Homemade Japanese Curry

What we think of as curry today probably isn’t what it originally was — the Japanese just improved on it… or rather, completely changed it.

Japanese curry is basically stew ladled over rice at this point.

So I figured I’d give it a shot.

We’ve all seen heroines in eroge say they love curry and love making curry, but after trying it myself, curry is genuinely a “猿でもできる” (even a monkey can make it) kind of dish.

The steps are roughly three:

1. Buy potatoes, onions, carrots, and beef (or pork works too — I couldn’t find raw beef anywhere, so I ended up making curry that isn’t halal).
2. Wash, peel, and chop into chunks. Not too small — normal-sized is fine. You can use less carrot; beef, potatoes, and onions should be about equal amounts.
3. Heat oil in a pan and start stir-frying. Meat first, then the carrot and potato chunks, onions last.
4. Once the meat changes color, add a lot of water. I added enough to just barely cover most of the ingredients. Don’t overdo it, or you’ll be reducing it forever.
5. Bring to a boil, skim the foam off the top with a spoon, turn off the heat, and drop in the curry roux blocks you bought. Most supermarkets sell complete curry roux blocks — way easier.
6. Once the blocks have melted, turn the heat to low and simmer until the sauce starts to thicken. Not too thick, not too thin. If you added too much water earlier, you’ll just have to simmer longer.

Finally, ladle it over rice. Done.

So thinking about it, this dish barely needs any other steps — chop, stir-fry, add water and boil. The seasoning is all ready-made, and if you feel like it you can add some fresh milk (has to be fresh milk, otherwise the other stuff tastes off). You just need to keep an eye on it while reducing. Almost nothing else to do. Insanely simple. No wonder girls in games are always said to be able to make it…

Tasted good, but that’s not really your achievement — it’s the ready-made curry roux’s achievement.

A few shortcomings on my first attempt. First, I didn’t use beef. Pork is fine, but the texture isn’t great — lean meat only is best, and mine had some fatty bits. Second, the reduction: I added way too much water at the start. Who knew reducing takes so long? You have to simmer on low heat — high heat and the curry burns. Low heat, slow reduction. You can imagine how that goes. Just sit there and wait.

Also my knife skills are lacking — everything’s chopped all over the place. I’ll improve next time.

Curry is easy to make too much of. I recommend getting a container plus plastic wrap to store it, and just make more rice whenever you feel like eating it.