As yesterday was another rainy and rather cold day, I had planned to make a nabe using stuff that we still had in stock. I asked Ben if he would prefer tomato nabe or curry nabe, and he chose curry.
Overview of the ingredients:
Ben had pinged me around 6, and he was due home around 9. So I had enough time to soak some dried mushrooms. The bowl in the center contains about 20 g of dried cloud ear mushrooms, soaked in lukewarm water and cut into bite-size pieces. The bowl on the bottom right contains 4 dried shiitake, also reconstituted in the same water and cut into slivers.
I also decided to use the leftover konnyaku (in the bowl at the back). I wasn't quite sure if its fishy taste was compatible with curry, but then I thought: "The Thai make excellent fish curries. Why not give it a try?"
I had strained the liquid from soaking the mushrooms through a paper coffee filter into this measuring cup.
(Sorry for the blurry photo.) It had a really strong mushroom smell :) As you can see, it is almost three quarters of one liter. For use as stock for the curry nabe, I filled it up to one liter and added about half a tube of this instant kombu dashi:
To be honest, I am not so happy with this brand of kombu dashi. When I dissolve it in (usually boiling) water, it first turns into myriads of little gelatinous, light green squares. I have to stir really hard until they disappear. I'm also not quite so happy with its taste. But it is good enough for many purposes.
I added two curry roux blocks to that and two tablespoons of this soy sauce:
(I have mentioned "light-colored soy sauce" a few times in this blog and translated that to "usukuchi shoyu". The stuff in the picture above was what I had used. I guess it's not really fair. This soy sauce is light-colored, yes, but it also doesn't taste very intense. Several cookbook authors tell me that real usukuchi shoyu tends to taste more salty than regular soy sauce, due to differences in the fermentation process. Yumi Hana carries real usukuchi shoyu. As soon as this bottle is finished, I want to try it.)
After I had taken this photo, I decided that the bag of Yude Udon would still fit in.
My first bowl:
On the whole, I was quite happy with this curry nabe. But I guess I don't want to use dried mushrooms every time. I also should have put in the shiitake right from the start, with the carrots, the cabbage cores and the konnyaku. They were still a bit tough when we had them.
So there is still space for improvement :)
I'm glad that you liked your curry nabe, but you can always try curry powder instead. Like I said before, I use store-bought curry roux for curry nabe simply because I always have it in the kitchen (and it's cheaper than curry powder).
ReplyDeleteI'm a Kanto (Eastern Japan) man, and I really don't care for usukuchi shoyu. I think it's less aromatic than koikuchi, and as you say, it's a little saltier.
What I like about the curry roux blocks is that they contain a little starch and a little fat, giving the broth some "body". I think that is difficult to achieve with curry powder without making an actual roux.
DeleteStores like Yumi Hana carry a rather wide selection of different curry roux blocks (and I can't wait until those I have now are finished and I can try a different kind!), whereas the local supermarkets typically have only two or three different kinds of curry powder. But I have been to my Zurich tea shop today (which also sells spices) and I counted 12 (twelve!) different kinds of curry powder :)
The cookbook authors who sometimes call for usukuchi shoyu do so mainly for cosmetic reasons, because koikuchi shoyu would cause an unpleasant coloring of some dishes. (I tried koikuchi shoyu in curry nabe once, using more than one tablespoon, and was not so happy with the color it caused.)
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