Japanese Curry From Scratch (Pork Katsu Curry)
This Japanese curry recipe makes the curry block from scratch, starting with a homemade curry powder and a butter and flour roux cooked to a light fox color, with a crispy pork katsu cutlet on top. The spice amounts start from S&B's own home guide to making curry powder, and the roux gets the extras the store boxes list besides flour and fat: a second starch, MSG, sugar and enough salt to taste like the box. The carrots get a Japanese roll cut and a head start in the pot, and small whole potatoes go in with the water, so the carrots soften while the potatoes keep their shape. Every spice is sold already ground at a regular grocery store, and the recipe also has a version made with a store-bought curry block.
Servings 6 servings
Calories 980kcal
Equipment
- 1 Made-In Saucier (5 quart) for the curry pot
- 1 All-Clad 12-inch Fry Pan for the roux
- 1 Made-In Carbon Steel Wok for frying the katsu; a heavy pot works too
- 1 8-inch chef's knife
- 1 Jeweler's Scale (0.01 g) for the smallest spice amounts
- 3 Glass Mixing Bowls for the breading station
- 1 Anchor Glass Ramekins for weighing out the spices
- 1 Deli Containers for storing the extra curry powder
- 1 Microplane Grater for the garlic and ginger
- 1 Whisk for the roux
- 1 Ladle for skimming and loosening the roux
- 1 Fish Spatula for turning the katsu
- 1 Instant-read thermometer for the oil and the center of the pork
- 2 Wire Cooling Rack one to rest the breaded cutlets, one over the baking sheet for the fried ones
Ingredients
The Curry Powder (makes 50 g; the curry uses 15 g)
- 5 ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric 1 tablespoon + 2 ¼ tsp
- 6 ½ teaspoon ground coriander 2 tablespoon + ½ tsp
- 2 ¾ teaspoon ground cumin
- 2 ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1 teaspoon black pepper ground
- ½ teaspoon ground fenugreek optional; sold as methi at Indian grocery stores
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon ground fennel
- ¼ teaspoon ichimi togarashi Japanese ground red chili; cayenne works too
The Curry Pot
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 medium yellow onion cut into ½-inch slices from root to stem
- 1 small carrot peeled, roll cut into 1 ¼-inch chunks
- 2 teaspoon garlic fresh, grated (about 3 cloves)
- 2 teaspoon ginger fresh, grated
- 8 oz small potatoes 4 to 6 Baby Gold or Petite Gold, left whole with the skin on; cut bigger potatoes into 1 ½-inch chunks
- 4 ¼ cups water
The Roux
- 5 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 6 ⅓ tablespoon all-purpose flour ⅓ cup + 1 tbsp
- 2 tablespoon curry powder from the group above
- 1 ½ tablespoon cornstarch
- 2 ¾ teaspoon table salt fine; weigh it if you can
- ½ teaspoon MSG optional
- 2 ½ teaspoon granulated sugar 2 teaspoon to 1 tbsp, to taste
To Finish the Curry
- granulated sugar to taste, ½ teaspoon at a time
- table salt to taste
- ichimi togarashi to taste, for more heat
- hot water only if the curry is too thick
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch stirred into the cold water, only if the curry is too thin
- 1 tablespoon cold water
The Pork Katsu (6 cutlets)
- 1 ½ lb boneless pork loin from a whole loin, or 6 boneless loin chops, 4 oz each
- 6 cups vegetable oil for frying, at least 3 inches deep
- 1 teaspoon table salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper ground
- ½ cup potato starch or all-purpose flour
- 2 large eggs beaten
- 2 ½ cups Japanese panko plus more as needed
To Serve
- 10 cups Japanese short-grain rice cooked and hot, 300 g per plate (about 4 cups uncooked for 6 plates)
- ichimi togarashi on the table
Store-Block Version (in place of the curry powder and roux)
- 4 oz House Vermont Curry half of a 230 g box
- 3.9 oz S&B Golden Curry half of a 220 g box, in place of the Vermont Curry
- water the amount your box prints for that much block, in place of the 4 ¼ cups
Instructions
Mix the Curry Powder
- Weigh each spice into a bowl and whisk until the color is even and no streaks of any one spice show. Weigh out 15 g (2 tbsp) for the roux.
- Store the rest in a covered container in the pantry and try to use it within a couple of months, because ground spices slowly lose their flavor. The batch makes enough for about three pots.
Cut and Pound the Pork (before you start the curry)
- Cut the pork loin across the grain into 6 slices about ½ inch thick, about 4 oz each.
- Lay each slice between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound it with the smooth side of a meat mallet to an even ⅜ inch, so the cutlets cook through in about the same time.
