Kare raisu

Tonight, Ben made vegetarian kare raisu, using this recipe (sorry, German only) as a rough guideline. He has graciously consented that I take photos and post about it.

A while ago, I had bought Japanese curry powder.

The recipe features curry powder and not curry roux blocks, as in contrast to Japanese households, you will find curry powder in most German (and Swiss?) kitchens. Curry powder like this:

 

Which is what Ben used to use for this kare raisu before.

Before I approved of Ben using the curry powder from S&B, though, I wanted to taste it. I was surprised to find how bitter it seemed to taste. It also had a rather hot aftertaste. But I told Ben: "Go ahead and use it." Nothing ventured, nothing gained :)

So Ben cut 200 g of firm tofu into pieces, like this:

 

He diced an onion:

 

This is Ben 's idea of 1 potato:

 

And this is how he counts 1 carrot:

 

He peeled (a bit more than 1 cm of) ginger and cut it into pieces, like this:

 

Then he used a draw-knife to chop it more finely.

 

Ben fried the tofu in some canola oil.

 

He took the tofu out of the skillet and fried the carrots and potatoes briefly. As you can see in the next picture, the tofu almost looks as though it had been deep-fried (in the blue bowl).

 

He added 200 ml water to the carrots and potatoes and turned the heat to very low.

 

He covered the skillet. In a pot, he fried the onions in a bit of canola oil until they turned translucent, then added a clove of garlic, squeezed through a garlic press. and the chopped ginger. He fried everything together briefly.

He added one and a half tablespoons white flour and the same amount of curry powder, making a roux.

 

He deglazed the pot with 400 ml vegetable stock.

 

Ben likes to make the vegetable stock rather strong (using more stock paste than written in the package directions), as he doesn't like to add salt to the dishes he cooks.

He let the sauce simmer for about 5 minutes. In the meantime, he took the lid off the skillet with the potatoes and carrots and raised the heat a little bit, so some water could evaporate.

He then added the carrots and potatoes and the tofu to the curry sauce.

 

  After heating all the ingredients together briefly, it was ready to serve. I had cooked the rice in our rice cooker.

It was really yummy and not bitter at all! It was rather hot, though. At some point (I can't remember when exactly) Ben had added quite a lot of black pepper. I told him that with this curry powder, it wouldn't have been necessary. He said: "Okay, next time I know better."