Happiness is a Bowl of Soup Curry (Recipe below)

Most of my day Saturday was dedicated to one thing - making curry, or more specifically Japanese soup curry (スープカレー, sūpu karē), a specialty of my longtime home island of Hokkaido.

My first experience with soup curry was at a restaurant in Kitami, Hokkaido, called Drop-In (here's a Japanese blogpost with some pictures of the place). What I liked about soup curry back then was how bold and exotic its flavors were compared to the usual soy- and dashi-based flavors of more traditional Japanese cuisine. I also liked how different it was from that "other" Japanese curry meal, karē raisu (カレーライス), whose quality seems to be judged by how little it strays from a nationally accepted - and rather boring - standard.

The way I see it now, soup curry embodies all of the best things about Hokkaido: First, much like Hokkaido itself which wasn't incorporated into Japan until around the Meiji Restoration, soup curry is also a very recent phenomenon. Second, it's the perfect showcase for Hokkaido's abundant, immaculately grown, perfectly cooked, and beautifully sliced vegetables. And finally, soup curry's meteoric rise in popularity over the last decade points to Hokkaido's openness to diversity and love for adventure; much as Dosanko (= born Hokkaidoites) have a very diverse heritage, tracing their ancestry back to all different prefectures of Japan (and even some native Ainu), soup curry is heavily influenced by curry soups from all across South- and South-East Asia.

Over my four years in Japan, first Drop-In in Kitami and later Tsujiya Shoten in Teshikaga, and finally Ramai and Okushiba Shoten in Sapporo, became some of my favorite restaurants. They were the places I would take guests whenever they came to visit. But more than that, they became my cure for "Stage 2 Culture Shock." Whenever I was tired of Japanese food, or feeling homesick, or catching a cold, or hung over from last night's never-ending enkai, or I was pissed at the BOE for refusing to tell me where or even if I'd be teaching next year, or I had been told one too many times how skilled I was at using chopsticks, I went and got some soup curry. No matter what was getting me down, soup curry could fix it. I don't know if it was the oodles of fresh Hokkaido vegetables, the face-burningly spicy broth, the potent herbs and spices, the ten glasses of water I inevitably drank to cool my mouth, or the welcoming smile and always-pleasant conversation with the staff - I always left feeling happy and healthy again.

So on Saturday when I was slightly hung over from the night before and a friend in Hokkaido posted a photo of her Ramai soup curry to her Facebook wall, I couldn't stand it anymore, and decided to bring Hokkaido to my new home here in Berlin. I got online and quickly found a promising recipe, went out to buy ingredients, came back home and got cooking.

My recipe

I decided to start with only pure spices, no mixes like garam masala or curry powder, because I wanted freedom to fine-tune the flavor of my final product. I didn't measure anything, so I really don't know the exact ratios, but here are the dry spices I used in rough order of volume, followed by the rest of the ingredients and then a step-by-step of what I did.

Dry spices

• spicy paprika
• coriander
• turmeric
• cayenne pepper
• cumin
• cardamom
• cinnamon
• salt
• cloves (finely ground)
• ground pepper

Other ingredients (soup)

• 1 very large onion
• 1 apple (tart)
• 1 thumb of ginger
• 1 small carrot
• 7 cloves of garli
• 1 hot jalepeño
• 1 chunk (roughly 25 grams) cooking chocolate
• 10 chicken bouillon cubes (or enough for 2.5 liters of broth)
• 3 large bay leaves

Meat and veggies (cooked separately)

• 2 whole chicken legs (including thigh)
• 1 large oyster mushroom sliced in half
• 4 small champignons
• 2 stalks fresh asparagus (white) (<- it's asparagus season in Berlin right now)
• 2 stalks fresh asparagus (green)
• 2 small hard-cooking potatoes
• 2 thin slices of kabocha
• 2 quarters of a red pepper (paprika)
• 2 quarters of a small eggplant (German-small, not Japanese-small)
• 2 quarters of a small spitzkohl
• 1 burdock root, washed, peeled, and sliced into chips