- Make a small cut through the strip of fat along the edge about every inch. The fat shrinks faster than the meat in hot oil, and without these cuts the cutlet curls up instead of staying flat.
- Keep the cutlets in the fridge until the curry is almost done. If you have time, salt them the night before and leave them uncovered on a rack in the fridge.
Start the Curry Pot
- Heat the vegetable oil in a heavy pot over medium heat until it shimmers. Add the onion and cook, stirring now and then, until soft and a little brown at the edges, 8 to 10 minutes, adjusting between medium and medium-low so they brown without scorching.
- Add the roll-cut carrot and stir 1 to 2 minutes, until coated with oil. The carrot goes in before the potatoes because it takes much longer to soften.
- Add the grated garlic and ginger and stir just until you can smell them, 30 seconds to a minute. Don't let them brown.
- Add the potatoes and the water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then turn it down to low right away, so there are just a few bubbles popping up here and there.
- Skim off the foam that rises (in Japanese it's called aku). A little left behind is fine.
- Simmer with the lid off until a skewer or knife slides easily into the thickest carrot and potato, about 20 minutes. If it boils hard, too much water cooks off and the curry comes out too thick. Make the roux while the vegetables simmer.
Make the Roux
- In a separate skillet over medium-low heat, melt the butter until it stops foaming.
- Add the flour and whisk constantly over medium-low to low heat until it is a light golden brown and smells kind of like a cooked pie crust, 5 to 8 minutes. Go by the color: this is a light fox color (kitsune-iro), and a darker roux thickens less.
- Turn the heat off. Add the curry powder and whisk 1 to 2 minutes, until it smells strongly of curry and no dry powder shows. Leave the heat off: ground spices burn fast in hot fat, and the roux is still hot enough to cook them.
- Whisk in the cornstarch, salt, MSG and sugar until no dry streaks show. It will look kind of like wet sand, which is fine; the hot liquid thins it in the next step.
- Once the vegetables are tender, ladle hot liquid from the curry pot into the skillet one ladle at a time, whisking each one in until smooth, until the roux pours like thick gravy. About three ladles is usually enough.
Finish the Curry
- Pour the loosened roux into the pot and stir gently from the bottom until it is mixed in.
- Turn the heat to low and keep it at the gentlest simmer with the lid off, stirring from the bottom so it doesn't stick, 2 to 5 minutes. It thickens fast and keeps thickening, so stop once it coats the back of a spoon but is still loose enough to pour.
- Taste the curry with a little rice. Add salt a pinch at a time, sugar ½ teaspoon at a time if you want it sweeter (up to 1 tablespoon in all), and ichimi togarashi a pinch at a time for more heat.
- If it is too thick, stir in a splash of hot water. If it is too thin, stir the cornstarch and cold water again, stir it in and simmer 1 to 2 more minutes.
- Put the lid on and take the pot off the heat while the katsu fries. Rewarm it on low just before plating.
Bread and Fry the Katsu
- When the roux goes into the curry pot, start heating the oil in a wok or heavy pot (at least 3 inches deep) to 350°F. Set a wire rack over a baking sheet for the fried cutlets.
- Pat the cutlets dry. If you didn't salt them the night before, season both sides with the salt and pepper.
- Put the potato starch in one bowl, the beaten eggs in a second and the panko in a third.
- Coat each cutlet in potato starch and shake off the extra. Dip it in the egg and let the extra drip off, then lay it in the panko and press the crumbs on firmly with your palm on both sides.
- Set the breaded cutlets on a second wire rack, uncovered, for 10 minutes while the oil finishes heating. This gives the egg time to soak into the starch and the crumbs, so the breading stays on in the oil.
- Lower 2 cutlets into the oil, laying them in away from you. Fry 2 to 3 minutes a side, turning once, until deep golden brown and the center of the thickest cutlet reads 145°F. If the crumbs darken too fast, turn the heat down a little.
- Lift the cutlets onto the rack over the baking sheet, not paper towels, which trap steam and make the bottom soggy. Let the oil come back to 350°F before each of the next 2 batches.
- Rest each cutlet 3 minutes, then slice straight down into strips about ¾ inch wide with one firm cut each, keeping the slices together. Sawing back and forth can pull the breading off.
Plate It
- Spoon 300 g of hot rice onto one side of a wide plate and ladle 1 cup (220 g) of curry with its vegetables beside it, covering the other half.
- Lay the sliced katsu on top where the rice meets the curry, on top instead of under the curry, so the breading stays crispy. Serve right away with ichimi togarashi on the table.
