How To Make Japanese Katsu Curry At Home

Chicken katsu curry is Japan's most popular comfort food for a reason. We'll begin by making what I call an elevated stock. That basically means we're taking any old store-bought stock and just waking it up a little bit. And all we have to do is smash down a clove of garlic and then chop up some ginger. And then we'll add that into a pot along with some onion skins and carrot scraps and cover everything with our store-bought chicken stock. Transfer this now to a burner and turn your heat to high. We'll let this first come to a boil and then let it simmer until we actually need it. To make our curry, we'll start by chopping one onion. You'll want to chop your onions into these half-moon shapes, just like this. And it's good to make sure they're all fully separated because once in a while, you'll get a few areas that might still be attached to the root, which is a really easy fix. You just chop that right off. We're gonna add a bit of oil to a high-sided sauce pot over medium-low heat. And once that oil begins to shimmer, we'll add in those chopped onions. Right away, we'll add a nice sprinkle of salt. And then we'll cook these for about 25 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally and using a splash of water as needed to prevent sticking. What we're going for here are these beautiful, soft, and golden jammy onions. They're the kind of onions that'll almost melt away and disappear into a sauce. Once your onions look like this, again, not ultra-dark caramelized, but soft and fall-apart jammy, it's time to strain our stock. Very carefully, pour that off. It should smell completely different from a store-bought chicken stock now. You've got the fragrance from the ginger. You can smell the garlic. Those onion skins give so much flavor and aroma. You could make this just a drink by itself. That's how good this is. But for now, just set this off to the side for a moment while you prep the rest of your vegetables and aromatics for that curry. First, we're going to peel and grate one apple, preferably a Fuji apple. Many people don't realize that apple is one of the secrets to Japanese curry. It adds this sweetness and body, but also an acidity. And that subtle tartness is what balances everything in the curry out. You won't actually taste the apple in the curry, but you'd miss it if it wasn't there. For some reason, I went through a phase where I would just eat the whole core and all. I don't know why, but I did it for a while. Next, we're going to grate one tablespoon of fresh ginger, as well as a few cloves of garlic. And keep all the juice that you're getting from the apple, the ginger. That's liquid gold in terms of flavor. Next, peel your potato. I always like seeing if I can get the whole thing without ever breaking the peel. Takes a lot of focus. Look at that. Chop your potato first in half, then into somewhat evenly sized chunks like these. And now all that's left are carrots. You'll notice that I'm prepping and peeling all the ingredients that I'm using for this recipe right before I actually cook them, as opposed to going to the grocery store and buying some pre-peeled carrots. And that's because especially when it comes to Japanese cuisine, it's very important that everything is super, super fresh. Once your carrots are peeled, split them carefully down the middle like this, and then cut them into these nice even sections that are pretty similar in size to those potato chunks. And now we can get cooking again. To our jammy onions, now over medium heat, we'll add our garlic and ginger paste, and then cook this for about a minute until fragrant. Next, we'll add our grated apple, cubed potato, chopped carrots, and a bay leaf, and stir this up until fully combined. Now we'll add our Japanese curry powder, coriander, cumin, turmeric, and crushed fenugreek leaves, and then we'll stir to bloom those spices in that oil. Spices have so much flavor locked inside them, but when you heat them in fat, they release that flavor. So even just toasting them for 30 seconds before adding any liquid pulls so much more flavor out of them. Think about it this way. If you skip this step and add that liquid right in, you're leaving about 60% of that flavor behind. It's a big difference. Once your spices have bloomed, add back in all of that elevated stock, then stir, scraping on all the sides and bottom of your pan to make sure you scrape up every last bit of flavor that's been developed, and let this simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. While that simmers, let's make our rice. The fastest way to rinse off rice is to add a bit of water at a time, and then use all the tips of your fingers like this to swirl the rice and kind of let those grains rub against each other, and I find this way helps you get the starch off much faster than adding tons of water and rinsing it that way. You'll notice this is a short grain Japanese rice, not a long grain rice like basmati or jasmine, because this is the traditional rice used with a Japanese curry. Once that rice is fully rinsed, cook your rice however you want. I'm using a Japanese rice maker because, well, they're awesome. And once I've added my water, I'm also going to bring in some kombu, this flavorful umami-packed Japanese seaweed, for some extra flavor. And now we'll just let this cook in the background while we move on to what's next. You'll notice now that our curry has thickened up quite a bit. It's also developed lots and lots of flavor. It's getting there, but it's not there yet. First step here is to find and remove that bay leaf. Then set aside a few nice-looking chunks of potato, as well as a couple bits of carrot. These will be used at the very end for plating, where we get a pop of color and some very nice texture. And then we're going to go in with an immersion blender and blend till nice and smooth, where those potatoes and carrots will help to thicken up our curry base. If you don't have an immersion blender, you can also use a normal blender for this step, but it's a lot easier to just go right in that pot with your immersion blender. Your ultimate goal here is to get it silky smooth, almost like a nice soup consistency. To finish our curry, we'll go into a heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat with some butter. And once that's melted down, some flour and whisk to fully combine. We're making what's called a roux, specifically a blonde roux. And what it does is help us thicken up that