Curry (Japanese カ レ ー, カ レ ー ラ イ ス Kare, Kare Rice) Is a popular Japanese dish based on curry sauce, used as a seasoning for a high-carbohydrate main dish, usually boiled rice, but also used with bread (in particular, as a filling for pies) or noodles. Having come to Japanese cuisine at the end of the 19th century through Great Britain (why, in fact, it is considered in Japan to be a dish of European rather than Asian cuisine), by the end of the 20th century curry gained such popularity that it is now considered a national dish of Japan.
Chicken katsu curry (recipe with photo) | Japanese food
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Chikinkatsu Kare, or Chicken Katsu Curry , - a dish of modern Japanese cuisine, a symbiosis of dishes that came to Japanese national cuisine from European. Dishes of Western origin in Japanese cuisine are called "yoshoku", or Western cuisine (Japanese よ う し ょ く, rH. Yoshoku).
Japanese kare or rice curry is one of the favorite national dishes of Japanese cuisine. Although it got into Japanese cuisine from the British. Despite the originality, originality, beauty and a special Asian style, in Japanese cuisine there are many dishes that have become popular and loved, which got into it from other cuisines, including European and American. Curry is most often served with rice or udon noodles, or in the form of pies stuffed with curry. Japanese curry has two interesting features. Firstly, the Japanese cook curries almost always without coconut milk. And, secondly, it is salted with either Tsuyu (Mentsuyu) noodle sauce, which is prepared on the basis of Dasha’s fish broth and soy sauce, or simply with Dasha’s fish broth. Thanks to these components, Japanese cuisine and curry gets a different taste. Curry appeared in Japanese cuisine at the end of the 19th century, at the same time potatoes also fell into the recipe, the reason for this was the lack of rice in those days. The peak of popularity of this dish occurred in the 60s of the twentieth century. Curry is so popular in Japanese cuisine that it even enters the Japanese Naval Self-Defense Forces menu, and what's more, most naval vessels have their own curry recipe.
Pork cutlet Tonkatsu is a popular dish of Japanese national cuisine, a dish of the same European origin. The word "Tonkatsu" is translated from Japanese as "pork cutlet." This dish was invented at the end of the 19th century and in 1899 was offered to visitors of the Rengatei Western Restaurant (Japanese я 瓦 亭, rH. Rengatei) in the Ginza (Tokyo) quarter. And the dish got its name “Tonkatsu” in 1930. The fried meat is cut into strips so that it can be taken with chopsticks, and served with a garnish of shredded cabbage and miso soup (as an option, with boiled rice). Sliced pork with sauce made from applesauce and Worcester sauce (Worcester). This Japanese-modified version of the famous Worcester (Worcester) sauce is called Tonkatsu sauce. In Japan, there is even a festival of Tonkatsu, or Tonkatsu No Hi (п ン カ ツ の 日, rH. Tonkatsu no hi), which is celebrated on October 1. Chikinkatsu chicken cutlet is the closest relative of the famous Japanese dish Tonkatsu. Only they cook it not from pork, but from chicken (breast or thighs). Since the chicken Katsu recipe is derived from Tonkatsu, the recipe, although it differs, is not significant. Serve chicken Katsu, like Tonkatsu, most often with finely chopped white cabbage or seasonal vegetables.
What is Chikinkatsu curry? As the name suggests, this is a chicken cutlet (schnitzel) with curry sauce. Yes that's right. Curious is the story of its occurrence. It happened in 1948 in Tokyo, in the Ginza quarter, in which, incidentally, there are many Western restaurants, one of them invented the Tonkatsu cutlet. In 1947, another western restaurant, Grill Swiss (Jap. グ リ ス イ ス, rH. Gurirusuisu), was opened in the Ginza quarter, and one Japanese named Shigeru Chiba (Jap. 千 葉茂, rH. Chiba Shigeru) entered the restaurant. . This man was famous for playing excellent Japanese baseball (by the way, in 1980 he was elected to the Japanese baseball hall of fame). And once Shigeru Chiba, once again going to have a bite to eat, says to the waiter - why not serve curry with rice and chicken katsu on the same plate? Well, it’s inconvenient to eat from two plates. So a new dish appeared, and they called it Chikinkatsu Kare. The restaurant still exists, Chikinkatsu Kare is still on its menu, and there is one serving ¥ 870 (about 450 r).
We offer lovers of Japanese cuisine to cook this popular, tasty and hearty dish at home. There is nothing complicated in its preparation.
