Gourmet Graffiti

Oooooh, man. Today's special. I made some really good Japanese curry today - the best I've ever made. Mind you, I'm not that great a cook, but this stuff still tasted great to me.

Normally when I make curry, I use those curry cubes you get at grocers and stuff. I still used them this time, but I decided to try something else.

See, when I've made curry before, I've usually browned the meat and some of the vegetables in a small bit of oil, then add water and stew the rest before plopping the curry cubes in. But then I thought about it today... every time I've made Japanese curry, the meat has been a little tough, maybe a little dry, without any flavor other than beef. It stands out - there's curry sauce all around and the beef is in the bowl, but it's like it's a coincidence that both just happen to be in my mouth at the same time.

So this time, I thought I'd marinate my beef before stewing it, and my curry came out really good. Thing is, when I browned the beef, I dumped it and all the marinade into the wok, and the beef started bleeding marinade and beef blood all over, which was there when I added the water to stew everything. All that flavor was around in the water when I dropped the curry cubes, and it all mixed and made some really great stuff.

... Then I sat down with my curry, a bottle of my favorite root beer, and watched some Koufuku Graffiti, the anime about food and cooking. Exquisite.

I'm just eyeballing it, but I used a 60/40 mix of soy sauce and cooking rice wine, with a bunch of minced garlic in oil. Let that sit for around 20 minutes, and make the curry like the back of the box tells you to. My curry has beef, potato, button mushrooms, onions, bell pepper, and carrots.