Help me make my first Japanese curry dish.

[babaliaris]

I've been all over the internet lately watching Japanese curry videos and recipes and every single one of them is different. So I'm overwhelmed. I guess curry is a creative dish that you build upon it. I would like to discuss the basics of a curry dish as well as the technical stuff of cooking each ingredient. Also, we need to take into account that I live in Greece, so no fancy Asian ingredients. I can definitely find soy sauce, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, curry powder. Let's start.

Dish type:
From what I understand, curry is a stew dish. Here in Greece, we have a lot of traditional stew dishes like bean-soup-fasolada, green-beans-fasolakia, Greek lentil soup, etc that are stews dishes that can be either soups or not (allowing water to vaporize) depending on your taste. So the process of cooking curry must be similar.

Basic Traditional Ingredients:
From searching the internet I found that the basic ingredients are: onions, carrots, potatoes, and beef (and curry roux which I'm never going to find in Greece).

Seasoning:
Ginger, garlic, and for saltiness I'm not sure... Do they use soy sauce or salt?

Sauce:
Now this is the tricky part that most people do differently. Some use tomatoes, others might use grinded vegetables like pumpkins and some make the sauce in a similar process like pastitsio besamel (butter, maybe milk, curry powder, and flour or cornflour to bind it).

I would like to make a curry dish that has a thick sauce so the sauce that uses butter and cornflour seems the best match. Can you guys help me with some recipes?

The following looks a lot like the one that I'm trying to make, but I can't find any recipes that do not involve curry roux since I can't find that in Greece.

Also, the following youtuber seems to have the best recipe for making curry from scratch, but he uses some spices that I don't even know and probably won't find in a Greek store. Also, I would like to avoid making the curry roux separately and if it is possible make it directly into the stew.

If we can keep it as traditional as possible that would be nice. Maybe some of you are Japanese and can share your mom's recipe :P (As long as I can find the ingredients :P)

 

[CStanford]

Good Lord if I lived in Greece I wouldn't stop cooking the food Greece is famous for.

Japanese curry? Hah! Not a chance...

 

[Badjak]

Japan is not the first country I would be looking at to make curry.
If it's your first ever curry, I would look at India. From there: SE Asia or Britain.
Japanese curries are very much based on Indian/Pakistani/Bangladesh curries, adjusted to their preferences

 

[Aunt Bea]

I’m a big fan of Japanese curry but I have to admit that I use Golden Curry roux cubes.

 

[babaliaris]

Good Lord if I lived in Greece I wouldn't stop cooking the food Greece is famous for.

Japanese curry? Hah! Not a chance...

Well, I got bored of Greek food, I eat it all my life. I want to learn new stuff!

Japan is not the first country I would be looking at to make curry.
If it's your first ever curry, I would look at India. From there: SE Asia or Britain.
Japanese curries are very much based on Indian/Pakistani/Bangladesh curries, adjusted to their preferences

I didn't know that! There is a very popular chef here in Greece that makes YouTube videos and sometimes he makes foreign foods adjusted with ingredients that you can find in a Greek grocery shop. Asian foods starts becoming popular here in Greece, so more and more ingredients can be found and if not he usually finds a replacement.

Can you tell me about the following chicken recipe? Should I try this one?

 

[CStanford]

Cuisines evolve locally and nationally. Cook what you have, and in Greece and the Mediterranean that's a whole lot. You could spend three lifetimes exploring Greek cuisine and not exhaust it. Why delve into Japanese curries? It's a needless diversion.

What you're doing is the equivalent of living in France and wanting to become an expert on Chilean wine. Being different for different's sake.

 

[GotGarlic]

Cuisines evolve locally and nationally. Cook what you have, and in Greece and the Mediterranean that's a whole lot. You could spend three lifetimes exploring Greek cuisine and not exhaust it. Why delve into Japanese curries? It's a needless diversion.

Seriously, why not? Someone wants to explore a cuisine that's different from their own - there's nothing wrong with that. Lots of us here do that. I really love Mediterranean food, from Italy to Turkey, including North Africa, but that doesn't stop me from making Asian, Mexican and other foods, too.

 

[CStanford]

Seriously, why not? Someone wants to explore a cuisine that's different from their own - there's nothing wrong with that. Lots of us here do that. I really love Mediterranean food, from Italy to Turkey, including North Africa, but that doesn't stop me from making Asian, Mexican and other foods, too.

Because cuisine is about PRODUCT -- fresh and local. I've cooked professionally in France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal and I will go to my grave wishing I could have added Greece to that list.

 

[GotGarlic]

Because cuisine is about PRODUCT -- fresh and local. I've cooked professionally in France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal and I will go to my grave wishing I could have added Greece to that list.

We are mostly home cooks here. Cuisine is about FOOD and ENJOYMENT. I have no reason to believe that the vegetables used in Japanese curry are not available fresh in the local stores in Greece, and since seasonings from other parts of the world are becoming more available, there's no reason for Greeks not to use them if they want to.

