SAHD Recipe – Keema Curry, Japanese Style

Hey everyone! Welcome to another installment of the SAHD recipe. Today, we’ll make Japanese style Keema Curry. This dish is really easy to make and it tastes great. It’s comfort food for when you’re too worn out to do much. We made a video for this dish, but it’s a bit long. We talked and RB40Jr goofed off a bit while we were cooking. That’s what happens when you teach a kid to cook while making a video. Anyway, this dish is savory and delicious. Try it out if you’re stuck at home. You only need a few specialty ingredients. *See video at the end of the post. Prep time: 10 minutes Cook time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 pound of ground beef. I prefer the leaner 93% ground beef. It’s too fatty if you use the standard 80% ground beef.
• 1 onion minced
• 1-2 celery minced
• 1 carrot minced
• 6 oz frozen peas. More if you like them.
• Japanese curry roux. Any brand is fine. I used the medium hot S&B Golden curry in the video. You can find these in your Asian grocery store. I even see them at a regular supermarket occasionally. Or you can even try to DIY it.
• 1 tablespoon of curry powder. I ran out so I just mixed a bit up myself with these powder – turmeric, cumin, coriander, pepper, ginger, mustard, and chili.
• 1-2 tablespoon of tonkatsu sauce. I mixed this up myself too – ketchup (1 tablespoon), oyster sauce (1 teaspoon), soy sauces (1 teaspoon), and 4-5 dashes of Worchester sauce. Mix them up and taste it. Mmmm… yum.

Equipment

• A large saute pan. This should be large enough to fit everything above and have room for mixing.

*I add these links to Amazon so you can see what the ingredients look like. These items should be much cheaper at your local grocery stores.

Cook it!

See video.

1. Heat up the pan, medium high on the stove. Add a bit of oil when the pan is hot.
2. Add garlic and onion. Saute until onion is somewhat translucent.
3. Add carrot and cook for a few minutes.
4. Add the ground beef and break it up into little pieces.
5. When the beef is mostly cooked, add the curry powder and tonkatsu sauce.
6. Add about 1 cup of water.
7. When the water is hot, add the roux and turn the heat down to medium-low.
8. Stir gently until the roux dissolve. You could cut up the roux before putting it in to help speed it along. Add a bit of water if it looks too dry.
9. Done!

Enjoy Keema Curry!

Serve with rice and a sunny-side-up egg on top*. Everyone enjoyed this dish tremendously. It’s really good. *sunny-side-up egg – I finally got it right! Just crack the egg on a hot pan. Turn the heat down to low after a minute and let it cook. Recipe credit – This is based on the Keema Curry recipe at Just One Cookbook. This one is simpler.

Keema Curry video from Eat by 40!

Kitchen tools recommendation

• Skillets – I love our small Matfer Bourget black steel pan. We use it to cook eggs. It is so much better than any nonstick pan. These carbon steel skillets will last forever, unlike the nonstick pans. We also have a bigger Lodge carbon steel pan. It isn’t as nice as the Matfer Bourget, but it is more affordable. You can’t go wrong with either. Although, if I had to do it over, I’d splurge and go with Matfer Bourget. It’s just nicer and I use the pan very often. It’s worth paying more.
• Knives – My favorite kitchen knife is our 5″ Calphalon Santoku knife. I use it for almost everything. If I need a little more power, then I use our 6″ chef knife. That one is Mrs. RB40’s favorite. You really only need 2 knives in the kitchen.
• Rice cooker – I cook rice very often so a good rice cooker is essential. Many people rave about the Zojirushi rice cooker, but I don’t like the nonstick inner pot. Those nonstick surfaces never last. So I went with the TATUNG rice cooker instead. The inner pot is stainless steel and it should last forever. It makes great rice. They also have a smaller/cheaper 3 cup version. I think we got our cooker when it was on sale.
• Oyster sauce – I recommend the Mae Krua brand. It is high quality and affordable sauce from Thailand. The key is to check the ingredient on the bottle’s food label. The oyster extract should be the first ingredient. Many cheap brands have water and sugar listed first. As defined by the FDA, “the listing of each ingredient in descending order of predominance.” Same with fish sauce. For fish sauce, I recommend Tra Chang, the scale brand. This brand is actually my cousin’s family brand. It’s high quality.