From the makers of Pocky, here's Curry!

Kare Raisu (Japanese curry rice) is bit of an anomaly to most people, at least it was to me when I first heard of it. However it's one of the most popular Yoshoku (Japanese interpretation of Western cuisine) dishes in Japan and has about a million different variations. Wait... I probably already talked about this in my previous post about microwave-ready Curry Rice.




The first time I made curry rice from "scratch" I used S&B Golden Curry sauce mix, which is probably the most popular if not simply the most widely available brand.

This is curry roux, which basically turns a pot of boiling vegetables and meat into curry

The only sucky thing about the Golden Curry roux, unlike the instant microwaveable version, is that it contains MSG. In fact, pretty much all of the curry mixes out there (Vermont, House, Java, etc) have MSG in them, which is why I lost interest in making it with one of them again. However when I was at Mitsuwa Market in NJ last weekend, I found one that was sans-MSG: Glico Curry. Some of you may be familiar with another Glico product...

The officially over-eaten food of American otaku

How to Prepare Japanese Curry Rice Using Instant Roux

The most common main ingredients for Kare Raisu are potatoes, carrots, onion and some kind of meat (beef, pork or chicken). Personally, I prefer the vegetarian option because it's easier and cheaper... and I don't eat a lot of meat in the first place. As I said before, there are too many variations of this dish to mention, but the basic idea is that every restaurant/family has their own special recipe. For the sake of simplicity, and following the directions on the box, I'm not going to add anything other than the three vegetables and the roux.

But before you start with the actual curry, don't forget the best part of the dish!

You're going to want to use short-grain/sticky/sushi rice for this dish, because it's Japanese and awesome. But seriously, sticky rice is the correct type to use because of it's volume and clumpy-ness which make it collect with the curry sauce better.

Also, make sure to wash the rice. I never used to do it even though I was told that you should with ANY type of rice, mainly because I didn't see the point. With sticky rice in particular though, getting rid of that starchy coating will help to minimize this weird translucent crusty shit that will accumulate after cooking, AND it makes it taste better.

See, look at that cloudy crap... eww

This will take awhile, maybe 10-15 rinse cycles, so be patient.

When the water runs clear, it's ready to cook

See, now the rice will be done by the time you're done screwing around with the curry!

Speaking of which, get your stuff together:

Portioning it always the part that I have a hard time with before hand, but the box (assuming it's in English) will tell you the exact amount of stuff you need. Generally though you need one package of curry roux (they also come in half-sizes as well), a large onion, 2-3 potatoes and a large carrot.

I like to chop up everything first, because multi-tasking is overrated. Basically, dice the onion and then chop the potato and carrot into bite-size pieces.

First step of actual cooking is to saute the onion in some oil until translucent and/or slightly brown.

Vegetable oil is fine, but I could see Canola being good, too

I didn't take a photo when it was completely cooked, but you get the idea

At that point, chuck in the carrot and potato and let it hang out for a minute or two.

Once you've had enough of thinking that it will actually cook like this, add enough water to cover everything.

Now boil and reduce to a simmer for 15-20 mins, or under fork-tender.

Good enough!

Now it's time for that magic curry roux. For a pot this big, you're probably going to use the entire package. Before you go ripping it open though, go ahead and break it up first; most roux bricks will be perforated and easy to break up.

It looks kinda gross, but don't worry... it'll look worse in a second!

Now you take the pot off of the heat and add the curry roux and stir until completely melted.

Once it's completely incorporated, put the lid back on and let it chill out for at least 10 minutes. Ideally though, you would let it rest over night in the fridge and then re-heat the next day. Apparently it's better that way because all the flavors have time to meld together and integrate; pasta salad and chili work the same way, too.

But after all that work, you're not going to wait any longer than 7 minutes, let alone over night... so go ahead and portion out a heaping side of your beautiful sticky rice...

... and then dump the curry sauce right next to it...

Itadakimasu!!!

And the verdict on the Glico Hot Curry?

It tastes good to me! Compared to the Golden Curry, there's definitely no gross after taste in your mouth later on. For this meal I bought my veggies from the Farmer's Market this morning too, the carrots really retained their own flavor, too. However maybe that would've changed with more cooking/letting it sit over night. Either way it was nice.

One thing I didn't really notice at all was the fruit flavor, particularly the banana:

Usually if fruit is added, it will be apple, so I was interested in what banana would do... oh well, didn't taste it.

But like I try to say, I don't really have a refined palate, especially not for kare raisu yet. For now though, I think Glico Curry is the cat's pajamas when it comes to these instant mixes, and I would recommend it (if you can find it).