It's a Curry Kind of Day

Before Nick and Sachiyo left and returned to Japan, they made us a second dinner of one of their favorite meals; curry.  They eat curry at home for dinner about once a week in Japan.  Many countries have their traditional curry dishes and in Japan, the curry is brown and is made with beef.  We ate it a few times when we visited them in 2014 and I loved it.  I was thrilled when they said they would make it during their visit, especially after the wonderful temaki and miso soup dinner that we had on their third night here. We ended up with four additional guests coming over for this curry dinner including Lauren and three of Nick's local friends.  Since it was a weeknight, we had two different sittings because of people's work schedules.  First sitting included all of us plus Nick's childhood friend and his wife.

The second sitting included Lauren, another local friend and then whomever wanted seconds which, I believe was everyone except Sachiyo and I.  'Tis the season, right?

We made two rice cookers full of rice (and used our new rice scooper we bought at Uwajamaya's)

and ate the two full pots of curry that Nick and Sachiyo made.  

They made two pots of curry with one being mild and one being spicy. It was pretty much a consensus that the spicy one was the tastiest. Japanese curry is not that spicy like some curries so the spicy one was everyone's favorite.

Serves 10

1 lb. beef stew meat
2 Tbsp. oil
1 onion
4 carrots
2 potatoes
6 cups water
1 box curry sauce mix
cooked white rice

1.  Cut meat and vegetables into bite-size pieces.

2.  In saucepan, cook meat until tender.

3.  Add meat into a large pot and add vegetables, cook until tender.

4.  Add water and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, cover and cook over low heat for about 15 minutes.

5.  Remove from heat.  Break curry sauce mix cubes while still in package and drop broken cubes into mixture.

6.  Stir until completely melted.

7.  Simmer 5 minutes, stirring constantly.  

8.  Serve with white rice.

As good as the curry was, the center of attention was, of course, Hana and everyone had to take turns holding her.  

She is the funnest baby to play with but then I'm a doting Grandma.

If you want to make this curry meal, I would suggest a couple accompaniments to go along with it.  For this dinner, I made everyone's favorite Chinese chicken salad 

and a festive plate of sliced pears with pomegranate seeds sprinkled on top.  That way you get a nice crunchy salad and some sweet fruit to complement the spicy curry.

Nick and Sachiyo also bought a Japanese plum wine to serve that they mixed with club soda which was a refreshing cocktail before dinner.  

Needless to say, we had no leftovers from this meal.  But we did have extra dessert, not surprising after two helpings of curry.  I found some irresistible petite fours at our local grocery store that everyone had to try.  These are the perfect portioned dessert of different flavored cakes with delightful, decorated icing.   

But there was more.  I made the family favorite lemon cake, another fruity-flavored accompaniment that I thought would be good after eating curry.

To work off all these calories, they made their way to the basement for a ping-pong tournament which is always the case when Nick comes to visit.  These boys all grew up playing sports as youngsters so a nice, friendly, competitive game is only natural.

It was another perfect evening of food, drink, good friends and fun.