Katsu Curry

I've been a bit AWOL recently- life was getting in the way of fun stuff.

But I'm back, and with one of my favourite things I have ever made. I was so happy with it, I skipped a little tiny bit, and annoyed my boyfriend with my yummy noises.

So, as you may remember, I hit up Tokyo last summer, and it was one of the best holidays I have ever had. The experience was unlike anything I’ve ever done before, and probably my favourite part was the astonishingly different cuisine.  I’m not going to lie, I don’t like sushi, so that was not what I was going there for. I was going to slurp some ramen greedily like Naruto. Which I, of course, accomplished.

Buuut, my mind was blown by a burgeoning Japanese fast food staple, kare raisu . From students to tourists, to salarymen, they come and sit on a tall stool in front of the chefs in their whites, and tuck into a BIG (and they don’t scrimp on portions) plate of rice, crispy breaded meat, all covered with some thick, silky smooth curry sauce.

THE SAUCE!

I could eat this sauce on its own all day long. When no one is looking, I smother rice in it and eat it with a spoon (chopsticks are too hard and cutlery feels like sacrilege). That’s why I always double the sauce amount, for sneaky leftovers. You could halve it and have no sauce leftovers (if you were MAD).

Seriously. Make it now. You won’t be disappointed. You might even cry a little bit. I did.

Serves 2

Ingredients for the sauce

• 1 tbsp groundnut oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 5 whole, peeled garlic cloves
• 2 chopped carrots
• 2.5 tbsp plain flour
• 3 tbsp curry powder
• 600ml chicken stock
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp mirin
• ½ tsp sesame oil
• ¼ tsp mixed spice
• 1 bay leaf (didn’t have any this time!)
• 1 tsp garam masala

Ingredients for the rest

• 2 chicken breasts, flattened slightly
• 100g flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• 250g breadcrumbs
• 150ml oil

Method

Heat the oil, and add the onion and garlic cloves, saute for 2 minutes.

Add the carrots and sweat for 10 minutes with the lid on until they are softened.

Stir in the flour and curry powder and cook for one minute.

Slowly stir in the stock until all combined nicely. At this point it will begin to smell really good.

Add in the sugar, soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, mixed spice and bay leaf. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes. Stick some rice on to cook at this point.

Now, prepare and cook the chicken. Lay out the flour, egg and breadcrumbs on separate plates.

Sauce: check. Rice: check. Breadcrumbing ingredients: check!

Roll the chicken around the flour, then dip it into the egg and cover it well. Finally roll it around the breadcrumbs until coated well.

Rolling in the flour-our-our. 

Heat oil in a pan and shallow fry, I used enough to come up to a depth of approx. ½ cm. Fry for 5 minutes on each side, until golden, crispy and cooked through. Flattening the chicken to an even thickness at the start means it will cook evenly.

For the sauce, near the end, add in the garam masala. Have a little taste of it and add more seasoning or curry powder as needed.

At this point you can either strain the veg out, or do as I did and blitz it with a hand held blender, creating a silky smooth curry sauce.

Slice your chicken horizontally, place on top of some rice, and smother in sauce.

Full disclosure, I put waaaay more sauce on after I took this photo. It was shameful.

Eat like Naruto.