One of my all time favourite Japanese cuisines is chicken katsu curry. I tend to order this when I'm in Wasabi because it's just so good. ^^ Once in a while I like to make my own version of this, and I would tend to cheat with the chicken katsu (fried chicken part), because I can't be bothered to use fresh chicken, mix it in egg and flour then sprinkle on the panko breadcrumbs... That's just time consuming! I also use frozen vegetables instead of a fresh carrot and a potato. Here are the pictures first...
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| Southern Fried Chicken - I like this one because it's spicy |
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| This was less than £1 |
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| I like the Hot version of this - it's not as hot as Indian curries though... |
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| Comes in breakable blocks |
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| It dissolves easily if you cut it into smaller chunks |
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| Rice is cooking in my small rice cooker |
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| Frying the Southern Fried Chicken - 1 got really burnt because I wasn't paying attention! |
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| Cooking the curry sauce - Yummy! |
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| All finished - and it was absolutely delicious!!! ^_^ |
And now I'm going to show you how to cheat and still enjoy chicken katsu curry!
Ingredients:
- 1 or 2 pieces of frozen southern fried chicken - just because it's spicy (or any type of frozen breaded chicken) - cheat!
- 1 (or 2 depending if you like the sauce to be very thick) piece of curry roux - chopped into small pieces (Japanese, Korean and Chinese supermarkets have these)
- 1/3 mug of frozen vegetables (this is a cheat too)
- 1 mug of water (for the curry sauce)
- Vegetable oil (for frying the frozen chicken)
- 1/4 cup of short grain rice (sushi rice) - washed
How to cook (for one person):
1. If you have a rice cooker (which I have - but most of my friends look at me dumbfounded and have never seen or used one!) use it to cook the rice, otherwise if you use a pot - make sure you keep a watch on it! I'm actually quite rubbish at cooking rice in a pot (I will burn it!), so I rely on a rice cooker heavily!!!!
2. Heat a frying pan, make sure it is hot and put about two tablespoons of oil into the pan
3. Place in the frozen fried chicken and fry as indicated on the package
4. Whilst the chicken is frying, heat the water into a pot; as the water starts to boil add in the frozen vegetables and cook for about 3 minutes (at this point keep checking the chicken and remove from the heat if ready - and slice the chicken into 6-8 pieces)
5. Whilst the frozen vegetables is boiling, add in the chopped up piece of curry roux, and stir. Boil this for a further 5 minutes...
6. Hopefully at this point the rice has cooked (usually takes 15 minutes - I have timed a rice cooker many times!). Scoop out the rice onto a plate.
For display and showing off: Spoon out the rice into a small rice bowl, if you don't have one use a teacup, then turn the cup over and gently remove (by tapping or shaking) the rice onto a plate
7. Place the fried chicken next to the rice (paper towel the chicken if there is excess oil)
8. Finally remove the pot of sauce (cool this for a few minutes so it thickens) and then pour the sauce over the chicken
Total cooking and prep time: 20 minutes
And there you go! My small cheat to chicken katsu curry! ^^""
My geeky rating (for my own cooking): 5/5 - even if one of the fried chicken pieces got burnt!
