potatopudding: Tuesday Tasties: Japanese Curry (+ A Secret Ingredient!)

A favorite comfort food that will leave you feeling all nice and warm inside~

Daunting at first, this recipe is simple and makes generous portions perfect for a family dinner or just for yourself if you like (hehe).

Ingredients 1 large onion 2-3 carrots (cut into bite size pieces) 2-3 potatoes (cut into bite size pieces) 1 lb stewing beef (or any cut of beef cut into bite-size chunks) 1-1½ boxes of curry roux (I used Golden Curry in Medium Hot) 1 tsp ginger 1 tsp garlic *1 tbsp honey *1 cup of mashed apples (or apple sauce) *These are your secret ingredients!

1. Begin by first heating oil in a large pot and adding your beef to it. Cook until the meat is brown but not fully cooked. This will prevent your meat from becoming too dry! Feel free to use chicken or pork, and of course you can also make this vegetarian by not adding any meat.

2. Then remove the meat from the pot and set aside for now.

3. In the remaining oil, saute the onions with the garlic and ginger until the onions are golden brown and soft.

4. They should look kind of like this. Be patient with this step because they can burn quite easily!

5. Now, you can add the beef back into the pot along with your carrots and potatoes. Then add enough water to cover all your ingredients. The water should be about an inch above your ingredients. Let this mixture boil (about 15 minutes but keep an eye on the pot), cooking your vegetables until they're fork tender.

6. Ok now, so see that foam on top? I've heard it being called "scum" but essentially it's unwanted fat from the meat and oil you've been cooking. We're going to remove that...

7. ...by using this special "scum" remover that I got at Daiso (a Japanese $1.50 or 100 yen shop).

8. There it is hard at work picking up all the nasty stuff.

9. Of course feel free to use a ladle to pick up all that foam as well. I'm using a spoon here to pick up the rest of the fat.

10. Oh wow!~ We're almost there. This will be the base for your curry.

11. Now, to make things easier we're using premade curry roux but if you're feeling creative you can also make your own curry roux! There's plenty of recipes online. But for efficiency's sake, we're using good ol' Golden Curry. Bring the mixture to a boil again.

[Tip: Add one curry roux block at a time, making sure to dissolve one thoroughly before adding the next. Otherwise, you might get chunks of curry in your curry! Yuck.]

12. And there you have it. Your curry's basically ready to eat, but you may want to check out the next step for extra delicious curry. ;D

13. You may have wondered what we were going to do with the honey and apple sauce in this recipe, but here it is! Add your honey and apples and mix well.

14. Serve with some rice and your done!

This yummy curry recipe was inspired by Himari's apple curry from the anime Mawaru Penguindrum. Y'all should go and check it out if you haven't seen it.