Homemade Soup Curry

Soup curry is one of my favourite foods in japan, and it's one you can't really find outside Hokkaido. It's served as a plate with rice, plus bowl full of perfectly cooked veggies and meat, and delicious soup.

I gave some soup curry mix packets and jars to family over Christmas. Since I'm back in Japan and can experiment with the packets quite a bit, I thought I'd do that and post a bit of a walkthrough.

What the jar says to do:

Ingredients (4 servings):
soup curry paste 180g
meat 320g
potato 2 medium size (280g)[I suggest a sturdy potato that won't fall apart on boiling. I used "matilda" but I dont think they're avail in Canada]
carrot 1 medium size (200g) [Japanese carrots are big and very sweet]
green pepper 2 medium size (80g) [2 medium Japanese size would be 1 super tiny Canadian size]
eggplant 2 medium size (160g) [same ^. Japan has small purple eggplants]
salad oil 3-4 big spoons (I dunno, a couple tbsp of canola)
hot water 800ml (800g, 1 quart ish)

Instructions:
1. make the material bite sized: heat potatoes and carrots in the microwave; in a pot stir fry the meat and green pepper and eggplant, add the carrot and potato
2. make the soup: add the hot water and soup paste to the pot, mix so it can be served
3. serve, on plate the rice, in bowl the soup
These instructions didnt really seem thorough enough to me, and would miss the best part of soup curry - the fantastic veggies! all so fresh and crunchy and cooked and seasoned to perfection! so i made some changed. it took a lot longer.


What I did:

1 Purchase ingredients ($15)

2 Lay them out for a photo

3 Decide it's too late at night to be doing this, make some pasta with jarred pesto

4 Cook the steak because it expires tomorrow

5 Eat it instead of saving for tomorrow..... so tasty

6 Next day: buy a couple more ingredients. and some sushi so you don't get hungry before it's done.

7 Cook rice (rice cooker and oven use same circuit, can't do both at the same time)

8 Pat chicken thighs dry, rub with oil (did i actually do this? cant remember .... maybe not), sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder, some kinda chili powder

9 Roast thighs in oven at 400F or so (220C) ... turn heat up to 250 after 20 mins cause they arent getting dark fast enough

10 Decide which veggies to roast (eggplant, green pepper, kabocha) and which to boil (carrot, potato, onion, lotus root)

11 Chop roasting veggies, coat with oil n salt n pepper n garlic powder. put on pan and roast with chicken

12 Start frying onion ... take some chicken out of the oven and put in the pan for extra flavour. Add potatoes n carrots n lotus root, cook a bit but dont burn onions

13 Forget that you need 800ml of boiling water, so turn off the frying pan and boil the kettle

14 add water to pan along with contents of jar (180g), boil for 20 mins or so until all the veggies are cooked without being overcooked.

15 Serve by putting rice on a plate, arranging veggies in a bowl, and top bowl with soup (you can't see it, but trust me, there was enough soup. so full)

16 save leftover for the next day!

Condensed Recipe

1. Choose what meat/veggies you want to put in the soup curry
2. get your rice cooker cooking.
3. chop up all your veggies
4. put your roasting veggies in the oven to roast
5. put your meat in the pan/pot and get a nice sear on it
6. add your onions/other veggies to the pan/pot
7. add 800ml of water and the soup base (water amount varies by the package)
8. cook till all veggies are done correctly
9. serve