Chicken Katsu Curry

Chicken Katsu Curry is a delicious Japanese curry that first caught on over here in the UK through the Wagamama restaurants. I have never eaten at a Wagamama, but I have heard that theirs is very, very good.



I have bought a packaged Katsu Curry kit at the grocery store though, and was instantly hooked. It was quite, quite delicious! I thought though . . . there has to be an easy way to make it yourself, without having to use a kit.



The other week I saw some ready to cook chiller meals of Katsu Curry in our local Morrisons. These ones had fresh peas, edamame beans and red onions included and I thought to myself . . . wow, that looks like it would be really tasty. I decided to come up with my own at home version. So I did a search online and came up with a recipe for a wickedly delicious sounding Katsu Curry Sauce via Simon Rimmer. I played with the ingredients a bit and came up with this.



A delicious curry sauce that is a wonderful mix of sweet and heat and spice. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded until tender, breaded with a mixture of seasoned flour, egg and panko, and then fried until crispy tender. Delicious edamame, peas and red onions heated through in the delicious sauce and then spooned over top of the tasty chicken breasts and served along side some sticky Japanese rice.



This was wonderfully delicious and something that I will make regularly I think! I'm not sure what my brother who lived in Japan for 4 years would think of it . . . I'm not even sure if it's authentic. I only know it's delicious, and that's . . . well . . . more half the battle as far as I am concerned, and really all that counts after all!!



*Chicken Katsu Curry*
Serves 4
Printable Recipe

A wickedly wonderful Japanese curry in which chicken breasts are breaded and fried until crisp and then served with a delicious Oriental curry sauce spooned over top.

For the sauce:
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 tsp fennel seed
2 green cardamom pods
2 TBS vegetable oil
2 brown onions, peeled and sliced
2 small red bird's eye chillies
1 (400g) tin of chopped tomatoes (14 ounce)
1 inch piece of fresh ginger-root, peeled and finely chopped
1 TBS ground tumeric
9 fluid ounces of chicken stock
1 TBS honey
1 TBS Japanese soy sauce

For the Chicken and curry:
3 1/2 ounces plain flour, seasoned with some fine sea salt and
freshly ground black pepper (1 cup)
5 ounces Japanese panko breadcrumbs (about 2 cups)
2 large free range eggs
4 chicken breasts, boneless skinless
4 TBS vegetable oil
5 1/2 ounces frozen peas, thawed (1 cup)
5 1/2 ounces frozen edamame beans, thawed (1 cup)
1 small red onion, peeled and sliced

Cooked Sticky Rice to serve

Dry fry the spices in a hot skillet for several minutes, until very fragrant. Remove from the heat and grind to a powder with a pestle and mortar. Heat the oil in the same pan. Add the onions and cook, until golden brown, for about 10 minutes. Add the garlic, chili, tomatoes, ginger-root and tumeric. Bring to the boil, add the chicken stock and then reduce to a simmer and cook for about 25 minutes. Blitz the sauce until smooth. Return to the pan and whisk in the honey and soy sauce until totally amalgamated. Keep warm.

For the Katsu curry place the seasoned flour and the bread crumbs into two separate shallow bowls. Beat the eggs together in a third shallow bowl. Place the chicken breasts between two pieces of plastic cling film and pound with a rolling pin to 1/3 inch thickeness without tearing the meat. Dust the chicken breasts with the flour, dip them into the egg and then roll them in the panko to coat thoroughly. Set aside for about 5 minutes.

Heat the oil in a clean frying pan over medium heat until hot. Add the chicken breasts and cook them until browned on both sides and cooked through, approximately 2 to 3 minutes per side. Keep warm in the oven. Dispose of most of the oil. Add the red onion, peas and beans to the pan Cook and stir until the onion has begun to soften and the peas and beans are crispy tender. Stir the cooked vegetables into the curry sauce and heat through.

To serve, cut each cooked chicken breast through the middle diagonally and place onto a heated plate along with some cooked sticky rice. Spoon an equal amount of the curry sauce and vegetables over each. Serve immediately.



Over in The Cottage today, some delicious Chocolate Chunk Muffins!

Chicken Curry with Rice

This recipe here today is in honor of a good friend of mine named Jo. She just loves a good curry, and like me, she is always trying to watch her weight! (She's a bit better at it than I am though!)



Jo used to be the housekeeper at the Manor when I first started working there. Over the years we became good friends, and I really missed her when she and her husband left the area to pursue their dreams. She's now a Chiropodist, and her husband, well . . . he is still a plumber, but quite happy in his work!



Jo and her husband took me out to my very first Indian Restaurant actually! We had a really good time. They also took us to our very first Gherka Restaurant, and introduced us both to Thai Food as well! I guess you could say that they are very worldly in their tastes when they eat out!



They also enjoy a good curry at home. Colin likes the blow your head off kind . . . a hearty hot Madras, whilst Jo opts for something a bit milder.



This is probably a bit too mild for her, but she (and you) can certainly adjust the heat by adding more tikka paste, or even some chili powder. I found it just right for me. One thing she won't mind though is the fact that it's relatively low in fat and filled with lovely spinach, both for colour and texture.