I'm happy for you that you've had a career that took you to great places like that, but that doesn't mean you should go around discouraging people from cooking the foods they want to eat at home.

 

[taxlady]

Because cuisine is about PRODUCT -- fresh and local. I've cooked professionally in France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal and I will go to my grave wishing I could have added Greece to that list.

Why not add Greece to that list?

 

[Badjak]

I live in Southern Africa and I mainly cook SE Asian food.
Why? Because I like it better!
And to top it off, a lot of SE Asian crops grow very well here.
I think it is great if people want to explore different cuisines

 

[Badjak]

@babaliaris
My internet is currently too slow to check the recipe you posted.
I'll try again later.
At the moment amazon UK has a kindle book on sale by vivek singh, called curry.
I got the paperback and it's a great book, showing curries from different countries. (I do not know if the kindle version is any good though)

 

[Jade Emperor]

I agree that Japan isn’t the first country that I would suggest to explore your curry recipes. Most Japanese curry dishes are pretty tame on the heat factor and tend to be fusions of other curry styles.
I would also recommend going for Indian curries first - many are regional and others are often westernised due to the presence of European residents over many years. Therefore Indian curries can be quite forgiving with ingredients and heat levels due to personal taste.
I much prefer Asian and particularly Thai curries. They are hot, but very beautifully balanced with herbs and spices and lots of veggies. Done really well, I think they are the best in the world. They can call for more exotic ingredients that you would need to track down in Asian grocery stores or online. There are tons of recipes for curries of all world cuisines online, but try to find a good, authentic source for them so that you have the best knowledge base from which to get started.
Good luck!

 

[taxlady]

I think that if you have trouble sourcing some of the ingredients, that you should go with a locally adapted recipe for what you want. Tonight, I made a Chinese style of pork and vegi stir fry. Here's the post: https://www.discusscooking.com/threads/sunday-dinner-april-23-2023.136144/post-1970727. The recipe was written by someone who lives in Denmark and made it with locally available ingredients. I'm sure there are some Japanese curry recipes adapted to ingredients locally available in Greece. I think that would be a good starting point. If you like it, you can make more effort to source ingredients that are more difficult to come by. Or, maybe you will be perfectly happy with the Greek adapted recipe. Don't make this too hard or too complicated. Have fun and enjoy the food, even if it isn't quite authentic.

 

[babaliaris]

I think that if you have trouble sourcing some of the ingredients, that you should go with a locally adapted recipe for what you want. Tonight, I made a Chinese style of pork and vegi stir fry. Here's the post: https://www.discusscooking.com/threads/sunday-dinner-april-23-2023.136144/post-1970727. The recipe was written by someone who lives in Denmark and made it with locally available ingredients. I'm sure there are some Japanese curry recipes adapted to ingredients locally available in Greece. I think that would be a good starting point. If you like it, you can make more effort to source ingredients that are more difficult to come by. Or, maybe you will be perfectly happy with the Greek adapted recipe. Don't make this too hard or too complicated. Have fun and enjoy the food, even if it isn't quite authentic.

I decided to do this recipe (The YouTuber is the most famous winner of the Greek Master Chef show and he is pretty popular). Tomorrow is Monday here in Greece so I will be on my way to buy the ingredients

 

[Aunt Bea]

I think that if you have trouble sourcing some of the ingredients, that you should go with a locally adapted recipe for what you want. Tonight, I made a Chinese style of pork and vegi stir fry. Here's the post: https://www.discusscooking.com/threads/sunday-dinner-april-23-2023.136144/post-1970727. The recipe was written by someone who lives in Denmark and made it with locally available ingredients. I'm sure there are some Japanese curry recipes adapted to ingredients locally available in Greece. I think that would be a good starting point. If you like it, you can make more effort to source ingredients that are more difficult to come by. Or, maybe you will be perfectly happy with the Greek adapted recipe. Don't make this too hard or too complicated. Have fun and enjoy the food, even if it isn't quite authentic.

Great advice!

“Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.” - Theodore Roosevelt

 

[Badjak]

So this time I could watch the (last) video.
Go for it, and let us know what you think.
It's definitely a different curry than that I would make, but it will be tasty

From there, there will be plenty of other styles of curry to try (check out Madhur Jaffrey for easy Indian curries)

 

[babaliaris]

I bought the ingredients today and planning on making the dish tomorrow. I will report back when it's done

 

[babaliaris]

I must say it wasn't bad. I have mixed feelings. Though it was definitely a taste I've never tasted before.

Well, this was a very simple dish so it is probably normal to taste simple as well.
Maybe next time I could make something with more flavor, maybe by using more spices than just curry.

Also thank God I decided to not add curry in the Rice, like in the video because the flavor was already too much. The not seasoned rice was balancing the chicken curry a lot!

PS: The chilly sauce was not a good choice with this dish, I tasted it once to find out. It is a dream with French fries though

 

[dragnlaw]

Well, Congratulations babaliaris! Certainly looks good. So glad it worked out for you and I think using a simple mild curry recipe to start was an excellent idea. Better to build up than try to tone down - that is never an easy job.