It’s hard not to fall for crispy and succulent chicken panko-crumbed katsu on top of plain Japanese short grain rice drizzled with delicious Japanese curry. Chicken Katsu Curry is one of the most popular Japanese foods and it’s not surprise why!
Art of cutting vegetables the Japanese way for Katsu Curry
The hero ingredients of the Katsu Curry is Katsu of course so the veggies in the curry need to be cut unobtrusively. Commonly used vegetables in Japanese curry are potato, carrot and onion.
Potato – Bite Size
When I say bite size, it usually means I cut the ingredients to 2-3cm dice, however, for the Katsu curry I diced the potato to about 1-2 cm dice.
Carrot – Rangiri
Rangiri translated means “cut coarsely” or “randomly”. Rangiri is often used to cut vegetables that have a long cylinder shape such as carrot and cucumbers. If you are right handed, use that hand to cut the ingredients diagonally with the knife and use your left hand to rotate the carrot stick as you cut.
Onion-wedge
Cut the onion in half and then cut it in half again. Then from the edge, cut them into wedges.
Chicken Katsu – thigh or breast?
I have discussed about this topic in Chicken Katsu recipe post. For the Katsu curry, I recommend to use breast because using chicken thigh is too oily for the curry. The chicken breast will stay juicy because it is covered with curry sauce.
The 2 best Japanese curry companions
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- Rakkyo – Rakkyo is the end bit of green shallots or scallions pickled in sweet vinegar. It is my favourite pickles that I eat with any curry. Japanese people often add Rakkyo to the side of curry.
- Fukushinzuke – This is another condiment that is often accompanied with Japanese curry rice. It is pickled daikon radish, lotus roots and other vegetables. The vegetables are lightly cooked and soaked in a soy sauce base liquid. It is like Japanese relish.
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1 final tip to make delicious curry
Curry from shops and restaurants are being cooked and simmered for hours and hours. We don’t have that much time. So what we can do at home is to combine a few different brand curry roux. I combined house Java curry, Belmont curry and Golden curry mix.
For the photo looking like the Chicken Katsu curry that you buy from Japanese take away, I served the Chicken Katsu Curry without potato and carrot.
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Chicken Katsu Curry
Ingredients
- I potato about 200g
- 1 carrot about 100g
- 1 onion 180g
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 500 ml water
- 120 g store bought Japanese curry roux about 6 cubes *1
- 1 chicken breast katsu
- 4 cups cooked plain rice
Instructions
- Peel the potato and dice it to 2cm cubes. Set aside in a bowl of water.
- Peel the carrot and chop off the top and end. Cut it in half length wise.
- Cut the half carrot in half again length wise and chop it diagonally by rotating the carrot with the left hand and set aside. *2
- Peel the onion and cut it in half horizontally.
- Cut the half onion into wedges. Set aside.
- Heat the olive oil in a pot over medium heat and cook the chopped onion first.
- After cooking the onion for a couple minutes, add the carrot and stir.
- Add the potato and sautee all together for a couple minutes then pour the water into the pot.
- Bring it to boil, put the lid on, and simmer for about 10 minutes.
- Turn the heat off and add curry roux.
- Dissolve the curry roux in and put the pot back on low heat and bring it to simmer. Simmer for about 5 minutes then turn the heat off.
- Serve the rice in a shallow bowl.
- Cut the chicken katsu in half and slice them to strips.
- Place the cut chicken katsu on the rice.
- Pour the curry over the chicken katsu and rice and serve. Add Rakkyo and Fukushinzuke on the side of rice. *3
Yummy! Instead of water, i put a little of coconut milk and fresh milk. Its delicious.
Hi Pamela, that is a great addition.
My son made this for us but I think he also added a chopped apple to it and it was delicious
Excellent! Celia 😀 I am glad to hear your son made the curry successfully.
Hi, I live in Australia and wondering where I can find Java curry mix – big supermarkets or local asian market?
Hi Jessi, local asian market 😀
Just finished the best dinner, just like the one we had somewhere underneath a train bridge in Tokyo
Thank you for the easy to follow instructions 🙏🙏🙏
Konbanwa Edna 😀 You are welcome. You must have had really good curry in Tokyo 😀
Yum! This looks good, going to give it a go
Thank you Shana 😀 You will like it !!
Yummy! Wonderful recipe! This gonna be a hit to my family dinner. A great way to get my kid to eat curry!
Hi Kimberly, I am sure your kids will love this 😀
Yum!! I love curry, but have never made my own katsu curry. Thank you for the awesome instructions and accompanying photos that make everything so easy!
Thank you Sues 😀
The added carrot and potato to this curry is just perfect.
Thank you Kristen 😀
Hi!
This looks exactly like the curry my husband and I had recently at a Japanese restaurant with potato and carrot! Yum!
I want to go and look at our oriental markets for the roux, could you tell me which strength roux you use? eg: medium, hot etc. I also cant seem to find Belmont curry here in the UK, is it ok to just use the other two or even just the golden curry?
Thank you!
Hi Roxane, I used one medium hot and two mild. If you can find just one, it will still delicious but if you can find two or more, mixing them make your curry taste like it has been simmered long time 😀 And it does not mutter what brand. My favourite is “House Java Curry” medium.