sauce. Once it begins to smell nutty and becomes lightly golden in color, we'll add some Japanese curry powder and stir for about 30 seconds to let that bloom, making sure to constantly stir in every area so nothing burns. And then we'll carefully add in that curry base we made earlier. Whisk this constantly to combine until the curry has noticeably thickened up. This should really only take a minute or two. And then add in some Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, a little ketchup. Yes, you heard that right. And a little honey. And once again, whisk it all up to combine. We'll let this simmer now for about 10 minutes until it reaches this beautiful glossy consistency. Now you probably didn't expect me to mention the word chocolate in this video, but that adding just a little square of dark chocolate can add this richness and slight bitterness that further deepens the flavor. So I'm going to try it so you don't have to. This is with chocolate. That's going to be hard to beat. Let's see how it compares to without chocolate. Wow. The one with chocolate is way better and it's not even close. I just want to make sure that this isn't some sort of placebo and fluke. I'm going to add chocolate to this one. I don't know if I agree that it adds such a bitterness that people are talking about, but it adds a depth and a complexity that's kind of an x-factor. Almost like the apple. It's like you know something's different and you know something's there, but you can't put a finger on what. New spoon. I can't believe that. Definitely add the chocolate. Maybe you won't like it, but I would suggest taking a little bit of your curry off to the side. Add a little bit of chocolate. See if you like that. In fact, I've added even more. Okay, that's my card. With our curry finished, it's time to move on to make our chicken katsu. Simply take a chicken breast and then very carefully place your hand firmly on top and slice right through the center so you can butterfly it open like this and then cut it in half to get two portions. I've chosen chicken for this recipe because I happen to prefer chicken over pork katsu, but there really is no right or wrong answer. So if you prefer pork, just know that you can follow this exact process, but with pork instead. Once you've cut your chicken into portions, grab a few Ziploc bags and then place one portion of chicken in each bag. You'll understand why in just a moment. For this step, grab a small pot or a meat tenderizer and then take out any anger you might have by pounding that chicken until it's nice and even all the way across. Doing this inside a bag keeps everything clean and stops the chicken from tearing. You'll want to get it about a half an inch thick. Just to show you that a pot works just as well, watch. You can get away with using all kinds of tools in the kitchen for different tasks and this one works perfectly. This is just like how I end up rolling my pasta every time with a big bottle of olive oil instead of a rolling pin. If you really want to get that restaurant-level detail, which I'm going to do, you can bring back in that board and cut your chicken into nice, perfect oval shapes. But again, this step is not absolutely necessary, but feel free to do it if you have the time. With our chicken all prepped, it's time to bread it and fry. While our oil heats up, we'll season our chicken on both sides with salt and white pepper. I always get so hungry while I'm making these videos, especially when it's something like raw chicken that I can't snack on while we cook. Make sure to get that nice, even dusting on both sides and then it's time to dredge. First into some potato starch, which we're using instead of all-purpose flour to get a thinner, crispier layer that stays crunchier for longer. Then into some egg and finally into some Japanese panko breadcrumbs. Wow, how beautiful is that? All we do now is set this off to the side on a wire rack and then just repeat. I forgot to say this before, but make sure you shake off that excess, especially with the potato starch. This is really just for an inner coating to protect the chicken from getting soggy with all that sauce. You know, I pride myself on making everything homemade in these videos, but if you really want to go extra crazy, I would challenge one of you to make your own breadcrumbs. That would be cool. Once all your chicken is breaded, let it rest there for 15 minutes before you fry. You know I never like to make you wait, so we're ready to go. Remember, always lay it away from you. As I fry, I'm going to lightly baste my chicken with oil to make sure it's constantly getting hit in every spot all at the same time and I'm also going to flip it over very carefully every 30 seconds or so just to make sure it's cooking evenly. Because the chicken's thin, this should only really need to cook about seven or eight minutes depending on your oil temperature and I have a little trick if the oil gets too hot too fast and you want to cool it down. Simply just add a bit of cold oil and then check that oil temperature again just to make sure you hover right in the sweet spot that we're looking for. To be clear, the easiest way to control your temperature is to just turn up and down your heat, but if you need to cool it down fast in an emergency, that trick can come in handy. It's looking good. Once your chicken is golden brown and crispy, but more importantly, fully cooked, place it off to the side and immediately hit it with some salt so that salt can stick to the oil. Now, simply follow that same process with the rest of your chicken. Remember, be delicate when you fry this chicken. Those crispy panko breadcrumbs are a trademark part of any katsu. You don't want to break them and crush them, so be careful. I'm getting impatient now, so I'm going to cook the last two at the same time. Now those are beautiful. I know you know how to cut chicken, but with this, you don't want to cut back and forth like you normally might. You want to cut straight down. Here's the cross section of our chicken and look at how juicy that is. Now for plating. Add your rice to one side of the plate. Shape it just a bit to create this wall that'll hold the curry on the other side. Then carefully pour on that curry and then on goes our chicken. To finish, add a few of those carrot and potato chunks, however many you want, as well as a light sprinkle of chopped parsley. Look at that. The perfect bite. Whoa. I'm worried this one might be a little too good.