INGREDIENTS (4 servings):
for curry sauce:
Japanese curry - 4 dice,
onions - 1 pc. large (or 2 medium),
potatoes - 1 pc. (large)
carrots - 1 pc. (average)
water - 800 ml.
for chicken katsu:
chicken breasts (filet without skin and bones) - 2 pcs. (approximately 450 g)
sake (or Shaoxing rice wine) - 1 tablespoon,
ground white (or black) pepper - 1 tsp,
salt - 1 tsp,
wheat flour - 4 tbsp.,
breadcrumbs - 8-10 tablespoons,
vegetable oil (for deep fat) - 200-300 ml,
chicken egg - 1 pc.,
water - 1 tbsp
for serving:
boiled white rice - 400 g,
Tonkatsu sauce - 5-6 tablespoons (or to taste)
pickled vegetables (pickled ginger and pickled daikon Takuan) - to taste,
ramen eggs - 4 pcs.
The dish is simple, but it will cause trouble because it is multicomponent. For fast food, it’s the very thing that they cook such food in a conveyor way. But at home you can cook it without any problems.
Actually, what is this hearty Japanese dish? A slice of chicken katsu (chicken breast breaded in breadcrumbs and deep-fried until cooked), boiled rice, ramen eggs, pickled vegetables and curry with vegetables.
Let's start with ramen eggs. We have already talked about how to cook this dish. These are soft-boiled chicken eggs, then peeled and pickled in a mixture of sauces and seasonings for a day. A very interesting combination of still liquid yolk with boiled protein, which absorbed the tastes of the marinade and gives the appetizer a rich range of flavors - slightly sweet, moderately salty, with a light taste of Dasha’s broth. Ramen eggs are most often used as an addition to dishes from Ramen noodles, for which, in fact, these eggs got their name. You need to cook such eggs in advance, per day.
With pickled vegetables, too, everything is clear - traditionally it is pickled ginger and pickled daikon - Takuan (sold either in whole form, or in the form of slices, has a bright yellow color). The main role of these pickled vegetables is to clean the taste buds.
With boiled rice, everything is also simple, we somehow told how to cook friable white rice.
It remains to cook chicken katsu and make curry in Japanese.
Let's start with chicken katsu.
Rinse the chicken fillet and pat it dry with a paper towel.
Cut the chicken into slices with diagonal slices, at an angle of approximately 45 ° relative to the cutting board. This slicing method in Japan is called Sogigiri (そ ぎ 切 り, rH. Sogigiri). There is nothing special about this, it just increases the cut area, which allows you to quickly prepare slices of products. Or you can just cut each chicken breast lengthwise into two parts. Salt and pepper sliced chicken on both sides and put in a container of suitable volume. Pour sake or Shaoxing wine, cover with cling film and put marinating in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.
In a bowl, beat the egg with 1 tbsp. water, like an omelet.
Pour wheat flour into one dry plate, and breadcrumbs into the second. Roll chicken slices in wheat flour, shaking off excess. Then dip in the egg mass.
Then roll in breadcrumbs and put the prepared chicken katsu on a cutting board. It will be nice if, after you roll the chicken slices in breadcrumbs, you put a cutting board on which breaded slices lie in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.
While chicken katsu "sit" in the refrigerator, you can do curry sauce.
We assume that you have already prepared Japanese curry cubes in advance (see the recipe here) or bought ready-made ones. Peel the onion, wash and peel the potatoes and carrots.
Cut the onion, potato and carrot into cubes or slices, not so large, but not finely.
Take a pot that is suitable in volume, pour water into it, transfer chopped onions, carrots and potatoes to the pan. Put water on the fire and bring the liquid to a boil, reduce the heat to small and cook the vegetables for about 20 minutes or until softened.
While vegetables are boiled, you can boil rice and go to frying chicken katsu.
Put a wok on the fire, pour vegetable oil into it to fry chicken and heat it to 160-170 ° C, or use a deep fryer (I prefer a deep fryer, at least because of the thermostat for heating the oil). In batches, fry the chicken katsu until golden brown, something about 5-6 minutes, turning them from time to time. But this is again in place (this is the oil temperature and the thickness of the chicken katsu), it is not worth keeping their indicated time in hot oil, seeing that the katsu is already being burnt.
Remove the prepared katsu from the deep fat and allow the oil to drain. You can, of course, use a paper towel for this, but most likely, the underside of the katsu will remain wet, so it’s better to use a microwave or air grill, placing a paper towel under it. Put katsu aside for now.
Remove the pan from the heat, add 4-5 cubes of curry sauce to it. Return the pan to the fire, increase the heat to medium, bring the liquid to a boil, stirring the contents so that the curry cubes dissolve in the liquid, then reduce the heat to a minimum and leave to simmer for another 10 minutes, stirring the sauce from time to time. If necessary, add hot water (for example, from a teapot) to achieve the desired density of the sauce (someone likes a little thicker, someone is thinner) and add to taste. Curry is ready in Japanese. Remove the saucepan from the heat.
By this time, and rice should come.
