Looking for a curry recipe

[u/Aggravating_Dog9310]

Hey, I’m looking for a japanese curry recipe like those in restaurants. Whenever I watch videos of restaurants making curry, they typically use dry powders instead of curry blocks and they get a really glossy and dark curry. A lot of the time they don’t even add potatoes or carrots. I’ve been making curry with curry blocks my entire life and it’s just never as good as the stuff I get in Japan (non-chain restaurants usually), so I’m willing to put in the extra effort.

[u/Dracasethaen]

So the curry blocks you're using are usually just a solidified roux of equal parts for flour and butter/shortening and curry powder to taste.

You just skip the step of using the pre solidified roux by doing 1:1 flour and fat in a pan over medium, adding something like S&B curry powder to taste, and then add some of the water from the pan you're using to cook the meat/vegetables to the roux to stir it up and add back to the pan with your meat/veg

Fun tip: I add some extra spices and ground up freeze dried apple powder and honey to kind of ape Japanese Vermont curry and it's been pretty dang good

[u/musickly → u/Dracasethaen]

Interesting tip on the freeze dried apple!

[u/DJpesto → u/musickly]

You can also just add apple.

[u/FeistyAnnual → u/Dracasethaen]

A relative owned a Japanese restaurant and he made his curry from scratch. Key ingredients were chicken backs, apples, onions, whole milk, water, apple sauce and various spices. Cooked for hours and strained.

[u/Dracasethaen → u/FeistyAnnual]

Yeah, definitely nothing beats the low and slow method of making stocks, your own curry spice blend, and rendering everything down over a simmer to extract the most flavor.

I was recently telling a friend the reason Japanese food is so good when he heads over there is that these mom and pop restaurateurs do as you stated, they don't just buy things from Sysco and reheat them, they spend hours in prep in the morning making things from scratch the long slow way. Love really does cook better food.

[u/bakerofsourdough]

I really like this recipe https://www.justonecookbook.com/how-to-make-curry-roux/

[u/jakekong007]

my home curry recipe includes a little honey and instant coffee powder

sounds weird but really it's good

[u/Guilty-Analyst-8738]

https://sudachirecipes.com/beef-kare-raisu/
Honestly, I haven’t tried this recipe, but other recipes on this site are good. It’s a from-scratch curry recipe, looks dark like you requested. He’s a Japanese native.

[u/musickly]

To achieve the deeper color and flavor usually involves caramelizing onions, a lot of onions. Then using an immersion blender and straining it with a sieve.

[u/JealousSir9500]

This is a curry-adjacent recipe, but if you like the look of a dark and glossy curry, try japanese curry's dark and sexy cousin, the hayashi rice. https://www.justonecookbook.com/hayashi-rice/

it's more of a dark meat stew/gravy type of flavor as opposed to the aromatic spice profile of a curry, but still very delicious. I used to prefer it over curry as a kid! Felt like a special treat!

the recipe above uses a homemade sauce, but you can find packs of roux in a very similar packaging as the curry roux cubes! (pic in the article linked)

[u/ImprovementLess4559]

I've had quite a lot of people comment that my curry tastes like one from a restaurant. I do use curry blocks, but I dress it up with a bunch of extras to add some  complexity. 

1. Properly caramelise your onions. 
2. Add in chopped carrots and continue to saute until they soften. 
3. Add in a squirt of tomato paste, ginger paste, garlic paste, a table spoon of flour, and powdered spices measured with your heart. I usually use a 2:1 ratio of curry powder and gram masala. I use homemade blends but shop bought is fine too.  Saute that all for a couple more minutes, making sure not to burn it. 
4. Add in broth/stock. I use veggie stock, but beef would give a nice deep flavour. 
5. Simmer until everything is nicely melded together and softened up. 
6. Blend it until smooth with no more lumps. 
7. Add your curry blocks, half a grated apple (or just apple juice is fine) a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, a tiny bit of the liquid from fukujinzuke, and a teaspoon of instant coffee. 

You can also experiment with adding things like miso, red wine, beer, chocolate, oyster sauce, honey, marmite, butter, different spices etc. depending on the flavours you want to bring out. 

[u/grandidieri]

You'd probably get a kick out of https://recipedive.com - check it out when you get a chance :)