This month’s recipe is a Japanese classic – Curry Rice (カレーライス). Because I was never sure how to make vegetarian curry rice while I was living in Japan, I ignored the dish completely. Now, for the first time, I made my own version based on a mash-up of various recipes and advice from friends.
Haikugirl’s Curry Rice
Ingredients (serves 4-6)
- half a pack of curry roux (4 blocks) – I used this one, which is 100% veggie
- 350g pack of Quorn mince (fresh, or completely defrosted)
- 2 aubergines
- 1 red onion
- 2 green peppers
- soy sauce
- vegetable oil
- rice (ideally Japanese white sticky rice, but any rice will do)
Method
Cut all the vegetables up into bite-size chunks.
Heat a little oil in a deep pan. Fry the vegetables together until they start browning a little.
Add the Quorn mince, and fry with the vegetables, stirring a lot.
Add some water, and slowly mix in the blocks of curry roux.
Looks like chocolate, but it’s not!
Add more water if necessary. (Sorry, I don’t know how much I added exactly, but you can just see how liquidy the mixture is and make it how you like it.)
Turn the heat down low, cover, and simmer. Meanwhile, cook some rice.
Have a little taste test, and season if necessary. Serve with rice.
Sorry for the slightly vague recipe this month, but I really did make it up as I went along, and would strongly encourage you to do that too! Of course, you can substitute any vegetables you like, and if you don’t want to make a veggie version you can use meat instead of Quorn. I would highly recommend using Quorn instead of meat though, as it’s much healthier and I think it’s lower in fat. There are lots of vegetarian recipes available on the Quorn website which I’m planning to check out at some point.
The end result was really yummy, and I found it freezes really well, too. You can even make up little lunch boxes with a portion of curry and a portion of rice and freeze them like that. Very convenient!
As always, I’ll be back sometime in June with another recipe. If you have any suggestions, or perhaps you would like me to try one of your recipes from a book or website, please leave a comment below or get in touch!
hrrrm yeah- I need this kind of stuff. I need to learn how to cook. bread and chinese take-out is finally losing their charms
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Reblogged this on 本当に幸せですか？ and commented:
おいしそうその
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I have just read about those curry ‘cubes’. What level of heat can you get them in? Are they just mild (Jalapeño level) or can you get, say, ‘Habanero’ hot?
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No, you can get different levels I think. I don’t know where you are living, but here in the UK you can get lots of different types of curry roux from Japanese food stores such as the Japan Centre.
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Love Japanese style curry rice and it is a family classic for us. Have you tried adding things like apples, bananas, or chocolate to the curry like the Japanese do to give it a sweeter flavour?
Japan Australia
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No, I’ve never tried adding things like fruit and chocolate – maybe next time! Thanks!
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