So anyways, I never eat a curry now without thinking about Jo, and giving her a nod of thanks for having broadened my tastes!



*Chicken Curry with Rice*
Serves 4
Printable Recipe

This is quick and easy and relatively low in fat. There is no cream or coconut milk added. The spinach makes it quite healthy as well. You could cut the fat even more by using chicken breast meat instead of thighs. I think you could safely cut the oil in half as well.

2 TBS vegetable oil
1 onion, peeled and finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (trim off any fat and discard, then cut into strips)
2 TBS tikka masala curry paste
200g tin of chopped tomatoes (2 cups of chopped tomatoes in tomato juice)
450ml of hot vegetable stock (1 1/2 cups) (Use low salt stock)
7 ounces basamati rice (3/4 cup)
1 tsp salt
1/2 pound of baby leaf spinach (225g)
naan bread and mango chutney to serve

Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the onion and fry, stirring, over medium heat, for about 5 minutes until golden. Add the garlic and chicken. Stir fry for another 5 minutes, until golden.

Add the curry paste, tomatoes and stock. Stir and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and simmer on low heat for about 15 minutes, giving it a stir every so often to make sure it doesn't catch on the bottom.

While the chicken is cooking, cook the rice. Bring 1 pint of water to the boil. (2 cups) Add the rice and salt and stir. Cover and reduce the heat to it's lowest setting. Cook for the time stated on the package of rice. Once cooked, cover with a teatowel and the lid. Leave for 5 minutes to absorb the steam.

Stir the spinach into the curry and cook until just wilted. Spoon the rice into heated bowls. Ladle on the curry and serve immediately, along with the naan bread and some mango chutney.


You can get a good Peshwari Naan Bread recipe here. It's delicious!

Fruity Chicken Curry

There are some things in life that you just can't live without. Thinks like hugs and love . . . chocolate and cherries . . . puppy snuffles, good chips, bacon, and . . . ok, I'll admit it . . . curry!!



I had only ever had curry once before I moved over here in 2000. An acquaintance of mine in Suffield, Alberta, who also happened to be a Brit, had us over for a party one time and she made a killer curry! Wowser! It was fantastic. Spicy and delicious and quite unlike anything I had ever tasted. Her name was (K)Cathy Giles, and I have been looking for her since I moved over here to no avail. She was a Mancurian or maybe even a Liverpudlian. I only know she was from the North West and her hubby was named Mick . . . she had two sons and a daughter, Louise, and she made a mean curry!!



I have come to really love curry since moving here and have also come to realize there are many different kinds. I do love a good Indian, but last summer I was introduced to Thai Curries and I adore them too!



I was craving a curry today, and remembered a rather tasty one I had seen on Kevin's page, Closet Cooking. It was fruity and looked spectacularly delicious, with distinct Thai Flavours. It was also quick and easy and I am rather lazy at times, you know . . .



I was sadly lacking in a few ingredients though, the main one being fresh apricots. Ok, the only one being fresh apricots. I do, however, always have several tins of them in the larder. They come in really handy to make cakes and crumbles and all sorts!



It would seem they also come in very handy when making this delicious curry because . . . we quite, quite liked it! I have adapted his recipe a bit to my own tastes and methods, and this is what you see here, but by all means hop on over and see his original recipe. You won't regret it as he has a fabulous cooking blog and always cooks the most interesting foods!

If you don't want a lot of faff (ie. Peeling and stoning of fresh apricots) then . . . just cook my adaption. Either way I'm sure you will agree, this is one mighty tasty curry. (You can adjust the heat by upping or downing the amount of curry paste. Just sayin is all . . . ) You won't need any salt either, as fish sauce is quite salty.




*Fruity Chicken Curry*
Serves 2
Printable Recipe

Loosely based on a Thai Curry, this is quick, easy and quite delicious! (Plus it uses stuff that I always have around!)

1 410g tin of apricot halves in juice, well drained
1 heaped dessertspoon of apricot preserves
2 TBS Thai Fish Sauce
the juice and zest of half a lime
1 TBS oil
2 to 3 TBS of red Thai curry paste (I used Blue Dragon)
3 large free range boneless, skinless chicken fillets, chopped into bite sized pieces
small handful of fresh coriander, finely chopped (Cilantro)
1 small red chili, thinly sliced

Place 8 apricot halves in a blender along with the apricot preserves, fish sauce and lime zest and juice. Blitz to puree. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a deep skillet. Add 1 TBS of the curry paste and heat and then throw in the chicken pieces. Cook and stir until no longer pink. Pour in the mixture from the blender. Allow to simmer on a slow bubble for about 10 minutes, stir in the remainder of the apricot halves, cut into 1/2 inch chunks, the coriander and the rest of the curry paste to taste. (I like it a bit zippy, so use about another 1 1/2 TBS, but you do it according to your own tastes.)

Serve spooned over top of some warm basamati rice and garnish with some thinly sliced red chili. Delish!



By the way I can't really use chopsticks. I've never been able to get the knack of them . . . I use the jab and stab method. Works for me! ( I know . . . I'm such a neandrathal!)