Hey , everyone .
It's Kenji .
Uh We're gonna make some Japanese curry with chicken .
Um , so Japanese , you know , probably the national dish of Japan , one of the most popular dishes in Japan home cooking .
Um , I grew up eating this , we made it at home using uh curry blocks either SMB or house or um , what , you know , there are a few different brands .
But , um , so I'm gonna make it from , uh , using curry powder .
So , not totally from scratch , but a little bit more from scratch than , than uh , just using the curry blocks .
Although the vast majority of Japanese people would just use the blocks .
All right .
So I'm gonna start by sauteing some chicken and making my curry base .
Um I'm using clarified butter here because , um , we currently cannot have any milk protein in the house , um , or at least in anything that my wife is going to eat .
Uh , so clarified butter is just the butter fat , none of the protein , none of the water .
Um , but you can , of course , use whole butter .
That's a few tablespoons of butter right there .
We're gonna heat it up till it's ready to sear .
Meanwhile , I'm gonna get some other ingredients ready .
So curry .
Um it's been around in Japan since the uh in mid 19th century .
Um brought over by um British uh the British Army or British Navy .
I don't remember the exact history but they , it was initially used to feed the Japanese Navy .
Um And so now , but then , you know , then eventually became , came over to the mainland , become , became a very popular dish .
Um And so it's kind of this weird hybrid between um you know , it's like a , it's a British version of Indian um Indian food .
So , you know , it's British curry but translated through a Japanese lens as well .
So in Japan , it's actually considered , you know , Western food , even though it originates in India , but it's a long way from any kind of um actual Indian food .
Um that said it's still good , it's delicious .
Um But so that , that's the reason why you see these British ingredients like potatoes and onions and carrots um in this dish and why it's made with curry powder .
Um So Japanese curry powder uh S and B brand is like the classic Japanese curry powder .
Um It's made with like turmeric , cloves , Cardamom Reek uh cumin , probably , I'm not sure of all the ingredients in there , but there's a sort of distinct flavor .
If you can't find Japanese curry powder , you can use something like a , you know , like a canned Madras curry powder , some kind of British uh British curry powder .
Um , and that'll work just fine for this .
Um , but of course you can probably find SMB and , you know , any , any , uh , any Japanese market super popular .
Um , and in a , in the , uh , international section of many supermarkets as well .
All right .
So I've got a Yukon gold potato , a carrot .
I'm chopping up .
I'm making like 44 I portions right now .
Our butter is hot .
So my chicken is gonna go in .
This is diced chicken breast .
It gets a little too hot .
I let that cool a little bit and we don't have to worry about it burning too much because as I said , all of the uh all the milk solids are out of there .
So it's even if it gets a little brown , you're not going to get a terrible sort of burnt butter flavor that you would get if you were using full butter , right ?
Look at that chicken steer a little bit and then we'll start adding our other ingredients , right ?
Potatoes and carrots .
I use about half an onion for this and for this onion .
I'm gonna do .
I like having kind of chunky slivers of onion , which is how my , my grandmother made this dish or my mother made it as well .
So kind of chunky slivers like that .
Ok .
See how the chicken is doing .
So that may seem like quite a bit of butter in there .
Um And it is , but we're using more butter than we need to sear the chicken because we're going to use that butter to make the , um , the roux the base for our curry .
So , unlike , you know , an Indian curry dish , um , this one is thickened with a butter and flour roux .
You can also use oil and flour .
If you want some salt , some white pepper , you use black pepper .
All right .
So the chicken is going for a bit .
I , I have my onion in there .
Now let that go with it .
Meanwhile , I'm gonna chop up some ginger and garlic .
Some garlic .
Cut off the ends .
Give it a little smash .
The peel should come right up .
It is the , the easiest way I know to peel garlic easier than the whole bull shaking thing .
All right , then nice big smash .
You can also feel free to use a garlic press .
I would just avoid using pre minced garlic .
Although if you like cream and garlic do what suits you ?
OK ?
Dip our onions and chicken a little stir .
OK ?
This is a real quick dish , by the way .
And you know , if you have the , if you have the curry sauce , it's even quicker or the curry uh blocks , it's even quicker .
But even without them , just a can of curry paste super quick and some ginger a few little slices like that .
I know lay out and then from a good smash .
Take off any skins .
I'm leaving .
I don't really mind having little bits of ginger skin because this is pretty tender , young ginger but any sort of big piece of skin you can discard like that .
Hi , Shabu .
She was getting old .
It's , it's night right now .
So the the kids are asleep .
Um , so the other dog , I know people often ask me if , if they don't see one of the dogs in the video , they ask if the dog's ok .
The other dog is fine .
He's asleep in my daughter's room right now , which is he comes in every night at story time and then stays there for the rest of the night .
All right .
Garlic and ginger in .
OK .
Got a little saute .
So we're just looking to gently soften the onions for that onion and ginger to get a , a garlic and ginger to get a little fragrant .
Then we're gonna go right in with our curry paste .
So that was a few tablespoons of butter .
