Japanese Beef Curry
Section 1.00 — Summary & References
1.01 — Summary
Description
A Japanese beef curry with rice, using a pre-made curry paste. While the curry sauce can be made from scratch, the pre-made roux can be used to drastically reduce complexity.
Origin
Mastering the Art of Japanese Home Cooking
Author: Masaharu Morimoto
1.03 — Estimated Processing Time & Servings
Estimated Processing Time
The estimated processing time for both current & future state.
Current State: 1.5–2 hours
Future State: 1–2 hours
When making this the first time, I began with gathering my tools & ingredients around 17:15 & had plated at 19:20. However, keep in mind that time was lost to stopping for photography. If in a hurry, you might also skip the step for browning the beef & boil longer, rather than simmer — but be aware that this will certainly affect the tenderness of the meat (low & slow is your best bet if you have the time). It is certainly feasible to get this done in an hour, but I’d bet it’ll be closer to 2 your first time.
Estimated Servings
2–4 people.
This should produce enough curry to serve 4. The amount of rice you cook will depend on whether or not you intend to use all 4 servings immediately or keep some for leftovers.
1.04 — Version Control Table & Contributions
Section 2.00 — Ingredients, Tools, and Pre-requisite Knowledge
2.01 — Ingredients
Here’s a cooking measures conversion tool, if required.
2.02 — Tools Required
- Chef’s Knife
- Cutting Board
- Peeler
- Large Pot
- Wooden spoon, spatula, or anything else you can use to stir without burning yourself or accidentally dropping it into a pool of hot liquid
- Any tools required for the rice cooking sub-process
2.03 — Pre-requisite Knowledge
- How to cook rice — a link to this sub-process is included in section 3.00.
- Simmer: To stay just below the boiling point. Turning the heat to low or low/medium after reaching a boil will usually do the trick.
2.04 — Mistakes Made
Mistake #001 — Added water before adding & browning beef
This mistake was made at Step 1.05, shown in section 5.03 of this document
I freaked out at first, believing that I may have ruined the dish beyond repair — being unsure if the browning step was critical to properly cooking the meat. However, my girlfriend said that the hour or so we’ll be simmering all the ingredients would be more than enough time to properly cook the meat.
This of course led me to the question of whether or not this browning step is even necessary. If it’s a step that can be eliminated without significantly compromising the end result, then we could save the 5–10 minutes required to brown the meat before adding the water. This led me to this article, quote:
“The browning process caramelizes the natural sugars in the meat creating a richly-colored crust. That crust will help the meat retain its shape during the long simmering hours.
[…]
The fat in which the meat has browned is so rich in flavor. Cooks sauté the aromatics and vegetables in that fat then add a little liquid to scrape whatever browned bits and pieces are stuck at the bottom of that pan. The fat and the browned bits create a wonderful base for a sauce.
…a result of the Maillard reaction.”
Even missing this step — the curry tasted great, so I’m going to leave the step up to personal preference.
Section 3.00 — Related Resources
Section 4.00 — The Original Recipe Process
The recipe in its original form with [my comments] as a business analyst.
Heat the butter and oil in a medium pot over medium-high heat until the butter melts and bubbles. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it’s translucent and slightly wilted, about 5 minutes. Add the beef and cook, stirring occasionally, just until the pieces are no longer pink on the outside, about 5 minutes.
Add potatoes and carrots, stir well, and add 7 cups of water. Bring the water to a boil over high heat, skim off any froth that appears on the surface, then reduce the heat to maintain a strong simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the beef is very tender, about 1 hour. Add the curry paste and salt and continue cooking, stirring and scraping the bottom frequently, for 15 minutes more.
Divide the rice among shallow bowls, spoon on the curry, and serve immediately.
[I found this recipe to be fairly straightforward, the only change I’ve made is including the state changes (peeling, chopping, etc.) as part of the instructions since it annoys me that part of the process is hidden in the ingredients list].
Source: Mastering the Art of Japanese Home Cooking
Section 5.00 — The Future State Process
5.01 — Process Model
5.02 — Process Summary
If you’ve done this before (or if you’re confident in the kitchen) you can probably get away with following the shorthand below). Heat level for the current step in the process shown in [square brackets].
- Gather tools & ingredients
- Cut the beef into ¾–1 inch cubes
- Season the beef with salt & pepper
- Peel the carrots
- Peel the potatoes
- Chop the carrots into ¾–1 inch pieces
- Chop the potatoes into ¾–1 inch pieces
- Slice the onion into half moons (described in more detail below)
- [Medium/High] Heat the butter and oil in your large pot until butter melts & bubbles
- [Medium/High] Add the onion, cook until translucent, about 5 minutes
- [Medium/High] Add the beef, stirring occasionally, cook until pieces are no longer pink on the outside
- [High] Add potatoes and carrots, stir well, add the water (7 cups).
