Japanese curry

A brown roux cooked twenty minutes and stirred in off the heat, mild and thick and faintly sweet.

Beef. Not vegetarian — contains beef, beef stock.

Ingredients

the roux

• 60 g butter
• 60 g plain flour
• 3 tablespoons curry powder
• 1 teaspoon garam masala

the stew

• 700 g beef chuck, in 4 cm cubes
• 2 onions, thinly sliced
• 3 potatoes, in chunks
• 2 carrots, in chunks
• 1 apple, grated
• 1 tablespoon tomato purée
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1.2 litres beef stock
• 2 tablespoons oil

Method

1. THE ROUX IS COOKED TWENTY MINUTES AND GOES IN OFF THE HEAT. Butter and flour over a LOW heat, stirred constantly, until it is the colour of peanut butter -- 15 to 20 minutes, far longer than a white sauce. That browning is the whole flavour. The spices go in for the last minute only, because they burn.
2. Added to a boiling pot it seizes into lumps. Heat off, a ladle of hot stock beaten into the roux first, then that mixture stirred back in.
3. BROWN THE ONIONS PROPERLY -- 20 minutes over a medium-low heat until genuinely golden and sweet, not just softened. With almost no chilli in this dish, the onion is most of where the depth comes from.
4. Grated apple goes in with them. It is not a curiosity: it is the faint sweetness the dish is built on.
5. Brown the beef in two batches and lift it out.
6. Beef back in with the stock, tomato purée and soy. Simmer covered 1 hour 30 until the beef gives.
7. Potato and carrot in for the last 25 minutes.
8. HEAT OFF, roux in as described, then back on a low heat for 5 minutes, stirring, while it thickens.
9. IT SHOULD BE THICK ENOUGH TO HOLD A LINE on the plate against the rice. A curry that runs across the plate has not had enough roux or enough time.
10. Better the next day. Make it ahead if you can.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes