So let's get to the curry! So I've always been fascinated with Japanese curry rice, right? I've made a recipe for it like two years ago and it's quite tasty, but something I've never been able to pull off as an element of curry rice is the colour.
Traditional curry rice has a rich reddish brown colour. In a restaurant or in an anime, that's how I've always seen it.
I realized that you can't really obtain this colour with just the curry block. Whenever I made my curry it had an almost dull gold colour, so I tried adjusting and adding drops of soy sauce to obtain the reddish brown.
Anyway, I'm no genius, but the solution for this are caramelized onions. I've looked it up and read that that's how you make the killer Japanese curry: put lots of sweet, mild caramel onions. It builds up the curry's character and just gives me the colour I've been looking for!
So I'll just write down how I did it. It's relatively simple, but it does take up some time. The recipe also has easier clean-up than the prior one.
I used stewing beef cubes (not necessary to cut), about half a kilo, 4 whole onions, 2 medium potatoes, 3 small carrots, 6 mushrooms, a bit of garlic, bit of ginger, hint of soy sauce, 2 pieces off the curry roux block, and water and oil.
This is a recipe where you have to be well prepared...so you need to:
- Have the onions sliced thinly, the potatoes and carrots cut roughly, garlic minced and mushrooms quartered.
- In a pot or a pan, caramelize your thinly sliced onions. I followed this 15-minute recipe of it where you sautee the onions in butter on high heat and just add a couple spoons of water every time it builds up a fond. When you take it out you should have about 1 and 1/2 cup of the good, caramelized stuff.
- Wash and pat the beef dry and season it with salt and pepper. Brown in the same pot/pan as the onions. They don't need to be cooked thoroughly just yet so take em out when the sides have browned.
Now we make the curry!
- In medium-high heat, sauteé the garlic and then add in the mushrooms. Stir-fry this for a few minutes.
- Then toss in the potatoes and carrots. Toss to coat in the oil and brown it just a little bit.
- After, pour in water, more than 2 cups, cover the lid and simmer for 20 minutes.
- When 20 minutes have passed, check the vegetable's softness. Put the beef, caramelized onions and some grated ginger. Simmer for 15 minutes then turn down the heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 more minutes.
- Roughly chop the curry block for easier distribution. Lower the heat to a minimum and mix the curry roux in. Adjust to desired consistency.
-Done.
So follow this more as a guideline. Adjust the water amount during the simmering I'd you'd like. Use the soy sauce for adjusting taste as well.
Because of the onion's and potatoes' starches you wouldn't need a lot of roux to bind up the consistency. The finished result should have melt in your mouth vegetables, tender beef and a sauce with integrity.
I'd like to think that if I went to a restaurant in Japan that serves curry rice that this is how it would taste like. Tasty and tender components encased in a sauce (perfect consistency) that's sweet and mild but contains a boldness, with a kiss of spice at the end of each bite.