- [High] Bring the water to a boil and skim off any froth that appears
- [Low/Medium] Lower the heat to simmer and cook for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally, until the beef is very tender (cut a piece/taste it)
- 20 minutes before the above step completes (or sooner if you’re using a rice that takes longer to cook), begin the rice cooking sub-process. The rice may finish before the final steps complete, but it can easily stay warm in the pot until you’re ready to serve, this will keep you from having to manage the rice & finish the curry at the same time.
- [Low/Medium] Add the curry roux and salt to the large pot with the beef and vegetables
- [Low/Medium] Continue cooking, stirring and scraping the bottom to prevent sticking, for another 15–20 minutes
5.03 — Process Detail
Step 1.00 — Gather tools & ingredients
Gather the tools and ingredients required — this way you can avoid scrambling for something while completing the process.
Step 1.01 — Cut & season beef
If necessary, chop the beef into ¾–1 inch cubes. In my case, I bought the stewing beef from my local butcher and it was already cut into chunks. Place the beef into a bowl & season with salt & pepper.
On seasoning meat: This is not a step included in the original instructions, but having worked through a large number of recipes at this point, it seems to be a rule when working with beef, poultry, or pork. There is no hard measure for the amount of salt & pepper to use here, just use enough to coat all of the meat & mix as you go to ensure a somewhat even distribution.
Step 1.02 — Peel & Chop/Slice the Vegetables
Peel the potatoes and carrots:
Then chop them into ¾–1 inch pieces:
Slice the onion into thin (¼ inch thick or less) half-moons (first peel the onion, then chop in half vertically so you have 2 semi-circles, and slice on their sides).
Step 1.03 — Heat the oil & butter
On the burner with your large pot, turn the heat to [Medium/High] (about halfway between the medium and high settings on your stove’s dial) then add the oil (2 Tbsp) & butter (4 Tbsp).
Note: It is not necessary to pre-heat the pan. You can add the butter and oil immediately after setting the heat.
Wait until the mixture is hot & bubbling:
Step 1.04 — Fry the onions
Then add the onions:
Fry the onions, stirring about once per minute, until they begin to appear translucent. This usually takes 5–8 minutes, though may vary depending on the stove or pot being used. They should look similar to:
That said — don’t worry about being so precise, these onions will still have another hour to cook while we’re stewing the beef.
Step 1.05 — Add the rest of the vegetables and water, then boil
Next, turn the heat to [High] and add the chopped carrot & potato and give it a good stir:
At this point in the process, I’m supposed to immediately add the beef to the pot & brown the meat (fry until no the pinkness of raw meat no longer shows), but I wasn’t paying attention and added the cold water first instead — 7 cups in total (Mistake #001, section 2.04):
Step 1.06 — Add the beef & skim froth
After the water, add the beef:
Then bring the water to a boil:
When froth starts to rise to the top, skim it off with the wooden spoon and discard, maintaining the current heat level and getting as much as you can (not a huge deal if some remains):
After skimming, it should look similar to:
Step 1.07 — Simmer & prepare rice
At this point, turn the heat to [Low/Medium] and simmer (just below boiling) without the lid for 1 hour, stirring about every 10 minutes.
It is at some point during this hour of simmering that you should complete the [rice cooking sub-process] — not covered in this document. Depending on your rice preferences, this could take anywhere from 12 to 45 minutes, so plan accordingly.
Step 1.08 — Add curry paste and stir
After about an hour, 5 oz of curry paste will be added. The package I bought had around 8 oz, but it is conveniently sized into cubes that can break off — so I took 5 pieces (of 8 total), to add:
Though I broke them up when adding, it’s not necessary:
Once added, start stirring & continue to stir for about 15 minutes, still on [Low/Medium] (occasionally scraping the bottom to avoid chunks of paste getting stuck & burned). After a few minutes of stirring it will look like this:
After, 15–20 minutes of stirring, it should start to thicken a bit and look more like:
Note: Depending on your precision when adding water and how much boiled off during the cooking process, the sauce may be watery. If you find that the sauce is too watery for your preference, just add another cube of the curry paste and continue stirring for another 5–10 minutes until desired thickness is reached.
At this point, it’s ready to serve: put it on the side or on top of the rice prepared by the rice cooking sub-process:
