Homemade curry

Mmmm, curry chicken. It's one of my favorite eats and Curry House has a pretty good rendition of the curry I had all around Tokyo when we visited in 2002; I especially like it with the red pickles (Fukujin Zuke). If you've never had Japanese curry, it's nothing at all like Indian or Thai curry which tend to be runny or coconut based, instead having a thick consistency that goes well with rice.

I've known for a while that the box curry (usually House brand, but others are good too) is not all that healthy, with palm oil being a predominant ingredient. Although palm oil turns out not to be nearly as bad as previously thought, I would prefer not to add too much saturated fat to my diet. Thus it was with great interest that I came upon a couple of homemade Japanese-style curry recipes on the 'net. With the help of Google and our friend Jane (who helped with some of the poor English translation), I was able to create a very tasty curry without all that sat fat. It basically involves creating the roux from S&B curry powder, flour, and oil (I use olive oil because it's supposed to be the healthiest). The recipe is available (poor English and all) here; in case the link is broken, the recipe is mostly duplicated at the end of this post. I use boxed chicken stock (from Trader Joe's) instead of boullion cubes, which has way too much sodium and MSG.

Although there is a little bit more effort in creating the curry from scratch, the final product is very good, and rivals the stuff you'd get at Curry House or out of a box. Give it a try, you might be surprised!

Recipe (courtesy Mariko at jpn-miyabi.com. my comments in brackets):

Ingredients (serving for 4)
200g sliced pork loin, 1 teaspoon curry powder, 1+1/2 onion, 1 carrot,
1 laurel, 1 tbsp grated garlic, 10g grated ginger, 2 tbsp ketchup,
2 tbsp Worcester [sic] sauce, 1/2 tbsp sugar, 1/2 tbsp salt,
1 tbsp honey, 1 teaspoon instant coffee

3 cups rice (1cup = 180cc)

4 cup hot water, 2 soup stocks [2 boullion cubes]

4 tbsp vegetable oil, 8 tbsp flour, 2+1/2 tbsp curry powder

Preparing
1. Cut sliced pork into 2-3cm width and coat with curry powder [I use chicken, and don't bother to coat with powder, but do dust with baking soda which gets washed off to make the meat more tender].

2. Cut onion and carrot into bite-sized [pieces].

3. Heat vegetable oil on a pot, cook onion until became softly
and add honey.

4. Add soup, bring to boil up and turn down the heat .
Get rid of harshness.(A)

To add honey is familiar to well-cooked onion taste [i.e., honey adds to the traditional caramelized flavor].

How to cook curry roux

1. Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan, add flour slowly,
stir constantly until well blended.

2. Remove the pan from the heat and put it on a towel
to cool it down.

3. Add curry powder to the pan and mix well.(B)

4. Pour (A) in (B)slowly. (C)

5. Pour (C) into the pot, add garlic, laurel [bay leaf], ketchup,
Worcester sauce, sugar and salt.

6. Boil well for 30 minutes [I think simmer is what it meant].

7. Pour instant coffee [a teaspoon or so of instant powder].

Instant coffee makes more rich taste.

["Secret ingredients" which are supposedly added to curry, let me know if you try any (*):
- Consomme
- Ginger
- Chocolate
- Instant coffee
- Tomato ketchup
- Apple, mango, and other fruits
- Honey
- Mayonnaise
- Worcestershire sauce
- Soy sauce
- Milk
- Garlic
- Laurel leaf
- Yogurt
- Wine]

* of course, a number of these items are, in fact, in the recipe already