Japanese Duo and Basque Burnt Cheesecake

It’s been six seven months and I got bored so I thought I’d post a couple of pictures of things I made lately. I’ve made both dishes before and posted them on my LJ and my blog.

Japanese chicken curry using a boxed curry roux.

And some inarizushi (seasoned fried tofu pockets filled with sushi rice). One has pickled plum stirred into the rice and the other has green onion and rice seasoning in it.

PS: I also baked a Burnt Basque cheesecake a few days ago and am slowly making my way through it. This is a new dish in my cooking repertoire. I found the recipe here.

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Japanese Chicken Curry with Roux from Scratch

Chicken curry (kare) is quite popular in Japan and most households apparently purchase the ready made packages of roux instead of making it from scratch. Over the years, I’ve made Japanese curry several times, always using the boxed roux cubes. However, as I looked at the box of Glico Curry ($2.29 CDN) in my pantry recently, I had a though … how hard can it be to make my own?

So I gave it a try.

I used the recipe for roux found here and ended up with about 120 gm of roux. I was debating on whether to use all, half or one third of the roux for the small amount of chicken curry that I was going to make. In the end, I decided to use half, or 60 gm, of the roux I made and freeze the rest.

Japanese Curry Roux from Scratch

Japanese Chicken Curry

Japanese Chicken Curry – serves 3-4

<1/2 lb/200 gm chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
1 tbsp vegetable oil
3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces
1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped into roughly triangular pieces
1 medium onion, half finely diced and the other half sliced thinly
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 cups chicken stock
salt, to taste (start with 1/2 tsp)
1/8-1/4 tsp cayenne pepper *
1 tsp honey
1/4 cup/60 gm curry roux**
1/4 cup frozen peas
water, as needed

* Start with the smaller amount of cayenne pepper, the larger amount makes it HOT.
** The roux is made with unsalted butter so all the salt in the dish is added here.

In a medium sized saute pan, heat the oil over medium heat and add the finely diced onions. Saute the onions until they start getting golden brown around the edges. Turn up the heat to medium-high, add the chicken and saute until no longer pink and starting to get browned.

Add the minced garlic, carrots and the potatoes and saute for 3-5 min until the potatoes begin to get tender. Add the salt, sliced onions and chicken stock. When the stock comes to a boil, cover and turn down the heat to a simmer and cook for another 10-15 minutes until you can pass a fork through the carrots and potatoes and the meat is tender.

Break up the roux into small pieces and add to the stock, stirring to dissolve. (NOTE: If you didn’t add any cayenne pepper to the roux and decide you want it a bit spicy, add the lower amount of cayenne pepper and stir through.)

Add the honey and stir well to mix through. Taste for seasoning and add a bit more salt if needed. You may also add more cayenne pepper.

Add the frozen peas. The heat will be enough to thaw and warm them through.

Your curry will gradually thicken while cooking. If you decide it’s too thick, add water as needed to dilute. Remember if will thicken even more on sitting.

Serve chicken curry over rice or noodles.

Chicken Katsu Curry Donburi

Earlier in the week, I had butterflied a couple of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and turned them into chicken fingers along with the tenders from 6 breasts. Coated in  a simple home made version of ‘Shake’n’Bake’ using regular dried breadcrumbs and baked in the oven, they were delicious. But … I had a craving.

A craving for chicken katsu.

A thin cutlet of chicken breast, floured, egg washed and dipped in Panko. And FRIED!!

So that’s what I did late Friday evening with the 2 chicken cutlets that I had set aside. One was a bit too thick and uneven but I didn’t bother pounding it down so it would be even. Cause it was  late enough that I just didn’t care.

The next day, I served it in one of my sushi bowls over hot sushi rice. Even though the crust had lost a lot of its crunch, it was still good. And worth frying.

No Japanese beer but the Moroccan mint iced tea was lovely.

Chicken Katsu Curry Donburi – serves 1

1 serving of hot cooked sushi rice
1 serving of Japanese curry
1 chicken katsu, sliced on the diagonal in 1/2 inch strips
Tonkatsu sauce (Bulldog brand isn’t bad)
garnish with ~1 tbsp thinly sliced green onion

Chicken Katsu – serves 4

4 chicken cutlets, thinly sliced and pounded 1/4 inch thick
1 egg, beaten with 1 tbsp cold water
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup Panko bread crumbs
salt and pepper as needed
2-3 cups vegetable oil

Season the chicken cutlets with salt and pepper on each side

Place the flour, beaten egg and bread crumbs each in their own large and relatively flat bowls

Dip each cutlet first in the flour, shaking off the excess, and coating each side. Then dip each side of the cutlet in the beaten egg, letting the excess drip off. Finally, coat the egged cutlets in the Panko bread crumbs, pressing the Panko into the cutlet so it will stick.

In a large cast iron skillet add enough vegetable oil to a depth of 1/2-3/4 inch. Heat the oil to 350 deg. Fahrenheit (medium-high on an electric stove if you don’t have a deep frying thermometer). Add a couple of cutlets at a time and fry until they’re a golden brown colour (5-7 minutes), turn and repeat.

Drain on a cooling rack set over a plate with several layers of paper toweling to absorb the oil. Do not place the cutlets directly on the paper towels as the crust will get soggy and you want a nice crunchy crust.

Japanese Vegetable** Curry – serves 4

2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, cut into roughly 1/2 inch chunks
1-2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 carrot, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
2 cups water
pinch or two of coarse sea or kosher salt
1 package of curry paste (Glico brand is my favourite and the $1.99 it costs is worth it for the convenience)

** If you want a meat curry, cut chunks of chicken, pork or beef into bite sized pieces and brown in the oil before adding the onions. About half a pound of meat is plenty. For a tougher cut of meat, like the beef, you may want to simmer the meat for 10-20 minutes before adding the vegetables so they don’t get too mushy.

In a large saute pan, stir fry the onions over medium heat for 7-10 minutes until tender and getting browned. Add the garlic, salt, carrot and potato chunks and stir fry for another few minutes.

Add 2 cups of water (you may need more to just cover the vegetables) and bring the water to a boil. Cover with the lid and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook until the vegetables are fork tender, about 20 minutes.

Turn off the heat and take the saute pan off the burner. Break up the cubes of curry paste and stir into the vegetable mixture. The residual heat will help dissolve the cubes and thicken the mixture. When the cubes are completely dissolved, put the lid on and let the curry sit for about 10 minutes before serving.

Serve hot with rice, pasta or bread.