japanese curry

Recipe: Japanese Curry Sauce Plus

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

Figured it’s time I get back to posting my cooking experiments.

This sauce came about after seeing an Indian mini-cafeteria on my job.  It had some lovely thick sauces that looked like a complete meal on rice, and there was a dish that was a bed of greens, then rice, then curry.  These came together in my head to make me ask “can I make a curry sauce that is largely a meal?”

This is the result.  This sauce’s body comes from squash and garbanzo beans and tastes very much like my Japanese Curry sauces.  Each serving has a about serving of legumes and a serving of vegetables in it.  Throw it onto rice with a side dish – or rice and a bed of greens, say shredded spinach, and you have a very complete meal.

Makes 6-8 servings

Ingredients:

  • 1 small butternut squash (about 2 pounds unpeeled), peeled, seeded, cut into cubes.
  • 2 tomatoes, diced.
  • 3 cups cooked garbanzo beans (2 14.5 oz cans)
  • 2 cups low-sodium vegetable stock
  • 2/3 cup red wine (shiraz and zinfandel are good)
  • 4 tablespoons curry powder.
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 4  tablespoons soy sauce (If you use store-bought not-quite sodium free vegetable broth, use 1 Tbsp)
  • 4T bsp garlic
  • 4 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
  • 4 Tbsp peanut butter

To prepare:

  1. Place squash, tomatoes, garbanzo beans, vegetable stock, wine into a pot, bring to boil, simmer.
  2. While bringing to boil, add other ingredients one at a time, stirring.
  3. When the squash is soft, mash with potato masher to break it and the beans and tomatoes up.
  4. Either puree with immersion blender or let cool and puree in regular blender.

Notes:  This sauce is a bit thick, may need more vegetable broth – I’d say ½ to 1 cups.  it’s also hot so you might want to tone the curry powder down a bit depending on taste

– Steve

Japanese Curry, Healthy Variant

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Remember when I said I was trying to make a faster, healthier version of Japanese Curry?  Here’s one of my attempts.  Really you puree a few things,cook, and then combine a few things.  That’s it.

Now is it good?  Well . . .it’s mediocre.  Thats’ not bad for a first time, but it just doesn’t have the depth of my other versions.  On the other hand it’s healthier and a lot faster.

I’m thinking that the arrowroot is actually a mistake and that I need the oat flour from my old recipe.

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Japanese Curry – Final Version (With More To Come)

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Well this is it.  I have reached my goal of creating a Japanese Curry that was homey, enjyoable, that is reasonably healthy,  and that can be made and frozen without too much trouble.

I actually considered it done when a visitor gave it their stamp of approval.  You kinda want that outside opinion.

So I’m “locking” this recipe as officially done.  Now I am still experimenting with trying to make it a bit healthier (namely cutting the spread and possibly replacing the tomato paste), and am working on a super-fast, super-healthy version.  But this, as far as I concern is not just a milestone, but a complete, legitimate recipe that meets my goals

Makes 3 servings.  It scales up rather well – you can cook two or three batches at once without taking too much time.

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