb stewing beef, cut into bit sized chunks.
oil
butter
1 onion – chunked
2 potatoes – cut into small chunks
4 carrots – cut into small chunks
1 leek – white & green parts only, cut into chunks
1 bay leaf
3 cups beef stock – the stuff in a jar or can is just fine.

You’ll also need: the frying pan you made the roux in, and a big huge dutch oven or whatever big pot you usually make stove top stew or chilis in.

Start the rice going on a back burner. It’ll be done before everything else is, which is fine. Just turn the heat off, put the lid tightly onto the pot, and let your rice happily steam and chillax. (or whatever the hot version of chilling out is)

Cut up your meat and veggies, have everything ready to go before you start cooking. Brown the beef in the frying pan in about 1 tbsp oil + 1 tbsp butter.

we didn’t even wash the pan out. because what, the beef is going to get curry roux flavoring on it? oh no!

In the large pot, start softening the onions in a little bit of oil. I don’t have a picture of this, because I was bad and didn’t have my veggies prepped. While hubby was browning beef, and peeling carrots, I was madly chopping potatoes, leeks and those carrots.

When the beef is browned, dump it into the big pot with the onions. add in all your chopped veggies, the broth, and the bay leaf. We may have added a splash of sake wine.

dinner in t-minus 30-ish minutes!

Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 25-30 minutes, or until the beef is tender and the veggies are cooked through. See how big my carrot chunks are? you don’t want your that big. oops.

Remember that pot where you put the curry roux? you need it now. After the stew is done cooking, put the stew on simmer and ladle out 2 cups of liquid from the stew pot. Mix it into the roux until the roux dissolves.

This is why you add the liquid to the roux. We had our roux in a bowl, and blopped the roux into the boiling hot stew liquid, which splattered everywhere. Awesome. #not

 

Hey, more stirring! who would have thought?

Stir your roux/liquid mix back into your stew pot. add in some more black pepper while you’re standing there. Bring the stew back to the boil, it will thicken slightly.

Guess what? You’re done! You’ve worked hard! you chopped a lot of stuff up, and stirred your little heart out! Let’s enjoy some Curry Rice!

NOM NOM NOM

I hope it tastes good, because this makes 6-8 servings.

Tags: cooking, curry, food, Japanese