EASY Curry Bread (カレーパン Karé Pan)

Today, I'm going to be showing you how to make an easy curry-stuffed sandwich that's like a mash-up of grilled cheese and Japanese curry pan. So stick around. Welcome back to No Recipes. I'm Mark Matsumoto and I'm here to show you how to elevate your everyday meals. So mash that subscribe button so you don't miss out. If you've ever been to Japan or watched any Japanese anime, you've probably seen those crispy puffs of bread stuffed with curry called kare-pan. They're a ubiquitous snack here and they make a great on-the-go meal. But it's not something that most people would think to make at home. I've strung together a few kitchen hacks to come up with a homemade kare-pan that you can make in under 15 minutes. So let's get started. For our curry filling, we're going to use some kabocha squash, ginger, garlic, onions, vegetable oil, ground beef, curry powder, soy sauce, and ketchup. To make the sandwich, I've got some thick-cut Japanese sandwich bread, which is also known as shokupan, butter, and American cheese. Let's start by preparing the kabocha. I've already quartered this one, so I'm just going to remove the seeds using a spoon. The kabocha not only adds a mild sweetness to our curry, it's also going to act as a binder holding the filling together. If you can't find kabocha near you, butternut squash will work as well. Now I'm just going to slice off the amount of pumpkin that I need. We only need about one twelfth of a small one for this recipe, so save the rest for something else. Then I'm going to peel the green skin off. I don't normally do this because the skin is edible, but the color is going to be a bit strange for the filling. Now I'm just going to cut this up into thin slices. It's going to get mashed up at the end, so the shape doesn't really matter as long as they're roughly the same thickness so they cook through evenly. Okay, let's get these into a microwave-safe bowl, and then I'm going to add about a tablespoon of water. You want to cover this with a lid so the kabocha can steam, and then we're going to pop this in the microwave until the pumpkin is nice and tender. The timing depends on how thick you've cut them, but mine usually take about two minutes at 600 watts. You can check them by stabbing them with a fork to make sure they're cooked through. For the onion, I'm just going to chop the ends off, and then cut it in half. This makes it easier to peel. Then we're going to slice some slits from the sides towards the core. Slice some slits from the top to the bottom, and then we're going to mince the onion up as finely as possible. The finer you mince them, the faster they're going to caramelize in the pan, which is going to save you a bunch of time. For the garlic, I'm going to give it a little whack with the side of a knife to split the skin. This makes it a lot easier to peel. Then I'm going to cut slits in it from the top towards the bottom. Rotate it 90 degrees and cut slits from the top towards the bottom again. Then I'm going to turn this 90 degrees on its other axis and mince it up. If you don't get it small enough on the first go, just go back over it a few times like this. For the ginger, I'm going to use a small spoon to peel it. Now I'm going to cut this into slices against the grain, cut those slices into strips, and then we're going to mince those strips finely. Okay, I've got a frying pan over medium-high heat here, and I'm going to add the oil and give that a swirl around. Then I'm going to add the ginger, garlic, and onions. The flavor in a great Japanese curry comes from caramelizing the aromatics, so you want to saute them for as long as you have time. I don't want to bore you today by taking too long to do this, so I'm going to move on, but you want them to have at least this much color. Now I'm going to add the ground beef and crumble it up with a spatula. This is smelling pretty amazing already, but now we're going to add the curry powder and soy sauce and, oops, let's try that again. Alrighty, so let's go ahead and stir-fry this until the curry powder is super fragrant and any liquid has boiled off. Okay, this is smelling good enough to shovel straight into my mouth, but it's not done yet, so let's go ahead and add the ketchup and cooked kabocha. Then I'm going to use the spatula to mash up the pumpkin until the mixture binds together. The beauty of this technique is that it saves yourself the time of making a complicated roux. This could also be a quick way to make a Japanese-style curry, but if you're planning to eat this with rice, I'd recommend adding a bit of water at this point to make it a little more saucy. Okay, this is looking perfect, so let's assemble our kare-pan. I've got four one-inch thick slices of sandwich bread that I'm going to arrange so that the outside surfaces of each pair of bread are facing up. This makes it easier to match up the bread later. Let's go ahead and spread some butter onto each slice. Be sure you spread it all the way to the edges. Using room-temperature butter is a must here, or you're going to end up mangling the surface of your bread. Now I'm going to stack the buttered slices together. Top this with a slice of cheese, and then top each piece of cheese with half of the curry. Next, we're going to pull the piece of bread from underneath and place it on top of the curry to make a sandwich. The idea is to have the buttered surfaces of the bread facing outwards after you've assembled the sandwich. Now I'm just going to set each sandwich into a small pan over medium-low heat. I like using a relatively flat lid to act as a weight, which not only helps bind the sandwich together, it also ensures your bread is making even contact with the pan so that it browns evenly. I don't recommend doing both sandwiches in the same pan because they're not going to brown evenly. You can do them one after the other, or just use two separate pans. If you're using fresh bread, it'll take a while for it to start browning, but don't get impatient and turn up the heat or your cheese isn't going to melt. You can usually tell it's time to flip the sandwich over when the edges start to brown, but if you're not sure, just lift up a corner and take a peek. Once the bread starts to brown, it's going to go from toasty to black in a matter of seconds, so be sure to keep a close eye on it. Okay, let's flip this over. Oh, that's perfect, isn't it? Now you just want to give it a press with the lid and wait for the other side to brown. The dough for curry pan is usually coated with panko before being deep fried, which is what makes them so crispy. But by pan-frying our bread with butter, we're able to get an equally crispy crust, and personally, I think the butter tastes way better. Okay, this is done, so you know what that means. It's time to cut it in half. Oh, just look at that! Between the crisp, buttery crust, the rich, fragrant curry, and the molten cheese, I actually think I like my hack better than the original curry pan you get in bakeries and donut shops. To balance out the richness of this curry pan, I like serving it with tangy pickled vegetables like these cucumbers, carrots, and bell peppers you see in the back. If you want to know how to make them, stick around because we've got a bonus round today. So here's the deal. All you need is some water, sugar, seasoned sushi vinegar, and some crisp veggies to make these delicious pickles. I'm using some carrots today, so I'm going to start by peeling them. Then I'm going to cut them into sticks. For the cucumbers, just cut the ends off and slice them into sticks. Finally, for the red bell pepper, I'm going to cut the ends off before cutting it in half and removing the core. Then I can cut these into sticks as well. To pickle them, I'm going to add the seasoned sushi vinegar, water, and sugar to a zipper bag and toss in the vegetables. Then I'm going to seal the bag up, pressing out as much air as I can. This helps keep the veggies submerged without using a ton of pickling liquid. Now I'm just going to massage everything together and let this sit for at least an hour. And that's it! Pretty simple, right? So the next time you have a kare-pan craving, you know what to do! If you enjoyed this video, it would really mean a lot to me if you'd give this a thumbs up. And while you're down there, send me a comment, even if it's just to say hi! Also, if you have friends that love Japanese curry, send them a link to this video so they can make it too! As always, I want to thank you guys so much for watching to the end, and I'll catch you in the next one!