Well, all the ingredients of the dish are ready, you can start serving. Chicken katsu have already managed to cool somewhat and “part” with excess oil. Now they need to be cut into strips with a width of about 1.5 cm. Put a portion of boiled rice on a serving plate, put chicken katsu cut into strips next to it and pour it with Tonkatsu sauce. Spread a portion of stewed vegetables next to them and pour them with curry sauce. You can sprinkle the finished dish in a plate with green onion rings (optional). The dish serves pickled vegetables (pickled red ginger, one that usually complements sushi, and pickled daikon Takuan). In addition, a ramen egg cut in half is served to the dish. Now you can offer a plate to the table.
Best regards, Sergey Zverev.
View all recipes for the Japanese Cuisine section
Step by step recipe
We boil rice, to simplify the cooking process and observe portions, I use rice in bags and follow the cooking instructions.
Prepare vegetables for frying:
Finely chop onion, carrot, eggplant.
For this dish, I decided to cut the pulp into small pieces so that the sauce turned out to be more homogeneous and it took less time to cook.
Fry the carrots by adding a teaspoon of sugar!
When the gold appears, add onion / ginger, a teaspoon of tereyaki sauce and soy. Add the small eggplant cubes and fry for a total of 5 minutes, after which we add water, but do not fill + add spices and close the lid.
We make pork chops (sprinkle with salt and pepper before beating, so that the spices penetrate even deeper!)
Fry for 3-4 minutes on each side and then fill with water, reducing heat to a minimum,
Close the lid and simmer for 20 minutes topping up the water.
Note
In the original menu, Tankatsu (pork is breaded and not stewed), there is also no eggplant (but I felt sorry for my eggplant, which was served, and at the same time I wanted to make curry even more spicy).
Thank you all for your attention and bon appetit to you and your family!
Ingredients
Vegetable oil - 1-2 tbsp.
Onions - 1 pc.
Medium-sized carrots - 1 pc.
Garlic - 2-3 cloves
Hot peppers - 0.25-0.5 pcs.
Ginger root - 5 cm
Wheat flour - 1 tbsp
Curry Seasoning - 2 tsp
Ground ginger to taste
Water or broth - 350-400 ml
Soy sauce - 1-2 tbsp.
Bay leaf - 1 pc.
Rice - 200 g (to taste)
Optional / optional:
Curry paste - 1 tsp
- 215 kcal
- 25 minutes
- 25 minutes
Cooking
Curry first appeared in Japan during the Meiji era (1868–1912), through British cuisine. At that time, India was under the administration of the British Empire, and a version of the Indian dish adapted to European tastes was widely distributed on Royal Navy ships as inexpensive and satisfying food for sailors. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, after the conclusion of the Japan-British Union, the Japanese government ordered many warships in the UK, such as the battle cruiser Congo, and sent them to Britain to train their own sailors, who brought home a popular British dish, which has become, in the form of hearty gravy to traditional white rice, the basis of a naval diet. After the end of World War II, demobilized sailors, accustomed to ship food, distributed the dish among the civilian population.
Cooking
The main component of Japanese curry is a thick spicy sauce of vegetables and, as a rule, meat, mainly beef, pork or chicken, although vegetarian types of curry are also found. Unlike Indian curry, the Japanese version is usually less spicy, but for lovers of spiciness there are sets of spices that are not inferior to the spiciness of the Indian original. There are two more critical differences between the Japanese curry and the Indian version: firstly, if most Indian curries are considered the main course - a stew or stew that is eaten with bread (naan) or its many substitutes in Indian cuisine - dosa pancakes, roti cakes, steam go with dumplings, etc., then in Japanese cuisine, curry is a seasoning that shades the main course - traditionally, boiled rice. Secondly, if in India curry spices are usually used fresh and prepared immediately before cooking, in Japan, cooks usually use ready-made and commercially widespread sets of spices or semi-prepared sauce products at once (curry powder and so-called curry-ru) .
To prepare curry sauce, its main components - meat, and then solid vegetables (onions, carrots, celery) - are slightly fried, usually in vegetable oil, until a golden hue appears, after which they are poured with boiling water or broth, seasoned with potatoes (American Agronomist William Clark, who worked at the end of the 19th century at the Hokkaido Agricultural College, proposed this supplement to increase the calorie content of curry due to the lack of rice that existed in those years) and are stewed until ready. After this, the resulting stew is thickened with spicy ru made from butter, flour and curry powder, and most home cooks use ready-made sauce concentrates that are widely available for sale, while professional cooks prefer to cook it themselves. A characteristic feature of many Japanese curry recipes is the addition of stewed apples.
Curry is served in restaurants, sold in stores as a semi-finished or bento. Sometimes ice cream or kakigori (crushed ice dessert) is also poured with Japanese curry.
