Japanese Curry - a quick and easy meal

 

For five months, I was fortunate to have my MIL around to cook meals for myself and my family while she was looking after the two kids. I would come home from work and dinner would be ready on the table. After dinner, she would insist that I play with the kids while she did the dishes. After all, I had been away from the kids, working hard. She wanted me to have some downtime. Despite my MIL's annoying habits quirks, I do admit that I was spoiled during the time she was with us. So when she left to go back to Korea, the duties of housewifery fell back to me. Luckily, after working for most of my children's lives, I was ready to stop working and experience life as a SAHM.

After I quit my job, I went a little crazy with the domestic duties of a SAHM. I cooked tons of meals, cleaned every corner of my house, rearranged the pantry, dusted the pictures, etc. However, now that I am in the third trimester of my pregnancy, I am starting to feel the adverse effects of coming out of the gates running. The pantry has gone back to its usual disarray, sometimes the toys don't get put back in the correct place and I am now too tired to cook dinner most nights.

Thank goodness for the ease of Korean food. My MIL used to always say that Koreans are fine as long as they have rice and kimchi. Now that she is gone and no longer stinking up my kitchen with a myriad of odd smells and flavors, I have to agree. It is a good idea to always have the basics around, especially when you have 2 hungry, whiny children waiting at the table, spoons and chopsticks in hand. A few weeks ago, my parents came and whipped up about 5 types of banchan, or side dishes, for me to keep in my refridgerator in the garage. They also bought me a jar of kimchi, some toasted seaweed and a bag of bean sprouts. I was able to make most of the food last for quite a while and it was such a breeze to just pull out a few premade dishes for dinner rather than dirty every pot and pan trying to make one meal.

One particular favorite quick meal of mine is the instant Japanese curry they sell at asian markets. I can even find some brands in some of the nicer local grocery store. My favorite brand is S&B Curry Mix. It's a package of curry "blocks" that dissolve in a boiling pot of veggies and meat. It only needs to simmer for about 5 minutes and then it's ready to eat served over steaming hot white rice. I like to add carrots, potatoes and stew meat to mine but I've also made it with only vegetables as well as with chicken and shrimp. It's best served with ripe kimchi. I drool just thinking about it. I prefer the HOT version as do my children but my husband only likes the medium spice level. Wimp.

I have a feeling I'll be whipping up a few pots of this curry as my due date looms near. I know it's hot outside and curry isn't necessarily a summertime favorite, but it's an easy dish to prepare and store in the fridge for leftovers.

- Linda

Comments

[Rachel]

How sweet that your MIL took care of you that way, although I'm sure it was also stressful to have her around all the time. I agree that if you have the banchan on hand, it makes meal prep a lot easier. I need to get back into making banchan on Sundays.

My husband *loves* Japanese curry.

[Linda]

Rachel, have you ever been to the Curry House in Japan Town in LA? I've been there once and it was so delicious.

[Swan]

There's always a box of medium hot in my cupboard. We have curry rice every New Year's Eve. For more ease, try it in a crock pot when you're using tougher cuts of meat(I just chop the veggies much bigger so they don't disappear). Also try some Japanese pickles with this. I think it's lotus root but it's chopped and red colored. Delish with curry, but takuan ain't too shabby either...

Or add sliced tonkatsu to make katsu curry, or thin out the sauce with a bit of water or stock and add cooked udon noodles - oh man, I'm gettin' hungry!

[Carolie]

Oooo! We have that brand and similar packets here in Japan. I can read the kanji for the various spice levels, but have no clue how much water to use, as all the packets are in Japanese and my reading isn't anywhere near that good yet. Can you please help...how much water should I use per block?

Thanks so much!

[BooBoo]

This is my go-to-meal when I am feeling incredibly lazy and cannot come up with more creative meals. Good thing my boyfriend enjoys eating this more than I do! We prefer to use diced steak, potatoes, carrots, potatoes, onions and zucchini - yum.

[Curry]

Japanese curry blocks contain excessive fat and MSG. That is why it tastes so good (and why most people are addicted to it). You may want to consider using the Korean Otoogi brand which contain less fat & MSG (and don't taste as good) if you want to cut down on fat & MSG.

[Anyabeth]

Oh I wondered if you would feel the pain of her leaving. You really need her to live around the corner where she can come and make dinner and then sweep out after doing the dishes like magic.

[Mary]

Yeah, I was shocked at the amoung of MSG in the curry but I still LOVE that brand and it's the only one I use.

Amount of water.. well, I usually cook the ENTIRE thing (8 cubes) and This makes one large pot. If I had to guess, I'd say maybe 2 cups of water per cube? not sure. And another tip, I always dissolve the cubes in HOT water and make it into a paste before dumping it in with the water+veggies/meat... because cube takes a while to dissolve and if you have a thick sauce (which is what I prefer) it might take even longer. Not good to bite into an undissolved chunk (very salty).

[Korean Cuisine]

I love Golden Curry too. We always have a box in our cupboard. Banchans are tedious to make sometimes, but once you have a few in the fridge it makes meal preparation so easy.

[Linda]

For the entire package, the back of the box calls for about 6 cups of water. I usually end up adding a tad bit more because it does tend to get super thick.

I'm sure there is a ton of msg but you can't help deny the deliciousness of msg once in a while. heh

[Carol]

Hungry. Must. Go. Mitsuwa. Food Court. Now.

[Angie in Texas]

haha, i JUST bought a few boxes (mild for the kids, medium hot for me and HSBF). =D

this, too, is a go-to meal for me. whatever's in the fridge gets chopped up and dumped into the curry. (or if i'm feeling good about it, carrots, onions, potatoes and chicken . . .) otherwise whatever's available!

[Karen]

I just made it from scratch the other day! No more of the S&B stuff -- the oils/fats they use probably aren't that good for you.

My recipe (feel free to modify it as it's not anything special to me):

Stir-fry some chopped meat and onions in a saucepan. Once the meat is almost cooked, add curry powder and salt. Mix well until the meat and onions are well coated. Set aside in a bowl.

Make a roux of flour and olive oil (heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in the saucepan, add an equal amount of flour, and whisk the two together over a medium-low flame for about 5 minutes). Add liquid (canned chicken stock, water, anchovy water, whatever) slowly while whisking until you get to the desired "curry" consistency.

Add your choice of chopped vegetables (or frozen vegetables if you're me), let it cook in the sauce.

Add back the meat and onions. Season with more curry powder, salt, and pepper.

I'm sure somebody out there has a better "from scratch" ka-rae rice recipe... this is just what I came up with. :-)

[Swan]

I forgot to add that S&B has there own curry powder if ya don't want to use the bricks. I like to add a generous dash to ketchup to jazz up french fries.

[Jae Ran]

I've seen this so many times at the Korean grocers but never bought it. I'm convinced now to get some next time and try it out!

[cindy]

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this stuff. Same brand, and I like the HOT too! Reminds me of my childhood. It was also one of my absolute favorite meals during my pregnancy. I can't believe I never even thought of the MSG - YIKES!

[Carolie]

Thank you so much, Mary!!

[The Wrong MJ]

Lol, my KA DH is also super loyal to that brand of curry bricks. I was brought up to make curry with the powder and then I would thicken the sauce with a cornstarch slurry. My DH would whine and complain that it just didn't taste right. I guess he missed the lard and msg in the brick curry. To ensure that I will no longer use plain old curry powder, he bought about six boxes of the curry bricks, so I don't think I will ever run out of that stuff!