I love curry but my curry doesn't love me.

May 12, 2008 9:58 AM

I'm looking for a good recipe for Japanese-style curry rice from scratch, without using the block of tasty curry roux. I love the "Vermont" & "House" brands, but really can't handle the wheat and soy.

I'm pretty accomplished in the kitchen and can find unusual ingredients easily since I'm in a large metro area.

posted by fiercekitten to Food & Drink (7 answers total)

Believe it or not, the curry in Japan is the direct descendant of English curry from the 18-19th century. You can find a recipe for the primal English curry in Curry : A Tale of Cooks and Conquerers it should be under the Madras Curry chapter, if I remember correctly, but it could be under Curry Travels the World. It is an interesting and fun book; well researched and eye opening.

Once you have the source recipe you can make your changes so that you can handle the gluten and soy issues.
posted by jadepearl at 10:37 AM on May 12, 2008

Best answer: This curry recipe looks like a happy medium between this overly-simple About.com recipe and this overly-complex Chowhound one. That it calls for yoghurt is promising, since I know Vermont curry has cheese in it.
posted by mumkin at 11:34 AM on May 12, 2008

There's a recipe for it here. I'm not sure how well it will approximate the flavor of the boxed ones, though... just from glancing at the ingredients, I suspect it must be missing something. And it's tough to find recipes, mainly because hardly anyone makes curry from scratch in Japan, even in restaurants. It really does come almost entirely from boxed roux.

That said, I feel your pain -- I can't eat starch anymore, and I miss katsu-kare terribly. Please let me know if you manage to come up with something that tastes good but cuts out the flour.
posted by vorfeed at 11:36 AM on May 12, 2008

Oh, and also unlike most, that recipe doesn't call for a flour-based roux, which is why I thought it would work for you. There's more about Japanese curry and the chef responsible for that recipe from web-japan.org.
posted by mumkin at 11:41 AM on May 12, 2008

You might be able to make they curry using different thickening agents besides flour including cornstarch and tapioca flour. The best resource for substituting wheat products is the gluten free forums so you can approximate the curry flavor based on your thickening agent.
posted by jadepearl at 12:35 PM on May 12, 2008

Response by poster: I have a recipe I've been working on, if anyone wants it.
posted by fiercekitten at 11:14 PM on May 25, 2008

Please, post away. I had a curry for dinner tonight (at Koji Osakaya), and found it rather mediocre, so my interest is piqued.
posted by mumkin at 1:21 AM on May 26, 2008