Japanese Curry (Kare Raisu) _ Kenji's Cooking Show

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 .