Did you even know Japanese curry exists? Of course, curry originates in India but it was brought to Japan by the British in the late 19th century.
These days curry and rice or 'カレーライス' (kare raisu) has been fully adopted by the Japanese and doesn't really bear much resemblance to an Indian meal!
Japanese curry is really delicious and is basically a meat and vegetable stew with spices and thickener added to make a rich curry flavoured gravy. It's easy to make at home too and the most common way is to use blocks of Japanese curry roux for the sauce, which are really quick and convenient to use. You can usually find them in any Asian supermarket or, if you live in the big city, I've even seen them in some regular supermarkets!
Using the shop-bought curry roux certainly makes a very tasty meal but they do contain quite a lot of MSG, thickeners and other additives and are actually quite calorie-laden.
However, if you have a little more time, making Japanese curry from scratch is not that difficult and means that you can be a bit more careful about what goes in the sauce and make your own adjustments to the flavour and spiciness.
I found this great video showing you how to make it and I can't wait to have a go myself.
And now that you've made your curry, you're going to need a beautiful Japanese bowl to serve it in!