So I'm going to go about maybe two thirds the amount of curry paste .
So maybe three tablespoons of curries .
Oh , a little touch extra .
And then or flour share that tasting uh get a little nice and toasty .
OK .
And then eagle parts flour to , to uh butter .
So about four tablespoons total , right ?
And finally I got chicken stock .
You can uh this is homemade but you can of course use uh store bought or if you don't have that , you can use water and just uh you know , add some chicken boo on or leave the chicken flavor out completely if you want , that's fine too .
Um , so we're just looking to very lightly toast this roe just so that no raw flour flavor really remains .
Ok .
And then we're gonna add few cups of chicken broth .
We're gonna test out the uh , the chef John Hot cold liquid , no lumps method .
And I think we'll be just fine .
And finally we'll add back in carrots and potatoes and that's that .
We're gonna let this come into a simmer .
It'll thicken up if it looks a little too thick .
I don't want it to burn on the bottom of the pan .
So if it looks a little too thick , I can add a little bit more uh chicken stock to it or water to thin it out .
Um And the idea is we want it to look a little , a little thinner .
Then we're gonna serve it because as this stuff cooks down , um obviously the sauce as the uh vegetables soften .
The sauce is also going to um uh reduce and thicken .
Oh , we're forgetting um a couple of secret ingredients here .
Sorry .
All right .
So we're gonna add a little bit of honey just for some sweetness .
So , you know , Japanese food tends to be sweet and savory .
Um So Japanese curry is not usually very spicy , it can be , but it's usually not .
It's usually more of a sort of sweet and savory blend .
So a couple of teaspoons of honey and then the way my grandmother and my mother always did it is adding some raisins to there as well .
This is a sort of controversial , controversial ingredient .
Some people enjoy raisins in their curry .
Some people don't .
Um you could also do apple chunks .
Some people like apple chunks .
My sister probably does .
She's weird like that .
Ok , let's mix all that in .
It's looking a little thick to me right now .
So I'm just gonna , and the rest of that chicken broth .
And so that will be enough that as the uh potatoes and carrots to tenderize and the chicken cooks through the sauce will reduced down to a nice consistency and then we'll season it with a little bit more salt and pepper at the end .
All right .
So I'm gonna let this come to simmer and cook down yum and I will see you in , but about 30 seconds because I wanted to show you once it comes to a simmer over high heat , I'm going to reduce this down to maintain a real bear simmer , cover it and let it cook .
Um And then I will see you in 10 minutes or so it is slightly longer , you know .
Um , so let's see if everything's done .
I think it should be , let's try a potato .
Yep , we're looking for like tender but not falling apart .
All right .
So now at this point , we just got to season finish seasoning .
Um , some people like to put soy sauce .
But , um , uh , aside from milk protein , we're also doing no soy , soy , soy protein , soy , protein , soy , protein , soy , soy , soy protein in the house right now .
Um , so I'm just gonna use salt and salt a little bit there .
MS G and actually I think I could use a touch more .
That's more , honey .
Let's sweeten the deal , huh ?
All right .
Let's see where we are there now .
Texture is looking good .
Reduced down a little bit .
It looks sort of saucy but not soupy and not gloppy .
Which is how you like it because you want enough sauce to get in with that rice .
This is one of those dishes that you eat with , um , a spoon in Japan .
So a little bit more .
Right .
And I think we're about done .
Oh , you know , I'm gonna add to here .
It's because everybody in my family likes them .
We're gonna do some frozen peas .
Um , you can use , you know , there's lots of different vegetables you can do in here .
So if you like sweet potatoes go for it .
If you like little pearl onions , go for it .
Any , anything really that would fit into a sort of stew , like a western style stew you can put into here rutabaga if you know what a rutabaga is .
Right ?
Very good .
I'm gonna save this till tomorrow , but I'm gonna , well , I'm gonna grab some for myself and my family will eat the rest tomorrow with you guys now .
More asleep right now .
So I do a little rice in the bowl and grab a ladle , some curry , some extra sauce .
Here we go .
I love the texture , those onions get in this dish .
Um All right .
And then I'm gonna finally finish it off with some sliced Chinese chives .
Very classic uh addition to this .
So you can use scallions for sure if you prefer or if you can't find Chinese chives .
I just happen to have like a huge bunch of these right now .
Chinese chives and some pickles .
This is pickled eggplant .
Um You can use something like Benny sugar , you know , like the red pickled ginger .
If you don't have pickled eggplant or pickled icon is very common , but some kind of pickles always go with rice and curry .
All right .
Give it a try .
Hm , sweet savory .
Just a little spicy .
Oh , realize this jar tells you the exact ingredients .
Turmeric , coriander , rete , cumin , orange peel pepper , chili pepper , cinnamon fennel ginger star thyme , bay leaves cloves , nutmeg sage and cardamom .
Those are the ingredients in Japanese curry powder .
Yeah , you want a little bit show here .
Can do a little little piece of chicken set .
Oop off the nose .
Good girl .
All right guys , girls , non binary pals , Japanese curry race .
I will see you next time .
Bye bye .