Japanese Curry Rice from Scratch

カレー

Well, I finally did it: I made curry rice from scratch.

Japanese curry has a long history in Japan. Arriving on British navy boats from India in the days of the British Raj, the dish quickly became a popular favorite. My friend Laura Kelly tells the story — even providing a recipe for frog meat curry—on her wonderful blog the Silk Road gourmet. Like Omurice and Seafood doria, it is considered to be yōshoku (洋食) or western food.

It isn’t really a favorite of mine, but I do make it with the ready-made roux every so often. I always felt guilty that it wasn’t a great choice loaded with palm oil and maybe lard. Always promising myself I would try and make it from scratch one day—I finally did using my latest favorite cookbook, Rintaro by Sylvan Mishima Brackett.

I used Brackett’s recipe—but instead of beef, I used chicken and I also added renkon lotus. Like me, Brackett (who started off his career at Chez Panisse) likes to eat Japanese curry with raita and he also suggested to use hardboiled eggs if you make it with chickem which I did.

I used Osawa brand Fukujinzuke without the red food dye.

I am not a fussy cook so I didn’t do the food processor step… but I have to say it was easy and so much better than store bought!

I would love to visit Brackett’s restaurant Rintaro, a modern Izakaya in San Francisco. Some day…. for now, I’m savoring what is one of the most beautiful cookbooks I have ever owned. Brackett, who was born in Kyoto, came to the US as a small child. His American father traveled to Japan to learn Japanese carpentry and there, he met Sylvan’s mother. Returning to California, the family lived in a gorgeous Japanese-style home built by his father in a “profoundly rural” location outside of Nevada City. No phones, sewers, streetlights or even neighbors, he writes.

His career started off at the legendary Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse (one of my favorite restaurants).

Most of the food in the book is not something I would make myself. I never fry food at home or grill meat. Not that I don’t love to eat those items, but as a cook I am not so wide-ranging. In ten years back in the US, I have only rarely used the oven, cooking almost exclusively on the stove-top. I don’t have a microwave, don’t bake, and don’t own many appliances beyond my rice cooker.

So, Rintaro was mainly a pleasure for my eyes.

But I did make the curry—and it was a triumph!

There was also a fantastic recipe for one of my all-time favorite foods: shira-ae goromo (here is a recipe from Just One Cookbook) It is not much to look at but I love it just the same. In honor of the painting of the six persimmons, I used this dressing on boiled spinach and persimmons.

Venice, by Russell Norman, is still my all-time favorite cookbook, but Rintaro is a close second, I think.