Curry is usually associated with Indian cuisine. HG never thought about it in connection with Japan. Yet, curry is a staple Japanese dish. A true comfort dish most often served at home (of course there are plenty of great curry shops in Japan — like ramen, curry is one of the basics of Japan’s superior fast-food culture).
HG relishes the chicken curry prepared by Daughter In Law Exquisite Maiko. Savory. Comforting. Hearty. EM’s Japanese version isn’t burn-your-mouth stuff. If you want some vindaloo heat just add cayenne pepper to taste.
Here’s how EM does it (proportions are vague — you’ll have to figure it out by the trial and error method). EM puts two big onions and a big carrot into a food processor and chops it fine. This gets a long, long saute in butter and garlic. Then mushrooms, red peppers, zucchini, carrots, onions, potatoes (any anything else that’s in the vegetable bin) are chopped coarsely. All of this (plus a goodly amount of chicken thighs) are added to the butter and garlic semi-puree. It’s all doused with chicken broth and simmered for an hour.
After that cooking period, EM adds a package of Japanese curry sauce (S&B Golden Curry Sauce is a good brand and you can find it at Whole Foods or at any reasonable Asian market) and all is simmered for an additional 15 minutes. The curry mix is more like a roux so make sure that it breaks apart. At the very end EM adds some soy sauce and Japanese Bulldog Sauce (similar to Chinese hoisin) is stirred in. Served with white rice, chopped scallions and (HG’s choice) Indian mango pickles. Down home delight.
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