Japanese Curry Recipe

The way that I cook Japanese curry is rather basic. It involves Curry mixes which make it very easy! There are lots of different brands. Golden Curry is the most pervasive where I live, I can find it in our regular grocery stores like Kroger and Publix. My personal favorite is Vermont Curry. Who can resist apple and honey?? I generally purchase one pack of med. hot and one pack of hot. I mix them together so that it allows for the spice tolerance of the whole family. When I'm just making some for me I only use the hot :D

Since this is a dish that I make once a week, I like to play around with the basic recipe and add things to it. Some of these additives are liked by A-chan and some are not so I make a large batch by the basic recipe and then separate it to put the extra ingredients in. Sultanas and honey are the combination that she likes the best. Coffee and coconut milk are the ones I end up choosing the most often. For this batch I added chunks of apple and crushed pecans. (She was okay with the apple but loathes pecans.)

Basic recipe

Ingredients:

4 blocks of Curry mix (I use 2 hot and 2 med. hot)

1 onion

3 large carrots

3 Idaho potatoes, peeled or unpeeled

½ block of extra firm tofu

1 TB Sesame oil

1 TB Olive oil

1 TB butter

1. Squeeze liquid out of tofu. Cut into cubes.

2. Heat sesame oil in large sauté pan and cook tofu until golden brown.

3. Meanwhile chop the onion in large pieces and set aside.

4. When the tofu is done remove it from the pan and replace with the onion.

5. Chop the carrots and the potatoes.

6. Remove the onion from the pan.

7. Heat the olive oil and butter in the same pan. Add carrots and potatoes. Cook several minutes, stirring occasionally

8. Pour in enough water to cover the vegetables and simmer on med. Heat until the potatoes are fork tender. There should be a good amount of water left.

9. Add 2 blocks of curry mix to the veggies and water and stir rapidly until they dissolve, then add 2 more. Sometimes it is necessary to add more water to make enough curry sauce.

10. Once the curry blocks are dissolved, add in the tofu and onion. Stir and cook for a few more minutes. Serve.

I added the apple pieces about halfway through the carrot/potato simmer. The pecan pieces were added with the tofu and onions at the end so that they would still be a little crunchy.

I also add sriracha sauce on the top of my curry, yum!!