Japanese Curry Cubes

homemade curry with fresh ground spices

The myriad of fresh, whole spices are toasted then ground and mixed into a roux to make homemade curry bricks! Perfect for making your own Japanese curry at home during this quarantine. There are quite a lot of spices, but if you’ve been building up your spice repertoire like me during shelter-in-place, you will be ready to tackle the long list of ingredients.

For the curry itself, the ingredients are rather simple: tofu, celery, and carrot. Maybe some cabbage and potato if you’re feeling fancy. Really any vegetable, especially root vegetable, will work well. In one of the comments from the NYT Cooking recipe I followed, written by Tejal Rao, the commentator said that their family calls it “curry slop” when they clear out their vegetable drawer and make this easy Japanese curry.

In the recipe, they recommend using chicken stock for the curry itself, but I added water. This was a mistake! Please use a stock, or your curry will have an overwhelming butter-water flavor like mine did. The stock is important to balance out the butteriness of the curry bricks. Don’t forget this!

Ingredients:

• 2 inch cinnamon stick, pounded into small pieces
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds
• 1 tbsp fennel seeds
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp fenugreek seeds
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 2 cardamom pods
• 1 dried shiitake mushroom, broken into pieces
• 1 1/2 tsp whole peppercorns
• 2 tbsp orange zest
• 1 tbsp ground turmeric
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 1/2 cups or 3 sticks butter
• 2 1/4 cups flour

Directions:

1. Toast cinnamon, bay leaf, mustard, coriander, fennel, cumin, fenugreek, cloves, cardamom, over medium heat, 2 minutes until fragrant
2. Add toasted spices, mushroom, peppercorn and grind until pulverized (make sure to remove cardamom seeds from pod)
3. Sift spices into a bowl with orange zest, turmeric, ginger, paprika, cayenne
4. Melt butter in a large saucepan on medium-high, when it is nearly melted whisk in the flour, lowering to medium-low, until brown and smelling like peanuts, about 15 minutes
5. Turn off heat and add spice mix, stirring until incorporated
6. Transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet, divided into half, let set until solid
7. For the curry, stir fry vegetables (celery, carrot) and fresh garlic and ginger for 5–10 minutes in a wok, until tender. Add in 4–5 cups of stock and cubed tofu, bring to a boil then simmer for 15 minutes. Lastly, add the curry cube and stir until incorporated. Add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!