Store-Block Version (Optional)
- Make the curry pot exactly as above, with the water your box prints for the amount of block you're using in place of the 4 ¼ cups. Skip the curry powder and roux.
- Chop the block into small pieces with a knife so it melts without lumps.
- Once the vegetables are tender, turn the heat off. Add the chopped block, put the lid on and wait 5 minutes, then stir slowly until it melts.
- Turn the heat back to low and simmer, stirring from the bottom, until thick and glossy, about 10 minutes. Taste before adding anything: the block already has the salt, so no salt, MSG or sugar goes in.
Video
Notes
Weigh the salt. Kosher salt weighs much less by the spoon than table salt, so if you swap it in by the teaspoon, the curry comes out under-salted. The store boxes are 11 to 12% salt by weight, and a homemade roux has none unless you add it, which is part of the reason homemade curry so often tastes unseasoned. 16 g is about 11% of this roux's butter, flour, curry powder and cornstarch, the same share as the box. Counted against the whole roux it's about 9%, a little under, which is why you taste for salt at the end.
About the curry powder. The amounts start from the middle of each range in S&B Foods' own home guide to making curry powder. The ichimi togarashi is cut low so you can add heat at the end by taste, and the fenugreek is optional. The 50 g batch makes enough for about three pots.
Making the blend your own. Cinnamon was in 26 of the 38 Japanese curry powder recipes we compared, and nutmeg was in 21. Stuart Farrimond writes in The Science of Spice that cinnamon isn't sweet on its own but makes the other flavors taste sweeter. Add either one for a warmer curry.
Ichimi or cayenne. The two are about equally hot, so either works. Ichimi keeps the heat tasting Japanese.
Why the curry powder goes into the hot roux with the heat off. Spice flavor dissolves into fat far better than into water, and ground spices taste stronger once they're cooked in fat (Krish Ashok, Masala Lab). They also scorch fast in fat on a burner, so the heat goes off first and the roux's own heat does the cooking.
Why a light fox color. S&B's own roux recipe stops at a light fox color. A 1995 Japanese study found roux cooked to 212 to 284°F thickened about the same, with a sharp drop by 320°F, and a darker roux thickens less.
Why cornstarch, added raw. Every Japanese curry block lists a starch besides the flour, and some Japanese factory patents for roux add it raw after the flour is cooked. It adds thickening without making more roux, and it goes in near the end because long or repeated heating breaks it down.
More butter than flour. The standard roux is equal weights of fat and flour, and this one uses 70 g of butter to 50 g of flour. Butter is only about 80% fat, and this roux also has 55 g of curry powder, cornstarch, salt, MSG and sugar mixed in. At 40 g of butter the first test roux dried out to powder once they went in. At 70 g it stays loose enough to whisk.
MSG and sugar. Every curry block has MSG; the Japanese labels list "seasoning (amino acids etc.)" and the American boxes print MSG by name. Leave it out if you like. The sugar here is well under the boxes' amount, so taste and add ½ teaspoon at a time if you want it sweeter.
The color. Every Japanese curry block lists caramel color, so this homemade curry comes out lighter and more golden than a box curry. That's expected.
The water and the lid. 1,000 ml of water with the lid off gave the right thickness in the test pot. Keep it at a gentle simmer: a hard boil drives off water and the curry comes out too thick.
The vegetables. The carrot and potato amounts are House Foods' own half-box recipe without the meat, and the onion is half of House's, because the full amount was too much onion in the test pot. The carrots go in before the water for a head start, and the small whole potatoes go in with the water, so the carrots aren't crunchy and the potatoes aren't mushy. Small potatoes are usually the waxy kind, which holds its shape.
Potato starch or flour. Nearly every katsu recipe uses all-purpose flour for the first coat, so flour works fine. I think potato starch gives a thinner coating that stays crispy longer. The first coat's main job is helping the egg stick evenly.
The pork temperature. 145°F with a 3-minute rest is the USDA's safe temperature for pork chops and roasts.
Finishing at the table. Worcestershire sauce is the most common thing people in Japan add to their curry, and a squeeze of lemon goes back to Mrs Beeton's curry of 1861. Neither is part of the base recipe.
The store block. House and S&B both say to turn the heat off before the block goes in, because in boiling liquid the outside of the block skins over before the inside can melt. Use the water printed for your box size: watery curry, often from using a big box's water with a small box, is one of the complaints I saw most.
Leftovers. Don't leave the pot out to cool. Divide it into smaller containers so it cools fast and refrigerate it. Reheat it on low, stirring from the bottom, until it reaches 165°F all the way through. To freeze curry, take the potatoes out or mash them first. Store the katsu separately.
Nutrition
Calories: 980kcal