The other day, we found ourselves craving curry for dinner but we sadly did not have and could not find a curry block in our local grocery store. Because of this, we were forced into making our own version from scratch, which turned out deliciously, and while I do love the flavor the curry blocks give to dishes (and how easy they are to use), I like that making it homemade gave us the ability to control the amount of sodium and also to adjust the flavor to our liking.
We all love nuggets (especially Tonkatsu) but sometimes you need something more than a big ol’ pile of nuggets to eat. If you feel that way too, this recipe is for you. It is a mildly spicy soup recipe using Japanese udon noodles and already cooked Tonkatsu. It builds upon the Tonkatsu recipe we previously posted, so read that one first if you need instructions on how to make the Tonkatsu.
Burmese (or Myanmaran?) fried pork curry =’ed delicious.
It took a long time to make, mostly because of the simmering for an hour part, and Cory didn’t exaaaaaactly understand my way of measuring rice* so he put a tiny bit too little, resulting in slightly al dente rice; but the only other downside was that turmeric turns things yellow. But, it IS curry, so we should have expected that. The only advice I can give you is that if you try this dish, use dark utensils and pots/pans because anything else will become a yellow version of what it once was. Just to show you; we used a wooden spoon to stir… now THIS is our spoon (with reference normal spoon):
Anyway, the most awesome part of this dish to me was that it was curry, but not made-from-cubes-bought-from-the-store-curry. I always love when you can make something like that from scratch. As I said, it is delicious and you should all try it.
*My way of measuring rice is not by using measuring cups and so on. That is too much work for me. Also, I know the secret Asian way, taught to me by my ex-roommate Marisa, who learned it from her mother, who is a very cute and traditional Thai woman. The secret is this: put however much rice you want to be cooked in the pot or rice cooker, make sure it is evenly distributed in the pan, and simply add as much water as comes to the first joint of your pointer finger when you touch the tip of it to the top of the rice. In other words, add some water, completely covering the rice. When you have about an inch over top of the rice level, you can measure with your pointer finger from the top of the water to the top of the rice, and if it is ever so slightly above the first bend in your finger, then it is perfect. (Cory’s problem was that he tried this and put too little, so it was just barely touching that joint… and well, the rice was hard in the middle.)
It may sound weird, but it works and I pride myself on being an expert rice and water ratio measurer.
Also, it works nicely when you want a non-conventional measuring of rice to cook, because the directions for rice are almost always in full or half cup quantities…. and the water is usually 1 1/2 cups or something per cup of rice.. I just hate math and feel that it might get confusing when you wanted to do a different amount than that. Anyway, my rice rant is over. Go eat delicious food.