Making the soup

1. In a large pot over medium flame, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil and start the long process of caramelizing the thinly sliced onions into a light brown mush, stirring occasionally so they don't burn. (About 40 minutes)
2. While the onions are caramelizing:
1. Grate the apple, ginger, carrot, garlic, and jalepeño into a deliciously fresh-smelling puree.
2. Mix the dry spices to make roughly 1/4 cup of curry powder.
3. Once the onions have caramelized, mash in the puree from 2.1. and simmer for about 5 minutes, releasing the aroma of the garlic and ginger.
4. Add curry powder from 2.2. and finely grate chocolate and mash in thoroughly.
5. Simmer and mash for a few minutes.
6. Add and mash in diced tomatoes, simmer and mash mixture for about 20 minutes or until pasty (i.e. no water leaks out of roux)
7. While the roux is simmering: In a separate pot, make about 2.5~3 liters of chicken stock using the bouillon cubes.
8. Carefully add the chicken stock to the roux, stir to mix thoroughly.
9. Add bay leaves and turn up heat, bringing soup to a light boil before leaving to simmer on low heat for 2 hours.
10. <<start preparing the meat and vegetables now. see below.>>
11. Into a separate container (e.g. the pot that was used to make the stock) strain the soup using a metal strainer, making sure to squeeze all the juice out. (The remaining damp pulp can be trashed or used for a different dish, e.g. fried rice)
12. Return the soup to the heat, and simmer while adding spices to taste (I needed cardamom and cinnamon...)

Preparing the meat and veggies

1. Season chicken legs with salt and pepper
2. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a frying pan, brown chicken on both sides
3. Lower heat and cover for about 15 minutes
4. Peel veggies as needed (e.g. asparagus, potato, pumpkin...)
5. Preheat oven to... I dunno... hot?
6. Boil or bake the potato
7. Fry the burdock chips in oil until tender - place on a plate covered in a paper towel to remove excess oil.
8. Remove covered frying pan containing chicken from stove and place in oven
9. <<Take 5 minutes to start cooking rice now. see below>>
10. Spread veggies on baking sheet, paint with olive oil, and put in hot oven, removing veggies as they become done
11. Remove chicken and remaining veggies when done

Cooking the rice

1. In medium sized pot, wash rice
2. Cover with cold water so that water is roughly twice as deep as rice
3. (optional) Add a dash of turmeric and stir in for yellow color
4. (optional) Add some salt for flavor
5. Cover pot with lid, and bring to a boil over high heat
6. Lower heat to minimum and simmer/steam for roughly 20 minutes
7. Remove lid and fluff rice with spoon when done

Plating the dish

1. In a large bowl, arrange chicken and vegetables towards the center for best presentation
2. Ladle soup into bowl, leaving chicken and veggies partially exposed
3. Neatly one portion of rice onto a small plate, optionally topped with parsley
4. Depending on the size/consistency of the veggies and the meat, the meal can be eaten with just a spoon (most usual), a spoon and chopsticks, or a fork, a knife, and a spoon.

Ideas for next time

• In a separate pan, simmer some of the soup with chopped habanero pepper to make an ultra-spicy soup that each bowl can be spiced to taste with [Done :) ]
• Replace canned tomatoes with one or two fresh tomatoes and/or pureed paprika/chili peppers
• Add coconut cream or coconut milk to soup
• Add soy milk, squid ink, mango powder, basil, backfat, or extra garlic, à la Drop-In
• Replace most veggies and meat with various mushrooms à la Drop-In's "Mori-mori Kinoko to Yasai" (森もりキノコと野菜) dish.
• Replace chicken broth with beef, fish, pork, or veggie broth
• Replace chicken with pork, beef, shrimp,
• Consider incorporating fennel, mustard, curry leaves into spice catalog
• Consider using only whole spices, roasting them in a pan until aromatic, and then grinding them for an even nicer spice mix
• Try making a vegetarian or even vegan version - fried tofu?